He Shoulda' Tipped His Hat to the Crowd

Federer-Nadal, Australian Open:

U.S. Constitution Not a Good Model

In an interview by an Egyptian journalist, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said she would not recommend the Egyptians look to the U.S. Constitution for guidance in structuring their own. Instead, she mentioned the constitutions of South Africa, Canada, and the European Convention on Human Rights as worthy models to examine.

Terrific. One of the people charged with upholding the U.S. Constitution has serious doubts about its worthiness. Link.

An Offer to Paula Deen

I have, using all the powers at my disposal, resisted the urge to weigh in on the Paula Deen scandal of recent weeks. I have expressed my dislike for her activities in this space before, but have resisted the urge this time.

However, Dr. John McDougall has done a good job addressing her situation—and made her an amazing offer. The man is nothing if not confident in the power of a starch/plant-based diet to fix diabetes. Read it here.

Turn Yourself Around

Seen on a T-shirt:

The Hokey-Pokey Clinic

A place to turn yourself around.

Should the Department of Education Be Abolished?

In the three-plus decades since the Department of Education was established in 1980, the decline in American education compared to other nations is well-known. One wonders what good the Department serves.

Charles Murray (B.A., Harvard; Ph.D, M.I.T.), a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, makes a strong case for the abolition of the Department of Education, using three tests: Constitutionality, whether there are problems with the American education system that can only be fixed at the federal level, and track record. He says the Department fails on all three counts.

This article appears in the January 2012 issue of Imprimis, the free monthly print publication of Hillsdale College. If you aren't one of the 2.1 million monthly readers of Imprimis, you can subscribe here. Charles Murray's article is online here.

"Your truffles or your wife!"

Those of a certain age will remember the famous Jack Benny skit where the notoriously tightwad comedian was approached by a mugger who demanded, "Your money or your life!" Benny replied, "I'm thinking! I'm thinking!"

In his book Provence A-Z, Peter Mayle tells a story that reminded me of the Benny skit, with a twist: "Your truffles or your wife!"

A Provence landowner's property had been frequented by a truffle poacher in the dead of night, relieving the landowner of thousands of dollars worth of the incredibly valuable fungi. One dark night, the landowner ventured into his forest with shotgun and flashlight and caught the poacher—along with his wife and trained truffle-sniffing dog—red-handed. Encouraged by the shotgun muzzle in his ribs, the poacher confessed to having stolen many kilos of truffles from the man's property. But he had money at home which he would gladly return with if they could agree on an amount. They agreed on 100,000 francs, and the poacher left, leaving his wife as a hostage until he returned.

Of course, the poacher never returned and was never seen in the region again. And the landowner realized his mistake. He should have demanded that the poacher leave his dog as hostage instead of his wife since, in Provence, a truffle-finding dog is worth its weight in gold.

How Does Your Country Grow?

COMPONENT SETTINGS FOR JANUARY 2012

In the U.S. . . .

One birth every 8 seconds

One death every 12 seconds

One international migrant (net) every 46 seconds

Net gain of one person every 17 seconds

(From U.S. Census Bureau)

Makes Me Want to Get an iPad

Posted by Al and Amy Pettaway (note that Al and Amy's cat, Olson, is named for legendary guitar maker James Olson). Interesting that the dog, then later the cat, tried to "look under" the iPad. They were pawing around the edge of the device as if to want to raise it up to get to the fish which must be under the surface:

The Beauty of Books

Because I work at home and travel very little, I have no need at present for a digital book reader. Even if I needed one, I would regret having to use it, though I recognize their utility. There's still something I resist about the sudden transformation of books from works of craft and art and utility to utility alone. To wit . . .

Because I was captivated by the Swedish movie versions of Stieg Larsson's Millennium Series of novels (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest), I decided I wanted to read the books themselves to see the author's original version of the stories. (Ten volumes were planned, with only three finished and published before Larsson died suddenly.)

The American publisher, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., issued a nice four-volume boxed set just before Christmas—the three novels plus a fourth Afterword volume containing correspondence from the author as he wrote the stories and had them published. I wasn't enamored of the Knopf edition, but was attracted to the British edition—unfortunately now out of print. But I found a bookseller in San Francisco who had a still-shrink-wrapped boxed set from the British publisher, MacLehose Press, an imprint of Quercus. The British edition was typically understated compared to the American Knopf edition. So I bought them.

