South Africa Reacts

The ruling party in South Africa - the African National Congress - has reacted to a group of their white citizens accepting asylum in the United States. The pseudonymous Bonchie at Red State has the ANC's communique. See the key phrase:

What the instigators of this falsehood seek is not safety, but impunity from transformation. They flee not from persecution, but from justice, equality, and accountability for historic privilege.

Reacting to which, Bonchie concludes:

To claim they are fleeing "transformation" while citing "justice" and "accountability for historic privilege" is terrifyingly Orwellian. Everyone knows exactly what that means, which is the continued ethnic cleansing that has been endorsed by South Africa's ruling party.

That was my reaction as well. Hat tip to Lucianne.com for the link.

Political Realignments, Observed and Described

Taking a fine-grained look at the polling data, Joel Kotkin notes political divisions among both oligarchs and blue collar workers that cross social class lines. There are now oligarchs who support both parties, with the type of business they run determining political orientation. There are similar splits among blue collar workers. 

He also takes note of the over-production of college graduates who have both inflated expectations and deflated opportunities, the latter especially threatened by AI. It is a new political landscape, one having been influenced by changes in the economic landscape.

If I have a criticism of Kotkin’s analysis it is that it is backward looking. He seems not to take into account the changes Trump 2.0 is driving in the economic system and those would appear to eventually be massive. Some of this negativity is driven by Kotkin’s lack of MAGA enthusiasm.

I’d argue the solutions to the problems Kotkin observes with some dismay are already within view, if not yet much beyond the talking stage. If Trump can kick-start a reindustrialization of the US economy, expect the prospects going forward to more closely resemble sunlit fields than Kotkin’s dismal swamps.

A Really Big Hand-Me-Down

Many sources are taking a dim view of the "gift" of a luxury 747 to Trump by Qatar, and I share some of their questions. There is, however, a factor that has not been mentioned in any of the analysis I've seen.

The 747 is an obsolete design, it first flew commercial routes in 1970, some 55 years ago. Boeing no longer makes them. 

Modern Boeing and Airbus designs that fly the same sort of long passenger routes the 747 flew are all have two engines instead of four. They get the job done with less fuel and incorporate other design upgrades reflecting new technology.

Perhaps the uber-wealthy Qataris want a more modern plane for their leaders and saw an opportunity to gain good will by donating their gently used luxury 747 to Trump? Seen in that light, their gift may be no more significant than you donating granny’s no longer needed Buick to your PBS station's fund drive. 

Perhaps it is less a Trojan horse than a shiny hand-me-down.

Politico Honors Bret Baier

With few exceptions, the only thing I watch on Fox News is Bret Baier's Special Report. He does their "straight news" show and tries with some success to keep his own opinions out of the show. Now Politico has interviewed him about the prominence his show has achieved in the Trump 2.0 era.

In posing this question, Politico admits Baier's show isn't opinion TV.

Fox News is often known for some of its more conservative, opinionated voices. That is not the lane that you own. How do you navigate being under the Fox News umbrella, but sort of owning this lane that is more straight journalism?

To be fair to Politico, they didn't fool with his answers. His was the same 'voice' I hear most nights when I tune in. 

They didn't ask about the visits to various executive department headquarters around Washington which he has featured recently. Pretty clearly he has access others do not. 

Two things I find a little tiresome are these: (a) how much golf news gets finagled into Bret's show, and (b) the things which his Common Ground folks can agree upon are real enough but often not very compelling outside the specific communities directly affected.

Mothers' Day

Today we celebrate Mothers' Day, every person now drawing breath on this planet had one and many still have one to cherish. Born when the century was new, my own mother passed away in the late 1990s, at an advanced age. I remember her with great fondness.

She was a pathbreaker in several ways. The second of 7 children, she didn't marry right out of high school. She got stenographic skills and went to work for the Feds in Oklahoma City. 

While working there she bought a new Ford model A coupe. She and a girl friend drove it cross country to Virginia and back to visit the friend's parents as a vacation adventure. Some of the roads weren't paved and lodging was iffy, they sometimes camped on school grounds (closed for the summer) where they could use the outhouse. 

During the Depression she moved to Los Angeles where she continued to work for the Veterans' Administration. There she met my father who was processing VA disability claims. They married and I was born 4 years later. While I was little she invested in stocks and made money. 

In retirement she played bridge and took up oil painting. She did some credible landscapes, I have a couple hanging and they are no embarrassment whatsoever. I hope you can tell I'm proud of her.

