Tim Rutten in the LA Times:

You cannot change the totalitarian mind through dialogue or conversation, because totalitarianism — however ingenious the superstructure of faux ideas with which it surrounds itself — is a creature of the will and not the mind.

He’s right - it is a crucial understanding to have when dealing with Ahmadinejad or any other tyrant. After all, Hitler’s greatest propaganda film was entitled Triumph des Willens, or Triumph of the Will, not, “Triumph of Ideas.”

Earlier this week, torrential rains in New York City flooded the subway system, causing it to be shut down. Outside one station, 1,000 people were reported to be lined up at the taxi stand. In an otherwise unrelated article, Scientific American gives some interesting background information about Manhattan island:

… “The name ‘Manhattan’ comes from an Indian term referring to hills. It used to be a very hilly island. Of course, the region was eventually flattened to have a grid of streets imposed on it. Around those hills there used to flow about 40 different streams, and there were numerous springs all over Manhattan island. What happened to all that water? There’s still just as much rainfall as ever on Manhattan, but the water has now been suppressed. It’s underground. Some of it runs through the sewage system, but a sewage system is never as efficient as nature in wicking away water. So there is a lot of groundwater rushing around underneath, trying to get out. Even on a clear, sunny day, the people who keep the subway going have to pump 13 million gallons of water away. Otherwise the tunnels will start to flood.

“There are places in Manhattan where they’re constantly fighting rising underground rivers that are corroding the tracks. You stand in these pump rooms, and you see an enormous amount of water gushing in. And down there in a little box are these pumps, pumping it away. …

Who knew?

Via James Lileks’ site, here is an online slide show of the wreckage of the Minneapolis bridge that collapsed yesterday. Stunning. Even viewing the TV coverage, the magnitude of the disaster didn’t strike home until I saw these photos. A TV anchor just said up to 30 people are still missing. Please keep them in your prayers.

Update: Marc Danziger says of the collapse scene, “This is what not investing in infrastructure looks like,” and that ultimately, politicians who didn’t mandate and fund infrastructure maintenance or upgrades are to blame. At PopularMechanics.com, Stephen Flynn writes much the same:

In the end, investigators may find that there are unique and extraordinary reasons why the I-35W bridge failed. But the graphic images of buckled pavement, stranded vehicles, twisted girders and heroic rescuers are a reminder that infrastructure cannot be taken for granted. The blind eye that taxpayers and our elected officials have been turning to the imperative of maintaining and upgrading the critical foundations that underpin our lives is irrational and reckless.

But there’s no lobby for it and besides, the Congress would rather spend one-third billion dollars on a “bridge to nowhere” than spend only a tiny fraction of that to tighten screws or reweld a few seams on existing bridges.

There are almost 600,000 bridges in the United States. As Flynn reports, a quarter are rated as “structurally deficient or functionally obsolete.” And it’s not just bridges - all manner of infrastructure faces the same problems. One brake, though, on dumping the full load of blame on Congress or state legislatures is that much of this infrastructure is privately owned - think of power grids or natural-gas pipelines. OTOH, these kinds of businesses are regulated entities and a legislature has a lot more to say about their safety than, say, the condition of asphalt in a Giant Foods parking lot.

Captain’s Quarters provides a snippet of a debate between Sen. Dick Durbin and Sen. Norm Coleman on the so-called “fairness doctrine,” which was once law and empowered the federal government to regulate media broadcasts regarding political coverage to ensure (it was claimed) “dalance” and “fairness.” There are member os the Congress of both parties who want the “fairness doctrine” reestablished in law. So over to Dick Durbin:

Since the people who are seeking the licenses are using America’s airwaves, does the government, speaking for the people of this country, have any interest at that point to step in and make sure there is a despair balanced approach to the -a fair and balanced approach to the information given to the American people?

Get that? “… does the government, speaking for the people of this country… .”

Senator, here’s a clue. You do not speak for the people of this country. Nor do your 99 colleagues, nor do the 435 members of the House.

The people of America speak for themselves. That’s why the states required the guarantees that the government would stay away from speech regulation to be amended to the Constitution before they would ratify it. Hence the First Amendment.

