Death Of A Car Salesman

by Patrick Appel

Rich Cohen traces the ups and downs of an industry. A taste:

When I decided to write a story about the salesmen of cars, used and new, it was because I believed the car salesman to be a preacher in the church of the American dream. What is a car salesman if not a cleric who, like a minister or rabbi, sells the vision and moves the product? I believed such a story would be funny, as I would cram it with all the dealership stories I have accumulated in my life of buying and selling and being angry about cars. But as I went along, visiting dealerships, reading articles and books, then watching congressional hearings, the world changed. First gas prices went up, then credit disappeared, then the economy collapsed. (It went down like a camel goes down—first the front, then the ass.) The auto dealerships were hit early and hard. As the papers filled with stories about an industry on the edge of collapse, the salesman suddenly seemed less like a hateful hawker of false promises than like a sad relic. This American character, no less archetypal than the logger or trapper, was dying. (There is blood on the showroom floor!) The cowboy circa 1910, at the closing of the frontier. I went out like Rickels, full of put-downs and zingers, but came back like Cormac McCarthy, a disillusioned man trying to capture an American type as it fades into oblivion.

Partianship Rises

by Patrick Appel

Conor Friedersdorf is surprised by those on the left who have defended Van Jones. I agree with this:

[J]ust as the grassroots right traffics in its paranoid nonsense, the grassroots left has subsections of people who are sympathetic to militant Marxism, 9/11 trutherism, and other idiocies that don’t seem to hurt their rise in that movement. This is why the average American is deeply suspicious of career political activists and people who rise via both parties into low level administration posts. They’re right to be! A lot of true believers climb ideological ladders in this country and wind up in government, leaving the average citizen upset because they suspect there are plenty of folks who aren’t ideological extremists, but are nevertheless qualified to fill those posts — they just don’t happen work in circles with connections to a partisan political world where loyalty to the cause is prized above all else.

Africa Feeds The World?

by Patrick Appel

Elizabeth Chiles Shelburne explains how the continent could become our next breadbasket:

Much of the world’s arable land is being farmed already, so the lion’s share of the increase will need to come through higher yields. In many places, yields can increase—if prices rise high enough to make investment in more-intensive agriculture worthwhile. Still, much of the developed world is approaching the ceiling of what is cheaply possible. Sub-Saharan Africa, despite its long history of food insecurity, is one place where yields could increase dramatically; agricultural basics such as good seed and fertilizer would go far in a region that the green revolution bypassed. “We could increase yields in sub-Saharan Africa threefold tomorrow with off-the-shelf technology,” says Kenneth Cassman, a well-regarded agronomist who researches potential yields. The problem is the continent’s long history of corruption, poor infrastructure, and lack of market access.

Moore Attacks Capitalism, Self

by Patrick Appel

Xan Brooks uncritically praises Michael Moore's new movie. The gist of what sounds like an idiotic flick:

Moore's conclusion? That capitalism is both un-Christian and un-American, an evil that deserves not regulation but elimination. 

Balko quips:

So for consistency’s sake, Michael Moore's new film won’t be advertised, marketed, or otherwise promoted by crass capitalist machinations, right? And I assume we’ll all be able to see it for free?

The Best Of ‘Best Of Wikipedia’

by Chris Bodenner

Of the past week at least. Ever heard of Operation Snow White?

…was the Church of Scientology’s name for a project during the 1970s to purge unfavorable records about Scientology and its founder L. Ron Hubbard. This project included a series of infiltrations and thefts from 136 government agencies, foreign embassies and consulates, as well as private organizations critical of Scientology, carried out by Church members, in more than 30 countries; the single largest infiltration of the United States government in history with up to 5,000 covert agents.

Drapetomania?

…was a supposed mental illness described by American physician Samuel A. Cartwright in 1851 that caused black slaves to flee captivity. Cartwright described the disorder—which was “unknown to our medical authorities, although its diagnostic symptom, the absconding from service, is well known to our planters and overseers”—in a paper delivered before the Medical Association of Louisiana[ that was widely reprinted.

Dunning-Kruger Effect?

…is an example of cognitive bias in which “…people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it”. They therefore suffer an illusory superiority, rating their own ability as above average. Stephen Colbert, a talk show character played by actor Stephen Colbert, exhibits a confident and unaware ignorance typical of the Dunning-Kruger effect.

Except Orly Taitz isn't faking it:

The Colbert Report Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Womb Raiders – Orly Taitz
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Protests

Good News From Africa

by Patrick Appel

I missed this Charles Kenny piece from late July. A snippet:

The continent of Africa has seen output expand 6½ times between 1950 and 2001. Of course, the population has grown nearly fourfold, so GDP per capita has only increased 67 percent. But that's hardly stagnation. Indeed, only one country in the region (the Democratic Republic of the Congo) has seen GDP growth rates average below 0.5 percent up to this year — the run-of-the-mill growth rate when Malthus was writing in early 19th-century Britain. And though there have been all too many humanitarian disasters in the region, the great majority of Africa's population has been unaffected. The percentage of Africans south of the Sahara who died in wars each year over the last third of the 20th century was about a hundredth of a percent. The average percentage affected by famine over the last 15 years was less than three tenths of a percent. Africa has seen child mortality fall from 26.5 to 15 percent since 1960 and life expectancy increase by 10 years.

Obviously there is still much work to be done, but some indicators are at least moving in the right direction.

(Hat tip: Tyler Cowen)

Tactics Vs. Strategy

by Patrick Appel

In his column this week, Andrew remains confident that Obama will get healthcare reform done:

Obama has a solid majority and can achieve all this with Democratic votes alone. So why is he in such trouble? Partly it is that this kind of reform rightly stirs scepticism, and Obama has allowed a hapless and divided Congress to take the lead, muddying the message. Partly it is that the hard right is becoming more and more extreme and its fears have eclipsed the hopes of Obama’s supporters. But the most critical part, in my view, is the public understanding that after two massive bank bailouts and a vast stimulus package, with two still-intractable wars, the US cannot afford even the modest 10-year trilliondollar package Obama is proposing. And Obama’s inability to cut spending while the economy is so fragile means he is constrained from offering fiscal reassurance.

So, tactically, Obama is on the defensive. Strategically? Again, he is stronger than he now appears. When the health insurance bill is passed and elderly Americans are not rounded up into concentration camps and granny isn’t subjected to euthanasia, and when many uninsured people gain a peace of mind they have never felt before, and people become able to change job without fearing loss of insurance, the Republican scare tactics may come to seem absurd.