All You Need to Know about Historiography

[Arnaldo Momigliano] identified an ethnographic tradition of historians interested in foreign customs and rituals, inspired by Herodotus; a political tradition of historians fascinated by statesmen’s decision making and military successes and failures, inspired by Thucydides; a critical tradition of historians of tyranny, inspired by Tacitus; a national tradition of historians struggling to understand the process of building a coherent state, inspired by Polybius and Livy; an antiquarian strand of writers on laws, rituals, and customs, inspired by Dicearchus and Varro; and a massive body of ecclesiastical history, inspired by Eusebius. 

So Anthony Grafton introducing Arnaldo Momigliano, Essays in Ancient and Modern Historiography (Kindle Locations 135-138). University Of Chicago Press. Kindle Edition.   Grafton continues:   "Each of these traditions had its special contours and its particular uses, and they often collided with one another." (Kindle Locations 138-139).    The whole book is rewarding, but if you want to follow up this particular thread, just download the Kindle free sample.

Provincetown Dogs

Mr. and Mrs. Buce wound up at Provincetown on Cape Cod today, in time for the Dog Appreciation Parade.  It was chance, not plan: re pets, Chez Buce embraces a policy of benign indifference.  But it was good fun, an entertaining way to idle away an afternoon on this community that may very well deserve its claimed identity as the doggiest in the universe. 

The parade itself was actually pretty tame: probably the most remarkable aspect was the post-parade parade of Accords, Camrys, SUVs and other tourist-bearing vehicles stymied behind the parade on Provincetown's (barely) one-way main street.  Even aside from the place, one is struck by the general dogginess of the place and here is what interested me: their equanimity, not just in the face of tourists, but of other dogs.  I didn't see any bared teeth and heard no yapping.  Evidently if there is a whole multitude, the general presence somehow keeps the juices below a boil.  I know this doesn't seem right: we can all stipulate to the menace embodied in a pack of hounds.  Maybe it is the leashes.  Which is to say, if they ever get off leash altogether, we non-canines had better hope those claws cannot rip the skin off a Toyota.

Stoppard's End

Still living on Netflix time, Chez Buce took in a screening the other night of the first two episodes of Ford Madox Ford's Parade's End as rendered by BBC. 

No, wait, that's not right: this is Tom Stoppard's rendition, drawing on the novels by Ford Madox Ford. The distinction is not just some Hollywood agent earning his percentage. No: unlike so many film renditions of classic novels, the one thing this is not is a mere visual accompaniment to a novel you've probably been meaning to read since you left the English Department—an accompaniment which, truth to tell, just won't be a lot of fun if you never kept that promise. Stoppard's presentation is in short, nothing if not free-standing.

But at the same time it is not just a flight of fancy, highjacking the author's name and fame for the purpose of better marketing (right—and just how much marketing pull does Ford Madox Ford enjoy?--ed.). No, Stoppard clearly draws on the novels: in many ways, he's quite faithful. As a playwright he works hard to do justice to one of the lonely monuments of 20^th Century fiction. And while you can perfectly well enjoy the video without the novel, the two do make fruitful companions. It happens that we—Mr. And Mrs. Buce--did do Parade's End—together, as a readaloud-- and just a couple of years back so it is still fairly fresh in our minds. And it's fun to watch Stoppard as he draws it out and gives it his own spin. And in a lot of cases, I think you'd agree that Stoppard actually improves the original by putting an extra spin on something that Ford was too shy or reticent to set out n its original form.

Jaw-Dropping

 Traveling again, but I must pause for a moment of admiration and awe at what passes, by almost universal assent, as one of the architectural wonders of our great nation: Trinity Episcopal Church at Copley Square in Boston.  I must have seen it before--perhaps as long as 70 years ago--but I never gave it sustained attention until yesterday.  I say "almost universal" rather than merely "universal," based on one indisputable item  of evidence: myself.  For my money, this is one of the most gobsmackingly ugly heaps of misbegotten rubble I've ever laid eyes on outside of a combat zone.  It looks like the woman's prison in a knockoff sequel to the Rocky Horror Picture Show.  It looks like a dope dream generated by Mad Ludwig of Bavaria in consort with Isabella Stewart Gardner on a poisonous February morning. It looks like--but perhaps you get the drift.  I'm not a fan, except in the sense of something  so jaw-droppingly misbegotten has to be a source of high entertainment.

