The Is Is

Why study trust?

2011-07-17T11:25:00.000-04:00

Origin stories are great in comic books but may be not so wonderful in philosophical inquiry. If an issue or problem is worth considering, it will be argued, then how one came to address that topic is unnecessary. Further, if your argument is any good then the story of how you came to have it will not add anything to the argument. Perhaps so but for a philosopher with a historical bent the historicity of a problem provides insight into the solutions presented. The origin helps us to locate the problem and to understand the responses to that problem.

My own history here is probably more appropriate for a road movie than for philosophical discussion so I will skip the comedic misadventures and jump straight to the moment of revelation. I was reading Annette Baier's "Trust and its Vulnerabilities" and I started wondering about this thing called trust. One of the first issues that intrigued me was that the (normative) value of trust seemed to come prior to whatever ethical system that we might endorse. This probably needs some explanation.

If you ask the question "why is trust important" you get lots of different answers. For instance, it might be a social lubricant. Or, you might hear that trust is necessary for the transmission of knowledge. Usually the response tries to fit trust within an existing ethical system; they justify the value of trust by reference to some other set of rules. Or, we can produce a response based loosely on Kant's discussion of the imperative against lying. For example, Chester might say “a breach of trust is bad” and then I ask “why?” to which Chester proceeds to defend the badness of breaking trusts by explaining how doing so violates some ethical norm. But, what if we don’t need an ethical system to show that breaking trusts is bad? Children recognize the value of trust without any robust ethical system in place; they don’t like having their trust violated and they feel obliged when they are being trusted. Perhaps we put so much weight on these issues that children absorb the value of trust even before they can speak. But what if they don’t? What if the value of trust is independent of our ethics? This would make trust pre-theoretical, that it has value before the instantiation of an ethical system (lying would too but that would make sense if the prohibition against lying was a derivative of trust). So, what is this thing called trust that it can hold such a strange and unique position. This was the question that initially intrigued me about Baier’s discussion.

Then, in thinking about trust, I remembered that children who have their trust systematically broken have a very difficult time developing the capacity to trust later in life, some never do; our capacity to trust and the degree to which it is encouraged or discouraged early in life has a profound effect on every interaction with others for the rest of our lives. The criminal justice system is littered with adults that were children who had their trust violated. The concept of trust suddenly seemed far more important than anything else I was working on. Worse, no one seemed to be talking about it (there has since been an explosion of work on the topic). For all this interest, the place that I started is not where I am today; I initially started looking at trust from the perspective of theory: could we build and ethics on trust? I have no idea how to answer that question today. I’ve become wrapped up in trying to get clear about the subject of the inquiry itself.

After Baier, the two other authors most influential to my developing interest in trust were Nicholas Luhmann and Russell Hardin. Where Baier instituted and framed my interest in the topic, Luhmann organized my thinking on it, and Hardin acted as a competitive rival. Not that I have ever met any of these people, might you, my relationship with them is entirely one-sided. Luhmann’s position is, roughly, that trust is a kind of short-hand; the world is far too complex for us to keep track of all of it and so we have to reduce the complexity. So, I can’t assess our relationship, yours and mine, in its entirety in every instance of our interaction. I put you in the category of “trusted” or I put Idi Amin in the category of “distrusted” and suddenly I can make much more efficient use of my time. Trust is a reduction of complexity. My view that trust is a framework for understanding the actions of others can find its origin in Luhmann’s position.

Hardin’s position is that my trust of you is a belief I have that you consider my interests within your sphere of interests; his is an encapsulated interests account. I like Hardin’s account. Hardin’s account drives me crazy. Many of the examples that I use in my own work are remodels of Hardin’s because I want to show that his position is off-target. For instance, he spends a lot of time talking about the Brothers Karamazov. On Hardin’s account, Trifonov was trustworthy until he wasn’t. That is, when the brother Karamazov was in an illicit relationship (nothing naughty, just a misuse of government funds) with the merchant, everything was hunky dory so long as the relationship could be expected to continue. Trifonov held Karamazov’s interests because it was in Trifonov’s interests to do so. The only way to guarantee continued access to those government funds was to act in a trustworthy manner. But, when Karamazov was suddenly recalled such that the relationship was over then Trifonov suddenly had no impetus to continue taking Karamazov’s interests to be within the sphere of his own interests. This is surely a practicable interpretation of what happened. And it surely describes how many people would approach the situation. Hardin is surely correct if he is trying to explain how people relate to each from a purely self-interested perspective. Because Karamazov believed that Trifonov held Karamazov’s interests within his own interest, Karamazov trusted Trifonov.

Trifonov’s violation, however, stands as striking evidence that he was never worthy of trust. That is, even though I might have trusted you, the fact that you would, at the first opportunity, take advantage of me should be exactly the kind of evidence needed to show that you were not a trustworthy person. Imagine the conversation between Trifonov and the next post commander: “Listen, babushka, Karamazov and I had a great relationship right up until he got recalled. You should let me invest that money for you as well. I swear that you will get every penny back. So long as I have need of you, you’ll be fine; I’m totally trustworthy. I never broke a trust that was still useful to me. Now, what do you say?” Who would accept that deal without putting safeguards in place to give Trifonov incentive to keep to the deal? Isn’t putting those kinds of safeguards in place precisely NOT what it is to trust another person? In short, I’m not particularly convinced by Hardin’s position.

Yet, however frustrated I might be with Hardin’s encapsulated interest account, I owe much of my own thinking to his position on trust. Most notably, he argues against conflating trusting and entrusting, which seems to be the horse I am riding these days. I hope to get to that particular argument, and its effect on our conception of trust, here in another day or two.

What, then, can be learned from my origin story? My interest in trust is for the concept as more substantial than simply an aspect of our ethical interests – I’m concerned with more than providing a justification for when it is appropriate to accept the testimony of others. My interest in trust is for something that is non-cognitive – trusting is not a conscious choice but the kind of interpretation that we give to things. And trusting is a justification for actions but is not, itself, an action.

My position is thus historically located but is it historically dependent? It has been suggested that “trust” is not a term shared by all cultures; Hardin points out that the Chinese had to invent a word for “trust” in the 1960’s. I’m not convinced that this assessment is correct. Certainly “trust” as it is instantiated in legal and political conversations may be lacking in other cultures but, as the preceding should show, my interest is not particularly in the term but rather in the thing that we do. This seems to be much more universal. The problem is not whether any culture recognizes something like encapsulated interests but rather whether we, as human beings, do the kind of thing that Luhmann suggests – is there an interpersonal shorthand that we use to understand the behaviors of others? On this I think my position is not dependent on its historical location at all. Others, I am sure, will feel differently.

Stage 13

2011-07-15T11:02:00.001-04:00

For example, take Thor Hushovd and David Moncoutie. They are one minute and fifteen second behind Jeremy Roy with 22km remaining in the stage. It is all downhill from here. There speed is somewhere in the neighborhood of 50kph. Both Thor and David want to catch Jeremy. It is likely that they can only do that if they work together. But David knows that Thor will dominate him if they are together at the finish. So, what should David do? Should he cooperate with Thor and catch Jeremy or should David ride Thor wheel, let Thor do all the work, and hope that this tires Thor out enough that David has a chance at the end? The latter reduces the chances of catching Jeremy but the former reduces the chances that David will win. For David to even have a chance to take the stage he must catch Jeremy.

You'd think that this would mean that David should absolutely cooperate with Thor but he isn't. David is letting Thor do all the work. If Thor wants the win then Thor has to take it. David is, quit literally, a free rider on Thor.

UPDATE: with 6 km to go Thor and David have closed the gap to 15 seconds. But, and this is the amazing part, David is refusing to move forward and help Thor. But Thor is pissed that David won't and, so, Thor has stopped trying to catch Jeremy. So, Jeremy was in view - they could see him - but because David wouldn't cooperate, Thor decide not to cooperate either. They lost the time that they had gained.

With 4 km to go, Thor has decided that he can't get David to help (David had the upper hand in the stand-off - Thor really wants the stage) and that he is going to catch Jeremy himself...or not. Thor seems content, for now, to let Jeremy sit just in view. The end of the race should be impressive.

3km to go. Here it is. On a small rise, Thor hit the gas and dropped David. He then caught Jeremy and quickly dropped Jeremy. David could have cooperated with Thor and been on his wheel into the finish but he played around and Thor dropped him. Now, it looks like David will get second place, which he would likely have gotten even if he had helped Thor, so maybe it is a push. But, it seems to me that David lost here because of competitive behavior.

