Having read so many negative reviews of it, I was reluctant to try this book. But when I saw it prominently displayed in the local library, I decided to give it a shot.
The criticisms claimed that Hillary blamed everybody but herself for her pitiful campaign performance. While she does mention the interference by Comey and by the Russians, to me she does in fact take responsibility for the bad campaign.
She covers in detail the major decisions made by her and her staff over the course of the campaign, beginning with her announcement of her candidacy on April 12, 2015. What stands out is that she was so focused on policy decisions that she ignored the basic requirement that a candidate must connect with the voters. She doesn't have to overtly admit to this, because it is obvious from her description of how she went about her campaign.
Every time an issue arose, she tried to explain what policies she thought were best to address the issue. It turns out that the voters, for the most part, are not interested in detailed policy issues, but rather are interested in picking a leader to head the country for the next four years. Voters want a candidate who can speak to their deepest concerns, not in a remote, academic way, but in a way that demonstrates that the candidate really cares about them. In a survey in which voters were asked "which candidate do you feel is on your side", a pathetic 12% said it was Hillary. She simply had no ability to connect with people, because of her icy, aloof, humorless, and charmless demeanor.
In the book she writes in a more personal way than she ever campaigned in. She shows that underneath the icy demeanor there really is a living, breathing human being. Too bad she couldn't have shown more of this side of herself during the campaign.
Monday, December 31, 2018
Thursday, December 27, 2018
"Bias", by Bernard Goldberg
I read this book practically nonstop, the only break coming at 9:20 P.M., when I finally dragged myself off the couch to go make some supper. Goldberg writes in a very readable style, and the subject matter was obviously of great interest to me.
Goldberg's thesis is that the three network newscasts all have a liberal bias. He starts with one particular story, the bias of which is quite clear. This was a report of Steve Forbes' flat tax proposal during the 1996 presidential campaign.
Goldberg wrote an op-ed which appeared in the Wall Street Journal, criticizing his network for its bias. The reaction to this was truly horrendous. Many of his colleagues would no longer speak to him. Dan Rather was furious.
The irony of all this is that the CBS 60 Minutes show had become famous for featuring corporate whistleblowers. But now that there was a whistleblower in its own ranks, a different set of principles seemed to apply.
Goldberg's reporting assignments dried up, but he was allowed to continue to work at CBS for a few years, until he could retire quietly and draw his pension.
Personally, I decided about 30 yeas ago that the network newscasts were a bunch of crap, and I haven't watched any since. My beef had nothing to with the liberal bias which many perceived, but rather with the superficiality of the newscasts. John Chancellor was right on point when, in an interview, he said that he often wished he could close his newscast with "For more information, consult your daily newspaper". (A few years later I also gave up on local newscasts, which had become little more than crime and disaster reports.)
The evils of identity politics come through lout and clear in Goldberg's writing about affirmative action. He says that "News executives are always saying we need out staffs to look more like the real America. How about if those reporters and editors and executives also thought just a little more like the real America?"
This emphasizes a big problem with the whole "diversity" obsession. What about diversity of thought? For example, there is a big push for diversity on the Supreme Court. And yet, what kind of diversity do we have when the court, until recently, consisted of six Catholics and three Jews? What about some representation for the Protestants? The idea that individual ethnic groups are monolithic in their viewpoints is absurd. Our true need is not for affirmative action crating racial and ethnic diversity, but for an honest effort to promote diversity of thought within an organization.
Goldberg's book is an important attempt to call attention to serious problems in our TV news. Kudos to him.
Goldberg's thesis is that the three network newscasts all have a liberal bias. He starts with one particular story, the bias of which is quite clear. This was a report of Steve Forbes' flat tax proposal during the 1996 presidential campaign.
Goldberg wrote an op-ed which appeared in the Wall Street Journal, criticizing his network for its bias. The reaction to this was truly horrendous. Many of his colleagues would no longer speak to him. Dan Rather was furious.
The irony of all this is that the CBS 60 Minutes show had become famous for featuring corporate whistleblowers. But now that there was a whistleblower in its own ranks, a different set of principles seemed to apply.
