2:00PM Water Cooler 8/27/15

Subscribe to Post Comments

116 comments

1. sufferinsuccotash August 27, 2015 at 2:15 pm

   Tsundoku: Egyptian Oedipus: Athanasius Kircher and the Secrets of Antiquity, by Daniel Stolzenberg; The Invaders: How Humans and their Dogs Drove Neanderthals to Extinction, by Pat Shipman (instruction manual for dealing with neoliberalism); Napoleon and the Struggle for Germany: The Franco-Prussian War of 1813, by Michael V. Leggiere.
   1. Lambert Strether Post authorAugust 27, 2015 at 2:40 pm

      Impressive! And all fascinating!
   2. Vince in MN August 27, 2015 at 3:18 pm

      What, no “Autobiography of Mark Twain” vols 1 & 2?
      1. lambert strether August 27, 2015 at 4:02 pm

         I’ve heard Ulysses S. Grant’s biography is good, too.
         1. voxhumana August 27, 2015 at 5:18 pm

            “The Education Of Henry Adams” is quite remarkable
   3. craazyman August 27, 2015 at 7:12 pm

      wow those sound like massive time wasting tomes.

      that’s what a book should be.

      I’m tryiing to read math books but there aren’t any I”m not actually reading. I have too much discipline. You can’t read them fast.

      For example, it’s not enitrely impossible to understand Einstein’s equation for time dilation as a moving body like a satellite orbits earth. Actually it’s a simple equation and it’s very fascinating. Candidly, freshmen college kids can learn it in calculus class. but somebody had to think of it the first time. that’s like “Shit!” whoa!

      I’m at the point, after reading lots of books, that reading just a couple pages of math is quite interesting now to me. IT’s not advanced math, I donn’t want to pretend it is because it isn’t. But it’s really quite solid stuff. It’s not just something that changes with changes in perception (actually it is, but that’s another topic for another time. I have deep thoughts about that). It’s something that just “is”. That is quite remarkable. So the books, they go very slowly now. Even 7 pages in one day. That’s quite a lot. Even one page, that’s sometimes an hour. sometimes one page is a full day of absent minded contemplation (I have to work too, so that intrudes). But then you know. Then that’s like standing on solid ground, on a mountain top. And you just smile. That’s pretty cool.
   4. efschumacher August 27, 2015 at 11:22 pm

      TsunDoku: Strangers and Pilgrims, Travelers and Sojourners, by Jeremy Dupertuis Bangs. An incredibly detailed tome about what exactly was going on in Leiden in the first half of the 17th Century. I got a third of the way through it before switching to that other great unread work, The Dutch Republic, by Jonathan Israel. These are great antidotes to the common run of Plymouth Pilgrim hagiography.

      I had a long engaging conversation with Jeremy Bangs at the American Pilgrim Museum in Leiden a year or two ago. Well worth a visit for the man and his sardonic spirit.
2. craazyboy August 27, 2015 at 2:18 pm

   Frak Christmas. Now we can put the September rate hike in Lambert’s tip jar!

   hahaha. Just kidding. Spend away, folks.
3. diptherio August 27, 2015 at 2:24 pm

   Under “Corruption,” the BONY-Mellon story that should go to BI, instead goes to GRRM’s blog.
   1. Lambert Strether Post authorAugust 27, 2015 at 2:39 pm

      Thanks, fixed.

      Adding, I am having some sort of weird copy problem, where the first copy does not “take,” and only the second copy does (which is why I sometimes paste a link quote as the link URL, since (after over 20 years of using the Mac, it doesn’t occur to me to check whether the right text has been copied). I don’t know whether it’s that my touch is too light, or its a keyboard problem, or it’s an OS X Yosemite problem. Whatever it is, it’s frustrating.
      1. Synoia August 27, 2015 at 3:38 pm

         If Windows:
         1. Reboot
         2. Get a copy of linux and use it

         else if Linux
         1. Reboot

         else if Apple
         1. Get a cheap PC and install Linux
         1. hunkerdown August 27, 2015 at 5:16 pm

            May I offer an improved snippet?

            else if Apple
              if macintel
                1. Install Boot Camp and Linux
              else
                1. Get a cheap PC and install Linux
         2. ian August 27, 2015 at 11:09 pm

            You actually have to reboot a linux box? I can’t remember the last time I had to do that.
            My tweak to advice: get a cheap PC (in my case 8 yr old thinkpad), install linux, forego the bloated desktop most distros have, use lightweight window manager (openbox for me).
4. Steven D. August 27, 2015 at 2:51 pm

   Obama and the neoliberals “know” the post office is a dinosaur that needs to be taken over by Wall Street to become cutting edge and 21st Century or something. Just like Obama, Arne Duncan and the neoliberals “know” the public schools are fossils run by those evil teachers unions and a takeover by Wall Street is what all the cool people, i.e. billionaires, want.
   1. craazyboy August 27, 2015 at 3:25 pm

      Wall Street thinks the Post Office works great. I pay UPS and FedEx to deliver my stuff – and USPS brings it to my door!
      1. Gareth August 27, 2015 at 4:56 pm

         Fedex delivers my packages to the same wrong address consistently. The resident there has my phone number, gives me a call and I drive over to pick up the package, because markets. My self service is excellent.
         1. jo6pac August 27, 2015 at 5:40 pm

            Yes fed-ex bring everything to my back gate were I don’t see it for days because I live on a ranch. I’ve asked and begged but it still goes to the back gate. UPS and Post Office deliver to front porch. UPS rings the bell also to let me know it’s there.

            I’ve paid a few cents more to have shipments delivered any way but fed-ex and ups freight.
   2. optimader August 27, 2015 at 3:35 pm

      http://www.wbez.org/series/curious-city/were-chicagos-public-schools-ever-good-112025
      Were Chicago’s public schools ever good?
      We start an era-by-era search for the district’s ‘golden age’ and wonder: Could it be right now?
      1. grayslady August 27, 2015 at 4:24 pm

         Back in 1980, I had an older secretary who was one of the best educated, most articulate individuals I have known. She was a product of the Chicago school system. By my guess, that means that in the 1930s and 1940s the system was excellent.
         1. optimader August 27, 2015 at 4:56 pm

            My parents, aunts and uncles as well.. Unfortunately, much of the infrastructure I think remains unchanged.
   3. Synoia August 27, 2015 at 3:44 pm

      Obama and the neoliberals “know” the post office is a dinosaur that needs to be taken over by Wall Street to become cutting edge and 21st Century or something a rent generator for their donors

      Pity those "rent generators" have to send bills to the unwashed consumers to tenable them to be paid.

