Oriental Town Board Meeting June 4, 2013

Interesting meeting at Town Hall tonight. Much talk about the water board. If there is such a thing.

I have written about what it needs to do. Just search for "water board." Check it out.

WSJ Logic On Bicycles

Yesterday, I expressed puzzlement at the Wall Street Journal's rant about New York City's new program to make it easier for visitors to rent bicycles. "The logic escapes me," I wrote. It seems such a good idea to have more bicycles and fewer automobiles. I have long thought that driving a car to get where you want to go provides only the illusion of freedom, not the real thing.

Travel in Europe, where you can get to where you want to go using high quality, readily available and frequent public transportation, frees commuters and tourists alike from a lot of aggravation. Not to mention expense. It also frees young people not old enough to drive as well as their parents from needing or providing family taxi service. This seems a good thing. Before I was old enough to drive, I was able to get around perfectly well on my bicycle. In those days, the mid to late 40's, my family had only one car.

Paul Krugman has cleared up my confusion. The Wall Street Journal, he explains, isn't defending the rights of those who want to drive themselves from place to place, but to prevent annoyance to those who are routinely driven from place to place. It's a class thing. It's about wealth, power and deference.

Bicyclists don't respect their betters.

Now I understand.

Ben Bernanke's Suggestions

Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the Federal Reserve System and former Princeton professor, spoke at this year's Princeton commencement ceremony. He offered ten suggestions, or perhaps ten observations.

One of his observations was about the practical use of the study of economics. First wryly explaining that economic analysis is superb at explaining to policymakers why the choices they made in the past were wrong, it was not so useful at predicting the future.  "Careful economic analysis," he explained, though,  "does have one important benefit, which is that it can help kill ideas that are completely logically inconsistent or wildly at variance with the data. This insight covers at least 90 percent of proposed economic policies."

Economics blogger Bill McBride commented on Bernanke's comment that it "is at odds with the sequestration budget cuts, "debt ceiling" nonsense, expansionary austerity, and more. I wish data and careful analysis could actually kill bad ideas, but I'm not sure what Paul Ryan would do with his life."

Wall Street Journal: New York City Is Totalitarian

According to the Wall Street Journal, New York City has become totalitarian because it is making rental bicycles readily available to visitors.

There may be logic to the WSJ attack, but it escapes me. Here is an article explaining the WSJ complaint and providing a link to the relevant video.

Military Benefits

Yesterday's Washington Post headline, "plan to shut military supermarkets shows difficulty of cutting defence spending" brought to mind a poem by Rudyard Kipling. To be sure, in this day and age Americans serving in the military and those who have served are treated better than the "Tommy" of Kipling's poem. But I sense a certain dismissal of the concerns of servicemen that probably comes from many sources. But there are some national undertakings that should not be parsimoniously funded.

Here is Kipling's picture of the contempt with which some civilians treat soldiers:

Tommy

I went into a public-'ouse to get a pint o' beer,
The publican 'e up an' sez, "We serve no red-coats here."
The girls be'ind the bar they laughed an' giggled fit to die,
I outs into the street again an' to myself sez I:
O it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, go away";
But it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins", when the band begins to play,
The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play,
O it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins", when the band begins to play.

I went into a theatre as sober as could be,
They gave a drunk civilian room, but 'adn't none for me;
They sent me to the gallery or round the music-'alls,
But when it comes to fightin', Lord! they'll shove me in the stalls!
For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, wait outside";
But it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide,
The troopship's on the tide, my boys, the troopship's on the tide,
O it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide.

Yes, makin' mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep
Is cheaper than them uniforms, an' they're starvation cheap;
An' hustlin' drunken soldiers when they're goin' large a bit
Is five times better business than paradin' in full kit.
Then it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, 'ow's yer soul?"
But it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll,
The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll,
O it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll.

We aren't no thin red 'eroes, nor we aren't no blackguards too,
But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;
An' if sometimes our conduck isn't all your fancy paints,
Why, single men in barricks don't grow into plaster saints;
While it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, fall be'ind",
But it's "Please to walk in front, sir", when there's trouble in the wind,
There's trouble in the wind, my boys, there's trouble in the wind,
O it's "Please to walk in front, sir", when there's trouble in the wind.

You talk o' better food for us, an' schools, an' fires, an' all:
We'll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational.
Don't mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face
The Widow's Uniform is not the soldier-man's disgrace.
For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out, the brute!"
But it's "Saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot;
An' it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' anything you please;
An' Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool -- you bet that Tommy sees!

Rudyard Kipling

Vacation Comparison

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has put together a graph showing how advanced economies compare on paid vacation days.

Here's the graph:



On this Sunday morning, having listened to what Calvin Trillin calls the "Sabbath gasbags," I am reminded of Jesus' words when he was admonished for healing someone on the Sabbath: "The Sabbath is made for man, not man for the Sabbath."

Bob Fletcher, American Hero

We've probably all seen Spencer Tracy in "Bad Day at Black Rock." If not, we should have.

The internment of Americans of Japanese descent is one of the more disgraceful events of World War II. Many loyal Americans lost their property during their internment.

But Bob Fletcher, an American who knew injustice when he saw it, saved the farms of three hard working Japanese families. His obituary in the Sacramento Bee tells the story. He kept the families from suffering the fate of the Japanese in the Spencer Tracy movie.

Bob Fletcher was just one man. He couldn't right all the injustice of all the interned families. But he did what he could where he was with the tools at hand.

No more can be asked of anyone.

Remembering Weegee

The New York Times reported yesterday that on Thursday the Chicago Sun-Times fired all of its photographic staff. Twenty-eight employees. Their crime: not only did they commit photo journalism, they insisted on being paid.

Apparently the scheme is to get their writers to take snapshots for the paper with cheap digital cameras and also get photos from the public.

With the demise of Life and Look magazines and the use of national inserts in newspapers rather than locally produced rotogravure, the public's awareness of photo journalism has itself been in decline.

Photo journalism is a craft. It shows the world to the public and the public to the world. It is not an unskilled profession.

One of the most skilled practitioners, Henri Cartier-Bresson, described the task as that of capturing "the decisive moment." This obviously applies to sports photography, but less obviously to other events as well.

As I pondered the event, I was reminded of Weegee. That was his pen name (or stage name, I don't know), but he was a well known free lance photographer in New York City. His photos, published on this web site, give a feel for what a working photographer could do. He showed us to each other in all our human guises.

He worked, by the way, mostly at night, with a 4x5 press camera and disposable flash bulbs for lighting. Developed and printed the photos himself in a darkroom as the sun rose. Primitive equipment. But it did the job.

There were many other skilled photographers in the genre. Dorothea Lange, Margaret Bourke-White, Alfred Eisenstadt, the list goes on. Browse the works of Weegee and enjoy.