Solidarity goods

In his Public Intellectuals, Richard Posner characterizes a certain kind of op-ed column as a "solidarity good"; you read it to feel better about beliefs you already hold. As solidarity goods go, Roger Cohen's piece in yesterday's New York Times is a perfect example.

And he took his nation into desert wars and mountain wars, but, lo, he thought not to impose taxation, not one heifer nor sheep nor ox did Bush demand of the rich. And it came to pass that the nation fell into debt as boundless as the wickedness of Sodom. For everyone, Lehman not least, was maxed out.

So heavy was the burden of war, and of bailing out Fannie and Freddie, and of financing debt with China, that not one silver shekel remained to build bridges, nor airports, nor high-speed trains, nor even to take care of wounded vets; and the warriors returning unto their homes from distant combat thought a blight had fallen on the land.

So it was in the seventh year after the fall of the towers. And still Bush did raise his hands to the Lord and proclaim: “I will be proved right in the end!”

Almost all of the 379 readers' comments gush appreciation for the solidarity good they've so thoroughly enjoyed, and these comments in turn serve as second-order solidarity goods to be appreciated by readers who clicked the "Recommended" button. (You'd think "recommended" would be for a reader comment that says something notable, but no; here's one that got 118 "recommended" votes: Truly stunning. And I am normally a person of many words. But this piece has left me speechless. - ej, Ft. Collins, CO.)

I like that term, "solidarity good". But what should we call an op-ed that's sure to meet with near-unanimous disapproval? This Obama plug in the Jerusalem Post, for instance.

Malnourished North Korean soldiers

And these are the ones they bring out on parade...

Whatever happened to...?

How to buy respectability

What's the chance of the New York Review of Books publishing a "thought piece" by a currency speculator who's gotten lucky a few times but otherwise would elicit yawns and rolled eyeballs from the kind of academic
luminaries the NYRB normally turns to?
Pretty good, apparently, if he's already spent a fortune to fight evil (as the NYRB sees it).

Here's Paul Krugman ripping Soros back when Soros was just another pretentious rich guy:

Someone should tell him it doesn't help his case to dress up fairly simple ideas in pretentious philosophical language. In particular, many people have argued that financial markets tend toward boom-and-bust cycles, that investors tend to engage in herd behavior, and that financial systems are subject to self-justifying panics. But such observations are not enough for Soros: For him they must serve as illustrations of the general principle of "reflexivity," which I take to mean that human perceptions both affect events and are themselves affected by them. Gosh, I never thought of that!

All carrots and no stick

North Korea has begun reassembling its main nuclear complex, its only known source of bomb-making plutonium, the South Korean government said Wednesday, but the United States cast doubt on the seriousness of the North’s efforts.

The North announced last week that it had stopped disabling its nuclear facilities at the complex, known as Yongbyon, and threatened to rebuild them because it was angry that it had not yet been removed from the United States’ list of state sponsors of terrorism. The United States maintains that the North has not fulfilled the requirements for being removed from the list.

Building another Yongbyon in Syria, for instance.

Supermarket etiquette

I've always found it odd that, as I approach the supermarket checkout counter, there are magazines with covers blaring issues that it would be entirely inappropriate for me to bring up with the other people in line, or with the checkout clerk. For example, I would be ill-advised to turn to the nearest stranger and, pointing to the cover shown at right, ask, "I wonder what 'little mouth moves' they're referring to?"

And what if a male supermarket manager posed that question (or read almost anything else off the cover) to a female subordinate? A career-ender, if he's lucky.

Seems like an odd double standard; you can put a rude thing in someone's face but only if you hope to make money off it.

Scandalous yet tolerated

Today, selling term papers to students to use as their own is still illegal, but selling speeches to politicians to use as their own remains a legitimate enterprise.

I'm glad someone said it, and said it so well. I've always been puzzled at the news media's breezy attribution of political speeches to the people who read but don't compose them. I'd think the media would at least use this stick to beat the politicians they don't like.