Commies, Punks, Academics

Partying my way across the political spectrum over the past few days (because life is so full of reasons to celebrate, don’t you know) brought me into contact with libertarians, then liberals, and tonight communists. I was on the massive invite list for the Communist Party USA’s annual holiday (??) party tonight at their Unity Hall headquarters on West 23rd St., so I may as well at least check it out.

The renting out of parts of that building is apparently their main source of income these days (landlords!), as the New York Post noted a couple years ago. The article mentioned one CPUSA official named Libero Della Piana, a Brown alum from my time who once played a game of Monopoly with an ex-girlfriend of mine, a prophetic ritual in retrospect.

Somewhat closer to me on the political spectrum, my self-described socialist friend Richard Ryan e-mailed a link to this New Republic rave for economist Amartya Sen’s new book, which ostensibly contains profound insights about why fundamental elements of economics ought to be questioned, such as the assumption that we should gauge the goodness of consequences by whether individuals’ preferences are being fulfilled. Weirdly, though, Sen does think that we should gauge people’s wellbeing by their capacity to enhance others’ preferences. Why the hypothetical second group of people’s preferences matter so much if the preferences of the first don’t is unclear — at least in the review, and I fear it wouldn’t be much better in the (much longer) book.

Sen is apparently building on Rawls’ intuition — hardly novel at this point and hardly something that takes hundreds of pages to explain — that helping the worst-off is the morally crucial thing, and should be seen as such even by developmental economists, requiring us to take the worst-off (even in distant places) into our democratic deliberations about how the rules of the world ought to be structured without clinging fast in advance to any particular set of intuited rules (such as purely libertarian or purely egalitarian ones). Sam Goldman responded to Richard Ryan by noting that several thinkers just at Harvard alone had already expanded on Rawls’ ideas in this way, such as Michael Sandel, Michael Walzer, and Judith Shklar.

(Sam, who jokes that he is the token atheist blogger at First Things, is the young scholar who, when I first encountered him a decade ago, was a straightedge punk, so he may well crop up in the chapter-length “Conservatism for Punks” essay I’m writing over the two-week vacation I’m starting today, assuming the Communists don’t alter my whole philosophy tonight.)

I find myself a lot less interested as I age in whether yet another philosopher or economist has intuited that we ought to do something about the desperately poor — we know, we know! — and more interested in what specific policies would work to get the job done (and of course, I’m guessing: markets, though one word may not quite do the topic Justice) and, perhaps more intriguingly, which specific policies do the most unwitting damage (foreign aid? licensure? protectionism?).

Here’s a practical consequence, if Sen wants to be a consequentialist: India, long suffering under de facto democratic socialism, partially deregulates…and poverty rates there decrease more rapidly than ever before in history (while philosophers come up with ever more rationalizations for why fully free markets aren’t the source of good outcomes).

I’ll grant Sen this, though: his ex-girlfriend (my former Brown prof Martha Nussbaum) is still kind of hot, though equally wrong about some things, despite the influence of her reportedly libertarian daughter.

Speaking of academics and communists, by the way, I was seated behind members of NYU’s Young Communist League in the studio audience of Stossel last week, and it was another reminder that I don’t think the liberal/academic mainstream can be trusted to ward off socialism (much as some market fans might wish there were a viable, more respectable alternative to pushing libertarianism). The YCL kids were the only ones in the audience shouting out comments about Kenneth Arrow and other esteemed liberal-mainstream thinkers as support for their pro-Obamacare position (and the Communist party invitation also noted the passage of Obamacare as reason to celebrate, by the way). By academic standards, they might have been A+ polisci students for all I know — and the very last people in the audience by whom I’d want to be governed.

I didn’t ask if they’d be at the party tonight, but I’m sure there’ll be plenty of people who are smart but wrong, and the “wrong” is the important part, from a consequentialist perspective. Those near-starving millions matter more than a handful of academics, no matter how impressive their credentials.

I Have Touched William Shatner's Life

Well, the fourth audio clip down here — the one about “Rocket Man” — is GQ’s Andrew Corsello asking the legendary William Shatner himself a question I suggested: how that song, as inimitably performed by Shatner, compares to Leonard Nimoy’s shocking “Ballad of Bilbo Baggins” song (with the video’s self-parodically 60s-ish plug for the United Nations).

