Blayne Sucks

So, apparently my last update on the Great American Novel Challenge was a bit prophetic. Things have only become crazier over the last two months, and I have now missed my third month in a row. I am still planning on finishing the challenge, and I’m aiming to finish by July 4th, 2010. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to post a review today, and I likely won’t be able to post one until after my upcoming paper deadline. In lieu of a book review this month, I will leave you with this hilarious, truly American video.

This post is a part of The Great American Novel Challenge. If you’re interested in taking part in the challenge, feel free to jump right in next month.

I’m almost embarrassed to include Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (there is no ‘The’ in the title) in my list simply because doing so is an admission that I hadn’t read it before. Then again, reading great books that we probably should have read by now is partly purpose of the Great American Novel Challenge. Make no mistake about it: Mark Twain’s Huck Finn is a genuinely great American novel.

I should start this review where Mark Twain started his book. The first page contains this notice:

NOTICE

Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.

By the Order of the Author,
Per G. G., Chief of Ordinance

In some ways this notice tells you all you need to know about Mark Twain. It’s humorous, yet half-serious. It sets the reader up to find their own inner Huck Finn because if you do any of these things, then you’re breaking the established rules of the book. Of course, if you don’t see a motive, moral, or plot in the book, then why read it at all?

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn picks up where The Adventures of Tom Sawyer left off. It was conceived as a sequel, but it stands alone. Readers don’t have to have read Tom Sawyer prior to reading Huck Finn. In fact, Mark Twain struggled for eight years to write and publish Huck Finn and the books are considerably different from one another. The preface to my edition of the book explains that Huck Finn comes at the midpoint of his career and “stands on a line between the upbeat humor of the early books and the bitterness of the later ones.” I can’t vouch for the accuracy of this statement, but I can say that Huck Finn delicately balances humorous storytelling with serious social commentary.

The book is ostensibly the story of a young boy’s adventures on the Mississippi river narrated after the fact by the boy himself. The story starts with Huck Finn in his hometown being raised by a widow and her sister. They try to civilize him, but Huck Finn doesn’t particularly like the idea of being forced to do things in a ‘civilized’ way. Eventually, Huck’s abusive father manages to bring Huck back to his place where Huck escapes, fakes his own death, and begins life floating down the Mississippi. While on the river, he meets up with Jim, a runaway slave previously owned by the widow and her sister.

The middle of the book is largely episodic. Each episode can be demarcated by the return to the tranquility and safety of floating down the river on a raft. These episodes are mini-commentaries on a particular part of American culture. For example, there’s an episode in which Huck and Jim run into a gang trying to steal from a wrecked riverboat. Another episode involves a family feud similar to the archetypal Hatfield-McCoy feud. Yet another episode details the exploits of two grown con men as they ply their trade. The episodes serve as satires of the many ways that we become slaves to society. We become slaves to the desire to get rich quick. We become slaves to our deep-seated animosities. We become slaves to unthinking religion. Twain is calling for us to think for ourselves, act as individuals, and take action appropriately.

The over-arching plot of the book is the fate of Jim, the runaway slave. Huck Finn’s individualism and friendship for Jim battle with his upbringing and society’s expectations for him as he decides whether or not he will actively help Jim escape to freedom. It’s worth noting how Huck dismisses inaction as complicity in the predictable result and unworthy of himself. This in and of itself is a commentary on the society in which Huck Finn finds himself. Throughout the book Huck views civilization as something akin to a brainwashed malaise that everyone has accepted. Perhaps this is why his relationship with Jim and the actions he takes as a result of it are so important.

The ending of the book and the resolution of the main plot is bittersweet, which seems almost inevitable because of the book’s structure. There’s simply no river left to for Huck to escape to. Huck and Jim are both freer as runaways than they ever were before the story began or after it comes to an end. The strength of the book is the middle rather than the ending, and I won’t comment further on the ending simply to ensure that I won’t ruin it for anyone who hasn’t read the book.