      The "I imagined you owed me a bill, and you have not paid" attack on consumer does not yet work, as congress has yet to pass the "aetherial consent" law (the "I sent you a hypothetical bill over the luminifous aether, therefore you own me money", bill).
      1. efschumacher August 27, 2015 at 11:30 pm

         Try living in England without a TV. The disbelieving dunning letters from the BBC come right through your front door, with all the unstoppable subtlety of a collection agency baying after your home’s previous occupant.
   4. Lambert Strether Post authorAugust 27, 2015 at 5:30 pm

      I got a box number, but I occasionally get mail to my street address still. So, when mail is sent to my street address, rather than doing forwarding at the local distribution center, so there would be at most a day’s delay, they send it down to the regional center in Masschusetts, and then back up to Maine, with the result that there is at least a month’s delay. And of course they’re trying to close the regional center as well.

      I’m sure the excuse is some pencil-necked MBA’s idea of efficiency, but in fact what they’re doing is trying to destroy the service. Same thing with doing away with Saturday delivery, doing away with universal service to small towns, etc. Greedy and hateful.
      1. A Farmer August 27, 2015 at 7:16 pm

         At least in this part of rural America, people deserve the poor service because they voted for the idiots who are destroying the postal service, and the rest of civil government while they are at it.
5. Tertium Squid August 27, 2015 at 3:01 pm

   Civil War Cinema

   Petulant fluff. From the way the author goes on it sounds like the South really won – like we played into their hands all along.

   The “Lost Cause” is clearly bollocks, but trying to recover an unequivocally pro-Union, pro-Emancipation, pro-Northern view of the war may be itself a lost cause.

   I don’t know qua southern sympathies in popular culture, but why would you replace a nauseating and self-serving whitewash of history with its opposite? So Dances With Wolves wasn’t good enough – the North needs its own Birth of A Nation?

   This is the historical version of “teach the controversy” and I don’t think it goes anywhere. Instead fight bad art with good art! And if some of the lost cause stuff is good art, well what are you complaining about?

   My own great great great granddads were Union boys, and they came back from the war with broken health and died young. They didn’t fight for abolition either – they fought for the sixteen acres of land they would get if they signed up. Their orphans got to farm it woohoo.

   I’ll tell you what was bollocks, it was the whole Civil War. Any film or story about it should come up bollocks or it is dishonest in some way.
   1. Vince in MN August 27, 2015 at 3:47 pm

      “I’ll tell you what was bollocks, it was the whole Civil War.”

      Please explain. Having extensively studied the history of the era myself over a 50 year period (admittedly as an amateur), I am always interested in what another aficionado has to say. Never too old to learn.
      1. Tertium Squid August 27, 2015 at 5:31 pm

         I won’t cry down that war as uniquely bollocky.

         We want to compartmentalize events in our mind. For example, separating the Civil War from the conquest of the West and who would get to do that and how. Also, ending agrarian chattel slavery so a system of factory exploitation (and giveaways of Native American land) could be imposed on the nation. Also, physical courage is not a sufficient condition of heroism, or all armies at all points in history are equally heroic.

         US Grant’s genius was understanding modern war in a way McClellan didn’t – a soldier is an asset meant to be consumed by the war machine, not preserved from harm. Consumed advantageously – so if you have more than the enemy you don’t have to be cautious with the burndown rate. Only one of the two got to be president.

         For a more recent war, I recommend Paul Fussell’s The Boy’s Crusade – adequately shows the glamour of that greatest and best war, WWII.
      2. Ed August 27, 2015 at 6:14 pm

         I don’t think there has every been a really accurate (non myth encrusted) treatment of the Civil War.

         Actually there are problems with the name too. “War for Southern Independence” would probably be more accurate.

         Pre Civil Rights era histories tended to glorify the Confederacy and particularly the Confederate Army, which is a problem in an obvious way too much. The modern tendency to turn the war into a crusade against slavery have accuracy problems too. This simply was not one of the early war aims for the Union, and became one very slowly. It was obviously more important for the Southern states, but strangely even the Confederates seemed to forget they were trying to preserve slavery at key points.
         1. cwaltz August 27, 2015 at 7:07 pm

            Why was it the South wanted independence again? Oh, that’s right because they wanted to continue to own slaves. Yes, the North, which was more industrial, was not reliant on slave labor to the extent the south was and yes they were fighting moreso to preserve the union. However, I disagree that the Civil War was not about slavery. The secession was all about the “rights” of a state to continue to use slave labor and the subsequent fight was a result of secession.
            1. Carolinian August 27, 2015 at 7:33 pm

               For the people running the South it was of course about slavery. “Rich man’s war, poor man’s fight.” For the North is was about saving the Union. Plus we shot at them first. See Lambert’s NYT Rhode Island link for how enlightened Northerners were when it came to slavery–at least while the trade persisted.

               The South deserved to be crushed and they were crushed. If the North then let them off the hook afterwards perhaps it was out of a sense of shared guilt or–more likely–shared indifference to the fate of the ex-slaves.
               1. NotTimothyGeithner August 27, 2015 at 9:19 pm

                  The difficulty of running an occupation/reconstruction was also an issue, and the South was a very different place before the war. Leadership was based on number of slaves, so the place needed new everything.

