All this talk of arming teachers and training children to rush psychopaths who are outfitted with machine guns semi-automatic weapons reminds me of a moment in high school. But first, a recap.

In the wake of the Newtown killings, writers on the right have suggested we should teach children to turn on their assailants, rushing them en masse. Here’s Megan McArdle writing in The Daily Beast:

I’d also like us to encourage people to gang rush shooters, rather than following their instincts to hide; if we drilled it into young people that the correct thing to do is for everyone to instantly run at the guy with the gun, these sorts of mass shootings would be less deadly, because even a guy with a very powerful weapon can be brought down by 8-12 unarmed bodies piling on him at once.

McArdle is a libertarian. You know, the type who believes you can’t derive Rawlsian-style social justice from self-interested premises—that shit would never work—but that you can adduce from those very same premises a mass death instinct of the sort that powered the Red Army to victory against the Nazis. When it comes to public goods, libertarians think we’re all free riders; in the face of crazed killers, we’re all comrades. [click to continue…]

My annual kind-of-tradition continues this year, to the protests of all our long suffering readers. Thoughts on evidence, disagreement, knowledge and related matters follow, in suitably opaque and allusive style …

On not believing in Canada

I remember clearly when I first started along the road that led me to where I am today – the unfashionable and lonely position of an adult man, educated and well-travelled, who doesn’t believe in the existence of Canada. I was a kid at Sunday School, and the vicar was trying to talk to an awkward class of hard-nuts and smart-asses about the general concept of faith in the absence of empirical evidence.

“What about Canada?”, he asked us all, his thick Welsh accent muffled slightly by an impressive crop of nostril hair. “You’ve never been to Canada! You’ve never seen Canada! You’ve never even met anyone who’s been to Canada! But you believe in Canada, don’t you, Davies?”.

He cast his gaze around the room, having to swivel his neck a bit as something like a dozen of us were called “Davies”. I elected myself as the spokesman and made what seemed to be the obvious response:
[click to continue…]

Glenn Greenwald contrasts the horror over the Newtown mass murder and the immediate political reaction with responses to the deaths of children in US drone attacks. He focuses his criticism particularly on Obama supporters.

While there are many different views, and combinations of views, my perspective (as a non-American who would have voted for Obama) is a bit different. Until Newtown my perspective on US gun violence and drone attacks was pretty much identical

* They are horrible
* I thought Obama would change things for the better, but they changed for the worse (no action on semi-automatics, spread of concealed carry and stand your ground, expansion of the drone war)
* Given the attitudes of the majority of Americans, little hope for improvement
* Repubs would be even worse

I think most of these views were shared by most participants in the “lesser evil” debate before the election. But what strikes me in retrospect is that the entire debate was focused on drones and related issues. Implicitly, I and I think, most others, regarded gun control as a cause so thoroughly lost that Obama couldn’t be blamed for abandoning it. The Trayvon Martin case changed this a bit, but not much. By contrast, Newtown showed that the apparent pro-gun consensus was if not illusory, at least fragile. In his trademark ‘lead from behind’ style, Obama captured the new consensus and seems likely to push it forward.

The hopeful reading of this is that public opinion about drones could change just as radically, if public understanding improved. At the moment, it’s hard to see that happening without some truly horrible shock, like a drone wiping out a primary school. Perhaps, however, the widespread view among those who have actually examined the drone war, that it’s both cruel and counterproductive, may start to seep into public discussion, as part of a reaction against the culture of violence that supports both drones and guns.

Since we are not allowing regular comments on the letter below, I thought it would be only fair to open up a different thread for people who want to comment more broadly on matters related to this case, or the general issues it raises. No trolling, but feel free to comment as per on a regular post.

Erik Loomis is no stranger to this blog. A gifted young scholar of US labor and environmental history, Loomis is also a blogger at Lawyers, Guns and Money. Many of us have tussled and tangled with him, most recently over whether leftists should vote for Obama. We have often disagreed with Loomis, not always pleasantly or politely, and he has certainly given as good as he has got.

But now we must stand by Loomis’s side and speak up and out on his behalf, for he has become the target of a witch hunt, and as an untenured professor at the University of Rhode Island, he is vulnerable. Loomis needs our solidarity and support, and we must give it to him.

This past Friday, in the wake of the tremendous grief and outrage millions of people felt over the Newtown mass shooting, Loomis tweeted the following:

I was heartbroken in the first 20 mass murders. Now I want Wayne LaPierre’s head on a stick.

Wayne LaPierre is the head of the National Rifle Association.

