About Frank Moraes

Frank Moraes is a freelance writer and editor online and in print. He is educated as a scientist with a PhD in Atmospheric Physics. He has worked in climate science, remote sensing, throughout the computer industry, and as a college physics instructor. Find out more at About Frank Moraes.

Stephen Breyer’s Bizarre Reversal of the Use of “Courtesy”

Posted on 04 Aug 2016 by Frank Moraes

Ian Millhiser - Supreme Court Courtesy To explain, the “GG” in [Gloucester County School Board v GG] is Gavin Grimm, a trans high school senior who challenged his school’s discriminatory bathroom policy. Grimm won in a federal appeals court, and the school district sought a stay of that decision from the Supreme Court. Although Breyer opposed granting the stay, he nonetheless voted with his four conservative colleagues to grant it, explaining that he did so “as a courtesy” that “will preserve the status quo (as of the time the Court of Appeals made its decision) until the Court considers the forthcoming petition” asking the justices to hear this case on the merits.

Such “courtesy” votes are fairly common in death penalty cases due to a quirk of the Supreme Court’s rules. It takes four justices to agree to hear a case, but five to grant a stay. To prevent a situation where the Court announces that it will hear a capital case, only to have that case become moot after the inmate at issue in that case is executed, a fifth justice often grants a courtesy vote to stay that execution while the case is pending.

Courtesy votes in death penalty cases, in other words, acknowledge the fact that death is irreversible. If an individual is executed, and the Court later decides that this execution is illegal, not even the Supreme Court of the United States has the power to bring this individual back to life.
Nothing about Gavin Grimm’s case is analogous to the irreversible machinery of death. When Grimm returns to school this fall, he will either be afforded his full measure of civil rights, or he won’t be. If the school district allows him to use the men’s room, and then a Supreme Court decision holds that the district is free to lock Grimm out of that bathroom, then there is nothing preventing the school district from doing so in the future.

Indeed, the irony of Breyer’s courtesy vote is that it may bring about the very circumstance that these votes are supposed to prevent. Again, courtesy votes are cast in death penalty cases to prevent an irreversible event from frustrating the Court’s jurisdiction over a case. The stay that Breyer voted to grant will remain in effect until “the issuance of the judgment of this Court,” if the Supreme Court agrees to hear this case. But the Court may not issue its judgment until late June, weeks after Grimm will have graduated from high school.

In extending “courtesy” to his conservative colleagues, in other words, Breyer may have taken away Grimm’s one shot to have his rights vindicated.

—Ian Millhiser
The Inexplicable “Courtesy” That Could Elect Donald Trump

Image of Ian Millhiser cropped from one taken from the Center for American Progress. Used by permission.

Don Quixote Parallel Passages: Part II, Chapter 35

Posted on 04 Aug 2016 by Frank Moraes

I am slowly writing what I consider a badly needed article, Don Quixote in English Language Translation. It is, in part, a summary of the many things I’ve written about the books over the years. It is currently about 3,000 words long, but I suspect it will get up to about 10,000 words by the time I finish it. It’s a fascinating and important subject.

In my research for it, I came upon a passage in the introduction to Samuel Putnam’s 1949 translation, “The version published by T G Smollett in 1755 merits little consideration as it is merely a working over of Jarvis.” That shocked me for a few reasons. One is that I’d read that introduction before — admittedly when I knew little of the English language translations of Don Quixote. But more important, it shocked me because the Tobias Smollett translation is still one of the most popular. It is the translation that Barnes & Noble uses for its classics edition.

I began researching the subject and I came upon a curious little book, Smollett’s Hoax. It was published in 1956 by Stanford Professor Carmine Rocco Linsalata. For someone like me, it is a delight. It contains over 700 examples of passages where Smollett ripped off Charles Jarvis. And there is so much more.

By the time that Linsalata wrote Smollett’s Hoax, it was well established that Tobias Smollett had simply rewritten Jarvis. We see this in the Putnam introduction seven years earlier. But Linsalata claims that Smollett didn’t even do that; he claims that Smollett just farmed the work out to hack writers.

It should be noted that Smollett was one of the greatest English language writers of the 18th century. The reason most people don’t know his name is because we don’t read much 18th century literature — certainly not like we read 19th century literature. Smollett went on to be quite a wealthy man. But when he took the commission to translation Don Quixote, he wasn’t doing well financially. So his lapse is ethics can be at least somewhat excused. And if not that, understood.

But Smollet’s Hoax is important in other ways. In particular, it provides comparisons of passages from early Don Quixote translations. Some of them quite rare. For example, the Phillips translation from 1687 has never been republished. So my claim to owning all the English language translations of Don Quixote is not true. So Smollet’s Hoax provides me with resources I simply don’t have. (Also: resources I probably can’t get; I haven’t been able to find a copy for sale.)

The first five of the following translations are taken from Smollet’s Hoax. The rest are taken from my own copies of the books. This post is not exhaustive, but I do plan to add to it over time. This quote is taken from the very end of Chapter 35 of Don Quixote: Part II. What’s happening is that Don Quixote has been convinced that if Sancho whips himself thousands of times on his bare bottom, the curse that makes Don Quixote see Dulcinea as a poor peasant girl (which is what she is) will go away. So Sancho is going along with it. Meanwhile, the duke and duchess, who set up the whole thing, are very pleased with all the fun they are having at both Don Quixote’s and Sancho’s expense.