                  April 1865 was very similar to the end of Robert Redford’s “The Candidate.” The Union won, Lincoln was dead, large portions of the South were devastated, the slaves were free, but no one discussed what came next. In 1864, the northern Democrats wanted to negotiate with the CSA.
               2. John Merryman August 27, 2015 at 10:35 pm

                  As someone who has come to see morality as a cultural bonding agent, rather than a universal ideal, I think we all seem to adopt narratives to suit our emotions, rather than the realities. Good and bad are the basic biological binary code of attraction to the beneficial and repulsion of the detrimental, rather than a cosmic duel between the forces of righteousness and evil. Such that even the most elementary of organisms will have this sense and any functioning society needs some collective determination of it, in order to exist.
                  So it is reasonable to consider slavery as universally evil, but the reality is the African American population would be on a par with say the Arab American population, if it wasn’t for slavery and it is doubtful there would be more Africans today, if the trade in slaves hadn’t occurred. As a form of economic control, it is more a matter of degree, than kind, with many others throughout history. Debt and fear have been the usual tools of choice.
                  Which is not to take sides in this, but to try to peel away some of the beliefs and understand the actual processes at work. If we really want to understand the forces of nature, we can’t always hide from the more politically incorrect factors and assume our ideals will carry us through to the pearly gates.
            2. hunkerdown August 27, 2015 at 9:00 pm

               If one assumes from the available evidence that Americans instinctively conceal their class interests in matters of morality, appreciates the documentary evidence that implies the USA was designed and constructed as a permanent imperial aristocracy, and observes the proto-Foxconns and company stores and factory-prisons of the Northern industrialists after the conflict, one might conclude that the Civil War was about nothing more than whose designs for property and bonded labor shall prevail. But, being good English, we’re not supposed to think ill of our betters…
               1. JTMcPhee August 27, 2015 at 9:58 pm

                  +1492.
   2. Ed August 27, 2015 at 6:08 pm

      I skimmed through the article. The latest example they gave dated from 1965. The two post-1965 movies they talked about were both pro-Union.

      Starting in the 1890s, histories of the Civil War tended to portray it as some sort of big misunderstanding, and emphasized how well the Confederates had fought. Starting in the 1960s, there started being alot of emphasis put on slavery.

      This obviously had alot to do with changes in how the US was governed. First it was important that both Southerners and Northerners view the South as an important part of a big, powerful nation. Later how African-Americans (the term only started coming into use in the 1990s) were treated became an issue.
6. fresno dan August 27, 2015 at 3:05 pm

   [Sanders] said Wednesday that the Postal Service caused a “disaster that is negatively impacting Americans all over this country” when it shuttered more than 140 mail-sorting plants and slowed delivery times to cut costs” [WaPo]. He’s right. We should be setting up Post Office banks, like Warren suggested, not degrading the Post Office so privatizers can feast on the remains.
   ==============================================
   I can certainly confirm the above. I moved to Redding CA from Sacramento CA, and mail from companies in Redding takes longer to get to me than mail forwarded from Sacramento, as well as often not showing up at all. Also, I have received mail with the same handwriting scrawled across the mail saying “not at this address” when in fact it is my correct Redding address.
   People tell me that the Redding sorting mail station was shut down, and any mail sent from Redding has to go to Sacramento for processing and than come back. This is the first time in my life that I have ever really had a problem with the mail, with getting utility bills late, and no idea of what has happened to my updated driver’s license and registration. Though inexplicably, Netflix discs are delivered flawlessly….

   Its just another aspect of “crapdonics” – my anti hedonics rant about inflation numbers can’t be trusted because soooooo many things are getting worser and worser…
   1. Lambert Strether Post authorAugust 27, 2015 at 3:19 pm

      But don’t worry. I’m sure (snark) DiFi’s husband, Richard Blum, cashed in by selling off the facilities. So you’re doing your little bit to help Democrats.
   2. Pat August 27, 2015 at 3:36 pm

      He isn’t campaigning negatively, and I have to admit I doubt the Redding sorting facility is tops on Blum’s list, but selling the properties cheap is another way of enriching friends and supporters. And lord knows, Diane Feinstein’s husband is both.

      http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/dianne-feinsteins-husbands-real-estate-firm-poised-make-1-billion-selling-post

      Between the selling off of facilities and the demand to fund the pension out 75 years they are trying to make the Post Office look incompetent. My only hope in all this is the fact that Senators from largely rural states have got to know that UPS and Fed Ex hand their stuff off to USPS and will not be the answer there so privatizing it completely is somewhat stymied.

      As Lambert says, they need to tell the people who want to end it to screw themselves and listen to Warren about postal banking.
      1. Steven D. August 27, 2015 at 4:30 pm

         It wasn’t the Postal System that closed the distribution centers. It was the board of governors. And guess who appoints them. Why it’s Barack Obama. Except for the Bush holdovers he’s been more than happy to allow to remain in place.
         1. Vatch August 27, 2015 at 5:04 pm

            I was in the process of agreeing with you about Obama and his appointees on the Postal Board of Governors when I decided to find out how many of the current governors started out in the Bush administration. I was surprised (I shouldn’t have been) to find that the Board of Governors is a complete mess. There are 6 vacancies on the 11 member board! 9 are supposed to be appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate, and the other two are appointed by the board to be the Postmaster General and the Deputy Postmaster General.

            http://about.usps.com/who-we-are/leadership/board-governors-bios.htm#p=1

            All 3 of the Presidentially appointed governors were originally appointed by Bush. I guess they were all reappointed by Obama. I don’t know why it’s so bad; I suspect that Republican filibusterers in the Senate are largely responsible.
            1. Vatch August 27, 2015 at 5:15 pm

               It’s worse than I thought. It looks like one of their terms expired in December, 2014, and the other two were never reappointed by Obama. So the web site is out of date, and there might only be 4 members of the 11 person board. Nobody on the current board was appointed by Obama! I wonder whether there were any earlier appointees by him who resigned before their terms expired?
               1. jo6pac August 27, 2015 at 5:44 pm

                  Well as our favorite person would say;)

                  That not a bug but a feature.
            2. NotTimothyGeithner August 27, 2015 at 5:59 pm

               Filibusters are a rule the Democrats voted to enact in 2007, 2009, 2011, and 2013, and the Supreme Court has already ruled 50+VP is the only constitutional standard for the Senate. The Democrats are complicit.

