Ozymandias

Visiting Old Goa, once called “The Rome of the East,” is oddly like visiting Rome itself. In this one way: both were once managed by military men, conquerors, famous men of their day, whose business was war, and by merchants who grew spectacularly wealthy. Both cities were once the administrative centres for vast empires.

But now, for both, the empires are gone; the captains and the kings have long departed. And what is left?

The churches. In the case of Rome, though it lost its political and military preeminence a thousand five hundred or so years ago, it remains the centre of a spiritual empire much larger than Rome ever was: the Catholic Church.

In the case of Old Goa, there is almost literally nothing left standing but the churches. Even the governor’s palace is gone—all but one sad doorway. Yet a dozen impressive religious buildings survive, alone in the jungles. Most are still in use. And, while all the other famous men have long been food for worms, even the actual body of St. Francis Xavier is still there, looking not much changed in the past five hundred years.

The moral: earthly glory fades. But religious power, even on earth, partakes of eternity.

All Religions are One

A Protestant friend wondered why I, as a devout Catholic, had statues of Buddhas and paintings of Hindu gods in my home. He was under the impression that Hindus worship idols.

But Hindus do not worship idols. There is a simple test: does one Hindu god compete with another? They did, in the classical Greek conception. They did, among the Canaanites. If so, we are dealing with polytheism, and with multiple gods. But they do not, in Hinduism. Here we are not dealing with multiple gods. There is one supreme God, Brahman, which/who is expressed in many ways. Any Hindu well-educated in his faith will insist in this point. While Hinduism might once have been a polytheistic faith, it has not been so since at least the Puranic/Vedantic period, dating from Sankara and the revival of Hinduism in the early centuries AD.

Strikingly, Hinduism even recognizes the Trinity. Their Trimurti (“Three Forms”), the chief manifestations of Godhead, includes Brahma, the Creator—he is directly equivalent to the Christian God the Father; Vishnu, the Preserver, who notably incarnates in Creation, most famously as Krishna and Rama—very like the Christian Christ; and Siva, the Destroyer, who dances eternally amid flames—an energy principle, at least vaguely similar to the Holy Spirit. Interestingly, there is a similar trinity in Buddhism and in Taoism as well.

It seems to me that here we have a basis for dialogue.

It may be that Hinduism has been directly influenced in all this by Christianity. After all, Christians have been in India since the first or second century AD. And Sankara, the acknowledged founder of Vedantic Hinduism, was born in a heavily Christian area, Kerala, in the 8th century AD. Indeed, he was late enough to be influenced by Islam as well, brought to Kerala by Muslim traders.

Or it might be that God leaves no nation without light—for surely a merciful God would not. And so the outlines of the same message can be found in all major religions, accessible to all mankind. The same images are imbedded in all our imaginations; the same moral certainties are imbedded in all our consciences, the same unspoken cravings are engraved in all our hearts, and the same eternal principles govern all our reasonings. All lead to the same destination; for all are inscribed there by the same God.

The Real World of Empire

A correspondent, wanting to cite the world’s largest empires currently, produced the following list:

France: French Guiana and other possessions
Great Britain: Falkland Islands and other possessions
Denmark: Greenland
Netherlands: Netherlands Antilles

But these nations, though they once had their day, are pikers in the Empire Bowl.

What is an empire? “A state uniting many territories and peoples under a single sovereign power.”

China and India must rank as the two largest empires currently—indeed, two of the largest empires in history. Each rules about one fifth of mankind. In China, the Han nationality strongly dominates, but it includes such disparate territories as Tibet and (Caucasian) Sinjiang, and over fifty “national minorities.” India includes a vast number of languages—which means, ethnicities—with the languages of South India completely unrelated to those of the North. When China was ruled by the Qing, nobody doubted it was an empire. When India was ruled by the Mughals, nobody doubted it was an empire. They still are.

After that comes the EU—comprising another ninth of humanity, and the greatest empire ever to emerge on that continent.

After those three, Canada is worth an honourable mention at least. Nunavut, Quebec, Newfoundland, Vancouver—pretty far-flung territories, pretty disparate peoples.

There are more, including most of the countries of Africa: South Africa, Nigeria, Tanzania, the Congo. Taken together, empires are about as common as nation states.

Are nation states preferable? Not obviously. Empires have been given a lot of bad press over the last fifty years or so, but they have many advantages.

Diversity is not always a bad thing.

Yes, Aisha, There Is a Future

It is not that the modern left lacks imagination—they can always imagine an impending disaster requiring government intervention. But when it comes to possible good news, or the possibility of an individual making a difference, they sure lack imagination.

Witness a piece from NPR I came across recently, pronouncing the Alberta Tar Sands doomed. Why? The first problem is that treating the bitumen releases—their words—“dangerous gases.” These “dangerous gases” are of course carbon dioxide, produced by the burning of natural gas to fuel the extraction process. Carbon dioxide--harmless to humans, essential to plant life, common as air, but now reclassified as poison. Dangerous if you believe in the conventional theories about global warming and greenhouse gases.

The second problem dooming the Tar Sands and the world’s energy supply, is the worry that the natural gas, needed to refine the oil, will itself run out. Because natural gas is no more renewable than oil.

But the entire story miraculously avoids two simple words: nuclear power. Is it really inconceivable that a nuclear plant could be built in Ft. McMurray, far from major population centres, close to one of the world’s largest uranium deposits, to run the process? Producing, among other things, unlimited fuel and zero CO2 emissions?

Apparently so.

Similarly, I have been told by science teachers since I was in knee-pants—well, jeans--that the world was about to run out of fresh water. Never mind that this is one of the most renewable resources—renewed at every rain. Never mind that access to potable water, according to UN figures, is actually increasing worldwide every year, and has been since I was in those knee-pants. No, within a few decades—by now, in fact--everyone would be killing everyone else fighting over the next water hole.

It’s apparently an appealing image. Because, even though it hasn’t come true yet, exactly the same claim is currently being made loudly and hourly on CNN, that “the next wars will be over water,” to advertise their new (typically neutral, as the title suggests) series called “Earth in Peril.”

Hard to believe they’ve actually missed the fact that the surface of the world is over two-thirds water. It would be very hard for any species living on the remaining one-third of the earths surface to ever use it up.

Yes, that water is salty, and so unsuitable for drinking. No chance it could ever be useful, I suppose—this is the same thing they were saying about the Alberta Tar Sands for decades, in fact. But is desalinization such an unthinkable technology? A technology already supplying all the water for irrigation and drinking in several countries, including the one in which I currently reside?

