Wodehouse and golf and marriage/romance

"It has always seemed to me a strange and unaccountable thing that nowadays, when gloom is at such a premium in the world’s literature and all around us stern young pessimists are bringing home the bacon with their studies in the greyly grim, no writer has thought to turn his pen to a realistic portrayal of the golfing wife.  No subject could be more poignant, and yet it has been completely neglected.  One can only suppose that even modern novelists feel that the line should be drawn somewhere….

The real trouble was that the spectacle of her on the links was destroying his ideals, sapping away that love and respect which should have been as imperishable as steel

To a good man his wife should be a goddess, a being far above him to whom he can offer worship and reverence, a beacon-star guiding him over the tossing seas of life.  She should ever be on a pedestal and in a shrine.  And when she waggles for a minute and a half and then jerks her head and tops the ball she ceases to be so."

The Heart of a Goof, P.G. Wodehouse, Keeping in with Vosper, page (63 - 65)

P.G. Wodehouse and golf

"Provided luck was with him and the lie not too desperate, a mashie would put him on the carpet.  It was only when he reached the rough and saw what happened that his heart sank.  There the ball lay, half hidden in the grass, while above it waved the straggling tentacle of some tough looking shrub.  Behind it was a stone, and behind the stone at just the elevation to catch a back-swing of the club, was a tree.  And, by an ironical stroke of fate which drew from Bradbury a hollow, bitter laugh, only a few feet to the right was a beautiful smooth piece of turf from which it would have been a pleasure to play one’s second..

Dully, Bradbury looked to see how Bott was getting on.  And then suddenly, as he found that Bott was completely invisible behind the belt of bushes through which he had just passed, a voice seemed to whisper to him, ‘why not?’

Bradley Fisher, remember, had spent thirty years in Wall Street."

The Heart of a Goof, P.G. Wodehouse, High Stakes, page 49

Jonah Goldberg on Rick Perry

An interesting column by Jonah Goldberg on Rick Perry, his critics and his defenders.  Goldberg has tweeted that it has been widely misinterpreted.  So perhaps I should stay clear at the risk of confirming that I can’t read.  But I’ll take a stab at it anyway.

It is kind of an oddly structured column, as it takes a sharp turn at the three quarter mark.  But what I take to be Goldberg’s point is that while East/West coast shots at candidates who don’t fit their stereotypes are absurd, the resulting automatic defense of these candidates by conservatives is a mistake.  If liberal snobs dismiss someone as stupid because they are from Texas, conservatives shouldn’t rush to claim that the charge is false and due only to the person being from Texas.  The argument should be on the merits which includes the possibility that a folksy Texan isn’t very bright.

When Goldberg writes “I think conservatism needs to spend less time defending candidates for who they are, and more time supporting candidates for what they intend to do,”  I think he means by “who they are” their cultural persona as distinct from who they are in terms of political philosophy, intelligence, experience, articulateness, etc.

The latter is no small point.  2012 will represent an excellent opportunity to make the case for conservative governance, but just making better policy choices only takes you so far.  Far better is to be able to make those choices and explain convincingly why they are better.  That is to make the case for conservatism intellectually at the same as you demonstrate its superiority.  Or to put it slightly differently, just because liberals place too high a value on being articulate doesn't mean that conservatives should fall into the habit of argueing that it doesn't matter.  An argument, as Michael Palin pointed out, isn't the automatic gainsaying of what the other person has said (yes it is).
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/275591/my-rick-perry-problem-and-ours-jonah-goldberg

Note: The Michael Palin reference is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQFKtI6gn9Y

Football, preseason ticket prices

I made the mistake of watching The Sports Reporters on ESPN this morning and their discussion of preseason football.  These are always the same: the starters don’t play, the games are of poor quality, and yet the fans are still paying a full ticket price for the game.  And this is trotted out as an argument in favor of getting rid of these games.  But a moments thought should tell you that the ticket price argument is really, really silly.

