I don’t know if I can ignore his weird social conservatism/“morality” views, which, seems to me, get in the way of being an effective leader in the year of our Lord 2023 (or the 21st century, when he was governor.
His reaction (lack of) to the 2015 HIV crisis in Indiana https://www.indystar.com/story/news/health/2020/02/27/pence-hiv-outbreak-what-happened-austin-indiana/4890988002/ shows that he’d rather be a “Christian” (scare quotes intentional) that someone that would do the best for the people under his care. His first impulse was not saving lives, but rather punishing sinners. He’s not the guy I want in charge.
I wonder if anyone asked him about “morality” that day, and what his answer was.
In the 1980s, when liquid nitrogen(LN2) superconductors became available, there was some discussion, and plenty of papers, about using LN2 superconductor cables to distribute electricity in urban areas (the ones I read were using London as example). The savings were massive!!!. Alas LN2 were ceramic like and too brittle to lay down as long stretches of cable in the ground.
At the time, the expectation/hope was to develop LN2 superconductors that would overcome that limitation. To the best of my knowledge, that's the part we have failed to accomplish
Like Kazzy, I really couldn't fathom your issue with the word vagina.
When your wife, or you, talked to your little daughter about her body parts, her arms, her legs, her ears, what did you call her vagina? Did you and your wife never mentioned it to it?
I am a cis male, and my junk was mentioned, by either my dad or my mum every time I took a bath as a child - "Did you wash your ***?. Really? Did you remember to push it back?" .
I do not really recall when was I told the basic anatomic differences of boys and girls, but it was early in my elementary school years. Vagina is a body part, like the nose. It is only problematic if we decide to make it weird.
Knowing your background (from your writing, only), I am deeply surprised by that statement
If I didn't know better, I would ask what color the mustard in your house is. If the answer is bright dark yellow, I would say "You poor man. You haven't seen mustard". But I have to think that when you need mustard, you grab your Dijon, or your Moutarde a l'Ancienne and move on.
Mustard is not the greatest bestest of condiments, but it's actually quite good with meat (and fish, and green vegetables). Strogonoff cries for mustard. Otherwise it is too bland. Meat and mushrooms have more assonance than the mere presence of the initial letter. They also mirror their flavor. Tabasco is too overpowering on the delicate mushrooms. Mustard is just right for it.
And I echo fillijonk's question: Since when you have heavy cream in a Chinese dish?
First of all, thank you for sharing your recipes. I, for one, appreciate them a lot.
Having said that, there's something that I find very wrong here. It is using ground lamb meat instead of bite-size chunks of lamb.
By grounding meat you are increasing substantially the ratio of surface to volume of the "pieces: of meat. Put that loose ground meat in the fire and you end with overcooked, dry, meat, instead of the tender pieces of meat you get in a regular curry based dish. Overcooked meat loses flavor (and, pace Donald J Trump, it's mot very nice to eat), so why use a fairly flavorful meat like lamb if you won't be able to distinguish it from a lower grade quality of beef?
At least a hamburger patty recreates the surface to volume ratio of a steak, but here what is essentially sauteed ground meat will get cooked and quite dry almost immediately, way before you add the sauces. It seems you are making a curry Bolognese sauce.
Full disclosure, lamb is my favorite meat, and (very rare) lamb hamburger is my favorite burger.
A nitpick, Tanzania instead of Tanganika is not a reversion to a traditional name. It reflects the "federation" of two very different territories, geographically, culturally, and ethnically, Tanganika proper, and the island of Zanzibar.
It's a federation that was imposed by the colonial powers post WWI, when German Tanganika was assigned to the UK at Versailles, and like most colonial borders in Africa, makes little sense.
Thank you for pointing out that English is not my first language. I guess that makes me a Not a Real American in your eyes.
If my grammar irritates you so much, I’m happy to go on on this dialogue in French, Spanish, or Portuguese. My Italian, though, is not great, so probably would also not meet your very high language standards.