Le Tour: Stage 10

2011-07-12T11:05:00.000-04:00

I love the Tour de France.

Nothing in this post is particular to the 10th stage - I merely thought it important to locate what I was watching now.

Usually, when I get excited about the tour and want to write something it is about rational choice theory. I would promise to write a future post about the choices made during the Tour but as we move out of the long flat stages into the mountains the choices of the breakaway become less striking. That is, the failures and successes of cooperation are most evident in the early days.

Today I am interested in cheating. Not the kind of cheating that makes it onto the front pages of the newspaper - not doping scandals. The Tour has made a pledge his year to be 'clean'. Some cyclists are even sporting what must be the equivalent of a straight-edge X on their bikes. Good for all of them. Doping is, also, an issue for another day.

The cheating that fascinates me today is the little kind evident in the "Magic Spanner." When a cyclist has fallen off the bike, gotten into a wreck, blown a tire, or for some other reason (save, I think, a ‘natural break’) the team car will usually pull up alongside the rider and adjust his breaks. The mechanic must hold onto the bike during this process and, so, the car is providing a little push to the cyclist as he struggles to catch up to the pack. This is, technically, against the rules. A cyclist may not gain advantage from an external source. Officially, this is stated “[s]lipstreaming or being pulled along by a motor vehicle, whether from the front, back or side as well as any grasping- hold of the bicycle or vehicle is forbidden under all circumstances.” (Article 7 “Rules of the Race”)

To reiterate, a rider can be penalized, fined, suspended, and even thrown off the Tour for holding onto, slipstreaming, or being pushed by a vehicle (they can also be penalized I they get assistance from a spectator while riding in the mountains – but I can’t find the specific rule addressing that) and yet every rider gets exactly this kind of assistance. There are, of course, exemptions for medical care but you cannot watch any Tour stage without seeing, at some point, footage of a rider working his way back through the autos or seeing a mechanic hanging precariously out of a speeding car with his fingers dangerously close the rapidly revolving spokes. The violation of this rule is ubiquitous.

Now, some who are reading this might be thinking “of course they all break the rule, bunch of cheaters they are, just look how common the use of drugs and doping is with them.” I think that it would be a mistake to conflate the violation of doping with the violation of slipstreaming behind a car and it is, in some sense, my to make that point today.

One criticism against Kant’s Categorical Imperative is that it is too stringent. This is, in fact, a fear about ethics in general – if the rules are too strict then not only will people violate the strict rule but that violation will encourage ignoring all the rules. This concern is, I think, overstated but, in Kant’s case, it is at least understandable – it is an imperative that is categorical, after all. That is, for the CI, there literally are no exceptions. Of course, it is not entirely clear that the CI is meant to apply to something like the Tour. Kant has another type of imperative that might be more appropriate here – the Hypothetical Imperative. It turns out that a prohibition against slipstreaming cannot be universalized, which is a requirement of the CI – act only on that maxim that you can, at the same time, will to be a universal law. Clearly, we cannot will “no slipstreaming” to be a universal law so it is no violation of the CI for a rider to slipstream.

A Hypothetical Imperative works differently though – if you want X then you should Y (or alternately, “not Y”). Even here, it is hard to make sense of the violation of that is slipstreaming. ‘If you do not want to be disqualified, then you should not slipstream’ might work but, notice, if you aren’t that concerned about a DQ then you don’t really have the motivation not to slipstream. Suppose, then, that winning the Tour (of even staying on it today) is more important to you than a DQ – as it might be if you’ve dropped off the back of the peloton; the choice is surely lose versus maybe lose. This might seem to leave us with a different conundrum – what justification do we have for following rules at all? Save that question for another day.

Back to the point – the rule against slipstreaming is consistently ignored. The answer is, I think, surprisingly simple and accessible. The rules for the TDF (and any game, really) is to make the play and the competition more exciting and interesting. The rules are not there merely to provide obstacles to the players. So, the rule against slipstreaming is stop people from getting an unfair advantage – and it is worth remembering that in the early days, before television, the riders were often far away from the watching eyes of the world. A rider, who has wrecked and is trying to get back in-touch is not getting an unfair advantage – that rider is trying to get back into competition not to get ahead of it. We ignore minor instances because we recognize that minor instances are insignificant in the grand scheme. More importantly the Tour officials are, impressively in the modern era, allowing for flexibility – there no official quantification of a maximum amount of time allowed in slipstream.

We’ve lost this kind of flexibility in most other areas in our lives. It would be nice if we could get it back.

Taxes

2011-06-30T13:18:00.000-04:00

I was listening to Fahreed Zakaria on Fresh Air while driving today. He was talking to Terri about taxes as a percentage of GDP. I think Fahreed is a fairly bright guy and I wish the discussion of taxes would happen at the level that he is capable of instead of the level of pure negation. But his discussion reminded me of some troubles that I have with whole enterprise.

I'm always suspect of the overall value of raising taxes on industry and corporations because I tend to think that the increased tax rates will result in an increase in costs to consumers. That is, I don't expect companies to take a hit. The President recently spoke of the need and his expectation business leaders would step up and 'do the right thing.' I don't share his optimism. The oil companies are a good example here.

In 2008 we had a bit of an oil crisis. A storm on the Gulf of Mexico knocked out some production facilities that messed up the supply. Demand increased (but not because it got larger but because supply decreased). In Atlanta, gas stations ran out. Prices, obviously, increased in response to the decrease in supply. Profits went through the roof. Exxon became posted the greatest profit of any company ever. Let me emphasize this, it wasn't that Exxon saw their gross sales increase (as one might expect given an increase in sales price) they also saw their profit increase. So, Exxon made more money on less product. Good for them.

We saw a similar thing happen when we started bombing Libya. Libya was the source of, something like, 2% of US oil but that instability increased costs to consumers by about 50 cents a gallon. No American oil company was affected by the instability in Libya they were producing the same good at the same rates. Only now, they got to charge more for it. We didn't run out of supply. Only the price was affected.

Now suppose that we add a ten cent sales tax to each gallon of oil. Who do we think is going to feel that increase? Are the companies going to accept a decrease in their profit margin? Doubtful. And this is important. The small business owner, the gas station, will absolutely feel the pinch of this; they aren't the ones making record profits. The gas station must raise it's prices or go out of business. This might suggest that we should tax barrels of oil instead but I am skeptical that oil companies will let that eat into their profits. They have grown accustomed to making the amount of profit that they are - they won't want to relinquish it.

Here then is the problem. Raising taxes might be necessary in order to balance the budget but raising taxes is going to hurt consumers more than it will decrease profits of large corporations. So, how do we help the people at the bottom?

I think the crux of the issue is that we have accepted the position that profit is the ultimate motive. I need to be clear here; I favor competition and a free-market system. I am not advocating government control of industry (though I do think certain industries are better left to governments than profit seeking enterprises). Instead, we need to focus on the culture morays that allows for the kind of conspicuous profit whoring that we current allow. Again, I'm not against profit - it motivates well - but I am against a CEO making 1000 times what the average person working for that company makes. We need to change society's attitude about making profit - we need to get to the point where a CEO would be embarrassed among her peers to have it revealed that her lowest employees is not making a living wage while she is getting a 5 million bonus this year. Such disregard for human lives should be discouraged.

Legislating this is not, I think, the answer. Not that I oppose legislating social issues (making discrimination illegal was a great thing). In this case, I just don't think it would work. We need, therefore, to work towards an egalitarian society; we need to work towards sharing the belief that my success cannot be at the expense of others.

I'm not entirely sure how to achieve this but a start is to show that Ayn Rand is horribly horribly misguided.

Trust: defining the problem

2011-06-27T15:49:00.000-04:00

Is there really a trust problem?

For most of us the answer is "no." We trust, we distrust, life goes on. We don't really stay up nights worrying how we will resolve our trust problems. We do sometimes whether we should trust another or whether we were right to have trusted in the past but, generally, the trust is an unobstrusive part of our lives. We recognize it most when it is broken (Onora O'Neill, I think). In this sense trust is not like other problems that we might face - it isn't physician assisted suicide, or abortion, or affirmative action, or unregulated gun ownership: problems about which there is some disagreement.

