Discipline and Punish, Libertarian Mix

I was disappointed following this Reason link: Does the Free Market Punish Racism?
I half-expected to find they were making Steven Farron's "Prejudice is Free" argument, that racial discrimination isn't tenable in a free market:

The reason is a fundamental economic principle, which is obvious to common sense. If an individual or business, while engaging in an economic activity—hiring, promotion, lending money—considers any non-economic factors, the person or business will suffer economically—even if the non-economic factors were considered unconsciously.

Alas, it was a video, of some libertarian minx asking this question of anti-Sterling protestors outside Staples Center. The piece opens with a clip of a black speaker declaring the Clippers "our team" to be "repossessed", and the question of property rights is thus dispatched without commentary from Reason. (The opening shot is hilarious--a woman holding a sign saying "Racism is Against the Law"). Likely having had difficulty getting black picketers to expound on Austrian v Keynesian distinctions, the Reason babe ditches that tack to commiserate with the negroes about their "real problems", police brutality and drug laws. "Yeah, it's the Man, man!" Libertarians are so cute on Race.

Language, Language

 L'affaire Sterling has moved fast, and speed kills. The metaphorical highway is littered with the overwrought and under-thought. But some of the hysterics have been downright hysterical.

Here's the Times Picayune soothing our fears of racist contamination with the promise of decay and mortality:

After all, Sterling is a jerk whose time on earth and brains are noticeably dwindling before the nation's eyes...

Good riddance to the "old man" and his generation is a theme, and Harry Siegel of the Daily News here makes sure the second part of the equation isn't lost--we are the moral superiors of our fathers because racism and black people:

We can all take a moment and pat ourselves on the back for not being as horrible as this appalling old man.

Harry reminds me of some low level manager giving the weekly meeting. "Oh and hey, White America, give yourselves a hand for those quarterly numbers. Way to go guys!" Wait a minute. Not "as horrible"? So we are somewhat horrible? I'm not following.

Here the master, Adrian Wojnarowski, gives us a textbook example of adjectival overload arising from the need to emphasize our personal revulsion:

...despicable revelations tumbling out of the hateful heart of Donald Sterling...

And of course hangin's too good for 'im. Here's Kenny Smith at 8:04 of this particularly painful broadcast of Inside the NBA (Ernie Johnson, the battered-looking white guy, even dons a bow tie for the supplications):

You think about this—remember when Ron Artest ran into the stands? And the reason they suspended him for a year is because the biggest ticket holders, the people who feel safest, pay the most expensive seats, and if you feel unsafe in the most expensive seats, around the league then why would you do it? So now, you have a culture of people uncomfortable, coming into your arena now, around the world, not just with the Clippers, because they feel uncomfortable, so you have to suspend him, more, than Ron Artest, a guy who ran into the stands and hit his fans, so, if you look at what that is, symbolically, I just think that you’re making the whole league uncomfortable and everyone who comes uncomfortable, to the entire NBA.

Not the New Plantation; The New Post-Soviet Oligarchy

Steve Sailer points out the hypocrisy of the NBA, a league that features an impressive, real-life  Russian oligarch as an owner, making such a show of revulsion regarding Donald Sterling's tepid, private "racism".

So when I see the sudden jockeying of members celebrity oligarchs to carve up the expected spoils, people who command billions and conference with presidents, I can't help but think the future Clippers owner, whoever it is, is performing a role similar to those post-Soviet oligarchs; a sort of post-American oligarch, grabbing a bargain at the fire sale of an empire suddenly up for grabs because the rules changed overnight.

As for Sterling, who probably thought he'd safely bought into the post-American empire, even if he can legally hold on to his team he's dead--no one will play for him.

President Wrong Metaphor

So our "literary" president thinks racism occasionally "percolates up", does he? It's down there in the murk, you see, sometimes rising (accompanied by the Jaws theme, no doubt) to break the placid surface. But, how does the mass dissemenation of a private, illegally recorded conversation constitute percolation? Isn't more like an aggressive drilling down to find "racism"? And why is there, apparently, no faction out there in favor of privacy? Why is there no respectability allotted the argument that one's private life should remain private, even when dealing with the tender sensibilities of black Americans and liberals?

American Cheese

I just found out today is National Cheese Day. I had to go online to verify that wasn't just another name for Martin Luther King Day (it isn't).

First they came for the librarians...

Steve Sailer likes to point out the irony of the Los Angeles Times' dutiful support for illegal immigration driving the subsequent collapse of English literacy in Southern California, meaning fewer and fewer people are left who care to read the Los Angeles Times. Well, put this one in the Linguistic Self Displacement category:

2014 will mark the beginning of a massive change for liberal talk radio across the country. In New York, WWRL 1600 AM will flip to Spanish-language music and talk, throwing Ed Schultz, Thom Hartmann, Randi Rhodes, and Alan Colmes off the air.

Couldn't have happened to a more deserving crew.

Christmas Lullaby, Arvo Part


Estonian Lullaby, Arvo Part