Cervantes (1615)

“Ea, pues, a la mano de Dios!” dijo Sanch, “Yo consiento en mi mala ventura; digo que yo acepto la penitencia, con las condiciones apuntada.”

Apenas dijo estas ultimas palabras Sancho, cuando volvio a sonar la musica de las chirimias y se volvieron a disparar infinitos arcabuces, y Don Quijote se colgo del cuello de Sancho, dandole mil besos en la frente y en las mejillas. La Duquesa y el Duque y todos los circunstanes dieron muestras de haber recebido grandisimo contento, y el carro comenzo a caminar; y al pasas la hermosa Dulcinea, inclino la cabeza a los Duques y hizo una gran reverencia a Sancho.

Y ya, en esto, se venia a mas andar el alba, alegre y risuena; las florecillas de los campos se descollaban y erguian, y los liquidos cristales de los arroyuelos, murmurando por entre blancas y pardas guijas, iban a dar tributo a los rios que los esperaban. La Tierra alegre, el cielo claro, el aire limpio, la luz serena, cada uno por si y todos juntos daban manifiestas senales que el dia que al aurora venia pisando las faldas habia de ser sereno y claro. Y satisfechos los Duques de la caza, y de haber conseguido su intencion tan discreta y fellcemente, se volvieron a su castillo, con prosupuesto de segundar en sus burlas; que para ellos no habia veras que mas gusto les diesen.

Cervantes – Literal Translation

“Turn then, the hand of God!” Sanch said, “I agree to my bad luck; I say I accept the penance, with the targeted conditions.

Just as Sancho said these last words the music sounded again and the chirimias infinite muskets fired again, and Don Quixote hung on Sancho’s neck, kissing him on the forehead and cheeks. The Duchess and the Duke and all circunstanes showed signs of having received any grandisimo happy, and the car began to walk; and you spend the beautiful Dulcinea, I bow my head to the Dukes and bowed deeply to Sancho.

And, in this, it came to more walking dawn, happy and cheerful; the florets of the fields decollaban and stood, and liquid crystals rills, muttering between white and brown pebbles were to give tribute to the rivers that awaited them. Earth cheerful, clear sky, clean air, the serene light, each for himself and all the signs manifest juntosdaban day at dawn came treading on the skirts had to be calm and clear. And satisfied the Dukes of hunting, and have gotten his intention so discreet and happily, returned to his castle, with budget of [double meaning?] in their taunts; that they had not really given them that taste more.

Shelton (1620)

“Well,” quoth Sancho, “a God’s name be it! I yield to my ill fortune and with the aforesaid condition accept of the penitence.”

Scarce had Sancho spoken these words when the waits began to play, and a world of guns were shut off, and Don Quixote hung about Sancho’s neck, kissing his cheeks and forehead a thousand times. The duke, the duchess, and all the bystanders, were wonderfully delighted, and the cart began to go on, and, passing by, the fair Dulcinea inclined her head to the dukes, and made a low courtsy to Sancho. And by this the merry morn came on apace, and the flowers of the field began to bloom and rise up, and liquid crystal of the brooks, murmuring through the great pebbles, went to give tribute to the rivers, that expected them; the sky was clear, and the air wholesome, the light perspicuous; each by itself, and all together, showed manifestly that the day whose skirts Aurora came trampling on, should be bright and clear.

And the dukes being satisfied with the chase, and to have obtained their purpose so discreetly and happily, they returned to their castle, with an intention to second their jest; for to them there was no earnest could give more content.

Phillips (1687)

“Go too then,” cried Sancho, “I submit to my misfortune, and accept my pennance upon the conditions and covenants agreed upon.” Sancho had no sooner spoken the last words, but the fiddles strook up again, and three volleys of small shot testified the general joy of madam Dulcinea and her friends, for her approaching freedom: Don Quixote also threw himself about the pious squires neck, and kissed his cheeks and forehead a hundred times; the duke and duchess were well pleased; and then the chariot beginning to move, the fair Dulcinea bowed her head and made a low obeisance to Sancho. And now the sun began to guild the tops of the mountains; at what time the duke and duchess infinitely satisfied that their design had succeeded so well, returned to the castle with their guests, resolved to continue the pasttime which had hitherto given them so much content.

Motteux (1700)

“Well,” quoth Sancho, “what must be, must be: I yield to my hard luck, and on the aforesaid terms, take up with my penance.

Scarce had Sancho spoke, when the music struck up again, and a congratulatory volley of small shot was immediately discharged. Don Quixote fell on Sancho’s neck, hugging and killing him a thousand times. The duke, the duchess, and the whole company seemed mightily pleased. The chariot moved on and as it passed by, the fair Dulcinea made the duke and duchess a bow, and Sancho a low courtsy.

And now the jolly morn began to spread her smiling. Looks in the eastern quarter of the skies and the flowers of the field to disclose their bloom folds, and raise their fragrant heads. The brooks now cool and clear, in gentle murmurs, played with the grey pebbles and flowed along to pay their liquid tribute to the expecting rivers. The sky was clear, the aire serene, swept clean by brushing winds for the reception of the shining light, and every thing not only jointly, but in its separate Gaiety, welcomed the fair Auroa, and, like her, foretold a fairer day. The duke and duches, well pleased with the management and success of the hunting, and the counterfeit adventure, returned to the castle; resolving to make a second essay of the same nature, having received as much pleasure from the first, as any reality could have produced.

Stevens (1742)

“Well,” quoth Sancho, a god’s name be it. I yield to my ill fortune, and on the aforesaid condition accept of the penance.”