Saturday Snark

Images courtesy of Power Line's The Week in Pictures

and its Comments section.

Friday Snark, a Day Late

Images courtesy of Politico's

The Nation's Cartoonists on the Week in Politics.

Economics Takes Second Place

There has been much controversy recently about free trade and tariffs. Economists love free trade; if economics was everything and no other factors impinged, free trade would probably produce the greatest possible basket of economic goods and services. 

To make that argument is, however, to fall into the ceteris paribus trap, which assumes everything else is held constant and we vary only free trade and its opposite, managed trade. The world doesn’t work that way. 

Humans are a disputatious species, we squabble a lot as individuals and as nations, we get into wars. Wars consume vast quantities of munitions, equipment, and the fuel to support all of that, plus along the way they destroy major amounts of infrastructure. Nations which can produce what war consumes are credible forces, those which cannot become dependent on others and the vulnerable supply lines which connect them.

A nation which outsources most of its manufacturing has much reduced credibility as a warring power. The US has allowed itself to outsource too much essential manufacturing, which at its pre-World War II level was the source of our ability to overwhelm the Axis powers.

Our reliance on China to manufacture much of what we now consume while recognizing China’s overt desire to replace the US as the world’s hegemon is irrational. Pursued to its logical conclusion, the policy is suicidal for our society. 

What might be optimal in an economic sense is irrational in a geopolitical sense. We must have a robust manufacturing sector which can produce war materials as needed, especially pharmaceuticals, computer chips, and munitions.

Leaving the make or buy decision to Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” - which the US has done in recent decades - doesn’t result in the sort of manufacturing base which will support major military activity, when it becomes necessary. To maintain our position in the world we need to be militarily credible. 

Trump gets this need, and his tariffs are a means by which to recreate the manufacturing base we need for military strength, and in so doing also create millions of good-paying factory jobs. Thus he accomplishes two key things with one set of actions, and improves opportunities for many of the “forgotten folk” who voted for him.

Home, a Day Late

 At home in western Wyoming … The med appointment I noted in SLC took far longer than expected, though the results were good. So we decided to stay over another night and we drove north yesterday instead of Thursday. 

It was a beautiful drive as everything was green. After a winter in the desert where the color palette runs to reds, ambers, and browns, the north’s spring greens are soothing to the soul.

Our home made it through the winter without mishap. I figured out how to recalibrate the thermostat, which spent the winter set at 45 ℉, and the house warmed up quickly. Some local friends came over and helped us unload the back of the truck. 

It is good to be home (on the range - the Rocky Mountains). There was a deer in the yard when we arrived, they’re nice neighbors, very quiet, and as graceful as ballerinas.

In Transit

Greater Salt Lake City area … We drove north today, over multiple passes that went over 6000 ft. but saw no snow at that elevation. In the peaks yes, but none at the roadside.

Traffic was moderate, we saw a lot of snowbird RVs headed north like we were. Mostly we zoomed through SLC because with 2 of us on board we could freely use the HOV lane. 

Tomorrow we have a med appointment here in town before driving on up to western Wyoming. So far, so good.

The Trump Philosophy

From Donald Trump's commencement speech at the University of Alabama, his personal philosophy boiled down into 10 precepts, in his words.

First, if you're here today and think that you're too young to do something great, let me tell you that you are wrong. You're not too young.

Second of all, and very importantly, you have to love what you do, okay? You have to.

Third thing is to think big. You know, if you're going to do something, you might as well think big, because it's just as tough.

Fourth is work hard. Work hard. Never, ever stop.

Fifth is don't lose your momentum. You just want to keep it going.

Number six: If you want to change the world, you have to have the courage to be an outsider. In other words, you have to take certain risks and do things a little bit differently.

So number seven is: Trust your instincts. Common sense. You can go very far in life with common sense.

Eighth: ... Everybody should believe in the American Dream. It's real.

Ninth: Think of yourself as a winner. (snip) Don't consider yourself a victim. 

And finally—and most importantly—never, ever give up. Never give up!

Of these 10, which do I personally believe is most important? Probably the second one ... love what you do. Without it, several of the others become endless drudgery.  

It has certainly worked for him. Will it make you president? Probably not, but you might be another Steve Jobs, or Warren Buffett, or Jonas Salk, or Elon Musk, or Taylor Swift or Herman Wouk. Or even more likely, a successful, happy person known only to friends and coworkers.

