Sexualizing Children??

This entry is part of an ongoing conversation taking place from time to time at File770, among other locations.  As is frequently the case in passionate discussions, the topic tends to shift depending on the speaker.

For the most part, my interlocutors are aghast at the many legislative efforts to limit the books that are available in public libraries and public schools.  And honestly?  I share their concerns.  Many of the books that end up being impacted by these initiatives are things that I read decades ago.  Many of the newer titles are equally unworthy of attention either legislative or administrative.  

Reasonable people can disagree about the relative merit of a children's book that features a farting main character.  No reasonable person would suggest locking up a teacher or a librarian for including it in a school library.

The problem is that books featuring farting characters, or books by George Orwell (irony!) are not the subject matter that is driving the issue.  Focusing on farting characters or on "To Kill a Mockingbird" or any other largely inoffensive work is a purposeful attempt to deflect the discussion away from the core issue.

Sexualizing children.

What follows is very much my part of an adult discussion that involves adult materials.  If raw images of sexual body parts offend you, then please move on to something else.  I have some very nice book reviews to read.

For everyone else...

"But The Book I Like Is Better!"

 I was engaged in an online discussion about the relative popularity of novels that were nominated for the best novel Hugo award.  This discussion was sometime last August (2020).  

The primary assertion being made last August was that Larry Correia's works aren't as popular as those selected for the Hugo best novel shortlist.  A couple of other conservative-leaning authors were included for comparison purposes by one interlocutor.  I am interested in not seeing authors excluded from critical evaluation based on their politics.  Also, I'm not a specific fan of Mr. Correia. His Saga of the Forgotten Warrior series is on my TBR pile.

These discussions frequently end in pointless goalpost shifting, confirmation bias, and very selective cherry-picking of data.  A book that sells a lot of copies will be called great as long as the right sales numbers can be used to buttress a person's perspective; "my book is so good that everyone read it".  Once sales volume information runs against their perspective, there will be a switch to how the book is underappreciated and better than some best-selling bit of popular drivel; "your sales numbers don't matter because popular drivel isn't as good as my obscure book".  Or two different sub-genre categories will be used to "prove" something.

Watching two people, or two groups of people, flip and flop over what defines a book as "great" was once entertaining, but now is just tiring.  Given the growth in the number of genre titles published each year, it is becoming easier and easier for a reader to find a quality piece of genre literature that has not come to their attention previously.

As an exercise, here were the books for the 2019 Hugo Best Novel award along with their rankings via Amazon.  These are overall Kindle rankings as I couldn't find a good method for limiting it to the SF/F genre.  The data was pulled on 4/7/2021.

#65,263 - The Calculating Stars, by Mary Robinette Kowal (Tor)

#144 - Spinning Silver, by Naomi Novik (Del Rey / Macmillan)

#15,771 - Record of a Spaceborn Few, by Becky Chambers (Hodder & Stoughton / Harper Voyager)

#38,356 - Trail of Lightning, by Rebecca Roanhorse (Saga)

#66,783 - Revenant Gun, by Yoon Ha Lee (Solaris)

#166,183 - Space Opera, by Catherynne M. Valente (Saga)

I was partial to Grey Sister by Mark Lawrence; also published in 2018.  It didn't even make the long list for the Hugo best novel category.  I would easily put it above at least half of the short-listed works.

#31,699 - Grey Sister - Mark Lawrence

[An aside.  I pulled data last August for those same books and got VERY different results.  The Calculating Stars was closer to the #10,000 to #15,000 range.  Spinning Silver wasn't nearly that high in Kindle sales as it was on 4/7/2021.

Perhaps Kindle rankings aren't a great comparison method as it shifts over time.

My original point was that Grey Sister was an equally popular book that was largely ignored by the pool of Hugo nominators.  I think the point is worthwhile even if the shifting sands of the Kindle ranking algorithm aren't of any utility in proving the point.

End aside.]