I read that the building dates from the 1870s.  I gather it is the third building occupied by this religious community and you'd have to say it was con-veen-ient that the second one burned down just as plans for the third were getting under way (nah, I kid, I kid--I do not suspect the rector of insurance arson).  The whole project does seem--I'm getting serious now--to have been conceived by someone who wanted to show the Europeans that he could go them one better, but who really didn't have a clue as to what European church architecture was about.  The outside is an improvisation mélange of garrets and gables.  The inside is dank as a tomb, but the real problem is that apse: he's fashioned some kind of a half-dome up there, except that in its very halfness, it doesn't do any of the work that a proper dome would have to do.  The consequence is that he has had to impair the face of his own work with massive crosspieces that he seems to have retrieved from the  underpinnings of a giant sleigh.  There are plenty of stained-glass windows but so heavy in competition with their stained-glass medievalism that they do almost nothing to overcome the pervasive gloom.

I suppose one could be diverted by the obvious pride the proprietors take in their heritage and their mission of preservation.   And the truth is, you've got to admire it.  There are some national wonders you just have to accept on their own terms, like the world's deepest hand-dug well; or the Friends of Hopalong Cassidy Birthday Celebration.  Trinity Church occupies a proud and central place in that company and as the tour guides surely say, should not be missed.
 

What's a Joint LIke You Doing ....

This is kind of ancient history but it came up in conversation today so I might as well get some mileage out of it. Anyway--back in the 90s I sat on some committees to recommend candidates for judgeships.  Under some sort of rule, we had to ask the candidate whether s/he had ever done drugs.  Most of the  committee members hated the rule--they thought it was crude, intrusive and unhelpful. But hey, rules are rules.  Anyway, answers tended to fall into three categories:

--The short answer is "no." I'm not bragging, maybe I missed out on something important.  But there you are.

--Well, umm, harrumph, ah, but that was many years ago and the records have been expunged.

--Drugs?  What kind of dumb question is that? I was Berkeley in the 70s!  Of course I did drugs!  I drank the bong water!

For valuable prizes,

--Which is most likely to make a good judge?  

--Which is most likely to get the job?

 

Girls Just Wanna Have Billing

Would it be "Buffy, the Vampire Slayer?"  Or does it go all the way back to Baby Snooks, interpreting the fears and hopes of little Robespierre?   Whatever; at any rate I'm pausing for a moment to savor the principle, not quite universal, that a successful drama has to have at least one all-seeing, all-knowing young female who, well, sees and knows stuff that nobody else in the cast seems to glom onto. 

Surely not the original but no doubt the modern avatar is Lisa ("I probably won't even get into Vassar") Simpson who can talk as an equal with Thomas Jefferson and Bleeding Gums Murphy.  But she's not a patch on Meadow Soprano who can talk as an equal with the biggest badass in New Jersey.  And she probably doesn't have nearly as much fun as Eliza Thornberry, the pigtailed scuba diver whose best friend is a chimpanzee in a tank top.

And so far as I can tell, the tradition isn't nearly over.  We still have Don Draper's daughter Sally who seems to be learning more about the ad business than anyone would really want to know.  And Dana Brody, for whom more may be in store as "Homeland" reaches its finale (not everyone loves her, though).

This is just a lazy evening's work.  Surely there must be more?

Groucho & Co

Mr. and Mrs. Buce have this bud: he's our age, but the poor dear lived a deprived childhood in that he grew up on a ranch and thus did not share our culture of movies.  With the aid of Netflix, we've taken it upon ourselves to rectify this deficiency.  Our latest offering was the Marx Brothers' Night at the Opera, which either is or is not the best of the Marx  brothers 30s spectaculars.  Guest and hosts  at Chez Byce pronounced themselves well satisfied on what was, for me at least, a repeat viewing.  "Repeat," in the respect that I first saw it at the age of about 15 at the Palace Theater in Manchester NH, when I sat gobsmacked and breathless before its irreverent charms.  I should have thought I had seen it a number of times since, though on reflection, perhaps not since my own kid was close to the same age a generation ago.

All of which is by way of saying that I saw things this time that I'd never seen before.  Specifically: how much Marx brothers humor depends on vaudeville schtick, the kind of stuff the brothers would have worked up over an eternity of stomping, hoofing, arm-flapping and suchlike in charmless public venues in nameless and forgettable locales.  I take it from reading some background that this would be the least schticky of the great Marx brothers films--the one Irving Thalberg tried to turn into a musical.  Actually for my money, the musical stuff ain't all that bad: you almost need it as a kind of anti-comic relief.  But it is the vaudeville that comes roaring through.