Is “Europe” Even a Thing?

Foreign policy analyst George Friedman draws on his Hungarian immigrant roots to examine the question of what exactly is this thing we call “Europe?” He makes observations I’ve often puzzled over concerning the various countries that make up the European Union and NATO.

Crucially, Europe is not a country. It is a continent containing, according to the United Nations, some 44 countries. They have different languages, cultures and histories, which include wars with neighbors and mutual loathing.

Western and Eastern Europe are still very different places, and it is now Eastern Europe, not Germany, that divides the Continent.

Eastern Europe, despite its distrust of itself and its former occupiers in Russia and Germany, must make a decision that will define the Continent. Will it stand together, or will it stand apart?

Efforts such as the Visegrád Group reflect attempts of Eastern Europe to “stand together.” Conflicts such as the ‘divorce’ between the Czech Republic and Slovakia reflect forces pushing them apart.

A Milepost

Our “winter in the desert” sojourn is rapidly coming to a close. Before the week is out we will be home in western Wyoming where, I’m guessing, the aspens have yet to leaf out. It hasn’t begun to be hot here on the eastern edge of the Mojave, but we did see low 90s - quite comfortable with low humidity - a couple of days ago.

We make the 500+ mile drive north in an easy two days, and visit friends in the greater Salt Lake area en route. All but the last 100 miles are straight up I-15 at 75-80 mph. The only traffic of consequence will be in Salt Lake City where we’re likely to arrive around afternoon rush hour, alas.

We both have a bit of hay fever that acts up this time of year. We will get to sniffle with the spring allergies all over again up north. It’s not that the blooming season has ended here, all our flowering plants are still very much in bloom, which has yet to happen in the high country.

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Later ... I wrote the foregoing before being outside, believe it or not it is actually raining here today. No wind, just a gentle rain that is more than a rain cell shower. The other DrC observes this is what the Navajo call a "female rain," as prized over in the "four corners" region where they live as here where only three states meet. 

An oddity to my eyes, this arid community has amazing, elaborate flood control infrastructure in place. I've never seen it in use, maybe I never will. When they get a rip-snorter of a thunderstorm it can flood, and the flood control stuff makes sense even if it's only used every 20 years or so. 

May the Fourth (Be With You)

Hello there, Star Wars fans. Today is Star Wars Day ... "May the Fourth be with you," he wrote lithpingly. I am not personally a Star Wars aficionado but I do understand the impulse. 

Lord of the Rings, Star Trek, Star Wars, Hunger Games, the Vampire chronicles and Harry Potter have all managed to capture rabid fans. I've seen them all. A fascinating research question would be what determines which set of imaginings (if any) grabs a particular person's fancy. 

Intriguing, it is. 

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For the DrsC the compulsion was the 7 Harry Potter novels, 8 films, 7 audio books read by Jim Dale, and the associated physical manifestations at Universal Studios theme park. 

BTW, the "magical creatures and where to find them" spinoffs didn't work for us. Apparently many of the Star Wars spinoffs don't work for its many stans.

Later ... I'm feeling ambivalent about the notion of turning the Rowling ouvre into a TV series, with each book the scaffolding over which a yearlong season will be draped. It's beyond the talking stage, so I suppose it will happen. Can the magic be recaptured? I'm unsure.

Saturday Snark

Images courtesy of Power Line's The Week in Pictures

and its Comments section.

Remembering the Hana Highway

Yahoo.com replays a Travel + Leisure article about the Hana Highway, calling it “One of the Most Gorgeous Road Trips in the US.” It is knockout beautiful for sure, and no picnic for the driver, either. I’m reminded of a couple of experiences in HI.

The Hana Highway is dangerous. The DrsC have driven it twice, and had an experience on one of those, now decades ago, when we were driving it as a day trip on Maui and spotted a helicopter doing odd stuff up ahead. 

We got closer and saw the copter was a Coast Guard unit and it was bobbing up and down alongside a cliff where the road ran along the top edge of the cliff. Closer still and there were vehicles parked here and there and a dejected guy was sitting alongside the road.

We asked and it turned out we had stumbled on a tragedy unfolding. The guy sitting there holding his head in his hands had stopped to take a photo and posed his wife on the cliff edge. Sure enough, she had fallen to her death into the surf from which the CG was attempting to extract her body via the copter. 

We drove on, and shelved any plans we had for dramatic photos. I haven’t driven the road recently but in those days it was narrow, no shoulders, no centerline, many blind corners, and slow but darned pretty.

