(Via In the Agora) The Ladies Home Journal of December 1900 had predictions of what the world would look like by the end of the year 2000. Some of them are pretty accurate. Some of them are way off. One of my favorites:

Gymnastics will begin in the nursery, where toys and games will be designed to strengthen the muscles. Exercise will be compulsory in the schools. Every school, college and community will have a complete gymnasium. All cities will have public gymnasiums. A man or woman unable to walk ten miles at a stretch will be regarded as a weakling.

No so much. But, they got a lot of stuff right about the communications revolution that was developing. As for transportation, they were right that horses would soon be obsolete. But they overestimated the future of ships and trains and underestimated the use of airplanes. It doesn’t seem like automobiles were envisioned as a good option for long-distance travel. But, then, given the state of roads in 1900, it must have been tough to envision what a massive public works project developing interstates and improving roads would become.

(H/t Sam Hasler) E.J. Dionne weighs in on the Libby pardon in a column entitled An Unpardonable Act . The heart of it is this:

The core point is that “equal justice under law” either means something or it doesn’t. In this case, all the facts we know tell us that Libby received far more than equal justice, as evidenced by the irregular way his commutation was handled.

Bush’s sudden concern for the “excessive sentence” for a convict just happens to be for a member of the inner-circle who is plausibly thought to be covering for the actions of Bush and Cheney. Bush didn’t run the decision through the Justice Department. And, he took the unprecedented action of commuting Libby’s sentence before he had spent a day of jail time. Bush is “tough on crime” until said toughness inconveniences one of his own. Dionne continues:

[I]s it possible to avoid concluding that this was a one-time-only action rooted not in law but in politics and favoritism for an aide who loyally misled the prosecution in a case that implicated top figures of Bush’s own administration?

Well, of course not.

“For the first time in his presidency, Bush commuted a sentence without running requests through lawyers at the Justice Department, White House officials said. He also did not ask the chief prosecutor in the case, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, for his input, as routinely happens in cases routed through the Justice Department’s pardon attorney.” Again: This was a one-time-only ticket for one guy.

Just thought I’d mention that, next week, I will be leading the discussion with Jonathan Simon, author of “Governing Through Crime: How the War on Crime Transformed American Democracy and Created a Culture of Fear.” The premise is that the War on Crime wasn’t solely an effort to respond to the problem of crime. It enhances government power, gets politicians elected, and allows social control beyond simply protecting citizens from one another. Perceived risk from crime has risen faster than the actual risk. Democracy has suffered as a result.

I’m a member of the Well, more or less a bulletin board system/ “online community”. It features an “open to the public” conference where various authors and people of interest are “interviewed” and members of the Well and non-members are encouraged to participate in the discussion. The conference is called “inkwell.vue” and can be accessed here.

Prof. Simon also has a blog called Governing through Crime.

Update: Someone kindly referred me to this story in the U.K.’s Daily Mail back in June. The increase in perceived risk is having a deleterious effect on our kids as well. The article takes a look at 4 generations from a family. The kids’ range of freedom has steadily declined. When great-grandpa was eight, it was no big deal for him to walk 6 miles to a fishing hole. Now, his great-grandson is only allowed to go about 300 yards from home unsupervised.

Zach Dunkin, writing for the Indianapolis Star has an article entitled High-Speed Rail may link Midwest. It envisions a 4-hour trip between Cincinnati and Chicago with stops in Indy, Lafayette, and Gary. Apparently President Bush has proposed $100 million for state rail grants in the federal budget. I don’t know the allotment for Indiana specifically. The article says “millions.” But, the depressing part is that development of rails through Indiana is estimated at $1 million per mile.

I don’t know if high speed rails can be made worth their cost. I know that pretty much every transportation system involves subsidies to one degree or another. (How much has the government spent building and maintaining our roads and highways; in direct subsidies to big auto manufacturers; in indirect costs like keeping our supply of oil safe?) But, not all subsidies are created equally. So, we shouldn’t despair because Amtrak loses money every year. Our highway infrastructure “loses” an incredible amount of money every year in the form of taxes. But, we should figure out what we spend and have spent on such things as highways and hold that up against the proposed costs and benefits of high speed rail to figure out whether it’s worthwhile. I know that Mike Kole has argued persuasively that the cost-benefit analysis doesn’t justify light rail in Indy, at least. The billions spent will only serve a small portion of the population. And that might well be the case for a light rail system through Indiana.

On the other hand, networks have funny economics. The first miles are horribly expensive and nearly worthless on their own. As the network gets bigger, the marginal costs get lower and the benefits increase. How much difference that makes for the long-term future of high speed rail, I couldn’t say.

[tags]transportation, rail[/tags]

A couple of years ago, listening to NPR, I heard the story of thousands of rubber ducks floating in the open oceans and helping researchers learn about the great ocean currents. I don’t know why, but the idea of a flotilla of rubber duckies roaming the oceans made me happy. On a stormy night in January 1992, 29,000 ducks, manufactured in China and bound for the United States were washed overboard in the eastern Pacific. Since then, they have floated for 17,000 miles. Part of their journey included moving a mile a day in the Arctic ice. According to oceanographer, Curtis Ebbesmeyer, the duckies are going to wash up on the shore of southwest England. The Daily Mail has the story.