Again, I’m not sure. Though I’m starting to think the answer lies in persuasion and empathy. It means countering emotion with emotion.
This seems to be another version of Trump voters feel disrespected, and we need to show them respect.
In the abstract, I fully agree. We need to show Trump voters respect (not sure they want empathy, though - more about that below)
But I am engineer. I want to move from the concept into the execution. What does it mean, in practical terms, to show Trump voters (*), and, in general, lower class, conservative white rural population, respect? What is happening now that is disrespectful, or can be understood as being disrespectful, so we can change it?
Trump voters do not seem to want actual, material, help, with their actual, material problems (that's why I do not believe they want empathy). The Medicaid expansion would be one of the best thing that could happen to middle America rural communities. But over and over, they don't want it. It's been more than ten years since it was made available, and the Trump voters keep voting against it. Like the Medicaid expansion, the Democrats have proposed several other initiatives that would improve the Trump voters' material lives. They are not interested.
It seems to me that the respect they want is the deference owed to the upper classes by the lower classes. The Trump voters see themselves -with certain reason- as heirs of the XIXth century settlers of middle America. They were the elite of their communities, the "gentry". And they, actually, their ancestors, were used to running their communities.
That world started crumbling in the 1950s and is gone now. Everything got centralized and homogenized, economic power, and political power, moved to the cities, and coasts. New ethnicities: Catholics, Hispanics, Blacks, Asians, all non "real Americans" started accumulating economic and political power. Knowledge, too, replaced land and commerce as the gateway to wealth. New elites appeared: people with knowledge that could navigate the new world postwar world. And less and less Trump voters were part of the elites, or, as Trump voters call them, the "elites".
If i am right, there's no way to bridge that respect gap. Trump voters want to receive from a unified nation the respect their grandparents and great-grandparents had received in their respective communities. They do not grant others the status (as "real Americans") that they demand.
I am happy to accommodate their needs, to protect their welfare, and I'm happy to let them be (no need for them to bake cakes they do not want to bake). But I cannot accept the idea that have a right over others. Me too, I am a real American. And one that, through luck and work, is well equipped and comfortable in the world today. The real world.
(*) From here onwards, I'll use "Trump voters" as a shortcut to describe the general demographics, racially, geographical, religious and social, that is becoming the core of the GOP voters.
Your Switzerland analysis is missing several important components:
1 - European union/EFTA Freedom of Movement. All citizens from EU/EFTA can very easily settle in Switzerland, from Polish plumbers to Swedish engineers to Spanish nurses, as long as they get a job/can sustain themselves and their dependents withing a certain (couple of months) period.
2. Most Swiss companies, and Swiss subsidiaries of foreign companies can transfer foreign employees into Switzerland without much fuss, equivalent to out H-1 and L-1 visas, but without annual quotas that expire within minutes. (1)
The EU concept of Freedom of Movement is a key element that is totally misunderstood in the USA. The idea is that most people really do not want to permanently emigrate. They want to go into another country, work for some years (or seasonally), and return to their home eventually, with enough savings to settle there. Most really do not want to become full immigrants, grow old in their new country and never go back home to old friends and family.
Being able to move in and out of countries following economic opportunities optimizes labor (just like freedom of capital movements optimizes use of capital). In the USA, until the late 50s, early 60s, seasonal workers came in from Mexico and Central America in the spring, worked the season, and returned to their families in the winter. Once they had saved enough, they bought a house, established a business, and settled in their hometown. Their families never came with them.
But once the USA stopped allowing this seasonal or temporary migration, the result was not that seasonal workers would saty away, but that seasonal workers now became permanent (legal or illegal) migrants, with their complete families. because they could not risk making the trip more than once.
Bush 43's immigration reform including reinstating migrant workers visas. It was DOA in Bush's own GOP Congress.
So, yes, please, let's make it more like Switzerland. Let;'s actually make it exactly like Switzerland
(1) I was a beneficiary of both, and is how I started my path from Spain 28 years ago that made me a citizen in 2014.
