Picking up on some remarks of mine, Brian Leiter is playing the “which contemporary philosophers will still be read in 100 years” game – which can be quite fun. My money is on Rawls and Parfit. Not that they are necessarily the best, but other contenders who have written less monumental works will have their thoughts incorporated into philosophical discourse in a way that floats free of the original form those thoughts were couched in.

In recent weeks the hit TV programme on British TV has been Restoration, which invites viewers to vote for the dilapidated country house, castle, factory or mausoleum they most want renovated. Patrick Wright has been a shrewd observer of the “heritage industry” since the publication of his landmark _On Living in an Old Country_ in the mid-1980s. He has a good essay in the Guardian on the ambivalence of restoration and on the often -attached social snobbery. He reveals, among other things, that it was veteran anarchist Colin Ward who coined the phrase “heritage industry” in the first place. I’ve been active in Bristol Civic Society for the past few years, and the tension Wright points to between a backward-looking conservationism and the desire to preserve and build a well-functioning urban environment is one that I see played out all the time. Read the whole thing.

I blogged a while back about wanting to see Good Bye Lenin, and I finally managed to do so last night., so this is just a minor update. I’d recommend it: it is warm, funny, touching and humane and I managed the suspension of disbelief a lot better than I’d anticipated from contemplating the idea of the film. I was surprised to see that the auditorium was packed. I have the good fortune to have a small cinema at the end of my street (how long it will survive, I don’t know) and I’d been to see Veronica Guerin a couple of weeks earlier in the same place on the same night of the week and there had been just three of us watching. Odd that GBL should be so much more popular.

Over the weekend, the New York Times is publishing two longer pieces about the coming fiscal crisis in Washington. There’s the Paul Krugman piece previously noted by Henry, and “Dizzying Dive to Red Ink Poses Stark Choices for Washington” by David Firestone.

Both are detailed and well worth reading. My favorite succinct take on it, however, is a editorial by Matt Miller from August. Andrew Tobias has the whole thing, but I can’t help but quote:

Start with basic but poorly understood facts. Seven programs make up 75 percent of all federal spending: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, military pensions, civil service pensions, defense and interest on the debt. That’s “big government.”

Republicans aren’t trying to cut a dime of it but are calling for big increases in every one of these programs. According to the White House, interest on the national debt alone will soar by 66 percent over the next five years, thanks to the red ink oozing from President Bush’s budget ….

Over the next five years, President Bush figures the “big 7” programs will cost, on average, about $1.8 trillion a year.

Over the same period, he says, the revenue the government will collect, not counting Social Security taxes (which both parties say shouldn’t be used for current spending, though it is), will average $1.35 trillion a year — $450 billion a year less than just the “big 7” on which Republicans want to spend more…

This, then, is today’s spectacle: “Family values” Republicans are sticking the kids with the bill for current spending while railing fraudulently against the “big government” they support.

Then they attack Democrats for offering the radical idea that we ought to pay for the spending we all agree we want (before we even begin fighting about other things — like covering uninsured, or helping poor children get better teachers).

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Over at Calpundit there’s an interesting discussion going on about the stresses that contemporary high school education places on students. In the comments Kevin expresses surprise (at least I think it’s surprise) that there are students who take two years of calculus in high school. I was rather surprised that this is surprising.

Where I went to school (in a fairly good suburban Catholic school in Melbourne) the median student did two maths courses with hefty calculus sections before graduation, and a sizable minority (about 15 to 20%) did four such courses. And I didn’t think this was particularly unusual. It certainly didn’t strike me as an outrageous amount for high school students to complete.

Because there’s next to no philosophy taught in high school in America (or Australia) I’ve never had to pay much attention to how much incoming college students have learned. So I’ve got no idea really how to compare American and Australian students. But my (quite possibly erroneous) impression is that the demands of American high schools are much less onerous than their Australian equivalents.

