Re: Emily's post on depressed Californians - according to this, they're inordinately happy.

LONDON (Reuters) - An updated edition of a mental health bible for doctors may include diagnoses for "disorders" such as toddler tantrums and binge eating, experts say, and could mean that soon no-one will be classed as normal.

Leading mental health experts gave a briefing on Tuesday to warn that a new edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), which is being revised now for publication in 2013, could devalue the seriousness of mental illness and label almost everyone as having some kind of disorder.

Citing examples of new additions like "mild anxiety depression," "psychosis risk syndrome," and "temper dysregulation disorder," they said many people previously seen as perfectly healthy could in future be told they are ill.

"It's leaking into normality. It is shrinking the pool of what is normal to a puddle," said Til Wykes of the Institute of Psychiatry at Kings College London.

The shrinking pool, the puddle, the leaking - sounds like someone has hydrophilic simile fixation. But I agree: "Temper dysregulation disorder" used to be known as "being a hothead," and "mild anxiety disorder" is also known as "an occasionally sensible reaction to the human condition."

So what's behind this? A) trying to drum up new business; B) trying to mitigate the stigma of serious disorders by making everyone feel as though they're noggin-bonker in their own special way; C) boffins gone wild looking for new things to write about; D) all of the above.

More from James Lileks

On Loving Your Computer

Artisanal Sno-Cones

In Defense of Advertising

Newt Gingrich delivered a strong speech today at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington DC, denouncing Islamic Sharia law and further denouncing those non-Muslims who would allow Sharia to emerge in the West--in the name of tolerance, multiculturalism, or just plain woolly-headed-ism. The former House Speaker also repeated his call to block the building of an “Islamic center” just a few hundred feet from Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan.

The reaction within the room was extremely positive, but the reaction from the MSM is likely to continue to be negative. Time magazine’s Joe Klein, who has occasionally had nice things to say about Gingrich in the past, recently called him a “a complete jerk.” Over at The Atlantic, Max Fisher rounded up anti-Gingrich commentary under the headline, “With War on NYC Mosque, Has Newt Gingrich Lost It?”

But what did Gingrich actually say earlier today? Was it that bad? He said, for openers, that “the failure of homeland security is a national scandal.” Continuing, he added that “our elites are hiding from [their own] catastrophic failure.” As he put it, the first that our multi-hundred-billion-dollar homeland security apparatus knew of the Christmas Day underwear bomber was the sighting of smoke by a passenger. Similarly, the first that Janet Napolitano et al. knew about the Times Square bomber was a report from a tee shirt vendor, who saw a car on fire--mercifully, not exploding. And what is the source of this systemic failure? According to Gingrich, the source is “the left’s refusal to tell the truth about the Islamist threat,” which, he said, “has a parallel in the 70 years of communism,” during which the left routinely whitewashed the evils of communism. (No need to wonder anymore why the MSM dislikes Gingrich.)

So what should the rest of us do? Gingrich argued for a fight on many fronts, including perseverance in Afghanistan and a new focus on Pakistan. On the homefront, he urged a new federal law absolutely prohibiting Sharia law in US courts--after citing several cases in which judges and law school leaders expressed willingness to embrace Muslim law. And of course, Gingrich set forth his many reasons for opposing the mosque at Ground Zero, describing it as a case of “stealth jihad,” financed, most likely, by Saudi Arabia.

OK, we know what Newt thinks about the mosque, and we know what the elite MSM thinks of Newt, but what does the country think? Not too many polling outfits have seen fit to poll on the mosque question--perhaps because they are afraid of what they will find--but the always contrarian Rasmussen Reports has popped the question, and a poll released on July 22 finds that, by a 54:20 margin, Americans oppose the mosque.

So it could be that once again, the elites have misapprehended the will of the people. But then, there’s a long tradition of that.

Way back in the 1824 presidential election, for example, Andrew Jackson, hero of the Battle of New Orleans, won the popular vote by more than 10 points against John Quincy Adams, but he lost the White House in the electoral college. For the next four years, Jackson and his top aide, Martin Van Buren, campaigned vigorously against Adams, and they worked with the state legislatures as well, expanding the popular franchise so that more Jackson men could vote in the next election. Thus the 1828 presidential election, a rematch between Jackson and Adams, is remembered as “the revolt of the rustics.” Old Hickory won the popular vote by an even larger margin, and he won the electoral college, too--and the presidency.

In the decades and centuries that followed, populist fervor--against slavery, against the railroads, against the trusts, against Wall Street, against big government--has ebbed and flowed. In most instances, the elites were able to acknowledge popular fury and process that anger into moderate and incremental reform. That’s why we have only had one civil war, and never a violent revolution.