Goldberg's reporting assignments dried up, but he was allowed to continue to work at CBS for a few years, until he could retire quietly and draw his pension.
Personally, I decided about 30 yeas ago that the network newscasts were a bunch of crap, and I haven't watched any since. My beef had nothing to with the liberal bias which many perceived, but rather with the superficiality of the newscasts. John Chancellor was right on point when, in an interview, he said that he often wished he could close his newscast with "For more information, consult your daily newspaper". (A few years later I also gave up on local newscasts, which had become little more than crime and disaster reports.)
The evils of identity politics come through lout and clear in Goldberg's writing about affirmative action. He says that "News executives are always saying we need out staffs to look more like the real America. How about if those reporters and editors and executives also thought just a little more like the real America?"
This emphasizes a big problem with the whole "diversity" obsession. What about diversity of thought? For example, there is a big push for diversity on the Supreme Court. And yet, what kind of diversity do we have when the court, until recently, consisted of six Catholics and three Jews? What about some representation for the Protestants? The idea that individual ethnic groups are monolithic in their viewpoints is absurd. Our true need is not for affirmative action crating racial and ethnic diversity, but for an honest effort to promote diversity of thought within an organization.
Goldberg's book is an important attempt to call attention to serious problems in our TV news. Kudos to him.
Monday, October 29, 2018
An Exciting Endgame Adventure
About a month ago I came across a wonderful column in the Spring, 2007 issue of Chess Horizons. The column was entitled "Half-point Theft", written by Derek Meredith. The author gives the reader an endgame position and then analyzes it from the points of view of seven classes of players, from Class E clear up to Master.
The key position of interest is this: white has K on f5, R on h2, P's on a4, b3 and c4; black has K on a2, B on b2, and P's on a5 and c5. The author opined that in this position black could block off the white rook with his bishop, and start capturing the white pawns. Consequently, he had varied earlier in order to avoid getting to this position.
However, I realized immediately that after 61 Rh3 Ka3 62 Ke4 Kb4 63 Kd5, black's attempt to "build a bridge" with 63...Bc3, loses easily to 64 RxB! KxR 65 KxP KxP 66 Kb5.
The author correctly points out that in the key position 61 b4!! wins. However, this is a move which only a computer would find; it is doubtful that any human would ever find it. More realistic is to try to find a white win even if black avoids the blunder 63...Bc3??
The key position of interest is this: white has K on f5, R on h2, P's on a4, b3 and c4; black has K on a2, B on b2, and P's on a5 and c5. The author opined that in this position black could block off the white rook with his bishop, and start capturing the white pawns. Consequently, he had varied earlier in order to avoid getting to this position.
However, I realized immediately that after 61 Rh3 Ka3 62 Ke4 Kb4 63 Kd5, black's attempt to "build a bridge" with 63...Bc3, loses easily to 64 RxB! KxR 65 KxP KxP 66 Kb5.
The author correctly points out that in the key position 61 b4!! wins. However, this is a move which only a computer would find; it is doubtful that any human would ever find it. More realistic is to try to find a white win even if black avoids the blunder 63...Bc3??
My first try in this regard, playing as white against the Stockfish computer, went as follows: 61 Rh3 Ka3 62 Ke4 Kb4 63 Kd5 Bc1 64 Rh8 Kxb3 65 Kxc5 Kxa4 66 Rb8 Bf4 67 Rb1 Be5 68 Kd5 Bh2 69 c5 Ka3 70 c6 a4 71 Ke6 Bc7 72 Kd7 Bh2 73 c7 BxP 74 KxB Drawn
The problem here is that 74...Ka2 75 Rb7 a3 76 Kc6 Ra1 77 Kc5 a2 78 Kc4 is stalemate. The salient point is that the white rook by itself cannot win against the black king plus a-pawn; rather, the white king needs to be close enough to help out.
What is amazing is that it only needs to be one move closer! Say the white king was on c4 instead of c5, after 77...a2. Play could then continue 78 Kb3 (giving the black king a move) Kb1 79 Rh7! And now, black cannot promote to a queen because of the mate on h1. Consequently, he must promote to a knight. Play continues 79...a1(N)ch 80 Kc3 Ka2.