Scarce had Sancho spoken these words, when the waits began to play, and a world of guns were shot off, and Don Quixote hung about Sancho’s neck, kissing his cheeks and forehead a thousand times. The duke, the duchess, and all the by-standers, seemed to be wonderfully pleased and the cart began to go on, and passing by, the fair Dulcinea bowed her head to the duke and duchess, and made a low courtesy to Sancho; and by this the merry morn came on apace, the flowers and the field began to bloom and rise up, the liquid crystal of the brooks, murmuring through the gray pibbles, went on to pay tribute to the rivers that expected them: the sky was clear, and the air serene, the light undistrubed each part, and all together were signs that the day which trod upon the heels of Aurora would be bring and clear. The duke and duchess being satisfied with the hunting, and well contrived and happy. Success of thei design, returned to the castle, with an intention to second their jest; for to them nothing in earnest could be more pleasing.

Jarvis (1748)

“Go to, then, in God’s name,” quoth Sancho; “I submit to my ill fortune; I way, I accept of the penance upon the conditions stipulated.”

Scarely had Sancho uttered these words when the music of the waits struck up, and a world of muskets were again discharged, and Don Quixote clung about Sancho’s neck, giving him a thousand kisses on the forehead and cheeks. The duke and duchess, and all the bystanders gave signs of being mightily pleased, and the car began to move on; and, in passing by, the fair Dulcinea bowed her head to the duke and duchess, and made a low curtsy to Sancho. By this time the cheerful and joyous dawn came apace, the flowerets of the field expanded their fragrant bosoms, and erected their heads; and the pebbles, went to pay their tribute to the rivers that expected them, and all together, giving manifest tokens, that the day which trod upon Aurora’s heels would be fair and clear. The duke and duchess, being satisfied with the sport, and having executed their design so ingeniously and happily, returned to their castle, with an intention of seconding their jest; since nothing real could have afforded them more pleasure.

Smollett (1755)

“A God’s name then,” cried Sancho, “I consent in my tribulation: I say, I accept of the penance on the conditions aforesaid.”

Scarce had Sancho pronounced these last words, when the music of the waits began to play again, and an infinite number of muskets was discharged, while Don Quixote, hanging about Sacho’s neck, imprinted a world of kisses on his cheeks and forehead: the duke and duchess, and all the by-standers, expressed the utmost pleasure, and the beauteous Dulcinea, in passing, bowed to their graces, and made a profound curtsy to Sancho.

About this time, the cheerful smiling morn advanced; the flowrets of the field, with heads erect, diffused their fragrance; and the liquid crystal of the rills, brawling among the variegated pebbles, went sliding on to pay its tribute to the rivers, that waited to receive their customary dues: the joyous earth, the splended firmament, the buxom air, and light unclouded; each singly, and altogether joined, serene and fair. The duke and duchess, extremely well satisfied with the chase, as well as with the ingenious and fortunate execution of their design, returned to the castle, with full intention to perform the sequel of their jest; than which no real adventure could have given them more delight.

Ormsby (1885)

“Well then, in God’s hands be it,” said Sancho; “in the hard case I’m in I give in; I say I accept the penance on the conditions laid down.”

The instant Sancho uttered these last words the music of the clarions struck up once more, and again a host of muskets were discharged, and Don Quixote hung on Sancho’s neck kissing him again and again on the forehead and cheeks. The duchess and the duke expressed the greatest satisfaction, the car began to move on, and as it passed the fair Dulcinea bowed to the duke and duchess and made a low courtesy to Sancho.

And now bright smiling dawn came on apace; the flowers of the field, revived, raised up their heads, and the crystal waters of the brooks, murmuring over the grey and white pebbles, hastened to pay their tribute to the expectant rivers; the glad earth, the unclouded sky, the fresh breeze, the clear light, each and all showed that the day that came treading on the skirts of morning would be calm and bright. The duke and duchess, pleased with their hunt and at having carried out their plans so cleverly and successfully, returned to their castle resolved to follow up their joke; for to them there was no reality that could afford them more amusement.

Putnam (1949)

“Well, then,” said Sancho, “it’s in God’s hands. I accept my hard luck — I mean, I consent to the penance with the conditions that have been laid down.”

No sooner had he said this than the clarions struck up once more, accompanied by a great firing of muskets, and Don Quixote threw his arms about Sancho’s neck, giving him a thousand kisses on the forehead and on the cheeks. The duke and duchess and all the bystanders showed that they were very pleased, and as the cart got under way once more the beauteous Ducinea bowed to the ducal pair and dropped a low curtsy to Sancho.

With this, the merry-smiling, dawn hastened her coming, the little flowers in the fields lifted their heads, and the liquid crystal of the brooks, murmuring over their white and gray pebbles, went to pay tribute to the waiting rivers. The earth was joyous, the sky unclouded, the air limpid, the light serene, and each of these things in itself and all of them together showed that the day which was treading on the skirts of morning was to be bright and clear. Satisfied with the results of the chase and with having carried out their intention so cleverly and successfully, the duke and duchess now returned to their castle with the object of following up the jest which had thus been begun, as there was no serious occupation that gave them greater pleasure than this.

Raffel (1996)

“All right, then! It’s in God’s hands!” said Sancho. “It’s my misfortune, and I accept it — that is, I accpet the whipping, but only on the conditions already noted.”