Yes, it is still fairly expensive—at least compared to how cheap water is elsewhere. But are we really at the limits of what we can do with desalinization technology? And would we really end up killing each other, not due to any real shortage, but just to save a few bucks?

Now comes news that an Ottawa Valley student, Asha Suppiah, now 20, managed, as a science project when in grade school, using everyday materials, to literally double the efficiency of current solar desalination techniques. Just a kid working at her kitchen table. Because she is using common, everyday materials—cotton and wire mesh—her process ought to be accessible to just about anyone in the Third World. Because it is solar powered, the cost is only the purchase cost—it needs no fuel.

That’s some indication of just how primitive our desalination technology still is. We’ve just gotten started. We’re still at the Wright Brothers work-in-your-garage stage.

It’s also a good indication that we need is fewer teachers filling kids like Asha Suppiah with helpless, hopeless doom and gloom, and more encouraging them to innovate.

Ann Coulter's Heresy

Now Ann Coulter is in trouble, for saying that Jews would be “perfected” if they become Christian. As soon as she said it, the interviewer himself declared to her face that he was personally offended, that she was “hateful,” “anti-Semitic,” and her statement was “absurd.”

Since then, the pundits have been going crazy.

It is barely credible to me--and evidence of how anti-religious America has become--that there is any controversy attached to Coulter's remarks. I say this even though I am far from being a fan of Ann Coulter.

But what on earth do people think that believing in a religion means? It means you think it is true. If you care at all for your fellow man, surely you want them to know the truth--and the best way to heaven--too.

This is what Coulter was saying. She said it in so many words: “Jews go to heaven, sure, but ours is the fast track—like Federal Express.”

Yet people are objecting to this?

The world is mad.

Suppose she had said that everyone should know how to read and write, or that everyone should know basic physics. Would that be similarly offensive?

If not, we are discriminating against religion.

She has also been absolutely misquoted in many outlets as saying that Jews would have to “discard” Judaism to become Christian. This is especially offensive, because this was what the interviewer, not Coulter, said, and it seems to me Coulter made it quite clear this was not what she meant. She pointed out that Christians all believed in Judaism, in fact. That Christians all accept the Hebrew Scriptures. That Christianity is itself a form of Judaism. One can, as "Jews for Jesus" have always pointed out, be both a Jew and a Christian. As, of course, Jesus was; and St. Peter, and St. Paul, and Mary, and all the apostles. There is no question of “discarding” Judaism here. She said “perfecting” it.

Just as the misadventures of Dr. Watson over the last week show it is dangerous in the current climate of thought to know too much about science, Anne Coulter’s experience here shows it is also now dangerous to know too much theology.

Dr. Watson's Heresy

Poor old James Watson, co-discoverer of DNA and Nobel Laureate, apparently has run into some political trouble. It pays these days, even for famous scientists, to keep well apprised of the prevailing political currents. To recap briefly, Dr. Watson apparently observed that the intelligence of Africans was, based on IQ testing, “not really” the same as that of Britishers.

Appearances on his current book tour were immediately cancelled. He was immediately suspended from his job. His employer of 35 years publicly disowned him. He quickly recanted, insisted that there was no scientific evidence to back his original claim, and apologized “unreservedly.” But even that, combined with the Nobel Prize, does not appear to be enough. The commentary has been universally condemnatory, and quite personal. Canada.com hopes his career is over. Wired calls his comments “utterly unacceptable to civilized society.”

Galileo must be grateful, up in heaven, that he did not live in these times.

What Watson said was of course perfectly true, and little more than common sense. Any IQ test yet devised shows definite differences in outcome based on ethnicity. Africans score lower than Europeans. Jews score higher than other Westerners. Chinese score better than Europeans. Japanese score highest of all.

Two politically-correct responses are commonly made: first, that this is due to cultural bias in the tests. But if so, how to explain that Japanese score better than Europeans on European-devised IQ instruments? Second, that there are different types of intelligence, and if Africans do worse on one type, it must be that they do better on some other. Maybe so, though it seems a pretty romantic notion, and one backed by no evidence. But, if so, what Watson said is still perfectly correct: he said that African intelligence was “not the same as” European. If they are better at hand-eye coordination, but worse at abstract reasoning, his point still holds.

But then, just as Watson noted, there is no reason to suppose that different populations, evolving in different places and under different circumstances, would somehow all end up with identical levels of a selected range of mental talents. In fact, the assumption is, on the face of it, ridiculous. First, it goes directly against Darwin. And it goes directly against common experience and common sense. It is logically the same as assuming that all individuals have identical mental talents; or that all families must be equally intelligent. Indeed, let's say they are; if so, mustn’t everyone also have equal levels of singing talent? Making American Idol discriminatory? Leaving alone professional sports… Where's the outrage?

So why is it that no one, not even a Nobel-winning scientist, is permitted to point out this obvious imperial sartorial fact?

Because the chattering tribe has long claimed that the doctrine of human equality is based on science. I recall very well a comic book feature when I was a child called “Science says you’re wrong.…” It featured the standard establishment beliefs of the day—the hyperscientistic Sputnik-spooked early Sixties--as scientific “truths.” One, of course, was “science says you’re wrong if you believe different races have different mental abilities.” Yet then, as now, all the tests ever devised indicated they did.

What could be less scientific than rejecting the evidence of repeated experiment because it did not conform to a preconceived notion?

Why do they do this? Because science, with its accomplishments, has gathered a great deal of prestige—thanks in some small part to Dr. Watson himself. This prestige is very useful to those in power, as an ideology justifying their program and their power. If they want people to believe a thing, they assert that it is “scientific.” They use science rather the way Osama bin Laden uses Islam: they pretend to scientific authority and invoke it in their interests.

(Al Gore, are you listening?)

Ironically, this makes them quite hostile to any real science—as witness Watson. As Jesus was to the Pharisees of his day, to these people James Watson is a great danger—precisely because he seems to speak with scientific authority, but does not toe their line. It all gives some insight into the dangers scientists who publicly dissent on global warming must also face.

Hence the sharpness of the reaction to Watson. They really don’t want to see this happening soon again.

The dirty little secret is, the doctrine of human equality was never based on science. Social Darwinism, Fascism, and Nazism were. And human equality certainly has nothing to do with people having the same IQ. The doctrine of human equality is a religious belief. It comes from monotheism, and most specifically from Christianity.

Note the words of the US Declaration of Independence: “All men are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.” Similarly, Locke based his argument for human equality on the fact that we are all descended in an equally direct line from Adam. As the Levellers chanted back when Charles I faced the swordsman: “When Adam delved, and Eve span—who then was the gentleman?”