And another: I suppose no kid would grasp this, but as an old guy I am stunned at how polished these guys are as performers.  Of course this has to be true: stuff this funny can't just happen, no matter how much natural ability lies beneath.

Which brings me to a slightly different point.  Mrs. Buce remarked on how, of the three, Grouch seemed the least memorable, even the least original.  If you knew here, you might not be surprised: she is no fan of smartmouth humor anywhere, and Groucho's style is one just designed to grate on some people. Fine, tastes differ.  But a different point is that Groucho is bound to sound less startling today than he did 60-plus years ago precisely because he has become so march part of the culture.   "and Mrs. Claypool's checks will probably come back in the morning"--now, that was funny the first time you heard it.  "Of course you know this means war!"--that was hilarious.  But they aren't at all clever any more: we all say them all the time.  And the reason they aren't all that clever is that Groucho taught us how to make them into common parlance. By contrast Chico and Harpo depend on a mix of character and physicality that was perhaps a bit less memorable at the time and so less forgettable today.

Next up, Alec Guiness, an Ealing Comedy.  We haven't made the final selection yet.  Mrs. B votes for Lavender Hill Mob, which I suppose is the most famous.  But I still favor the gnarlier, nastier Ladykillers, though definitely without Tom Hanks.

The Economist on Company Size: World's Bigggest Yawn

Honestly, I don't want to give up on The Economist,  but sometimes they seem to be asking for it. Case in point, this week's piece on "The World's Biggest Firms," which, so far as I can tell, is about as much use as the average Buzzfeed Listicle.    That is: they don't lift a finger to explain their methodology but so far as I can tell this is crude market cap: share price times number of shares outstanding.  Which is a  crude, lazy, and at best deeply misleading measure of value.

Yes, I know that everybody uses market cap (except they don't)--but this is the big E, frevvins sakes, the preening cock-o'-the-walk among finance news magazines (so they tell us), taking great pride in its (supposed ) capacity to explain complicated ideas simply.  So would it have  been all that hard to measure value of debt as well as equity--to recognize that everything on the right hand side of the balance sheet is a claim against everything on the lefthand side, and that payments to debt are returns to capital,  not just an expense?

I want to say, "sheesh, I thought everybody knew this by now."  Well, yes and no.  Granted that accountants still talk about "net income" after payments to debt (and, yes,  before returns to equity).  But this is just institutional drag; I really think they know better, and one of these days they' get around to clarifying.  Meanwhile, anyone who has ever sharpied the word "EBIT' on the back of a cocktail napkin know that book accounting is only the beginning, not the end in measurement of value.  And, oh yes, the bankersL: I admit they still talk about "capital" as = "equity," but we have abundant evidence that bankers don't understand debt anyway, now don't we?

And while they were at it, would it have killed them to make another point that they surely understand about market cap--i.e. that is the purest, the most glaring, the most unadulterated fiction?  In the sense that, no company ever (except for the sheerest coincidence) sold for share price times shares outstanding?

Here's a comment I posted over at The Economist website, making essentially the same point.

Read This and Forgert about Burke's Peerage

Still messing around with early English history, I stumble on the datum that the Scandinavian overlords before the Norman Conquest divided England into seven earldoms--decentralized loci of power, probably not fully under the control of their nominal creator.  The tantalizing question: if Harold Godwinson had won the  Battle of Hastings, would "England" thereby have persisted as a loosely related a congeries of loosely related but more or less independent entities?  It's a topic of some interest but I got sidetracked. Wait a minute, earldoms?  That's a Scandinavian term, right, as in "jarl," "chieftain"? 

To that last, there's a short and simple answer: yes.  The term (at least) is an import, pretty much like the people who (in the early days) conferred it and received it.  So the next question would be: when and where did it become domesticated?  And more precisely, are there any more English earls left?

And to that question also, the answer is easy: you  bet.  It turns out that Wiki does a remarkable job of  organizing, grading and candling all the old aristocracy of Britain.  As to earls, it appears we have 20 in the peerage of England alone, another 24 in "Great Britain" (i.e., since the Union of 1707) and another 69 (yikes!) on the list for "the United Kingdom." Evidently the title used to go to retiring prime ministers--scan the list and you find an Attlee, an Asquith, a Lloyd George and perhaps half a dozen others that rattle around in your brain from history class (I guess the first one who did not take up the title would have been Margaret Thatcher, which is just as well--"Earl Maggie" would have been a lot for a nation to bear). 

