obscenely rich

To be rich means... to live in more than one room... to own more than on pair of shoes... to have a choice of what to eat...

It’s humbling to be reminded of how obscenely rich we are.

a new species (2)

I would have just twittered this article, found via orgtheory.net, but it was too good to pass up for a quick late night quotes-only blog entry:

During arguments in a campaign-finance case, the court's majority conservatives seemed persuaded that corporations have broad First Amendment rights and that recent precedents upholding limits on corporate political spending should be overruled.

But Justice Sotomayor suggested the majority might have it all wrong -- and that instead the court should reconsider the 19th century rulings that first afforded corporations the same rights flesh-and-blood people have.

Judges "created corporations as persons, gave birth to corporations as persons," she said. "There could be an argument made that that was the court's error to start with...[imbuing] a creature of state law with human characteristics."

...

On today's court, the direction Justice Sotomayor suggested is unlikely to prevail. During arguments, the court's conservative justices seem to view corporate political spending as beneficial to the democratic process. "Corporations have lots of knowledge about environment, transportation issues, and you are silencing them during the election," Justice Anthony Kennedy said during arguments last week.

~ Jess Bravin

I'm sure it's a real hard guess as to who I agree with more. =)

true understanding

For those who become serious scholars, the ultimate test of a good idea is the taxi-driver test. If you are on your way somewhere to present your idea and you cannot in five sentences explain what you are talking about well enough so that your taxi driver or the person in the adjacent aircraft seat can understand it and see why it’s interesting, you don’t really understand your idea yet. You aren’t ready to present it. This holds no matter how complex your idea is. If you can’t state it in everyday terms for an average person with no special interest in it, you don’t understand it yet. Even for those working in the most abstruse formalisms, this is the absolute test of understanding.

~ Andrew Abbott in Methods of Discovery

Think back to your first years in graduate school. The most mathematically complex papers required a great deal of time and effort to read. The papers were written as if to a private club, and we felt proud when we successfully entered the club. Although I copied the style of these overly complex and often poorly written papers in my first few research attempts, I grew out of it quite quickly. I didn’t do so on my own. I was lucky to be surrounded by mature confident researchers at my first academic appointment. They taught me that if you are confident in your research you will write to include, not exclude. You will write to inform, not impress. It is with apologies to my research and writing mentors that I report the following events.

The preference falsification in which I engaged was to intentionally take a simple clear research paper and make it so complex and obscure that it successfully impressed referees. That is, I wrote a paper to impress rather than inform—a violation of my most closely held beliefs regarding the proper intent of research. I often suspected that many papers I read were intentionally complex and obscure, and now I am part of the conspiracy.

~ from economist David Hakes, quoted on orgtheory.net

the recovery of virtue

After many months of what appeared to be politics as usual, President Obama managed to give me hope again with his speech on Wednesday night. (And I can only hope that his rhetoric is matched with substance—integrity is after all often defined as coherence between the internal and external).

I was especially moved to hear him quote Ted Kennedy towards the end of his speech:

[Ted Kennedy] repeated the truth that health care is decisive for our future prosperity, but he also reminded me that "it concerns more than material things." "What we face," he wrote, "is above all a moral issue; at stake are not just the details of policy, but fundamental principles of social justice and the character of our country."

…

That large-heartedness - that concern and regard for the plight of others - is not a partisan feeling. It is not a Republican or a Democratic feeling. It, too, is part of the American character. Our ability to stand in other people's shoes. A recognition that we are all in this together; that when fortune turns against one of us, others are there to lend a helping hand. A belief that in this country, hard work and responsibility should be rewarded by some measure of security and fair play; and an acknowledgement that sometimes government has to step in to help deliver on that promise.
…

And they knew that when any government measure, no matter how carefully crafted or beneficial, is subject to scorn; when any efforts to help people in need are attacked as un-American; when facts and reason are thrown overboard and only timidity passes for wisdom, and we can no longer even engage in a civil conversation with each other over the things that truly matter - that at that point we don't merely lose our capacity to solve big challenges. We lose something essential about ourselves.