Twain’s home-spun style starting with the NOTICE on the first page and continuing throughout the book was particularly comforting for me because I have so many fond memories of visiting my extended family in North Carolina as a boy. They all spoke with strange accents and expressions that seemed so magical to me having been raised in the midwest. There was comfort, humor, and seriousness in those conversations that seemed unguarded and real. That’s what reading this book felt like to me, but I suspect that everyone will find some “southern comfort” in Twain’s story telling.

Twain is famous for walking that thin line between sly humor and moral outrage even to those who have not read his books. His dry wit and incisively worded commentary remain relevant for any free society because he is constantly reminding us that freedom and individual liberty aren’t achieved so much as they are maintained. If we aren’t vigilant in analyzing for ourselves the outcomes of our action or inaction, then we will become slaves to something. Twain points this out so masterfully and with such unique style in Huck Finn that I am forced to conclude that Huck Finn is the most American of the books I’ve read for this challenge thus far.

Five books down; eight to go!

My books in the challenge thus far are:
July 2009: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1925)
August 2009: Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe (1852)
September 2009: The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner (1929)
October 2009: For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway (1940)
November 2009: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (1884)

One of the first things I learned about baseball was that the umpire is extremely important to the integrity of the game. If the ump doesn’t honor the game by trying to call balls and strikes as consistently and accurately as possible, then it’s not worth playing because no one would know what to expect from pitch to pitch. Although both consistency and accuracy are important, consistency is more important than accuracy because every ump has a slightly different strike zone, but if they call things the same way on both teams, then the game is fair. Both teams agree on this; it’s not even up for debate. If umpires didn’t aim for consistency, then baseball would be a game about trying to convince the umpires to call pitches your way.

During his confirmation, the current Chief Justice of the United States said, “My job is to call balls and strikes not to pitch or bat.” It’s fair to ask: Do baseball’s roles for consistency and accuracy hold true for governments as well as umpires? At some level, is it more important that governments treat people as consistently as possible rather than as accurately as possible according to any one of the many different political positions citizens might have? Clearly accuracy is important, both in both baseball and governing. Umpires get fired if they aren’t at least accurate to some degree. A political system that disenfranchises half its population is too inaccurate to be considered fair no matter how consistent it is. However, at some level of marginal return, is it more important to be consistent than accurate?

Let’s look at two cases. First, consider the bailout of AIG. In mid-September of last year the U.S. Government poured billions of dollars into AIG in an effort to save the company from bankruptcy. Just a week earlier though, the U.S. Government declined to bailout Lehman Brothers, which was operating under similar circumstances. Second, consider the recent bankruptcy proceedings for Chrysler and General Motors. In the Chrysler bankruptcy, secured creditors are getting 30 cents for every dollar owed. In the General Motors bankruptcy, secured creditors are being paid in full. Secured creditors are guaranteed by law to be first in line, so it’s not crazy to say that these creditors were screwed when the Supreme Court decides not to hear the inevitable lawsuit. It’s not unreasonable to label this as a “deadly sin” in the well-settled area of bankruptcy law. I’m not even sure it’s hyperbole to say that this is the end of capitalism as we know it. It is, at the least, inconsistent governing, and I’m not the only asking for an explanation.

It’s easy to be distracted by debates about accuracy. For example, some may argue that secured creditors don’t have as strong a position as intimated by others. That’s a debate about accuracy: which position was right according to some standard. Debates about accuracy are important, but aren’t debates about consistent governing more important at some level? There were secured creditors in both cases, so why were the results different?

The main benefit of consistency is that it allows us to know what to expect. In February 2008, the U.S. Government decided to bailout Bear Stearns. At the time, economists like Russell Roberts wondered publicly if this was setting a bad precedent. Essentially, he disagreed with the decision to bailout Bear Stearns, but thought that the real harm was “the encouragement of recklessness and irresponsibility” down the road. This position disagrees with the accuracy of a particular government action and assumes consistency in future government actions. Precedent, whether good or bad, only has meaning if the government operates consistently.