 The oldest earl in precedence would be the Earl of Shrewsbury of the Second Creation, who won his spurs, or gong, or whatever you call it, in a kind of battlefield commission in the Hundred Years' War--specifically, 1442.  The incumbent is one Charles Henry John Benedict Crofton Chetwynd Chetwynd-Talbot who serves, inter alia, as honorary president of the The Gun Trade Association, and as liveryman of The Worshipful Company of Gunmakers.  There's a Facebook page, with five "likes," one of whom has the surname "Talbot."

Attentive readers will have already reminded themselves that "Earl" is only second banana in the peerage league tables--behind "Duke," from Latin "Dux," and so a term of French provenance that washed ashore with the Normans in 1066 (William, Duke of Normandy--oh, right).  First in precedence here is the Duke of Cornwall, from 1337, but that is rather cheating since the incumbent is Charles Philip Arthur George Mountbatten-Windsor whose day job is as Prince of Wales, where he has to put up with interminable bad jokes about the line from Milton where he says that "they also serve who only stand and wait." Second in order is Edward Fitzalan-Howard, 18th Duke of Norfolk, whose chief lifetime achievement, one may surmise from his Wiki page, seems to be that he served in his youth as a cub scout.  There are only 11 dukes on the English list--i.e., half the number of earls, although there are another two for Great Britain and nine for the United Kingdom.

Dukes and earls don't end it: between duke and earl stands the "marquess," presumably another French derivation, but one on whom there must have been some kind of open season: only one on the English list, six more for the British and just 15 for the UK.  The senior is the Marquess of Winchester, from 1551.  The incumbent is one "Nigel Paulet," of whom Wiki tells us almost nothing except that he now lives in South Africa.   

There are only  there are also "viscounts," according to Wiki--another cheese-eating surrender monkey title.  There's a curious pattern here: only one from olde England, five from "Great Britain," but the UK list offers a stunning 81--evidently as you head home after pubic service, they stuff one in your tote bag.  No, wait, that would be barons, of whom there 38 on the English list, another 24 from Great Britain and a full on the list for the UK, ending in 1964 when they ran out of parchment and decreed in future the comparable title would be the humble "life peer."  Of those there are now 693, which can't be a whole lot smaller than William's field force when he showed up at Hastings in 1066.

Oh, and What-if?   If Harold Godwinson hasd won the Battle of Hastings, would England have remained decentralized?  No, of course not.  Either he would  have centralized it, or some other stronger power would have come along and done the job William of Normandy had failed to do.

Hume on The Calamity of Bad Government

Like his great predecessor Shakespeare, David Hume understood the calamity that is bad government.  Here he sums up the career of Henry III of England

The most obvious circumstance of Henry's character is his incapacity for government, which rendered him as much a prisoner in the hands of his own ministers and favorites, and as little at his own disposal, as when detained a captive in the hands of his enemies. From this source, rather than from insincerity or treachery, arose his negligence in observing his promises; and he was too easily induced, for the sake of present convenience, to sacrifice the lasting advantages arising from the trust and confidence of his people. Hence too were derived his profusion to favorites, his attachment to strangers, the variableness of his conduct, his hasty resentments, and his sudden forgiveness and return of affection.
   
Instead of reducing the dangerous power of his nobles, by obliging them to observe the laws towards their inferiors, and setting them the salutary example in his own government, he was seduced to imitate their conduct, and to make his arbitrary will, or rather that of his ministers, the rule of his actions. Instead of accommodating himself, by a strict frugality, to the embarrassed situation in which his revenue had been left by the military expeditions of his uncle, the dissipations of his father, and the usurpations of the barons, he was tempted to levy money by irregular exactions, which, without enriching himself, impoverished, at least disgusted, his people. Of all men, nature seemed least to have fitted him for being a tyrant, yet are there instances of oppression in his reign, which, though derived from the precedents left him by his predecessors, had been carefully guarded against by the Great Charter, and are inconsistent with all rules of good government. And on the whole, we may say, that greater abilities, with his good dispositions, would have prevented him from falling into his faults, or with worse dispositions, would have enabled him to maintain and defend them.

--David Hume, History of  England v. 2, 64-5 (Liberty ed. 1983).  In fairness to Henry, he arrayed himself against long odds.  He succeeded his father, King John, he of the Great Charter, Magna Carta--at the age of nine (he ruled, not always securely, from 1216 until his death in 1272).  Sources agree that he was, as Hume suggests, pious, hard-working and mostly well-intentioned.  Proving once again that good intentions are only part of the battle. And however ineffectual he may have proven at the task of governance, he left one of the legacies of any English monarch: it was he who (re)built Westminster Abbey, into much the presence that we see now.