Yet of late, it sure seems as if the elites are failing to listen to the people--and the people, empowered by new technology, are rising up to smack down the elites as never before. And while the right has sometimes misread public opinion--see Harriet Miers, the early hesitancy in the Katrina relief effort, and the Dubai Ports Deal, to name just three--the left appears to have a tinnier ear. Just in the past few years, we’ve seen the failure of “comprehensive immigration reform,” the failure to close Gitmo, the failure to find an American location for the Khaled Sheik Mohammed trial, and, of course, the failure to understand the Tea Partiers and the townhall-ers.

So where will it end? Will Gingrich ride a populist Jacksonian wave into the White House? It’s hard to know the future, of course, and Gingrich isn't the only opponent of the mosque and assorted p.c. positions. But it seems inevitable that we are going to see a showdown between the elites and the masses. And interestingly enough, these days, the MSM--those self-proclaimed speakers of truth to power--usually takes the side of the elite.

But in a democracy, the people usually win. No matter how many powerful interests are lined up against them.

As reported in the wonderful "First Things," Gothic spook writer Anne Rice claims she's still a Christian but she's evidently fed up with organized Christianity and the Catholic Church. She gave a list of reasons like she refuses to be anti-gay, anti-democrat, anti-science.

Wow, she was really getting some bad information if she thought you have to be those things to be Catholic. She doesn't know the first thing about Catholicism if she hasn't figured this stuff out yet. Who needs her? We don't. Cuckoo, cuckoo....

Don't be fooled by people asserting this is the first step toward a nationwide ban in Spain or France. To the rest of Spain, this will have the same impact as a ban on pet shops in San Francisco would have on Texas.

When people tell me that Barcelona is their favorite part of Spain I say, "really, it's my least favorite." Sell-outs!

James Poulos just dropped me a note to ask what I made of David Frum's theory about David Cameron's astonishingly unctuous Ankara speech. (Actually, it's not Frum's theory, it's Frum's secret cynical French informant's theory, but that train of possessives would be hard to follow.) To appreciate just why the speech was so egregious--if it isn't already self-evident--I commend to your attention both Melanie Phillips' perfectly correct observations about it and those of Michael Weiss.

His cynical French friend, writes Frum,

suggests that I overlooked the likeliest motive for David Cameron’s flattering speech in Ankara:

British enthusiasm for Turkish entry into the EU is not a serious proposal, but a cunning wrecking mechanism.

Turkey will never be admitted to the EU, for at least 3 reasons:

1) Germany will not accept being demoted to the second-biggest block of delegates in the EU Parliament;

2) France and the poorer Central European countries will not accept ultra-low-wage competition from Turkish migrant workers;

3) Security services across the continent will not accept the risk of millions of Middle Eastern travelers crossing borders into Europe visa-free.

So why advocate what’s never going to happen? Because it offers a mode by which a Euroskeptic Conservative like Cameron can represent himself as ultra-pro-Europe to his LibDem coalition partners in Westminster and Britain’s Europhile media.

Sir Humphrey Appleby explained it all 25 years ago.

No, I don't think so. Points 1, 2, and 3 are correct, I suspect. But I doubt Cameron's intended audience is his LibDem coalition partners. That speech went way beyond anything required to keep the LibDems sweet. Nor is it Britain's Europhile media, though his remarks do seem to be playing reasonably well in the British media, but less because that media is Europhile than because it is not, shall we say, Semitophile. His opinions about Gaza are more or less the received British wisdom these days. I'm sure they will be most popular at home. No, I suspect the poor dunce really meant every word of it. It's just the sort of thing someone like him would really think. The thing about Cameron is he just doesn't know that much.

By the way, it's not just the Israelis who are apoplectic about his speech; the Greeks, too, are splitting a gut, not that anyone cares what they think in Greece, after all, there are no Jews involved in that whole Cyprus business, and as far as the media's concerned, the answer to the question, "How interested should we be?" is pretty simple--if there ain't no Jews, it just ain't news.

In sort of a weird twist, directly after lavishly buttering up the Turks, Cameron managed grievously to offend the Pakistanis by castigating them for being soft on terrorism. My take? Man's just winging it. He's out of his depth.

Peter Robinson points out that people don't much remember the Cold War anymore. I am concerned that in a few more years nobody will remember the Constitution either.

Consider the following news from Massachusetts -- no, not the brouhaha over John Kerry's failure to cough up $500K in sales tax on his yacht, this is real news:

The Massachusetts Legislature has approved a law intended to bypass the Electoral College system and ensure that the winner of the presidential election is determined by the national popular vote.

