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Saturday, May 24, 2003
slippery slopes
(executive summary: no real (or local) point, just an interesting and well thought out article by someone whose politics are not mine, addressing a subject of mutual interest.) Volokh & Newman's in defense of the slippery slope (via Arts & Letters Daily) - "the realities of the political and judicial processes can make the slippery slope - or, more precisely, several different kinds of mechanisms lurking behind the label "slippery slope" - a real concern..." -very clear, logical thinking, much appreciated. It's always bugged me to see the Slippery Slope metaphor derided/discounted as merely a logical fallacy - logical fallacies can still be empirical truths. Summary: ...Arguments such as "Oppose this law, because it starts us down the slippery slope" have earned a deservedly bad reputation, because they're too abstract to be helpful.
...
What is valuable is the ability to identify ways in which slippage might happen and to tell listeners a plausible story about how this first step might lead to specific other ones. Cataloging and analyzing the mechanisms of the slippery slope - mechanisms such as the cost-lowering slope, the attitude-altering slope, and others - can help us further develop this ability. What I also liked about the article was its sensible tone, which was not at all the "sneering tone of certain libertarian publications" ( Lee Felsenstein quote) (Volokh is a libertarian is he not?). Example: "It's quite rational for people to look to legal rules for pragmatic or moral guidance when they have neither the time nor expertise to investigate the matter on their own."
posted by Anna at 2:10 PM
on local libertarianism and property rights
Yesterday's (local) Confessions of an Ideologue by Robert Chrisman, laying out the historical background/general philosophy of the author's libertarian worldview with respect to property rights - "I adhere to a systematic body of concepts about human life, and so do my political opponents. I am an individualist; my opponents are collectivists..." Unlike some past writings from libertarians in this county, it was refreshingly accessible, level-headed in tone, not paranoid or hostile or ranting. You get the feeling that this is a person you could communicate with...or nearly so, as the stereotypical libertarian tone does sometimes seep through: "The moderate, accustomed to bailing on issues that require much thought, accepts this, and will countenance almost any restrictions that have the blessing of the majority...OK, fence-sitter, where do you come down, now that you can see the distinctions in stark contrast?" - and he does make it clear that he's not talking to the likes of me: "I advocate personal liberty and self-government; my opponents advocate social and economic controls...It is [not to them] that I address my remarks..." [ "stuff to skip" deleted] **********************************
stuff to skip if you have high standards I am not particularly well qualified to address the substance of Mr. Chrisman's arguments, but this is a weblog. some of article's points, and my responses thereto: - C: it's bad to judge political candidates on character since the only thing that matters is whether they share our ideology.
A: I don't think so. There are other issues that govt must deal with besides property rights. For example, corruption in govt is not good. And if you elect people without consideration of their personal character, corruption is what you are likely to get. A strong libertarian ideology is no guarantee of character: read Brad DeLong's Anarchy, State, and Rent Control on the not very libertarian money-making ploys of Robert Nozick, "the intellectual hero of libertarians": "Nozick mocked the economic interventionism of contemporary liberals who, he said, are 'willing to tolerate every kind of behavior except capitalistic acts between consenting adults.' Alas, it now appears that like so many other advocates of the free market, Nozick is willing to make one small exception --himself..."
There's an interesting pro-and-con discussion at bottom of page.
- C: "without economic (read property-related ) freedom, no other freedoms are possible."
A: If my property can be made valueless by what you choose to do with yours, ultimate freedom to do what you want with your property will deprive me of my economic freedom.
- C: Because without property we have no freedoms, property rights must be completely unrestricted
A: How does this follow? Other freedoms are restricted (eg yelling Fire in theater, swinging my arm where your face begins, standing at the property line screaming at 2am)
- C: "The collectivist/authoritarians, however, have managed to move us to the point where the approval of building projects is subject to the whims of the planners and elected politicians.
A: in-town Nevada City, probably yes (I am no expert, but I do not think you could be a happy libertarian in this town --although this (via mmg) might do it). In Lake Wildwood, perhaps yes (or at least my understanding is that there are onerous-to-some restrictions). Elsewhere in the county, my impression is that you can pretty much build whatever you want as long as the land is zoned for it.
- C: "OK, fence-sitter, where do you come down, now that you can see the distinctions in stark contrast?"
A: Here's hoping "Fence-Sitter" understands that there are two sides to every story, and that F.S. should read a decent rebuttal (like this) before jumping to opinions.