It's not hard to see why many people prefer to own finely printed and bound volumes compared to digital editions. The pictures below remind me of the Seinfeld episode where Jerry asks George why he bothered keeping copies of books once he's read them. This is part of the reason why:

This gold dragon—highlighting the "Dragon Tattoo" motif—is imprinted on the side of the slipcase:

Even the thread used to sew the signatures together is beautiful! But—evidence that these are still mass-produced volumes: insufficient sanding of the edges (left) and a bubble of glue (right). But the picture shows the signatures of which books are made—the individual mini-books that are printed, then bound together to create the volume—nineteen signatures in this volume:

Fifteen in this one:

The British edition (unlike the Knopf edition) also came with a wall poster containing images of 36 different covers of the novels created by foreign publishers. More than 65 million copies of the novels have been published in hard copy, and well over a million copies for the Kindle have been purchased:

Not only are books beautiful themselves, repositories of books are as well. For Christmas, my son David gave me a gorgeous volume titled The Most Beautiful Libraries in the World (Abrams, 2003). It contains breathtaking large-format photos of some of the most beautiful and thoughtful "buildings" constructed throughout history to store the collected knowledge and art of man.

This is a foldout spread of the Great Hall in The Abbey Library of Saint Gall in Switzerland:

And a closer look at two of the panels:

I sent David the following reflections after my first perusal of this book:

1. In the non-American libraries, where collections are much older, imagine the labor that went into the binding BY HAND of these millions of volumes. Even though the printing press came online around 1455, books were still bound by hand, right? And not just the binding, but the gilding and lettering on the spines, etc. The man-hours represented by the binding of millions of volumes is staggering -- all for the preservation of knowledge.

2. Again, in the non-American libraries, I was struck by the admixture of art and literature. Libraries could have been sterile warehouses with shelves -- just a place to catalog and store books. But they were stored in the equivalent of palaces and cathedrals. The libraries themselves represent the height of art, sculpture, and architecture of their day. It speaks well for how books (and manuscripts and music scores and important papers) were viewed -- on a plane with royalty and deity, so ornate and thoughtful were their places of storage.

3. The contrast between American and European libraries. I think only two American libraries are featured -- the Library of Congress and the Boston Athanaeum. Purely from the perspective of the photos of the books on the shelves, the American library books are smaller, newer, less ornate than the books in the European libraries. That's obvious and easy to explain, of course -- America is a younger nation, etc. But it must also say something about the intellectual history of the two cultures -- our libraries look "lighter" than the European libraries. More than once, in looking at some of the European libraries, I thought, "That's what the library at the Biltmore House (Asheville) looks like." . . . It's because George Vanderbilt basically imported books from Europe (as he did furniture, tapestries, art, etc for the house) that it looks so much like a European library.

Solomon had it right: "Of making many books there is no end" (Ecc. 12:12). And it's a shame that they (save one) will wilt before the renovating flames yet to come. The destruction of the great Library at Alexandria in 48 B.C. (thanks, Julius Caesar), where much of the accumulated knowledge or the world was stored, is a warning to all who would hold books too tightly.

But while we have them, they are a pleasure to have and hold.

The Role of the Home in Making Practical Men

"A distinguished American writer says: 'The training and improvement of the physical, intellectual, social, and moral powers and sentiments of the youth of our country require something more than the school-house, academy, college, and university. The young mind should receive judicious training in the field, in the garden, in the barn, in the workshop, in the parlor, in the kitchen—in a word, around the hearthstone at home. Whatever intellectual attainments your son may have acquired, he is unfit to go forth into society if he has not had thrown around him the genial and purifying influences of parents, sisters, brothers, and the man-saving influence of the family government. The nation must look for virtue, wisdom, and strength to the education that controls and shapes the home policy of the family circle. There can be no love of country where there is no love of home. Patriotism, true and genuine, the only kind worthy of the name, derives its mighty strength from fountains that gush out around the hearthstone; and those who forget to cherish the household interests will soon learn to look with indifference upon the interests of their common country. We must cultivate the roots, not the tops. We must make the family government, the school, the farm, the church, the shop, the agricultural fairs, the laboratories of our future greatness. We must educate our sons to be farmers, artisans, architects, engineers, geologists, botanists, chemists—in a word, practical men. Their eyes must be turned from Washington to their States, counties, townships, districts, homes.'"

The originator of these words is identified only as "a distinguished American writer," quoted by Edmund Morris in his circa 1867 book, Farming for Boys. (Italics in the original.) The book is being serialized in Small Farmer's Journal. This quote is from Part VI, Chapter XIV, of the book reproduced in SFJ, Winter 2012, Vol. 36, No. 1, pp. 34-38.