Simply focusing on a few, select conservative-leaning authors is a distraction from the larger point that there are a lot of really good books out there.  When making comparisons, it is better to compare a book with the contemporaneous cohort of books published that year.  As an example, I think The Legend of Huma by Richard Knaak was a big miss by those with an interest in awards. It was on the NYTimes bestseller list in 1988. I found it to be a satisfying read with both an entertaining tale and engaging subtexts. Yet it didn’t receive any recognition from the various “literary” awards.  As a guess, this is because the Dragonlance series and Wizards of the Coast (publisher) were not seen as being capable of producing a literary meritorious work.

Using a similar Amazon yardstick, The Legend of Huma fairs fares[1] pretty well against all of the Hugo Best Novel finalists from 1989 as well as almost all of the works listed in the 1989 WorldCon report of nominations.  (I believe these numbers are from Kindle Books - Science Fiction/Fantasy sub-category.  But it's been a while.  Again, sorry.]  The only book with better sales was by Isaac Asimov.  And...well...he was Isaac Asimov!  The data was pulled on the same day in August of 2020.

#26,458 The Legend of Huma by Richard Knaak

Not listed in KS – Cyteen, by C.J. Cherryh [winner]**

#488,544 – Red Prophet, by Orson Scott Card

#67,218 – Falling Free, by Lois McMaster Bujold

#106,791 – Islands in the Net, by Bruce Sterling

#53,799 – Mona Lisa Overdrive, by William Gibson

Not listed in KS – The Guardsman, by P.J. Beese and Todd Cameron Hamilton – [withdrawn]

[from the long list of 1989]

#1,851,058 – Orphan of Creation, by Roger MacBride Allen

#1,326,895 – Deserted Cities of the Heart, by Lewis Shiner

Not listed in KS – Alternities, by Michael P. Kube-McDowell

#67,483 – Dragonsdawn, by Anne McCaffrey

#464,446 – The Gold Coast, by Kim Stanley Robinson

#487,340 – Ivory, by Mike Resnick

#12,177 – Prelude to Foundation, by Isaac Asimov

#175,591 – Hellspark, by Janet Kagan

#245,495 – The Paladin, by C.J. Cherryh

** There was a 3-book collection that seems to represent the nominated work. It was only available in audiobook and paperback. No Kindle edition.

This is an apples-to-apples comparison in that all of the books are from the same year. But it’s cherry-picking because I picked 1989 and of course the Amazon ranking algorithm can significantly shift the ranking from week to week.  My point remains that there is a wealth of quality works of SFF literature that do not attract the attention of Hugo nominators in any given year.

In the 1970s, the SF/F genre was small enough that having authors present as repeat nominees was normal.  The number of authors has exploded since then as have the total number of works published each year.  It should be harder for a specific author to be a repeat nominee unless their work is incredibly special - every author can't be Connie Willis.  Given the expanded competition and even taking Sturgeon's Rule into account, a pool of nominators with broad experience in the genre should find it harder to repeatedly nominate the works of any specific author.

This problem gets worse when it comes to some of the less active categories such as "fancast" and graphic novels.  There are fewer nominators for those categories.  Those nominators appear to be focused on a limited range of works.

Either expanding the range of works experienced by Hugo nominators or expanding the number of Hugo nominators to cover an expanded range of works would improve the quality of the works that make the shortlist of nominations.  I do not know how to make that happen structurally other than to continue advocating that nominators push themselves to experience a broader range of works.

What is counter-productive is the occasionally seen response that the shortlist for any given year is an excellent representation of the best of the field.  In my opinion, it may be a good representation of the best of the field but it can, will, and does omit equally worthwhile works by dint of the biases present in the limited pool of nominators.  A pool of nominators with a broader range of experience would provide a better quality shortlist.

[1]At least I have mastered "there, they're, and their"!