It seems obvious to us that when Loomis called for LaPierre’s head on a stick, he had in mind something like this from the Urban Dictionary:

A metaphor describing retaliation or punishment for another’s wrongdoing, or public outrage against an individual or group for the same reason.

After the BP Oil Spill; many Americans would like to see Tony Hayward‘s head on a stick, myself included.

Ever since putting someone’s head on a stick ceased to be a routine form of public punishment—indeed, the last instance of it we can think of is fictional (Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities, though it references an actual event from the French Revolution)—calling for someone’s head has been a fairly conventional way to express one’s outrage or criticism. Two months ago, for example, right-wing blogger Glenn Reynolds voiced his anger over the State Department’s lax provision of security in Benghazi by demanding, “Can we see some heads roll?”

Yet that very same Glenn Reynolds is now accusing Loomis of using “eliminationist rhetoric.”

Other conservative voices have joined in. The Daily Caller says Loomis “unleashed a flurry of profanity-ridden tweets demanding death for National Rifle Association executive Wayne LaPierre.” Townhall put Loomis’s tweets in the context of NRA members and leaders getting death threats. And just this morning, Michelle Malkin wrote at National Review Online:

What’s most disturbing is that the incitements are coming from purportedly respectable, prominent, and influential public figures.

Consider the rhetoric of University of Rhode Island professor Erik Loomis….

Unfortunately, Loomis is not alone….

So, it’s come to this: Advocating beheadings, beatings, and the mass murder of peaceful Americans to pay for the sins of a soulless madman. But because the advocates of violence fashion themselves champions of nonviolence and because they inhabit the hallowed worlds of Hollywood, academia, and the Democratic party, it’s acceptable?

Blood-lusting hate speech must not get a pass just because it comes out of the mouths of the protected anti-gun class.

This campaign has now brought Loomis into the crosshairs of the state and his employer.

Loomis has already been questioned by the Rhode Island State Police, who told him that someone had informed the FBI that Loomis had threatened LaPierre’s life. Loomis also has been hauled into a meeting with his dean.  And now the president of the University of Rhode Island, where Loomis teaches, has issued the following statement:

The University of Rhode Island does not condone acts or threats of violence. These remarks do not reflect the views of the institution and Erik Loomis does not speak on behalf of the University. The University is committed to fostering a safe, inclusive and equitable culture that aspires to promote positive change.

We do not expect any better of the orchestrators of this campaign—this is what they have done for many years, and doubtless will be doing for years to come. We do expect better of university administrators. Rather than standing behind a member of their faculty, the administration has sought to distance the university from Loomis.

Even to suggest that Loomis’s tweet constitutes a “threat of violence” is an offense against the English language. We are dismayed that the university president completely fails to acknowledge the importance of academic freedom and of scholars’ freedom independently to express views (even intemperate ones) on topics of public importance.  This statement—unless it is swiftly corrected— should give alarm to scholars at the University of Rhode Island, to scholars who might one day consider associating themselves with this institution, and to academic and professional associations that value academic freedom.

However, this is not merely a question of academic freedom. It also speaks to a broader set of rights to speak freely without the fear of being fired for controversial views that many of us have been flagging for years. Everyone should be clear what is going on. As a blogger at Atrios has pointed out, what the witch hunters want is for Loomis to be fired. Indeed, the calls have already begun (see comment thread here). Though Loomis has a union, his lack of tenure makes him vulnerable.

We insist that the University of Rhode Island take a strong stand for the values of academic freedom and freedom of speech, that it not be intimidated by an artificially whipped-up media frenzy, that it affirm that the protections of the First Amendment require our collective enforcement, and that all employers—particularly, in this kind of case, university employers—have a special obligation to see that freedom of speech become a reality of everyday life.

We urge all of you to contact the following three administrators at the University of Rhode Island:

Dean Winnie Brownell: winnie@mail.uri.edu
Provost Donald DeHays: ddehayes@uri.edu
President David Dooley: davedooley@mail.uri.edu

Be polite, be civil, be firm.

We also call upon all academic and other bloggers to stand in support of Loomis. We invite others who wish to associate themselves with this statement to say so in the comments section to this post, and to republish this statement elsewhere.

