Eric The Blue

In a better place

Lots of magical thinkers are saying it’s apt that the pope should die at Easter, but I think it’s more likely that he lost his will to live after spending a few minutes with our Vice President. NPR has an informative piece on the meeting and the dispute between the two men. I noted, not long after he became pope, that I feel favorably disposed toward big shots who use public transportation, as Francis did when he was Archbishop of Buenos Aires.

Wags on social media are having fun with pics like the one above. For example, I saw one in which a thought bubble had been inserted above the pontiff’s head: “Oh no, I died in my sleep and … this isn’t the good place!”

The weak argument look

My daughter showed me this amusing picture of herself taken during one of her Ultimate Frisbee games. If you zoom in you will see a look of bemused disdain that I have on occasion noticed while in the middle of an earnest parental speech. Pleasant to see it deployed in a different context.

The context here relates to the fact that there are no referees in Ultimate Frisbee. It’s one of the sport’s little pretensions that the players are all of such elevated character that they don’t need them. They can just talk out their differences, you see. If the discussion about whether or not there was a foul, or whether a catch was made in- or out-of-bounds, comes to a stalemate, the final remedy is what 8-year-olds on the playground call a “do-over.” If you think about this for a moment, you will realize that it is therefore always possible to negate a really good play by the other team. 

I think you caught that pass for a 20-yard gain out of bounds.

No, I was clearly in. 

I disagree. Go back 20 yards and try to make another diving, acrobatic catch near the sideline.

Something like that is what’s going on here. My daughter is over hearing the case being made to one of her teammates by a lawyer-athlete on the opposing team. Seems the argument is weak. I recognize her weak-argument look, also known as the can’t-believe-I-hafta-listen-to-this-shit look.

Chump, change

The Times's “On Politics” newsletter reported yesterday:

Musk has promised to cut $1 trillion from the next year's fiscal budget by Sept. 30 . . . . Then last week, he seemed to revise that goal down to $150 billion, which is where DOGE puts its estimated savings on its website.

These sentences are below a headline that refers to “moving goal posts.” It would help, I think, to pursue the metaphor by explaining where on the field the goal posts are going. If they started on the goal line, they'd have to move to the 15-yard-line—the one 85 yards away, at the other end of the field. 

I mean, if a car dealership advertised that they'd sell you a new car for $1000 off the MSRP, and then when you showed up they said that they'd sell it to you but only for $150 off the MSRP, I think the sane response would be, "You, sir, are a fraud and I'll bet dollars to donuts that the $150 is bogus, too."

And you'd be right. From farther on in the article:

My colleagues David Fahrenthold and Jeremy Singer-Vine report, though, that even the $150 billion figure may be more savings than the group can actually deliver. As they analyzed the group's math, they noticed billion-dollar errors and claims of cutting spending that wasn't actually planned for the next fiscal year—including the cancellation of a $318 million contract that did not exist. Phantom spending, if you will.

As far as I know, the last time Musk opened his mouth and said something true was when he called Peter Navarro "a moron." But who cares? All the above is change under the cushions. The country's in a crisis unrelated to its finances. A couple weeks ago Chuck Schumer said it would be time to raise his voice when the Trump administration started defying court orders. Maybe he thought this would be an excuse for never having to raise his voice, but we're there now: the courts have directed the return of the Maryland man who, with no due process of law, was shipped off to a super max El Salvadoran prison, and the Trump administration's response has been, "Pound sand, judges." Just open, brazen lawlessness.

Democrats like the Senate minority leader need a new excuse for their politeness.

The Red and the Black

I've been reading Stendhal's The Red and the Black (1830). It took me awhile to finish, because it's long and often boring, but I finally turned the last page yesterday. I had an off ramp: around the half way point, our dog got hold of my original copy and ate it like middle school homework. Under the impression that anything you don't enjoy is good for you, I went to the library, checked it out, and have now read the last couple hundred pages or so. 