Why does Durbin think he speaks for the people? Because of Den Beste’s Law: “The job of bureaucrats is to regulate, and left themselves they will regulate everything they can.” But not everyone is infected with regulatory disease. Sen. Coleman responded,

We’re at a time where we’ve got 20,000, you know, opportunities for stations and satellite, where you have cable, you have blogs, you have a whole range of information. I think it would be — I — I can’t even conceive — I can’t even conceive that the market could not provide opportunities for differing positions because it does. And in the end — in the end, consumers also have a right based on the market to make choices.

Now, Norm’s close but still doesn’t the cigar. The “market” has nothing to do with this. Consumers making choices, right or wrong, have nothing to do with this. This is not a mercantile issue. This is about a fundamental human right that strikes to very heart of democracy: the unhindered right of the people to speak, publish, post or broadcast without government constraint about matters relating to their government. If the First Amendment is intended to protect anything, it’s intended to protect political speech. But as Radley Balko wrote, “This is all thinly-disguised posturing for what’s really bothering the senators: They don’t like that people are allowed to criticize them on public airwaves.” Yep.

So Durbin and allies want to regulate the people’s speech because they incredibly believe that they speak for us and therefore must protect us from our own speech.

(Linked at OTB’s Traffic Jam.)

… to immortalize the Hero of Glasgow:

Twas doon by the inch o’ Abbots
Oor Johnny walked one day
When he saw a sicht that
troubled him
Far more than he could say…
Now that’s no richt wur
Johnny cried
And sallied tae the fray
A left hook and a heid butt
Required tae save the day.
Now listen up Bin Laden
Yir sort’s nae wanted here
For imported English radicals
Us Scoatsman huv nae fear.

“Heh,” as someone famous sometimes says.

I have written before that I consider Starbucks coffee a rather poor brew. I buy a cup from an SB joint only in extremis, maybe twice per year. The Publix grocery near us sells Starbucks bagged coffee and very occasionally I buy whole-bean Sumatran coffee when I’m not able to roast my own beans for some reason. Like now - both my roasters are broken. One is just worn out and I dropped the glass roasting chamber of the other a couple of days ago and broke it. The replacement hasn’t arrived.

But no more Starbucks coffee for me. The Tennessean reports in, “I’ll have some atheism in my coffee,” in its “community views” section:

If you have not heard by now, a woman in Ohio recently purchased a cup of coffee from Starbuck’s that had this statement on its cup “Why in moments of crisis do we ask God for strength and help? As cognitive beings, why would we ask something that may well be a figment of our imaginations for guidance? Why not search inside ourselves for the power to overcome? After all, we are strong enough to cause most of the catastrophes we need to endure.”

Funny but I do not remember seeing any bible verses on any of its cups over the past few years. Now I can’t say that I ever look at those statements but rest assured if there had been a bible verse we would have heard about it from the ACLU. It seems as if the name of God is welcome as long as it is taken in vain or is of a deragatory nature. Starbucks claims that its “the way I see it campagin” is not necessarily its views. However, as a business your promotions and actions as a company are your views, otherwise you would not publish them. …

Exactly. So even though I have no way at present to roast my own coffee, I won’t buy Starbucks any more. I know there’s no way that this international megacorporation will miss my patronage, which at best accounts for 0.00000000001% of its revenue. But doggone it, they’d throw me out on my ear if I went into a store and started handing out Gideon Bibles, so the pittance of money I give to them will be given no more. A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.

Until my new roasting chamber gets here, I’m drinking tea.

HT: Nashville Is Talking.

Update: It seems that comment cups are just the latest rage at Starbucks. There is a page on the company’s web site where you can leave a comment about their comments. In fairness, I should point out that one cup series featured this (scroll down page):

The Way I See It #92

“You are not an accident. Your parents may not have planned you, but God did. He wanted you alive and created you for a purpose. Focusing on yourself will never reveal your purpose. You were made by God and for God, and until you understand that, life will never make sense. Only in God do we discover our origin, our identity, our meaning, our purpose, our significance, and our destiny.”

— Dr. Rick Warren
Author of The Purpose-Driven Life.

This cup evoked this reaction from Denice Paxton, Santa Ana, Calif.:

Although I know that these writings are not necessarily the viewpoints of your company, I’m disappointed to see this one on your cup.

Don’t get me wrong. I fully believe that it’s an inspirational and thought-provoking comment, but I am not a Christian, and I don’t appreciate having God’s Plan preached to me via my coffee cup. It’s one thing to read about someone’s point of view, but it’s quite another to read a blatantly religious statement informing me that my purpose is to serve God.