This looks really amazing, and I had never seen it - Thank you for sharing it. I definitely will make some
As an aside, I am surprised there are apparently good Italian restaurants in Rome. I wasn't able to find any in my visit there. All that i found was very catered for tourists (which I was), but it was a really underwhelming eating experience, compared to many other great Italian cities (Venice, for instance, where tourists get to eat very nice food)
When I read this earlier today I thought exactly that. To my very agnostic, but fully cultural Catholic, Spaniard mind this was nothing but a rehash of the Indulgences Dispute. If the Pope can release a soul from Purgatory in exchange for some money, well , he should release all souls. And, if he doesn’t, well , he’s no true Christian.
You know, I would strongly support that. I would vote for a politician that would propose that.
Please, can you point to me a Republican candidate that has proposed changes in regulations favoring higher density, walkable, neighborhoods? I’ve seen several railing against those things, but can’t think of one that has come out in favor of them.
But I’m sure that if that’s a conservative proposal, one that coincidentally, I’m in favor of, then there must be several examples of conservative candidates proposals in that respect.
Interesting. I have now learned that the “problem” that needed solving by conservatives and/or liberals was only “construction of high speed train systems in California”. The problem was not transportation, or pollution, or cost of housing, or congestion.
If only the problem we had faced had been, I don’t know, congestion, the conservatives would have had a very good solution to propose.
But, woe is us, congestion was not “the” problem. It was railways. And therefore there was no conservative proposal about congestion.
Not that there was a conservative proposal about high speed railway construction. There almost was, but something something. But rest assured, had it existed, it would have been a magnificent solution to the high speed railway building problem.
1) Kings were the apex of the Noble Hierarchy… Noble-in-Chief. They were fundamentally aligned for the good of the Nobility and had no regard for the commoners.
This is the dominant notion we were taught… it pervades our political mythology and the stories we write. The dominant figures we point to are George III and Louis XIV.
Because I am a history buff, specially about Modern Era (*) European history, I cannot let this pass. It is, indeed, mythology. Particularly about Louis XIV and the French Bourbons in general.
The major conflict of the XVII/XVIII centuries was the efforts of Kings to break up the power the nobility had over economy, justice, commerce, industry and military matters, centralize their countries under uniform rules, and expand the economy that was being strangled by feudal rights. Absolutism was, essentially, the theory that the King was the only source of power, and that the nobility had to make way to a single, King-based, uniform administration. To the lower classes, this was an extraordinarily welcome development.
After Richelieu and Mazarin paved the way, Louis XIV successfully broke the nobility's power and in doing so made France the preeminent, richest, most developed, most powerful country of the age. To do so, Monarchs opened to the bourgeoise the positions that had once been prerogative of the blood nobility. Louis XIV was hated by his nobles, and (reasonably) loved by the commercial and industrial bourgeoise, at least until the wars at the end of his reign squandered a lot of the country's riches. After him, Louis XV (**) followed these same concepts.
Regretfully, Louis XVI, albeit well intentioned, was too traditional to continue the reformist and modernizing policies of his ancestors. Revolution replaced reform. His younger brother, Louis XVIII, however, after the Napoleonic interlude, continued the transformation of the country. By the mid XIX century, France was a country ruled by the commerce and industry classes.
In some other places, including Britain, however, the mobility was able to stop the reformist impulses. Nobility won the Glorious Revolution, and controlled Britain through the mid XIX century. Every king and queen since William III/Mary II had less and less power that hi/her predecessor, and Parliament (that is, at the time the House of Lords) had more and more. The young Victoria was the last that had a modicum of say in public affairs, and she lost what limited power she had after widowhood. Edward VII's diplomatic abilities allowed him a say in foreign affairs. His son George V was already completely devoid of power.
(*) The Modern Era being the period between roughly 1492/1789
(**) Louis XV was noted for referring in his private correspondence to "citizens" (citoyens) instead of subjects.
It should be noted that the thing that freaked the UK bond market into a panic was the idea of more …. Tax Cuts.