When I read this quote I was struck by the absence of such a worldview in modern literature. I read a lot, and these words jumped out at me as being from a different era. But regardless of era, they convey a settled way of thinking about life that is missing from postmodern thinking: the source of true education, the purpose of the home, how boys learn to be men, the intended distant influence of Washington, and others. Some will rail against pre-modern (1867) writing that excludes "girls" from the focus of training in the home. Note that this is a book titled Farming for Boys. If this author's point was to outline a system of industry for boys, the outline of a similarly vigorous industry for girls could be gleaned from Proverbs 31:10-31.

Chillun'

Ran across this sweet photo of two of my children the other day—Stephen and younger sister, Elizabeth. They were both participating in a wedding (early-mid 1980's) and were snapped by the wedding photographer. I only had the hard copy 8x10, and scanning it reduced a bit of the color—but not the soft effect the photographer used.

Citizen Legislators

On January 12, Representative Tim Johnson of Illinois issued a press release announcing the introduction of the Citizen Legislator Act in Congress. His goal is to return the Congress to the idea of citizen, rather than professional, legislators. The following are key elements of his bill:

Limits days in session to five per month or 60 business days per session.

Halves the salary of Representatives and Senators.

Permits members to have jobs outside of Congress so long as they do not derive their income as a result of the privilege of their office, such as speaking tours, lobbying, consulting, etc.

Allows members to choose benefit plans to reflect their lower salaries and allows them to opt out completely for a private option.

Cuts member office allowances, committee and leadership budgets in half.

Prohibits any grandfathering out of the new salary requirements and benefit packages for current members.

Cuts member salaries an additional 10 percent for every five business days Congress exceeds 60 business days in a session.

Given the fact that our current legislators would be voting to reduce their own pocketbooks, perks, and power if they voted for this bill, the chances are slim it will make it out of committee. And given the fact that life in 2012 is a lot more complicated than in the 1780's, Johnson's specific recommendations may be unrealistic. But it's definitely a step in the right direction. After all, anything would be an improvement over the Congress we have now. (Read more about the Act at Rep. Johnson's web site.)

Apple Trailers Speed Boost

I'm a big fan of the Apple movie trailers web site for keeping up with new movie releases. Each trailer has three streaming options (format sizes) plus four download options. The three streaming options are Automatic (smallest format), 480p (next largest format), and 720p (largest streaming format).

Traditionally, I have always used the 480p format since the 720p format took too long to stream an adequate buffer before play would begin. But a week or so ago I noticed that the 480p stream had slowed to a crawl; it was basically unusable. I had to revert to the small Automatic option just to watch a trailer without waiting forever for the stream to buffer in 480p. The problem seemed to be isolated to the Apple trailers since no other web sites suffered from slowdowns.

But today, things are different. The entire 480p stream now downloads in a few seconds, and the 720p is so fast that playback begins almost immediately. I can now watch trailers in the HUGE 720p HD format that I couldn't before.

I can only assume that the temporary slowdown was due to Apple working on the servers that deliver the streams (?). And that the huge speed boost is due to some streaming upgrade on their end. If anyone has a better explanation, let me know.

Friday 1-20-12 UPDATE: Friday evening, streaming of trailers has reverted to the former sluggish rate described above.

USSC to POTUS: "Butt out!"

In a rare unanimous decision (all the more significant in this case), the U.S. Supreme Court told the President of the United States to take his hands off the internal functions of churches in America. The government claimed that a Lutheran church exercised "employment discrimination" when it terminated the services of its minister. No so, the Court said unanimously. Here is part of Chief Justice Roberts' opinion: (Link)

“Requiring a church to accept or retain an unwanted minister, or punishing a church for failing to do so, intrudes upon more than a mere employment decision. Such action interferes with the internal governance of the church, depriving the church of control over the selection of those who will personify its beliefs. By imposing an unwanted minister, the state infringes the free exercise clause, which protects a religious group’s right to shape its own faith and mission through its appointments. According the state the power to determine which individuals will minister to the faithful also violates the establishment clause, which prohibits government involvement in such ecclesiastical decisions.”

Doing Vegan Right

James McWilliams is associate professor of history at Texas State University, San Marcos, and a frequent writer on food matters—and a vegan. In this excellent The Atlantic article—"The Evidence for a Vegan Diet"—he responds to numerous recent articles by foodies who bewail their failed attempts to thrive on a vegetarian or vegan diet. His point: You have to do it right. Besides the abundant scientific data supporting the benefits of a plant-based diet, stories of people who did it right and transformed their lives are powerful.