Re-Visiting Those Damned Cold Equations

Fans of science fiction will generally be aware of the short story "The Cold Equations" written by Tom Godwin and first published in Astounding Magazine in 1954.  A super short summary of the plot is that a young girl has stowed away on an emergency rocket that is being sent to a planet with a serum needed to save the people on the planet.  The rocket is designed to make the trip with only the pilot aboard...barely.  The additional weight of the stowaway is sufficient to cause the rocket to miss its destination.  The story frames the choice as between killing the girl so that the rocket can reach its destination, or letting the people on the planet die of some lethal illness.

The story was first published in the 1950s when science fiction frequently framed issues as binary choices.  While stories from that period might feature a clever protagonist to discover a third path, it was just as likely that poor choices would result in predictable disaster.  The best criticism that I have read is that the rocket did not have a large enough safety factor.

There is a forthcoming anthology of rebuttals to The Cold Equations.  I expect many essayists to add elements that are not present in the original story to reach their own preferred conclusions.  Rather than address the story as written, they will probably add in a factor that is not otherwise evident as a lever to be used against the main purpose of the story.

Rather than discussing the merits and criticism of the story, I'm first going to travel to Texas, rhetorically.

Lt. Governor Dan Patrick implied that he was willing to die to ensure the survival of his children and grandchildren.  He went on to suggest that lots of grandparents would make the same choice.  The context of his comments was the "choice" between maintaining our self-quarantine that is significantly damaging our economy or resuming normal social habits at the demonstrable risk of killing off a substantial number of our elderly.

"No one reached out to me and said, as a senior citizen, are you willing to take a chance on your survival in exchange for keeping the America that all Americans love for your children and grandchildren?" Patrick, 70, told host Tucker Carlson. "And if that's the exchange, I'm all in."

Dan Patrick is a former radio talk show host.  Like other media personalities that have been elected to public office, Mr. Patrick needs to recall that people in his current position need to exhibit a bit more discretion when they speak.

That's the polite version of "Dan Patrick decided to be an idiot for a few minutes".

We are not currently at the point where we need to be deciding who lives and who dies.  We are most certainly not at the point where we need to risk the lives of senior citizens by prematurely restarting the economy.

That being said, we do have to make choices; sometimes hard choices.  The decision to build an interstate highway can spell success or destruction for a small town.  The decision to raise or lower taxes can result in a change in mortality and life expectancy that is measured in real lives but experienced so diffusely that you can never truly identify a single life specifically cut short as a result.  The decision to regulate how medicine is practiced and funded might save tens of thousands of lives in the next year, but cost tens millions of more lives in the coming centuries by altering how new medicines and procedures are developed and deployed.

We are currently rushing to produce more ventilators.  Manufacturers are repurposing their facilities to meet the current demand.  The race pits innovation and ingenuity against literal death.  Innovation and ingenuity might well lose the race in a big way.  Unlike literature, there is no deus ex machina to save the day.

The fact is that we all have to make choices based on what we hope is the best of information.  We are all learning now about the importance of certain types of medical and personal protective equipment.  We are learning that we had manufacturing and import capacity to cover the usual needs of society, but not enough to cover our needs during a pandemic.  We are learning that we had stockpiles sufficient to cover a few significant regional calamities, but such stockpiles were entirely insufficient for a larger catastrophe.

What comes next?  Will we have a nationally organized database of manufacturers that are pre-qualified/pre-positioned to shift manufacturing for these critical items?  Will the design of those critical items be periodically updated? 

And of course, there will be new calls for a nationalized health care system in the US.  The most common indictment of the US system is that it rations care based on income.  Will those critics evaluate the other methods of health care rationing used in nationalized health care systems?  In the US, almost all get some level of health care and some get more than others.  In most nationalized systems, all get some level of health care and sometimes all get none when it comes to modern treatments.  Will we have a full and rational discussion or will there be more of the usual propaganda?

Will the critics of The Cold Equations pause in their rush to suggest alternative conclusions to acknowledge the practical limitations, however ham-handedly presented, that were in play?

