ProfessorBainbridge.com

Heitz Cellars Martha's Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon (Napa Valley) 1992

Tasted blind. Big nose. Mint, cedar, currants, leather, and dried fruits. Yummy. Obviously California in its robustness and size. Grade: A/A-

Bloated Fantasy

Via SF Signal, I found a link to a great critique of modern fantasy, in which Sean Harnett opines:

Heroic fantasy used to be slim, once. Goddamn but it used to be lean and muscular, like the heroes and swordsmen it celebrated. It used to be dangerous. It used to tell us stories about ourselves that never appeared in the pages of respectable literary journals (with their stories of divorcees and martinis and quiet, stately dysfunction) but were nevertheless more truly a reflection of the times in which we lived, and the yearnings that impelled us.

No longer: heroic fantasy has grown fat. Bloated. We're not talking a few extra pound around the waist, here: we're talking serious glandular problems, shopping at special stores for the larger individual. We're talking about Robert Jordan and George R. R. Martin and David Eddings, with their three or five or ten book series, each volume in the series containing seven or eight or nine hundred pages of plodding prose, dull exposition, unresolved plot threads and attempts to conjure up a sense of wonder so badly executed as to signal the final, lingering demise of the genre

Hear, hear! (Candidly, I even got bogged down for a while about midway through the widely - and appropriately - praised Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. I'm very glad I eventually finished it, but a good editor could have lopped a few hundred pages off it without hurting the book one bit.)

Interestingly, Harnett absolves the usual suspect of blame:

Tolkien is no more to blame for modern fantasy writing than Jane Austen is to blame for Mills and Boons novels.

Instead, Harnett provocatively argues that Michael Moorcock is the true villain of the story:

Moorcock has convinced a generation of writers that the key to success is to marry his rate of output with Tolkien's bulk.

Ouch. Anyway, if you're looking for high quality fantasy of manageable length, might I suggest Charles Stross' contemporary fantasy The Family Trade, which clocks in at a relatively svelte 304 pages? (Be warned, however, that Stross apparently plans The Family Trade to be just the first in a multi-volume series of the sort Harnett damns.)

John Paul

CNN is reporting that the Holy Father received the "last rites," more properly known as the "Sacrament of the Annointing of the Sick."

Reynolds on Schiavo

Instapundit is disappointed in his allies:

It's not hypocritical for liberals like Kaus, or Bill Clinton, to ignore federalism, because they've never cared about it. I thought that conservatives did.

Where Reynolds and I differ on the Schiavo legislation, is that I see federalism and limited government as means to an end, while he seems to see them as ends in and of themselves. I find his to be a fairly typical worldview among some libertarians, who make a fetish out of federalism and small government without regard to whether they actually contribute towards the public good in a given case.

Update: In response to an observation by Orin Kerr, I've updated the post to say "some libertarians," to clarify that I'm only being critical of those who insist on, if you will, federalism �ber alles.

Bloated Fantasy

Via SF Signal, I found a link to a great critique of modern fantasy, in which Sean Harnett opines:

Heroic fantasy used to be slim, once. Goddamn but it used to be lean and muscular, like the heroes and swordsmen it celebrated. It used to be dangerous. It used to tell us stories about ourselves that never appeared in the pages of respectable literary journals (with their stories of divorcees and martinis and quiet, stately dysfunction) but were nevertheless more truly a reflection of the times in which we lived, and the yearnings that impelled us.

No longer: heroic fantasy has grown fat. Bloated. We're not talking a few extra pound around the waist, here: we're talking serious glandular problems, shopping at special stores for the larger individual. We're talking about Robert Jordan and George R. R. Martin and David Eddings, with their three or five or ten book series, each volume in the series containing seven or eight or nine hundred pages of plodding prose, dull exposition, unresolved plot threads and attempts to conjure up a sense of wonder so badly executed as to signal the final, lingering demise of the genre

Hear, hear! (Candidly, I even got bogged down for a while about midway through the widely - and appropriately - praised Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. I'm very glad I eventually finished it, but a good editor could have lopped a few hundred pages off it without hurting the book one bit.)

Interestingly, Harnett absolves the usual suspect of blame:

Tolkien is no more to blame for modern fantasy writing than Jane Austen is to blame for Mills and Boons novels.

Instead, Harnett provocatively argues that Michael Moorcock is the true villain of the story:

Moorcock has convinced a generation of writers that the key to success is to marry his rate of output with Tolkien's bulk.

Ouch. Anyway, if you're looking for high quality fantasy of manageable length, might I suggest Charles Stross' contemporary fantasy The Family Trade, which clocks in at a relatively svelte 304 pages? (Be warned, however, that Stross apparently plans The Family Trade to be just the first in a multi-volume series of the sort Harnett damns.)