But trust is a concept worth exploring precisely because it is an important part of each of our lives. Sissella Bok suggested that trust is the atmosphere in which all our other actions take place. Onora O'Neill points out that it is nearly impossible to go through the day without trusting someone somewhere with something. How pervasive trust is, however, depends on hat we take trust to be and there is no consensus on what trust is. Russell Hardin holds an epistemological account; Karen Jones considers trust as an affective attitude; Annette Baier sees trust as a kind of feeling. What we think trust is changes the way we deal with it. There is a lot of talk these days about how we, as a nation, trust government less; how there is less trust in society. But what can that mean if we don't have a clear conception of what, exactly, trust is? An epistemological account treats trust as a kind of knowledge; we have theories about knowledge. You thought you were trusting but, it turns out that you lacked one of the requisite features of knowledge and so were not. Trust as a feeling can't be rejected in that way. So, the problem of trust is about its nature.

Again, we might be inclined to ignore this problem. "Sure sure," we say, "it has some conceptual deficiencies but it still works so lets move onto some real problems." But, it turns out that trust might be the biggest problem that we have. I don't mean that a lack of trust in government creates inefficiency and, if it becomes pronounced enough, can lead to the total collapse of our nation. If Bok is correct and trust is the atmosphere in which all of our other actions take place, I think she is, then trust pervades each and every interaction. And, if out conception does, indeed, alter the way we deal with trust, I think it does, then each and every interaction we have is being affected by our lack of consensus on trust.

O'Neill pointed out that many of us drive cars, which are incredibly dangerous. Or, more commonly, we purchased food produced by others; recent e coli scares at home and in Europe should make this point salient. We trust a lot. But calling this trust is to invoke a particular conception of trusting: we trust when we give over control of something important to us to another. It is a perfectly respectable position on trust, one of the most common in fact. I think almost everyone will recognize this account and will, more than likely, accept it, which begs the question "why did you claim that there was no consensus?" Because this account is, for most of us, pretheoretical - we simply don't think about it. But, when we do...

Why would this conception be a problem? It doesn't seem to capture our experience. For instance, on this account I would not trust my father - I haven't put anything important to me into his control in months, possibly years. Weirdly then, I trust the folks at Starbucks more than my own father (which, for some, who have had particularly bad parents, this might ring true) but most people would think that view absurd. Further, if trusting is to give over control then when asked "why did you give over control" we can no longer respond "because I trust so-and-so." That is, my trust in you is a reason to put something in your control and we lose this explanation when we take trusting to be the action of giving over control; or, in other words, entrusting (I will expand on this in depth in a later post). So, a perfectly reasonable account of trust, that we do it everyday when we give over control of things important to us to others, turns out not to explain trust at all but, instead, another, related concept.

But, one might still think that this is a semantic problem. It isn't. Suppose that the entrusting view is correct and we want to increase trust in society, which one must assume is the idea behind lamenting the current lack thereof. Then what we would want to do was get more people to more things important to them into the control of other people. We could institute really absurd policies like 'everyone who has a mortgage was trade that mortgage with another person whose home is of equal value thereby ensuring that lots of people would have something that was important to them in the control of another human being - whether or not I stayed in my house would be up to the person who was paying the mortgage on the building I lived in. Ridiculous, I know. Too ridiculous to take seriously? Probably. But consider that the very progress of our society should itself provide a substantial boost to trust - 200 years ago a majority of Americans were largely independent. Families lived on farms and produced most of their own food. They traded with a limited set of people that were all, generally, part of the local community. There wasn't much reliance on others. Now, on the other hand, most of us depend on others in systemic and profound ways - if putting something into the control of another is to trust then we should be swimming in it. But, we aren't.

Moreover, if trust is to give over control, then maybe we don't want to be trustworthy. I certainly want to be trusted sometimes but I may not want to be in control of other people's stuff very often and maybe not right now but you might be in a trusting mood and thus might put me in control of your stuff. At least, that would make sense if trusting was to be in control. I don't think that is what it is to trust though, not simply that anyway.

Trust is worth considering if only to sort out our relationship to it but I think it is far more important than that. My position is that we interpret the actions of others according to the trust we have in them. We take them to be acting positively when we trust and acting negatively when we distrust. If my account is correct than this is something that we all need to be aware of - it affects all of our interactions. It is this account that I will be defending in forthcoming posts.

Research

2011-06-26T12:59:00.000-04:00

I have several projects going right now.

1. Trust - an ongoing complex of issues that I work on. Right now, however, I am focusing on whether trust consists in three-parts or not. My position is not, that it consists in only two-parts. I am in the minority in this. Typically, we think about trust as being A trusts B in regards to C. I trust my Bettie with my Car. This makes sense in our practical usage but I claim that this is inaccurate to the experience. The three-part relationship describes entrusting not trusting. Trusting, on my account, is the term that describes our experience when we naturally and automatically give positive interpretations of the behaviors of others. I am, in effect, claiming that trust describes the state of interpreting behaviors in a positive light. Because all actions require some interpretation this does not describe a special set of circumstances. I'm working on the arguments for this now.

2. Mill's metaphysical conception of liberty. Folks get up in arms about the Harm Principle because it seems unclear just how broadly we should interpret "harm." I suggest that paying attention to Mill's conception of liberty as a metaphysical property, what he calls 'the philosophic problem of liberty' can help to shed light on the Harm Principle. I believe that because he makes this differentiation early in On Liberty (in the very first sentence, in fact) that it has been systematically overlooked.

3. Mill is doing Aristotle for Victorians. This is something I've said for a while but I finally spend some time on it after a discussion with a colleague. Honestly, I need to revise the claim but I like the way this one sounds. In fact, Mill is doing Plato for Victorians. That is, I take him to be a half-brother to Aristotle instead of a descendant of the Big A. The crux of the issue here is that Mill does not see himself as doing anything that opposes the ancients even though we tend to place Mill in opposition to Aristotle.

4. Challenge John Doris. I'm not sure how much I can be said to be working on this anymore or how much it really matters but, basically, Doris challenges the existence of robust character traits by focusing on recent experimental work. I argue that this work is incapable of providing the kind of proof that he is looking for, no matter how pervasive that work seems to be. In short, none of the work ever shoes that in all cases people will be absolutely ruled by the situations in which they are placed. There is always a minority of subjects that do not respond in the character challenging way. This might be insignificant in other arenas but in the realm of character this is extremely important. Although character can be divided into good and bad character traits it can also be divided into strong and weak characters. The data in question only shows that most people have weak characters not no character traits. But, Aristotle never argued anything different. It is hard to be the person of good character in part because it is difficult to have a strong character. All the data that Doris presents actually proves Aristotle's position.

5. Getting much farther from being active I have a paper on Moral Dilemmas that I need to develop further. I suggest that the discussion has reached a kind of stalemate, new arguments may be produced but the two sides aren't really hearing each other anymore. I suggest looking at the problem from a different angle. Instead of considering the dilemma from an agent centered position I consider it from the position of those to whom the obligations are owed; rather than look at the person who seems to be confronted with two separate but collectively unfulfillable obligations to save a life I look from the perspective of the person who we are obliged to save. My claim is that this reveals that the 'ought implies can' distinction only applies to actions that are, individually incapable of being fulfilled. That is, I argue that competing obligations provides an excuse for failing the obligation but the competing obligations do not cancel each other out. Moral dilemmas exist.

6. Moral illusions. I have only the briefest sketch of this. It comes from reading and talking to folks about the various illusions that the mind is faced with and then thinking about what kind of illusions we might face in the moral and ethical realm. I really like this idea and have almost nothing more to say about it.

Some Idle Thoughts About Private/Public Education

2011-04-23T12:52:00.002-04:00

A quick perusal of the cost of private primary and secondary education in the United States reveals one obvious fact: it is wicked expensive.

It seems that this expense is an inevitable result of market forces. A good school that can be selective about who it enrolls and who can set its own rate for tuition will become more expensive. So, it seems that any system that allows tuition to be set by private institutions, which can, at the same time, be selective about enrollment will necessarily create an imbalance in education. This imbalance will not be an imbalance of merit since the cost of attending the school will become prohibitively expensive for many - that is an obvious effect of a scarce commodity in a market economy.

We should recognize and admit this imbalance. What we should do about it, however, is far from obvious. It would seem to run counter to most of our accepted attitudes to prohibit the possibility of private education. But, if this private education promotes massive inequality, then it seems problematic.