For it follows: if God created all mankind in the one act, in Adam and Eve, we are all equal at our birth. Equal in our ultimate value, that is, in our intrinsic worth, equal in the eyes of God. Regardless of our intelligence, or height, or race, or physical strength, or sex, all of which are obviously not equal at all.

A simple principle; indeed, elementary, my dear Watson.

One of the interesting consequences of this truth is that atheism is by its very nature corrosive of our human rights and civil liberties. Therefore, assuming we believe in human equality, while atheism perhaps should be tolerated in a civil society—albeit Locke and Rousseau to the contrary—it certainly ought not to be encouraged.

Conversely, there is a legitimate reason for the state to encourage theism and religion.

No, more than this—while evolution too should perhaps be tolerated, there is a legitimate reason for the state to want to ensure that Creationism is also taught in the schools.

With gusto. And in its most literal sense.

Harper Wins Ontario Election

Warren Kinsella says the result of the Ontario election should kill any federal Tory plans for a fall poll.

He has to say that. He’s a party flack. But he is exactly wrong. The Ontario election is good news for Stephen Harper.

There is no national trend towards the Liberals provincially—yesterday’s news was Danny Williams’ historic Conservative majority in Newfoundland.

No—put the two provincial results together, and the real message is that this is a good time for incumbents. The economy is booming. The dollar is going further. Canadians feel good. They are in no mood to rock the boat.

That’s what killed John Tory—his religious schools proposal simply smacked of major change.

And Stephen Harper is the man in power.

Historically, Ontarians have no party loyalty. When they vote Conservative provincially, they generally vote Liberal federally, and vice versa. There is good reason for this—beyond the public’s instincts to maintain a balance of power. When the Liberals are securely in power provincially, the top Tory talent focuses on the federal arena as their best opportunity, and vice versa. Many of the strongest Liberals, meanwhile, are tied up in the provincial parliament or civil service.

Voters respond—all else being equal, the best candidates, the best flacks, and the best organizers, win.

Kinsella himself is a case in point. He used to be strictly federal. Now he is Mr. Ontario.

For Harper, it looks like all systems are go.

God Save Us from Practical Men

Here's why I love Andrew Coyne.

Chinglish

Notes from a visit to Hainan, China, a couple of years ago:

Strange English is everywhere. The hotel restaurant offers a "nourishing dish" of "Whole Hawaiian papaya with stewed snow frog" at 28 RMB per person. The mini bar includes "goat embryo element," but I don’t think I’ll try one. The hotel "Regulations" include an admonishment against radioactive materials in the hotel rooms, and against the spreading of reactionary, obscene, or superstitious books. No Gideon’s Bible here. I am shocked to discover that criminal activities are strictly forbidden. And this helpful note:

"A word of caution: cautious about buying stuff from the illegal peddlers around. We wouldn't be responsible for that."

The Good Empire

The view popular on the left is that the nations of Western Europe set out in the eighteenth century to rape and pillage the rest of the world. Indeed, most of us live white males have spent the last fifty years and more living down our history of “colonialism.” Even though, for most of us, neither we nor our ancestors had anything to do with it.

But this is not what happened at all. Few in Europe ever sought an empire.

True, it was on the agenda a few centuries earlier: Back in the days of Vasco de Gama and Columbus, the Spanish plan, at least, had been to make money by exploiting foreign colonies for raw materials. Exploration and colonization were, at least, supposed to pay for themselves. This, however, did not work out—only Spain ever managed to turn a profit on its colonies, and this only for a time. Moreover, the expansion of Spain called into being almost immediately in Spain itself the School of Salamanca, which set strict criteria for just and unjust wars—something previous empires had never bothered with.

By the eighteenth century, nobody was under any delusions that colonies were moneymakers. Free trade, not colonies, was understood as the best route to national prosperity. In financial terms, colonies were seen as losing propositions.

Neither Britain nor France, therefore, though they were the two main colonial powers, had any interest in possessing an empire, nor any plans to do so. Neither did Portugal, or the Netherlands.

So how did they end up with some of the biggest empires known to man?

First, they were drawn into it by the need to preserve order. Order was necessary for trade; and in large parts of the world, basic order was lacking. One had to police the trade routes, and to control the possible pirate bases. One had to ensure the safety of traders. This is explicit in Salamanca’s rules from the start: it was a basic human right to travel freely in order to do commerce. If, then, a local potentate refused traders this right, they had the right in turn to try to force their way.

Beyond that, much was done out of concern for human rights more generally. Governments in most parts of the world were markedly oppressive, in European terms. Locals would often appeal to European forces for aid, and the home front would be galvanized into sympathy. It was all very similar to the reasoning that, more recently, drew the international community into Lebanon, Kosovo, Bosnia, Somalia, Rwanda, and so forth. The School of Salamanca, again, initiated this idea: if, for example, a foreign government was slaughtering people innocent of any crime, foreigners had the right to intervene. All had a right to freedom of religion; if a foreign government prevented Christians from preaching or practicing, this too was cause to intervene. One could not, by the same token, intervene to force conversions; local religions too had to be honoured.

Finally, there were the needs of collective security. While the actual European trading posts might have been small, they relied on local allies. These allies, in turn, had enemies nearby. And they naturally appealed to their European colleagues for aid in time of war. Then, as now, this was a form of legitimate self-defense, and recognized by Salamanca.

These three factors together, combined with overwhelming European military superiority, caused empires to form quite apart from any conscious policy. It was no more rapacious or oppressive or racist, in principle and in broad strokes, than we are today. Indeed, it is the same thing that is happening today, although today the intervention is more likely to be by the World Bank or IMF, using economic rather than military means.

There are, it is true, specific examples of Imperial abuse: Ireland, Poland, the Belgian Congo, Armenia, Korea under Japan. These were generally recognized, and condemned, as such at the time.

In France, the left actively opposed an Empire, because it would tend to give more power to the army. The right opposed it because it distracted France from her real defensive needs, which were, they believed, against Germany on the continent. There was no constituency for it.

The French Empire was built on ad hoc situations like the failure, in 1882, of the de facto government of Egypt to pay its debts to French and British banks. Much of the eventual Francophone domain was called forth by the collapse of civil order in the Ottoman Empire. In this context, France, French shipping, and French nationals were subject to piracy and what we would now call terrorist attacks--as were the other unfortunate inhabitants of that part of the world.

Condemn, if you will, this supposed European “aggression.” But you must then also condemn the UN for interfering in Darfur, or Kosovo, or Bosnia, or Cyprus, or ….