               Obama would also be required to make a decision or appoint someone to handle this kind of situation, and there aren’t any crowds or people in costumes to salute so it’s not very fun.
               1. Vatch August 28, 2015 at 9:53 am

                  Obama has made numerous nominations to the Postal Service Board of Governors. They have either been rejected or ignored by the Senate. Go to the Advanced Serach screen of the Congress.gov web site. Be sure to choose All Congresses, and select Nominations rather than Legislation in all search text windows. Here are some of the names that you’ll find:

                  PN2102— David S. Shapira — 113th Congress (2013-2014)
                  PN1922— Mickey D. Barnett — 113th Congress (2013-2014)
                  PN1460— Victoria Reggie Kennedy — 113th Congress (2013-2014)
                  PN1173— David Michael Bennett — 113th Congress (2013-2014)
                  PN1172— Stephen Crawford — 113th Congress (2013-2014)
                  PN1170— James C. Miller III — 113th Congress (2013-2014)
                  PN1703— Stephen Crawford — 112th Congress (2011-2012)
                  PN1500— James C. Miller, III — 112th Congress (2011-2012)
                  PN1422— Dennis J. Toner — 111th Congress (2009-2010)

                  This is just a partial list. The Senate is not cooperating with Obama regarding nominations to the Postal Service Board of Governors.
                  1. JTMcPhee August 29, 2015 at 4:19 pm

                     In other words,

                     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFvujknrBuE
7. hermes August 27, 2015 at 3:05 pm

   Tsundoku: Life and Death are Wearing Me Out by Mo Yan; The Way of the Knife: The CIA, a Secret Army, and a War at the Ends of the Earth by Mark Mazzetti; The Third Reich by Roberto Bolano; 54 by Wu Ming; Vanished Kingdoms: The History of Half-Forgotten Europe by Norman Davies; The Extreme Center: A Warning by Tariq Ali; Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s Stealth Revolution by Wendy Brown
   1. DJG August 27, 2015 at 5:05 pm

      Semitsundoku: I’m most of the way through 54 by Wu Ming. And Wu Ming are a group that this blog should get to know. Wu Ming has a groovy blog called Giap. Most of their work is in Italian and has not been translated. I’m a fan of Q (when they were Luther Blissett) and Altai.

      Piccoli Impedimenti alla Felicità by Carla Vasio
      I Ching di Ernst Bernhard (edited by Luciana Marinangeli) Bernhard was, for a time, Fellini’s psychotherapist. Image that.
      It’s Not Over by Michelangelo Signorile
      Days of Abandonment by Elena Ferrante (and for some reason, I’m resisting Ferrante–others may want to give advice).
      1. hermes August 27, 2015 at 11:17 pm

         I think I’ll actually read 54 next. I recently read Q myself, the history of the reformation brought to life in that book is absolutely fascinating.
      2. annie August 28, 2015 at 3:16 am

         Ferrante’s quartet is important–though you won’t find many italians who agree. (not having read Ferrante, they’re the same ones who think Sorrentino a great director.)
         but you could also try ‘the lost daughter.’
   2. Christopher Fay August 27, 2015 at 7:37 pm

      You are looking for Chinese authors for your fiction vitamins.
      1. hermes August 27, 2015 at 11:13 pm

         Mo Yan is a favorite of mine! He is actually the only Chinese author on the list though. Wu Ming is actually five Italians. I’d highly recommend Mo Yan though, start with Red Sorghum.
8. optimader August 27, 2015 at 3:18 pm

   Lambert.. JD is my emails handle’s handle!
   apical dominance, yes that I think is exactly the phenomena/strategy.

   AN underlying point of the pictures I sent you is to illustrate that fruit trees can be kept quite small, even potted, while still being quite productive.

   I have started a number of apples and pear trees from seed and pit several years ago sourced from a local what I’ll call an heirloom orchard, cultivated by Franciscan Monks who resided here http://www.mayslakepeabody.com/history/#Franciscan

   They were stone masons, carpenters, arborists, bee keepers and experimental gardeners extraordinaire. Very cool cats actually. I would ride my bike over there w/ lawnmowing loot and they would sell (basically give) me honey..You could not fit a razor blade in the gaps of the dryset cut stone walls of the building they constructed there..

   The property has since been absorbed by County Park District, which to their credit, are trying to preserve what they can, but the orchard was left to be forgotten.. except by me apparently.

   In anycase best apples and pears ever, they really knew what they were doing, but alas the trees are now dying so I decided I would give their cultivars a future as espaliers and miniatures.

   And yeah, what’s not to love about a Corpse Flower?
   1. optimader August 27, 2015 at 3:21 pm

      btw.. in the theme http://www.chicagobotanic.org/library/spotlight/verticalgardening
   2. Lambert Strether Post authorAugust 27, 2015 at 4:07 pm

      Thanks, fixed. I think only in terms of handles, and have no mental mapping of handles to emails! And so in the mad rush to post, I got it wrong.
      1. optimader August 27, 2015 at 5:00 pm

         not important..

         fun to have a link posted for the Corpse Flower Cam! It will be col when it splits open and gags everyone.. they will be keeping the facility open for vistors into the wee hours (like 2-or -3am) when the CF opens
         1. Emma August 27, 2015 at 8:01 pm

            Just like any lady, I sharpen my pencil with a penknife to feel womanly! With the gentle consternation of delicate flowers we’re obliged to. It depends which way the wind blows…..or when the blowhards get windy!
            Anyway, with much love and relief (!), the basic tenets of ‘freemadaughtery’, I’m writing a ‘mistressful’ letter to Sir David Attenborough and certain Messieurs at this blog!
            I ask them to answer for why they’ve made our world so damned beyond all redemption! See Wiki on the abominable naming of this corpse flower of a plant!
            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amorphophallus_titanum
            ‘Amorphophallus’ to ‘Titan Arum’ is not only blasphemous but downright sexist! Hmmph! The measure of corruption by value in this matter must be forthwith exposed to a bossy bevy of beauties!
            In meantime, and at some length with admirable adroitness…….I propose ‘Rigour Moretits’ !
   3. Skippy August 27, 2015 at 6:55 pm

      Espalier training in the classic European style!
   4. Orchid August 27, 2015 at 7:13 pm

      Apical dominance is not the only factor in pruning fruit trees. Cutting the leader (the apex limb) will allow side branches to grow more than previously. Espaliered limbs can give more fruit because of the horizontal orientation of the limb. Some people tie weights to limbs for this reason. Vertical limbs, or watersprouts, will produce little fruit. Solar access by leaves is also important. The arborist I work with says that in Japan, fruit trees are pruned into a 30-degree plane, much like a solar panel. Summer pruning can also control eventual size – see the Dave Wilson website for information about summer pruning.
9. Blurtman August 27, 2015 at 3:28 pm

   To Lambert,

   I hope by your comment “Make up your own jokes!” that you are not encouraging tasteless ethnic jokes. Please tell me that is not the case.

