Minor Wisdom

A 10-step program

How does a democracy devolve into a fascist state? According to this analysis in the Guardian, there are 10 easy steps. Read them, and decide for yourself how many have been taken in the U.S.A. so far.

The conclusion is chilling. Here’s a taste:

[O]ur experiment in democracy could be closed down by a process of erosion.

It is a mistake to think that early in a fascist shift you see the profile of barbed wire against the sky. In the early days, things look normal on the surface; peasants were celebrating harvest festivals in Calabria in 1922; people were shopping and going to the movies in Berlin in 1931. Early on, as WH Auden put it, the horror is always elsewhere — while someone is being tortured, children are skating, ships are sailing: “dogs go on with their doggy life ... How everything turns away/ Quite leisurely from the disaster.”

As Americans turn away quite leisurely, keeping tuned to internet shopping and American Idol, the foundations of democracy are being fatally corroded. Something has changed profoundly that weakens us unprecedentedly: our democratic traditions, independent judiciary and free press do their work today in a context in which we are “at war” in a “long war” — a war without end, on a battlefield described as the globe, in a context that gives the president — without US citizens realising it yet — the power over US citizens of freedom or long solitary incarceration, on his say-so alone.

(Hat tip to Electronic Ephemera.)

blogger n. a person with a computer and an opinion

From Howard Bashman by way of Carolyn Elefant, here is U.S. Ninth Circuit Judge Alex Kozinski’s take on blogging (and on Howard):

I just think it’s so self-indulgent, you know. Oh, I'm so proud of what I’m saying, I think the world instantly wants to know what I’m thinking today. People wake up thinking, hmm, what does this person, whoever the blog, the question is — I wonder what great thoughts have come into his mind this morning that I can feel myself edified by. I can’t really have breakfast, really enjoy my day until I hear the great thoughts of Howard Bashman — I don’t think so. I go for months without ever knowing what Howard has to say. So I don’t know. I find it sort of self-indulgent. And I find it so grandiloquent.

Radio silence

As I reported four days ago, our interior storm damage is finally being repaired. Tomorrow the contractor starts working on the floors upstairs, a phase of the job that will last at least two days, maybe three. Which means that we can’t count on using anything upstairs for the next two to three days. And since our DSL connection is upstairs, this means no Internet access for a few days.

A minor inconvenience. When it’s finished, it’ll be better than before the storm. But meanwhile, we’ll be off line. And since the Jazz Fest starts on Friday, I may be pre-occupied for the first few days that we’re reconnected.

Higher ground

There’s a misperception in America that New Orleans is below sea level. This misperception causes some people to question whether the city should be rebuilt. Today, the Times-Picayune ran a story, accompanied by a color graphic, showing that 50% of New Orleans’ inhabited area is above sea level. It appears from the graphic that 50% of the Lower Ninth Ward is also above sea level.

“Inhabited area” means the area inhabited before Katrina. This does not include vast acreage of wetlands in New Orleans East, a wilderness lying inside the city limits.

So if you want to abandon New Orleans, then to be consistent, you must advocate abandoning every coastal town or city near sea level. This would include the entire Gulf Coast, all of which is no less hurricane-prone than New Orleans.

How it goes for the relatively well off in New Orleans

As I’ve written before, my wife and I have been pretty lucky with this Katrina thing, compared to most of our fellow Orleanians. This week furnishes a fine example: we’ve had a contractor at our house repairing our interior storm damage. The biggest item was the big hole in our bedroom ceiling, formerly covered with plastic sheeting, now gone. There were also various other spots of water damage that have been repaired. Still to do: repainting the bedroom ceiling, the kitchen ceiling, and other repaired spots. Also, we will get rid of the shabby shag carpet upstairs (partially damaged by water intrusion) and re-paint the wooden floors there.

I consider myself lucky because my house, though ugly in spots, has been livable and comfortable since late 2005. Also I had minimal damage compared to most of the city (i.e. no flooding), I haven’t had to fight my insurance company, and in any event I have the cash to make the repairs happen. Nevertheless, it’s taken from October 2005 until April 2007 to complete the repairs. Why? Not enough contractors. The city-wide damage is so massive that it takes someone like me, with money to get the job done, 1½ years to get a relatively small amount of damage fixed.

If you want to know why the recovery is so slow, I can assure you of this: it’s not due to a lack of will on our part. The problem is lack of resources. Trying to repair the damage with the resources available is like trying to fill a lake with a garden hose.

That’s got to hurt

Courtesy of Lowering the Bar, here’s an alarming item:

TOKYO - Japan's leading toilet maker Toto Ltd. is offering free repairs for 180,000 bidet toilets after wiring problems caused several to catch fire, the company said Monday....

Where is Dr. Le Monnier when we really need him?

Did you know that in the 19th Century, New Orleans had a City Physician, a Dr. Y.R. Le Monnier, who visited patients housed in the City Insane Asylum? Did you know that the New Orleans Public Library has the City Physician’s records of these visits on microfilm? Did you know that the records are transcribed on line? 199 pages worth? Me neither, until I stumbled upon it on Electronic Ephemera. (Thanks, Richard.)

Stop, I’m already dead

From Houma, Louisiana, to wherever you are, here are deadboy and the elephantmen: further proof that to form a band, you only need two people:

Speaking of doubt

I was never a big fan of Cardinal Ratzinger. But I like this quotation by the pope. It’s about doubt and suffering: if you’re unacquainted with them, then you’re probably also unacquainted with faith. But don’t take my word for it:

We may all be tempted by the disbelief of Thomas. Suffering, evil, injustice, death, especially when it strikes the innocent such as children who are victims of war and terrorism, of sickness and hunger, does not all of this put our faith to the test? Paradoxically the disbelief of Thomas is most valuable to us in these cases because it helps to purify all false concepts of God and leads us to discover his true face: the face of a God who, in Christ, has taken upon himself the wounds of injured humanity. Thomas has received from the Lord, and has in turn transmitted to the Church, the gift of a faith put to the test by the passion and death of Jesus and confirmed by meeting him risen. His faith was almost dead but was born again thanks to his touching the wounds of Christ, those wounds that the Risen One did not hide but showed, and continues to point out to us in the trials and sufferings of every human being.

His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI
Urbi et Orbi
Easter, April 2007

Some of this I believe

I don’t agree with everything that Scott Adams posts on The Dilbert Blog. I don’t agree with everything he says in this particular post. But I do agree with these sentences, pulled out of context:

... We don’t know as much as we think we know. That’s the sort of idea that could end war and famine and poverty.

If you think about it, wars are generally fought because of a false sense of certainty. Usually some leader thinks he is a God, or talks to God, or descended from the Gods, or thinks God gave his people some particular piece of real estate. The leader’s opinion is the most certain in the land. People flock to certainty and adopt the certainty as their own. The next thing you know, stuff is blowing up.

Scott’s point has to do with free will; he doesn’t believe in it. I don’t have the answer to that question, although I suspect it has a lot to do with how you define “free will.” To me, the problem Scott describes results from a lack of humility — people who, unlike Dennis Miller, can’t acknowledge that they could be wrong.

Oh, and I agree with these sentences too (again, pulled out of context):

You can introduce some doubt into your life and still keep your religious faith, morality, and all of the social and psychological benefits you always enjoyed. Faith would be meaningless without a pinch of doubt to give it context. In particular, it would be helpful to doubt that your religious leaders know the mind of God. A little bit of doubt can be a healthy thing.

I say, “Amen to that.” As a former college roommate’s button used to say, “Question authority.”