Summers at the Fed: A Final Note

I suppose there is nothing staler than yesterday's Fed nominee, but I somehow feel constrained to add a followup to the superplus excess of stories about the virtues and defects of Larry Summers—and an invidious comparison to the present Fed chair, Ben Bernanke.

Here's the thing: the one thing everybody seems to agree on re Summers, friend and foe alike: he's b-r-r-r-illiant, with the particular capacity for coming into a room and just blowing everybody away with his success at mastering his brief (counting “foes,” I exclude people like Rick Perry who simply do not give a damn what they say).

I have no basis on which to quarrel with b-r-r-r-illiant, and I actually liked the little bits of authentic Summers scholarship that I've run across (I even liked the one about exporting pollution costs). But could it to be that Summers' ultimate purpose in life is to blow people away, and that he cares far less about what he says—or even what he achieves—than he does about his success in leaving people gobsmacked by his knack for saying it?

Which brings us to Bernanke. I'm not going to venture a judgment on whether Bernanke is as brilliant as Summers (though I bet Summers would). But the personal traits use to identify him seem almost the opposite of Summers': his modesty, his courtesy, his disposition not to make himself the center of attention. Sometimes in the work of journalists, this can come close to Stockholm syndrome: the reporters who know him best seem almost constrained to write about how the world at large just doesn't understand what a good job Bernanke is doing.

Actually, I'd agree that he has done a good job: probably as good a job as anybody could have been in these perilous times. But he's made his blunders (Not Seeing it Coming certainly counts for a lot).  If he is a success, he is at best a success on balance--but that may be the best we have any right to expect.  At any rate, my immediate point is that insofar as he has accomplished anything, those traits of personal character have a lot to do with it—that it's more than merely cosmetic, that the very qualities that win the hearts of reporters are qualities that make him so effective in his job. If nothing else, the very idea of a Fed chief who is not Full of Himself, must alone be enough to leave his adversaries wrong-footed. Now, is there any other candidate with that sort of personality?

Lear's Shadow

I heard an actor years ago explain that it was impossible to do the “to be or not to be” speech in Hamlet because half the audience was subvocalizing it right along with you. Here's a modern version: you play Lear to the live audience at the Ashland Shakespeare Festival, you can be sure that the enthusiasts are going to go home and fire up Netflix for the Trevor Nunn BBC version with Ian McKellen. And the comparison will not be pretty. The Ashland Lear has its merits, and it's certainly well-intentioned (ooh, you really know how to hurt a guy—ed.). But it doesn't generate awe; way too much like Sanford and Son. In truth I'm not persuaded that McKellen quite nails it either: his Lear is never exactly mad; rather more a spoiled and self-indulgent old bully who realizes too late that he has made a calamitous life choice. But he sure nails the spoiled and self-indulgent old bully part. If there is a real shortcoming here, it may be that McKellen's performance is so good that it rather dominates almost everything else on stage (but a special shoutout for the Duke of Cornwall as rendered by Guy Williams, an actor whose resume otherwise seems oddly evanescent).

For the "Urban Planning" Page of your Underbelly Notebook

I'm trying to find some way to tie these two stories together.  One,  the splash in the Sunday NYT (style section, yet) about how Malibu is being overrun by rehab centers.  And two, the genuinely fascinating Quartz piece on the Hong Kong subway, including the throwaway that the ticket price for the New York subway covers only 45 percent of operating costs (cool it with the italics, OK?--ed.).  Sic, that's operating costs alone--capital spending has to come from elsewhere.  The secret, per Quartz is a  nifty little piece of urbanology jargon called "value capture," which means only that "we own the shops at the end of the line."  I'm a  bit vague on the details here, but isn't that common in transport--squeezing a few nickels out of the ultimate beneficiaries of the service?  That surely is the point of, at least, Hooters Airline, serving your infantile-regression needs almost any place you would want to go provided you leave from Myrtle Beach SC.

Still not finding the link between Hong Kong and Malibu, but I do recall that the great and good in our Nation's Capital made sure that the DC subway would not stop in Georgetown, so as to keep the riffraff away.  But I suppose the riffraff in Malibu arrives by stretch limo.