The cases I’ve mentioned seem strikingly similar on the facts, and yet, they had distinct, different outcomes. As a result, they set no precedent. If we can’t be completely accurate, wouldn’t it help to at least be consistent? In fact, the only precedent that they might set is one of inconsistency regardless of party affiliation. The Lehman Brothers / AIG case was under the Republican Bush administration; the Chrysler / GM case was under the Democratic Obama administration. And yet, they were both handled just about as inconsistently as possible. Unfortunately, this may be the only kind of consistent governing we can expect.

I have seen the new Star Trek movie twice, once on opening weekend and once, in IMAX, the following weekend. In short, I thought it was fantastic, and I would encourage everyone to see it. In this post, I will provide a rambling postmortem / braindump on what I thought worked, what I thought didn’t work, and a bit of the big picture. If you are interested in a more traditional review, you can find some aggregated reviews here, and I think this one most accurately reflects my feelings. Before I go any further though, I want to start with this short disclaimer:

This post contains spoilers. Do not read further if you have not seen the new Star Trek movie and you are planning on doing so (though at this point I have to ask: why are you waiting?).

Read the rest of this entry »

John Stossel had another great special entitled “Bailouts and Bull” that takes on topics ranging from the recent spate of massive government bailouts to the current reality of the American dream. Other topics include medical marijuana, privatization of the highway system, universal pre-kindergarten education, and the US-Mexico border. Previously, I posted about his Politically Incorrect Guide to Politics, which focuses on similar themes. If you liked that, then you’ll absolutely love this show. Here’s a great (short) introduction to the show (and a more complete interview with Drew Carey):

Part 1 of the show:

Part 2 of the show:

Part 3 of the show:

Part 4 of the show:

Part 5 of the show:

Part 6 of the show:

Larry Lessig spoke at Google about his Change Congress movement on February 19th of this year. Although I respect Larry Lessig deeply for the incredible way that he articulates his concerns, I can’t agree with his approach to improving trust in the government and fighting corruption in Congress. Essentially, he believes that money engenders mistrust, even when it doesn’t actually affect policy decisions. He thinks we need to radically change the way funding for elections works in the government by making elections publicly funded. The goal of this is to reduce corruption in Congress by allowing the public to trust their politicians, or at least to eliminate a major barrier to trusting politicians. If you are interested, I have embedded the video below:

My primary problem with his view is best visible around the 49.5 minute mark, which is during the Q&A session after the presentation. The questioner asks about other forms of money influencing policy. Lessig’s response is essentially to say that other forms of money are acceptable so long as the direct tit-for-tat is eliminated. He claims that the change he desires isn’t as impossible as we might think. He is alright with money being spent to advocate for a political position so long as the money is not being used to bribe a particular politician. Essentially, he wants to remove any possibility that a politician will be paid for a political position.

This is an extraordinarily fine distinction to make simply because there are so many different forms of “payment.” He talks about politicians choosing a political position because a lobbiest would fund a swimming pool for them if they did. This is a relatively black and white case that almost everyone can agree is bad. However, what about a policy conference in Hawaii? Does the answer change if the conference is held in Lincoln, Nebraska? Certainly it should be legal for an organization to cover travel expenses to enable face-to-face discussions with legislators, but where do you draw the line? When does an important policy conference turn into a junket?

The problem is not just about trying to split hairs over what constitutes a direct payment to a candidate. There are so many other ways that money affects an election. Special interest groups can buy issue ads, which are effectively unregulated since all they have to do is pass the pathetic magic words test. Celebrities have a megaphone through which they can speak. How much money would it cost a random soccer mom from Iowa to match the impact of Oprah’s endorsement? Powerful CEOs, Union leaders, academics, and other non-politicians can sway an election by speaking, organizing rallies, putting together publicity events, and generally campaigning for their chosen politician. At what point does this “speech” count as “money?”

The money quote (pardon the pun) of his entire presentation is part of his answer to that same question (transcribed from his speech):

Until you focus on how this economy has changed in the last 12 years and realize that all we’re talking about is just getting us back to 40 years ago, like the balance of 40 years ago, then I think it’s not such an extraordinary, radical change.