Like the main characters in Free Enterprise, I am pleased just to know that in some small way the level plane of my starship’s course, as it were, has intersected with his.

The Simpsons at 20

Lacking TV reception, I have no idea when the official anniversary show airs — and, of course, they started out as shorts on The Tracey Ullman Show — but today marks the actual twentieth anniversary of the first real, half-hour (Christmas-themed) episode of The Simpsons, explaining how they got Santa’s Little Helper from the racetrack.

Little did we know then that we’d come to value the Halloween episodes far more than the Christmas ones, but it was all revolutionary and hilarious — even though I almost stopped watching around episode 3 because I hated the “Dancing Homer” baseball episode so much (I still recall my friend Paul Taylor saying the same thing at the time, but we both stuck with it for at least several more seasons, thank goodness).

By contrast, I think my favorites have been “Homer in Space,” the Conan O’Brien-penned “Monorail” episode, and perhaps “Kamp Krusty.” Speaking of Krusty, I think the show marked an important break between the decades of American comedy dominated by a Vaudeville feel and — though Vaudeville’s influence will long resonate — an era more dominated by postmodernism and “college” humor. Alan King and Seth MacFarlane seem to belong to somewhat different worlds.

And nerds should be grateful simply for the sci-fi-like level of strangeness and randomness that The Simpsons has helped make acceptable on mainstream television — chaos of a kind that only the Marx Brothers, Monty Python, and moments of early Woody Allen had previously achieved but which now seemingly permeates not just several sitcoms but virtually every animated kids’ show, albeit in a more frenetic, more snarky, and far less creative form. By contrast with today’s toons, I recall when I could hardly believe my eyes when I stumbled across rare hip animated shows like The Tick, Ren and Stimpy, and the earlier, tragically overlooked New Adventures of Mighty Mouse (featuring such fitting yet absurd characters as Bat Bat, who drove a fleshtone “Manmobile” with gangly human feet instead of wheels).

What more can I say? Perhaps only: “Excellent.” And “D’oh!” And “I don’t believe in nothin’ no more — I’m going ta law school!” And “Batman’s a scientist.” And “I’m the one with stigmata.” And of course “Well, judging by his outlandish attire, he’s some sort of free-thinking anarchist.” And…

P.S. On a perhaps less historic TV note, you should be able to glimpse me silently sitting in the audience on tonight’s 8pm Eastern Stossel episode (on healthcare) on Fox Business Network (alas, without former NY lieutenant governor Betsy McCaughey as my companion, since she had to cancel).  And at some point, you’ll see the episode about Rand in which I actually ask a (skeptical) question, then with luck future episodes in which I answer questions, and then I conquer the world.

Black Metal in the Times

More culture: A Norwegian-decay vs. American-hybridization clash and Catholic-pagan tensions are apparently just two of the profound topics raised by the Williamsburg academic conference on black metal’s place in rock, according to this New York Times article.

Is Spider-Man Being Produced by Idiots?

John Malkovich is reportedly being considered for the role of the villain the Vulture in the next Spider-Man movie — but what’s more important is that the same report says that the villain the Lizard, who has appeared more than once as an as-yet-untransformed character in the films, will not soon make his full, scaly debut because the producers think he’s too weird-looking.

I’m fine with the Malkovulture but can in no way understand why a reptile-man wouldn’t work at least as well visually (indeed, I’m skeptical of the report). Hasn’t Hollywood done countless reptile-person villains? Have we so soon forgotten the Gorn? Have we already forgotten V?!? The Lizard would be awesome. (And there’s already bare-bones computer animation they could use as a model for making him more gecko-ish and creepily wall-crawling, if desired, since he appeared in the computer-animated late-90s Spider-Man TV series in that mode.)

Truth be told, I wrote a letter to Sam Raimi and company suggesting how they could work the Lizard into Spider-Man 2 back when they were reportedly toying with the idea, a letter noting my TV and comic book-writing experience and carefully waiving any and all legal claim to the idea, so eager was I to assist. No matter how clear you make such legal disclaimers, though, Hollywood apparently still sends back a letter saying they can’t read any outside suggestions for legal reasons. Fine. At least I tried (and now I have the ostensible signature of one of the other producers).