“What we are submitting is the idea that the president should be selected by the majority of people in the United States of America,’’ Senator James B. Eldridge, an Acton Democrat, said as he introduced the bill on the Senate floor.

I understand that many people hate the Electoral College. Fine. But isn't the Constitution clear on how it is to be amended?

Maybe John Yoo and Richard Epstein can weigh in with their opinions: Can a state legislature or a group of state legislatures effectively amend the Constitution by statute?

It's one for the ages as Robinson, Long, and Lileks are joined by conservative thinker, writer, climatologist, Obama Administration Czar, and some TV game show hosting thing he does on the side, Pat Sajak. In fact, we'll skip the traditional summary and rundown this week and just say that If you've never heard Pat talk about the issues of the day, you're in for a treat. After you've heard it, come back and discuss it here.

Links from this week's show:

• Carla Bruni nails it in 35 takes. Lileks covers it at PopCrush.
• The "Daisy" commercial used to defeat Goldwater in 1964.
• Pat's server-melting global warming post on Ricochet. His complete Ricochet oeuvre here.
• The Herblock Op-Ed Cartoon Archive
• Ronald Reagan's remarks to citizens in Oshkosh, WI on 5/30/1985 (written by Peter Robinson)
• The Uncommon Knowledge episode with vintage Reagan clips

Music in this episode:

• Wake Up by Arcade Fire
• Wheel of Fortune by Dinah Washington

Direct link to the episode

I posted here earlier today about how 20% of Californians think they need mental therapy. The conversation that ensued took an interesting turn toward religion, suffering, and human happiness. So, per Ursula's recommendation, I'm starting a new post that opens the issue up to the wider Ricochet community and asking ...

Does religion, God, and/or morality help us overcome depression/anxiety/sadness/suffering and make us happier people?

That question came up thanks to a comment made by Ricochet member G.A. Dean:

Humans inevitably face sadness, anxiety and nervousness, and other dark emotional states, and cultures cycle between beliefs on the best cure. Some turn to God, or to the bottle, others prescribe hard work and others just uproot and run off to a fresh start. These things are like fashion. The ancients sought the advice of the oracles; we go to shrinks, or to yoga class.

I'm curious about what Ricochet readers, commenters, and contributers think: do we lose something by finding therapeutic cures in secular sources, like therapists or yoga--or prescription drugs--rather than religious or transcendent ones?

Does religion ultimately help us cope with suffering, leading us to find deeper meaning in life? What are its limits?

Other questions to think about, via Ursula, are: What are the salves provided by religion/God? How does life get better if one "practices" a religion?

I personally think that religion teaches us how to adapt and react to difficult circumstances in a deep and meaningful way. Throughout the history of Western moral thought--until modern times, that is--the question of what makes us happy was bound to the question of leading The Good Life, the morally virtuous life. Our morally good choices, especially in the face of trying times, enriched our lives--and therefore made us happier in any circumstance.

USA Today:

WASHINGTON — Local governments are at risk of losing more than $1 billion in foreclosure relief funds they can't spend quickly enough.

With use-it-or-lose-it spending deadlines weeks away, cities and counties are scrambling to shore up neighborhoods by buying foreclosed and abandoned properties — but are often stymied by market forces, federal regulations and a lack of staffing [...].

Curse you, market forces!!! And, er, federal...regulations...

Ricochet member Confucius, the Œcumenical Volgi, just sent me this video clip from 60 Minutes. It's extremely important--I hope you'll all watch it.

A former member of a Muslim extremist group tells Lesley Stahl the reason for the increase in home-grown jihadists like the U.S. Army major accused of shooting 13 at Ft. Hood is an ideology called "the Narrative," which states America is at war with Islam.

This is very compelling to me. I live in an Islamic country, and he's right: It is a common belief here, and certainly a radicalizing one, that the West is determined to destroy Islam itself. All the Islamists I've spoken to in Britain and France share this belief. I don't agree that it's the only reason for their radicalization, but it's certainly a significant part of it.

We can't do much about it if people are determined to believe lies, other than countering them with the truth. But I get the sense sometimes, from comments posted here, that some of us believe that the narrative should be true. And that view, I would submit, is really not helpful.

We’ve all seen the surveys—the ones showing how poorly informed Americans are about basic stuff like history, civics, science, and geography. So let’s pretend Rob and Peter decide to take this problem into their own hands. Let’s help them create a Ricochet College entrance exam for 17 year-olds.

Can you think of some sample questions that would uncover a young student’s basic grasp of history, science, art, and music? (Perhaps there’d be a separate test for math, literature, and grammar, and we could add an essay at some point.) But let’s start with some short-answer questions/requirements.