   “Nazi Treasure Train Hunt: Significant Find Confirmed in Poland” [NBC]. Make up your own jokes!
   1. craazyboy August 27, 2015 at 3:49 pm

      Dumb Polish economist finds Nazi Treasure in 1946, but leaves it where it is because it’s worthless – not being real fiat currency.
      1. Blurtman August 27, 2015 at 3:54 pm

         Yes, I hope Lambert is not meaning to encourage such humor. I would never have pegged him for a bigot.
         1. lambert strether August 27, 2015 at 4:01 pm

            Never crossed my mind. I was thinking more along the lines of: “Where did Jamie stash his gold train? The Hamptons?”
            1. craazyboy August 27, 2015 at 4:08 pm

               Dunno, but what do Jamie’s Bentley’s tires sound like after running over that skinflint ### Blankfein? Dago wop, wop, wop…

               Haaaahahahahaha.
         2. OIFVet August 28, 2015 at 12:23 am

            Oh lighten up. First of all, the above is an economists joke. Second, how does one define “tasteless” when it comes to ethnic jokes? To some thin-skinned patriotic ethnics any and all jokes about their ethnicity is “tasteless”, BTW, best jokes about Egyptians I ever heard come from Egyptians. The ability to laugh at oneself can be quite healthy, you know.
      2. Skippy August 27, 2015 at 6:57 pm

         One day some will wake up…. Law is the Foundation – bimetallism, fiat, et al are secondary attributes…
   2. Synoia August 27, 2015 at 3:51 pm

      Nazi Treasure Train Hunt: Significant Find Confirmed in Poland Far East Germany.

      or

      Nazi Treasure Train Hunt: Significant Find Confirmed in Poland Far West Russia.
   3. ambrit August 27, 2015 at 4:21 pm

      In Poland the people make Russian Jokes! Everyone has a ‘scapegoat’ it seems. As long as we don’t start lynching them, all’s fine. Please, whatever you do, do not quote me any political correctness blarney. People are people, now and forever. (Or at least until Gaia decides to go with some other species as Crown of Creation.)
10. Clive August 27, 2015 at 3:35 pm

    My Tsunndoku List of Shame:

    Virginia Woolf in Manhattan, fiction. A novel by Maggie Gee. Got about a third the way through but it turned out to not be as good as I thought it would be and I’ve not had the heart to finish it. That’s what you get for going by what’s on the back of the dust jacket…

    The 13th Labour of Hercules: Inside the Greek Crisis, non-fiction. A history by Yannis Palaiologos. Not even started, shamefully. Time restrictions, caused by having to try and help stem some of the tide of nonsense posted in comments about Greece, IT and the possible abandonment of the euro is my official reason for that. But in truth, and it doesn’t really reflect well on me as a person, but I’m pretty well all Greece’ed out unfortunately.

    The Cartel, fiction. A novel by Don Winslow. Winslow is a real curate’s egg. Sometimes really great storytelling. But, as here, sometimes gets carried away with his own stylisation to the detriment of the plotting and the characterisation. Got about 2/3rds the way through but was ultimately defeated by one schoolboy fantasy sex scene too many.
    1. micky9finger August 28, 2015 at 12:03 am

       So then. We can get on with the abandonment of the Euro?
11. Jim Haygood August 27, 2015 at 3:40 pm

    Back in black!

    West Texas Intermediate crude for delivery in October jumped $3.96, or 10.3%, to settle at $42.56 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. That was the largest single-session percentage gain for a most-active contract since March 2009.

    http://www.marketwatch.com/story/oil-rebounds-by-over-2-as-stocks-recover-2015-08-27

    Venezuela asked OPEC for an emergency meeting, as it teeters on the edge of default.

    “Thanks, Comrade Maduro!” says a grateful Wall Street.
    1. craazyboy August 27, 2015 at 4:02 pm

       Yup. Went outside and there’s nothing but traffic jams everywhere. hahahaha. not really.
12. neo-realist August 27, 2015 at 4:02 pm

    Epigenetic inheritance: Perfect study for Black Americans of previous and present generations to measure the effects of racist trauma on black folk. Jackie Robinson (Exhibit A?) Died in his early 50’s and suffered numerous illnesses in his later years. Looked 80 at the time of death. Who couldn’t say that the years of 47, 48 didn’t negatively impact his health and possibly his genes. And what about the higher rates of death from heart disease and diabetes among black people? Couldn’t present and past trauma have had an influence? As much as this study may be justified, it will be hard pressed to be initiated because….fear of reparations.
    1. Lambert Strether Post authorAugust 27, 2015 at 5:24 pm

       I think, however, that the same principles would apply across any, er, intersection. It’s like the knapsack idea, but now with extra karma.
    2. Lee August 27, 2015 at 6:59 pm

       Lamarck was right after all?

       Some problems with the study: the sample size was quite small; epigentic science is in early days; many in the field believe epigenetic effects to be transient, i.e., not particularly persistent or evolutionarily significant; alternative medicine quacks are enthusiastically embracing epigenetics as yet another way to promote even more unproven yet lucrative treatments.

       For more: https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?s=epigenetics
       1. Lambert Strether Post authorAugust 27, 2015 at 8:17 pm

          Thanks. I was hoping somebody would take a look at the methodology.

          That said, assuming adaptability… It doesn’t seem “sensible” (to anthropomorphize) for nature not to take present circumstances into account. So I don’t think the Lamarck comment is fair. And if anything, it’s both Darwin and Lamarck (taking “Lamarck” as a proxy for epigenitcs, and not his actual views)>
          1. Skippy August 28, 2015 at 2:32 am

             I would be very careful with Lamarck Lambert, he had a whopping case of bias.

             Skippy…. not to mention that bit of kit was largely responsible for the so called political – ideological starvation in the USSR.
13. EmilianoZ August 27, 2015 at 4:10 pm

    Re: Jacobin piece about Hollywood and the Civil War

    The Jacobin seems to think that a movie has to be either pro-Union or pro-South. But Hollywood produced many fine nuanced complex movies that cannot be classified as either pro-Union or pro-South. “Cold mountain” (not mentioned by the Jacobin) comes to mind. Although the hero (Jude Law) is a southerner, the movies shows the worst aspects of the South and the hero ends up being killed by his fellow countrymen.

