Dobservations

[elalacran]

D[aily] Observations = dobservations

Here goes.

Putin and the Tear.

If Putin cried a little when he "won" the election, to me, and probably to most of us, that would be a recommendation for Putin. A good sign. An indication that he is an emotional guy, perhaps a nice guy, somewhere in that overly macho exterior.

If he happened to tear-up because the cold Moscow wind stung his eye, wouldn't he keep mum and not dispel the magic?

But no. Putin so values his tough-guy image that he could not let the stories that he cried over re-election go uncorrected. So he had to issue a statement that it was the cold wind and not the emotion of the moment that drew moisture from his eye.

To my way of thinking, that makes Putin more dangerous.

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[elalacran]

No more print versions of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Sad, the passng of an era.

But like the populations it serves, the EB has been dumbed down for years. I have 14 volumes of the 1929 edition, and in terms of information content, of genuinely trying to contain the sum of knowledge in a topic, those are a world away from modern versions.

Same has happened to other encyclopedias. Desk encyclopedias went downhill after the early 1960s. Partly a product of information overload and the culling of facts to fit a shrinking number of pages.

You are better off with an encyclopedia that has an entry for Edward DeVere but not for Madonna or the Beatles or JFK -- but that is not how publishers see it. They want to pack their pages with information on the trendy and popular; just the opposite of what they ought to do.

Nor is it how librarians at public libraries see it. Libraries suffer from the same kind of information shrinkage and dumbing down. Multiple copies of books about Madonna and the Beatles, while older more detailed and technical books get culled out. Along with old encyclopedias and dictionaries that contain more information than new ones.

I am not one who finds "the great books of the western world" all that indispensible. They are mostly useful for attractively filling a vacant bookshelf. But there are genuinely important books of timeless interest that are pulled off the shelves by librarians with no judgment.

I've told about going to the public library beause I had a hankering to read Walt Scott's "The Antiquarian" and "The Monastery," to find that my public library had nothing but a few juvenile-looking copies of "Ivanhoe."

The same is true of what I consider to be the great science fiction authors. They are culling out Clifford Simak and Gordon Dickson and Arthur Clarke! I prize the small-town libraries that have kept their collections intact without the foolish shennigans of ill-trained librarians worrying about shelf space.

I have two copies of a wonderful book called "Brewer's Dictionary of Fact and Fable," both culled from public library shelves to make way for, I suppose, reference books about recent movies and television and music, for "top 40" type and new best seller books. I found a Viking Desk Encyclopedia from the early 1960s that is superb.

Information is an endangered species, thanks to encyclopedia editors and librarians. And, except for what has been scanned in by Google Books, that information is not preserved on the internet.

The internet needs nothing as much as a copy of the 13th Edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica and the 1960 edition of the Viking Desk Encyclopedia. And a Brewer's, of course.

[elalacran]

So Jeb Bush has endorsed Romney. Two comments, one, that Jeb waited to see if Romney was the winning hoss before betting and two, that it helps Romney because it indicates that Jeb will not be part of any convention fight to pick somebody other than Romney.

The two most possible possibles for delegates to latch onto in a convention fight would be Christie and Jeb Bush. Both have now endorsed Romney.

[elalacran]

Obama really screwed the pooch with his non-sub voce remark to Medvedev. Sure that kind of thing -- consideration of an adversary's election practicalities -- goes on all the time; doesn't make it right or politically palatable. Very tempting to vote Obama out of office just to show him. If he had a decent opponent...

[elalacran]

Well, well, well, well. So GHW Bush has endorsed Romney. Hoop de doop. Actually it does serve a purpose. Even now, there are voices calling for the convention to draft Christie or Jeb Bush. For the Bush patriarch to endorse Romney as well as Jeb himself ought to put the brakes on a movement that would split the party and point it toward greater disaster.

No love between Romney and the Bushes. This is not about love but the good of the party, the way a bickering couple stays together "for the benefit of the children."

[elalacran]

Scalia asked during oral argument when the government had passed a law that citizens buy something.

Pretty easy answer: auto insurance. Sure we are given choices, not to drive, or to deposit a large sum of money as security, but as a practical matter, those are no choices. We are forced to carry liability auto insurance to protect others from ourselves.

Forcing us to buy heath insurance is the same: to protect others from us, from the medical bills we might otherwise run up.

An interesting historical note. Back in the 1880s early 1890s, bicycles were an explosive fad. Broadway in NYC was lined with stores selling nothing but bicycles. There were dozens of manufacturers. And yes, the boom went bust as competition drove prices down and brands merged or went out of business around 1895. But for a while there, bicycles were THE business to be in.