Kerouac in Montreal

The Toronto Star recently commemorated the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of On the Road by recounting Jack Kerouac’s 1967 appearance on the CBC, on a French-language programme called Sel de la semaine.

The story is that the audience broke into laughter to hear him speak French.

Not that Kerouac’s spoken French was bad—he always spoke French with his own family, and did not learn English until he went to school. It’s that it was the French of rural Gaspe.

“To the members of his audience, anxious to be part of a modern Quebec, hearing Kerouac's French was like an educated American audience hearing a famous author speak in the hillbilly, southern accent of a guest on The Jerry Springer Show. The way he was speaking, it wasn't so much the words by themselves, it was just the rhythm of the sentences,’ Pierre Anctil, of the University of Ottawa, says. ‘It appeared as rural and unlearned and folkloric.’”

The article suggests this tells us something about Kerouac. I think it tells us instead something about the difference between Quebec and America. It is the Quebec audience’s reaction that seems to me uncultured and provincial. Hillbilly southern accents? Like those, say, of Mark Twain, or William Faulkner, or Thomas Wolfe, or Tennessee Williams? My guess is that an American audience would not blink an eyelash.

And how would such an audience have greeted uneducated, rural William Shakespeare?

Indeed, Kerouac’s Brooklyn English was no more the literary language of America than his Gaspe French was that of Quebec. The whole point of his concept of “Beats” was that all good came from the fellaheen, from the common people: the hero of On the Road was a compulsive car thief who had grown up in reform schools.

If this surprised the audience, they obviously had never read anything he wrote.

America is democratic to its toes. Quebec, and Canada, are not.

Crazy People

Here’s my proposal for ending all mental illness in Canada:

Just issue everyone who is psychotic with a cell phone. Their behavior immediately becomes normal.

And speaking of madness, having read a review by Dawkins of Hitchens; here is the logic of Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens’ atheism, in brief:

1. If I cannot disprove a thing, it must not be true.
2. All evil is claimed to be good. Therefore, good is evil.

Speak No Evil

A posting from a few days ago has strangely disappeared from this site. Ironically, it was on free speech.

My guess is that the photos attached simply broke Blogger’s bandwidth restrictions.

So I’m reposting without the images:


There is something Orwellian about the speaker’s podium set up at one corner of Nathan Phillips square. There it stands, unused, behind a barricade, and with a rather frightening warning label:

This Speaker’s Corner is dedicated by the City Council of Toronto to the concept of free speech. The public may mount the dias and speak, or challenge another speaker to debate.

Speakers may not use the dias for any purpose that is contrary to law, and are reminded that the Canadian Criminal Code prohibits slanderous statements or statements promoting genocide or hatred against an identifiable group or race.

When speaking from the dias, the speaker assumes all risks. The City does not assume and shall not be liable for any damages or action resulting therefrom.

It bears mute witness that there is no free speech in Canada; that something like Speaker’s Corner in London's Hyde Park is in fact no longer possible under Canadian law. And any member of the public is taking his personal liberty in his own two hands to dare to mount that platform.

This must change, for Canada to become again truly free.

And without free speech, ultimately, without the free exchange of ideas, there is no democracy either.

A New Extinction Threat

I expect you’re busy—we all are—but this is an emergency. It seems, just when we were feeling a little better about the polar bears and the killer whales, we have a new crisis, in the world of language. The National Geographic News warns that fully hundreds of languages are “teetering on the brink,” a “a global extinction crisis that greatly exceeds the pace of species extinction."

No, seriously. If a language no longer has any speakers, this is a tragedy, right? It is just as if an animal species has become extinct, right? We should all be upset, shouldn’t we, and taking firm government measures to preserve our endangered languages?

Or not. A language is a tool. Tools are more often for throwing out when they no longer happen to be useful. There is some logic in preserving old tools in museums, for interest. There is very little logic in obliging some people to keep using them, demonstrably beyond their usefulness.

And language is a tool, specifically, for communication. It follows that the more people speak a languages, the better language works. A language spoken by very few people is intrinsically less useful. Insisting on preserving languages spoken only by small minorities is like making them chop firewood. With a stone axe.

Conversely, if the world is speaking fewer languages year by year, that is a sign of progress. Just as, with the printing press, the infinity of small dialects in England or France resolved into one recognizable literary language.

Push the logic of preserving small languages to an extreme, and one must also fight to preserve a speech impediment rather than learning to speak as everyone else does.

National Geographic, to the contrary, beats the drums of alarm yet louder. It claims that losing a language means losing important knowledge: “irreplaceable knowledge about the natural world.”

"Most of what we know about species and ecosystems is not written down anywhere, it's only in people's heads," the NG’s expert, David Harrison of Swarthmore, warns.

Right. Let’s see how that works. When did knowledge become language-specific? Has National Geographic never heard of the possibility of translation? Does it think it is only possible for each human to speak and understand one language?

And, if so, if the very last few speakers of some minority language never learn any other language, how do they manage to get by—without being able to speak to anyone?

In the real world, languages most often die out not because everyone who speaks them suddenly dies of the plague, but because those who had spoken them gradually switch to a different language. Absent government action, they switch if and only if they find the new language more useful.

I’m trying hard, but I can’t get excited over the loss that represents. A loss to whom? After all, not even the knowledge of the language itself is lost, so long as a grammar and a dictionary have been written down. Latin has done remarkably well with no native speakers for a couple of thousand years.

Therefore, unless things known in one language are genuinely untranslatable, no knowledge is lost when a language dies. Not even the vocabulary or grammar of that language, if anyone has ever taken the time to write it down.

I gather we are simply running out of things to worry about.

The Truth about Househusbands

Whenever I go out alone with my son, I can expect some unpleasantness. He is quite a well-behaved little six-year-old. And there is rarely a problem when his mother is with us. But it seems that when a man cares for children, he is subject to general contempt, most especially from women. Many women seem to think that they have the right to order around any man with a child, and they seem positively eager to complain about any inconvenience they have been caused. They never, in my experience, act this way with a mother. They wouldn’t dare.

Where a woman with a child is helped by all comers, a man seems to be obstructed wherever possible. It is an opportunity for bullies to get in their licks.

And never mind a man paying any attention at all to a child not his own. He is lucky if he is not openly accused of being a pedophile on the make.

This attitude is the furthest thing from equality of the sexes--and yet, while everybody claims to believe in equality of the sexes, nobody seems to remark on it. Equality of the sexes is the last thing “feminism” is about.