Sancho had scarcely uttered these last words when the soft, harmonious music began once more, and a million muskets sounded, and Don Quijote [sic] threw his arms around his squire’s neck, kissing his forehead and his cheeks a thousand times over. The duke and duchess, and everyone else present, seemed absolutely delighted, and the chariot began to move off — and as it passed, the beautiful Dulcinea bent her head to acknowledge the duke and duchess, and made a deep curtsy to Sancho.

By which time, too, happy, smiling dawn was upon them, revealing the little flowers of the fields, standing straight and tall; the liquid crystal of tiny streams went murmuring among smooth brown and white pebbles, hurrying to pay tribute to the waiting rivers. The whole Earth was happy, the skies were bright and clear, the air pure, the light peaceful and calm, each and all indicating that this day, already treading on dawn’s skirts, would be serene and untroubled. The duke and duchess, well satisfied with their night’s hunting, and with how neatly and discreetly their plan had been carried out, went back to their castle, intending to continue amusing themselves, for there was nothing in all reality which could have pleased them quite so much.

Rutherford (2000)

“All right then, God’s will be done!” said Sancho. “I agree to my bad luck — I mean to say I accept my penance, on the conditions that I said.”

Hardly had Sancho finished speaking when the music of the shawms sounded out again, and countless muskets were fired once more, and Don Quixote draped himself around Sancho’s neck, mothering him in kisses on the forehead and the cheeks. The Duchess and the Duke and all the others showed signs of the greatest satisfaction, and the chariot began to move; and as the lovely Dulcinea went by she bowed her head to the Duke and Duchess and made a low curtsey to Sancho.

And now the happy, smiling dawn came on apace, the flowers in the fields all raised their heads and stood erect, and the liquid crystal of the streams, murmuring among pebbles brown and white, flowed along to pay its tribute to the expectant rivers. The happy earth, the bright sky, the clean air, the serene light — each and all gave the most manifest signs that the day that came treading on the skirts of the dawn was going to be calm and clear. And the Duke and the Duchess, happy with their hunt and with having achieved their aims so cleverly and successfully, returned to the castle, determined to play some more jests — because nothing done in earnest could provide them with more amusement.

Grossman (2003)

“Well, well, then it’s in God’s hands,” said Sancho. “I consent to my bad fortune; I say that I accept the penance, with the conditions that have been stated.”

As soon as Sancho said these words, the music of the flageolets began to sound again, and an infinite number of harquebuses were fired, and Don Quixote threw him arms around Sancho’s neck and gave him a thousand kisses on his forehead and cheeks. The duchess and the duke and all those present gave signs of great contentment and joy, and the cart began to move, and as the beautiful Dulcinea passed by, she bowed her head to the duke and duches and made a deep curtsy to Sancho.

And now a joyful and smiling dawn quickly approached; the flowers of the fields raised their heads and stood erect, and the liquid crystal of the streams, murmuring over smooth white and gray pebbles, hurried to pay tribute to the rivers that awaited them. The joyful Earth, the bright sky, the clear air, the serene light, together and separately gave clear indications that the day that came treading on the skirts of the dawn would be calm and bright. And the duke and duches, satisfied with their hunt and with having achieved their ends so cleverly and successfully, returned to their castle, intending to continue with their deceptions, because for them, there really was nothing that gave them greater pleasure.

I think the biggest take away from this is that it is best to pick a more recent translation when reading Don Quixote. It’s also clear, as I’ve noted many times before, that the excessive praise given to Grossman is unwarranted. She’s excellent, but not really any different from any other modern translator.

Still, I’m glad I had Smollett’s Hoax to allow me to present this comparison.

Avik Roy Cries Into His Beer

Posted on 03 Aug 2016 by Frank Moraes

Zack Beauchamp sat down in a bar and had a talk with Republican pseudo-intellectual Avik Roy, A Republican Intellectual Explains Why the Republican Party Is Going to Die. Avik Roy is so sad, I just want to give him a nice big hug. Just kidding! I actually want to slap him and tell him to grow up.

Avik Roy, like a lot of Republicans whose jobs don’t depend upon not doing so, is attacking Donald Trump. In the article, he noted that the Republican Party and the conservative movement is driven by white nationalism and not what he sees as true conservatism: limited government, social conservatism, and a strong military. But did it really take Donald Trump to make Avik Roy realize that the Republican base wasn’t actually in it for the tax cuts they never got? For the deregulation that caused them to lose their jobs? For the lead in their drinking water that mentally retarded their children? I don’t think so.

Avik Roy: Conservative Apologist

And this isn’t just my guess: Avik Roy is a conservative so he must be wrong. I’ve been following him for years. He’s never had a new idea — an unknown conservative approach to policy that might make the nation or the world better. Instead, he just hunts around for ways to justify conservative policy. Read my article, Avik Roy: Healthcare Apologist.

It describes part of Roy’s years’ long effort to find some healthcare system that was more “free market” than Obamacare. It always ended up the same way: he didn’t know how the system actually worked and it turned out that Obamacare was actually more “free market.” If he were an honest broker (or the “wonk” he claims to be), he would have admitted that Obamacare was the most “free market” healthcare system that could possibly work. But of course, it didn’t matter because like all conservative elites, he’s fine with the poor dying from treatable disease.

In addition, back in 2013, Roy explained what all this business of “equality of opportunity” really meant to Republicans like himself, Avik Roy Says Republican Reform Just Branding. It didn’t mean that kids got the same education and nutrition; it meant only that there weren’t explicit laws stopping the poor. In other words, as long as America didn’t have a caste system, we had equality of opportunity.