My suggestion was that they avoid the recurring problem of the multiple villains in these movies seeming thrown together at random by depicting Doctor Octopus and the Lizard as rival scientists, one enamored of cybernetics and the other enamored of biotech, each seeking to replace damaged limbs. Then, scientific rivalry becomes a (timely! relevant!) physical battle to the death — with their student Peter Parker caught in the middle.

But on to more culturally-significant matters in two days: the twentieth anniversary of The Simpsons.

Following the Money Only So Far

My praise of Tim Carney’s reporting on cozy government-business financial dealings reminded me of a far lamer but far more common form of reporting: Leftists constantly write “follow the money” articles “exposing” the fact that conservatives are funded by other conservatives who have more money, as if (a) this is surprising and (b) leftist groups aren’t funded the same way.

For example, essentially all non-profits (not just political ones) are funded by donations, which tend to come from two groups:

1. people who agree with the non-profit

2. people who are insane and may have put money in the wrong envelope.

Though the second group is probably larger than you might think, group 1 accounts for most of the money.  There is no crime in this.  And I’m sure most non-profits, be they evil or good, misguided or enlightened, wish there were some giant source of impartial money that rained down out of the sky all day long, but instead you just hope people will like what you do and join the cause.

If all you cared about were raking in dollars, though, odds are you wouldn’t be in the non-profit sector in the first place (whether you’re right, left, or otherwise) but would be, say, running a franchise restaurant or something.  At some point, you have to stop marveling at the fact that money is changing hands and cope with the arguments being made.  Nonetheless, we will surely see many more articles in the future meant to make it sound suspicious that, say, Conservative Magazine A is funded by the Foundation for Conservative Magazine A, which was in turn created by Conservative Rich Person A and several associates of his, who also possess this thing called money, which can be exchanged for goods and services, some of them potentially filthy and impure.

And with that I’m off to see Tim Burton and Bauhaus exhibits at MoMA with Dave Whitney’s family and possibly Nybakken, and I expect some bunch of rich people — working in concert — are partly responsible for it all.

Speaking of a World in Need of Capitalism: Obamanomics

Tim Carney has a new book out on Obamanomics, which is good to hear.  Carney, like his mentor, the late Robert Novak, is a reporter first and an ideologue second, and there is far more dirt, collusion, and cronyism than pure political theory to report when it comes to Obama policies.

Carney’s book The Big Rip Off from a few years ago was similarly an expose of the way that pro-government and pro-market descriptions of the world quickly give way to messy, unprincipled public-private interaction in the real world.  All the more reason to strive to shrink government, which will always be an engine of predation, favoritism, and net wealth destruction.  It’s tempting for ideologues of all stripes to imagine that the world is behaving somewhat like their idealized models — if not out of optimism, then simply because the models are easier to understand than the insanity and conflict of the real world.  But that’s no excuse for ignoring the facts or for pretending that one’s favored politicians somehow approximate one’s ideals.

Carney’s descriptions of businesses talking like free market fans and then seeking regulations that crush their competitors or subsidies that give their own industries a leg up may have seemed like an unwelcome footnote to political debate just a few years ago, a problem to be cleaned up at some uncertain point in the future so that we can all go back to the more pleasant business of pretending daily life is, say, a conflict between libertarian entrepreneurs and principled socialist politicians.  A few years later, it should be obvious to everyone that government is a partner in pillage with well-connected businesses and that tragically few people are fighting for a consistent property rights regime — though that remains the right thing to do and the only beneficial direction to head.  (Likewise, few in government are engaged in redistributing wealth to the truly needy, if that’s what floats your boat.)

P.S. Oddly enough, one critic of Obama policies lately, now reportedly hoping to run for New York comptroller, is our disgraced former governor, Eliot Spitzer.  I cannot imagine why he thinks being a candidate for any office ostensibly concerned with ethics and good conduct is a viable move for him, though.  The anti-Spitzer campaign ads practically write themselves.  Trot out pictures of his prostitute with some slogan like “Spitzer?  Spits him” and he’s done for.

P.P.S.  I also question the economic wisdom of James Cameron, as previously noted — no matter how visually-stunning Avatar is, its Emerald Forest vs. Starship Troopers plot still seems to me unlikely to make back the immense financial investment, even with pricey IMAX 3D tickets.  But next week, I promise a couple blog entries on more bankable franchises, Spider-Man and the anniversary-approaching Simpsons.