The utility of science fiction is that it allows us to take an issue out of the pressing moment and twist it and test it and look at it in a different way.  Are the principles in play appropriate?  Is the design sufficient to the task at hand or is the safety margin to low to ensure success?  Do we sometimes have to make do with what is available now rather than wishing for a perfect solution to arrive too late to be of any value?

Science fiction allows us to ask the hard questions, to examine the cold equations, so that we can craft a rational response to real problems.  The other option is to emotionally demand that we unquestionably cherish the old and infirm as if we possessed unlimited resources.

Loving a senior in the age of Covid-19 certainly means doing our level best to prevent them from being infected and that, once infected, they get the very best of care that is available.  In the age of Covid-19, there may not be care available.  The doctors and nurses may have to choose between using a ventilator for a senior or using for someone in their 20s.  How does an emotional plea to cherish the elderly help resolve that choice?  The same doctors and nurses may have to choose between using chloroquine (or a similar drug) for a senior or reserving it for a person using it to address a long term autoimmune problem.  How does an emotional plea to cherish the elderly inform help to resolve that choice?

The single greatest flaw in The Cold Equations is that it does not explore any alternative solutions.  It does not examine why the safety margins had to be so slim that the mass of a single stowaway was sufficient to lethally undermine the purpose of the rocket.  Tom Godwin simply establishes a binary choice that is to be made and then allows time to elapse.  The Cold Equations presents the emotional mirror of cherishing those at the greatest risk from Covid-19 without examining the reality of the limited resources that are available in that moment.

What The Cold Equations does do quite effectively is cause the reader to confront that situation where the fuel cell is empty.  Where the tank of air has been depleted.  Where the last morsel of food has been divided and consumed.

We are ill-served by those that pretend that hard choices do not exist.

-----------

There are other works that deal more effectively with issues surrounding questions of survival and the utilization of available resources.

Lucifer's Hammer by Larry Niven

An asteroid crashes into earth causing massive tidal waves, earthquakes and throws the earth's climate into a far cooler range of temperatures.  Modern technology is...largely....gone.

The White Plague by Frank Herbert

After an Irish terrorist kills a scientist's wife, the scientist cooks up a bug designed to kill all human women.  He lets it loose on the island of Ireland after notifying the world of the need to quarantine the island.  The world does not listen.  Things go...poorly.

The women that survive find themselves with a tremendous amount of power and influence due to their unique...ummm...resources.

Seveneves by Neal Stephenson

Another "large body crashes into the Earth" story.  This time it is the moon or at least pieces of it.  The race is on to get humanity off of the Earth in a way that allows them to survive and perhaps thrive. 

The Last Dance (The Near-Earth Mysteries, #1) by Martin L. Shoemaker

The Earth isn't under attack.  But in this story, humans explore the deadly reaches of our solar system; pretty much anywhere that isn't firmly on terra firma.  The main protagonist is a spaceship captain who built his career on identifying and minimizing risks.  His planning and engineering necessarily mean making tradeoffs and planning for tragedy.  He imparts that sensibility on his crew at every turn.  There is also a whodunnit mystery and a lot of astrophysics involved.  This was one of my best novel nominees for the Hugo Awards for 2020.

It Isn't The Markers

Reynolds' Law is named for the Blogfather; Glenn Reynolds.  His Law goes something like this:

The government decides to try to increase the middle class by subsidizing things that middle class people have: If middle-class people go to college and own homes, then surely if more people go to college and own homes, we’ll have more middle-class people. But homeownership and college aren’t causes of middle-class status, they’re markers for possessing the kinds of traits — self-discipline, the ability to defer gratification, etc. — that let you enter, and stay, in the middle class. Subsidizing the markers doesn’t produce the traits; if anything, it undermines them.

The creation and accumulation of wealth is not the result of college educations, home ownership, and similar trappings.  Those educations and pieces of property are the result of human behaviors that inexorably lead to the creation and accumulation of wealth.