And the effect of just floating that idea was not just the collapse of the Truss administration, but massive and very costly (as in real money changing hands) interventions by the Bank of England to protect the system’s stability, resulting in HM Treasury to end in a worse position than before the announcement. And to repay those unplanned expenses, not only the announced Tax Cuts were nixed, but…. Income taxes had to be increased from where they were before mini-budget week.
Though unintended, the consequences of even announcing the Truss’ policies were easily foreseeable, and foreseen by many Bank and Treasury officials (the Senior Permanent Secretary of the Treasury being fired for his troubles). But Ms. Truss , MP, and Mr. Kwarteng, MP, are both known to be true believers, and won’t be bothered by experts’ opinions, who stand in the way of GROWTH!!
Are there two factions (parties), or are parties just associations of very different factions that don't like each other very much but dislike the other association much more?
Only mildly related to this extremely interesting post.
A good friend of mine, who used to work for a European energy utility that operated in Moldova, was offered -after the unpleasantness between the two parts of the country- to head of the company's operations in Transnistria.
As you can imagine, the Transninstrian authorities were not willing to have their utility run from Moldova proper.
My friend traveled to Tiraspol, spent a couple of days there, understood how things were expected to work, returned to the head office rejecting the proposal. The company told my friend to chose Transnistria or nothing.
I think the concept here is that he "declassified" them January 19, 2020, just by ordering them taken away from the WH and sent to Mar-a-Lago.
Like Cheney "declassified" the identity of Valerie Plame just by telling Robert Novak. No additional paperwork needed. The action IS the declassification.
Which, of course, means to those documents should now be accesible by the public. To the extent that Trump wanted them hidden, well, they are no longer classified and can be published anywhere. Hopefully they are, and they at least embarrass him. That's what I'd do (and what Bush did in the Plame case)
Or, they were not declassified, and therefore taking them away from the WH is a criminal act.
Or, they are both classified and declassified at the same time. Not a crime to take them away, but not to be seen by anyone.
I’m of two minds here. I grew up in a family where everyone was multilingual, words in different languages were all around, and sometimes we switched languages to exchange private comments in a public setting. In that respect, I’m used to pick up the meaning of new words by context, and a footnote would break the rhythm of the reading. So, no footnotes.
As long as the untranslated word is there to help set the mood, create the atmosphere, or add to the description. It cannot be a key element of the plot. I can read a story where a character having tarturok for breakfast brings memories of long gone summer vacations, without knowing what tarturok is. It would be very different than a story where the main character has to tarturok to save his wife. Then yes, I need to know exactly what is tarturok.
If I were to write a novel where using many untranslated foreign words was an important part of the artistic decision, I think a glossary at the end would be a helpful compromise.it would bridge the cultural divide, which, I would expect, is what the author wanted to do here. Show the reader what her culture feels in the inside.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “The Time Bryan O’Nolan Met Mike Pence at a Foreign Policy Event”
I don’t know if I can ignore his weird social conservatism/“morality” views, which, seems to me, get in the way of being an effective leader in the year of our Lord 2023 (or the 21st century, when he was governor.
His reaction (lack of) to the 2015 HIV crisis in Indiana https://www.indystar.com/story/news/health/2020/02/27/pence-hiv-outbreak-what-happened-austin-indiana/4890988002/ shows that he’d rather be a “Christian” (scare quotes intentional) that someone that would do the best for the people under his care. His first impulse was not saving lives, but rather punishing sinners. He’s not the guy I want in charge.
I wonder if anyone asked him about “morality” that day, and what his answer was.
On “Mini-Throughput: Floaty Rock Edition”
In the 1980s, when liquid nitrogen(LN2) superconductors became available, there was some discussion, and plenty of papers, about using LN2 superconductor cables to distribute electricity in urban areas (the ones I read were using London as example). The savings were massive!!!. Alas LN2 were ceramic like and too brittle to lay down as long stretches of cable in the ground.
At the time, the expectation/hope was to develop LN2 superconductors that would overcome that limitation. To the best of my knowledge, that's the part we have failed to accomplish
On “It’s a Barbie World”
Like Kazzy, I really couldn't fathom your issue with the word vagina.
