Your FSA/OWI Photo of the Day

Wheat farm, Walla Walla, Washington. Russell Lee, 1941. Spacious skies and amber waves of grain, no?

Your FSA/OWI Photo of the Day

At the risk of political incorrectness, I have to say that I would probably allow her to check my electrical assemblies... just for safety's sake, of course...
Woman aircraft worker, Vega Aircraft Corporation, Burbank, Calif. Shown checking electrical assemblies. David Bransby, 1942.

Econ 1 pop quiz

OK kids, what's wrong with the logic of Joe Nocera, respected NY Times columnist?

On Monday, I finally spoke to [climate change expert James] Hansen. His knowledge and sincerity are easy to admire, even if his tactics are not. He told me he would like to see oil companies pay a fee, which would rise annually, based on carbon emissions. He said that such a tax could reduce emissions by 30 percent within 10 years. Well, maybe. But it would also likely make the expensive tar sands oil more viable. If you really want to eliminate expensive new fossil fuel sources, the best way is to lower the price of oil, which would render them uneconomical. But, of course, that wouldn’t exactly lower demand either.

Hint: Key terms for your answer include tax wedge, consumer price, producer price.

Conclusion: Nocera is clueless on the most basic economics of environmental policy. Depressing.

Ronald Dworkin, RIP

I don't know enough about legal theory to judge his work in that area, for which he was best known, with any confidence. But I found his views on distributive justice and equality particularly attractive. The seminal essays are "What is equality?" parts 1 and 2. There remain plenty of challenges in developing a coherent theory of equality of resources or opportunity, but he made progress. Somewhere in this argument lie the foundations of a version of egalitarianism that Americans in particular can live with, and thus the basis in ideas for an American kind of left-liberalism. And I will surely miss his combative court reporting in the NY Review of Books.

Just get rid of the guns

This article kind of clinches it for me. Two facts:

• Two-thirds of U.S. gun deaths are suicides.
• "Suicidal acts with guns are fatal in 85 percent of cases, while those with pills are fatal in just 2 percent of cases."

What about the legitimate uses of guns? I could never shoot a wild animal myself, but I have no strong objection to hunting. After the ban, people who like to hunt can take up archery, which is after all more sporting. Fans of the Second Amendment can figure out how to make sure we have a well regulated militia. (Hint: professional police and armed forces under strict democratic civilian control.) The rest of us can enjoy living in a more peaceful and civilized society. 

I suppose I should be gratified...

... that David Brooks finds merit in Obama's plans to expand and improve preschool education. Yet his willful ignorance and smugness never fail to infuriate: "Head Start," he writes, without qualification, "has been chugging along since 1965, and the outcomes are dismal." James Heckman, who is approximately five times smarter than David Brooks and also happens to be an expert on the subject (and no liberal), noted in a recent interview "...there are several papers that are showing very favorable Head Start effects. It’s very mixed, it’s not like it’s universal across groups." Huh.

They made us wrestle in PE class...

... when I was a kid. Like many, I HATED it. But I will say that I learned enough about the sport to know that wrestlers are truly extraordinary athletes. Lots of countries participate and are pretty good at it. And it is fun to watch, at least once every four years. So even setting aside the long tradition, the decision to cut it from the Olympics is too bad.

Kenny Garrett on the Grammys!

With Chick Corea and Stanley Clarke. Granted, only for about 30 seconds. If you need a bigger dose as an antidote to the truly execrable "fun.":

LL Cool J hosts the Grammys

Me (from the kitchen): "He's reading KEATS?!"
Laura: "TWEETS, I said he's reading TWEETS..."

Too bad...

Flight

Movie melodramas about self-destructive drunks/addicts are among the most predictable of genre films. They usually follow one of two standard formulas: (1) downward spiral ending in death or despair; or (2) downward spiral culminating in redemption and cure, or at least the strong hope of such. In the latter, our hero is saved either by his own conscience and willpower, or by the love of a good woman, or both, maybe with some divine assistance. (For female protagonists, please make suitable gender substitutions.)

