The Ninth of November

Twenty years ago today, an ugly and menacing Mauer, designed to keep ideas out and keep human beings in, was brought down when that heady combination of ideas and human beings reached a critical mass. The pressure built up by those immortal ideas and their effect on mortal hearts on both sides of the prison finally outmatched their violent suppression.

The previous day, when a few misspoken words from a tired bureaucrat slipped out, the violent facade crumbled. Shortly thereafter, the Mauer itself was hammered to dust. It was a glorious day for courageous people. And they were courageous, those people on the east side of the Mauer. Liberty is an inherently courageous position. It offers few guarantees, and while the rewards can be achieved, they are never achieved without a little bit of risk. And sometimes, the risk is to life itself. For this reason, this day is rightly celebrated as a glorious day of freedom and opportunity for millions of people, and serves as a reminder that sometimes the kernel of freedom can grow even in the most hostile soil.

Of course, the sapling of freedom is still an extraordinary fragile thing, and requires constant attention from those who would cultivate it. They must be tenderly gentle to the sapling and determinedly hostile to those that would destroy it. On a different, earlier Ninth of November, a fragile plant was brutally stomped out by those whose ideas led them to the conclusion that the constructing of a violent facade was more pressing than the nurturing of a delicate sapling. They used the shards to slash that freedom, and the windows they smashed poisoned the earth in which the kernel grew.

The juxtaposition of the debasing savagery of smashed glass and the affirming dignity of smashed concrete serves as a reminder that our every step toward liberty is guided in part by the memory of liberty lost, and the memories of those who sacrifice to cultivate it. The Ninth of November is a day of joy and of sorrow; it is a day of victory and one of an earlier defeat; and we are wiser when we remind ourselves of both. But the victory has already been more permanent, and for that we should be grateful.

A Lesson in Chutzpah

According to this, Iran has decided to upbraid the Swedes, who hold the EU's rotating presidency, about the EU's double standards when dealing with human rights.

One must wonder whether the "play the victim" card will work yet again. It is always a concern if the EU (or any of its member states) reply to this sort of thing with a moral-equivalence response of the "yes, we understand that Iran has a good point, blah blah blah" type. It sends yet another signal that the democratic West is all too ready to give up the moral high ground and spend more time trying to therapeutically analyze this regime; this only emboldens it and disheartens additional dissidents.

The Swedish Foreign Minister, Magnus Wernstedt, said that he would look into it. I for one hope that he makes a good hard examination of the torture and rape being committed in Iranian jails and calls them back collect.

Just askin'

For a long time, you could see these "Keep Your Laws Off My Body" bumper stickers all over the place. Can we start reprinting those?
Just askin'.....

Adaptation

I'm dealing with the idea of being a person who has adapted. As an adapted person, when I return to America, people ask me chiefly about the language barrier. The language barrier is significant, and I believe that there are significant problems with economic models that assume that people (especially foreigners) living in a given market have access to "perfect information" so critical to the concept of rational actors in a market environment. Language obliges foreigners to either invest significantly greater amounts of time into hunting down the best deal; alternatively, they pay more than any given product is worth. They also may have considerable non-economic barriers (such as when founding a business, etc.) that the state itself puts up, either intentionally or due to a failure of communication. All of this is worth significant amounts of research, and is thus completely outside of the purview of this ridiculously unscientific essay.

You see, there are other complicating factors dealing with adaptation. The concepts of weights and measures becomes surprisingly difficult to manage, though some of these are easier to manage than others. For instance, buying ham at the supermarket or estimating distances. You find that you "translate" distances, in particular. This is not so bad – a meter is about a yard, and 400 meters is still a quarter-mile, and 10 meters is pretty close to a first down. And once you get used to the idea that 150 grams is about the size of the small cup they give you of deli salads, you learn to know to ask for that much; and a half-kilo is about a pound, in case you need that much ham. (Europeans don't sell sliced turkey, or roast beef either. So you eat a lot of ham.)

The worst is temperature. Temperature is complicated. You find that you memorize the scale instead of "translating" it. The yards-meters conversion is pretty close; the Fahrenheit-Celsius conversion is useless.* You look for yardsticks: 28° C is 82° F – that's a pretty easy conversion (switch the 8 and 2!), and that's pretty warm. Anything higher is just hot. Baking requires the conversion table, but my crummy oven has always been pretty sketchy anyway, and so you never really know what temperature it is on any scale, so that doesn't really matter. Unless you want to bake something.

As for cold, well, that's when it's nice to come from Colorado. It never gets as cold here as it does there. One yardstick that helps is that -40° C is -40° F, and almost everybody knows that 0° C is 32° F. The latter figure here is helpful, because that conversion in the footnote is much easier to use when it's cold – you then figure out that 0° F is about -15° C, and it never gets too much colder than that (two F degrees are about 1 C degree). The -40° C = -40° F conversion is helpful for talking about January in Colorado. It facilitates discussion, though generally not about the wisdom (or lack thereof) of the Fahrenheit scale.