Lawrence Lessig

Richard Nixon, 37th President of the United States

Ahh, the balance of 40 years ago, when Richard Nixon had just been sworn into office. Truly, such is the picture of trust in the government. Perhaps I’m just taking advantage of a verbal miscue (though if you’ll listen to his talk, I don’t think I’m taking this out of context), but more broadly, has there ever been a time when any government was not, quite simply, just generally corrupt? These are human institutions with built-in human flaws.

Let me be clear, I agree with Lessig when he says that we can’t trust our politicians. I might even be convinced to support some form of public funding for elections. I simply disagree that public funding of elections will affect corruption in government in any revolutionary fashion. There are just too many ways that “money” can influence an election. I’ll paraphrase something I first heard years ago on an episode of The West Wing: “Money in politics is like water on cement; it finds every crack and crevice.”

I’m not saying anything new here. Perhaps Tim Lee said it best:

Lessig seems to think there once was, or someday can be, a pristine political process untainted by “money in politics.” But that represents a fundamental misunderstanding of what the political process is and how it works.

Timothy Lee

Government, not money, is the problem. The whole point of politics is to apply one rule to a group of people who disagree about what to do. Of course the process is going to be corrupt; that’s the only possible outcome. The political elite always get better outcomes than the average citizen. So what is a better solution? If you can’t eliminate corruption in government, then you should limit government as much as possible. Limited government is the best, the only, way to reduce corruption in government.

Our government requires transparency to operate as a functional participatory democracy. It’s not optional. If we do not have an informed citizenry, then we don’t have a participatory democracy. The Sunlight Foundation considers improving transparency to be a key reason for their existence. Larry Lessig wants to improve transparency in congressional funding to Change Congress. Hugo Teufel, the former Chief Privacy Officer at the Department of Homeland Security, considers transparency to be the most important principle when it comes to privacy in the war on terror.

The first step in transparency is access, so let me ask a simple question: Are U.S. Government documents copyrighted? More specifically, Are State or Federal Laws protected as copyrighted works in and of themselves? Oregon decided to use copyright law to protect their statutes from being posted online. In this case, Carl Malamud of Public Resource fought back. If your intuition is telling you that laws are in the public domain and not subject to copyright, then you are correct for the most part, but the situation is really quite a bit more complicated than that.

To investigate a bit of this complication, consider the way the government publishes the law. It’s done in a piecemeal fashion, one law at a time. Yes, there is some structure to the publishing process, but you don’t have to read much of a law to realize that there are a zillion cross references to other laws. This doesn’t even begin to include case law, which clarifies the interpretation of a legal text. Ed Felten poses the scenario thusly:

Suppose I gave you a big stack of paper containing all of the laws ever passed by Congress (and signed by the President). This wouldn’t be very useful, if what you wanted was to know whether some action you were contemplating would violate the law. How would you find the laws bearing on that action? And if you did find such a law, how would you determine whether it had been repealed or amended later, or how courts had interpreted it?

Companies like Thompson West have made billions of dollars publishing information to guide lawyers that must answer questions like this. Typically, these summaries and indices are protected under copyright law as extra-value content. Thus, for virtually all practical purposes, U.S. Government Documents are copyrighted. If you are interested in more information on this, I would highly recommend James Grimmelman’s primer on the subject.

Of course, it’s not just legal texts that are technically in the public domain, but remain plagued by access problems. Court records are also public documents. Once again, this is critical to the very structure of our government. The words “secret government trial” should send chills down the spine of any American. However, as Joe Lieberman recently argued, they are still “behind a paid firewall.” (This firewall apparently comes complete with a government website from 1999.) Carl Malamud of Public Record is once again on the case.

Side note: Carl Malamud is running a campaign to be nominated by the Obama administration as the Public Printer of the United States. He’s garnered the support of Larry Lessig, Tim O’Reilly, and the EFF. (Not to mention Canadians like Cory Doctorow and Tim Bray!) You can read more about his campaign at Yes We Scan.