Richard Gere is Making Sense

Yes. Really. I'm as surprised as you are, but here's an excerpt from his Wall Street Journal column on Tibet and China:

Europe and Washington's most substantial means for pressure [on China] is certainly the weapons embargo, which they imposed on China after the Tiananmen Square demonstrations in 1989. Yet the EU is now seriously considering lifting the embargo--it should not. Sixteen years later, China still has not substantively addressed the human rights abuses that led to the embargo, and, in fact, many of those involved in the 1989 demonstrations continue to linger in prison. In Tibet itself, severe restrictions on freedom of expression, association and religion remain in place. This record should not be rewarded with weapons exports.

All the more so since China enacted an anti-secession law providing it with the legal authority to attack Taiwan should it proceed further toward self-rule. The timing of this legislation contains a lesson for the EU. It was unthinkable until now because China lacked the capability to launch an invasion across the 100 miles of the Taiwan Strait. However, Beijing has invested billions of dollars in Russian- made submarines, destroyers and other weapons. Therefore, lifting the embargo could accelerate Beijing's buying spree and enable even greater Chinese aggression.

If Gere gets it, why does't Chirac?

Dominus (Napa Valley) 1985

Very claret-like, but with California power. Cedar, fruit leather, and currants. Outstanding with plenty of longevity. Grade: A

More on Buffett

Reader and law professor Larry Cunningham sent along a copy of the Berkshire Hathaway press release that responds to the NY Times hatchet job s tory on Warren Buffet from the other day. Berkshire asserts:

Berkshire Hathaway does not expect any restatement of its financial reports. Berkshire Hathaway and Gen Re have been actively cooperating with the ongoing reinsurance investigation. In connection therewith, a number of Berkshire/Gen Re representatives have voluntarily given interviews to the investigating authorities, and Mr. Buffett will shortly do so as well.

The release also identifies a number of factual inaccuracies in the press accounts.

I'm no fan of Warren Buffett's politics, as long-time readers know, but I hate to see the MSM smearing the guy by innuendos. Maybe there is a problem that the SEC and Spitzer will turn up, but at this point the press is just speculating.

Larry Cunningham, by the way, is editor of The Essays of Warren Buffett : Lessons for Corporate America, a very fine collection of the famous letters Buffet includes in Berkshire Hathaway's annual shareholder reports, and Introductory Accounting, Finance, And Auditing For Lawyers, which I regard as the best introduction to the legal and accounting aspects of corporate disclosures in the post-Sarbanes-Oxley world.

UCLA Rules Tax Law

Paul Caron has extracted the data on tax professors from the SSRN top authors database. Interestingly, UCLA School of Law has 6 of the top 25 tax authors on its faculty, which is twice the number of the next highest ranked school (Stanford). Curiously, however, my friend and famed law school ranking guru Brian Leiter omitted UCLA from his list of schools that have improved of late in "the broad 'Business Law' area." Of course, perhaps Brian did so because he knows UCLA already was a business law powerhouse?

Tarring Buffett

File this one under Another Reason Not to Trust the MSM. Today's NYT runs a story about an ongoing investigation of some subsidiaries of famed investor Warren Buffett's Berkshire hathaway under the following headline:

Investigation of Insurance Puts Buffett in a Spotlight

You have to wade through the piece to the 5th paragraph before learning that nobody has brought any charges against Buffett. Indeed, the piece doesn't present a single fact that would lead any reasonable person to suspect that Buffett had anything to do with the alleged improprieties at an Irish subsidiay. Yet, the headline and opening paragraphs create the contrary impression. To be sure, maybe the investigation will eventually show he's involved, but at this point NY Times reporter Timothy L. O'Brien's piece is nothing but a hatchet job.

Curiously, the usually measured Orrin Judd seems to assume Buffett is guilty until proven innocent.

The LA Mayor Race

Listening to the Los Angeles Mayoral Debate this evening while driving home, I was reminded of my favorite line from Master and Commander:

Do you not know that in the service one must always choose the lesser of two weevils?

The problem is that I can't decide whether Antonio Villaraigosa or James Hahn is the lesser weevil. Jim Hahn has not exactly covered himself in glory during his 4 years as mayor (except for hiring Bill Bratton as police chief). Villaraigosa is a smarmy opportunist. Neither came across as very smart. Sigh.

So I'm still undecided. Indeed, as Henry Kissenger supposedly said of Saddam Hussein and Ayatollah Khomeini during the Iran-Iraw War:

It's a pity they can't both lose.

Starr on Schwarzenegger

Kevin Starr is probably the best - and most balanced - commentator on California politics and culture. His LA Times column on Arnold Schwarzenegger is typically brilliant and easily justifies wading through the Times' incredibly intrusive registration process. A quick taste:

Sacramento's wastelands are littered with the bleached bones of legislators and pundits who, unable to move beyond a cliche-ridden dismissal of a bodybuilder-movie-star- turned-governor, have underestimated the raw intelligence and honed intellect of the Austrian immigrant at California's helm.