Perhaps instead of subsidizing possessions, we ought to get back in the business of teaching successful human behaviors.

I once owned a car that had a bad starter for a couple days.  As it had a manual transmission, I started it a few times by pushing it down a modest incline and popping the clutch.

Rolling that car down hill did not guarantee that it would learn to run due to the rolling wheels.  Only the functioning engine and fuel in the tank could make that car move further than the bottom of that brief slope.

Giving out educations, homes, etc. is like pushing a car without an engine or fuel down a hill and expecting it to miraculously continue running down the road.

Disgusting

I'm not sure which bothers me more.  Having the media follow the President's pre-teen daughter on vacation, or having someone black hole the media reports about the vacation.

Both represent trends that are not in the best interests of our nation.

The Difference

As a long time proponent of civility in public discourse, I find the current primary season to be a helpful reminder of how uncivil we tend to be.  The primary case in point is Mr. Gingrich and his use of the name "Obama".

"Obama" does this.

"Obama" does that.

"Obama's policies" caused this.

Etc.

Long time readers of this blog will readily understand that I am not a big fan of Mr. Obama for a variety of reasons.  But for at least the next few months, he is President of the United States.

It behooves one who seeks high office to treat that office with the respect they expect to receive should their candidacy be successful.  It is too bad that Gingrich hasn't figured that out.

New Commandments For A New Age

Victor Davis Hansen has a list of new commandments for our modern age.  Summarize below, but worth a full read.


1) Wealth and poverty are now more relative, than absolute, conditions.

2) Regulators are never the problem; a dearth of regulations always must be.

3) Debt is a mirage.

4) In our new age of diplomacy, being liked trumps being respected.

5) Collective national wealth is natural; private wealth is unnatural.

6) Medieval exemption is not medieval.

7) Victimhood is always sought, never questioned.

8) Neanderthals need nerds.

9) Ideology, for all the protestations of the zealot, is now not to be taken too seriously - not in this age of global leisure and affluence.

10) Owing in our new millennium shall be less stressful than saving.

Spike Lee Or Bill Cosby

Words to heed, but Via Meadia wonders.  Will the people who mocked and scorned Bill Cosby for trying to help families and kids do better now turn on Spike Lee?

See what Mr. Lee had to say at the link.  Or the link at the link.  Or something.




The larger point being that the pursuit of education is the single most successful activity that one can perform.

Having Something In Common

While reading a bit about the more recent Roger Ebert kerfuffle, I came across this brief essay on a recently uncovered E.E. Cummings poem.  At the time it was being suggested that the use in the poem of one of the coarsest words in the English language would naturally result in the undoing of E.E. Cummings' reputation as an important writer and poet.

I had more than a passing fascination with the re

markable

mind bending acts of linguistic

ɯsıuoıʇɹoʇuoɔ that were the hallmarks

of E.E. Cummings.

While Mr. Ebert's thoughts have ceased to be relevant to me, I was pleasantly surprised to find him an aficionado of Mr. Cummings' work.  His thoughtful defense of the "troublesome" poem in question was marred only by the repetition of the assertion that poems are not supposed to have meaning; they are simply supposed to exist.

Hogwash.

Regardless, I find that I share an enthusiasm with Mr. Ebert.  And perhaps it is better to focus more on that which we share in common with one another than to focus on our disagreements.

At least from time

to

t
i
m
e.

[link to the essay updated 1/10/2022]

Short Of Biblical Proportions....

In some parts of the world, a lack of water is a serious problem.  In others, the reverse is true.

"One of the biggest problems we'll experience with this is that it is far and above and beyond any previous experience as far as cfs," remarked Schlag. "Rating curves just don't apply anymore. A person is left to their own devices to come up with numbers."

Down The Grammatic Sewer - I Say Sorry

A pet peeve of mine was recently irritated by a series of stories regarding the fake "lesbian" blogger from Syria.

Misogyny?  Nope.  I'm not in favor of it, but that ain't it.