One thing that seems obvious though is that school vouchers are not the answer. Vouchers will simply raise the tuitions of desirables schools without making education any more accessible. Because seats in premiere schools are limited those seats will always be a scarce commodity. The current tuitions are determined by the going rate relative to the perceived value of education at the school in particular (I am purposely ignoring the many instances of private schools that exist solely to segregate one population of students from another). Thus, the school's tuition depends on how much parents are able to pay in relation to what they see as important. Giving all parents an additional 7k (for example) will not result in more students having access to premiere educations. Instead, it will result in tuition hikes at premiere institutions - those institutions will, initially see an increase in applications but the increase in applications will result in an increase in selectivity. Once the number of applicants is narrowed by test scores or recommendations, there will still be an excess of applications at the premiere schools so some other method of selection will be employed. Because they can and because they are private institutions the tuition rate will rise. It is an inevitable result by an education driven by market forces.

This means that, even if we turn to a voucher system, our schools will very quickly return to their current unequal position. This lack of equality, to be clear, will not strictly be a matter of merit, which might be acceptable. It will, driven by market forces, be based on wealth. If a particular private school currently costs 10k then it will attract a particular segment of society (those that can afford 10k a year), which will limit the number of applicants. If the government then gives to any parent a 7k voucher for education, the cost to the parents for the school in question will become an effective 3k. 3k will increase the pool of families that can afford the school. Higher demand on the school will cause some increase in enrollment but the school will lose efficiency if it expands too much, so next it will seek to limit enrollments in another way - probably via test scores or personal interviews but, eventually, the school will turn to raising the rates (possibly because the increase in demand will allow the school to hire teachers that are themselves in greater demand). This will change the effective cost to the parents. Though it may not return quickly to the original effective 10k cost, it will rise until the pool of applicants is diminished - decreasing marginal return. Vouchers will only make private schools more expensive.

So, though I have direct answer for the public private debate. It seems obvious that vouchers should not be included - public subsidy of rampant inequality is unacceptable. Only one case seems an acceptable use of vouchers - schools that cannot select their students. Since the market force of selection drives up the price, making the premiere schools unattainable by those who lack the finances (though not the ability) the only way to ensure that vouchers do not simply raise the minimum rate is to remove from the institution the ability to be selective of who they enroll; a lottery would be the only way to guarantee that the school remains accessible to all.

Atlas Shurgged: The Movie

2011-04-20T11:22:00.002-04:00

I haven't seen it.

From everything that I have read, however, it fails miserably to fulfill the ideals that it purports to represent. By all accounts the film was made because the man who owned the rights to the film was running out of time on his lease. If the film had not started production, he would have lost the rights and, therefore, his investment.

One of the tenets of Rand's position is that no work should be done halfway. A carpenter who producers mediocre work simply because he wants to get his paycheck is a drain on society not a boon to it. Better that inadequate carpenter should get out of the way of those with talent and skill so that real things can be produced. On this view, making a movie merely to cash in on an investment is a drain on society. Producing substandard work, work that does not excel in ever respect runs contrary to every hero of every Rand novel ever.

Now, it might be argued that the movie is, in fact, revolutionary. On this interpretation, it would be the ignorant masses that fail to grasp the true power of the movie. This would be a view modeled after the The Fountainhead, where Roark's architectural brilliance was simply not recognized. He persevered though and one day achieved the fame he so richly desired. The movie in question though is Atlas Shrugged not The Fountainhead. In Atlas Shrugged, technological advancements that are objectively better are being systematically suppressed for some misguided notion of equality. Neither Roark nor Reardon would have hurried a production schedule merely to make a profit. Both invested lots of money, risking great loss, in order to produce products of exceptional quality.

it is, therefore, infinitely amusing that the attempt to put Rand's ideology on screen was driven by the crass concern for making the most money off the object and not by a concern for making the best possible product, cost and profit be damned.

I think Rand is a flake and a charlatan, that her arguments are flawed and that her position is unsustainable. But I think that devotees of Rand who fail to live by the principles that they claim to support are the worst kind of hypocrites and are, in fact, exactly the group of people Rand was targeting in her books and essays.

Top Twenty Hiring

2011-04-07T12:16:00.002-04:00

I'm not sure what I am supposed to take from this post.

Leiter ranks the schools. Then, having ranked them, he proceeds to show how many of the top twenty schools hire from the top twenty schools. Aside from showing that these schools can be terribly insular what I am to take from this?

When I worked at my college radio station, the station manager decided that we needed to put all the bands in the CMJ top twenty in heavy rotation. But we reported to the CMJ for the purpose of determining the top twenty. So, by using the top twenty to determine what songs we should play, we reinforced the top twenty rankings. This is vicious circularity.

The top twenty programs hire from the top twenty programs. Big deal. Far more interesting would be to show how many from the next twenty hire from the top twenty. or, alternatively, show how many at top twenty programs did not, in fact, graduate from top twenty programs. Or, how many unranked schools have professors from ranked schools.

If the purpose of the PGR is to rank graduate schools in philosophy (presumably as a guide to which schools produce the best graduates) then it would be more important to find out how many not good schools have graduates from good schools than it is to know how many good schools have graduates from good schools. That is, if everyone at the non-ranked schools is also from ranked departments, then being from a ranked department gives no special indication in the quality of the graduate. Likewise, if ranked departments regularly hire philosophers from unranked schools then, again, coming from a ranked program gives no special indication about the quality of the graduate.

merits or beliefs

2010-09-16T11:59:00.002-04:00

Some argue that we should be "judged on our merits and not on our beliefs and affiliations."I'm not sure that I agree.

On the surface this position makes a lot of sense. We all want to be treated as individuals and we all want our accomplishments to be recognized for their value (and not incidentally, for our ability to achieve them). None of us want to be stereotyped, pigeonholed, or otherwise judged based on seemingly tenuous relationships with external agents and agencies.

But the claim really isn't this simple. How are our merits distinct from our beliefs and affiliations? [see * for what I take to be a fairly standard criticism of "merit." What follows immediately is a discussion about the connection between merit and beliefs/affiliations]

For example, can one be a very good (have merit as a) human resources manager while being a member of the Ku Klux Klan? If merit is distinct from our beliefs and affiliations then one should be able to. One can imagine that if having merit as a resourcer is simply to be able to shuffle bodies around bureaucracies, to fill out paper work, or to optimize vacation days, then one's beliefs external to that position ought not interfere. However, my beliefs and affiliations surely impact the judgments that I make about things that are connected to those beliefs so it seems inconceivable that my performance of my job could fail to be effected by my beliefs and affiliations.

In the human resources case, if one is wholly supportive of the KKK, then one would believe that whites are superior to blacks (morally and/or intellectually) so that when one evaluates particular employees for possible promotion or hiring or assignment changes that belief would influence the decision. The KKK member would likely lean towards hiring whites, even in cases where an external observer would claim that the black was more qualified or had more merit. If so, then the KKK member, wouldn't be that good at his job and would, in a very relevant sense, lack a particular merit of being a human resource person.

Are their any significant beliefs that don't share this feature? Could a lawyer who opposes the equal rights amendment and the degree to which we currently carry the first amendment have the "merit" to be the new lead at the ACLU? If ability to write a clear brief and present at court is independent from what one believes on the topic but can clear writing be THAT independent? we like to think so - I'm not convinced.

Which means that I am not convinced that it is possible to separate your merit from your beliefs and affiliations.

*Merit is one of these terms that everyone is familiar with but yet very few are particularly clear on. Being capable of typing 60 words a minute is a merit for a secretary but not so much for a construction worker. If merit means skill, then the claim is only that we want to be judged based on our skill. However, in most of the cases that these type of position is stated, merit is far more nebulous than merely referring to skill.

Instead, merit includes a cluster of abilities among which is intelligence. But intelligence is notoriously hard to pinpoint. A very smart person might not test well or might not work well under pressure or might be "smart" only in particular arenas. Charisma certainly plays a role in merit, enough that it can make up for shortcomings in intelligence but obviously not enough to make up for incompetence. But that further muddies the waters. If there were some objective test for capacity to counsel, then a particular man might be able to score very high and yet in real world applications he might not be able to perform - one can imagine that some women might be more comfortable being counseled about their abuse by a woman then they would by a man.

This seems to indicate that there are instances when one's sex might be a benefit to one's position, that it might be included in the set of "merit." And if this is true, then it seems to follow also that race can fit as well.