One final question- in Mr. Chrisman's article there are tantalizing hints that he might like to do away with zoning altogether ("...a strict return to [only limiting property rights via zoning] would be a first step..."). Is this interpretation correct? the nice thing about a weblog is there is no finality - so here's more:A disadvantage of idealogueism: You vote for an idealogue, you may find that democracy (as in decisions made by the people) is not high on his priorities, so if the easiest way he sees to get what he wants involves subterfuge and sleight of hand, well, that's what you'll get. See Financial Times on the purpose of the tax cuts, Joshua Marshall on the purpose of the war in Iraq... The disadvantage of libertarianism: The public interest suffers. Think billboards; am told big fight over them back in the 1930s(?) when they started popping up along freeways, to prevent roads from becoming horizon-to-horizon advertising. [Great (as in appalling) Ayn Rand quote to go here later if I find it]. What would driving be like now if the libertarians had won?
posted by Anna at 1:54 PM
Friday, May 23, 2003
tomorrow
[post superseded by reality]
posted by Anna at 10:44 PM
confidential to dead tree media (other reader please ignore)
(this is from memory, can't find on web) If the headlines are slanted, but that's not the reporters' fault since the copy editors do the headlines, but it's not the copy editors' fault since they do it late at night and they're rushed...is ensuring that the headlines are fair & accurate a part of anyone's job? I'm not saying I could do it better. But one thing I would do, if I were running things, is write a regular "second thoughts" column, not about errors per se, but about what would have been done differently if there had been a little more time and more timely inspiration. Otherwise the readers are left completely in the dark as to whether or not you're at peace with what you published. (for bloggers it's easy, we just edit the post :-)
posted by Anna at 9:53 PM
Equal opportunity media basconstructive criticism
- start personal opinion - When I tune into our community radio station I do so hoping to get news about & music played by members of our community, stuff with a strong and distinctively local flavor. So how come instead there's all these Brits talking about world news in funny accents? And other programs too, that come from all over the country. It's not like we need to rely on the radio station as our only source of knowledge about the world, we have the web now for nonlocal news. And it's not like there aren't plenty of dedicated people up here who'd be delighted to seize the opportunity to be on air playing the music they love. Time to get back to the roots of community radio. - end personal opinion -
posted by Anna at 9:41 PM
Thursday, May 22, 2003
civic journalism
(executive summary: somewhat confused post raising questions to which I come up with many tentative answers. Your mileage may vary.) Union article today reporting on Grass Valley's approval of an 'infill' development, which got me to thinking that in the past we wouldn't have seen articles like this, for two reasons: first, there wasn't the recognition of the need for this sort of development, & second, this article wasn't framed as a conflict, it was framed as "this development is consistent with commonly recognized good planning principles although not all the neighbors are happy about it" . This is civic journalism, and the community benefits from it. So is civic (aka public) journalism the way we ought to be encouraging our community newspaper to go? The heart says yes, more, more, but this fascinating (and long) 1995 Columbia Journalism Review article brings up some downsides. Plethora of excerpts:
The civic journalists see themselves as part of an effort to try to get the wheel turning the other way, by providing those "handles" for a community to grapple with community problems in some kind of meaningful way. "In a word," writes Jay Rosen of New York University, one of the movement's founders, "public journalists want public life to work. In order to make it work they are willing to declare an end to their neutrality on certain questions -- for example: whether people participate, whether a genuine debate takes place when needed, whether a community comes to grips with its problems."
...
[con:] The best reason for rejecting public journalism, perhaps, is that its rhetoric makes such excellent cover for pandering, for the notion that in order to reverse our declining fortunes we have to steer clear of hard-hitting reporting on subjects that the reader is reluctant to hear about. A newsroom that would seek to market itself as the community's pal is the kind that could reflexively refrain from doing anything that might offend that community.
...
[pro:] "We've learned far more about our neighborhoods -- what people care about, how things actually work -- than we ever used to learn about our city by covering city commissioners and cops and the mayor's office. That's a terrible way to learn about a city. This is grass-roots reporting. It's old fashioned in that sense, old fashioned crusading. It's the newspaper saying we believe something needs to happen on this subject."
...
public journalism requires reporting the news "in a way that facilitates people thinking about solutions, not just problems and conflict. The most crucial thing is to figure out how you frame stories in a way that accomplishes that end."
...