Technology is changing the landscape of transparency in government documents rapidly. Many of the problems are already solved. The cost of maintaining a website “containing all of the laws ever passed by Congress (and signed by the President)” is orders of magnitude cheaper than managing all this information in print. Ed Felten’s group at Princeton has argued extensively for an open government model that would just give us the data.

Yesterday the Obama administration announced that Vivek Kundra will be the “Chief Information Officer” for the United States. If you are interested in more information on Kundra, I would strongly recommend this excellent podcast on transparency in the Obama administration from the Technology Liberation Front. They discuss their thoughts on the position, his experience as the CTO for the city government of Washington DC, and several other aspects of transparency in the Obama administration.

The future is quite interesting for the development of transparency in government documents. Personally, I think dramatic improvements in public access of U.S. government documents are inevitable, whether they come from individuals like Carl Malamud, corporations like Thompson West, or from the government itself. The only question left is when…

[Update: The Technology Liberation Front posted another podcast today about PACER and accessing online court records. It features Tim Lee, James Grimmelmann, and Steve Schultze. I highly recommend it!]

Last month, Jim Harper started an interesting discussion on regulation around the holidays. Although I was hiding from my computer in an attempt to take a vacation at the time I have finally caught up with the discussion. If you happen to have missed this as well, I think it’s well worth reading.

Jim started the discussion with an excellent blog post over on Cato@Liberty about ‘real’ regulation. If you haven’t read it, here’s a juicy tidbit:

What Burnett meant when she called for a “real” regulator, of course, was “the regulator I can imagine.” The regulators people imagine are foresighted, interested only in the public good, they’re resistant to lobbying, and they run efficient organizations. But these characteristics are simply imaginary.

Tim Lee followed this up with a post on the Technology Liberation Front extending the discussion to regulation of technology. Again, if you haven’t read it, here’s a juicy tidbit:

Too many advocates of regulation seem to have never considered the possibility that the FCC bureaucrats in charge of making these decisions at any point in time might be lazy, incompetent, technically confused, or biased in favor of industry incumbents. That’s often what “real regulators” are like, and it’s important that when policy makers are crafting regulatory scheme, they assume that some of the people administering the law will have these kinds of flaws, rather than imagining that the rules they right will be applied by infallible philosopher-kings.

The FCC is designed to ensure (theoretically) that these bureaucrats are independent, but if you take a look at what is actually happening, then it becomes clear that independence is in many ways imaginary. The FCC’s website describes the organization of the Commissioners as follows:

The FCC is directed by five Commissioners appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate for 5-year terms, except when filling an unexpired term. The President designates one of the Commissioners to serve as Chairperson. Only three Commissioners may be members of the same political party. None of them can have a financial interest in any Commission-related business.

News today that FCC Chairman Kevin Martin will resign on Inauguration Day makes the FCC an even more interesting topic for discussion. With this resignation, Obama will have nominated all five of the serving FCC Commissioners by this summer. Also, it goes without saying that the FCC will be regulating some important aspects of our society, including the Digital TV transition that’s slated for February.

Obama’s choice for FCC Chairman is Julius Genachowski. Wikipedia describes him as “an American business executive with experience in telecommunication and technology issues.” This ideal of not having a financial interest in Commission-related business isn’t starting off well. Of course, that’s Wikipedia, so maybe it’s not trustworthy. Let’s look at Reuters’ description:

Genachowski was chief counsel for Reed Hundt, an FCC chairman under former President Bill Clinton. He also held various positions at Internet search and media company IAC/InterActiveCorp (IACI.O) and several firms investing in technology, including Rock Creek Ventures and LaunchBox Digital.

Again, it sorta feels like this is a man with financial interests in technology. Business Week even lauds his “business sense” as a key benefit that he brings to the table. But let’s take a step back from this individual appointment. I really don’t know much about Genachowski other than what’s been reported in the news, and I certainly don’t want to pick on him as an individual that’s emblematic of the larger problem with “real” regulation.