Not ground breaking

2010-03-23T09:50:00.004-04:00

To be sure, what I am currently thinking is not some world changing thought that others will read and have their minds blown. Nothing so dramatic. I was reading this about the November elections and so struck by what the break-down (it was Arkansas that did it) revealed about how we choose political leaders. For those in decision theory, this is nothing surprising. But, it appears that if we all choose candidates strategically then we would likely choose differently than we currently do. For instance (looking at Arkansas), I assume that Lincoln is lised first because Lincoln will most likely be the candidate of the democrats, Lincoln and Halter are effectively tied when compared to the Republicans most likely choice but only Halter is listed as having any chance of winning in November (against Coleman). If we considered the aggregate then Halter looks like a better option; same likelihood versus the expected opponent (with a lower likelihood against Baker and a higher one against Hendren) but actually has a chance to win against at least one of the opponents. The Republicans should, I think obviously, choose Boozman.
However, we choose candidates, at least we are told to, based on which one we like the best.
Does this mean that we need to reconsider how it is that we elect people?

Moving Forward

2010-03-23T09:43:00.001-04:00

I have decided that I need to increase my web-presense. The first step is habituating myself to actually posting more often. Starting today.

Shopdropping

2009-12-10T12:20:00.002-05:00

It is all the rage!

Honestly, I was impressed with the first instance I heard of it. I thought it was an awesome idea. Then, after reading more and learning just how prevalent it is I became slightly unenthused about it - for every artist creating limited edition prints and slipping them into the "Art" section at Ikea there are about a billion personal trainers dropping their business cards in diet and work-out books.

Still, for all that I am now ambivalent tending towards "don't care" I find this kind of thing amusing;

"At Powell's Bookstore in Portland, Ore., religious groups have been hitting the magazines in the science section with fliers featuring Christian cartoons, while their adversaries have been moving Bibles from the religious section to the fantasy/science-fiction section."

Its like a little subversive war going on. I imagine it to be similar to the war between vampires and werewolves which happens around us daily without most ever becoming aware of. Legions of religious pamphleteers battle against a coalition of the armies of agnostics and atheists. I can see it now, like Patton and Rommell in the deserts of North Africa.

Legion leader - "Gah! Our bibles have been undermined by being in the fantasy section again, quick send a second battalion to deliver our witty cartoons that homurously challange the theory of evolution."

A-Marshall - "Nuts! We left our flank open to those pamphlateers, now we have an resurgence of doubters. Damn those climate scientists for not destroying their documentation! We'll have to put twice as many troops into the breach to try to push back that bulge before it bursts."

blah

2009-12-04T10:10:00.004-05:00

I'm tired of hearing the phrase "the last, best hope."

I thought it was cheesy and clumsy when I heard it in the title sequence to Babylon 5 and it has not gotten less cheesy and clumsy since then.

Also, it is overly dramatic.

Also, if it is our last hope, then it follows that it is our best; "last best" is redundant.

Let it go people

Save the Forest

2007-04-29T02:16:00.000-04:00

Where has all the time gone?

I don't know.

I watched a little indie flik called "Save the Forest" this evening. Its weak. I applaud their effort though. If this ever becomes a cult phenomenon I will retch.

no other big news, except that now that I realize that this is connected to my gmail I might actually post more.

Why aren't you talking to me

2006-05-14T00:59:00.000-04:00

I have no excuse.

That's not true, I have a plethora of excuses, I just have no excuse for this.

Okay, that's not true either. I have an excuse for this I'm just not talking about it.

Right, so that is not quite right either. I am talking about my excuse I am just saying what it is.

Suffice it to say that I have one and trust me you will find it most acceptable.

Mind the Gap

2005-11-09T01:15:00.000-05:00

I have to admit that between the late-night soft-core and the overplayed recent releases Showtime plays some really neat movies. I saw most of Eric Shaeffer's fairly recent movie Mind the Gap this evening. I really like this actor/writer/director. I liked him way back when he made If Lucy Fell and I adore his tv show Starved. I can't quiet put it into words but there is something very thoughtful about the movies he makes.

He does seem to put a lot of himself into his work, maybe thats just an external interpretation though. I don't love his work the way I love movies by Wes Anderson but I certainly will watch Schaeffer's stuff when I have the chance.

I recommend it.

2046

2005-09-30T22:33:00.000-04:00

I didn't realize this was a sequel to In the Mood for Love. Yeah, maybe it was obvious to everyone else out there but I pretty much went and saw this movie just because of the director. I watched the preview and thought it looked gorgeous but I didn't really care to read a review or even a synopsis. I knew I'd go see it anyway. So, I just never learned that little fact.

Turns out it was a very pretty movie, although the theater I was in didn't have the best projection. The blacks weren't as black as I was hoping for. And the sound was a little sketchy too. Still, damn fine movie. I'm not sure what to really say about it. It sort of sticks with me but I can't say exactly why. There are any number of adjectives I can use to describe it but they will, in the end, not say very much at all about the film. If you like these sorts of foreign films, then go see it. If you don't know what "these sorts of foreign films" refers to, then don't go see it.

The Fountainhead

2005-09-10T01:27:00.000-04:00

Years ago, I think during my second year in college, I took a film class. We watched a lot of very esoteric movies and some not so esoteric movies. One of the films we watched was The Fountainhead. I had never heard of Ayn Rand at the time. I watched the movie and was struck by it. I thought it was great. I instantly went out and bought her books.

At this point I am kind of embarrassed to mention that fact. I have read the works of Ayn Rand. I read them and found them lacking.

In them I found a number of characters with some very admirable qualities and yet, in the end, they aren't really admirable people. The Fountainhead was on tv tonight. She's overly melodramatic and her dialogue is stilted. All that can be forgiven. Its her ethics that can't. But I'm not here to grouse about her ethics.

What is good about her heroes is their integrity. Its the integrity of her protagonists that initially drew me in. It's their strength of character that attracted me. But otherwise they are bereft. They're not Neitzsche's ubermensch. They're not even Aristotle's virtuous people. Where would they be without their talent? She makes it seem as if all it takes is stubborn streak a mile wide. And whats worse is that her line of thought, when accepted uncritically by the masses produces nothing more than a crazed fascination with relativism.

I wonder how Rand would feel if she found out that she was Ellsworth Toohey.

The Fantastic Suck

2005-07-28T14:30:00.000-04:00

In 1994 the company that held the option on The Fantastic Four comic made it into a movie because if they didn't they would lose the rights. And what a glorious sucktacular extravaganza it is.

It has bad everything. I mean it. Really. Only watch this if you want to revel in the comedy of a crappy movie.

Having thoroughly panned the film it does have something going for it besides the pure campiness of its suckitude. It is really faithful to the 1970's and 1980's Fantastic Four comics. The outfits, the bad guys, the thing, the jokes are all like you would find in a comic of that time period. No updating here.

I say watch it if you can find it, turn it into a drinking game, lord it over all the unitiated.

The Island

2005-07-23T03:52:00.000-04:00

I actually enjoyed this movie. It was fun. Michael Bay needs to chill the hell out on the shaky cam though.

Lots O' Stuff

2005-06-07T02:16:00.000-04:00

I've seen a number of movies recently, part and parcel to my lack of motivation to do anything else.

I saw the original Sabrina, which was quite good even with the whole creepiness of Bogart hooking up with a woman who couldn't possibly be older than 21.

Lost Horizon. I love Frank Capra movies. No, seriously. I LOVE Frank Capra movies. However, I don't get this as his most monumental work. I don't even get it as one of his best. I think it does exhibit his penchant for optimistism. And I think it showcases well his desire to have all people exist in with brotherly love. But I don't think the story works so well with his trademark happy endings. I submut to you, dear reader, that this story is a case where the failure to pursue the ideal that has been laid before you should result in your inability to ever regain it. Either that or the film should have focused much more on the attempt to return to Shangri La instead of the initial investigation of it. And, as an additional note, I think it is hilarious how tibetan monks that have been influenced by a european preist managed to create such wonderful Art-Deco architecture.

The Big Blue. Luc Besson is great and Jean Reno is my hero. Rosanna Arquette I can do without. The movie didn't have nearly the dreamlike quailty that I had been led to believe it did but that in no way means that it wasn't good. Musically, it is clearly and 80's film. Stylistically it goes way beyond the 80's. I'm not entirely sure why the depths to which these men were diving needed to be blown all out of proportion. Jacques Mayal never dove to the depths that the character based on him does in the movie but the depths to which he did dive were truly truly inpressive.