Avik Roy Is Responsible for Donald Trump

In this way, he was clearly lying to the American people every time he mentioned “equality of opportunity.” (Note: he waited until after the 2012 election to write that article.) This is a definition that is totally outside what the vast majority of Americans think the term means. So Avik Roy, the man now crying into his beer at the New York bar, has always seen his job being to lie to the American people generally and the Republican base in particular.

So now Donald Trump comes along and gains control of the Republican Party and the conservative movement by being a flat-out racist. Hey Avik: you were a big part of building Donald Trump and the modern Republican Party. I simply can’t think low enough of you to accept that it took the events of the last year for you to realize that the Republican Party and the conservative movement are built on a bedrock of racism.

Shame on Vox for giving this vile man the opportunity to whine and say he would never have supported a racist party. He should be in a room somewhere doing penance. And we should never hear from him again. Because he owns Trump. He was a big part of the machine that built Trump.

Image of Avik Roy taken from his Twitter account and licensed under Fair Use.

Gold Is Not a Good Hedge Against a Bad Economy

Posted on 02 Aug 2016 by Frank Moraes

Royal Economic Society Gold has not served very well as a hedge against bad macroeconomic and stock market outcomes. That is the central conclusion of research by Professors Robert Barro and Sanjay Misra, published in the August 2016 issue of the Economic Journal. Their study draws on evidence from long-term US data on gold returns, as well as gold returns during some of the worst macroeconomic disasters experienced across the world.

Gold has historically played a prominent role in transactions among financial institutions even in modern systems that rely on paper money. What’s more, many observers think that gold provides a hedge against major macroeconomic declines. But after assessing long-term US data on gold returns, the new research finds that gold has not served consistently as a hedge against large declines in real GDP or real stock prices.

From 1836 to 2011, gold delivered low average real price appreciation and experienced high average volatility. The mean real rate of price change was 1.1% per year, close to the 1% average real rate of return on three-month US Treasury Bills and comparable assets.

—Royal Economic Society
Gold Has Never Been a Great Hedge Against Bad Economic Times: Evidence From Decades of Us and Global Data

Royal Economic Society logo licensed under Fair Use.

The Donald Trump RNC Bounce — Or Lack Thereof

Posted on 02 Aug 2016 by Frank Moraes

Donald Trump RNC Bounce You may have noticed that I was very depressed last week. After the RNC, I figured that Donald Trump’s political prospects would go down. The convention was so vile and so incompetent that I figured Donald Trump would not get an RNC bounce; I figured he would get a reverse-bounce. Yet Trump got a real bounce from it.

I guess it comes down to the fact that, at base, I’m an optimist. I really do think the best about the future and about my fellow human beings. And it was upsetting to me that people could listen to Donald Trump go on for over an hour in the most demagogic way and that everyone wouldn’t just be appalled. It still amazes me that people sitting on the fence saw the RNC and decided that Donald Trump would be a good choice for president.

Hillary Clinton is not my ultimate candidate. But even if everything ever said about her is true, she will still make a better president than Donald Trump. If Hillary Clinton had Vince Foster murdered, she is still the better choice to lead this country. Donald Trump is a joke now. If he became president, he would be the single biggest threat to the world since in the Cuba Missile Crisis.

But it turned out that Donald Trump’s RNC bounce didn’t mean much. I knew this was likely the case; it’s just that I feared that it wasn’t.

So let’s go over it. Let’s look at FiveThirtyEight’s election forecast, Who Will Win the Presidency? I’ll be dependent on Archive.org for this. For the record, the internet would be about 75% less useful without Archive.org. It really does make the ephemeral nature of the internet bearable.

16 July 2016

This is well before the RNC and the RNC bounce. This is how I see the presidential election:

23 July 2016

Clinton’s percentage went down a little over the course of week, but there was no clear indication of an RNC bounce until the Saturday after it was over. It wasn’t big, but it was disturbing:

25 July 2016

It wasn’t until Monday that things really started to look bad. I hadn’t been paying attention up to this point. So I was shocked to see that suddenly (for me, anyway), Trump was basically in a tie with Clinton. And it was only going to get worse.

31 July 2016

These numbers held fast throughout the DNC. In fact, they got slightly worse for Clinton. This amazed me, because I thought the DNC was actually quite good. It was at least competently produced. And it featured Meryl Streep while the best the Republicans could muster was Scott Baio. Then, on the Sunday after the DNC, we got the following horrifying prediction:

And that wasn’t even the worst of it. It isn’t available on Archive.org, but FiveThirdEight got to the point of having Clinton down to roughly a 48% chance of winning with Trump at roughly 52%.

1 August 2016

This was, clearly, not the state of things. A number of polls were going on. They just hadn’t been made public. On Monday morning, things had turned around. First, Clinton was back up to a 53.3% chance of winning. Then, by evening, the number had jumped to 60.3%. And as I write this on Monday night, we get this:

Conclusion

So after two weeks, we seem to have returned to exactly where we are at. It’s still terrifying that Trump has any chance of becoming president of the United States. But at least I’m not freaking out. At least not yet. We will have to see what the polls show in a month when they really mean something.

Update: 3 August 2016

I had meant to do this last night. The change is even bigger today:

Update: 3 August 2016 — Evening

Now it’s just getting sad:

586 Presidential Prediction: 01 August 2016 -- Evening

Donald Trump image via Wikimedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0. All other images licensed under Fair Use and taken from (ultimately) FiveThirtyEight.