Chris Bertram, University of Bristol

Harry Brighouse, University of Wisconsin – Madison

Michael Bérubé, The Pennsylvania State University

Daniel Davies, non-academic

Henry Farrell, George Washington University

Kieran Healy, Duke University

John Holbo, National University of Singapore

Jon Mandle, SUNY Albany

John Quiggin, University of Queensland

Eric Rauchway, University of California Davis

Corey Robin, Brooklyn College

Brian Weatherson, University of Michigan

—————

Update. Since this wasn’t entirely clear in the original post. This comment section is purely for people who want to sign onto the statement. If you don’t want to sign the statement, but simply to make semi-related points, start discussions, troll or whatever, please refrain from doing so. Further information that is directly relevant (e.g. about responses received, other people to be contacted or whatever) is OK. So too is brief context for why you are signing, if you want to provide it – but please remember that this is a public document, which is intended to speak to a cause that deserves support from a wide variety of people. Anything else – not the right time, thanks.

Update 2: some CTers who did not have the opportunity to sign on earlier added above.

Those of you who are worried that the world is going to end on Friday may be inclined to relax and party when it doesn’t. On the other hand, those of you who have put off buying Christmas presents because, you know, what’s the point? May yet be vindicated. Apparently there is no scholarly consensus on when the Mayan calendar runs out. Could be Friday, but Sunday or Christmas Eve are also possibilities (pdf), and, indeed, it is Christmas Eve that these guys incline to:

bq. Implicitly or explicitly, the majority of scholars have accepted Thompson’s leap-year argument (see, for instance, Bricker and Bricker 2011:91). That is why the idea has entered into the popular consciousness that the thirteenth Bak’tun will end on December 21, 2012, which is the date in the 584283 correlation, as opposed to December 23 in the 584285 correlation (or Christmas Eve, December 24, according to 584286).

From Simon Martin and Joel Skidmore and “Exploring the 584286 Correlation between the Maya and European Calendars”, The PARI Journal 13(2), 2012, pp. 3-16.

[All via Charles C. Mann ( @CharlesCMann) on twitter.]

After a “bit” of a break from adding to my Ph.Do column at Inside Higher Ed, I’ve started writing pieces for it again. My most recent one is about all of the helpful information one can glean from consulting other people’s CVs. To those who know this, it is obvious advice, but it is surprising how many people do not recognize what a helpful resource CVs can be. A future piece will address how to write one’s own CV as having viewed many hundreds over the past few years, clearly there are many people out there who can use some advice on that matter as well.

Train kindergarten teachers as shooters. Tool them up. Problem solved.

Update: I can only imagine that Megan McArdle is jealous of all the attention Eugene Volokh has been getting.

Yesterday, the US, UK and a dozen other countries refused point blank to sign a UN treaty on the Internet. About twenty more are making very negative noises about it, saying they need to go back to their capitals to discuss. The two thirds of countries who did support it, led by Russia, have no way to enforce or even – for many of them are struggling to build and maintain basic communications infrastructure – to implement it.

I’ve been meaning to write something about the International Telecommunication Union negotiations in Dubai, not least because I helped out in a small way with getting the International Trade Union Confederation and Greenpeace involved. But time and events kept rushing past, and other people did it better, particularly Jack Goldsmith’s ‘opinionated primer’.

But if anyone wants to catch up, the BBC has done excellent, incisive and factual pieces from the beginning. And for a decent analysis of yesterday’s debacle and how the US acted and is perceived, the Economist is pretty much on the money.

Predictably, much US commentary has reverted to type with ‘bureaucrats = bad; UN bureaucrats = the work of the devil’. For amusingly unhinged opinion, you could do worse than the WSJ which proclaimed that “Letting the Internet be rewired by bureaucrats would be like handing a Stradivarius to a gorilla“. That said, the WSJ isn’t entirely wrong. (Even a stopped clock tells the right time, twice a day.)

This has been a process where everyone played to type, from the ugly Americans with the 120 person delegation and pathological inability to understand how they are perceived; to the shifty Russians leaking, denying, defending, introducing, withdrawing and reintroducing oppressive proposals; to NGOs and the techies who built the Internet fuming (rightly) at being excluded from discussing it; to the ITU Sec. Gen. making one disingenuous, self-serving and patently wrong claim after the next; to a Chair who thinks because he’s on Twitter, the whole process is open; to, finally, an Iranian determined to force a vote to embarrass the West, and who brought the whole house of cards down on top of everyone.

But you really had to be there to appreciate the shambolic, dishonest, catastrophic failure of the whole thing. My thanks to Kieren McCarthy who braved it and reports from the rubble:

“Mistake piled on mistake and yet the ITU seemed incapable of responding, relying on member states to arrive at their own solutions and ignoring civil society, the technical community and even hundreds of thousands of concerned global citizens that took to online petitions to express their disgust at decisions being made over the Internet in closed, government groups.

In the end, the ITU and the conference chair, having backed themselves to the edge of a cliff, dared governments to push them off. They duly did. And without even peeking over, the crowd turned around and walked away.”