Stossel Tonight and Tomorrow

Tonight, if you aren’t watching leftist Sander Hicks perform punk music at the Gershwin Hotel or seeing a press screening of risk-taking capitalist James Cameron’s Avatar, you’ll probably be watching the 8pm Eastern premiere of Stossel on Fox Business Network (which repeats tomorrow, Friday, at 10pm — opposite his old show, 20/20, so take that, ABC!).

Will I be on it, asking a question from the audience about Ayn Rand and flashing a Vulcan salute as a shout-out to my libertarian-Trekkie homies like Ali Kokmen? I’m not sure because they may air another Stossel episode about global warming first and save the Ayn Rand episode for another week. As I type this some seven hours before it posts, the Fox Business site doesn’t yet say — indeed, it doesn’t yet even indicate anywhere that I can find that they have any shows airing Thursday, which is pretty typical of the short-term focus of TV, from what I’ve seen. No future, no past.

(Roger on Family Guy knew what he was talking about when he insisted on receiving advance notice of a broadcast and a guaranteed VHS copy afterwards as part of his terrorist demands — even when you’re involved in the broadcast, that’s about what it takes to stay informed about what’s going on, so busy and last-minute is everything.)

I’m not complaining, though: During the run-through of the first two tapings, I not only got to go onto the set and do my Nick Gillespie impression (a pretty accurate prediction of his actual comments taped later, if I do say so myself, including a reference to the eroticism of having your feet nibbled by fish) but also got to pretend to be guest Stephen Dubner of the Freakonomics blog (not John Allison of BB&T as I’d anticipated).

Next week, if all goes as planned, I’ll return to the audience one more time, staying silent while my ACSH colleague Betsy McCaughey (New York’s most charismatic former lieutenant governor) tries to put in her two cents about Obamacare. After that, I will just watch like any other citizen as Stossel teaches a world in need about the basics of capitalism.

Conservatism for Punks for Communists?

If all goes according to plan, I think a concert will be held tomorrow night by a punk band fronted by the friend who probably disagrees with me most, Sander Hicks being a Catholic, yet non-traditionalist, Green Party, Marxist 9/11 conspiracy theorist. Or at least, he has been these things at various times in the past, but he’s also been one of my most impressively entrepreneurial acquaintances, starting at least three businesses, at least two of them still functioning last I knew, albeit without him at the helm, not such a bad track record.

(I notice one of those businesses, Soft Skull Press, has published a book on roller derby by Alex “Axles of Evil” Cohen, a rollergirl from two years after me at Brown — which means she may well know Brown alum Emily Fromm, wife to — and now mother of the offspring of — Debates at Lolita Bar co-founder Lefty Leibowitz, who among other claims to fame himself founded the Gotham Girls Roller Derby League. These and other recurring themes are all connected in ways even those involved cannot pretend to fully understand, though it is my hope that many subtle social filters now opaque to us will be transparent to the sociologists of the future.)

And Sander says he’s “evolving” politically. After emphasizing decentralization in his Green Party campaign for Senate and encountering Ron Paul economic advisor Peter Schiff’s anti-Fed, anti-government ideas (presumably via the Truther/Paulite overlap), Sander’s now intrigued by Hayek (who after all has just a hint of the dialectical historical process in his thinking), so we’ll see how things progress.

Sander’s certainly not frightened of change and challenges, tomorrow night’s band having been booked for the show — a show intended to reinvent punk — before the band was even created (it was created via a Craigslist ad less than two months ago). That time pressure certainly must focus the mind. Last I knew, they were planning to play at the Gershwin Hotel on East 27th St., a street whose decadence is severely underestimated, it being home not only to hordes of European-tourist Gershwin customers but also to the Museum of Sex, the almost anachronistic real-life “sex club” La Trapeze (like in the 70s!), my old apartment from before the move to the Upper East Side, and, perhaps most decadently of all, Scott Nybakken’s apartment with his homemade Murphy bed and ample supplies of graphic literature.

Think of the night one could have on that strip by taking in the concert and seeing all these marvels (or DC Comics, depending on what Scott has handy — though Marvel’s offices really used to be on the same block, around the corner). For good or ill, though, I’ll be seeing a free screening of Avatar tomorrow night. And no matter how Sander fares, he will not risk losing anywhere near as much money as James Cameron soon may. Over $200 million risked on a movie that turned out looking like 3D Ferngully. Now that level of risk is punk rock, man.