    The Jacobin also fails to mention the movie “Gettysburg”:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gettysburg_%281993_film%29

    As far as I can remember it is pretty neutral or even pro-Union. The director later made another Civil War movie that was more pro-South:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gods_and_Generals_%28film%29
    1. Carolinian August 27, 2015 at 5:58 pm

       I don’t think modern H’wood has much interest in making Civil War films. Cold Mountain was a flop. Gettysburg, if I’m not mistaken, was made for Ted Turner’s cable channel. When Griffith made Birth of a Nation there were still people around who had been in the Civil War. Ken Burns shows them in his PBS documentary series. It was a lot more alive to people.
       1. NotTimothyGeithner August 27, 2015 at 6:12 pm

          And the suffering white people are usually bad guys, so it’s not really primed for domestic audiences or even international audiences. What is the appeal to a Chinese market? How familiar are non-Americans with the U.S. Civil War? My anecdotal experience is not very. We learned about the English Civil War because the fallout reached here, but do elementary students in London have a tale woven about how ugly American slavery was when their own government wanted to support the Confederacy?

          At least people around the world have a vague idea of the sides in World War II and the Autobot/Decepticon conflict.
       2. ambrit August 27, 2015 at 7:29 pm

          “Birth of a Nation” was also made back when white people in blackface played black characters on stage and on celluloid. My wife, who grew up in New Orleans remembers being in an amateur Minstrel Show where blackface was di rigueur. I was very little but am told that my Mom and I were almost thrown off of a City bus in Miami for sitting in the back when we first moved to segregationist Florida around 1960. (If you may have some doubts as to the truth of this, try this experiment: rummage through local civic regulations and find out when racially based curfews were struck off the rolls. As Ferguson has shown, racialism is alive and well in America.)
          1. Carolinian August 27, 2015 at 8:17 pm

             The minstrel shows started even before the Civil War. Hollywood, when the time came, carried on the tradition–sometimes with real blacks. Personally I can never stomach Al Jolson. While some dismiss Hollywood’s casual racism as a sign of the times I’m not so sure forgiveness is merited. Stereotyping is a symptom of bad art.
14. Carolinian August 27, 2015 at 4:16 pm

    Interesting Jacobin on race in cinema. However it’s worth saying that anyone visiting the cultural past looking for modern attitudes on race is sure to be disappointed. You are going to have to kick not just Keaton but John Ford out of the pantheon. Even the great Fred Astaire once danced in black face and while you can say he was doing homage to the black dancers he admired, it’s cringe inducing. Gone With the Wind may still be the highest grossing movie in current dollars. Nobody has seen fit to carp at the film’s race aspect other than long gone tv comic Flip “I don’t know nothin’ about birthin’ no babies” Wilson.

    And from mass cult to high culture it’s no different. Fitzgerald does some coon baiting in Tender is the Night as does Thomas Wolfe in Look Homeward Angel. Back then this sort of thing was just taken for granted–probably not thought twice about. If you want to look for some larger explanation you are going to have to talk about more than just movies.

    Anyway, thanks for the link…..
15. Martin Finnucane August 27, 2015 at 4:19 pm

    Tsunndoku List:

    _Green Wizardry_ by the Arch Druid. (He has a real name, but I can’t recall right now.) I am increasingly preoccupied with the project of keeping my wife and children alive, hence I bought this book. It doesn’t help, though, that I lost it, so it’s floating around the house somewhere unread.

    _The Five Stages of Collapse_ by Dmitry Orlov. Bought this with the same thing in mind, but have been grinding through at a slow pace because the author’s childish misunderstanding of money and debt makes his otherwise charming writing unpalatable.

    _This Changes Everything_ by Naomi Kline. To be honest, I am afraid of this book. It gestures at me from the shelf, like the cold finger of fate.

    I just ordered a CD containing thousands of pages of repair manuals for various Briggs & Stratton motors. That one I might make it through.
    1. DJG August 27, 2015 at 5:09 pm

       This Changes Everything is a surprisingly easy read. Naomi Klein knows that she is delivering a huge message. So she writes with great humor and grace. And everything is backed with the gazillion end notes.
       1. lambert strether August 27, 2015 at 11:43 pm

          That’s on my list too. I just didn’t get to it…
    2. open August 27, 2015 at 5:24 pm

       Can I *most highly* recommend this book:
       A World on Fire: A Heretic, an Aristocrat, and the Race to Discover Oxygen. Joe Jackson. xiv + 414 pp. Viking, 2005. $27.95.
       Details the precise moment when men decided that “what is true” perhaps did not emanate from God after all. Told in a most engaging manner by an author who avoids the smug and snarky traps of this new genre (you know, “History of Salt” etc). Priestley, the “furious free-thinker”, stuck in the old view that fire was a substance, and Lavoisier, forced by religious intolerance in France to abandon dogma and measure everything. Intrigue. And humor: “Let’s see, people who eat vegetables don’t get scurvy, and people who eat vegetables are gassy; so maybe that gas is what prevents scurvy? So let’s have Priestley make some “windy water” and we’ll put it on Capt. Cook’s ship (known as “tonic” water). Five stars.
16. Oregoncharles August 27, 2015 at 4:21 pm

    “As John Oliver once put it, “if you want to do something evil, put it inside something boring.” Discussions of carried interest are pretty boring. With Trump in the race throwing word-grenades at every turn, though, all of the candidates may be forced to confront the issue. No matter one’s views on Trump himself, this wouldn’t be a bad thing.”

    I like “word-grenades.” Paragraph sounds a bit like Lambert, only more Bloomberg.

    Trump is actually serving a purpose in the campaign, despite his personal offensiveness.

    I’m enjoying the fantasy of a Sanders vs. Trump election. Not good for the Green Party, but good for the country, I think. To say nothing of entertaining. I think Sanders would actually win that one.