The Devil and Miss Jones. Get your mind out of the gutter, I'm talking about the old black and white staring Jean Arthur. This was great. Too bad its not available on DVD.

I've seen Revenge of the Sith and I'm not talking about it. No, I won't. If I start I'll go on for days.Lucas needs to learn to let go.

Groundhog Day (again and again and again). Damn I love this movie. I think it is one of the most underrated movies ever. I think you really ought to watch this movie too much, just so that you can begin to understand what Bill Murray's character is going through.

I'm certain that I have seen more but I can't remember what they all are right now. Maybe later.

The Big Lebowski

2005-05-29T01:38:00.000-04:00

I can't really explain why I continue to watch movies on network television that I own on DVD. but I do. If I had tried to pick a movie out of my collection it would not have been The Big Lebowski but since it is on Comedy Central I can't seem to resist.

I really enjoy this movie. I wouldn't call it my favorite Coen Brothers movie, that might be Raising Arizona or The Hudsucker Proxy, but this one is really well made. There is so much about it that is so well done, so well done that it is often overlooked. If you haven't seen this movie, you should. If you saw it before and didn't like it, give it another try. If you loved it then take this as the excuse you need to watch it again.

Love Object

2005-04-09T03:41:00.000-04:00

A bizarre film. It has Udo Kier and Rip Torn in it, neither of whom are the main character but, since I saw them both in the first minute I watched, is what got me interested enough to continue. I thought it was going to be an story about an akward young man finally finding love. See, he buys this uber-expensive sex doll and makes her look like a woman in his office, a young woman who actually seems to like him. I figured that at some point they would get together, she would find out about the doll but they would get over his complete inability to deal with real peopl.

Boy was I wrong. Yes, they do get together and she does find out about the doll but she never gets over it and that is when he becomes a lunatic. The movie suddenly, in the middle, becomes a horror/suspense film from the comedic/drama that it had been.

It really creeped me out though. And there was something about the way it treated sex that kind of bugged me. Like, when the character would go to a porn shop all the folks in it would have open sores and as the story progressed he developed them too. I'm down with the idea that a depraved inside is reflected on the outside, forget how medieval the notion is, but it seemed that every character that was interested in sex in any way was portrayed as a pervert. Case in point; Udo's character, who never does anything wrong the whole movie is considered by the other character's as a wacko, he is the only other character (besides the hero) who is depicted as having sex.

It could be a nice commentary on the dangers of fixating on inanimate objects but you be the judge.

City of Ghosts

2005-03-28T19:38:00.000-05:00

I saw this on tv the other night. It sucked me in. I liked the way it opened and the music was interesting. At some point in the middle I got online and looked up who made it, Matt Dillion directs as well as writes and stars. Its a neat movie, one worth seeing, I think.

Weird thing about it though. It is exactly the kind of thing that makes me never want to go to non-western nations, I mean that not geographically. Call me a closed minded American if you want. I just don't like the idea of any place where I can be wandering down the street and get the piss beat out of me for no apparent reason. Okay, that can happen anywhere but you know what I am talking about right?

Don't get me wrong, I would love to see the landscape of a country like Cambodia. I would love to visit the temples and such. I just don't think I could handle the strangeness of it all. Now, it is probably the case that these places are nearly so bad as they seem in the films that like to use them as backdrops. Films that choose to use them play up the strangeness. But it seems that you need to be a certain type of person to get along as any other than a bumbling tourist in certain places of the world. I think this is true of everywhere, come to think of it. I just can manage to not be a bumbling tourist better in Paris then I think I would be in Phnom Penh. I'm not saying this because I am proud of it, I'm saying it because I think it is something that is true about me.

So, city of ghosts is better than the 5.4 stars it is getting rated on the imdb 9most of those folks as asses though).

Alien Apocalypse

2005-03-28T03:20:00.000-05:00

I watched this for two reasons: it had Bruce Campbell and it was pretty much the only thing on. I think that latter was what let me finish watching it.

Why does the SciFi channel make such horrendously bad movies? Do I need to mention a little gem called "Mansquito"? Here's the quick and dirty way to tell production quality; look at the fake beards. If the beards look like something you could buy at the party store then its a crappy movie.

Alien Apocalypse is chock full of crappy beards. I used to joke that the way to tell when a movie sucked was that it had a monkey as a main character. Like, how bad is the idea of a movie when adding a monkey sounds like a good idea? I even began to use that as a rating system, "that movie needs a monkey."

Well, this movie does indeed need a monkey but it also causes me to create a new rating, the shitty ass beard rating. Not every movie that has craptacular beards is going be to worthy of a monkey. These ratings are adjacent but not coextensive. The SAB rating is going to apply to production quality not the quality of the content.

Even the mighty Bruce couldn't make this movie B-quality. Weak all around, watch something else.

Bringing Up Baby

2005-03-12T12:42:00.000-05:00

I got the recent 2 disc special edition of Bringing Up Baby. Its a fine film. I'm not sure if I buy the "Greatest Director Ever" claim that at least one of my friends makes.

Here's the thing I don't get about it though. I'm all for the character of the fliberty-jibbet but at what point does Katharin Hepburn fall in love with Cary Grant? It doesn't seem to be the moment she meets him on the golf course. So, the next moment would be in the bar. Except she doesn't really seem interested in him when she first sees him in the bar. So, she only seems to fall for him when she talks to the psychiatrist guy, which is just plain odd.

And she does some really mean things in this movie. She wantonly and malisicously drags this guy away from his wedding, the day he is getting married (and no, I am not letting him off the hook for going to some woman's apartment the day he is to get married). What's up with that?

Anyway, its a good movie, well worthy seeing.

February

2005-03-05T14:19:00.000-05:00

If my posts are to be believed I didn't watch a single movie all month. This is clearly not true. Though, if I remeber correctly, I only saw one movie in the theater last month., whic was The House of Flying Daggers. That was a gorgeous movie, though I don't think I liked it nearly as much as Hero.

I saw a few movies again. Lifeforce, a movie about space vapires directed by the same guy that did Poltergeist. It cracks me up that in the liner notes they talk about how Tobe Hooper was looking for just the right script to follow up his success with Poltergeist. Seriously, this guy had options, and Lifeforce is what he chose.

Airplane! came on tv the other week. Watching it on tv sucks, they cut out way too much stuff. That all the cursing is cut out is no surprise. But how about these examples. There is a scene, part of a series with these two characters, in which a young boy is talking to a young girl. What makes these scenes so funny is to see behavior of adults appear in children. It points out how ridiculous the behavior of adults is. In one particular scene the boy brings the girl a cup of coffee, he then asks her if she would care for any cream, her response on television is simply "No, I take my coffee black" but in the original movie it is "No, I take my coffee black, like I take my men". Did this really need to be cut? Another cut scene involves one of the people Ted Striker is talking to. Everybody he sits next to committs suicide. The last guy he is sitting next to before heading to the cockpit the first time appears to be from India and he is going to committ suicide by lighting himself on fire. The scene where Striker is asked to head to the cockpit is still there but on television the image is trimmed so that the Indian fellow is not seen. I understand how this might be reminiscient of the whole September 11 terrorist attacks but isn't this pushing the association too far? Not every person who wears a turbin is a terrorist. Not every act of suicide is a terrorist act. Not every flame in an airplane has to do with knocking down buildings.

I haven't seen Airplane! not on TV in a long time. I remember seeing this movie as a child in the theater. At one point in the movie, when the plane is out of control, a woman bounces across screen topless. Back when I first saw this, my sister said out loud in the theater "This movie is rated PG?" and everyone laughed. I had thought that this scene was replaced in the tv version when Striker says "its starting to shimmy" and they show the jello and the woman in the yellow shirt. But no, it seems tv just cuts the lopless part altogether.

Another movie I hadn't seen in a while was Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. In fact, the last time I had seen that movie I had not visited Savannah. Since then I had two friends who moved there and I got to visit a number of times. Its stranger to watch it now, both because of how much they get right about the city and how much they get wrong. Also, I had, for some reason, always thought it was Juaqin Phoenix who played the guy who gets murdered but it is, in fact, Jude Law. Its weird how Englishmen can do over the top southern accents so well, but even still Jude messes his up now and then.

