dan collier

Depending on your point of view, thirty-two years ago today was the Fall of Saigon or the Liberation of Saigon. Yesterday, I believe coincidentally, Richard Posner and Gary Becker posted about why there have not been more violent protests in the US to attempt to end the Iraq war. It is a subject that I’ve been pondering for a while too.

Becker’s argument is that the absence of a draft is the decisive factor in the level of violent protest against the Iraq war compared to the war in Southeast Asia. The lower number of causalities also lowers the impact of the war. Posner does not dismiss conscription as a factor, but points to five other factors he believes are equally or more important. To summarize, they are:

1. The opponents of the war in Iraq have the support of one of the two political parties.

2. The opportunity costs of time are higher today than they were in the 1960s and early 1970s for potential protesters (i.e. higher wages, a higher percentage of employed females, more competitive colleges, higher long-term cost of short-term protests).

3. The great expansion of the electronic media, including the advent of blogs, gives people outlets to blow off steam that are much cheaper, in cost of time, than street demonstrations or acts of violence.

4. Lessons learned. The violent protests against the Vietnam war probably did not shorten the war, but instead helped Nixon become President.

5. For Vietnam war protesters, the war was a symbol of deeper and broader problems with the United States and the entire Western world. Today most of those with anti-war views blame the Iraq war on the incompetence of the Bush Administration.

I find it interesting that the Old Masters limit the discussion to violent protest in response to war. Is the implication that violent protest is more effective than non-violent protest? I think Becker is correct if we consider only violent protest. If the government wanted to draft me or my children for such a misguided cause, I may be provoked to more drastic actions than posting Jon Stewart’s armchair analysis on a blog. Posner’s first four points are valid, my impression is that the fifth is probably not valid for today’s potentially violent protesters.

Posner seems correct regarding the idea of a variety of factors that diminish the overall potential for protest. If aggressive police responses to (or provocation of) violent protests have increased, the costs of protesting in general, and protesting violently in particular, have also increased. Higher costs, even without diminished chance of successful protest, would be a disincentive for protest. Certainly, there is little hope for successful outcomes to protests today.

I wonder if the relative success of the non-violent civil rights era protests has impacted the willingness of subsequent generations to engage in violent protests. For those protesting the Vietnam war, Martin Luther King was a contemporary. For the next generation, he is a saint. Hopefully in 30 years we’ll be able to look back and see that non-violence was also the right tactic today.

Bill Moyers interviewed Jon Stewart on April 27. The video is on the Moyers’ great new website. The design is a little graphically loud, but the video quality and site functionality are great.

Jon Stewart is the most trustworthy anchorman in America. This is the man who wrote the textbook, America: A Citizen’s Guide to Democracy Inaction (two word review: very funny). In this interview, one of the great American journalists interviews the greatest American quasi-journalist. It is interesting to see another side of Stewart.

My favorite parts if you just want the highlights:

BILL MOYERS: Well, what is your thinking about why it is as– the war enters its fifth year, and the President has announced - an extension of tours to 15 months, and they’re going to call up the National Guard. And April was the bloodiest month so far since the war started, and there was one day in April that was the bloodiest day. That people have seen they have no way to get the guys in Washington, and Condoleezza Rice, to listen to them. That there seems a detachment emotionally, and politically in this country from what is happening.

JON STEWART: You know, one of the things that I do think government counts on is that people are busy. And it’s very difficult to mobilize a busy and relatively affluent country, unless it’s over really crucial– you know, foundational issues. That come sort of sort of a tipping point.

BILL MOYERS: War? War?

JON STEWART: But war that hasn’t affected us here, in the way that you would imagine a five-year war would affect a country. I think that’s why they’re so really - here’s the disconnect. It’s sort of this odd and I’ve always had this problem with the rationality of it. That the President says, “We are in the fight for a way of life. This is the greatest battle of our generation, and of the generations to come. “And, so what I’m going to do is you know, Iraq has to be won, or our way of life ends, and our children and our children’s children all suffer. So, what I’m gonna do is send 10,000 more troops to Baghdad.”

So, there’s a disconnect there between - you’re telling me this is fight of our generation, and you’re going to increase troops by 10 percent. And that’s gonna do it. I’m sure what he would like to do is send 400,000 more troops there, but he can’t, because he doesn’t have them. And the way to get that would be to institute a draft. And the minute you do that, suddenly the country’s not so damn busy anymore. And then they really fight back, and then the whole thing falls apart. So, they have a really delicate balance to walk between keeping us relatively fearful, but not so fearful that we stop what we’re doing and really examine how it is that they’ve been waging this.

Discussing Alberto Gonzales’ recent Congressional testimony, Stewart had this really insightful understanding of Bush’s reaction.:

JON STEWART: For instance, Alberto Gonzales…. He is either a perjurer, or a low-functioning pinhead. And he allowed himself to be portrayed in those hearings as a low-functioning pinhead, rather than give the Congressional Committee charged with oversight, any information as to his decision-making process at the Department of Justice.