My point is simply to consider this: Is it really possible to find anyone who has the knowledge needed to help run a regulatory organization like the FCC that doesn’t have a financial interest in Commission-related business? If it isn’t outright provably impossible, then at the very least I think there’s a strong argument to be made that it is impossible. Sure we may wish that it weren’t so, but if wishes were fishes, we’d all be casting our nets. Of course, I’m open to your thoughts in the comments.

Although this was produced a couple months ago now, I wanted to post a link to John Stossel’s Politically Incorrect Guide to Politics. It’s essentially a 45 minute introduction to basic libertarianism (without using big words like libertarianism) and a thought-provoking show about the role government should play in our lives. You can either watch it on the six embedded YouTube videos below or find it here on ABC’s website.

If one were to take a national poll on the most important year in United States history, 1776 would easily be a top contender. Thomas Paine published Common Sense in January. Although not an American, Adam Smith published The Wealth of Nations, which had (and continues to have) extraordinary influence on American financial history. The Continental Congress signed the The Declaration of Independence that summer. Perhaps most importantly, George Washington held together the young and inexperienced “rabble” that was the Continental Army throughout the course of that entire year and eventually through the conclusion of the war in 1783. This is the story told by David McCullough’s novel 1776.

Although 1776 is the first book by David McCullough that I have ventured to read, I had most certainly heard of the author before I began reading it. McCullough is one of the most decorated living historians in America, and I would be astonished if more than a few American readers haven’t heard of him. He has twice won the Pulitzer Prize and twice won the National Book Award. He has also received the highest honor bestowed to American civilians: the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

As a result of the author’s fame and previous success, I had extremely high expectations for 1776 in several areas. First, McCullough is known as a fastidious researcher, so I was expecting the book to provide details on the inner workings of the fledgling American Revolution. Second, McCullough is often praised as an exemplary story teller, and with the material he has to work with in the American revolution, I was expecting something amazing. Third, McCullough used many of his notes originally compiled in writing his biography of John Adams, so I was expecting much of the book to deal with the political relationship Washington maintained with the Continental Congress.

In regard to my first expectation, I was quite pleased with the details found throughout the novel. If anything, these details were the most redeeming aspect of the book to those who already know the story quite well. McCullough goes out of his way to drop some now-famous names of people who were at the time merely rising stars, including Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and Aaron Burr. I was also quite pleased to see many misconceptions dispelled. For example, I grew up learning that the Hessians in the Battle of Trenton were drunk or hungover at the time of the attack. Of course, this has been dispelled in many accounts, as McCullough dispels it here, but it was through this book that I learned the truth of the matter stated plainly.

As to my second expectation, McCullough is certainly a master story teller. Even knowing this beforehand did not prepare me for the fluidity of the book. I was truly surprised at how easy to read it is. It flows so quickly and effortlessly that I found my self reading it in large chunks. One of the primary reasons that I even picked the book up was to find some respite from the large amount of technical reading I have been doing recently, and I am pleased to say that it did not disappoint in the least, even though I was already quite familiar with the major events of the year.

Lastly, I was expecting a focus on Washington’s political discourse with the Continental Congress over the course of the year. This expectation was simply not met. Although there is some discussion of this important relationship, it was certainly not a highlight of the book. Each discussion of the relationship feels unbalanced because the book does not introduce or develop most of the important characters in the Continental Congress. I was left wondering if that is due to the coverage it received in his biography of John Adams, which I will endeavor to read.

My one major disappointment with the book was the artificial framing of the subject. Although 1776 was an extremely important year, it was just one of eight years (1775-1783) that comprised the American Revolution. Quite a few important events are not covered by this book including the winter in Valley Forge, enlisting the aid of France, signing the Treaty of Paris, and George Washington stepping back into the role of a civilian. Perhaps feeling a bit cheated at the missing events was somewhat inevitable. The entirety of the American Revolution itself has been the subject of many books, so I can understand why McCullough would not want to plow the same field all over again. However, I have no doubt that his talents would have made the remaining years and events of the Revolution exceedingly enjoyable stories to read.

On the whole, I can heartily recommend 1776. Owing to its easily accessible nature, it is perhaps best geared towards the average American, but there are certainly details that may interest those more deeply involved in studying history.