Carol Highsmith, Getty Images, and Art as Commodity

Posted on 01 Aug 2016 by Frank Moraes

Regular readers know that I’m not too keen on modern copyright law. Actually, I’m not that keen on copyright law at all. There are other ways to pay creative workers. But I would go along with a copyright system that gave the creator ten or even twenty years of protection. But the 95 years we now have is ridiculous. And that’s just until 2023 when Mickey Mouse goes into the public domain. I’ll bet that yet again copyright will be extended for that vile little rodent. But copyright is even more bizarre than you likely know as can be seen in the case of Carol Highsmith.

Carol Highsmith is a photographer. She travels the United States taking photos and then gifts them to the Library of Congress and, by extension, the world, because they are placed in the public domain. That is why I can display the gorgeous image of the Bale Grist Mill above. Carol Highsmith took the photo and then gave it to the Library of Congress. It belows to the world. All of us can enjoy and use it for free. Well, we can if we know where to look. If we don’t, there are rat bastards who will sell it to us.

Carol Highsmith Is Not Pleased

On Friday, Michael Hiltzik reported, Photographer Sues Getty Images for $1 Billion after She’s Billed for Her Own Photo. It seems that after Carol Highsmith used one of her own images — you know, one she put in the public domain — Getty Images sent her a bill for $120 for using it. How can this be? Well, Getty Images takes public domain images and sells them. Well, that’s not quite the right word. According to the company, it charges a fee for distributing the photos.

Getty Images will, for example, sell you the rights to use Dorothea Lange’s most famous photo from the Great Depression. Buy it now! I entered some data, claiming that I wanted to use it for a magazine cover, and Getty image offered to ~~sell~~ distribute it to me for a mere $10,335. It must be an awfully heavy photograph to require that kind of distribution fee!

High Prices for “Distribution”

Getty Images will “distribute” the Bale Grist Mill image above too. Or they would. They’ve taken down the page for buying it. I assume that’s because, you know, Carol Highsmith is suing them for a billion dollars. But we know that they used to sell it because Google knows all. Plus, they haven’t taken down their watermarked image, which I reproduce here under the clearest case imaginable of Fair Use:

This is what happens in the society that values commodity above all else. It also shows that the problem is not just copyright and other intellectual property rights. After all, when Martin Shkreli raised the price of Daraprim, it wasn’t patent protected. We have, rather, a bigger issue regarding capitalism itself. Capitalism worked so long as people knew each other — as long as the seller understood that raising the price of a drug over 5,000% would cause their neighbors to die.

Capitalists of the last hundred years have convinced themselves that acting like psychopaths is actually good — creative destruction and all that nonsense. There are no more norms. If a business can do it, the business will do it. But outside the business world, things are different. Carol Highsmith gives away her work. And Getty Images takes them and ~~sells~~ distributes them. They add no value. They just prey on the ignorance of customers.

Matt Taibbi on the Donald Trump Convention

Posted on 31 Jul 2016 by Frank Moraes

Matt Taibbi It wasn’t what we expected. We thought Donald Trump’s version of the Republican National Convention would be a brilliantly bawdy exercise in Nazistic excess.

We expected thousand-foot light columns, a 400-piece horn section where the delegates usually sit (they would be in cages out back with guns to their heads). Onstage, a chorus line of pageant girls in gold bikinis would be twerking furiously to a techno version of “New York, New York” while an army of Broadway dancers spent all four days building a Big Beautiful Wall that read winning, the ceremonial last brick timed to the start of Donald’s acceptance speech…

But nah. What happened instead was just sad and weird, very weird. The lineup for the 2016 Republican National Convention to nominate Trump felt like a fallback list of speakers for some ancient UHF telethon, on behalf of a cause like plantar-wart research.

—Matt Taibbi
Trump’s Appetite for Destruction: How Disastrous Convention Doomed GOP

Matt Taibbi image from Democracy Now! video clip. Licensed under Creative Commons.

America Demands Plagiarism — a Salute to Melania Trump

Posted on 31 Jul 2016 by Frank Moraes

Melania Trump Plagiarism I know it is long past it’s sell-by date, but I wanted to talk about Melania Trump’s plagiarism scandal. I’m not really interested in it from a political standpoint. It was amusing, of course. But that was just because it was yet another example of the total incompetence of the Trump campaign. I’m interested in it from an editorial standpoint. How do these things happen?

But I do think it is interesting that the Trump campaign shows itself to be incompetent again and again. Despite this, the American people watched the RNC, with one mistake after another. And their response was, “More of that!” Apparently, eight years of George W Bush was not enough. They are looking for another administration with the defining characteristic of incompetence. Disagree with Obama all you want, but at least admit that has been competent. Oh well. Whatever.

Understandable Plagiarism

To me, the cause of Melania Trump’s plagiarism was pretty obvious. I know how it happened because I know how things get written. Imagine someone coming to you and asking that you write a speech for Donald Trump’s wife to give on the first night of the RNC. What you would do, if you were a professional writer, is find all the “wife” speeches from the last few decades. You would do that to give yourself some idea of what these speeches were like. Whether you were going to be conservative and do what was done before or radical and do something new, you would want to know what had been done before.