That was long ago, when we were both still working at the uni. We would pop over to Hawaii either at the Xmas or spring break for a week of R&R, while classes weren’t in session. 

I have no idea now but in those days you could get package deals with hotel room, rental car, and plane fare off the West Coast for a fixed amount that was quite reasonable. Meals, drinks, and fuel were on us, but it was still a great short getaway, one we did several times.

One time I inadvertently caused quite a stir when I went to HI to give a paper at a regional professional meeting of the American Institute for Decision Sciences. I was checking into my hotel where the conference was being held and casually said to the clerk at the crowded check-in counter , “I’m here for the AIDS meeting,” saying the society’s acronym as we all did.

People at the counter started backing away from me and the clerk looked horrified. This was when people had first become aware of HIV-AIDS and those at the counter totally misunderstood me. Needless to say the society soon changed its name to Decision Sciences International to avoid repeats of the panic.

Colonel Hobson's choice

Salena Zito has a long interview with SecDef Pete Hegseth where he talks about how the bureaucratic inertia of the Pentagon is his immediate foe. The ideology he has to fight is DEI, and that creates an interesting dilemma for career military officers. Like most of Zito's work, the interview is worth your time. 

Reading it gets me thinking about military life for the officer corps. An officer's career normally spans something like 20-30 years. During that time one will serve as few as 3 or as many as 8 presidents, often of both parties. Policies can change with new administrations, such a change has just occurred. 

We went from "gung-ho DEI" under Biden to "no DEI" under Trump. Presuming each administration promotes those most closely aligned with its policies, one administration's fair haired boys (and girls) can become anathema for the next administration.

Hegseth faces a bunch of generals and admirals who, either from conviction or in pursuit of career advancement and prized assignments, espoused DEI. They went on record saying DEI was wonderful, the only moral choice.

They now have to live with those statements hanging around their necks like so many putrefying albatrosses. Let's stipulate they are unhappy campers reporting to a Trump White House, which finds them ideologically incompatible. Expect to see a fair number of retirements as a result.

Friday Snark

Images courtesy of Politico's

The Nation's Cartoonists on the Week in Politics.

Trump Loves the Crowd, Who Love Him

Writing for City Journal, Martin Gurri tries to grasp the unique power of Donald Trump, and why so many don’t “get” him. See some key thoughts.

Trump, after all, is a performer who carried a trivial reality TV show to popularity for more than a decade—he well knows how to communicate with the American public.

Trump loves the adoration of the crowd. But more than this, he loves the crowd itself, the proximity to ordinary people. He may be the only American politician who currently displays, and knows how to convey, a visceral affection for voters. He’s clearly energized in their presence, to the extent that he never wants the show to end. (snip) That’s his moment of transcendence.

Events just happen to skew to Trump’s advantage. His ostensibly fatal defeat in 2020 turned out to be the luckiest of breaks: the political steamroller that is Trump today can’t be explained without reference to the corruption and incapacity of the Biden years.

Trump has emerged as the avatar of the digital age, a Hegelian figure bearing the direction of history, the Weltgeist, upon his shoulders.

Of course the administrative “blob” is driven crazy in response, Trump heralds the death of their reign, and he revels in that role. 

Vindication

The Federalist reports that 2 poor, Southern states - Mississippi and Louisiana - have had outstanding reading results on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. The NAEP measures the reading and math skills of the nation’s fourth and eighth grade students. Those states have accomplished this by emphasizing phonics, sounding out unfamiliar words. Minority kids have shown particular gains.

The progress among black students is particularly impressive. According to Republican Gov. Tate Reeves, the reading scores of the state’s black fourth graders have improved from 45th to third place during the same period. This reflects the effectiveness of Mississippi’s literacy program, which has provided a learning gain equivalent to a full year of schooling. Moreover, the state’s graduation rate has seen a significant rise from 72 percent in 2013 to 89.9 percent in 2024.

Why is this particularly striking to me? The other DrC educated elementary school teachers for most of her career. She has been a life-long advocate of phonics, often facing bitter opposition from colleagues who favored other methods which produced substantially poorer results. 

Her approach has always made sense to me, sounding out words is something I’ve done since early childhood. We both have been voracious readers since we were very young. 

She talks about reading the dictionary and the yellow pages, as did I. I remember weekly trips to the local library with my parents to check out books. As kids, we both read our parents’ magazines that were around the house.