Now we have a position that I spent a fair amount of time looking at to find a win. Knight vs. Rook is normally a draw, but I felt sure that in this position, with the knight trapped in the corner, there had to be a win. I'm embarrassed to say that I had to finally give the position to a computer, and the winning move turns out to be the waiting move 81 Rb7! This simple move puts black into zugzwang, as any move allows white to either mate or capture the knight. White's 81 Rb7 represents a martial arts type of concept, using your opponent's aggression against him. The "aggression" in this case is the fact that the rules require black to move. If he could pass, white would have no win, as black would simply shuffle his king back and forth between a2 and b1.
Armed with this knowledge, I sought a line in which white's king didn't stray so far from the a1 corner. The solution was simple: use the rook to shepherd the c-pawn down the board, rather than the king. Using this approach, I was able to beat Stockfish rather easily.
But then I wondered about a different black move 63. Instead of 63...Bc1, what if black played 63...Bd4, guarding the c-pawn? Play could then continue 64 Kc6 Bg1 65 Rh7 Kxb3 66 Kb5!, and white should win from here.
All in all, I had the key position set up on the desk in my den for three solid weeks, and kept coming back to the position, searching for the truth in the position. And a very satisfying three weeks it was!
Monday, October 22, 2018
Jian Ghomeshi
Just when I thought things could not get worse, now we have the pathetic case of Jian Ghomeshi, who the New York Review of Books allowed to submit a long article, a la the John Hockenberry essay in Harper's, wallowing in self-pity over being outed for his sexual predations.
The response was overwhelming, as numerous readers, mostly Canadians, responded with letters condemning the magazine for running such an article, which showed no regard for the many women whom Ghomeshi has abused.
The essay was not quite as pathetic as the Hockenberry article, but it was close. Ghomeshi's self-pity involved his status as being of Iranian descent, while Hockenberry claimed pity as a disabled person. Neither statuses justify the serial abuse of women. When are men going to realize this, and when are publications going to stop publishing such garbage?
The response was overwhelming, as numerous readers, mostly Canadians, responded with letters condemning the magazine for running such an article, which showed no regard for the many women whom Ghomeshi has abused.
The essay was not quite as pathetic as the Hockenberry article, but it was close. Ghomeshi's self-pity involved his status as being of Iranian descent, while Hockenberry claimed pity as a disabled person. Neither statuses justify the serial abuse of women. When are men going to realize this, and when are publications going to stop publishing such garbage?
Monday, October 15, 2018
Hockenberry's Diatribe
When I was in college in the 60s, the two liberal magazines of note were Harpers and The Atlantic Monthly. The latter, now called The Atlantic, is still going strong, but Harpers seems to have gone off the deep end.
I realized this recently when I picked up the latest issue in the library, and read a 7,000-word essay by disgraced NPR host John Hockenberry. I kept waiting for some salient point to this diatribe, but none ever emerged.
Rather, it was simply an embarrassing wallow in self-pity by Hockenberry, who seems unable to come to grips with the fact that he cannot find another job in journalism. He repeatedly refers to the fact that he is in a wheelchair, as a consequence of an accident at age 19, an accident which rendered him paralyzed below the waist, and impotent. He seems to think he could not possibly be guilty of workplace sexual harassment since he is in a wheelchair and impotent, and he resents being lumped in with the "real" sexual harassers such as Harvey Weinstein.
Harpers exercised incredibly poor editorial judgment in running this worthless drivel. There is nothing unusual about a 60-something person being out of work and unable to find another job. I know a guy who was disciplined for telling a woman "you've got a run in your stocking". He was made to go to sensitivity training, and he estimates he lost $250,000 in lost raises, promotions, and bonuses. He ended up unemployed and in his 60s. No magazine ran an article on his plight.