How an exact line gets into a speech is something I discussed before, Plagiarism and Publication Standards. It is a sign that the writer was a hack. I would certainly have read Michelle Obama’s speech. And I probably would have written down some notes. But I wouldn’t have copied parts of it unless my idea was to write something like, “And as Michelle Obama so eloquently put it…” Otherwise, you are probably planning to do a different kind of plagiarism.

Deeper Plagiarism

One doesn’t have to copy another’s writing word-for-word to plagiarize. Consider my first paragraph above in all its banality. The following would be plagiarism, even if it is harder to catch:

I am late in addressing the subject, but it still seems worth while to discuss Melania Trump’s plagiarism scandal. I’ll leave the political aspects of it to others. Sure: it was funny — but not because of the plagiarism. It was funny because it was another example of the Trump campaign’s lack of professionalism. My interest today is in how such plagiarism happens.

The funny thing is that had Melania Trump’s speech plagiarized in that way, no one would have noticed or cared. It would have been just the another political speech that said nothing. One of the plagiarized bits was, “And Barack and I were raised with so many of the same values: that you work hard for what you want in life; that your word is your bond and you do what you say you’re going to do…” Wow. It’s impressive only in how many cliches it managed to stuff into a single sentence.

America Wants Plagiarism

But had Michelle Obama said something interesting — something thoughtful — it would have been a controversy. Remember when Hillary Clinton got into trouble for saying she had better things to do than stay home and bake cookies? So that writer was smart to know what was said before. The people won’t stand for having their expectations challenged.

So when it comes to what is actually a much more serious form of plagiarism — the stealing of ideas — we aren’t against it. We do, in fact, demand it. I think we should embrace it. From now on, every spouse should just read the speech of Melania Trump. It was good enough. It said everything that needs to be said: nothing. And that’s what America wants.

Marissa Mayer and the Death Of Yahoo!

Posted on 30 Jul 2016 by Frank Moraes

If you live in the Bay Area, you know this sign well. Since 1999, it decorated I-80 as you made your way to the Bay Bridge from the west. It was iconic. As a Bay Area nerd, I always felt a bit of pride seeing it. Yes: we were in Silicon Valley. Or close enough. But over the years, it came to seem a bit sad. Even when it was built, Google was on its way to ruling the world. It was put up when Excite passed up the offer to buy Google for just $750,000. And it was two years before Google turned down Yahoo!’s billion dollar offer to buy the search engine giant. But by the time the sign was taken down in 2011, it was more a cruel reminder of how the mighty could fall.

Back in 2008, Microsoft tried to take over Yahoo! with a $45 billion bid. Failing at that was probably the best business move in Microsoft’s long history. At the time, I was very ill — near death. My heart wasn’t functioning well and my brain was not getting enough oxygen. But even in that state, I could see that it was a terrible deal. Yahoo! was dying and there was nothing that was going to change that. Paying that amount of money for Yahoo! would have been on par to Excite’s decision that Google wasn’t worth three-quarter million dollars in 1999.

Marissa Mayer Cannot Fall

Yes, mighty companies like Yahoo! fall and disappear. Look at Excite: if you can find it. While the mighty companies fall, the mighty CEOs who run them into the ground do not fall. The current Yahoo! CEO, Marissa Mayer, will walk away with $55 million once she is finally thrown out of the company. But that’s not to say that she hasn’t suffered. Because of Yahoo!’s poor performance, she only made $25 million in 2014. And then last year, her compensation pancaked to a mere $14 million. How she’s surviving is anyone’s guess.

Marissa Mayer

I want to be fair, however. She isn’t responsible for the failure of Yahoo! In general, I think the company has been reasonably managed. For example, the acquisition of Overture in 2001 was a smart move. But it was also an obvious move. I’m no good at business, so when a company does something that I think is smart, it can’t have taken a brilliant business mind to come up with it. So by 2001, the Yahoo! management team saw the future as clearly as I did. Yippy! (Note: Yippy.com is much more popular than Excite.com.)

Why Are CEOs So Important?

But it makes me wonder. By American standards, I’m roughly in the middle class. Yet we have people like Marissa Mayer (net worth: $430 million) and Terry Semel (net worth: $300 million). They never fall. They aren’t allowed to. But what is it that makes them worth so much? Semel ran the company from 2001 to 2007. And the company did about as well as you would expect. So why not just hire me? Or a trained monkey?

I suspect that it really is all a matter of appearances. The idea of a multi-billion dollar company being headed by someone who makes just a million dollars a year would look odd. And it would be seen as unfair to make a CEO’s pay truly dependent upon how well the company did. For example: imagine if instead of Marissa Mayer getting a pay cut of 44% in 2015, she had been required to pay Yahoo! $10 million dollars. Why not?! We hear so much about people being rewarded for taking risks. Getting your yearly pay cut from 10 times the average worker’s lifetime pay to five times it doesn’t seem like much of a risk to me.

Once a person reaches a certain level of success they become a kind of community charity. We all weep at the thought of them going without. In fact, I’ve heard much the same thing said on Fox News: it’s so much worse to go from rich to poor than to simply have been poor your whole life. To a normal person, such talk is rubbish, but it sounds quite reasonable to some people.

Companies Represent Nameless People

But there’s something much more nefarious in this. Marissa Mayer is a real person. The thousands of people who lose their jobs and pensions are nameless and faceless. They are allowed to suffer in their anonymity. They are but statistics. “Are there no prisons?” There must be something: some kind of system to take care of the nameless and faceless. But what would become of Marissa Mayer if not for her $55 million severance package? There are no government programs for her! No prisons to make sure she is kept fed.