When your wife, or you, talked to your little daughter about her body parts, her arms, her legs, her ears, what did you call her vagina? Did you and your wife never mentioned it to it?
I am a cis male, and my junk was mentioned, by either my dad or my mum every time I took a bath as a child - "Did you wash your ***?. Really? Did you remember to push it back?" .
I do not really recall when was I told the basic anatomic differences of boys and girls, but it was early in my elementary school years. Vagina is a body part, like the nose. It is only problematic if we decide to make it weird.
On “Spare the Rod and Spoil the President”
I might regret to say this, but I’d rather have Trump, the incompetent evil, rather than DeSantis, the (less in)competent evil.
On “Stroganov’s Expanded Upon Beef Stroganoff”
Mustard is not the worst, but it’s damn horrible
Knowing your background (from your writing, only), I am deeply surprised by that statement
If I didn't know better, I would ask what color the mustard in your house is. If the answer is bright dark yellow, I would say "You poor man. You haven't seen mustard". But I have to think that when you need mustard, you grab your Dijon, or your Moutarde a l'Ancienne and move on.
Mustard is not the greatest bestest of condiments, but it's actually quite good with meat (and fish, and green vegetables). Strogonoff cries for mustard. Otherwise it is too bland. Meat and mushrooms have more assonance than the mere presence of the initial letter. They also mirror their flavor. Tabasco is too overpowering on the delicate mushrooms. Mustard is just right for it.
And I echo fillijonk's question: Since when you have heavy cream in a Chinese dish?
On “I’m Told It’s Called Lamb Keema Curry”
First of all, thank you for sharing your recipes. I, for one, appreciate them a lot.
Having said that, there's something that I find very wrong here. It is using ground lamb meat instead of bite-size chunks of lamb.
By grounding meat you are increasing substantially the ratio of surface to volume of the "pieces: of meat. Put that loose ground meat in the fire and you end with overcooked, dry, meat, instead of the tender pieces of meat you get in a regular curry based dish. Overcooked meat loses flavor (and, pace Donald J Trump, it's mot very nice to eat), so why use a fairly flavorful meat like lamb if you won't be able to distinguish it from a lower grade quality of beef?
At least a hamburger patty recreates the surface to volume ratio of a steak, but here what is essentially sauteed ground meat will get cooked and quite dry almost immediately, way before you add the sauces. It seems you are making a curry Bolognese sauce.
Full disclosure, lamb is my favorite meat, and (very rare) lamb hamburger is my favorite burger.
On “What’s In a Name?”
A nitpick, Tanzania instead of Tanganika is not a reversion to a traditional name. It reflects the "federation" of two very different territories, geographically, culturally, and ethnically, Tanganika proper, and the island of Zanzibar.
It's a federation that was imposed by the colonial powers post WWI, when German Tanganika was assigned to the UK at Versailles, and like most colonial borders in Africa, makes little sense.
On “How Trump Wins By Losing”
“But I am engineer.”
Yes, we can tell by your grammar
Thank you for pointing out that English is not my first language. I guess that makes me a Not a Real American in your eyes.
If my grammar irritates you so much, I’m happy to go on on this dialogue in French, Spanish, or Portuguese. My Italian, though, is not great, so probably would also not meet your very high language standards.
"
So, how do you beat Trump?
Again, I’m not sure. Though I’m starting to think the answer lies in persuasion and empathy. It means countering emotion with emotion.
This seems to be another version of Trump voters feel disrespected, and we need to show them respect.
In the abstract, I fully agree. We need to show Trump voters respect (not sure they want empathy, though - more about that below)
But I am engineer. I want to move from the concept into the execution. What does it mean, in practical terms, to show Trump voters (*), and, in general, lower class, conservative white rural population, respect? What is happening now that is disrespectful, or can be understood as being disrespectful, so we can change it?