    Oregoncharles (Anonymous is what you get when you fill outthe comment before the ID – I just discovered.)
17. Oregoncharles August 27, 2015 at 4:26 pm

    ““Trump Telling GOP Brass He Will Forgo A Third-Party Run: Sources””
    Sad, but actually very ambiguous.
    1. Carolinian August 27, 2015 at 5:41 pm

       In SC the Republicans have made a new rule that in order to run in the primary you must foreswear a 3rd party run. Other states may do the same. Sounds like Trump may be giving up his 3rd party threat.

       http://www.goupstate.com/article/20150825/wire/150829801
       1. hunkerdown August 27, 2015 at 7:59 pm

          Publicly. As we know, contracts are good until they aren’t, and the first person to exploit their Party then kick them in the teeth would pretty much own the independent vote. I’d hope, against hope, that would be Sanders.
18. allan August 27, 2015 at 4:29 pm

    Science: Estimating the reproducibility of psychological science

    Spoiler alert: it’s not good.
19. NotTimothyGeithner August 27, 2015 at 4:35 pm

    Concerning Biden:

    My personal view Is Democratic elite, very very serious people, consider Sanders supporters or anyone who scoffs when they explain why they need to run a pro-gun, anti-abortion Democrat to be children who are attached to Bernie because he’s different. Biden has an Internet presence in the former of memes and was the idol of Leslie Knope. Hillary doesn’t have an Internet presence or strong support among young people. She lost young women last time. Her career since then hasn’t earned her any street cred.

    My sense is Biden backers believe Biden will eat into the “flippant” Sanders supporters because all “serious people” recognize Hillary as a great candidate.

    I don’t have much respect for the intellect of Democratic insiders, but I think Biden is seen as a way to shut those troublesome kids (Sanders supporters or Hillary skeptics) up. Much like Hillary, “serious-minded” voters are either crooks or heavily emotionally invested in Team Blue, Obama, Hillary’s gender, and so forth and have no concept of Biden’s 40 year Washington career or that voters might even care about living memory history. Obama and his close cronies probably recognize that without Iraq or Hillary’s yes vote he wouldn’t be President and know that Biden had no traction in 2007/8 because he is just as crummy as Hillary but without the women power strength behind him which is why the White House seems to be cold towards a Biden run. I don’t think much of the President, but there is a reason Democratic strategists think he’s a super duper genius. Obama can on occasion recognize the obvious.

    Hillary and Bill are just not liked in some quarters for bizarre reasons. Local Chamber of Commerce Democrats strike me as a self loathing group and would not want a nominee who would drudge up the various Clinton scandals among their GOP friends.
    1. Jim Haygood August 27, 2015 at 4:49 pm

       Biden = Hubert Humphrey, 1968.
       1. Oregoncharles August 27, 2015 at 5:27 pm

          And we know what happened to him (and his own d..n fault, too.) I have a thing about HH – ’68 was the first year I could vote, and I voted for the pig – literally. Look up “Pigasus.” Humphrey did himself in by endorsing Daley’s police riot. Chicago, again. I thought, and think, that he was a ruined man after being LBJ’s VP.

          I think you’re right: Biden is being brought forward in case the e-mail server scandal takes Hilary out, as it should. They probably know something we don’t. That, or she just turns out to be not very popular, like the last time.
       2. Ed August 27, 2015 at 6:20 pm

          The comparison is unfair to Humphrey. His 1960 presidential run got more traction than either of Biden’s runs, and he had accomplished more in his political career as well. He was also substantially to Biden’s left.
          1. jo6pac August 27, 2015 at 8:38 pm

             I agree H was an old D and believed sadly it was taken away from him. Sorry but look it up and I was not a fan of his in the day.
          2. RabidGandhi August 28, 2015 at 9:45 am

             Richard Nixon is “substantially to Biden’s left”.
20. Oregoncharles August 27, 2015 at 4:45 pm

    “The problem? The panels were creating too much­ power” [NBC].”

    Profoundly stupid situation, and a good example of the sort of thing that gives “government regulation’ a bad name. In this case, there’s no consideration of the PURPOSE – which is surely to maximize solar generation.

    Of course, that is NOT the utility’s purpose, so they’ve rigged the regulations.
    1. ambrit August 27, 2015 at 7:18 pm

       Then there’s that law in Florida mandating connection to the power grid to get your occupancy permit.
       See: http://www.collective-evolution.com/2014/03/09/florida-makes-off-grid-living-illegal-mandates-all-homes-must-be-connected-to-an-electricity-grid/
       It’s all about Power, isn’t it.
       1. hunkerdown August 27, 2015 at 8:14 pm

          White Power, at that.
21. Oregoncharles August 27, 2015 at 4:57 pm

    You seriously want me to go look over my shelves for books I haven’t read or finished? Sheesh! Not nearly enough room in this box for that.

    I’ll give you one I’m finally finishing: “Sweet Tooth,” by Ian McEwan. I may not read all the way to the tragic ending he’s setting up, but it’s excellent so far.
22. Oregoncharles August 27, 2015 at 5:19 pm

    I’ve been pruning fruit trees professionally for almost 40 years. Indeed, apical dominance is a key factor, but there are others:

    Sunlight. The lower branches need to extend beyond the upper ones, or they’ll be shed.

    Height. How high do you want to climb? To keep the tree low, you have to save the lower branches; see above.

    Fruiting wood. You need to tell the fruit buds from the leaf buds and leave a balance. There’s such a thing as too much fruit.

    Espalier is a thing unto itself I haven’t done a whole lot because it’s labor intensive and not sensible for my customers – unless they insist. Same principles, though. You don’t need to worry about the lower branches as much because they’ll get sun from the sides. Linear trees (or garden beds) should run south to north, to minimize shading.

    Then the trees turn out to have little minds of their own, like children, so it’s going to take a few years of experience before they make much sense. when I worked in a vineyard pruning, we used to get all excited when we found a “textbook” vine that had responded as they’re supposed to. Pretty rare. Trees aren’t textbooks, either.
23. BobW August 27, 2015 at 5:24 pm

    A bit old but nice – surveillance camera party hats.
    front404.com/george-orwells-birthday-party
24. optimader August 27, 2015 at 5:40 pm

    https://www.behance.net/gallery/25968515/MANMADE-BUT-NO-HUMAN
25. ambrit August 27, 2015 at 7:13 pm

    Tsundoku list:
    Essential Hypertension Management Second Edition- various authors
    Seven Red Sundays- Ramon J Sender (Spanish Civil War by someone who was there.)
    Original Self- Thomas Moore (Ex Catholic monk.)
    The Complete Romances of Chretien de Troyes- David Staines (Where we Westerners came from.)
    Baudolino- Umberto Eco (Fabulism as History.)
26. Skippy August 27, 2015 at 7:53 pm

    My book pick…

    Undoing the Demos
    Neoliberalism’s Stealth Revolution
    By Wendy Brown
    Overview

    Neoliberal rationality—ubiquitous today in statecraft and the workplace, in jurisprudence, education, and culture—remakes everything and everyone in the image of homo oeconomicus. What happens when this rationality transposes the constituent elements of democracy into an economic register? In Undoing the Demos, Wendy Brown explains how democracy itself is imperiled. The demos disintegrates into bits of human capital; concerns with justice bow to the mandates of growth rates, credit ratings, and investment climates; liberty submits to the imperative of human capital appreciation; equality dissolves into market competition; and popular sovereignty grows incoherent. Liberal democratic practices may not survive these transformations. Radical democratic dreams may not either.