The spectre of anti-homosexuality?  Again...nope.  I'm not in favor of gay bashing...quite the opposite actually....but that ain't it either.

My peeve?  "Say sorry".

News stories about the fake "lesbian blogger" use some variant of "Blogger says sorry" either as a title or within the body of the story.

Ladies and gentlemen.  Boys and girls.  Friends, Romans, Countrypersons!  Hear me!  The English language has developed a single word that covers this action.  One need not ever use the phrase "say sorry" again.

That word is "apologize".

"I apologize."

"He apologized."

"She offered an apology."

"You should apologize."

not....

"You should 'say sorry'."

Confused

I do not endorse the theatrics of the Westboro Baptist Church.

I do not endorse the slashing of tires on vehicles owned by WBC members while they are out protesting some soldier's funeral.

But this seems an opportune moment for schadenfreude.  I am so confused.

What A "Party Of No" Really Looks Like

Ross Douthat shares his thoughts on the various responses to President Obama's commission to address our serious budget deficits.  My reading on the right pretty well mirrors his observations that the most vocal conservative critics were single issue advocates, and entertainers.  Otherwise, the criticism has been minimal and usually tempered with an acknowledgment of the difficulties involved along with the need for compromise.

Last week’s media coverage sometimes made it sound as if Bowles and Simpson were taking the same amount of fire from left and right. But the reaction from Republican lawmakers and the conservative intelligentsia was muted, respectful and often favorable; the right-wing griping mostly came from single-issue activists and know-nothing television entertainers.

Leaders on the left simply said "no".

The liberal attacks, on the other hand, came fast and furious, from pundits and leading Democratic politicians alike — starting with the speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, who pronounced the recommendations “simply unacceptable” almost immediately after their release.


...


Needless to say, none of the liberal lawmakers attacking the Simpson-Bowles proposals offered alternative blueprints for restoring America’s solvency. The Democratic Party has plans for many things, but a balanced budget isn’t one of them.

One of the most frustrating habits of the media, leftish leaders, and leftish commentators,.....but I repeat myself....over the last two years has been their mantra that describes anyone to the right of Joe Lieberman as being part of the "Party of No".  This mis-characterization is intended to suggest that non-Democrats are simply unwilling to compromise on any issue.

Yet from my perspective, the right was very willing to compromise on any number of issues...including health care reform...in order to bring about productive change in our country.  What they were unwilling to do was to compromise where the proposed reforms would have been counter productive to the cause of advancing our nation.

The only rational response to a "progressive" agenda that does not create progress is the absolute refusal of cooperation.  Had the leftish leadership opted for a less leftist/"progressive" agenda over the last two years, I have no doubts that the right would have cooperated to some extent.  Extremists would not have been happy....in either party.

In a word, the leftish leadership committed the political sin of "over-reach" and those on the right were quite reasonable in their opposition to changes that [are] e'en now wracking and wrecking our nation.

Now we know exactly what a "Party of No" looks like.  It is the absolute refusal to evaluate the merits of much needed budgetary reforms that seek to balance those reforms, strengthen our economy, and generally address the many perspectives that exist.

Perhaps the leadership on the left will next engage in bouts of holding their breath until the adults give in to their petulant refusal to compromise.

Too Bad To Be False

Sort of the reverse of "too good to be true".

At a recent candidate's debate/forum in Illinois, a representative of the organizer was offended by the audience.  They had the temerity to think that it was appropriate to recite the Pledge of Allegiance at a debate between candidates that were running for the U.S. Congress.

Sort of makes you wonder what league the League of Women Voters is really in.....

For your reading pleasure....if you can stand it.

Just About Right

 A Veteran's Day Cartoon Worth Noting

 

(click here to view)

Clay Bennett Chattanooga Times Free PressNov 11, 2010 EditorialCartoonists.com

     

A Different Pin-Up

You have never seen pin-up girls like this before.  Usually, this side isn't something they put on display.