Please know that I am a die-hard Starbucks fan, and I enjoy your products several times a week, and have for over 15 years. This misstep will not change that. I just ask that you consider your “The Way I See It” contributions a little more carefully. …

Well, fine, now Starbucks is just ticking everyone off! Is that good for business? But let’s consider Ms. Paxton’s objection: She’s “not a Christian” but nonetheless finds the Warren quote “inspirational and thought-provoking,” but she “doesn’t appreciate” it being “preached” to her. Huh? I missed something. Let me admit I found the “atheist” quote thought-provoking (obviously, since I’m blogging about it) but not at all inspirational. In fact, it was self-contradictory: “After all, we are strong enough to cause most of the catastrophes we need to endure.” Oh, yeah, we’re managing real well by ourselves, aren’t we? It seems empircally provable that the catastrophes humankind has caused (just consider the last 100 years) have led mostly to other catastrophes. Just consider, say, two years as one example: 1918, 1939.

Anyway, back to Ms. Paxton. She seems to appreciate the Warren quote in itself, but wishes she had not encountered it on her coffee cup. I am reminded of a woman named Alexandra Roth, profiled in a religion article in The Washington Post, June 4, 1995:

When her 3-year old son Graham came to her recently and asked, “Where is God?” Alexandra Roth took a deep breath.

Like many Americans, Roth has never found a home in any church or faith. . . . She considers herself an atheist, but she wants her son to have a sense of reverence and gratitude “and the idea of God is one pathway to that,” she says.

So she told Graham that God is everywhere, but that only piqued his curiosity. “Is God in my body?” he asked. “Is God mixed with my lunch?”

“They’re hard questions to answer,” Roth said later, “especially if you don’t have a catechism to refer to.”

If Roth considers herself an atheist, it is unclear what she wants her son to have a sense of reverence for, or for what she wants him to be grateful, and why. Such an “idea of God” seems no more than an amalgam of generally desirable personal characteristics. I suspect that this is the sort of bland “inspiration” and thought provocation that Ms. Dexter has in mind.

Update: Well, I’m honored, I guess, that this post has drawn the ire of Andrew Sullivan. But “on the whole, I’d rather be in Philadelphia.” But a hit’s a hit, I suppose.

An online op-ed by Rita Etter in today’s Tennessean is entitled, “Americans had more guns in past eras without mayhem.” She makes this observation:

During the Great Depression of the 1930s, millions of Americans owned guns. And in 1933, the murder rate was around 9 people per 100,000. But why no mass murder like today?

It struck me a counter-intuitive that the murder rate 70-plus years ago was 9 per 100,000. After all, everyone knows we have become a more violent nation over the last several decades. So I looked it up. And found Rita is correct. The homicide rate in 1933 was 9.7 per 100K.

According to FBI figures, the rate of “murder and non-negligent manslaughter” in 2003 was 5.7/100K, a decrease of 4. And to avoid cherry picking favorable data, let’s take a look at the years leading up to both 1933 and 2003.

1920 - 6.8
1921 - 8.1
1922 - 8.0
1923 - 7.8
1924 - 8.1
1925 - 8.3
1926 - 8.4
1927 - 8.4
1928 - 8.6
1929 - 8.4
1930 - 8.8
1931 - 9.2
1932 - 9.0
1933 - 9.7

It was not until 1943 that the rate fell below 2003’s rate. The FBI says in 1991 the rate was 9.8, a tenth above 1933’s rate. But beginning the next year the rate started trending strongly downward so that the 2003 rate was -36.7 percent from 1994’s rate, 5.7 v. 9.0.

Looking at other decades of comparison shows that the homicide rates have gone up and down over the years. In fact, from 1870-1910 the murder rate hovered around 1/100K! The overall rate declined by about 50 percent between 1933-1958, when it reached approximately 2003’s figure. By 1990, the rate was back to to 1933’s level. Since then it has plummeted again back to the level of the mid-1950’s. Interestingly, the climb took more than twice as long as the decline. By 2005, the rate had climbed to 5.9, where it remained for 2006.

A graph of murder rates is on this site, be advised that the site has a definite agenda but its raw data seem accurate, based on my readings.

Comments on.

Update: related article here.