Trump voters do not seem to want actual, material, help, with their actual, material problems (that's why I do not believe they want empathy). The Medicaid expansion would be one of the best thing that could happen to middle America rural communities. But over and over, they don't want it. It's been more than ten years since it was made available, and the Trump voters keep voting against it. Like the Medicaid expansion, the Democrats have proposed several other initiatives that would improve the Trump voters' material lives. They are not interested.
It seems to me that the respect they want is the deference owed to the upper classes by the lower classes. The Trump voters see themselves -with certain reason- as heirs of the XIXth century settlers of middle America. They were the elite of their communities, the "gentry". And they, actually, their ancestors, were used to running their communities.
That world started crumbling in the 1950s and is gone now. Everything got centralized and homogenized, economic power, and political power, moved to the cities, and coasts. New ethnicities: Catholics, Hispanics, Blacks, Asians, all non "real Americans" started accumulating economic and political power. Knowledge, too, replaced land and commerce as the gateway to wealth. New elites appeared: people with knowledge that could navigate the new world postwar world. And less and less Trump voters were part of the elites, or, as Trump voters call them, the "elites".
If i am right, there's no way to bridge that respect gap. Trump voters want to receive from a unified nation the respect their grandparents and great-grandparents had received in their respective communities. They do not grant others the status (as "real Americans") that they demand.
I am happy to accommodate their needs, to protect their welfare, and I'm happy to let them be (no need for them to bake cakes they do not want to bake). But I cannot accept the idea that have a right over others. Me too, I am a real American. And one that, through luck and work, is well equipped and comfortable in the world today. The real world.
(*) From here onwards, I'll use "Trump voters" as a shortcut to describe the general demographics, racially, geographical, religious and social, that is becoming the core of the GOP voters.
On “TSN Open Mic for the week of 5/1/2023”
Your Switzerland analysis is missing several important components:
1 - European union/EFTA Freedom of Movement. All citizens from EU/EFTA can very easily settle in Switzerland, from Polish plumbers to Swedish engineers to Spanish nurses, as long as they get a job/can sustain themselves and their dependents withing a certain (couple of months) period.
2. Most Swiss companies, and Swiss subsidiaries of foreign companies can transfer foreign employees into Switzerland without much fuss, equivalent to out H-1 and L-1 visas, but without annual quotas that expire within minutes. (1)
The EU concept of Freedom of Movement is a key element that is totally misunderstood in the USA. The idea is that most people really do not want to permanently emigrate. They want to go into another country, work for some years (or seasonally), and return to their home eventually, with enough savings to settle there. Most really do not want to become full immigrants, grow old in their new country and never go back home to old friends and family.
Being able to move in and out of countries following economic opportunities optimizes labor (just like freedom of capital movements optimizes use of capital). In the USA, until the late 50s, early 60s, seasonal workers came in from Mexico and Central America in the spring, worked the season, and returned to their families in the winter. Once they had saved enough, they bought a house, established a business, and settled in their hometown. Their families never came with them.
But once the USA stopped allowing this seasonal or temporary migration, the result was not that seasonal workers would saty away, but that seasonal workers now became permanent (legal or illegal) migrants, with their complete families. because they could not risk making the trip more than once.
Bush 43's immigration reform including reinstating migrant workers visas. It was DOA in Bush's own GOP Congress.
So, yes, please, let's make it more like Switzerland. Let;'s actually make it exactly like Switzerland
(1) I was a beneficiary of both, and is how I started my path from Spain 28 years ago that made me a citizen in 2014.
On “Not French Onion Dip”
This looks really amazing, and I had never seen it - Thank you for sharing it. I definitely will make some
As an aside, I am surprised there are apparently good Italian restaurants in Rome. I wasn't able to find any in my visit there. All that i found was very catered for tourists (which I was), but it was a really underwhelming eating experience, compared to many other great Italian cities (Venice, for instance, where tourists get to eat very nice food)
On “Video (16m): Countries That Used To Exist in US”
Mr. Likko, here are your messages from this morning:
Mexico called. Apparently there's some Mexican territories that they forgot to pick up when they granted independence to Texas.
