One of the great contrasts between LA (where I am at the moment) and Dallas is how long it takes to build anything in Los Angeles. I'm not talking about the years and years it takes to get permission to build but the actual construction time once you've got approvals. Whether public or private, construction projects here drag on endlessly. Why, I have no idea. There do seem to be a lot fewer people working on any given project, and sometimes no one at all.
The Bush administration is going to take on farm subsidies, the NYT reports. If they thought Social Security was tough, wait till this firestorm hits. Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Thad Cochrane says he'll "work as hard as I can to oppose any changes." Will other Republicans stand up for fiscal responsibility and market principles? Will conservative pundits make a big deal of this issue? Will the libertarians and liberals who've scored the Bush administration for its earlier fiscal (and trade) foolishness? In other words, is there any kind of vocal, principled coalition to balance the concentrated interests of subsidized agriculture? A few environmental groups can't do it alone.
Thanks to everyone who ordered signed copies of The Substance of Style. All the orders I've received to date have been shipped. You can still order a copy, but I'm off on a reporting trip and won't be mailing any more books until February 15.
Andrew Sullivan, who was blogging before blogging was cool, announces that he's giving up the Daily Dish--for reasons I completely understand:
Much as I would like to do everything, I've been unable to give the blog my full attention and make any progress on a book (and I'm two years behind). It's not so much the time as the mindset. The ability to keep on top of almost everything on a daily and hourly basis just isn't compatible with the time and space to mull over some difficult issues in a leisurely and deliberate manner. Others might be able to do it. But I've tried and failed.
Even the few brilliant scholars (Tyler Cowen, Eugene Volokh, Grant McCracken) who make blogging seem like it should foster serious thought limit their posting to topics they want to mull over in public. Current-affairs blogging of the Sullivan/Instapundit/name your favorite type is inherently quick, dirty, and disposable. It may add to the public discourse, but it doesn't tend to deepen the blogger's own thinking. That, plus sheer laziness, is why this blog has never promised more than a few posts a week, and why I've given up my think-magazine-editor instincts to voice an opinion on everything. For a full-blown argument, I want to write something for a sizable audience and get paid. And I don't really want to post half-baked ones.
Right now, I'm researching a couple of long-term projects--one on variety and one on glamour--and (barely) financing the research, which involves some travel and reporting, with article assigments. Blogging will be quite light through February.
UPDATE: Austin Bay, who's recently added blogging to his writing portfolio, has some further thoughts. And speaking of professional writers who've recently become bloggers, check out my old friend and WaPost writer Joel Achenbach's Achenblog. Be sure to scroll down to read his advice for aspiring journalists, with a priceless anecdote about Orrin Hatch.
From India to Iraq, Dan Drezner's blog is full of good stuff.
That mysterious phrase is a WaPost headline. What does it mean? Is it about recent tests on the Shroud of Turin? Is it some kind of post-tsunami story? No, it's about furtive fundraising for the DC mayor's race. No water, no shroud, just a horribly mixed metaphor.
By demonstrating great physical courage, the voters of Iraq quite consciously reclaimed the dignity and self-respect sapped by decades of Saddam's oppression. Today's election was their revolution, the moment when they rose up and took control of their destinies. It was a great day--and it wasn't about us.
Contrary to the impression you might have gotten from assorted blogs--the impression, indeed, that Professor Postrel got from his morning surfing--the mainstream media stories (NYT here, WaPost here), were not merely positive but downright moving. CNN had me tearing up. Today, blogs were a nice supplement, but they were by no means essential.
UPDATE: I like Ann Althouse's post, "The Blue Finger of Democracy": "It was only a few days ago that there was talk that the ink-stained finger would be a dangerous identification, that would mark people for retaliation, that people would need to hide it. Now we see the pictures of people actively displaying what was devised as a utilitarian safeguard, turning it into a proud new symbol of the love of democracy." One blue (or purple) finger puts the voter in danger; a whole city of them creates safety in numbers.