    In an original and compelling argument, Brown explains how and why neoliberal reason undoes the political form and political imaginary it falsely promises to secure and reinvigorate. Through meticulous analyses of neoliberalized law, political practices, governance, and education, she charts the new common sense. Undoing the Demos makes clear that for democracy to have a future, it must become an object of struggle and rethinking.

    https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/undoing-demos

    Wendy Brown: In this book, I treat neoliberalism as a governing rationality through which everything is “economized” and in a very specific way: human beings become market actors and nothing but, every field of activity is seen as a market, and every entity (whether public or private, whether person, business, or state) is governed as a firm. Importantly, this is not simply a matter of extending commodification and monetization everywhere—that’s the old Marxist depiction of capital’s transformation of everyday life. Neoliberalism construes even non-wealth generating spheres—such as learning, dating, or exercising—in market terms, submits them to market metrics, and governs them with market techniques and practices. Above all, it casts people as human capital who must constantly tend to their own present and future value.

    Moreover, because neoliberalism came of age with (and abetted) financialization, the form of marketization at stake does not always concern products or commodities, let alone their exchange. Today, market actors—from individuals to firms, universities to states, restaurants to magazines—are more often concerned with their speculatively determined value, their ratings and rankings that shape future value, than with immediate profit. All are tasked with enhancing present and future value through self-investments that in turn attract investors. Financialized market conduct entails increasing or maintaining one’s ratings, whether through blog hits, retweets, Yelp stars, college rankings, or Moody’s bond ratings.

    Skippy…. “The Century of the Self” – like opti’s “Corpse Flower” is about to bloom….
27. hunkerdown August 27, 2015 at 8:15 pm

    Tsundoku nearest me:
    The Society of the Spectacle by Guy DeBord
    Simulacra and Simulation by Jean Baudrillard
    Why We Love Sociopaths: A Guide to Late Capitalist Television by Adam Kotzko
    The Theory of Business Enterprise by Thorsten Veblen
    The Decline of the West by Oswald Spengler
    The Art of Not Being Governed by James C Scott
    Astrology Restored by William Ramsey
28. Oregoncharles August 27, 2015 at 8:15 pm

    On a previous topic:
    http://www.rawstory.com/2015/08/blacklivesmatter-disrupts-clinton-rally-to-demand-she-cut-ties-with-prison-industrial-complex/.
29. Big River Bandido August 27, 2015 at 8:46 pm

    Tsundoku:

    Benjamin Franklin (Carl Van Doren)
    Harry S. Truman: The Tumultuous Years (Robert Donovan)
    Dear Bess (letters from Harry to Bess Truman, 1910-59)
    George Washington (Willard Sterne Randall)
    Arrogant Capital and The Cousins Wars (Kevin Phillips)

    But I have to finish a so-so bio of Henry Clay before I get to these.
30. Jay M August 27, 2015 at 9:40 pm

    I thought getting murdered by your job was de riguer, at least metaphorically. The days of the non sociopathic management were long gone, I thought. Actually getting X’d, that sucks. Seems like Glock is always in the news this way.
31. JerseyJeffersonian August 27, 2015 at 10:39 pm

    A link to a post at Moon of Alabama (also concerned with international conflicts being sparked by access to water, as was seen in today’s earlier post on conflict in Central Asia):

    The Wars In Syria And Iraq Are Also Water Wars – More Will Come

    Hope my attempt to post the link worked…

    Turkey, particularly under Erdogan, is becoming an increasingly negative influence in the neighborhood, and more generally, in the world at large.
32. craazyboy August 27, 2015 at 11:40 pm

    Time out to checkup on what Persons of Consequence are doing

    Live from Jackson Hole!

    CNBC fake economist-reporter Steve Liesman gently tosses the usual nerf ball questions to Ms George, KC Fed Chieftainess. Ms. George says it may, in fact, be the perfect time to increase the overnight rate a quarter point in September. (I shortened up the dialog a lot – watch it for the full richness of cluelessness)

    For more insight another interview (sound bite) with the Wild & Crazy iPhone Eater, NYC Chief Bill Dudley come up next. He adds some drama saying recent market volatility is still giving him some doubts, but they have a few days yet before deciding if it is, in fact, the perfect time to increase the overnight rate a quarter point in September.

    http://www.cnbc.com/2015/08/27/feds-george-prepared-for-rate-hike-despite-selloff.html
    1. lambert strether August 27, 2015 at 11:46 pm

       “CNBC fake economist-reporter” A bit redudant, what?
       1. craazyboy August 27, 2015 at 11:57 pm

          It’s his full job description. CNBC used to introduce him as the “CNBC Economist”, but then someone did a background check and found out his only degree is a 2 year journalism degree.

          Not to imply an economics degree makes one real, of course.
33. Paul Jonker-Hoffrén August 28, 2015 at 1:21 am

    Tsundoku: When work disappears (William Julius Wilson), The Limits of Neoliberalism (William Davies), Re-Forming Capitalism (Wolfgang Streeck), Macroeconomics beyond the NAIRU ( Servaas Storm and C. W. M. Naastepad). I read bits of all of these but not nearly enough.
34. different clue August 28, 2015 at 10:37 pm

    One hopes some of Sanders’s people tell Sanders about how it wasn’t the Post Office which caused the disaster by shutting down the sorting centers. It was the Bush-era Bush and Congress who caused the disaster by passing a law requiring the Postal Service to forward-save so much money for far-future retiree benefits that the Postal Service would be starved of money to maintain itself in viable functional existence.

    One hopes Sanders can find his way to that deeper analysis and suggest something to cure the problem . . . like repealing that law.

Comments are closed.