If you want some more specific info on what Australian high students are expected to know, here’s the final exams from the last three years given to final year high school students in Victoria. At my school 50% or more of graduating students would have taken the course ‘Maths Methods’, and another 15 to 20% the course called ‘Specialist Maths’. (Back in my day they had different names, but the syllabus doesn’t look to have changed dramatically.) Quickly flipping through the VCAA website it seems the numbers across the state for how many took those two courses are more like 40% and 15% respectively, and you can get some detailed reports on how they did here.

Paul Krugman has a long and devasting “critique”:http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/14/magazine/14TAXES.html?pagewanted=print&position= of the Grover Norquist agenda in the NYT magazine. Expect the usual talking points from Sullivan and co. – ‘shrill,’ ‘sloppy’ – but don’t expect any serious counter-arguments.

And, proving that conservatism can be something more than blind advocacy of tax cuts, Tacitus “gives forth”:http://38.144.96.23/tacitus/archives/000913.html#000913 on the decision to reject tax-reform in Alabama:

bq. prisons and cops — and yes, even public education — are legitimate functions of government at that level, and so I have to ask whether underfunding them is really the conservative thing to do … All in all, the whole episode and the anti-tax rejoicing in the aftermath points to an increasing cognitive dissonance in Republican circles. The notion of taxation as an evil in itself is useful as a tactical tool, but it’s not useful as an analytic tool: you don’t get good governance if you focus on cutting taxes in the absence of any consideration of legitimate budgetary needs or any effort to concurrently reduce spending. But that’s exactly what’s happening, in the Congress and in Alabama. It’s worrisome and I daresay wrongheaded

I got one tonight that read: “Be careful! Straight trees often have crooked roots.” Not exactly what Kant had in mind. But I’m keeping an eye my fellow CT’ers . . .

Via “Laura”:http://apartment11d.blogspot.com/2003_09_01_apartment11d_archive.html#106333241625339719 at _Apartment 11D_ comes this fascinating “website”:http://cluster1.claritas.com/MyBestSegments/Default.jsp?ID=20. Enter your zipcode, and you can find out which cheesy and facile marketing categories inhabit your neighborhood. Are you going through difficult times along with other Hard Years Sustaining Families, or hanging out with hip and happening Successful Singles? Details also provided on the likely purchasing habits of your neighbours (‘Struggling Metro Mixes’ are likely to buy jewelry, and own more than four televisions). You could waste hours if you’re not careful.

Neal Stephenson and his uncle had a lot of fun with these kinds of marketing labels in their pseudonymously written _Interface_ (purportedly written by ‘Stephen Bury’). Among the subcategories that Interface‘s crazed political-demographic operatives identify in their efforts to manipulate the American voting public are:

* Mid-American Knick-Knack Queens
* Post-Confederate Gravy Eaters
* Frosty-Haired Coupon Snippers
* Mall-Hopping Corporate Concubines
* Debt-Hounded Wage Slaves
* Trade School Metal Heads
* Depression-Haunted Can Stackers

By their labels shall ye know them.

One of the most common complaints about blogs is that we’re essentially parasites; without the mainstream media, we’d be talking about our pets. I generally agree.

But every once in a while, bloggers get to a story first. Just yesterday, for example, Andrew Sullivan revealed the surprising news that Howard Dean, presidential candidate and governor of Vermont, is fluent in Haitian creole.

To be fair, I’m reading between the lines a little. I have to assume that Howard Dean speaks Haitian creole. Because if he doesn’t, Andrew’s criticism of a song in Creole doesn’t make the slightest bit of sense. (I notice that respected economics professor Tyler Cowen loves Don Giovanni. To the Babelfish! Get ‘im!)

Jeez. Sullivan is not a stupid man, and I feel certain that he didn’t go to the Kennedy School of Government with the dream of dumbing down political discourse. And yet, here we are. As a wise man once said, “What a waste it is to lose one’s mind.”

Jack O’Toole has more.

UPDATE: Another scoop! The Bush administration and congressional investigators say that they don’t have sufficient evidence to connect Saddam Hussein to the 9/11 attacks, but Andrew has found the proof.

(That’s enough Andrew – Ed)

I’ve just discovered that complete versions of both Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister are available on DVD. On to the wish list they go. And I recommend you follow those links and buy them yourself, too.