As they Say, "The Fella Wears His Own Hat"

R.A. Foakes explores a nice point of millinery in discussing Shakespeare's play about the King who would and would not surrender the attributes of his office:

Some have thought that when Lear offers a coronet to Cornwall and Albany at 1.1.140, he takes one from his own head, but Shakespeare and his audience well knew the difference between crowns and coronets: crowns typically had raised sides, were "archée," that is, had between four and eight arches over the circlet, and were topped with an emblem sym

bolic of the power belonging to kings.  Coronets (the word is a diminutive of 'crown') were circlets worn by princes and dukes.  It makes dramatic sense if Lear wears such a crown at the beginning of the play, and gives a coronet intended for Cordelia to Cornwall and Albany; he acts imperiously all through the scene, and if he continues to wear a crown until his exist this would highlight visually the irony of his actions in giving away his power yet seeking to retain his royal prerogatives, 'The name, and all th'addition to a king'.(1.1.137).

--R. A. Foakes, "Introduction" 14-15 to King Lear, The Arden Shakespearem (3d Ser.)  (2004).  

*I tried to find a nice picture of a "coronet," but they kept sending me to the 1966 Dodge, or the ladies' magazine, or to a "cornet," which isn't the same thing at all.

 

G. Wilson Knight is Feeling Cranky this Morning

The critic G. Wilson Knight goes looking for the root of Shakespeare's art in the soil of contemporary Elizabeth society and somehow stumbles on the bones of Matthew Arnold:

We see [Shakespeare's] contemporaries for the most part as busy hack writers of untidy genius, sharing a particular sense of the tragic mood: this sense, such as it is, merging into the mere sense of what the public wanted. They confuse us by the fact that what at first appears to be their 'philosophy of life' sometimes turns out to be only a felicitous but shameless lifting of a passage from almost any author, as those of Chapman from Erasmus. This, indeed, is a habit which Shakespeare shares; he has his Montaigne, his Seneca, and his Machiavelli, or his Anti-Machiavel like the others. And they adapted, collaborated, and overlaid each other   to the limits of confusion. Nevertheless, they do seem, the best of Shakespeare's contemporaries, to have more or less faint or distinct patterns. (I was tempted to use the word 'secret' as an alternative to 'pattern', but that I remembered the unlucky example of Matthew Arnold, who said much about the 'secret of Jesus', a secret which having been revealed only and finally to Arnold himself, turned out to be a pretty poor secret after all.) In Marlowe, surely, we feel the search for one; in Chapman a kind of blundering upon one; in Jonson the one dear and distinct, slight but much more serious than it looks, pattern. There is something in the Revenger's Tragedy, but one play does not make a pattern; and Middleton completely baffles me; and as for Ford and Shirley, I suspect them of belonging to that class of poets not unknown to any age, which has all of the superficial qualities, and none of the internal organs, of poetry.

Knight, G. Wilson (2001-05-18). The Wheel of Fire

 (Routledge Classics) . Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition..

 

Insofar as it seems to apply to Shakespeare himself, this may be too severe.  Forgetting about Matthew Arnold, whose "secret" remains undisclosed to me, later  critics have found more coherence in Shakespeare's thought.  See, e.g., Colin McGinn, Shakespeare's Philosophy: Discovering the Meaning Behind Shakespeare's Plays.

The Non-Profit Web of Life

My friend Michael, who spends part of his life dealing with people who don't pay their student loans, turns a jaundiced eye on the whole matter of higher education bloat. Michael signs on with those who think they see demand push: the government makes funds available to students via various forms of credit, easy and otherwise; the students tank up on the stuff and the colleges and universities get to build bigger, fancier, more palatial building, higher more faculty deans and assorted administrators and do the other things that people do when somebody gives them a bunch of greenbacks to play with. Michael is remembering the great boom in health care spending when we pressed new dollars into the hands of consumers without doing much of anything to increase the supply of medical services. If you come, they will build it, especially if you come bearing a government subsidy or guarantee.   

 

[Second theme in a minor key: except in this case, of course, the students are the ones left standing when the music stops. The shortfall on all this easy credit is not dischargeable in bankruptcy, and just try paying your $200k professional school marker with your income as a massage therapy assistant.  True, but I don't think it undercuts the main thrust of the story].