Modest NSFW warning.  Anyone that gets excited by these photos is really weird.

Most Lethal Drug - Alcohol

Courtesy of the WaPo comes word of a study of the impact of various drugs on our society.  The most dangerous substance?

Alcohol.

Yet we know that alcohol prohibition was an abysmal failure.  We should know that prohibition of other drugs has been a failure.

Why exactly are we conducting a War on Drugs?

On Our Knees

There was a photo that caused a stir recently.  In it a man nearly prostrated himself as Mr. Obama's motorcade passed by.  He assumed the position of the supplicant, begging for the scraps from the master's table.  The focus in this piece is on race.  The supplicant was black.  There are a few interesting thoughts for those that might be interested.

That image reminded me of a deep concern that I have that we are losing part of national identity.  We refer to the President and his paramour as our "First Couple".  The President's wife is called the "First Lady".

Those reference points harken back to the day when our nation's leader was considered to be "first among equals".  Presidents never thought to demand obeisance from a fellow American. 

This "first among equals" is revealed in other facets of our society.  One example is the union worker that expects to be considered the moral equal of the corporate officer.  He may earn less, and may not enjoy the same social circle, but his honest efforts are just as honorable as broader efforts of any captain of industry.

I am fortunate to know several people running companies that treat their employees as individuals first and employees second.  People that will shake someone's hand regardless of how manicured it may be, or how greasy it might be.  Suits can always be cleaned. 

It is this ideal that has driven our culture to expand our definitions of "person" and "equality" so that women are far closer to equality with men, minorities are far closer to equality with whites, and it does not require the greatest stretch of imagination to envision GLT folks as exercising the same rights as those of us with the more typical sexual orientations.

How might we lose this national identity that expects everyone to be considered morally equal?  Tribalism.   A clan-centric focus.  Placing a greater emphasis on smaller group identities and thereby denigrating our larger identity as "American".

When we start thinking that kneeling to an American President is an appropriate response to his passing in close proximity, we stop thinking of ourselves as being his....or perhaps her, someday....equal.  And in doing so we slowly lose part of what makes us Americans.

Slaying The Beast, Pen In Hand!

This Peggy Noonan article speaks to me and it speaks to the motivations of the Tea Party movement.  I have no idea how long the link will last as the article is supposed to be behind their firewall.  Here's another that might work.

If you write a column, you get a lot of email. Sometimes, especially in a political season, it's possible to discern from it certain emerging themes; the comeback of old convictions, for instance, or the rise of new concerns. Let me tell you something I'm hearing, in different ways and different words. The coming rebellion in the voting booth is not only about the economic impact of spending, debt and deficits on America's future. It's also to some degree about the feared impact of all those things on the character of the American people. There is a real fear that government, with all its layers, its growth, its size, its imperviousness, is changing, or has changed, who we are. And that if we lose who we are, as Americans, we lose everything.


...


And what I get from my mail is a kind of soft echo of this. America is not Greece and knows it's not Greece, but there is a growing sense,I should say fear, that the weighty, mighty, imposing American government itself, whether it meant to or not, has for years been contributing to American behaviors that are neither culturally helpful nor, as we now all say, sustainable: a growing sense of entitlement, of dependency, of resentment and distrust, and an increasing suspicion that everyone else is gaming the system. "I got mine, you get yours."


...


Because Americans weren't born to be accountants. It's not our DNA! We're supposed to be building the Empire State Building. We were meant, to be romantic about it, and why not, to be a pioneer people, to push on, invent electricity, shoot the bear, bootleg the beer, write the novel, create, reform and modernize great industries. We weren't meant to be neat and tidy record keepers. We weren't meant to wear green eye shades. We looked better in a coonskin cap!


There is I think a powerful rebellion against all this. It isn't a new rebellion - it was part of Goldwaterism, and Reaganism - but it's rising again.

Default On Your Mortgage? Why Not!

If it is good enough for the Mortgage Bankers Association, then it must be good enough for you!

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