Then there is the example of William Shirer, who was unjustly fired from his job with CBS radio in 1947, even though he had the highest-rated news commentary show on radio (a huge black mark against Edward R. Murrow, the jerk who fired him). Shirer could not find another job to support his family, but instead of spending the rest of his life wallowing in self-pity, as Hockenberry is doing, he undertook to write a book about Hitler and the Third Reich, based on his first-hand knowledge of Germany in the 30s. The result was The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.
If Hockenberry feels so mistreated from being viewed as a sexual harasser, he should look on his firing as simply being an issue of an inability to get along with his co-workers. HR people tell us that more firings are based on an inability to get along with others, than on an inability to do the job. Hockenberry should spend his energies in psychotherapy to work through his many issues.
Hockenberry repeatedly veers off into irrelevant tangents, like the role of romance in 2018. He wants us to believe that his problems stem from society's lack of appreciation for the role romance should play in our lives. But if you read the accounts of the women who were harassed, it is obvious that Hockenberry's actions had nothing at all to do with romance. We are talking about suggestive emails sent over a period of many months to a woman who had been a guest on his show, without the woman ever once responding. We are talking about co-workers who complained about his rude and bullying tactics, only to lose their jobs while Hockenberry kept his. Hockenberry does not understand that romance is a dance performed between two willing participants, not something one party inflicts on another against her will.
In the end, we are looking at a guy who was simply a bully to his co-workers, to the extent that everybody at the radio station tried hard to avoid contact with him. The mystery isn't that he is out of work, but that it took the radio station ten years to rid itself of his toxic presence.
10/17/18 update. Since writing the above I have come across a piece analyzing Hockenberry's essay. The piece, written by Mike Pesca, is scathing in its denunciation of Hockenberry.
He says that Hockenbery's essay "makes you realize why savvy defense attorneys seldom allow their client to testify in their own defense". He calls it "logorrhea as apologia". He says that "the Hockenberry essay fails completely and erases any doubt that even a charitable reader like me might have had about the ego, intention, or basic good sense of the man".
Pesca gives us certain new details about Hockenberry's tenure at the station, such as that even before the harassment charges surfaced, Hockenberry :"missed interviews, arrived unprepared, and even fell asleep on the job"; and such as that he was "such an asshole" that he was frequently excluded from staff meetings because he was "so abusive and deleterious to the production of the show"; and such as the fact that his yearly compensation is known to have been over $400,000.
Pesca concludes with his advice to Hockenberry: "If you really want to rehab your name, image, and marketability, maybe you should drop the pitiable first-person essay....The only practical route to absolution is to put your head down and work. You probably won't get paid for your initial efforts, but you could post all your stories publicly, and perhaps eventually demonstrate to the world that you still have value as a professional. Otherwise this caterwauling, solipsistic, tendentious argument for leniency won't simply document your exile--it will cement it".
To all of which I give a hearty "Amen"!
I realized this recently when I picked up the latest issue in the library, and read a 7,000-word essay by disgraced NPR host John Hockenberry. I kept waiting for some salient point to this diatribe, but none ever emerged.
Rather, it was simply an embarrassing wallow in self-pity by Hockenberry, who seems unable to come to grips with the fact that he cannot find another job in journalism. He repeatedly refers to the fact that he is in a wheelchair, as a consequence of an accident at age 19, an accident which rendered him paralyzed below the waist, and impotent. He seems to think he could not possibly be guilty of workplace sexual harassment since he is in a wheelchair and impotent, and he resents being lumped in with the "real" sexual harassers such as Harvey Weinstein.
Harpers exercised incredibly poor editorial judgment in running this worthless drivel. There is nothing unusual about a 60-something person being out of work and unable to find another job. I know a guy who was disciplined for telling a woman "you've got a run in your stocking". He was made to go to sensitivity training, and he estimates he lost $250,000 in lost raises, promotions, and bonuses. He ended up unemployed and in his 60s. No magazine ran an article on his plight.
Then there is the example of William Shirer, who was unjustly fired from his job with CBS radio in 1947, even though he had the highest-rated news commentary show on radio (a huge black mark against Edward R. Murrow, the jerk who fired him). Shirer could not find another job to support his family, but instead of spending the rest of his life wallowing in self-pity, as Hockenberry is doing, he undertook to write a book about Hitler and the Third Reich, based on his first-hand knowledge of Germany in the 30s. The result was The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.