And I used to think, “They’re doing this based on a certain arrogance.” And now, I realize that it’s because they believe there is one accountability moment for a President, and that is the four year election. And once you get that election, you’re done.

BILL MOYERS: They’re right, are they not?

JON STEWART: They’re completely not right. The election moment is merely the American public saying, “We’d rather you be President than that guy.” That’s it. The next four years, though, you still have to abide by the oversight process that is there to prevent this kind of bizarre sort of cult-like atmosphere that falls along. I mean, I accept that kind of veil of secrecy around Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, but I don’t accept that around our government.

BILL MOYERS: Tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of words were written about Gonzales’ testimony last week in Congress. And I still don’t think a lot of people get it. And all of the sudden, there on THE DAILY SHOW that evening, you distilled the essence of it.

CLIP: THE DAILY SHOW WITH JON STEWART

JON STEWART: So there it was today, the big fight. Gonzalez v Senate. Are you ready to bumble!

SENATOR: Who’s idea was this?

ALBERTO GONZALEZ: Senator, I don’t recall specifically

ALBERTO GONZALEZ: I don’t recall the-the contents.

ALBERTO GONZALEZ: Senator, I have no recollection.

ALBERTO GONZALEZ: I-I don’t have any recollection.

ALBERTO GONZALEZ: I have searched my memory.

ALBERTO GONZALEZ: I don’t recall remembering…

ALBERTO GONZALEZ: Senator, I can only testify as to what I recall.

ALBERTO GONZALEZ: Senator, I don’t recall…

ALBERTO GONZALEZ: I don’t recall…

ALBERTO GONZALEZ: I firmly believe that nothing improper occurred.

JON STEWART: After weeks of mock testimony, there you have it, Alberto Gonzales does not know what happened, but he assures you what he doesn’t remember was handled properly.

END CLIP: THE DAILY SHOW WITH JON STEWART

JON STEWART: And by the way, that was all just - that was a game, and he knew it, and the guys on the committee knew it. And for the President to come out after that and say, “Everything I saw there gave me more confidence in him,” that solidified my notion that, “Oh, it’s because what he expected of Gonzalez was” it’s sort of like, do you remember in GOODFELLAS? When Henry Hill got arrested for the first time and Robert DeNiro met him at the courthouse and Henry Hill was really upset, ’cause he thought Robert DeNiro would be really mad at him. And DeNiro comes up to him and he gives him a $100 and he goes, “You got pinched. We all get pinched, but you did it right, you didn’t say nothing.”

BILL MOYERS: Gonzales said nothing.

JON STEWART: Right. And “you went up there and said nothing. You gave them no legal recourse against you, and you made yourself a smart man, a self-made man look like an utter pinhead on national television, and you did it for me.”

A previously unknown letter from George Washington was recently found in New Jersey. Washington wrote the letter in Philadelphia, where the Constitutional Convention was under way. I thought it was worth reading.

20 May 1787

Sir,

Your favor of the 18th found me in this City. Two or three days after the receipt of it I put the enclosures for General Gates into the hands of Col (illegible) Neville, who was then setting off for Winchester, and promised either to deliver them with his own hands, or send them from there by a person in whom he could confide, to their addresses.

I think with you, Sir, that the happiness of this Country depend much upon the deliberations of the federal Convention which is now sitting. It, however, can only lay the foundation _ the community at large must raise the edifice. My best respects, etc.

George Washington

via MacBook and Photo Booth.

TED conferences have been very good for a long time. A recent upgrade to their site makes it to the best educational video site on the internet. There was an article in the NY Times about it recently.

TED conference talks are about 20 minutes long and given by well-regarded speakers in their field. The videos are now grouped by theme, which provides a great general overview of the site. All the talks are good, below are some of the best I’ve watched so far.

Jennifer Lin was a 14 year old piano prodigy when she filmed this piece in 2004. It includes her playing classic compositions, boogie, improvisation, and discussing composing.

Anthropologist Helen Fisher studies love at Rutgers University. She outlines her answers to questions like why we love, why we cheat, and the reality of gender differences. She discusses the neurochemical cause and effect of love, and she issues a warning about increases in anti-depressent use and apathy.

In The Paradox of Choice, Barry Schwartz discusses the theory from his widely discussed book of the same title. To summarize, he suggests that ever greater number of choices is detrimental for general happiness at the levels present in rampant consumer cultures such as the US. It is striking how many more choices are available in an average US store compared to an average European grocery market or department store. But I’m not sure how much that effects my overall happiness. My take away point from the talk:

The secret to happiness is low expectations.

The TED site has a sleek design and incredible content with tasteful low-key advertising. It enables key functionality, including making it possible to download the video to watch offline or as a podcast. I like the future of internet video more everyday.

Last word in Shakespeare -
Lay on, Macduff,
And damn’d be him that first cries, ‘Hold, enough!’”

A schematic of the internet - I think this a great picture with more than a passing resemblance to biological neural networks.

Histopathology images - part of attending medical lectures every week is getting to see some amazing images. Often they are disturbing, very few are as beautiful as this.