Samurai Champloo

2005-01-12T01:02:00.000-05:00

This is anime and its damn cool. Cool like Cowboy Bepop but instead of jazzy its trip-hop and instead of in the future its in some kind of futurized past. If you like anime, then you need to see this.

High Noon

2005-01-06T20:26:00.000-05:00

Gary Cooper won an academy award for his role in this 1952 western. According to the jacket this is the movie that made Grace Kelley a star. If that means anything to you, great, otherwise trust me, it’s great. It is a story that is, by now, classic. A lone man stands up to a gang of baddies, even though it’s no longer his job and nobody else in town wants him to. He stands up for what is right and decent and risks not only his relationship but his life as well. Lloyd Bridges is fantastic in it. And let’s not forget Harry Morgan.

It’s odd to go back and see movies in something other than chronological order. What is important and interesting about them become skewed from what was important and interesting about them when they came out. This movie was, for the time, pretty dark. The town turns its back on the man had saved them. He is left to stand alone against someone who has vowed to kill him. Even his friends won’t help. But for as dark as this is, he still does the right thing; there is still a sense of optimism here. It is important to do the right thing even though doing so endangers your life and gets you no reward.

So, here’s what’s cool. Blazing Saddles spoofs of High Noon as much as it spoofs Destry Rides Again (which is a fine fine film). The song that keeps drifting through Mel Brooks’ classic is the theme song to High Noon. The town abandons it’s would be protector to the gangs that are seeking to take them over. And Harry Morgan is in both of them.

Also, you can see High Plains Drifter as a post-modern retelling of High Noon. The main plot points are virtually identical except that the role of the marshal is played in reverse. Rather than being in town until right before the bad guys arrive this new marshal only shows up right before the bad guys arrive (just like how the bad guys arrive in High Noon). And instead of protecting those who ignore him, Eastwood’s “marshal” takes advantage of them and then abandons them.

So there you go. High Noon, if you like westerns, watch it.

The Life Aqautic

2005-01-06T20:03:00.000-05:00

I saw the Life Aquatic earlier this week and, okay, so I am a big Wes Anderson fan. Something about his movies just makes me giggle. This one was no exception. Bill Murray was fantastic. Willem Dafoe was cracking me up. Owen Wilson’s Kentucky accent was bad but he is still funny. It’s a really good movie and I’m not just saying that because Cate Blanchett is in it. The movie was very pretty and had many of the same stylistic qualities as The Royal Tennenbaums. I wonder where Kumar Pallana went to though. I love all the Cousteau stuff that shows up in the movie. The style of the sea creatures is really amusing and completely unrealistic. The music is good but then what do you expect from Mark Mothersbaugh? All in all, this movie is definitely worth seeing but it is totally cracked out, keep that in mind. I imagine that Anderson is going to have to reel himself in a bit on the next one (which appears to be animated, so maybe not).

New Direction

2004-11-14T14:25:00.000-05:00

I have been failing miserably to attain the goal I set for myself when I created this blog. I won't bore anyone, including myself, with a list of the reasons why this failure has occured. Instead, I'm going to try taking this blog in a new direction.

See, I often feel as if I have nothing to say, or at least nothing important to say, and I really don't want to treat this weblog as an open diary. So, I am planning to begin writing about something on which I always have something to say: Movies.

The idea is that I will write something that resembles a review about movies that I watch. This could be about movies I've seen many many times or movies that I have seen for the first time. I will, more than likely, state a position on whether others should see the film but don't expect very stringent endorsments or denials often. I am very forgiving of movies and yet in certain respects I am unwilling to forgive at all. If I manage to write enough of these then you will see for yourself.

This doesn't mean that if the mood strikes me I won't post on other topics, not at all. It just means that I am not going to have nearly as many excuses not to write as I used to.

Long Time Gone

2004-10-19T01:19:00.000-04:00

Yeah, so I haven't done such a good job of writing every day. At least not in this venue. The thing is, a couple of weeks ago, I figured out how much reading I have to do this semester in order to get all the work done that I need to get done. Let me tell you; it ain't pretty.

So, what do I have to say for myself? Nothing.

What new has happened? Well, my mom came to town. That was cool. I got to see my dad. That was cool too. Otherwise its just school school school. Oh yeah, and work work work.

Maybe later I'll have something intelligent to say.

Conviction

2004-08-10T22:13:00.000-04:00

Recently I was having a discussion with a friend about the state of politics in American today. To say that I am disilussioned is an understatement. My friend told me that there were in fact good candidates out there, folks with conviction. I responded that convictions were overrated, "you could be seriously committed to killing babies but that wouldn't make it right". My friend missed the point.

Convictions are dangerous things. I'm not saying that convictions are bad mind you. It is not the conviction that has moral value but rather the content of that conviction. This is what makes them so dangerous. Convictions blind us to alternatives. We stay the course of our beliefs because we have conviction that we are right, no matter the evidence that piles up against us.

Convictions can be wonderful things. Ghandi had convictions. But we don't commend Ghandi for simply having convictions, we commend him for having convictions that we believe are right. Hitler had convictions too.

Now, I believe that my friend was claiming that there are candidates out there who do not placate to the whims of the masses. If my friend is right this raises the question of the role of government and the role our representatives play in it. Is it the job of our represetatives to hold a conviction and stick by it or is it their role to accurately represent, as much as is in their power, all those in their district, not just who elected them. Ignoring for now the tyranny of the majority is it the role of a representative to do what they think is right or what the populace thinks is right? And can the populace ever really think something is right? Pah! You see the problem.

Having a conviction means believing, beyond the shadow of any possible doubt, that you are correct. I'm not sure I want my representatives, whether they are following their beliefs or the beliefs of those they represent, holding onto an idea so strongly that they cannot be swayed. I'd like to think that my representatives can change their mind when new evidence is placed before them. I like thinking that anyway.

Wake Up Calls

2004-08-02T23:24:00.000-04:00

I was woken up today by a telemarketer. They wanted to get me to sign up for a credit card. I know it's not the fault of the poor sap on the phone, that its just their job, but I still have to hassle them. See, the theory is that time is money for telemartketers. So, the best way to get them to stop calling (besides signing up for that 'don't call me list') is to make it a financially unviable system. To that end I generally try to waste as much of their time as possible. A lot of times I'll try to hijack the conversation, get them talking about where they are and how it compares to where I am. But sometimes I just let them run their spiel and then ask as many questions as possible and get them to repeat stuff.
Today, because I had been asleep, I let the guy read the script. I am often amazed at how dead-set they are to read that script. This guy kept plugging along, with virtually no prompting from me, through his whole presentation. But I had to actually get involved when he told me that I was "pre-approved for up to $14,995".
What, what what?
I asked him to repeat it because I couldn't believe anybody would offer me that much money. He then tried to move on but I wouldn't let him. "You guys are gonna give me a credit card good for up to 15 thousand dollars?"
"Well," came his reply," you've been pre-approved for $14,995."
This was just too amusing. First off, he corrected the amount, as if the 5 dollars really matters. Second, this was more money then I make in a year. Sad, but true. I told him this. In fact I pressed him on this. "How can you guys possibly be willing to give me a credit card good for more money than I make in a year?"
To whit, he explained that I was pre-approved and this did not mean that I would get that much money. Now, to be honest, I knew this. I just found this such an appalling misuse of the language that I wanted him to admit that "pre-approved" didn't mean that I had been approved in any sense of the term. To his credit as a telemarketer, he wouldn't admit that I hadn't been approved. However, to his discredit, he simply repeated the same thing over and over again. I finally got bored of goading him and let him continue.
The other thing I love about these scripts is how well they are usually written. They don't give you a chance to say "no" within the context of the conversation. You actually have to interrupt the caller, which isn't polite. When he finally started asking me for my address information I suggested that perhaps he ought to ask me if I want the stuff sent to me first. And he did. I responded a resounding "no". But this didn't stop him. His script had a response for this. He kept on trucking.
By this point it had been at least 5 minutes, which I figure is enough of a waste since the usual 'no' response happens in the first 30 seconds. So I told him that I wasn't interested and that he couldn't have my address and that he should have a good day.
But he still woke me up.