I’ll start. Feel free to argue against any suggestion as too easy or hard (I don’t have a 17-year-old) or tweak my wording. Let’s try to remember, however, that we want solid but broad understanding. We’re not necessarily out to trick anyone. Okay….

Applicants should be able to:

1.) Identify the first three, and the last five, U.S. presidents.

2.) Label all the countries of the world with 90% accuracy. (Say there are 195 countries. That would mean an applicant would need to identify 176 correctly.)

3) Label a map of the United States.

4) Label the parts of an animal cell.

5) Label the organs and their basic functions in a human body.

Would we want them to be able to identify a musical piece or two? Perhaps identify elements that place a piece of art or architecture in a certain era? Which musical pieces? Which artworks? Certainly, there should be a Who Am I? section for which applicants would need to identify historical figures in 2-3 sentences. Who are the key people? Ideas?

So the Twitterverse is ablaze with news that USDA employee Shirley Sherrod intends to sue Andrew Breitbart.

Hunh? On what grounds?

A: Darfur is cooler. How else to explain why stories like James' below, and this video, from David Horowitz, aren't inspiring Darfur-like responses? Remember Darfur? We had rock concerts and protests and brave op-eds and a huge left-wing cultural mission to Do Something About Darfur. Meanwhile, in an unfashionable part of the world:

The rise in the number of Ataturk-signature tatoos here--a deliberate protest gesture--is interesting:

According to Garcia, whose mother is Turkish and father Spanish, the signature comes from the document Ataturk signed to abolish the old Arabic-based Ottoman alphabet for Turkey to start using the Latin-based one; a well-understood step to make Turkey more similar to Europe.

“Sixty per cent of the people that get the tattoo don’t have any others,” he said. “They don’t usually like tattoos, but they like this sign so it has to be small and it has to be somewhere special.”

Most people request the tattoo on their arm or hand. Others prefer it over their heart.

“You know we have two types of people here in Turkey,” Garcia said. “The people that adore Ataturk and the ones that adore fundamentalism. I think it’s a great tattoo for anyone that wants to give a message.”

I haven't met Danny yet, but he's a fixture on the Istanbul animal-rescue circuit: he also does a bustling line in cat tattoos. (Tattoos that look like cats, that is, not tattoos for cats.)

I was on Redeye with Greg Gutfeld last week in New York (which is a genius show by the way, it's a shame they have to resort to me), and I made the point that there is no way to logically argue against the attempts by Arizona to reform its immigration law. Everyone who tries just ends up making zero sense with circular reasoning apparent to everyone but themselves. They sound like a 14 year old girl trying to argue why she should be able to stay out all night at a rave. The real answer is "because she wants to and all her friends are going to be there." There's no other argument.

Hon. Susan Bolton doesn't want to support it, so she's put forth some illogical arguments so she can "go to the rave" with all her friends. Her friends are at the rave. She wants to go there too. If she can't go she will "miss out" and not be "cool" anymore. If we don't let them go to the rave, they will all have tantrums.

When I tried to make this point on Redeye, Bill Schultz (who I love) made his arguments against the law and they made little sense but he doesn't want to support it so he's going to keep coming up with reasons why Arizona (who is not a 14 year old girl, but more like a parent) cannot dare to ask people for i.d.

"The new Time cover is disturbing, but clarifying," writes Daniel Foster at the Corner. Before you click, note: the image presents an 18-year-old Afghan girl whose nose and ears (though her hair is down) have been sliced off by the Taliban, punishment for her decision to flee abusive in-laws.

Here's what Time's managing editor says about the decision to publish this cover:

I'm acutely aware that this image will be seen by children, who will undoubtedly find it distressing. We have consulted with a number of child psychologists about its potential impact. Some think children are so used to seeing violence in the media that the image will have little effect, but others believe that children will find it very scary and distressing [...]. I apologize to readers who find the image too strong [...].

But bad things do happen to people, and it is part of our job to confront and explain them. In the end, I felt that the image is a window into the reality of what is happening — and what can happen — in a war that affects and involves all of us. I would rather confront readers with the Taliban's treatment of women than ignore it. I would rather people know that reality as they make up their minds about what the U.S. and its allies should do in Afghanistan.

Is he right?

Researching the Cold War in recent months—I’m working on a new book—I’ve kept finding that the conflict has already begun to blur and recede from American minds. Even though the cold war ended just before they were born, for instance, I find that my own teenaged children possess only the vaguest recognition of the conflict. They can provide me with serviceable one- or two-sentence summaries of the American Revolution, the Civil War, and the First and Second World Wars, but not of the Cold War. The Vietnam War ended badly—they know that. And they recall having come across a paragraph or two in their high school history books about a conflict in Korea. But the cold war itself? The complete arc? Blank stares.