That fans are being forced to pay regular season ticket prices for inferior preseason games is true only in the accounting sense, but is otherwise nonsense.  It isn’t a surprise or unexpected that the preseason games are as they are, so the season ticket holder—and that’s who we are talking about—is getting what he pays for.  The fan is paying a single price for a season of football.  Just like a golfer pays a single green fee for 18 holes of golf, of which there maybe non-descript par threes and spectacular par fives.

Non-Club season ticket prices for the Chicago Bears average $112.  So the season ticket holder is paying $1,120 for eight regular season games and two exhibition games.  If the fan places $0 value on the exhibition games he isn’t getting ripped off since he knows what he is going to get from those contests.  What he is doing is paying $140 for the eight regular season games.  What it says on the ticket is irrelevant.

A more interesting line of inquiry is why teams price this way.  The first preseason game for Tampa was blacked out because it wasn’t sold out, much to the annoyance of its fans.  If preseason games were priced to clear, with a corresponding increase in prices for regular season games you would think everyone would be better off.

Jonah Goldberg - Travelin'

I have a feeling that Jonah Goldberg's jokes don't do anything to help his reputation, but I guess that's his problem (I'd probably advise him to tone it down a bit, to paraphrase "there's no hope for thems that make others laugh").  Anyway, he's been traveling with his daughter and posted the following on the return trip:

"I’m aiming to lay my head on an Omaha pillow tomorrow night, which means about 12 hours of driving. And given that my daughter is only 8, that means at least 10 of those hours are going to require me behind the wheel."

Now that's funny. http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/275296/homeward-bound-jonah-goldberg

Note: Travelin' in the title is a reference to the great Modern Jazz Quartet song.

Keynesianism and the stimulus

A Keynesian economics is of course central to the stimulus spending which we saw in '08 and will perhaps see again as the economy continues to go nowhere.  There is some question as to whether this approach actually worked in the 30's, a recent study by some academics at UCLA argued that the New Deal programs actually prolonged the depression rather than brought us out of it as is popularly taught in schools.

But beyond that question is the assumed universality of the Keynesian solution. It is like those in case of a fire break glass ideas, i.e. in case of a recession, increase government spending.  Thus, Moynihan in 1981 is asking a question via an observation that is especially pertinent to today:

"Keynesian economics was a huge idea that swept through the universities of Britain and this country in the 1930s by purporting to explain how the Great Depression came about, how to get out of it, and most important of all how to avoid another [it also promised a greater role for economists which probably didn't impede its sweep through the universities - me]....It was brilliant but it was flawed.  Central to Keynesian thought was the idea that modern industrial economies oversave and that as a result, large resources of capital and labor end up unused.  The Keynesian answer was to overspend.  For the government that is to overspend.  Enter the deficit as public policy.

In a curious way, this message was reinforced by the maturing of the industrial economy.  By this I mean nothing more complicated than that railroads, steel mills, and the assembly lines finally all got built.  Until then saving--the forgoing of consumption--was absolutely necessary in order to make those investments.  Now, those investments having been made, they could only return a profit if people commenced to consume their products.  The advertising business began in earnest.  Someone invented the installment plan.  The Federal  government began to guarantee home mortgages.  The logic our economy, as of our reigning economics, also decreed: overspend.       

9/25/81 (page 438) DPM A Portrait in Letters of an American Visionary

It isn't necessary here to agree with Moynihan's causation.  The point is that Keynesianism is premised on over-saving but the economy has transitioned to a different state.  We now over-spend not just at the level of government but privately.  So why are we still looking to Keynes for the solution?

Peter Altenberg - destroying a man

From the essay on Peter Altenberg:

"There are only two things that can destroy a healthy man: love trouble, ambition, and financial catastrophe.  And that's already three things, and there are a lot more."

page 17, http://www.amazon.com/Cultural-Amnesia-Necessary-Memories-History/dp/B00509CSJM/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1314325870&sr=1-1