Pirate Radio

I strongly recommend Pirate Radio (originally released in the UK as The Boat That Rocked and still playing in some NYC theatres under its American title — which may mean it’s about due on DVD for all I know).

I was concerned that despite the action (inspired by real events) taking place in 1966 under Labour, the film would be an excuse to turn the battle between the British government and unlicensed shipboard rock n’ roll broadcasters into a simple right-vs.-left fable, complete with stodgy people and idealistic youth. Instead, 1966 seems convincingly chosen simply because it was the hippest, most mod year in the history of rock. Better still, right and left are never mentioned in Pirate Radio.

On the contrary, we are repeatedly told quite explicitly that “government” (in general) is opposed to “freedom,” and no one can come away from watching two hours of Kenneth Branagh’s uptight, controlling bureaucrat character feeling that government is a more liberating force than the market. He even offers what was probably a consciously bipartisan excuse for cracking down on the rock n’ roll boat and its cast of wacky DJs: The ship and its foul music are degrading morals and engaging in crass commercialism.

So it’s a movie about rock n’ roll + commercial freedom pitted against anti-capitalism + authoritarian social conservatism, a formula that seems natural, very American (even when set in the UK), and a must-see by the standards of this website.

Another reason to see Pirate Radio: fantastic deployment throughout of Bill Nighy as the captain of the boat. Funniest I’ve seen him, I think — not just funnier than Slartibartfast in Hithchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy but even funnier than Victor, king of the vampires in Underworld. There’s something almost Buckleyesque in the way he casually inspires esprit de corps while seeming vaguely as if he’s lazily melting as a side effect of his own elitist disdain for the events unfolding before him. And, hey, Buckley smoked pot on a boat in international waters, so he might have enjoyed the film, too.

Stossel and Steampunk for All

Today, taking a day off from my real job, I’ll be a stand-in for Nick Gillespie, John Allison, and other libertarian guests on the set of John Stossel’s new hour-long show on Fox Business Channel (the first show being a discussion with Ayn Rand sympathizers).

You can get free tickets to the first three tapings of Stossel yourself by e-mailing StosselTix at FoxNews dot com — but you’ll have to be free for well over two hours in the middle of a workday starting at one of the following times (at 133 W. 47th in NYC):

•Tuesday, 12/8, 12:45, topic: Atlas Shrugged
•Thursday, 12/10, 9:45 AM, topic: global warming
•Thursday, 12/17, 9:45 AM, topic: healthcare reform with John Mackey

I suggested that if they need a contrary voice for the Rand show who’s very pro-market but (like many of us) worried that Rand may not be the best PR for markets, the Stossel team might want to consider my friend Heather Wilhelm, who wrote a Wall Street Journal piece just last week on that idea.

In other hot media news, I’m wasting no time bringing you the steampunk I promised yesterday, since I offer you this link to an Onion-worthy steampunk-themed Op-Toons item.

Profiles in Profiling

I’m cold-bloodedly rational enough to condemn groundless bigotry while at the same time being quite accepting of accurate (or even somewhat-accurate) stereotypical generalizations. We don’t necessarily want an “inoffensive” world, we want a world of accurate perceptions, from which we can learn and based on which we can make useful decisions.

As a Manhattanite, one can’t freak out every time one sees something slightly bizarre — that would get exhausting — but must develop a certain intuitive feel for which people on the street are likely to be menacing, insane, etc. Recognizing as I do that there are something like 10 million Muslims in America and virtually no terrorist incidents, therefore, I am not prone to react with alarm to every headscarf I see or radio-transmitted call to prayer I hear.

However, last week — as I was headed to the F train to go downtown and host a Debate at Lolita Bar about NASA — I saw a shrieking, possibly Pakistani woman wearing a headscarf and oddly-bulky garments, with a struggling police officer holding each of her arms as she tried to wriggle away, shouting some sort of plaintive lamentations about her capture.

Weighing my options — while not really expecting that it would turn out to be anything more than a homeless or crazy woman — I decided it wouldn’t hurt to run down to the subway platform and hop on the first train I saw a bit quicker than usual. I mean, sure, I probably wouldn’t hear the next day that she had exploded, but a filtering rule that says “Don’t hang around while cops struggle with a shrieking apparently-Middle-Eastern woman in a crowded subway hub” is not going to cost me (or innocent Muslims) in quite the same way as would a rule that said, for instance, “Look with suspicion and hostility on every black-robed Muslim woman innocently shopping at the grocery store.”