Thus the once mighty Yahoo! is allowed to fall, because it only represents the destruction of the lives of the nameless masses. We would be monsters to allow real humans to suffer — the ones with names — the ones like Marissa Mayer. But as long as she and her ilk are taken care of, then Yahoo! can die because it won’t harm any real humans.

Yahoo! Neon Sign 1999-2011 by Shani Heckman. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0. Image of Marissa Mayer by TechCrunch. Licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Why H P Lovecraft Couldn’t Write Dialog

Posted on 29 Jul 2016 by Frank Moraes

Stephen King - Writing Is Seduction Lovecraft was, by all acccounts, both snobbish and painfully shy (a galloping racist as well, his stories full of sinister Africans and the sort of scheming Jews my Uncle Oren always worried about after four or five beers), the kind of writer who maintains a voluminous correspondence but gets along poorly with others in person — were he alive today, he’d likely exist most vibrantly in various internet chatrooms. Dialogue is a skill best learned by people who enjoy talking and listening to others — particularly listening, picking up the accents, rhythms, dialect, and slang of various groups. Loners such as Lovecraft often write it badly, or with the care of someone who is composing in a language other than his or her native tongue.

—Stephen King
On Writing

Photograph of Stephen King by Pinguino, licensed under CC BY 2.0.

USA Freedom Kids vs the Übermensch

Posted on 27 Jul 2016 by Frank Moraes

You have probably heard about the USA Freedom Kids and the dispute that they are having with Donald Trump. In case you haven’t, the USA Freedom Kids is a group made up of five rather white girls who dress up in the red, white, and blue and sing (or lip-sync) very up-beat songs about how great America is. They performed at one event for Donald Trump. They wanted $2,500, but the campaign offered them instead a table where they could sell their music and related junk. Except that the campaign didn’t even do that.

That should have been enough, right? I mean, when a client doesn’t pay me, that’s the end of our relationship. But later, the Trump campaign offered for the five dears to come and perform again for a big event where they would get lots of media attention. The manager of USA Freedom Kinds, Jeff Popick, is a Trump supporter and thus gullible. You know the old saying: fool me once, please give me another opportunity to fool me again! So the group paid their own way to go to the second event, where they weren’t even allowed to perform.

USA Freedom Kids Sue

Now Popick is suing Trump and isn’t certain whether he will be voting for Trump in November. You know the old saying: fool me twice and I still might vote for you for president because I’m a total idiot.

None of this will matter for the Trump campaign, of course. As I noted yesterday, people just want to vote for an authoritarian. The USA Freedom Kids really are from another time. Don’t get me wrong: they scream authoritarianism. But it’s a more subtle kind that apparently can only be heard by people who know a bit of history. You know: roughly 10% of the country.

In a battle between a horrible strongman who has nothing to offer but chest pounding and five little girls singing a “modern” version of “Over There,” the strongman wins. That’s one of the the most important things about authoritarianism is that it is a kind of death cult — the death of the individual. This is why libertarians are so silly: they focus on theoretical threats to liberty while allowing the rise of real threats. If Donald Trump becomes president, it will be because libertarians and “reasonable” Republicans have defined the centrist Democratic Party as something akin to Stalin.

Nothing New for Trump

But this story of Donald Trump not paying the USA Freedom Kids is typical of him. Trump doesn’t think he should have to pay for anything just like Kim Jong-un. And the people are fine with that. Trump is literally the Übermensch: he defines his own moral universe. Sure, America loves the pathetic “patriotic” girls, but only so long as they know their place. They don’t define their own moral universe. None of us do; only Donald Trump.

Donald Trump isn’t expected to pay his bills and he doesn’t. And this is the man that Americans want for their president.

I’m terrified.

Image cropped from one at Time, My Daughters Will Never Be Freedom Kids. Licensed under Fair Use. (Typical of a badly managed group: there isn’t a single free image of the darlings performing.)

Convention Compare: A-List vs C-List Speakers

Posted on 26 Jul 2016 by Frank Moraes

Brian Beutler: Convention Speech Senator Cory Booker’s pre-primetime speech was the first to overpower the Sanders holdouts. Michelle Obama’s, by universal acclaim, will join the pantheon of great convention addresses. And Sanders himself spoke well past the 11 pm network TV cutoff point, in part because the delegates of both candidates interrupted his remarks with standing ovations over and over again. The range of talent on display was such that the keynote address, by Senator Elizabeth Warren — one of Hillary Clinton’s most effective surrogates and a trusted figure among Sanders supporters — largely disappeared behind the others. And it was a good speech, too.

In a different climate, clustering so many big draws into one night, when they could have been spread out more evenly, would have been an error. But in this case it was a matter of necessity. The coming three days will feature headline speeches by Bill Clinton, Vice President Joe Biden, the Democratic VP nominee Tim Kaine, Barack Obama, and Hillary herself. Packing the lineup on Monday night was simply a matter of necessity…

Clinton’s convention lineup wasn’t designed to contrast with Trump’s brigade of C-list celebrities and agitators, though it did do that. It was instead meant to serve as a demonstration that Clinton is widely respected in the Democratic Party, which is much less divided than a handful of Sanders delegates would have you believe. Where Trump insists to the public that Republicans are unified, Clinton and her supporters showed that they are.

—Brian Beutler
The Democrats Just Showed Republicans How It’s Done

Image of Brian Beutler taken from article, What I Learned from Getting Shot. Licensed under Fair Use.

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