[con:] "I'm not sure it's connected with public journalism," says one reporter, "but its almost like we're afraid to stir up as much controversy as we had in the past." "We had a zoo animal on the front page every week for six or eight weeks," says another. "It was fucking embarrassing."
...
Among Thomas's rejected story ideas is one that looks awfully good in retrospect -- the rise of right-wing militias -- since she proposed it months before the federal building exploded in Oklahoma City. Several such militias, she says, were forming at that time in Kansas, and she had developed good sources, partly by traveling to gun shows. "I was told our readers did not have the appetite for that kind of story," she says.
my opinion I: there's been enough divisiveness and conflict and death threats in this county to last a long time; it being a small-town paper it's not like we get hard-hitting reporting anyway, so we're not losing anything; bring on the civic journalism, we need help in encouraging civil and informed public discourse. my opinion II: the causal relationship between "our goal is to help the community solve its problems" and "let's not bring up problems since that will anger some elements of the community" seems extremely tenuous. my opinion III: the causal relationship involves possible primacy of self-interest (and desire not to have to report conflict) over accuracy. As the article points out - by having particular reasons to want to frame stories in a particular way, the 'whole truth' is more likely to become a secondary priority, and if the newspaper takes an active role in trying to achieve solutions, it has an even greater incentive to present its actions as having been successful. Thus "our goal is to help the community to solve its problems" could morph into "our goal is to make it look as though we're helping the community to solve its problems"... my opinion IV: it's still worth trying. your opinion?
posted by Anna at 10:06 PM
on learning (correctly or otherwise) from fiction
Chris Mooney (the fellow Woody Woodpecker sighter) joins up with buddy Matt to explore how you could determine whether fictional movies affect moviegoers' perceptions of actual reality*, using X-Men and 'before' and 'after' moviegoing surveys. There's an easier way to get the data though - look at the frequency of mentions of holocaust revisionism before and after Schindler's List came out - I recall there seemed to be a considerable drop. You could probably do searches & counts of the relevant Usenet postings and get your results in an hour or two, which I hope someone else (Chris?) will do. * I'm generalizing; they were focusing on 'knowledge and/or perceptions of science', not reality in general or history in particular.
posted by Anna at 7:13 PM
Contact
YES!!!! An email has come flooding in! A big Thank You to Bill of prairie point, for letting me know that it's possible to avoid popups by switching browsers from M$IE to Mozilla.
posted by Anna at 6:52 PM
Bill Gates Sr. on the estate tax
Andrew Tobias today featuring Warren Buffett on Dividend Voodoo - "If the receptionist and I had both been born in, say, Bangladesh, the story would have been far different" - brings to mind Papa Gates On Death And Taxes from Forbes : Imagine, he [Gates] says, that God is in his office looking over his portfolio. God's stocks are down--he's too heavy in the dot-coms--and to reverse his fortunes, he summons the next two spirits to be born on earth. He proposes an auction. The winner will be born in the United States, the loser in Ethiopia. He asks the two spirits to bid by writing down what percentage of their net worth they are prepared to cede to God upon their death. Hearing the terms, God's adviser (his accountant?) pulls him aside and says it will never work. Both spirits will certainly write 100%.
"What is it worth to be an American?" William H. Gates Sr. asks. The estate tax, he says, is a small price to pay.
posted by Anna at 8:06 AM
Wednesday, May 21, 2003
new face on the blogroll
A warm welcome to Tom Nadeau, now appearing in the "Semi-local" section; ran across his weblog a day or two ago and was delighted to find he was author of an April SacBee article I'd saved, on Yuba City's upcoming first gated community: "Security, not exclusivity, is said [by interviewees] to be the chief factor for buyers choosing gated community living." - an amusing quote given conditions in one of our local gated communities, where the wildest creatures* to be found are certain of the resident subadults. When their chainlink perimeter fence is finally completed, the inhabitants may be in for a rude surprise as the full force of the mayhem is channeled back into their community. *would include link, but The Union's Police Blotter section appears not to be searchable - or at least wildwood AND "golf cart" AND crash AND lake brought up no matches.
posted by Anna at 9:44 PM
Tuesday, May 20, 2003
pax redux
new post from Salam Pax yesterday, and Jeff Jarvis has put up an English translation of the interview with him.