Which affected sales of other consumer items. Shoes, for example. Shoe makers and retailers were worried; with people riding bicycles and spending discretionary funds on bicycles, where was their business going?

And so there was a bill introduced to compel Americans to buy more shoes! Seriously. I don't remember if it was in a state legislature or in Congress, and it probably didn't pass, but it demonstrated the tenor of the times.

[boogerredwine]

It was Roberts, bicycle boy!

[elalacran]

Roberts it was.

Well, it is Easter and Passover and the B.S. is flowing hot and heavy.

The boob tube was left on after a newsprogram and I came into the room to see some blobular preacher in a dark suit telling how Jesus was killed by judicial action.

Which to me misses the whole point. The Jesus of the gospels was taken into custody, tried, and sent to his death by the Sanhedrin, a religio-governmental body. A group of men who combined the powers of religion and government!

That preacher on TV wanted more church in our government. That is the opposite to the moral of the gospel story. The opposite of Jesus' statement about yielding to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's.

Now there is a likelihood that, if there was a Jesus and if that Jesus was in fact crucified, then Roman authority had more of a hand in it and the Sanhedrin less than the gospel stories say. That the gospel accounts were shaded to be less offensive to Roman authority. But because the TV preacher would argue for the inerrancy of the Bible, I do not bring that up and neither would he.

Then there was the ABC interview with Rick Warren. I like Rick Warren. I first heard about Warren when he welcomed a young senator named Barack Obama to speak about AIDS. That btw was also when I first heard about Barack Obama, when I saw a news item about the speech and found it and read it on the internet.

Warren was asked about Romney and the Latter Day Saints religion. As to whether Romney is a Christian, Warren pointed out that the doctrine of the Trinity is central to his view of Christianity and that it is absent from Mormonism.

Yes, that is one of many differences between Mormonism and mainline Christianity. But to me, differences on the Trinity do not mean that Mormonism is not a Christian sect.

Christianity was once far more diverse than it is today. In its first 200 years, you had gnostics, you had half hundred different beliefs that were later stamped out as heretical. Every religion evolves (if it survives) and Christianity has converged into a single thread where extremes are quite close: Catholics and Protestants even with a gulf between are more like warring siblings that strangers.

So I if I were Christian I would be quite tolerant toward Mormons. My only problem with them is that they are adherents to such a patently manufactured religion. Most religions arose in some shadow time where there are no facts. With the Mormons, their human origin is quite apparent. That said, at least they are a home-grown American religion and not a faith transplanted from Italy or Palestine or mesopotamia.

[elalacran]

I am disappointed in the U.S. Secret Service. Reports -- www.news24.com/World/News/US-Secret-Service-marines-hired-20-women-20120417 -- say 11 Secret Service agents and employees brought in 20 women to, shall we say celebrate?

What's worse, it seems Marines were involved too.

This sort of thing gives our country a bad name. 11 Secret Service men ought to be able to handle 30 women quite well without the assistance of any Marines!

[elalacran]

And also in the news, there's a report out from a European dating service that those who drive a BMW are more likely to cheat on their spouses, with Audi And Mercedes Benz coming i second.

One interpretation is that those who are more "successful" and hence likely to own an expensive car are cheaters in other ways too. I'll buy that when it comes to financial wheeler-dealers and salesmen.

[elalacran]

Here's a piece first published over at "The Slate" and reprinted by CBS. www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57421813-503544/the-search-for-candor-in-the-presidential-campaign/

Democracy sounds like a fine idea. Let voters decide. But eventually the edge of the cliff gets close, and you realize, democracy is not all it's cracked up to be. There are situations democracy cannot cope with. Democracy can be like the stampede of the lemmings into the Arctic Sea. We're all lemmings, basically, whatever our viewpoint or orientation or politics.

[elalacran]

So marijuana may help multiple sclerosis. Another reason to relax drug laws with respect to medical marijuana and other uses.

And the Obama campaign team worries their hit on Wall Street pirate Romney antagonizes other private bankers, so they make an apology. None due, I say.

[elalacran]

Not having a TV that got UHF channels and the show "Welcome Back, Kotter," I was never much of a John Travolta fan, until he made a career comeback in "Pulp Fiction," "Swordfish," etc.

When the rumors started flying around Travolta's male to male connections in steambaths, I thought, "Interesting. So the guy is bi? So what?" With these masseur scandals, it's the same: why are these people suing? The usual guy reaction to an unwanted touch by a member of the same sex is "Get away from me, you homo!" Not a lawsuit.