Pump Up the Font Size

2004-07-29T01:28:00.000-04:00

Okay, so I haven't been 'blogging' very long but it seems a strange practice. I am reminded of Pump Up the Volume. At the end, after Christain Slater gets taken away by the Feds, you hear a number of voices of teenagers that have started their own bootleg stations. Interestingly, they wouldn't currently be breaking the law. Since the FCC deregulated certain aspects of the radio industry anyone can broadcast provided the wattage is low enough.

But what is interesting about it is the sound of all those voices speaking into the void. The dream of Pump Up the Volume has become a reality in cyberspace. Now, anyone can post their views, opinions, ideas for the whole world to read. But as I say it's a strange practice. The blogger is, in a certain sense, detached from their audience. Comments are a form of feedback to be sure but the act is still that of a lone voice, or collective, speaking into the darkness.

Now, perhaps this is because of my own way of interacting with the outside world. Maybe, it's not the nature of the beast but the way I use it. It could be but I don't think so. I think I might serve as an extreme example but not as an exception to the rule.

Think about this, there are tons of folks out there all with blogs, each of them talking to each other. How many people do you know that have their own blogs and use it as a means of communicating with those others that they know? So, in a group of friends you have a number of people that choose to keep in touch by open forum (and by open I mean in full view of everyone not just that the group doesn't censor its members) rather than some other method; mail, phone, email, listserv. Clearly there are certain advantages to this system but there are certain drawbacks as well.

I'm really not trying to criticize those who do this, hell, it appears I am one of them. Nor am I suggesting that this is the only way people stay in contact. I'm only trying to show that, as a practice, this is rather strange. And the only thing I can think of that resembles it is individual voices speaking out in the darkness, occasionally hearing each other, occasionally responding, but mostly just talking like at the end of PUtV. People are, it seems, talking at each other instead of with each other.

I don't know. I think the analogy to Pump Up the Volume is dead on but maybe my analysis is off. Whatever.

"Talk Hard"

Late Night TV

2004-07-28T00:19:00.000-04:00

Last night Highlander 2 was on. Cresus Mesus I forgot how bad that movie is. It is possibly the worst sequel ever (though American Ninja 3 is awful it starts lower of the totem pole of movies). Seriously, why in all the sequles to Highlander did they feel the need to try to recreate the Kurgan? Why did Michael Ironside have to be psychotic instead of idealogically opposed to the the highlander? And what the hell is with the mortal so long as no one else from your planet is around? is that like how you can't see me if I have my eyes closed? And why, for pity's sake, did they have to have two bad guys?
Here's a quick alternative storyline.
The reason they are immortal is because they were banished to different places in time. The process used someone separates them from their 'correct' temporal placement causing not only the seeming immortality but also their lack of memory. After McCloud kills all the immortals he thinks he is mortal because of the mythology the immortals themselve created. He loses yet another loved one to the ravages of time and becomes increasinly despondant over his disconnection from the human race. So, centuries later, his is a lost old hermit, forgotten by the world. But it is at this point that he begins to near the point in time at which he was banished. He begins to have strange nightmares and flashes. He begins to recall events in his distant past, a time that is happening now. This is frightening to him and he attempts to reconnect with the world. It turns out society has gotten bad, both oppressive and decandent. A group of rebels led by a mystery man are attempting to overthrow the current system. His attempt to rolve the riddle of his past forces him between to two forces. The flashes and the memories come flooding back during a cataclysmic battle between the two camps and he discovers, too late to save the rebels, that he is in fact their leader. The moment that he discovers this is the moment that the government's forces eliminate the rebels by banishing them in time. The highlander, his memory returned, is the only one left of all his faithful followers. He, it turns out, had killed a number of his brethren. Several of them had not become, in their new lives, the righteous fighters of freedom they had been in the future. The Kurgan, it turns out was the Highlander's most loyal ally. Despondent and distraught the Highlander wants only to curl up and die but his struggle to find answers has brought him to the attention of the ruling government, say some form of tyrannical monarchy/ maybe some oppresive form fo communism. The highlander now has to save himself but finds, in this final battle, which the police for are not present for (thinking their work done), that he can end this regime once and for all. But to do it, he has to be willing to sacrifice his now mortal soul for the cause.
Hollywood should hire me.

The Great Outdoors

2004-07-26T22:49:00.000-04:00

I went out on a boat today. Actually, it was more of a motorized dinghy. A little inflatable job with a 50 hp motor hooked on the back. It's great for tooling around and playing in the water but bad for any serious boating. If there happens to be any chop on the water then the little craft kicks up one hell of a spray. It was nice to be out on the water but apparently I need to get outside more often. I hadn't realized just how pale I am. I got a bit of a sunburn on my legs. My arms were spared because I put sunblock on them. Not sure what made me think my legs would be invulnerable to the power of the sun. It was a nice relaxing day but now it's time to get back to work.

The Mart of Wal

2004-07-25T17:52:00.000-04:00

Near my humble abode there is both a Wal-Mart and Target. Usually, I go to the Target. It’s on the right side of the street and honestly, their household goods are just better. But today I went to Wal-Mart, oh the joy. I forget just how insane that store can be.

Back in college pretty much the only place we could shop for anything was Wal-Mart. It wasn't a bad store and it wasn't a good store, it was just the store. Not only did they sell pretty much everything it was also a great place to run into people. As the only store in town you invariably ran into someone you knew, which was fun. I would point out that this might make buying potentially embarrassing items, like porn, difficult but Wal-Mart doesn't, at least didn't, sell those kind of things. Sure sure, if you needed hemorrhoid crème you could be in a spot of trouble but you could always pick that up at the grocery store where it could get lost among all the other items you were buying. But that is all beside the point.

In the store today it was a madhouse. It’s always a madhouse. The aisles are too narrow and the goods are stacked too high but it’s the customers that you need to watch out for. Some of the scurviest people on the planet can be found in a Wal-Mart; “You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.” Seriously, if you are ever feeling down in the dumps or have a general dislike of your physical appearance then head on over to your friendly neighborhood Wal-Mart and get a boost of confidence. The problem is in figuring out if you are the scum or the ironic hipster. Sure sure, you think you are the hipster, there with your friends to rag on the freaks. But are you sure that you aren’t the butt of someone else’s joke? Whatever, they do have good deals. And the bin of $5.50 DVD’s can prove to be a treasure chest of value.

Probably the most amusing thing that I saw in the store today though was a display. At the end of a row, highlighted for increased sales, was a display of K-Y warming liquid. Considering that Wal-Mart has refused to sell certain musicians and films because they aren’t family friendly this display was really funny. Showing boobies is bad but a personal lubricant, the sole purpose of which is to be applied to our most private parts so they can better rub up against the body of another, all of it heightened by a sensation of warmth, is not only fine but encouraged.

Wal-Mart is perhaps the most amusing store on the planet.

My back and other mundane things

2004-07-25T01:21:00.000-04:00

I pulled something in my back today. Actually, I think I strained something in my back over the past couple of days and it caught up with me today. I've been varnishing a table and my workbench is too low, I think that is the big problem. Still, the table top is looking nice. Its defective as a piece, the joinery work is lacking in a certain amount of finesse. I'm practicing the varnishing process. I need to get some pumice so I can buff in a real high gloss finish. That'll wait for another day. Once I get my technique down I'll be building a wedding present that is long over due.

So, I spent a good part of the afternoon lying on the floor trying to let my back rest. It seems to have worked, my back is feeling better. In the evening I made some fudge. I should say I tried to make some fudge. It has been about six years since the last time I made fudge. What I ended up making is chocolaty goodness but its not exactly fudge. Its a little too hard to count as fudge. Essentially what happened is that the sugar crystallized. Not a bad effort though considering I made it sans recipe.

I also got some component cables and connected my dvd player using those instead of the SVHS cable I had been using. Unfortunately I don't think my tv is big enough to really notice the difference. Also, though I wanted to, I can't have the SVHS and the component feed running at the same time. The way the dvd player outputs is in the setup of the player, which can only be changed when there is no disk in the player. Makes comparison a little tough. Still, its a nice picture. The player, and this might have been the disk, hung up briefly once or twice. High quality, read expensive, players don't have this feature.

DVD

2004-07-23T19:28:00.000-04:00

I finally got a new DVD player. My last one got knocked out by a bolt of lightning. The new only cost $36.99! It's got component outputs and progressive scan. It'll play MP3's and can read cdr's. It's silver, so it'll match my tv. Funny thing is there were no black dvd players. It's a Cyberhome model CH-DVD 300. I'm pretty psyched about the whole thing.