posted by Anna at 9:09 PM
Tips for surfing with M$IE
You don't have to put up with popups*, animations, etc. when you're on the web. Go to Tools - Internet Options - Security - Internet, make sure it's at least on Medium, click on "Custom Level", then Disable both "RunActiveX Controls and Plug-ins" and "Script ActiveX Controls marked safe for Scripting", OK, Apply. Then if you're a true luddite (with low connection speed/patience/desireforvisualstimulation), click on Advanced tab, and in the Multimedia section uncheck "Show pictures". Speeds up your surfing considerably, and if you need to see an image, right click on it and select "Show Picture". You'll still be able to use 90% of websites just fine, & if you run across an ill-behaved one you can re-set your Security back to Medium and re-check "show pictures" and be back where you started. The other thing you can do is put a shortcut to your Cookies folder on the desktop (find said folder, in Win98 it's at C:\Windows\Cookies, rightclick on it and drag it to desktop, select "create shortcut here"), and periodically open it up and delete all the cookies from sites you don't care about. In theory this will help to protect your privacy. Note to any online advertiser who may someday run across this page - instead of fancy flash animations that we don't want to see, you'll do better with textads: Being forced to express a message in a few words concentrates the advertiser's mind, and probably leads to more communicative ads that are better focused on explaining how users will benefit from the product or service.
...
The text-only format more clearly exposes content-free messages as useless,...and thus might save advertisers from the bad instincts they honed on old media.
...[Web users] are utterly selfish and live in the moment. Giving users exactly what they want, right now, is the road to Web success, and having to write small boxes of text encourages advertisers to travel it. * actually you'll still get the popup window, but it'll be empty
posted by Anna at 8:50 PM
Monday, May 19, 2003
privacy and etiquette in the internet age
The web is a wondrous thing, but the ability for all to have instant access to knowledge of all sorts is not always welcomed. Britt Blaser: "All the technical clues point to a transparent society that collectively knows as much about its participants as did the citizens of a 19th century village..." It may seem counterintuitive, but being in that village with certain people you know feels more claustrophobic than being in it with strangers. And if you stumble across the writings of someone you know, it does - or can - feel like continuing to read is sneaky & shameful. so ever the helpful moralist following in the gamboling footsteps of Bill Bennett i now offer you guidelines for when to stop reading, namely if any of the following apply: - you find the material boring/offensive/irritating
- you know and frequently interact with the author and you have reason to believe that your readership would not be appreciated
- you know and frequently interact with author and somehow haven't gotten around to mentioning to author that you have become reader. (note: this may indicate subliminal awareness of belonging in category #2)
See, short list, not so bad, you're probably in #1 anyway so it's up to you...
posted by Anna at 8:45 PM
evensmirth
leaving work this evening there was a lot of ha-ha-ha-ing going on in the woods beside the parking lot, then who should fly over but yet another pileated woodpecker. laughing all the way although it was a somewhat harsh and scornful laugh. Being scorned by one of these guys is still an honor though.
posted by Anna at 8:26 PM
Sunday, May 18, 2003
unjustly accused
Update: copy editors write headlines, reporters don't. however in these examples the headlines do seem to accurately reflect content of articles.April 19 Letter from Mike Pasner to Union making the claim that the reporting is biased (1 example among several given: "The headline March 25 should have read: "Supervisor Bedwell Breaks Law for 8 Years...") but I shall leap to the paper's defense here, sort of, wielding Occam's razor and claiming that we need not invoke reporter's bias as an explanation. The "somebody thinks Bedwell screwed up" article is here ("Foe's complaint bedevils Bedwell"); I recall the article as basically being "Bedwell's enemy is trying to get him in trouble". The "somebody thinks Conklin screwed up" article is here ("Conklin's new job raises eyebrows"), the article primarily sticking to the issues involved and barely mentioning that the eyebrows reported as being raised are those of "foes". When a journalist is deciding how to frame a story, it's easy to cue off of whatever the protagonist views as the story and issues. And the protagonist's view, aka mindset, ( once again) is a function of projection. So the current supervisor sees his problem as "I'm being attacked by an enemy", and presents it as such and it's written up as such, where the former supervisor sees his problem as "there are concerns about ethics and here's how I address those concerns", and presents it as such and it's written up as such. so by merely following of the path of least resistance, the unbiased reporter can write an article that appears slanted. (For a fascinating account of projection and the professional media's acceptance of it in the last presidential campaign, see this article on the use of fuzzy math in the Bush-Gore debates.)
posted by Anna at 11:37 PM
weather report, in brief
cranky this weekend. sorry.
posted by Anna at 5:47 PM
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