Question for discussion: Compare and contrast the political culture that gave us this series to the one that produced The West Wing.

The Yes Minister website throws up a classic dialog from the show on the value of opinion polls. Read on for details.

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A few years ago, two friends of mine were walking with a Danish friend through Copenhagen one evening. As they passed the parliament building, a vaguely familiar man walked out. Their Danish friend smiled and said ‘good night’. The man responded in kind, and headed for a bus stop. It was Nyrup Rasmussen, the prime minister of the day.

The queen of Denmark is regularly to be seen walking alone through the main shopping thoroughfare of Copenhagen. Sweden is similar. In the country that gave the world Ombudsmen, part of government openness means that senior politicians walk openly and freely amongst the public, and generally disdain body guards.

Another anecdote; a journalist friend described interviewing Chris Patten when Patten was with the Northern Ireland office during the 1980s. The conversation continued as Patten walked to his car, got down on his knees and thoroughly examined the underneath, before standing up again and opening the car-door. All the time speaking as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening. Imagine incorporating that kind of personal risk (and risk to your family) into your daily routine.

Anna Lindh, Sweden’s rising political star, did not survive the multiple stab wounds she received while out shopping with a friend on Wednesday afternoon. As she was someone who championed openness in government, it will be a terrible shame if her legacy must be a distancing of Swedish politicians from the people they represent.

Open Democracy has an essay from a political commentator and long time friend of Lindh. The Economist considers how her death will affect the euro referendum in Sweden.

Last Sunday, the Archbishop of Paris sent a letter to be read out in every parish Mass. It remembered the thousands of people who died in last month’s heatwave, reminded us of our obligations to the weak and the marginalised in our society, and asked us to pray for the souls of the dead. It added pathos to the now difficult to grasp number of dead; 15,000. The unclaimed dead were buried by the state in simple but respectful civil ceremonies. But many Catholics (and presumably those of other religions too) who had been regular churchgoers were buried without religious rites because their bodies had not been claimed in time. Parish priests who knew their parishioners well did not have the right to insist on Christian burials. This is probably as it should be. But somehow, the idea of people dying at home, alone (as most of the dead in Paris did) without the last rites, and not being received into the arms of their churches on death, made it all seem even sadder.

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It’s long been one of my theories that the user ratings on Amazon are useless as guides to my reading habits. It seems like virtually every non-political book that I look up has a rating between 4 and 5 (out of 5). It’s not hard to understand how this would happen; I expect that most people don’t take the time to read and review a book unless they enjoy it. Self-selection would weed out the most negative reviewers before they pick up a book. (I probably wouldn’t enjoy Those Who Trespass, but I’ll never know because I’m not going to read it.) Furthermore, people who love a book are probably more likely to choose to review it than people who were indifferent.

I’ve taken a completely unscientific look at Amazon ratings. I looked at six categories: General nonfiction, general fiction, history, politics, classics, and “bad” books (evil, discredited, or worthless books, not trashy fiction). Most of the books in general nonfiction, general fiction, history and classics are books that I’ve read. (I’m interested in whether Amazon ratings are useful for me, you see.) I’ve read a few of the politics books, and none of the “bad” books. (A list of books and their ratings are here.) I know that this isn’t a randomized sample and that it’s biased around my tastes. I have no intention of defending this study’s methodology, except to say that I didn’t pick books in an effort to get results I wanted. It’s just for fun.

Here’s what I found:

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Looks as though Berlusconi has outed himself as a moral relativist; he’s told two interviewers that Mussolini wasn’t such a bad chap after all. Berlusconi is “quoted”:http://www.repubblica.it/2003/i/sezioni/politica/berlugiudici/spectator/spectator.html as replying to a question comparing Mussolini and Saddam by saying:

bq. Mussolini never killed anyone. Mussolini sent people on holiday in internal exile [a fare vacanza al confino].

He’s now backtracking, saying that he never intended to signal a ‘re-evaluation’ of Mussolini, and was merely defending Italian national pride and honour.

bq. I wasn’t re-evaluating Mussolini; I was acting as a patriot. As an Italian, I wasn’t accepting a comparison between Mussolini and Saddam.

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