Also Denmark. They particularly said it was about some islands but not about Greenland. If it's not about Greenland is probably not very important.
On “Charity, Clout, and Moral Outrage: On MrBeast and Seeing”
When I read this earlier today I thought exactly that. To my very agnostic, but fully cultural Catholic, Spaniard mind this was nothing but a rehash of the Indulgences Dispute. If the Pope can release a soul from Purgatory in exchange for some money, well , he should release all souls. And, if he doesn’t, well , he’s no true Christian.
On “Don’t Be a “Kids These Days” Conservative”
You know, I would strongly support that. I would vote for a politician that would propose that.
Please, can you point to me a Republican candidate that has proposed changes in regulations favoring higher density, walkable, neighborhoods? I’ve seen several railing against those things, but can’t think of one that has come out in favor of them.
But I’m sure that if that’s a conservative proposal, one that coincidentally, I’m in favor of, then there must be several examples of conservative candidates proposals in that respect.
Send them this way at your earliest
"
Interesting. I have now learned that the “problem” that needed solving by conservatives and/or liberals was only “construction of high speed train systems in California”. The problem was not transportation, or pollution, or cost of housing, or congestion.
If only the problem we had faced had been, I don’t know, congestion, the conservatives would have had a very good solution to propose.
But, woe is us, congestion was not “the” problem. It was railways. And therefore there was no conservative proposal about congestion.
Not that there was a conservative proposal about high speed railway construction. There almost was, but something something. But rest assured, had it existed, it would have been a magnificent solution to the high speed railway building problem.
On “Twitter Moves From Moderation to Free Speech And Back Again”
1) Kings were the apex of the Noble Hierarchy… Noble-in-Chief. They were fundamentally aligned for the good of the Nobility and had no regard for the commoners.
This is the dominant notion we were taught… it pervades our political mythology and the stories we write. The dominant figures we point to are George III and Louis XIV.
Because I am a history buff, specially about Modern Era (*) European history, I cannot let this pass. It is, indeed, mythology. Particularly about Louis XIV and the French Bourbons in general.
The major conflict of the XVII/XVIII centuries was the efforts of Kings to break up the power the nobility had over economy, justice, commerce, industry and military matters, centralize their countries under uniform rules, and expand the economy that was being strangled by feudal rights. Absolutism was, essentially, the theory that the King was the only source of power, and that the nobility had to make way to a single, King-based, uniform administration. To the lower classes, this was an extraordinarily welcome development.
After Richelieu and Mazarin paved the way, Louis XIV successfully broke the nobility's power and in doing so made France the preeminent, richest, most developed, most powerful country of the age. To do so, Monarchs opened to the bourgeoise the positions that had once been prerogative of the blood nobility. Louis XIV was hated by his nobles, and (reasonably) loved by the commercial and industrial bourgeoise, at least until the wars at the end of his reign squandered a lot of the country's riches. After him, Louis XV (**) followed these same concepts.
Regretfully, Louis XVI, albeit well intentioned, was too traditional to continue the reformist and modernizing policies of his ancestors. Revolution replaced reform. His younger brother, Louis XVIII, however, after the Napoleonic interlude, continued the transformation of the country. By the mid XIX century, France was a country ruled by the commerce and industry classes.
In some other places, including Britain, however, the mobility was able to stop the reformist impulses. Nobility won the Glorious Revolution, and controlled Britain through the mid XIX century. Every king and queen since William III/Mary II had less and less power that hi/her predecessor, and Parliament (that is, at the time the House of Lords) had more and more. The young Victoria was the last that had a modicum of say in public affairs, and she lost what limited power she had after widowhood. Edward VII's diplomatic abilities allowed him a say in foreign affairs. His son George V was already completely devoid of power.
(*) The Modern Era being the period between roughly 1492/1789
(**) Louis XV was noted for referring in his private correspondence to "citizens" (citoyens) instead of subjects.