For longer distances, I find that the best thing to do is to measure it in hours. It's generally the most relevant both in Europe as well as in America, though it carries different cultural implications, especially when you come from the West, and a two-and-a-half-hour trip to the mall is pretty normal. In two and a half hours, I can get from Brno to Poland, Slovakia, Austria, or Prague. All of them are completely different worlds in their own way. But again, those are four more subjects for four more essays. Moreover, of course, you should always make sure that you are on the right train. I had a friend that had a two-and-a-half-hour trip turn into a 10-hour trip due to his mistaken reading of the train schedule, confusing the "destination" station with the "arriving from" station. But I don't think he'd like me to elaborate too much about that.

*In case you're wondering, it's T_C = 5(T_F – 32)÷9

An Open Letter to My Congressman

Dear Congressman Salazar,

Right now I'm living in Brno, Czech Republic, where I am a doctoral student and I teach English. I have my health insurance plan through a provider in Gunnison; I am rather satisfied with it, though I must admit that I have no plans to use it.

I am concerned, however, that any reforms to the current US system will put my health insurance in jeopardy, since I am what you might reasonable call an unusual case. The state-run health insurance plans here in Europe generally do not allow for people to travel, and the health care system frequently actively discriminates against people (like me) with private insurance.

It would be a grave mistake to "reform" the health care system in America to make it look more like many European systems; that would actually lead to a lower quality of care.

One of the advantages of living abroad is that I was free to buy a plan regardless of my state. Perhaps reducing some of the barriers to competition, like state restrictions, would lower costs for Americans actually living in America as well.

In any case, I hope that whatever plan Congress comes up with will reduce the amount of bureaucrats (public or private) and increase the valuable relationships between doctors and patients. We have a great health care system for most people in America; it would be a pity to destroy it for an ill-conceived plan that rations care or discourages innovation. When making health policy, it might be appropriate to mention the Hippocratic Oath – "first, do no harm."

Yours,

Professor Starobrno

After a bit of a hiatus....

Professor Starobrno is back!
Check this place soon. This will get interesting.....

thoughts on the Olympic Opening Ceremonies part 1

The drums were great. Totalitarian, but great. But, as Matt Lauer mentioned, they smiled more.
I thought it was nice that the children brought in the Chinese flag. So many girls! and one boy with glasses!
It turns out that NBC erred and the Chinese anthem was muted -- they seem to have lost the audio feed. As soon as it went off, Toby Keith's "Beer for my Horses" was playing on the radio.
They talk so much about the concept of "harmony." All collectivist ideologies like this concept. I don't think it would be a stretch to say that in some ways, the US is the most disharmonious society in the world, precisely because it is the most free.

Missile Defense in Central Europe

Wess Mitchell, writing for the indispensable CEPA, explains that construction of a missile shield in Central Europe is, regardless of the ideological argument, likely to continue. Regardless of the combination of US domestic policy as well as Polish and Czech hesitation, it remains one of the few trump cards (if not the only one) in the West's deck when dealing with the mullahs in Tehran.

His argument is certainly compelling; the only concern would be Senator Obama's recognition of the necessity of MD were he to become President. (It seems clear that Senator McCain supports the idea in its current form.) If Obama's dazzling rhetoric were to be employed in this campaign, it would present a bipartisan US front on this critical issue. Senator Obama seems to tentatively support nuclear missile defense; however, it is necessary to ensure that he would also be willing to actually fund NMD. If he is sincere, he should be able to mollify a Democratic Congress.

Freedom in Europe

This article from Der Spiegel's English site barely needs commentary. Turns out that European Commission wants to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and in their relentless drive do do so, have begun to try to regulate the way cars and light trucks in the European Union should be advertised. To do so, any print ad would have to dedicate a certain percentage of its area to emissions requirements, similar to how "nutritional facts" are listed on the back of your bag of Doritos. Puny Italian and French car makers are overjoyed; anyone who wants to produce or drive a real car, as opposed to a covered lawnmower, is angry.

There are two main issues here: first, the right to free speech (something about which Europe has never been as absolutist as Americans have been) and the general attitude of the Commission.

In the US, there are generally two things in a car ad: a pretty picture and the price, and sometimes not even that. It's understood that if the consumer is interested in buying a car, he will contact the dealership for additional information, such as gas mileage and how many cupholders a car has. Frequently, the bigger car has more cupholders. This is a trade-off, but a very important one. It is also important if leather seats are available, another environmentally unsound and expensive decision. Then, when the consumer decides that the BMW 5 Series is a better car for his or her lifestyle than the Fiat Punto, he ponies up the euros for it. This is how most people buy cars. However, the EU Commission believes that they need to tell you they know more about car-buying than you, and they'll help you pick a more "reasonable" choice.

But what really bothers me about the Commission is the hostility and condescension with which it routinely treats consumers. One commissioner helpfully pointed out that "We commissioners travel a lot,and we need large, comfortable, and fast cars." Of course, other commuters who aren't members of this elite 27 have no need for comfort or speed. You really should be traveling by bus anyway.

A professor in Germany describes the EU's view of the consumer "as a pathological idiot in need of supervision, as someone who can't tell the difference between red and white wine." Indeed. And by the way, you can't get leather seats on the Fiat Punto.

I just saw an ad on TV...

for a new acid reflux prescription -- AcipHex.

 

Yes, it's pronounced "Ass effects."