Similarly, current “progressive” thought holds that men are supposed to do half the housework. But let’s be frank: there is no equality in the kitchen. What happens if the man decides he wants to store the good plates here rather than there? Who decides?

Never the husband. Men who work in the kitchen inevitably work under the close direction of their wives. She is the supervisor; they are unpaid labour.

Don’t even get me going in “reproductive freedom.” Why is it that for women, the free choice to have or not have a child is a fundamental right, even if they choose to have sex with all comers, yet men have no say, beyond refusing all sex, in whether they have a child or not?

We will have equality of the sexes when fathers are given custody of children as often as mothers; when women are charged with sexual harassment as often as men; when men can choose as freely as women whether to work outside the home or not; and when there are as many women as men in prison.

Why are the feminists who claim to want sexual equality not lobbying for affirmative action on these fronts?

The Crisis in Canadian Manufacturing

It is always amusing to read the Toronto Star—I haven’t seen a paper copy for years, but picked one up while in Canada this summer. It is like stepping into a different world. One that might have been familiar to Alice Liddell, as a little girl, when she sat on the knee of Lewis Carroll.

There was Carol Goar ringing the secular church bells in alarm over the crisis in Canada’s manufacturing sector (“Lean times in industrial heartland,” Star, July 27th). Apparently—who knew?—they are in decline; manufacturing is moving offshore. Something must be done—and it must, she stresses, be done by the federal government specifically. She notes that government has shovelled quite a few million to a few corporations already, speaking approvingly of $150 million given by Ontario to the forestry industry. Never mind that forestry is not actually manufacturing—all government money is good. But this is far too little. Even the billion plus given to the auto sector is, for Goar, far too little. We need more government spending, and more transfer of funds from the poor to big corporations; that goes without saying.

I can’t but feel from this that the Canadian left—the Star’s constituency—is living in the past. The decline in Canadian manufacturing is news? I am in my fifties now, and I have been aware of it all my life. The town I grew up in used to have forty different manufacturing concerns. It now has two, and earns its living from tourism. This fifty-year time lag in reporting the “news” tallies nicely with the recent uproar on the left (recent meaning to me within the last month, not the last century) about what was in the Catholic Latin mass before the 1950s. Indeed, the left generally gives the feeling that they have not yet emerged from the Great Depression. Perhaps they never will.

And it is indeed not just Goar, or just the Toronto Star. It must be more that coincidence that, speaking on the phone the next day to one of my leftist friends, and noting how prosperous Toronto is looking these days, he responded that it was all illusory, because in fact Canada is losing its manufacturing. Manufacturing is apparently the only real source of wealth.

No doubt many thought the same two hundred years ago—that Britain was heading to hell in a handcart with all these new factories, because it was losing its agricultural base. Land was the only real source of wealth. But we used at least to call that kind of thinking what it was—conservatism. To the modern left, doom is always just around the corner, and we must run backwards as fast as we can just to stay in the same place.

And no evidence of increasing Canadian prosperity, no matter how dramatic, can be real. Things must always be going from bad to worse to worst. If it isn’t global cooling, it’s global warming. If it isn’t desertification, it’s the shrinking deserts. All change is frightening. Only the status quo is good.

Of course, there really is a long-term decline in Canadian manufacturing; no dispute there. Canada is broadly moving from manufacturing into services, as manufacturing moves offshore.

To leftists like Goar, of course, “services” means only one thing: flipping burgers at McDonald’s. (As Goar puts it, “low wage jobs in the retail or hospitality sector.”) Not a bad job at all, really, a lot more fun than factory work, with better chance of advancement; but leftists hate McDonald’s. They have the prejudice of all idle elites against the stain of “commerce.” Pleasant and opportunity-full as a future at McDonald’s really is, though, in the real world, “services” also means banking, insurance, medicine, layering, accounting—not especially poorly-paying positions. And many good blue-collar jobs in transportation—trucking, for example, Canada’s single most common occupation. Indeed, the more manufacturing moves offshore, the more jobs there will be in transportation. Others of a blue collar bent might similarly enjoy piloting, air traffic control, barbering, cosmeticianship, construction, plumbing, electrical work, auto repair, boat repair, and on and on. All experiencing shortages, all well-paying, all services.

And, as Goar does not mention, or does not notice, that the same people also have growing opportunities in the resource sector. This cannot move offshore; and Canada’s uranium mines and oil patch are booming.

Leftists will argue, and Goar does argue, that, regardless of what other, better, jobs might be available, the average manufacturing factory worker does not have the skills for them (and, patronizingly enough, they believe the average factory worker does not have the intellect to learn them).

Now, this if true is only a problem if the decline in manufacturing is happening faster than the retirement rate can naturally reduce is workforce. Can this be true if the decline in manufacturing has been going on for at least fifty years? No, it cannot—anyone in manufacturing when the trend first became visible is already retired. If there was a problem, by now it is necessarily solved.

Conversely, anyone in manufacturing now has had their entire lifetimes to adjust; and has gone in aware of this issue, and taking it into consideration. Are they really, then, in need of and deserving of government help, which is to say, being supported financially by the rest of us? Are we obliged to save them from their own conscious choices?

Okay, let’s even say yes—and suppose that the money we have available to help others is unlimited, that there is no question even of setting priorities. Even so, if the decline in the manufacturing workforce is really faster than retirement can reduce it without dislocation, and manufacturing workers are really incapable of learning other work, this should logically show up in higher unemployment figures. Instead, the Canadian unemployment rate is down over the past fifty years or so, as Goar herself admits, with no sign of a recent jump. Despite the fact that the mass migration of women into the workforce over the same period ought logically to require twice as many jobs to be created, even leaving aside the growth in population from about twenty to about thirty million. With a growth in average income.

Odd, if there is a crisis at hand, that we have absolutely no evidence of it.

Goar and other leftists argue, in fact, that the apparent rise in jobs and employment masks people being forced to take worse jobs—i.e., flipping burgers at McDonald’s. (Perhaps even, God forbid, in the natural progression of things, ending up owning and operating their own McDonald’s outlet, or string of outlets.)

Let us even accept the dubious claim that former manufacturing employees are now commonly flipping burgers. It seems to me unlikely, since the people I see behind the counter at McD’s seem far too young to have had much seniority in any previous job. But let’s assume they are. Let’s even assume that working at McD’s is really a worse job than working in a factory—having worked both in a factory and in retail myself, I find this claim incredible, but let’s allow it. Does that justify the government taking money from the rest of us, and giving it to these former manufacturing workers, in compensation? Or worse, giving it to the shareholders of the corporations who employ them—since that is what Goar and other leftists actually propose?