On “Something Debt Ceiling Threatening This Way Comes”
It should be noted that the thing that freaked the UK bond market into a panic was the idea of more …. Tax Cuts.
And the effect of just floating that idea was not just the collapse of the Truss administration, but massive and very costly (as in real money changing hands) interventions by the Bank of England to protect the system’s stability, resulting in HM Treasury to end in a worse position than before the announcement. And to repay those unplanned expenses, not only the announced Tax Cuts were nixed, but…. Income taxes had to be increased from where they were before mini-budget week.
Though unintended, the consequences of even announcing the Truss’ policies were easily foreseeable, and foreseen by many Bank and Treasury officials (the Senior Permanent Secretary of the Treasury being fired for his troubles). But Ms. Truss , MP, and Mr. Kwarteng, MP, are both known to be true believers, and won’t be bothered by experts’ opinions, who stand in the way of GROWTH!!
On “A Scottish Vision of America”
Are there two factions (parties), or are parties just associations of very different factions that don't like each other very much but dislike the other association much more?
If the latter, Hume was mostly right
On “The Transnistrian Corridor: Why Moldovans are Afraid They Will Be Putin’s Next Target.”
Only mildly related to this extremely interesting post.
A good friend of mine, who used to work for a European energy utility that operated in Moldova, was offered -after the unpleasantness between the two parts of the country- to head of the company's operations in Transnistria.
As you can imagine, the Transninstrian authorities were not willing to have their utility run from Moldova proper.
My friend traveled to Tiraspol, spent a couple of days there, understood how things were expected to work, returned to the head office rejecting the proposal. The company told my friend to chose Transnistria or nothing.
My friend resigned. He still shudders at the idea
On “The Losing of One’s Mind Online: Mar-a-Lago Search Warrant Edition”
I think the concept here is that he "declassified" them January 19, 2020, just by ordering them taken away from the WH and sent to Mar-a-Lago.
Like Cheney "declassified" the identity of Valerie Plame just by telling Robert Novak. No additional paperwork needed. The action IS the declassification.
Which, of course, means to those documents should now be accesible by the public. To the extent that Trump wanted them hidden, well, they are no longer classified and can be published anywhere. Hopefully they are, and they at least embarrass him. That's what I'd do (and what Bush did in the Plame case)
Or, they were not declassified, and therefore taking them away from the WH is a criminal act.
Or, they are both classified and declassified at the same time. Not a crime to take them away, but not to be seen by anyone.
Yeah, that last option must be it
On “Where Waldo Was: A Booper and Bryan Misadventure Featuring Mike Pence”
Then he doesn’t know Mike Pence at all 😎
"
Point of order.
I doubt Mike Pence would be ever found within a mile of a Basilica, much less celebrating the feast of the Epiphany.
On “They Just Don’t Make Satanic Panics Like They Used To”
I was about to ask the same thing. Why did the translator changed the gender of the speaker, from a woman to a man? "Elle" is "she", not "he"
On “Thursday Throughput: BA5 Edition”
ThTh7, the article is paywalled. Any chance there's a link to another article? Or, at least, an elevator pitch summary from our gracious host?
On “Promulgating Opacity In The Manufacture of Perceptive Understanding”
I’m of two minds here. I grew up in a family where everyone was multilingual, words in different languages were all around, and sometimes we switched languages to exchange private comments in a public setting. In that respect, I’m used to pick up the meaning of new words by context, and a footnote would break the rhythm of the reading. So, no footnotes.
As long as the untranslated word is there to help set the mood, create the atmosphere, or add to the description. It cannot be a key element of the plot. I can read a story where a character having tarturok for breakfast brings memories of long gone summer vacations, without knowing what tarturok is. It would be very different than a story where the main character has to tarturok to save his wife. Then yes, I need to know exactly what is tarturok.
If I were to write a novel where using many untranslated foreign words was an important part of the artistic decision, I think a glossary at the end would be a helpful compromise.it would bridge the cultural divide, which, I would expect, is what the author wanted to do here. Show the reader what her culture feels in the inside.
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