Is there any objective way in which I can demonstrate this, do you suppose? Any illustration involving not anecdotes but data? Polling information, perhaps, showing that more Americans can name the decade in which (say) the Civil War took place than the decades in which the Cold War unfolded? Or a study of high school textbooks, maybe, showing that fewer pages are devoted to the Cold War than to the Second World War? Ricochet readers, I think we can all agree, represent the most literate and best-informed in cyberspace. If any of you can point me in the right direction help, I’d offer you my gratitude—and there’s no truer graditude than that of a writer who’s been helped over a rough spot—and a really sweet mention in the acknowledgements.

Following up on Professor Epstein's excellent post about Judge Bolton's opinion in the Arizona case, I'd like to pose a related, but different, question.

Professor Epstein concludes that the Administration is likely to win its case on federal pre-emption grounds. Would the pre-emption argument also work against states and cities with "sanctuary" policies? The State of Maine, for example, has a policy (imposed by the governor via executive order) that prohibits state employees from disclosing or even inquiring about a person's immigration status. Isn't there a credible argument that such a policy frustrates federal enforcement of immigration laws?

As a tactical matter, maybe this is a fight the Republicans don't want, for fear of alienating hispanic voters. But as a legal matter, the argument seems sound to me.

With California in the throes of fiscal meltdown and the democrats about to face their maker in November, one in five Californians report they are in "serious distress" and in need of therapy.

Almost 5 million California adults say they could use help with a mental or emotional problem, according to a survey released Wednesday by researchers at UCLA. About 1 million of them meet the criteria for "serious psychological distress."

UCLA displays a keen eye for the obvious when it notes that one third of these "distressed" Californians don't seek out "mental health services" because of "the lack of health insurance coverage." Well these down-and-out Californians might be down-and-out no more, thanks to Uncle Obama:

The survey showed that lack of health insurance coverage was a major reason why people didn't seek help -- a situation that may be rectified somewhat by state and national mental health parity laws now in effect that require insurers to cover mental health conditions similarly to they way they cover physical conditions. (The final phase of the federal law went into effect on July 1.)

Should universal insurance cover mental health therapy? A well-known psychiatrist and friend of my family says no. He explained to us that if a patient isn't invested in his own treatment, then the patient is less likely to recover. It's a rare patient, he says, who improves psychologically on someone else's dime.

Yes, yes, I know the natural tendency upon hearing that the high-spirited president of Iran has denounced Paul the Octopus as an agent of Western propaganda is to mock. And to bring up that unfortunate business with the spy squirrels. Well, not me, folks. No mockery here. I, for one, congratulate him. It's high time someone took a stand against that octopus.

I knew from the moment I saw that slimy thing what he was after. Mark my words, those tentacles will spread from the Red Sea to the Euphrates unless he's stopped. Mollusks are exceedingly cunning, and their avarice is exceeded only by their ruthlessness.

Of course it's no accident that Paul predicted the victors in the World Cup. He was tipped off. And you know by whom.

It is deplorable that the world's so-called "leaders" have thus far been too cowardly to confront the powerful cephalopod lobby. Thank you, President Ahmadinajad, for your bravery.

Of all the blessings of the Internet age, online historical archives are very high on my list. I'm slightly worried about the potential for losing months of my life, though, when the site goes live in 2012.

The Churchill Archive Trust has agreed a deal with publisher Bloomsbury to make available more than 1m items. These include about 2,500 archive boxes of letters, telegrams, documents and photographs that are stored in Cambridge and currently viewable only by appointment.

Without the magnificent online Thatcher archives, I couldn't have written my book about her. I would never have been able to afford to spend months in Cambridge, where the originals are stored. Even if you're not a professional historian or biographer, these archives are fascinating, and if you're trying to come to a judgment about a historical figure, there's no substitute for looking at the archival evidence on your own. Have a look through any random page of the Thatcher Foundation archives--you'll see what I mean.

That's not safe for work, by the way, in the sense that if you start, you'll get no further work done today.

Today's Ricochet challenge: How long does it take you to find an interesting fact about Thatcher that somehow has never been reported in the news or in any book you've read? Have a look and report back.

Left: "Skat Players," Otto Dix, 1920

Above: Inci Eviner, "Harem," 2009. (This is a still from the original work, which is a video installation--and a masterpiece. You can watch it here.)