I’d say just the reverse—because this necessarily means, if Goar is right about everything else, that she is demanding that people actually flipping burgers at McDonald’s—the great mass of us—despite their pitiable situation, have their money taken away from them and given to others who are much better off, corporate investors and possibly their employees, to protect the latter’s privileged position.

How can this be morally justified? How, indeed, does Goar and the left justify protecting or subsidizing manufacturing in rich Canada by any means, since it necessarily means taking money and jobs away from the poor in other countries—people necessarily poorer and needier than any Canadian?

As Alice might have said, curiouser and curiouser. The modern left seems built on one premise: that by calling anything “left-wing” or “progressive” or “liberal,” you can get away with it, no matter how reactionary, selfish, racist, and classist it is.

Thoughts As I Lay Dying

Over the past year, bizarrely, I have suffered all the symptoms of not one, but two different fatal illnesses, and twice briefly had fatal diagnoses.

It kind of makes you think. As Samuel Johnson said, “Nothing so concentrates the mind as knowing one is to be hanged in a fortnight.”

I wouldn’t mind checking out that much, really—we all die sooner or later, so it makes rather little difference whether it is sooner or later.

And most things in this world, the physical-social world, the world we leave at death, are only delusions. They are really the opposite of what they are commonly thought, and commonly claimed, to be.

Maybe that’s what the world is about. Maybe the world is a test; a puzzle, and it is up to us to solve it. If and when we do, we are ready for the next stage.

Four, or more, noble truths:

1. The world is a cock-up. Expect nothing, and don’t waste energy on it.

2. Trust only God—accept no substitutes.

3. If you’re good with God, it does not matter what anyone else thinks. If you’re n ot good with God, it does not matter what anyone else thinks.

4. Right and wrong are absolutes. They matter regardless of rewards and punishments.

5. God is God, and you are not.

6. God is in charge; there is no need for you to try to manage things. Things will go just fine without you.

7. It is better to be punished justly than to be rewarded unjustly.

8. When in need, pray. Believe, or not—it still works.

9. Any sin you can forgive in another when done to you, must necessarily be forgiven by God when done by you. For God’s mercy is greater than yours.

10. You cannot hide anything from God. Don’t waste energy trying.

11. Religious belief is not a matter of faith or will. It is the best explanation for things as they are.

12. God is never silent. Everything we perceive is his word. Sometimes we do not listen.

By the way, I got better.

Napoleon's Pyramid

Like most other apparently successful dictatorships, Napoleon’s seems to have been a pyramid scheme. He floated it all on exploiting conquered territories. This meant that continual conquest was necessary to keep the books balanced. Necessarily, this meant eventual collapse.

Hitler did the same; as a new book, Hitler’s Beneficiaries (Gotz Aly) outlines, the finances of Nazi Germany were quite mad. Albert Speer states plainly in his biography that much of the regime’s early financial success was achieved simply by printing money, while preventing the sort of transparent financial reporting that would have made this apparent.

But this was a short-term solution. Hence Hitler was under a financial necessity to plunder the Jews; quite apart from any racist motive, and he needed their money to keep the government afloat. Even the famous Kristallnacht pogrom was actually a matter of an urgent need to cover two billion marks in short term debt quickly coming due. Fortunately, the Jews were small in number, clearly identifiable (so that they could be singled out without frightening the larger population), and unusually wealthy. The Knights Templar, in their day, fell to an avaricious and needy government of France in exactly the same way for exactly the same reason. So did the Jesuits, centuries later. It could have been anyone else fitting the description; it just happened to be the Jews.

But it was not enough—couldn’t be, because this was a pyramid scheme. By 1939, the Nazis were spending 36.8 billion marks a year, on weaponry and welfare, and only taking in 17 billion marks in annual revenues.

Hence, as Hitler actually said in so many words at the time, war was inevitable. Hitler needed a larger pool to exploit. He could not possibly back down, no matter what the offered compromise: he needed Czechoslovakia to plunder, and then he needed Poland, and then, when Britain did not fall, he needed the Soviet Union.

This insight explains several other things that would otherwise be puzzling. For example, when the Germans first took the Ukraine, they were hailed as liberators. They had a great opportunity to enlist the Ukraine’s manpower in their support against Russia; and the same was true of most other non-Russian areas they took. Instead, they raped the conquered lands ruthlessly, losing the support of the people and requiring large numbers of solders just to keep the areas pacified.

Why? Because they could not afford to do anything else. And by doing this, Hitler probably managed to keep Stalin and Communism in power in the Soviet Union for generations longer than would otherwise have been the case.

Again, this explains the supposed Nazi “prejudice against women” that allows feminists to claim for women the aura of a group opposed by Hitler. Hitler always resisted putting German women into the workforce to replace the German men sent off to war. Officially, this might have been because “women’s place was in the home.” But the financial truth is that women would have had to be paid, and the government had no money. It was therefore far better from their point of view to use slave labour from the occupied territories.


This seems to be the way of most, if not all, dictators. Napoleon III did it, too, if in a smaller way, by confiscating the estates of the followers of the House of Orleans, his predecessor. After that, he relied on shady financing for the reconstruction of Paris, until this scheme collapsed. When Bismark attacked, he discovered France, now short of funds, had little more than a paper army. Iraq’s Saddam, similarly, was quite overtly forced to invade Kuwait because he owed them too much money as a result of his invasion of Iran. Others, with fewer military capabilities, are limited to exploiting helpless internal “enemies,” just as Hitler did at the start: Mugabe, Amin, Mao, Pol Pot. It’s the economy, stupid.

The most surprising thing about Napoleon is that the French still remember him, despite the ravages his rule caused, despite his brutality, despite his sending hundreds of thousands of young Frenchmen to their deaths unnecessarily, despite the ultimate loss of international position and prestige, fondly. This seems to me a specific example of the French preference for illusion over reality. He put on a good party; that’s what matters, no matter how the morning after feels.

But by and large, people do seem to like this sort of thing. People seem too ready to buy cons from their government that are too good to be true. They want a man on a white horse; and they are even inclined to remember the good days fondly after they are gone, not making the connection of the beginning with the inevitable end. The willing suspension of disbelief is a powerful thing.

As for current pyramid schemes, I continue to suspect China of being one. I suspect it will all come apart some day, probably soon. The lack of transparency makes it possible to conceal too much. The current excitement about the safety of Chinese goods may be enough to do it. Not that cutting corners on safety or quality is enough to explain China’s stats—but it might cause a recession sharp enough to cause the whole house to collapse, if it is a Ponzi scheme based on continual expansion.