•••

And keep in mind this was occurring during the month that New York and places beyond are up in arms over the major 9/11-related terror trial assigned to a civilian court here, which some argue should be taking place before a military tribunal (one conservative friend of mine who just went to a large protest here against the trial/venue decision says it frustrates her that the trial will now cost hundreds of millions of dollars and take years to resolve when it should cost exactly one bullet).

I don’t have a strong position on this issue and would hope that everyone’s top priority when considering any trial in any venue is that the correct verdict is reached. It would be disturbing if people simply wanted military tribunals because they assume you’re found guilty there and innocent in civilian courts. That would seem to suggest a serious problem with one system or the other, quite possibly both — and people might even be right in assuming this is roughly how the two systems compare, but that ought to cause much more uproar than any single trial.

On a very different procedural note, it looks like I’ll be blogging daily this week, despite my weekly-in-December plan (and I did three entries last week as well, technically) — so apparently I am virtually incapable of blogging either more or less than once per day. That is my natural rhythm, I guess, and after a couple end-of-December weekly-weeks, I may as well return to that format — albeit with a host of new, more history-driven subject matter (and not coincidentally some steampunk), but more about that later.

Yesterday's NASA Debate, 2008's Food Debate, and Shatner

Ken Silber, whose side of the question prevailed in last night’s audience vote (meaning we should not abolish NASA), described the debate on his blog and was even nice enough to post a two-part audio recording of the event. (My thanks to him for participating, recording, and editing.)

Oddly enough, I also just stumbled across a New York Press blog piece by Michele Hoos describing one of our debates, on whether to “eat locally,” from exactly one year ago tomorrow. The piece is climaxed by a distinctively Evanchikian quote from our esteemed moderator.

I am told an audio recording also exists of Andrew Corsello from GQ interviewing William Shatner and asking him a question I suggested, about the contrast between his own musical work and Leonard Nimoy’s song about Bilbo Baggins. But that will have to wait for another day.

Tonight: NASA vs. Lensmen

OK, my Earthlink e-mail seems fine again — and tonight’s Debate at Lolita Bar about NASA just got a little better, too, as I have decided to create a little synergy between this month’s debate and this month’s ToddSeavey.com Book Selection.

That’s right, in order to remind everyone how high the stakes are as we debate the proper way to explore space (public vs. private), I, your humble host, will be reading a couple choice passages from the sci-fi space opera saga that inspired them all, E.E. “Doc” Smith’s (trashy) Lensmen — using a copy formerly possessed by blogger X. Trapnel, let me note.

You should run to be there like an iron ship with inertialess drive, and the women who love them.

OK, I’m feeling good about some things again. Of course, I’m awake at 4am, however briefly, so you know things aren’t perfect.

Earthlink Lame, Space Program Debatable

Earthlink (or some subset of it) was down from shortly after noon (Eastern time) today until at least 5pm, and it may still be screwed up.  I think e-mails sent to me (at least during that time) disappeared completely.  They may still be disappearing.

For this week at least, best to use my work address at ACSH, which you can find easily enough by Googling, so I won’t post it here for the junk-mailing masses.

Not only is Earthlink “down,” so is our Lolita Bar debate moderator, Michel Evanchik, he says, at least a bit, so I say show up en masse at our debate there tomorrow (Wed., Dec. 2, 8pm) at 266 Broome St. (on whether to abolish NASA, with Greg Rehmke arguing yes and Ken Silber arguing no) and remind him how much we all appreciate his Socratic-Falstaffian efforts.

This may redound to your benefit in more ways than one, since it may improve the spiritedness of the debate and, since he’s also my webmaster, it may rouse him to remove the hidden html hacker-ads recently slipped stealthily into this site.

Yes, between my e-mail, my site, my webmaster/moderator, and other things we don’t have time to go into, things are just about shot to hell here at ToddSeavey.com.  I almost find myself wishing NASA ran Earthlink, for one thing, and that goes against my core principles.  We can discuss that tomorrow, though.

Next week, I will write at least one entry that is actually on this blog’s ostensible theme of “conservatism for punks,” though, just to make up for the lameness.  Be there.