The Electronic Freedom Foundation is making a list of technologically advanced, otherwise desirable gizmos threatened by folks who don't understand that intellectual property protections are supposed to spur innovation, not suppress it.
On a related note, Peter Harter calls my attention to this Cato Institute brief by Adam Thierer on why it's good that styles can't win monopoly protection. Funny, just yesterday, my hairdresser was telling the story of an old friend who'd invented the Dorothy Hamill do. The guy made plenty of money from it himself, but not nearly as much as he might have dreamed of if he'd assumed royalties. Of course, charging and collecting royalties would have dampened demand considerably. Big-time hairstylists make money by licensing their names to products, opening schools, and, of course, styling hair themselves.
My sister-in-law Pam found this mysterious blog by one "Vash Postrel." It's only mysterious, of course, because we don't read Russian. Writes Pam, "When I do a translation in Babelfish, turns out the name of the journal is 'Your Rogue' or 'Your Brat.'"
Fortunately, we know the Volokhs, who came from Ukraine a bit more recently than the Postrels, and between them pretty much know everything. Sasha explains (I've removed the Cyrillic):
The guy with the livejournal is called Vash postrel; that's not his name but a reference to a Russian expression, Nash postrel vezde pospel. Virginia, I may have told you about that expression a long, long time ago.
"Postrel" is indeed a slang word meaning "rogue" or "smart-aleck"; the verb "pospet'" (of which "pospel" is the past tense) means "to be done"/"to be ready" but also "to succeed" or "to be on top of things." ("Nash" means "our" and "Vash" means "your"; "vezde" means "everywhere.") So the expression means something like "Our smart-aleck is on top of everything" or "has succeeded in everything."
So the blogger is not a long-lost relative. Postrel means smart-aleck. Pretty funny.
Sasha provides a sample of the blog content:
On January 18th at 4:45 p.m., he says: Too bad they didn't give Javier Bardem the Golden Globe for Best Actor for The Sea Inside. The Oscar isn't looking too likely for him either, even not taking political correctness into account. He should already have gotten a prize for Before Night Falls. [Then a few sentences about the Aviator.] The American dream needs reanimation. Rise up from the ashes, Mr. Hughes. [Then complains how he hasn't seen half the Oscar-nominated movies. He chews out Russian movie renters and pirates a D for timeliness and himself for demanding good copies and not knowing English well.]
The December 24th entry is also about movies: He saw a Fassbinder retrospective, which was exhausting but worth it. Soon, he says, he'll start believing that Santa Claus is an active lesbian.
Another entry tells how he was taking a sleeping car to Moscow and a small child pointed out that his hair was messy.
The Dallas Morning News reports on Dallas Iraqis who are turning out to vote in their country's historic election. To register and vote, they've had to make two trips from Dallas to Nashville, a 700-mile drive. An excerpt:
Mr. Sindy will leave tonight after work with 48 of his friends from Arlington's Kurdish community. They will pile into seven minivans — each carrying seven people — to drive for 12 hours.
When they reach Nashville early Saturday morning, they will vote at the Tennessee State Fairgrounds, the city's only polling place for the election. Then, they'll climb back into their minivans and head home to their families and jobs.
"It is a long drive, but you are with friends," Mr. Sindy said.
This is the second trip the voters will make to Tennessee in the last month. Registration for the vote also took place in Nashville.
The money and time required to travel to Nashville has kept many Dallas-area Iraqis from voting, and registration at polling places across the nation has been lower than expected. Only 3,930 registered in Nashville, down from the 16,000 officials had hoped to see.
Some local Iraqis said they could not get time off from their jobs or miss school. Others said they couldn't leave their families or afford airplane tickets.
Temer Tovi is heartbroken that he cannot participate in the historic day of Iraqi freedom, he said.
"I've got a business, and I have no time to travel for two days," said the owner of Mediterranean Cafe & Bakery in Richardson. "They should bring one to Texas. Anywhere in Texas, we would go."
Just another reason to repeal the Wright Amendment and allow Southwest to fly to Nashville from Love Field.