In defense of Stendhal, I've come to believe that the tedium is to a degree intentional.

The plot involves a young plebe from the provinces who, on account of intellectual ability discovered by his priest, gets a job tutoring the kids of a rich Frenchman of high society. Julien Sorel—that's the plebe's name—soon starts a love affair with his employer's wife, the mother of the children he's tutoring. When this comes to light, he's sent off to a seminary, and, after an interlude, his sponsor at the seminary arranges for him to become the personal secretary of another elevated noble. Julien is soon screwing his new boss's daughter. Eventually mistress number one is reinserted into the plot, there is a love triangle, complications, a crime, and Julien is guillotined. 

Sounds entertaining and racy, but I've condensed the events of 500 pages into a single paragraph, and the "sex scenes" do not really qualify by contemporary standards. One of Stendhal's intentions is to satirize the church and the upper crust of French society. One of his methods is to subject the reader to the endless tedium of the lives of these people. I don't remember the point being made explicit, but Julien's sexual successes should be attributed mainly to the boredom of his mistresses. The novel's atmospherics are stultifying. People are rich and their profit on it is, they have to listen to each other talk (and so does the reader, for interminable stretches). The young men get good at riding horses, however.

There's barely an ounce of pity. Julien is implicitly condemned for wanting to rise in the world he discovers when, instead, he should be as repulsed as his creator. Of course the priests are corrupt and on the make, too. A different author might have favorably contrasted Julien's humble family background with the wasteland of the rich into which he's "promoted." But when in prison, waiting to be executed, he's visited by his father, who's angling for money. 

Tolja

What some people call “Trump Derangement Syndrome” is responsible for my powers of prophecy. For example, last fall, in the immediate aftermath of Trump’s election, I wrote, here:

If Trump were smart, he’d do nothing but play golf, wait for the public’s perception of the economy to catch up with reality, and then declare that he’d fixed it. Instead, he’ll likely eff it up by keeping his promises—setting off a trade war with tariffs, rounding up low-wage workers (aka essential workers) and deporting them, tax breaks for the rich, all the Trumpean slop.

Quibbling with myself now as there was no reason to hedge with that “likely.” Also, to be fair, he hasn’t yet slashed taxes on the rich, but that might be on account of playing more golf than I’d anticipated. In the days since the Obama presidency, wingers have made their peace with presidents enjoying themselves on the links. On Saturday, the day after the markets’ two-day dive, the White House put out this statement:

The President won his second round matchup of the Senior Club Championship today in Jupiter, FL, and advances to the Championship Round tomorrow. 

Next day, the White House announced that he’d won the Championship match, too. So senior champion of the Jupiter club! Don’t forget that while contemplating your new 201k account. No doubt he won the trophy outright, but some resourceful reporter should find the rich suntan Trump defeated and ask whether he conceded any putts that were, strictly speaking, outside the normal friendship zone.

Lift

I got a lift from some of the signs people carried at the protests over the weekend. Like:

Elect a rapist, expect to be screwed.

They’re eating the checks! They’re eating the balances!

My expectations for Trump were low but HOLY FUCK!

For Zelenskyy, we’ll give you Trump and another idiot to be named later.

Also saw a picture of an older gentleman wearing a t-shirt that said, “I too will quit drinking when Trump puts me in his Cabinet.” (Ditto, sir.)

Regarding the protests John Hinderaker, of the wing-nut Power Line blog, wonders: What do they mean, “hands off”? Hands off what? Of many possible replies, how about hands off the Maryland man who, in what the Trump administration calls an “administrative error,” was deported to El Salvador, where he’s now incarcerated in a notorious prison? Lawyers sued on his behalf, and a judge ordered the administration to get him back to our country … by tonight. The administration appealed: its argument is essentially oopsie, too bad, El Salvador has him now, nothing we can do, give us more time so that we can do more nothing. 