Starr goes on to develop a persuasive case that Schwarzenegger is motivated by four big ideas, which Starr believes resonate with most California voters:

1. A commitment to self-instruction, linked to confidence in an individual's capacity to discern for himself and suspicion of received wisdom and business as usual.
2. A preference for direct democracy (even if it takes celebrity status to energize that democracy).
3. The idea of reform, as linked to history, destiny and the ideal of "the champion."
4. A paradoxical blend of free-market economics with a residual Euro- Catholic respect for government as social democracy and safety net.

It's that last idea that makes me almost wish Arnold could run for President. I've come to believe that Arnold is striving to integrate the teachings of Milton Friedman and John Paul II in a way that no other US politician has done. If he succeeds, it would put some real content into the phrase "compassionate conservatism."

BTW, as to # 2, I've had some very negative things to say California's initiative process. In another LA Times op-ed, Carol Platt Liebau acknowledges the problems with the initiative process by claims conservatives ought to embrace it anyway:

The initiative process can be problematic for conservatives. When misused, it affronts the representative democracy envisioned by the founding fathers, a system in which the people are supposed to pay attention to legislative decisions and vote lawmakers out of office if they disagree with them. It can force the electorate to grapple with legislative matters better handled by elected officials. And the initiative is particularly damaging to state Republicans because it allows voters to vent their frustrations at (predominantly Democratic) elected officials without having to adopt more sweeping political changes.

But despite their reflexive discomfort with a populist tool like the initiative, conservatives must realize that there are times when it enables voters ignored by their representatives to press principles that conflict with the interests or the ideology of the dominant political class. In California, that means the initiative often can advance conservative causes. ...

The four initiatives Schwarzenegger is trying to qualify ? merit pay for public school teachers, spending controls for state government, a different pension system for public employees, and a redistricting scheme using retired judges ? similarly contradict the interests of the majority of the Legislature. All four are worthy of conservative support.

I'm not sure the ends justify the means, but I think she offers a perspective wortth considering. certainly, if all four make it on the ballot in some reasonable form, I will be voting for them - which neither my state assemblman nor senator would. (But, then again, I didn't vote for either of them.)

The Savings Rate

In today's WSJ($), economist David Malpass explains something that's always bugged me; namely, why the US national savings rate is so low.

This may not seem all that significant, but I'm sure all of us at some point have channel surfed past some MSM account of how the sky is falling because Americans don't save enough:

With each hike in interest rates, those predicting a bad ending to the 40-month U.S. expansion look expectantly for consumer spending to flag. One of their main worries is the premise that we will run out of savings, especially if foreigners pull the plug or asset prices fall. ...

... We apologize for our "low savings rate" and "dependence on foreigners," turn our foreign economic policy over to the International Monetary Fund's economic gurus, and contemplate consumption tax increases, forced saving, protectionism, and a weaker dollar (with the consequent increase in inflation).

As I understand Malpass' column, however, the problem isn't that Americans save too little; it's that the government is measuring the wrong things:

The personal savings rate doesn't really measure saving in the real sense. It subtracts a broad measure of consumption, $8.5 trillion in 2004, from "disposable personal income," a subset of household cash flow, and labels the difference "personal savings." It was recorded at only 1.1% of disposable income in 2004, or $101 billion. It would have been even worse if not for the $25 billion Microsoft dividend in December, which counted as income in 2004. Without it, the personal savings rate would have been only 0.9%, nowhere near enough to finance a fast-growing economy if it were a true measure of saving.

So it looks like the "personal savings rate" is at least one thing I can cross of my list of big picture problems to worry about late at night. (But I wonder what the boys at Marginal Revolution made of it.)

US News Short-changes UCLA

Brian Leiter uses the US News' law school rankings' shocking mistreatment of UCLA (tied at 15th with Texas) to illustrate a rather fundamental problem with the rankings' methodology:

The most worrisome aspect of the new US News data ... is that it is now clear that the academic reputation survey component of the ranking is completely unhinged from any actual change in either faculty or student quality at the law schools in question. (A stunning example: UCLA, which made several significant faculty appointments last year, saw no change in its academic reputation score. Other schools in similar situations even saw their academic reputation scores decline! In general, the pattern is clear: the "peer reputation" scores among academics are basically gravitating towards the typical overall US News rank of the school, i.e., the "reputation" is being determined by the typical US News ranking which, itself, purports to be based in significant part (25%) on reputation. ...)

Dissent and Catholic Scholarship

Over at MoJ, Rob Vischer raises some tough questions about the extent to which Catholic scholars may properly dissent from the magisterial teaching of the Church in their scholarly work. As I acknowleged in a post over there, I have mostly finessed the problem in my own work.