It's fascinating to see the way people responded to my question about Weimar cities. I find this question--about the relationship between a certain kind of political instability and a certain kind of creative efflorescence--extraordinarily interesting. Something struck me: People have immediate, instinctive responses to the word "Weimar," and their responses say quite a bit about the way they view the contemporary world. I posted a similar question on my Facebook page, and here were some of the comments people left:

... Vienna, Rome, Paris, Moscow/Petersburg, Constantinople--all connected by the veneer of official and/or artistic displays of prowess that ineffectively mask the real chaos on the streets and in the minds of individuals.

... This is a remarkably fascinating question. I think you've actually hit a kind of universal typology. I think that many of the crises of civilization probably follow this pattern. Their vibrant culture actually intoxicates them from seeing or believing the impending doom. Perhaps Constantinople before the invasion of 1204? Many of the cities of east asia and eastern europe before their fall to communism?

... One word: hypocrisy.

Claire: ... "The veneer of official and/or artistic displays of prowess that ineffectively mask the real chaos on the streets and in the minds of individuals." This could almost be a definition of AKP governance--the proudly renovated Ottoman fountains, very pretty to look at and always adorned with a lavish sign saying "Renovated by your AKP municipality," none of which actually convey water. Or the billion-page, slick "Earthquake preparation" plans that when closely examined are revealed to have nothing to do with any preparations actually made.

... Chilling idea in general; something does seem to be slouching towards Bethlehem.

... This is an interesting dicussion. It is strange that this group seems to see Weimar art and culture as marked by hypocrisy. Of course the right wing saw it that way (decadant, cosmopolitian, international, experimental, not sufficentaly tribal or nationalistic) but many see it and saw it as vibrant. Vienna 1900 was somewhat the same and this is the place that Einstein, Freud, Schnitzler, Klimpt, etc came out of. Perhaps dynamic vibrant culturaly mixed places are heightened by the sense of impeding doom or perhaps they are just very, very vulnerable.

... OK, I'm going to revote for Moscow 1917 and the Gov't of Kerensky. Versailles 1789. Baghdad 1258? Constantinople 1453. Rome 410. Ctesiphon 637. Connect the dots and call it the "end of civilization" I could see it going as a broad historical phenom or as a modern phenom depending on whether you want to focus on the weakness of democratic regimes and the disintegration of culture or whether you want to do the ennui of the rich and civilized in the face of barbarism.

Claire: I'd like to take the discussion further from the (interesting) topic of "Which other cities were like Weimar Berlin" and more toward, "What were the distinguishing characteristic of Weimar Berlin." Thoughts? I'm thinking of the unleashing of social and political imagination, the fascination with sexual adventure, the popular activism, the Utopianism, the feeling of life as something particularly intense and concentrated ... the animation of artistic life by the confrontation with modernity; the death of the old world of princes and emperors; the end of the agrarian economy and peasant farming; the end of rigid class distinctions ... the shift in the political center of gravity to the city, the cacophony of sounds and images, the artistic obsession with industrialization, the tensions and excitements of mass society, the new forms of artistic expression to which this awareness gave rise—abstract art, dissonant music, the architecture of clean lines, the heady enthusiams, the vibrant, kinetic energy ... and obviously anyone who lives in Istanbul now will recognize these themes. More ideas?

... I think of a far less romanticized account: materialistic mobocracy, Bismarckian-statism, daily political assasinations and bombings, Ludendorff smoking a cigar with von Hindenburg as Germany declines, grotesquely vulgar naturalistic novels, compulsory intellectual uniformity, a trillion Marks to buy a slice of bread, meaningful national humiliation, as well as a grinding impoverished existence. I also think of the American Dawes and Young plans which saved the Germans from their awful economic calamity as well as at long last sanctioned their economy to breathe once more. Intense Anti-Semitism also comes to mind when I think of Weimar Berlin.

Interesting, no? This has me wondering: Was Weimar art in fact decadent, as the Nazis claimed? Can we predict the doom of a culture by looking at its artistic life? Or is the condemnation of Weimar culture the mark of the modern reactionary, in the full negative sense of the word?

I'm a fan of Nassim Nicholas Taleb, who has written beautifully about the business of understanding financial risk. His most recent book, The Black Swan, has been talked about to death in the wake of 2008's financial collapse, but for my money his earlier book, Fooled By Randomness is a lot more accessible.

In an interview in the current issue of Bloomberg Businessweek, Taleb offers a very basic strategy for personal financial management:

We have this culture of financialization. People think they need to make money with their savings rather with their own business. So you end up with dentists who are more traders than dentists. A dentist should drill teeth and use whatever he does in the stock market for entertainment.

People should have three sources of variation in their income. The first one is their own business that they understand rather well. Focus on that. The second one is their savings. Make sure you preserve them. The third portion is the speculative portion: Whatever you are willing to lose, you can invest in whatever you want.