If Hockenberry feels so mistreated from being viewed as a sexual harasser, he should look on his firing as simply being an issue of an inability to get along with his co-workers. HR people tell us that more firings are based on an inability to get along with others, than on an inability to do the job. Hockenberry should spend his energies in psychotherapy to work through his many issues.
Hockenberry repeatedly veers off into irrelevant tangents, like the role of romance in 2018. He wants us to believe that his problems stem from society's lack of appreciation for the role romance should play in our lives. But if you read the accounts of the women who were harassed, it is obvious that Hockenberry's actions had nothing at all to do with romance. We are talking about suggestive emails sent over a period of many months to a woman who had been a guest on his show, without the woman ever once responding. We are talking about co-workers who complained about his rude and bullying tactics, only to lose their jobs while Hockenberry kept his. Hockenberry does not understand that romance is a dance performed between two willing participants, not something one party inflicts on another against her will.
In the end, we are looking at a guy who was simply a bully to his co-workers, to the extent that everybody at the radio station tried hard to avoid contact with him. The mystery isn't that he is out of work, but that it took the radio station ten years to rid itself of his toxic presence.
10/17/18 update. Since writing the above I have come across a piece analyzing Hockenberry's essay. The piece, written by Mike Pesca, is scathing in its denunciation of Hockenberry.
He says that Hockenbery's essay "makes you realize why savvy defense attorneys seldom allow their client to testify in their own defense". He calls it "logorrhea as apologia". He says that "the Hockenberry essay fails completely and erases any doubt that even a charitable reader like me might have had about the ego, intention, or basic good sense of the man".
Pesca gives us certain new details about Hockenberry's tenure at the station, such as that even before the harassment charges surfaced, Hockenberry :"missed interviews, arrived unprepared, and even fell asleep on the job"; and such as that he was "such an asshole" that he was frequently excluded from staff meetings because he was "so abusive and deleterious to the production of the show"; and such as the fact that his yearly compensation is known to have been over $400,000.
Pesca concludes with his advice to Hockenberry: "If you really want to rehab your name, image, and marketability, maybe you should drop the pitiable first-person essay....The only practical route to absolution is to put your head down and work. You probably won't get paid for your initial efforts, but you could post all your stories publicly, and perhaps eventually demonstrate to the world that you still have value as a professional. Otherwise this caterwauling, solipsistic, tendentious argument for leniency won't simply document your exile--it will cement it".
To all of which I give a hearty "Amen"!
Monday, September 24, 2018
The Kavanaugh Nomination and Varieties of Conservatism
For the past few years I have been reading the top two conservative magazines, National Review and The Weekly Standard, in an attempt to understand how the conservative mind works. One thing which stands out is that the word "conservative" means many things to different people, and it certainly is not a monolithic movement, just as Communism was not during the cold War.
Certainly we know from past experiences that the direction a Supreme Court nominee takes once confirmed cannot be predicted with any accuracy. One of the reasons that this will, I think, be the case with Kavanaugh is that applying conservative principles to Supreme Court decision-making is especially haphazard.
For example, take the Roe v. Wade decision. Many who oppose Kavanaugh are fearful he would vote to overturn this precedent. I say the fears of this are overblown. One reason is that a true conservative respects precedent, and tends to dislike change. As a principled conservative, Kavanaugh will, I believe, have a healthy respect for precedent.
And then there is the further point that the true conservative is one who opposes the intrusion of government into the personal lives of its citizens. Hence, the true conservative would feel that government has no business making reproductive decisions for its female citizens. Those who advocate for governmental intrusion into the private lives of its citizens, as in dictating who we are permitted to marry, etc., usually call themselves conservatives, but in reality they are liberals because they are advocating for greater governmental control.
Other important areas on which there is much disagreement among conservatives include the scope of executive power, the scope of agency regulation of our lives, and how much deference to be shown to the states.