I'm thinking of Michael this week when I'm back in Ashland, Oregon for another shot of Shakespeare. Allow me to explain. I just now did a quick check on the history of the Ashland festival. . Sure enough, when the festival started in the 30s, it hardly deserved the name: just two plays a year in the inaugural 1935 season, then three, then four, then five—and  then leveled off at five through 1969 (with couple of blips along the way). The year 1970 brought the opening of the big new indoor theatre named after the founder Angus Bowmer, and allowed them to kick up the annual count of productions to nine. In 1977 they added the shirt-pocket “third theatre,” although the number of productions didn't increase exponentially: the modal number through most of the time from them up to the present seems to be about 11.

There have been internal changes: the current outdoor theatre is actually the third on site. This current outdoor facility went into service in 1958, although there was a multi-million dollar upgrade in 1992. A new “little theatre” subbed out the original smaller performance space, also in 1992. Staff and administrative facilities have also evolved over the years though not, perhaps, in the way you might think: there's still nothing like the costly palaces that adorn so many college and university campusus.

What you do note if you look around you is the increase in personnel. Wiki reports that there is a fulltime payroll of 300, including about 100 actors: that would mean 200 in the backshop, plus part-timers and volunteers. Is this “too many”? I'm not ready to say so, but just as a guess, I'm betting Angus Bowmer did not have the services of “voice and text director” plus a “head of voice and text,” nor a “director of literary development and dramaturgy,” nor a “resident fight director,” saying nothing of an “associate costume designer,” at least three “composers & sound designers” a “voice & projection designer” a “dance captain” plus individual individual directors, scene designers, light directors, costume designers for particular plays, and suchlike. And a dramaturg; I always wanted to be a dramaturg—in a pinch I'd settle for assistant dramaturg.

I'm sure these are all total cheap shots; I'm sure I've enjoyed every single piece of work that every one of these worthies has carried out. And I don't mean to say they are rolling in the big bucks: Guide Star shows them running a deficit in the range of $2.5 million on revenues of $27 million (there's also a foundation).  But you'll have to concede: there is a certain sense of mission creep here. Outfits like this never get smaller. They may die; they may choke on their own bodily fluids in the section 501(c)(3) equivalent of pulmonary edema.  Otherwise, the pathway is a ratchet and the only trajectory is up.

And what does all this have to do with higher education bloat? Well I admit, the comparison is not 1:1. Ashland doesn't finance the purchase of theatre tickets. And if they did, the liability wouldn't be exempted from discharge in bankruptcy. But look around you: whom do you see in the crowd outside the theatre at Ashland, this balmy autumn afternoon? My guess would be you are looking at upwards of 60 percent public employees, maybe upwards of 70 percent. And of these, I'm betting that more than half are present or retired employees of public educational institutions--i.e., the same universities and colleges who have profited so much from the boom in higher education. If somebody passes out  in an Ashland theatre and you yell “is there a doctor in the house?”  you'll probably get a response, maybe several. But perchance you should ask for a professor of rhetoric, my guess is that there would be a stampede. [I'll bet a good three quarters also own public broadcasting tote bags but that is another story.]

In other words, what we are seeing here is the recycling of the money that went into the education bubble: the great web of non-profit life. Again, I feel no need to deride: I'm one of the proud holders of this lucky ticket and I think I worked hard for my good luck, thankyouvery much. But it's a good life, even if I am not a dramaturg. If you'll excuse me, I'm off to see the show.

No, Really, What Is the Story at HBS?

A couple of my buds have been telling me I have to read the big NYT piece on sexism at the Harvard Business School.  I did read it, and didn't quite know what to make of it.  Then I read it again with the same response, plus an added fillip.  Specifically: I'm not sure the author knew quite what to make of it either.  Had she stumbled on an important story about sex discrimination at HBS?  About administrative overreach?  About the  terminal awfulness of HBS students?  Was she being spun by the marketing folks at one of the world's leading brands?

I don't know and like I say, I think she is not confident she knows either. Apparently the core story is straightforward enough evidently the worthies at Harvard (they have a grrl in the President's office) decided that it was time to reform the culture over at the B school, to stop boys being boys.  o have taken to try to clip the wings of the vulgarians, to level  the playing field (if that is what it is) for women in grading, and also (not least) to  make life a little less unbearable for women trying to run the gauntlet of tenure.
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There are so many open threads here.  Part of me wants to say: sure sounds like Palookaville, where the young barbarians arrive every August with a stinkin' carload full of loutish caterwauling. The booze sounds familiar; the groping, oddly, we seem to hear less about.  I'm not sure whether (a) women here are more complaisant; or (b) men or better behaved or (c) women here despair of ever improving men's behavior. And by the way, ae HBS students supposed to be better?  Are people surprised that they are not better?  Could they be worse?  And by the way again, just exactly why did that promising youngster with a pregnant wife wind up dead in Portland, Maine?

