Some kind of post-modern feminism, perhaps?

One of the more intriguing songs on today's hip-hop charts is Super Bass.  The melodic portions of the songs are quite unlike anything you hear in that genre. If you have no patience for the full song, skip over to 0:47, when the first chorus begins.



Equally intriguing is the singer, Nicki Minaj. Much has been written about her brand of feminism; read about it here, here, or here. If at all, I relate to a rather orthodox concept of feminism and Ms. Minaj's outward demeanor and song themes are certainly a bit perplexing. Need to work on my dogmas.....

Time it is to me. Space it’s unto you.

Bend has an ongoing series of "shameless broadcasts" of his various trips.  With no pretense to poetic greatness, the broadcasts offer warm familiarity to anyone who relates to rural India in any kind of personal way.[Link]

Abusing a beautiful idea

The idea of individual freedom is a compelling one. Free trade is only the natural result of the freedom of individuals. This duo of liberty/free trade then forms a coherent, elegant and free-standing intellectual argument which has been debated for centuries, yet today it is the bed rock of modern "western" civilization.

But how much intellectual authority does the idea wield today?

In a 1992 article "Intellectual Authority and Institutional Authority", Charles Collier says (albeit in the context of jurisprudence):

Intellectual authority is defined as the authority of arguments that prevail by virtue of good reasoning and do not depend on coercion or convention.

Collier goes on to define another term:

A contrasting notion, institutional authority, refers to the power of social institutions to enforce acceptance of arguments that may or may not possess intellectual authority.

When the American president asks Syrian president Assad to step down, it is a perfectly acceptable act within the realm of the intellectual authority of the idea of individual freedom and democracy. But when bombers roll over Vietnam, Libya or Iraq to tamp down undemocratic regimes, all intellectual authority is lost, that is when the idea is being forced.  As an ardent proponent of individual rights and free trade, it distresses this writer to see the abuse.

Communism's fundamental appeal to the senses was mauled for generations by the repression that Communist states subjected their populations to. The idea of Islam has been corrupted in the minds of modern observers by the random violence inflicted on others by some of its proponents. It follows that the intellectual weight of freedom is also tarnished to some extent at least when its proponents use military might to advance it.

Instead of using the force of persuasion, the persuasion is through force.

Industrial revolutions

The song is The Wolves by Ben Howard. The wheeled artist is Danny Macaskill.

On Buffett

A few months ago, when the US Congress was in the middle of a debate about tax breaks, Republicans had to face shame because of a widespread misrepresentation of their position. They were asking for continuing an across-the-board tax break, while Democrats were asking to continue the breaks for everyone but rich Americans. Many commentators critical of the Republican position framed it as "They want tax breaks for the rich!" which was not fully accurate.

Republicans and fiscal conservatives now seem to be using the same trick on Warren Buffett. The latter recently wrote a piece in the New York Times wherein he advocated:

(a) Straightening out the tax code that allows the rich to pay taxes on a smaller proportion of their incomes than their wage-earning fellow citizens
(b) Increase the tax rate on the rich

Note that an increase in tax rate is only part of the proposal. Yet, fiscal conservatives have continuously been bashing Buffett for his "damaging" advice. Even when tax reform has been on nearly everyone's agenda for a long time, conservatives included!

The small-government lobby that this writer belongs to has gotten the reputation of being the pro-rich lobby, and it is unfortunately true for at least some of my brethren, as these reactions to Buffett show.

It then has to be put on record that I do not support either selective tax breaks or selective tax increases. Consequently, I do agree with with Buffett about getting rid of tax subsidies for the rich and super-rich, but not with the argument that the rich should pay at a higher rate.  A government of the people has no reasonable justification to subsidize or penalize the activities of some people - whether it be the rich through tax breaks/increases or the middle class through the mortgage tax deduction.

If you are richer than me, you should certainly pay more money in taxes, but you should not be paying a bigger (or smaller) proportion of your income than I do. A flat tax is the only fair tax.

Like jazz

Ralph Ellison, famous for Invisible Man, has often been criticized for being too personal and not political enough in his depiction of black American life, and for freely using European writing styles thus not contributing to the advancement of a distinctive African-American style.  That surely accounts for Ellison not being in the same class as "politically black" writers such as Toni Morrison, but does that really deserve of criticism?

This unnamed anti-critic offers a jazz-supported defense of Ellison:

Ellison drew heavy fire for being, in their view, politically disengaged and removed from the collective plight of black America. A lifelong lover of jazz, Ellison sought to create its literary equivalent. Invisible Man follows the stylistic foundations of jazz by using discordant rhythms, drawing on other literary works, and synthesizing prior traditions into a new art form.

Makes one want to read Ellison again, this time with jazz playing in the background. Jazz is good, jazz metaphors are better.

Paul is wrong, and under-represented

This blogger supports Ron Paul for the Republican nomination, but that doesn't mean he is gorgeous at all times. His strong anti-abortion message in his Ames speech was disturbing to say the least. See below, till the 4:40 mark.



His message was that life comes from "our creator", is precious, and neither humans nor governments can "play god" and make the decision to terminate life (i.e., via abortion). This line of argument always leaves me befuddled. If parents "play god" when they decide to terminate a pregnancy, do they also play god then they conceive? Or is conception a divine act? Contraception is what separates man from animals, yet why such a hands-off attitude towards conception?

Mr. Paul, any discussion about the morality of abortion is incomplete without sorting out the morality of conception. Why draw an arbitrary line between god's work and Man's work right at the moment after fertilization?

* * *

As a Paul -supporter, it is a bit stunning to see how little coverage he gets in the mainstream media.  If one's only source of news is major newspapers and network channels, you can miss him completely.  Paul is actually doing well on at least two metrics - he has raised more funds than any other candidate other then Mitt Romney and he came in second after Michelle Bachmann in the Ames straw poll.  Yet, switch on the TV and the focus is on Bachmann, Romney, and Pawlenty (and even Gingrich!).  The institutionalized media is used to the clout its powers of making self-fulfilling prophesies bring, but thanks to diverse sources on the internet, that clout is slowly eroding.

FYI, Mr. Wilson

Check out the last panel.

Dennis the Menace, the cartoon strip, has been around since 1950 so I estimate Mr. Wilson to be approximately 120 years old now. There is statistical evidence that older citizens are more aware and engaged in public policy and political affairs, so I would have expected Mr. Wilson to not make the error of writing to his Congressman.

In the United States, minimum legal ages for driving are mandated by individual states, not the federal government. If at all, Mr. Wilson's letter should be directed to his representative in the state legislature, not Congress.

Too much power invested in distant, central government is bad. But when citizens attribute power that it does not really have to central governments, it is scary.

In the wake of the long-running debate over the debt ceiling, Americans have been wringing their hands about their government which cannot agree about something so important, and worry how the country will run properly.  My question is, which government? The error in their fears, and the silver lining to the situation, is that America is thankfully not (yet) run by Congress and the President.  The county has a fascinatingly decentralized and autonomous system of governance.  Community governments are not answerable to state governments, and state governments are not answerable to the federal government (as long as they are breaking no laws).

Granted, the federal government does have the authority to make some choices that have a profound impact on the nation (defense, interest rates, federal taxes), but America functions on a day-to-day basis on the backs of  local governments.  FYI, Mr. Wilson.