Certainly we know from past experiences that the direction a Supreme Court nominee takes once confirmed cannot be predicted with any accuracy. One of the reasons that this will, I think, be the case with Kavanaugh is that applying conservative principles to Supreme Court decision-making is especially haphazard.
For example, take the Roe v. Wade decision. Many who oppose Kavanaugh are fearful he would vote to overturn this precedent. I say the fears of this are overblown. One reason is that a true conservative respects precedent, and tends to dislike change. As a principled conservative, Kavanaugh will, I believe, have a healthy respect for precedent.
And then there is the further point that the true conservative is one who opposes the intrusion of government into the personal lives of its citizens. Hence, the true conservative would feel that government has no business making reproductive decisions for its female citizens. Those who advocate for governmental intrusion into the private lives of its citizens, as in dictating who we are permitted to marry, etc., usually call themselves conservatives, but in reality they are liberals because they are advocating for greater governmental control.
Other important areas on which there is much disagreement among conservatives include the scope of executive power, the scope of agency regulation of our lives, and how much deference to be shown to the states.
Monday, August 6, 2018
Should Urban Meyer Be Fired?
The CBS Sportsradio talking heads were pretty much unanimous in condemning Urban Meyer over this past weekend. At first their condemnation was based on his denial to the press that he knew about his assistant's alleged violence against his wife. The thought was that Meyers's wife knew about it, due to text messages sent to her, therefore Urban must have known about it also.
Then it turns out that Meyer did know about the allegations, and followed required protocol in reporting it to his superiors. But did the talking heads rethink their position? Of course not. They continued to mindlessly dump their vitriol on Meyer, regardless of the fact that he had acted properly.
As my old Contracts Law prof used to say, "we have to keep our thinking straight". First, this situation involves an alleged victim who is an adult. What this means is that there is no analogy to the Penn State situation, or any other situation involving abuse of children. Police reports were made in many of the instances of alleged abuse (apparently nine total), and the authorities never proceeded to file charges. What this means is that the authorities were well aware of the situation, so there was no need for Meyer to report it.
The second thing to keep in mind is that, once Meyer made the AD aware of the situation, it was up to the AD to take whatever action he felt necessary to ensure the integrity of the OSU program. Meyer's job is to win football games, it is the AD's job to oversee the program.
The third thing to keep in mind is that perhaps the woman involved wanted to keep the whole issue private. If that is the case, it is not up to Meyer, or the OSU athletic program, to infringe on her privacy by publicizing the issue. She is an adult and perfectly able to pursue whatever remedies are appropriate. Her parents and other extended family were aware of her situation, and surely would have insisted on action if she was truly in danger.
The assistant's misdeeds, whatever they were, did not infringe on his ability to do his job.
For all these reasons, I say to the lamestream media, get a clue!
Then it turns out that Meyer did know about the allegations, and followed required protocol in reporting it to his superiors. But did the talking heads rethink their position? Of course not. They continued to mindlessly dump their vitriol on Meyer, regardless of the fact that he had acted properly.
As my old Contracts Law prof used to say, "we have to keep our thinking straight". First, this situation involves an alleged victim who is an adult. What this means is that there is no analogy to the Penn State situation, or any other situation involving abuse of children. Police reports were made in many of the instances of alleged abuse (apparently nine total), and the authorities never proceeded to file charges. What this means is that the authorities were well aware of the situation, so there was no need for Meyer to report it.
The second thing to keep in mind is that, once Meyer made the AD aware of the situation, it was up to the AD to take whatever action he felt necessary to ensure the integrity of the OSU program. Meyer's job is to win football games, it is the AD's job to oversee the program.
The third thing to keep in mind is that perhaps the woman involved wanted to keep the whole issue private. If that is the case, it is not up to Meyer, or the OSU athletic program, to infringe on her privacy by publicizing the issue. She is an adult and perfectly able to pursue whatever remedies are appropriate. Her parents and other extended family were aware of her situation, and surely would have insisted on action if she was truly in danger.
The assistant's misdeeds, whatever they were, did not infringe on his ability to do his job.
For all these reasons, I say to the lamestream media, get a clue!
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