Keith Olbermann delivered a pretty spectacular Special Comment in the wake of Bush’s commutation of Scooter Libby’s sentence. First, he quotes John Wayne who said, after Kennedy was elected, “I didn’t vote for him but he’s my president, and I hope he does a good job.”

Our generation’s willingness to state “we didn’t vote for him, but he’s our president, and we hope he does a good job,” was tested in the crucible of history, and far earlier than most. And in circumstances more tragic and threatening.

And we did that with which history tasked us.

We enveloped “our” President in 2001.

And those who did not believe he should have been elected — indeed, those who did not believe he had been elected — willingly lowered their voices and assented to the sacred oath of non-partisanship.

And George W. Bush took our assent, and re-configured it, and honed it, and sharpened it to a razor-sharp point, and stabbed this nation in the back with it.

Were there any remaining lingering doubt otherwise, or any remaining lingering hope, it ended yesterday when Mr. Bush commuted the prison sentence of one of his own staffers.

Did so even before the appeals process was complete…

Did so without as much as a courtesy consultation with the Department of Justice…

Did so despite what James Madison –at the Constitutional Convention — said about impeaching any president who pardoned or sheltered those who had committed crimes “advised by” that president…

More after the fold.

[Read more…]

Two hundred and thirty-one years ago, some Virginia planters with dissonant views of liberty (“How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?” – Samuel Johnson) got together with some Boston smugglers and rabble rousers who had lost respect for their leader. And, thank goodness they did. They founded a nation based on a radical notion that all men are created equal. They were audacious enough to declare this truth “self-evident.” Think of what a departure this was. There was no automatic deference to anyone else based on their station in life. Governments, they declared, derived their just power from the consent of the governed. They felt so aggrieved by a hereditary leader who had abused his authority so egregiously they felt that he could no longer be tolerated. They felt that his tenure in power was “a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.” Among the abuses were deprivation of trial by jury and an inclination to raise the military authority above the civil authority. Humble petitions for redress were met only with further injury. I’ll leave drawing parallels to more modern events as an exercise for the reader.

As always, I think it is valuable to read the whole text of the Declaration of Independence, so, here you go:

The Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen Colonies
In CONGRESS, July 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. –That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. —Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain [George III] is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by the Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

I came across this column from a couple of months ago that suggests our assessment of various risks is out of whack.

Our hyper-anxiety about the safety of children is creating a society in which any outdoor activity that doesn’t take place under the supervision of a coach or a “psychomotor activities” mandate from the state is too risky to attempt.

. . .

Although statistics show that rates of child abduction and sexual abuse have marched steadily downward since the early 1990s, fear of these crimes is at an all-time high. Even the panic-inducing Megan’s Law Web site says stranger abduction is rare and that 90 percent of child sexual-abuse cases are committed by someone known to the child. Yet we still suffer a crucial disconnect between perception of crime and its statistical reality. A child is almost as likely to be struck by lightning as kidnapped by a stranger, but it’s not fear of lightning strikes that parents cite as the reason for keeping children indoors watching television instead of out on the sidewalk skipping rope.

And when a child is parked on the living room floor, he or she may be safe, but is safety the sole objective of parenting? The ultimate goal is independence, and independence is best fostered by handing it out a little at a time, not by withholding it in a trembling fist that remains clenched until it’s time to move into the dorms.

Meanwhile, as rates of child abduction and abuse move down, rates of Type II diabetes, hypertension and other obesity-related ailments in children move up. That means not all the candy is coming from strangers. Which scenario should provoke more panic: the possibility that your child might become one of the approximately 100 children who are kidnapped by strangers each year, or one of the country’s 58 million overweight adults?

I place a fair amount of the blame for this phenomenon on the fear porn pushed by the local news and just about anyone else who tries to sell eyeballs to advertisers by keeping its audience scared. “Should we panic?” “Yes. Yes we should.” Parents bear some of the blame as well, but it’s a tough thing. What if you’re wrong? The thought of something like a kidnap or molestation of one’s child is almost too horrible to contemplate. Almost better to put them in a box than take a chance on such a thing.

Over the weekend, I went to my in-laws for a (pre) 4th of July party. One of the other guests was holding forth on the theme of “kids these days” and on “how nobody takes responsibility for themselves anymore.” It occurred to me that I’ve been hearing various individuals bellyache about these themes all my life. In fact, I suspect that folks have been grousing about “kids these days” and the demise of personal responsibility as long as there have been kids.

I can’t imagine there was a time when elders were saying, “you know, kids these days sure are more responsible than we ever were.” Following the logic of these complaints, human society has been in an unrelenting state of entropy since the dawn of time which was obviously some sort of perfect society. That’s obviously hogwash. Through the generations, I figure there has been a better than even chance that any one of these bellyaching elders were just plain wrong. Just a word of warning too look out for crotchety old men trying to pass such crap off as wisdom.