More on the Threatened Mermaid

One of the problems with ecological studies showing that all kinds of animals and plants are endangered is that they are commonly funded by governments, or by NGOs with a mandate to protect the environment. Government is by far the largest source of funding for research of all kinds.

For a balanced view, there are two better sources: business, and think tanks.
Most of what think tanks do is funded by government or by business, but they also do studies on their own as a means of advertising their services and their abilities.

Corporations have a lot of good reasons for looking into the effect of their actions on the environment—the need to conform to government regulations, PR, and the need for sustainability of their profitable activities. The best thing about corporate research, though, is that it is often the only counterbalance to government-funded research, which tends to dominate the field.

There are any number of examples of hype in the ecology/environmentalism field. It’s hard to figure out what is not hype. According to Dr. Patrick Moore, the founder of Greenpeace, for example, the fastest way to increase biodiversity in a rainforest is to clearcut it. Mature growth forest is far from the ideal habitat for all species. The tall trees tend to muscle out a lot of other species. (Dr. Moore is no longer a fan of Greenpeace.)

But more than that—and this is me talking again--the best habitat on land for biomass as well as biodiversity is probably a wildlife park or a zoo; next to that someone’s urban garden; next to that, a farm.

Qatar used to have almost no resident bird species. Now there are many—and all have appeared since the 1980s. Why? With greater population and greater wealth, there is a lot more greenery in the city streets.

Among themselves, the eco-types have a conscious strategy of targeting “charismatic species” for PR purposes. That is, animals that people find good-looking, cute, fuzzy. They look for that stuffed animal quality.

This is obviously clever in propaganda terms. But is it honest? And does it give us a clear view of the situation? If nothing else, this should be a red flag warning us that such organizations indeed have vested interests, and are skewing what they tell us to promote those interests. This sort of thing is advertising, and should be approached with the same caution that we approach all advertising. Except that, unlike business advertisers, NGOs and government agencies are not liable to fraud charges.

Let’s look more closely at the “threatened” polar bear, current poster child for the ecologists:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0503/p13s01-wogi.html?page=1

Here is a study (I think it is from the WWF) that relies, like most such studies, on computer projections. Broken down by separate population groups, it seems to indicate that most are facing no real threat:

http://assets.panda.org/downloads/statusofthepolarbear_14thworkingmtg_iucn_pbsg.pdf

We do not know if such computer projections are accurate, mind; they have no history of being so.

Note that the polar regions share the advantage of the oceans for alarmists’ purposes: it is the one part of the earth’s land area on which we have the least data. Therefore, the worst can be imagined.

The one group that knows best, in terms of actual observation in the field, is the Eskimos (aka Inuit). They have been insisting for years that polar bear populations have been growing rapidly. Of course, they, like government and NGOs, have a vested interest: they want to be free to hunt them. But they also, as hunters, will probably want to be sure their hunt is sustainable.

http://www.propertyrightsresearch.org/2007/articles01/davis.htm

And this looks like an example of the most reliable sort of research, something done by a think tank purely to demonstrate their research abilities:

http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba/ba551/

Meanwhile, the real story is not that species are disappearing—so far as we can tell, they are not. It is that new species keep being discovered. Not just tiny microorganisms, either. A large creature may be easy to see, if one is around, but by their nature, large creatures, especially large predators, are more likely to be rare throughout their range.

Here’s one specific example that is, literally, close to home. When I was a kid, I was interested in monsters, as many kids are, and I read a few books about such things. One of the monsters I kept coming across, along with Sasquatch, the Loch Ness monster, The Abominable Snowman, and so on, was the celebrated “Eastern cougar.” The claim was that a few people in New Brunswick, in the Canadian Maritimes, kept spotting large wild cats. But there are no big cats in Eastern Canada: the nearest big cat is the cougar or mountain lion, supposedly ranging no further east than the eastern foothills of the Rocky Mountains. And there are no mountains in New Brunswick, 3000 kilometers away.

Then, believe it or not, my own parents one summer insisted they say a big cat bound across a country road in front of them.

Then, a few years later, someone actually shot a specimen, and dragged it in to the nearest qualified scientist.

In Quebec.

It is no longer a mythical monster. The textbooks now all suddenly say the cougar or mountain lion ranges as far east as the Canadian Maritimes.

Just today, in the local Qatar paper, it was announced that the local natural history group had discovered a previously unknown species of sea slug on one of their weekend hikes.

Sea slugs are not that small.

We know what large species are present in densely populated, scientifically-oriented Europe. It gets iffier and iffier as one moves away from Europe. Amateurs out on weekend strolls are still “finding” new species in much of the world.

Meanwhile, actual, documented extinctions of species—as opposed to computer models and projections—are not common. Most known species seem to stubbornly keep surviving. And formerly “extinct” species are even rediscovered.
Consider this Wikipedia page, a list of extinct animals of Europe:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_extinct_animals_of_Europe

It lists 72 extinctions in all of Europe since the Pleistocene era.
Seventy-two in the world’s most densely-populated continent since the Pleistocene.
Only a small minority of these extinctions would be recent. Only 26 of the 72 are noted to have occurred since 1600.

And two extinct species have been rediscovered in the last few years.

And how quickly are new species being discovered? An MSNBC story reports scientists finding new fish species at a clip of two a week, 106 a year. All would automatically go on the “endangered species list,” of course. Indeed, all new species discovered in, say, the last fifty years or so are probably rare enough to qualify as endangered. That’s five thousand, isn’t it? And that’s fish alone, never mind insects or protozoa—except that the rate of new discoveries is probably accelerating over time.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6565772/

Another paper lists 57 new neotropical mammals discovered in the eight years between 1992 and 2000. That’s mammals alone, and that’s neotropics alone. Say six a year, 3,000 over fifty years, all presumably on the endangered list.

http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/pdf/10.1046/j.1472-4642.2000.00080.x?cookieSet=1

The IUCN currently reports “16,119 species of animals and plants” “threatened with extinction.” You do the math. Subtract the above figures, and it does not leave a lot of room for anything _but_ newly discovered species, does it?

Next point: compare that figure, of 16,119 species “threatened with extinction,” with the number of those actually documented as extinct in all of Europe since the Pleistocene: 72. Seems as though in the wild, few species take this “threat of extinction” very seriously.