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair.

The Economist has a “review”:http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2012/12/irish-famine?fsrc=scn/tw/te/bl/openingoldwounds of two books on the Famine in the most recent issue.

Both authors describe the folly and cruelty of Victorian British policy towards its near-forsaken neighbour in detail. The British government, led by Sir Charles Trevelyan, assistant secretary to the Treasury (dubbed the “Victorian Cromwell”), appeared far more concerned with modernising Ireland’s economy and reforming its people’s “aboriginal” nature than with saving lives. Ireland became the unfortunate test case for a new Victorian zeal for free market principles, self-help, and ideas about nation-building.

[click to continue…]

Everyone knows that next year is the 50th anniversary. In fact it’ll be interesting to see how it plays out the day after the far less significant 50th anniversary of the JFK assassination: a special is promised, though no details yet. The doctor is even, right now, on the cover of TV guide magazine though not, contra the inside story, for the first time: somewhere in a depths of my 16 year old’s bedroom is the TV guide from just before she was born with Paul McGann on the cover promoting the 1996 TV movie. (And the adorable Larry Hagman is relegated to the back cover — who, when JR was shot, would have imagined that when the real JR died he’d be upstaged by John Smith?) So I thought I’d poke around for a good present for the 16 year-old from her loving siblings and found….Monopoly: Dr. Who Edition 50th Anniversary Collector’s Edition. Fantastic! (PS, don’t tell her, please).

It seems to me that, just as ‘peak oil’ refers to the “the point in time when the maximum rate of petroleum extraction is reached, after which the rate of production is expected to enter terminal decline,” so ‘peak pale’ ought to refer to the point in time when the maximum relative rate of white vote extraction is reached by the GOP, after which the party’s rate of election is expected to enter terminal decline. (So it isn’t that we’ve ‘run out of’ whites – not exactly. Let’s be precise about this, shall we?)

I am not sure how this relates, if at all, to my previous post.

Lori Gruen has had a post up for a while at New APPS, on the renewal of maternal deprivation research at UW Madison. Here is her description of what the researchers plan to do:

A psychiatry professor who has a distinguished record of research on anxiety disorders plans to separate more monkey babies from their mothers, leave them with wire “surrogates” covered in cloth (a practice developed by Harlow) to emulate “adverse early rearing conditions,” then pair them with another maternally deprived infant after 3-6 weeks of being alone. The infants will then be exposed to fearful conditions. The monkeys in this group and another group of young monkeys who will be reared with their mothers, will then be killed and their brains examined.

Here is the experimental protocol and here is a history of maternal deprivation studies at UW Madison, from a site established by critics of the research.

The protocol describes the value of the research as follows:

While numerous studies have been performed examining the effects of surrogate/peer in nonhuman primates, no studies have been performed examining the effects of this rearing modification on brain development using state of the art imaging and molecular methods. These efforts will allow us to identify the exact brain regions affected, the changes in gene function in these regions, and the specific genes that are involved increasing the early risk to develop anxiety and depression. Such information has the potential to identify new targets in specific brain regions that can lead to new ideas about treatment and even prevention of the long-term suffering associated with early adversity. For example, understanding the involvement of brain chemicals that have never before been implicated in anxiety, will allow the field to begin to search for medications that affect these newly identified systems. In addition, the molecular information, combined with the imaging data, may allow for interventions that target novel brain regions that are critically involved in anxiety and depression.

Part of me is very resistant to forgoing human benefits for the sake of non-human animals. The other part of me thinks that the more like a human being an animal is (and thus the more likely research on it is to be useful for the treatment of humans) the more likely it is that the animal has a high degree of moral status. And there can be no question that the monkeys will be caused psychological harm by this study, since the monkeys’ susceptibility to anxiety and distress is an integral part of the research. And while studies of this kind do differ from Harlow’s experiments involving total social isolation, they still seem spectacularly cruel.

The university seems to have been pretty unforthcoming about the research. A quick Google Search for “maternal deprivation UW Madison” shows the top hits as a page against the research by Alliance for Animals, a Madison-based animal rights group, a petition by Gruen to the UW Provost to stop the research, and another website hosted by Alliance for Animals that has a pledge for alumni to refrain from donating to UW until the maternal deprivation experiments are stopped. But I don’t see anything by UW. I’d be interested to know if anyone has seen more information. Or could offer a convincing defense.

Not a proper post – just a very strong recommendation that you read Quinn Norton’s “extraordinary article on Occupy”:http://www.wired.com/opinion/2012/12/a-eulogy-for-occupy/all/.