In a unanimous 3-0 decision, the appeals court today held against the administration, which immediately asked its staff members on the Supreme Court to block the order. It’s almost as if they don’t want their error to be corrected. We’ll see what happens. One of the appeals court judges, J. Harvie Wilkinson, is a Reagan appointee widely regarded as a conservative stalwart. Here is the key paragraph in his decision:

And the government rightfully concedes that it was an “error” and a “mistake” to ignore this process. And, if it is truly a mistake, one would also expect the government to do what it can to rectify it. Most of us attempt to undo, to the extent that we can, the mistakes that we have made. But, to the best of my knowledge, the government has not made the attempt here. The facts of this case thus present the potential for a disturbing loophole: namely the government could whisk individuals to foreign prisons in violation of court orders and then contend, invoking Article II powers, that it is no longer their custodian, and there is nothing that can be done. It takes no small amount of imagination to understand that this is a path of perfect lawlessness, one that courts cannot condone.

I like how he politely casts as a hypothetical what the Trump administration has actually done before rendering judgment on it: “perfect lawlessness.” He may have decided to write separately because the opinion signed by his two colleagues on the bench is more direct, less polite. It concludes:

The United States Government has no legal authority to snatch a person who is lawfully present in the United States off the street and remove him from the country without due process. The Government’s contention otherwise, and its argument that the federal courts are powerless to intervene, are unconscionable.

Hope it’s not Pollyannish to think this could be what it looks like when the country starts to spit out the poison.

March Madness

I don’t follow college basketball that closely until “March Madness” commences. Maybe someone who follows it all season can explain why, on the women’s side, UConn was not a 1-seed? They lost three games all year. In today’s championship game, they’re playing South Carolina, a 1-seed they beat during the regular season by 29 points. And they’re pounding them again today. I just checked the scores of UConn’s tournament games so far:

1st round: 103-34 [sic]
2nd round: 91-57
Sweet 16: 82-59
Elite 8: 78-64
Semifinal: 85-51 [largest margin ever in a Final Four game]
Championship: 73-44 as of the moment

Like everyone else who doesn’t follow it closely, I put in my ten bucks and filled out a bracket at work. Elementary school teachers are, like, 97 percent female, but we do only the men’s tournament. Turns out I was the only entrant to pick Houston for the championship. If they win tomorrow, hit me up, I’ll have at least $100 extra assuming the football coach who organizes it isn’t skimming. Lots of colleagues had Duke in the championship game, so my prospects were dim for most of yesterday’s game: the Blue Devils led by 56-42 with 11:54 left, by 64-55 with 3:03 left, by 66-59 with 1:26 left, and by 67-61 with 42 seconds left [espn.com has a play-by-play log]. I bet some Dukies didn’t like a couple of calls— the flagrant foul, the foul by Flagg after a free throw—but, hey, if you’re going to stop making good plays, at least make your foul shots and don’t turn the ball over, right? No sympathy when I have ten dollars on the line. 

Running some numbers

I’ve heard financial types talk about how potentially devastating recent events have been for new retirees. In an attempt to put flesh on this point, I’ve done some back-of-the-envelope calculations on two made-up people. Both retire with a million dollars in the stock market. Both determine to bank roll their retirement in part by making annual $50,000 withdrawals. The difference: “market volatility” in the first year, favorable for one guy (market up 20%), unfavorable for the other (market down 20%). The lucky one decides to consolidate his gains by transferring his money to a fund with a guaranteed 4% return. The other guy, reasoning that he can’t afford another year like the last one, transfers his money into that same fund. What does this look like over time?

My method, unsophisticated but I believe still illustrative, is just to add 0.04 to the previous year’s closing balance, then subtract 50,000 to get the next year’s closing balance, and so on. I’ll paste in below a picture of my “envelope.” Top-line result is that one guy runs out of money in Year 25, at which time the other guy still has his original million dollars.