That second source is tricky, though, especially if you accept Taleb's dark view that massive government debts are going to be trouble:

As an analogy: You often have planes landing two hours late. In some cases, when you have volcanos, you can land two or three weeks late. How often have you landed two hours early? Never. It's the same with deficits. The errors tend to go one way rather than the other. When I wrote The Black Swan, I realized there was a huge bias in the way people estimate deficits and make forecasts. Typically things costs more, which is chronic. Governments that try to shoot for a surplus hardly ever reach it.

The problem is getting runaway. It's becoming a pure Ponzi scheme. It's very nonlinear: You need more and more debt just to stay where you are. And what broke [convicted financier Bernard] Madoff is going to break governments. They need to find new suckers all the time. And unfortunately the world has run out of suckers.

Let's hope there are still some suckers left. Besides us, I mean.

Working my way through Judge Susan Bolton’s 36 page opinion in United States v. Arizona proves once again that dense technical law is often the source of great political struggles. Her opinion spends lots of time on the question of whether there is sufficient irreparable harm to allow for the United States government to get an injunction before the statute goes into effect. She also gave effect to the severability provision of the Arizona statute that let many of its provisions survive, even as others were struck down. I have no question that under the federal law of preemption, if the Arizona statute does frustrate the enforcement of the federal standards it must give way. What preemption says in effect is that under our constitutional order, the lowliest federal statute or regulation takes precedence over any state law, including all constitutional provisions and all legislation.

The World War II case of Hines v. Davidowitz is a powerful weapon for the federal government in this case with respect to the key provisions of the statute that deal with stops, detentions and arrests on the one hand, and with the presentation of papers on the other. If there is any action by the state that increases the burdens on the federal government, there is a credible case for preemption. I do not agree with Judge Bolton’s interpretation of the statute on some key points, and think that it was unwise of the federal government in this case to seek an injunction against the enforcement of the statute before it was put in effect. But as a matter of black-letter law, the U.S. is likely to win on appeal—and face the political consequences of taking a strong stand on a highly popular and highly divisive law.

I dropped my laptop the other day, and that was the end of the hard drive. And almost my foot: the laptop is thin enough to take off a toe. Everything is stored in the cloud, so I lost little work - but the machine went to the shop, leaving me without my favorite little machine. Reminded me how much we get used to certain tools. Maybe it’s an individual matter, but I can’t write on other people’s machines; it’s like using their toothbrush. I’ve rarely been able to write in offices, because the company computers are always boring, locked-down things with an omniscient, unseen Administrator hovering in the firmament like the cartoon God in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," ready to say NO.

My wife is completely unsentimental and agnostic about computers; my daughter is like me, tweaking and customizing all the time. (I’m writing on hers, now, because she’s at camp.) So it’s not a guy thing. I do know that computers are almost like dogs - it’s horrible when you have to say goodbye to one that’s been faithful, but the pain is softened by the immediate joy of getting a new one.

Anyway, that’s why I haven’t posted. (Also, the Ricochet platform doesn’t like iPads: can’t enter text in the comment field.) Anyone else have the same attachment to their machines, or recall certain computers they loved more than others? I still have a soft spot for the Leading Edge Model D on which I wrote my first novel. Amber text on a black screen, baby. You wanted a picture on the screen, you cut it out and taped it to the monitor.

More from James Lileks

Artisanal Sno-Cones

In Defense of Advertising

In Defense of Air Conditioning

Don't miss the great Jim Ceaser's new polemic in The Weekly Standard. Obama, he writes, has "become practitioner-in-chief of what Alexander Hamilton referred to in Federalist 68 as the 'little arts of popularity.'"

These arts, Hamilton well knew, would become an inevitable feature of democratic politics. But their spread from the province of political campaigns into the “normal” conduct of the presidency represents a dramatic reversal of the Founders’ design. The Constitution was crafted to prevent a campaign-style presidency; Obama is in the midst of creating one. [...]

What the president’s supporters add by way of explanation, if excuses for employing the “little arts of popularity” are still necessary, is that Obama is only responding to an unprecedented series of attacks from his detractors. But this explanation misses the main point, which is not the alleged behavior of gatherings of citizens, but the norms and standards of the presidency. [...]

It may be, however, that Obama has created a box for himself from which he cannot escape. He has so monopolized and personalized the public relations aspect of his office that now only his own voice can speak for the presidency. Profligacy in the use of public access—almost a speech a day—has made indirectness impossible. A president who has become his own chief point man puts at risk an asset that is helpful to his standing and vital for the nation’s political system: the dignity of the presidential office.