This is an excellent article. I especially love his opening paragraph:

Here is a comprehensive list of what I ate, in one form or another, on the day I wrote this:

Kale, mustard greens, carrots, celery, onions, mushrooms, quinoa, amaranth, pinto beans, beets, parsnips, turnips, yellow peas, brown rice, kimchi, purple cabbage, butternut squash, blueberries, a banana, hemp seeds, flaxseed oil, snap peas, an apple, cashews, almonds, pumpkin seeds, pistachio nuts, garlic, broccoli, raisins, granola, avocado, polenta, salsa, a few saltines, a piece of raisin toast with apricot jam, tofu, coffee, olive oil, harisa, chickpeas, tomatoes, a small handful of chocolate chips, a couple of beers ... and a vitamin.

How to Get People to Give Blood

In his delightful memoir, A Year in Provence, English author Peter Mayle tells how he and his wife gave blood in their village to help a desperately ill child. I have written in this space on my experiences giving blood to the Red Cross where I live. If the Red Cross followed the French model—at least the way they do in the town of Gordes—they'd probably get a lot more donors:

In England, the reward for a bagful of blood is a cup of tea and a biscuit. But here, after being disconnected from our tubes, we were shown to a long table manned by volunteer waiters. What would we like? Coffee, chocolate, croissants, brioches, sandwiches of ham or garlic sausage, mugs of red or rosé wine? Eat up! Drink up! Replace those corpuscles! The stomach must be served! A young male nurse was hard at work with a corkscrew, and the supervising doctor in his long white coat wished us all bon appétit. If the steadily growing pile of empty [wine] bottles behind the bar was anything to go by, the appeal for blood was an undoubted success, both clinically and socially.

Some time later, we received through the post our copy of Le Globule, the official magazine for the blood donors. Hundreds of liters had been collected that morning in Gordes, but the other statistic that interested me—the number of liters that had been drunk—was nowhere to be found, a tribute to medical discretion.

Uke Revival

In the early part of the 20th century, ukuleles were everywhere, having not yet been displaced by guitars as the most popular stringed instrument. The Martin guitar company made thousands and thousands of ukes—so many that they didn't even give them serial numbers which makes the vintage models hard to date and value today. But Martin stopped making them eventually when their popularity waned.

But a genuine, power-and-fire ukulele revival is under way. Martin started making them again a few years ago and now can't keep up with orders. And with Martin cranking them out again, boutique builders are cashing in as well, and popular rock 'n roots musicians are adding them to their repertoire (Dave Matthews, Eddie Vedder, Mumford and Sons, et al).

The hottest boutique uke builder right now is Mya-Moe Ukuleles in White Salmon, Washington, a husband-and-wife team (with a couple helpers) that is building drop-dead gorgeous instruments. You have to see the woods to believe them—here and keep clicking through them 600 plus ukes in the gallery.

Here's Irish singer-songwriter Lisa Hannigan doing one of her songs with her Mya-Moe:

Brevity

Blaise Bascal, the French polymath, is supposed to have once written, "I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter."

This counterintuitive statement illustrates what most of us know from experience (and what Strunk and White teach in The Elements of Style): It's much harder to write fewer words than more.

Put another way, writing is really rewriting and editing (cutting). I certainly violate the "less is more" principle in this blog (and conversation) but cannot afford that luxury in my work—as I have learned the hard way: A book contract once called for 80,000 words and I turned in 104,000—and was asked to cut 24,000 words. (In my defense, it was a marketing issue: The manuscript I turned in would have been more expensive to print and would have raised the cost of the book, hurting sales. Welcome to book publishing!)

For several years, I have written a series of pieces for a client that have to be exactly 130 words in length. Sometimes I turn in 129, sometimes 131—but 130 is the target. By the end of today I will have written 1,164 of these pieces, or a total of (approximately) 151,320 words. (That's enough words for a nice two-volume set on the history of something. It also demonstrates that the impressive two-volume history of something you've longed to write can be done—130 words at a time.)

Writing to an exact word count has been a great teacher. With word-count functions available in word processing software today, writing for an exact word-count target is a greatly under-utilized teaching tool. If teachers would assign their students the daily task of writing "your number one goal for today in exactly 17/23/29/31 words"—or some similar, short exercise—they would go a long way toward teaching students how to write well; how to choose, substitute, eliminate, and prioritize their words.

Just a thought.

(Delete that last line.)

Twelve Percent Less in Five Years

Mark Bittman, food columnist for The New York Times, talks about the reasons for a great trend in the U.S.: meat consumption is down 12 percent in the last five years. His conclusion: It has nothing to do with availability, prices, or any other external reason. Rather, people are eating less meat because they are choosing to eat less meat. Link.

Thought for the Day 16.0

From Seth Godin's blog:

One option is to struggle to be heard whenever you're in the room. Another is to be the sort of person who is missed when you're not.

The first involves making noise. The second involves making a difference.