To avoid the spoiler, I won't say which formula Flight follows, but you can probably guess. The movie has two distinguishing features, however, that make it worth watching. First, there is the harrowing opening sequence, which is a very competent mini-disaster-movie-within-a-movie. The heroic pilot saves most of the doomed flight's passengers by rolling the plummeting jetliner upside-down and then back over for a miraculously soft crash landing. I get the impression from James Fallows, who seems to know something about flying, that this could actually happen.

Second, there is of course Denzel Washington, who as always plays Denzel (aka "Whip" Whitaker here), but as always is so good you don't mind. And here he is super Denzelicious. As do some of his other movies, Flight suffers somewhat from the lack of a worthy foil for the power and intelligence he brings to the performance. Only somewhat, because I found his scenes with fellow addict Kelly Reilly compelling. And of course the ultimate foil for Denzel is... Denzel.

Various scenes suggested to some critics a rather lame "divine intervention" theme, as if this fictional Miracle on the Hudson really was miraculous, and perhaps the lord's intent was to save both the passengers and the drunken pilot's soul. Indeed, in his testimony before the NTSB hearing toward the end of the movie, all Whip can say about how he performed the miraculous feat is that "instinct" took over. The Hand of God?

I don't buy it for a moment. To me there is a more obvious and subversive interpretation. After a night of heavy boozing and three shots of vodka from the drink trolley, Whip was just loose and intuitive enough to let adrenaline and instinct take over. No panic, no overthinking... just the deep piloting reflexes of a cropduster's kid: it's the demon alcohol that saved all those lives.

Now there's the kind of ambiguity that doesn't fit into either formula (1) or (2)...

The odds of being attacked by a lion in Palo Alto...

... are close to nil, I know. Still, it gives one pause to be walking alone off trail in a quiet spot in Foothills Park and come across this...

Bambi's skull was on a stump nearby...
I never did see the perp, but I did see some impressively persistent bay laurels uphill...

This Jim brush (Ceanothus oliganthus var. sorediatus) will be looking mighty fine within about a month...

... and this chaparral currant (Ribes malvaceum) already is...

Your FSA/OWI Photo of the Day

Cardinal "don't" for housekeepers: don't put hot food into the refrigerator. Allow cooked foods to cool to room temperature before placing in the refrigerator. Ann Rosener, 1942.

Today, the USDA begs to differ: "Hot food can be placed directly in the refrigerator or it can be rapidly chilled in an ice or cold water bath before refrigerating." So go right ahead, my dear...

Your FSA/OWI Photo of the Day

California shipyard workers. Eight hours of work in a Richmond, California shipyard find these two workers grateful for the calm and quiet of the ferry trip back to San Francisco. Ann Rosener, 1943.

Gay Old England

Hip hip hooray! I'm sure the USA will follow within a decade or three...

I watch about one football game per year

This was a pretty good one! And being a birder, I have to be happy for the Ravens, though I'd rather root for the Warblers, Wrentits, or Oystercatchers...

Hidden Villa

A lovely misty morning in the hills... if we had a groundhog he would not have seen his shadow before noon. But if this is winter, I could easily tolerate six more weeks of it...

On the Hidden Villa farm, mama has been busy... nine of 'em in the pile, brand new...

The buckeyes are leafing out, competing for attention with their day-glo lichens...

Gooseberry, looking like a baby fuchsia...

Indian warrior is at its vibrant peak this time of year:

Don't forget to look down, at the ferny moss and strangely menacing black lichen...

Another little moss world...

Something veiny and fungal...

OK, one more glance up, at the oak woodland color palette...

Hey, at least we aren't in last place...

This chart from a recent column by Eduardo Porter is a little depressing regarding the United States, but at least it suggests that a stiff carbon tax does not cripple an economy. A rough rule of thumb is that $100 per ton of CO2 translates to a dollar per gallon of gasoline. I'm not very optimistic we'll be seeing that very soon here...