The Medium is the President

The best thing that has happened to the Hillary Clinton campaign so far is Bill Clinton’s book tour. Perfect for them, just as the campaign season begins. He is really, really good on the stump—one of the best retail politicians ever. He can do folksy sincerity better than anyone. Fake that, and you have it made. Hillary’s strongest argument for being president is that if you vote for her, you also get Bill.

Except—there is a real danger that seeing Bill again may remind voters how different Hillary is in this regard. “I knew Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton was a friend of mine. And Hillary, you’re no Bill Clinton.” Clinton was and is hard to dislike. Now that he has no pressing need to lie, he is incredibly pleasant to listen to. Even his first Secret Service detail spotted that star quality—they gave him the code name “Elvis.” But Hillary? There is just something about her—a sweaty Nixonian, “not comfortable in her own skin” quality—that instinctively turns people off, even people who should support her ideologically.

I think this issue is extremely important to voters, in the end—more important than pundits seem to realize. And the people are right to consider it important. The US President, unlike a Canadian prime minister, is a symbol of the nation. Much of his effectiveness is based on his ability to sway public opinion—otherwise, he’s no more than a super-police-chief. Beyond vetoing it, he has no control over legislation. The “bully pulpit,” as Teddy Roosevelt put it, is the whole office.

This being so, it is important to the health of the US that the president be someone people enjoy seeing on their TV screens, and enjoy listening to. Someone with a “warm fuzzy” quotient. Bill Clinton has that. Hillary Clinton does not. She is somehow cold and sharp.

Cases in point: people trusted FDR’s voice on the radio. People loved the look of JFK on TV. Reagan had the skills of a seasoned actor, making him terribly hard to dislike: “the Teflon president.”

Counterexamples: Nixon, or Johnson, who were universally considered competent, but not personally likeable or physically attractive.

And their presidencies both ended in something like disaster.

Making it worse for Hillary, some others in the present race also have a lot of warm fuzzy quotient.

John Edwards, granted, is a bit too good-looking. People don’t like that. It makes them feel inadequate. Anne Coulter picked up on that. And all that stuff about haircuts, that’s what it’s really about. (Lucky for Bill Clinton that Monica Lewinsky was not especially good looking. Unlucky for Gary Hart that Donna Rice was). Better to have one or two obvious flaws, like Bill’s pudginess and bulbous nose. It helped Adlai Stevenson when he was photographed with a hole in his shoe, countering the general feeling that he was just too darned intelligent to be permitted to be president.


But Barack Obama? Get away. You just want him to succeed, with his eager schoolboy look. But not too good-looking: fortunately, he has big floppy ears.

There is a good chance, if he does not slip up, that he will wipe the floor with Hillarry in the primaries. If he does, he will be a much stronger candidate.

On the Republican side, Mitt Romney has the same problem as John Edwards. Too perfect. He even looks like George Washington. If he wants to be president, he needs to muss up his hair, wear his tie askew, and fart in public

Rudy Giuliani, with his Pinocchio nose and Obama ears, does not have Romney’s problems. And he is another real charmer—very like Bill Clinton in his style. New York folksy—a guy from the hood. John McCain also has formidable skills—he came very close to getting the Republican nomination in 2000 on sheer charm. Because of it, he is a real threat to be a “comeback kid,” like Clinton in 92. Charm lets you do that.

And Fred Thompson, of course, has the skills of a successful actor. Not to be sneezed at. A magnificent voice, an impressive height—the taller candidate almost always wins—and pleasantly ugly. Not too good looking, but expressive, fun to look at. (McCain suffers a bit here—his face is less expressive than it might be).

It is impossible to overestimate the importance of this warm fuzzy factor in an actual presidential election. Leaving aside all other considerations whatsoever, and running through all the presidential elections since the Second World War, the more likeable candidate almost always wins.

1948: Truman versus Dewey—Dewey, famously, was doomed by his moustache. Made him look sinister.

1952: Eisenhower versus Stevenson—as my father summarized it, Eisenhower came across as a regular guy, Stevenson as an “egghead.” So he voted Eisenhower.

1956: Stevenson was still an egghead.

1960: Kennedy versus Nixon—as we all know, Kennedy looked better on TV.

1964: Johnson versus Goldwater—this one really tests the thesis. Johnson was not likeable, and as I remember Goldwater, he was. Yet Johnson won in a historic landslide. Why?

There was a catch in Goldwater’s voice, which gave it a harsh and even a desperate-sounding quality. This was crystallized in the public consciousness as a suspicion he might actually be deranged. “In your guts, you know he’s nuts.”

1968: Nixon versus Humphrey—okay, Nixon was not likeable, but nobody in their right mind could have handled listening to Humphrey’s squeaky voice for four years.

1972: Nixon versus McGovern—McGovern’s voice was even more annoying than Humphrey’s. There was something wrong with his adenoids or his testicles, surely.

1976: Ford versus Carter—close call. Both were generally likeable. But Ford got an image for being bumbling. People start laughing at you, not with you, you lose the gravitas for being president.

1980: Carter versus Reagan—no contest. Reagan could pretty well mop the floor with anyone on personal likeability and stage presence. Meantime, Carter’s constant smile could only work for so long before it started to grate. You kind of wanted to plant your fist in his face after a while.

1984: Reagan versus Mondale. Nobody could stand up to Reagan. But Mondale also has a bit of a pip-squeak to his voice. Must be a Minnesota thing.

1988: Bush I versus Dukakis—close call, on the face of it. But perhaps by bad luck, Dukakis got filmed looking very goofy in a tank, and that image killed him. People start laughing at you, you’re toast. The Willie Horton thing mostly just underlined the impression that Dukakis was a lightweight. But in the end, didn’t this also have a lot to do with his lack of physical stature next to the gangling Bush? A little guy for a big job?

1992: Bush I versus Clinton—Elvis has entered the building. Bush looked wooden by contrast.

1996: Clinton versus Dole—Dole looked a bit like Nixon—too much five o-clock shadow. This made him look sinister. Too much edge to his voice, and too sharp a tongue. He always sounded a bit sarcastic.

2000: Gore versus Bush II—Gore looked like an inflated balloon; he did not know where to put his hands. Bush came across as a regular guy.

2004: Bush II versus Kerry—as above. Wheezing and whining and a doleful face—who wants that on their TV for four years? Who wants a mortician for president?


I think, based on this, you can pretty much predict the outcome of the presidency now. If the Democrats nominate Hillary Clinton, she will lose to any likely Republican nominee. If they nominate Obama, it will be a close contest against anyone on the Republican side.

For the Republicans, Thompson is probably their strongest choice--unless his acting skills fail him to the point of actually looking like an actor playing a part.