Habits of the Heart (Bellah et al.) noted back in 1985, the loss of the notion of civic virtue and warned of its potential consequences. Obama’s speech suggests that we recover the value of virtue and character in our national discourse. While the concept of virtue may not give us clear answers about the size and role of government in our technologically complex society, it can atleast be a guiding principle in how we frame our public debate about how this country should be governed.

From Habits of the Heart:

We spoke of the belief of Madison and the other founders that our form of government was dependent on the existence of virtue among the people. It was such virtue that they expected to resolve the tension between private interest and public good. Without civic virtue, they thought, the republic would decline into factional chaos and virtue, and probably end in authoritarian rule. Half a century later, this idea was reiterated in Tocqueville’s argument about the importance of mores – the “habits of the heart” – of Americans.

…
As the twentieth century has progressed, that understanding, so important through most of our history, has begun to slip from our grasp. As we unthinkingly use the oxymoron “private citizen”, the very meaning of citizenship escapes us. And with Ronald Reagan’s assertion that “we the people” are a “special interest group”, our concern for the economy being the only thing that holds us together, we have reached a kind of end of the line. The citizen has been swallowed up by the economic man.

Yet this kind of economic liberalism is not ultimately liberating, for, as became quite clear with the final two visions of the public good described, when economics is the main model for our common life, we are more and more tempted to put ourselves in the hands of the manager and the expert. If society is shattered into as many special interests as there are individuals, then, as Tocqueville foresaw, there is only the schoolmaster state left to take care of us and keep us from one another’s throats.*


* I realize this quote may suggest that one-payer government-run healthcare system would be the perfect example of putting ourselves in the hands of the manager and expert and handing the disciplinary ruler over to the schoolmaster state (you know with the death panels and all). I am not inclined to read the passage in that way, especially not in the context of the book, but I will leave it up to you ponder.

instant gratification

With class starting this fall (I am a teaching assistant for one course and taking another course) in addition to my full time job, I suspect this blog may fall into neglect. That being said, I want to try to update this semi-regularly. So here goes:

After working on never-ending projects with teeny tiny needles and sock-weight yarn, I’ve forgotten how quickly you can finish something if you use thicker yarn.

Project: Gretel Hat Attempt #2
Pattern: Ysolda's Gretel
Yarn: Cascade 220 in Black
Needles: Size 4 for the ribbing; Size 6 for the cable section
Size: Knit size regular but omitted rows 6-9 in the "Regular and Slouchy Only" section
After a failed attempt to knit this hat earlier this year, my second attempt turned out fairly successfully. The hat fits well, does not make my head look like a gigantic balloon, will be warm and does not clash with my coat or scarves. In my book, that counts as a success. More photos can be found here and here.


Project: Very Fetching Mitts
Pattern: Fetching on Knitty.com
Yarn: Patons Australia Merino Deluxe DK (a gift from Australia from Matt)
Needles: Size 4 circulars
Modifications: Added an extra set of cabling at the wrist.
Yet another pair of fingerless mitts to protect me from the cold that will be our house this winter. These ones are thicker, looser and cover less of my fingers than my other pair. We'll see which one ends up being more practical. This project was also incredibly quick to knit! It only took me about 4 days of regular knitting. I believe the hat took about 1-2 weeks of regular knitting.

In comparison, normal socks take me about 3-4 weeks of regular knitting. Fancy socks take about 4-8 weeks. And good old tangled yoke cardigan is probably going to take me 20+ weeks of regular knitting to make, if not more.

I guess if I like instant gratification, I should try sewing more.


*Note: Photos are courtesy of hubby whose status as a rock star has made his blog more popular than mine. I am slightly jealous. Every blogger secretly dreams that he or she can blog full time and earn a living, and then win a Pulitzer Prize for "Serial Online Commentary".