I worry about the big issues being addressed here on Ricochet, and I pray for the safety of Judith and Claire, our international pioneers/correspondents. But when I turn away from the computer, I worry about little things, too. Really little.

You know what causes me to lose sleep at least once a month? Bed bugs and lice. And it ain’t because I’m a precious girly-girl grossed out by creepy-crawlies. I’ve battled my share of NYC cockroaches (special breed, trust me) and, more recently, my husband wrestled a NYC rat in our former kitchen.

An arrival of bed bugs or lice into our home would cause us near financial ruin if we actually tried to get rid of them. Really.

Bedbugs are all the rage in NYC, where Abercrombie and Fitch, Victoria’s Secret, and Hollister stores all had to close down after recent infestation. I don’t shop at those stores, and we recently left Manhattan for Connecticut. Nevertheless, beg bugs happily travel from place to place on backpacks and clothes, and they are embracing their freedom:

Bedbugs are back, and they're worse than ever. While pesticides kept them under control for most of the twentieth century, the bloodsucking fiends have had a notable resurgence over the last decade. And, between expensive lawsuits and pricey eradication techniques, the bugs are hitting renters, homeowners and companies where they're most vulnerable -- in their wallets … The cost of treating a single hotel room is estimated at $6,000 to $7,000.

Imagine a home, albeit small, with several rooms! Homeowners are urged to throw away all clothes, bedding, rugs, towels, mattresses, bedsprings, and then have a professional come to deal with the bedbug colonies that nest inside impossible-to-reach places like the baseboards and radiators. Immediate bankruptcy, right there.

Lice are also growing heartier.

… in many cases lice have grown resistant to the active ingredients in these over-the-counter products. You may treat and see no results at all.

If you have money (which we don’t), you go to a salon:

A visit to Hair Fairies, a hair salon dedicated exclusively to lice removal, with locations in Manhattan, Chicago, San Francisco and other cities, costs an average of $300 a head [emphasis mine]. A middle-of-the-night consultation with a technician from the Lice Treatment Center on the Upper East Side can run $500 or more.

FYI, if one kid gets lice, it’s common for the family to get them, too. There are home remedies, such as covering the hair in mayo or olive oil and making a turban of Saran Wrap for overnight. You are to do this for three straight nights and then you spend 2-3 hours – per child – combing out the suffocated bugs and nits.

And what will my other two children do while I meticulously comb their sibling? Probably burn down the house. At least we have insurance for that.

Via Mark Hemingway: U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton has "blocked the most controversial parts of Arizona’s immigration law from taking effect, delivering a last-minute victory to opponents of the crackdown."

The overall law will still take effect Thursday, but without the provisions that angered opponents — including sections that required officers to check a person’s immigration status while enforcing other laws. The judge also put on hold parts of the law that required immigrants to carry their papers at all times, and made it illegal for undocumented workers to solicit employment in public places.

The wire report notes that Judge Bolton's hold is in effect "until the courts resolve the issues." It's on now.

A woman walks into a bar -- stop me if you've heard this one -- sees a video camera, walks up the camera and stands before it while another woman pulls down her tank top. The video ends up in Girls Gone Wild, and the woman sues for $5 million in "damages."

The punchline? It takes a jury 90 minutes to throw out the lawsuit. It's a rare bit of sanity in the upside-down world of litigation, but it's not the first lawsuit inspired by GGW. One recent lawsuit included a demand from Ashley Dupre (of Elliot Spitzer fame) for $10 million for damages to her "reputation," and another suit in which a GGW participant (who also happens to be a porn film actress) claims to have been "sexually exploited" by GGW.

Not that I'm trying to elicit sympathy for GGW (run by the apparently very nasty Joe Francis). But really: the fact that these lawsuits ever see the light of day is disturbing news on the personal responsibility front.

I'm a political ad junkie. And right now, it's the perfect season: early on-air skirmishes between the Republicans and the Democrats are starting to hit, as each side tests a lot of different strategies before picking a couple for the full-on autumn campaign.

The first, from the Republican Governor's Association -- helmed by Ricochet's own Governor Haley Barbour -- is a pretty effective spot. It's here -- and it really shouldn't be. It should be on YouTube. I'm not sure why the RGA chose Vimeo for its distribution platform, but it's a big mistake. The key to these ads is to have them go viral, to be embedded as far and wide as possible. YouTube is a much easier platform for that.

The second, from the Democrats' Rapid Response team, is here:

It's not a terribly impressive effort, but it's probably the best possible strategic choice for the Democrats in 2010: paint the Republicans as out of the mainstream. Use the language that the Clinton team used against Dole in 1996: radical, risky, extreme, out of control.

It won't work this time.