But another part of me wants to say--really?  Women have trouble competing at HBS?  I had thought the problem was that women were running away with university life, capturing all the places, the grades, the awards, while the men lay stunned on the couch watching ESPN.  Is HBS different from everybody else, or am I just getting bad information?

It's probably to her credit that the author seems unable to answer all these questions, or even to frame them: means at least she is not going for the easy fix.  But I am struck by one bottom-line perplexity.  At the end of the day, these folks, men and women alike, are meant to learn; either (a) finance--which means a system designed to reduce the level of overall wellbeing in the world; or (b) marketing--which is about selling. Hey, it's a business school,   Don't take yourself too seriously.



 

Irwin's Alchemists

I've finally made my way through Neil Irwin's The Alchemists, and it's been a worthwhile trip. Well: it's been a long slog actually, but that remark isn't nearly as negative as it may sound. In many ways it's a very good book, sometimes spectacularly good. And while it has its limitations, I have to admit I'd be hard put to know how to make it much better.

Anybody who reads this far will already know the terms of engagement: Irwin proposes to bring us up to date on three central bankers: Ben Bernanke (of course); Jean-Claude Trichet, president of the European Central Bank from 2003 to 2011; and Mervin King, governor of the Bank of England from 2003 to just this year. In short, the three most powerful voices in banking during the late uproar (for extra credit: who is the Ben Bernanke of China?).

It's a promising framework and it almost works, with the qualification that the institutional limits on Trichet were strong enough that it makes him hard to compare. And like it or not—the Brits will not like it—the hard fact is that Britain comes across as a second-tier player, mostly mired in its own problems, sometimes buffeted by its larger neighbors.

There's an additional problem that I will specify in the moment, but first the good stuff: Within the limits of the engagement, Irwin has done a splendid job of marshaling and presenting so much abstruse material. Clearly, his time out at Columbia Business School served him well: he's got a (seemingly) easy mastery of arcanae of central banking, with a good teacher's knack for making the tough stuff accessible. If nothing else, you could do worse than pull this one down whenever you need to pretend that you understand the virtues and limitations of, say, inflation targeting or the twist. [Just as an aside: would I be right that financial journalism has improved markedly since 2008? Back in the old days, we had Greg Ip: now we have half dozen or more first-stringers who can go pretty much toe to with their sources. Brad DeLong likes to ask why we can't have a better press core. I wonder if maybe we have one).,

There's a limitation, as I've already suggested, in that the three stories are not quite comparable: even though they overlap, each faced his own issues with his own tools and institutional limitations. A bigger problem is the focus on central banking. For good or ill, the point (which the book makes abundantly clear) is that central banking could serve at best as only part of the solution. If you're an American reader, you probably already understand that; you whatever fiscal policy emerged in Washington between 2008 and today was a joint effort of the Fed and Treasury. You can't really blame Irwin for not telling the whole story—his book would have been twice as long and many times as unwieldy had he tried—but you really are getting only part of the picture without it. The European situation is even stranger, what with its multiple sovereignties and its single currency. I don't feel I have much of a handle on it, but my consolation is I really don't think anybody else does either. The British experience is simpler, but perhaps starker. King seems to have been unconstrained about dipping his finger into the political pot (you get the impression that Irwin really doesn't like King very much). British leaders do seem to have made some catastrophically bad decisions lately, but for the most part, hey, it's only Britain and how much can it matter?

In short, I'm just as glad Irwin didn't try to tell us "the full story.” But if we want “the full story,” we'd better have read—or be prepared to read—somebody else.

A difficulty, less important than the others, but it may account for my feelings of slog. Irwin shares a vice with a number of journalists-turned-bookies, and that is: the closer you get to the present, the more you feel like you are reading the pages of his notebook, the less you get by way of sustained analysis. At times, I found myself remembering what Dr. Johnson said about Paradise Lost. On the other hand, I'm glad I read that one, too.

An Intriguer and a Mischief-Maker

Writing yesterday about Edward Hyde, Lord Clarendon, I remarked on the generosity of his understanding: his capacity to see merit in adversaries like William Hampden. But his capaciousness is not universal. Clarendon had no such affection for Hampden's great ally, John Pym. Here is a bit of Clarendon's judgment on Pym:

In the short parliament ..., he spoke much, and appeared to be the most leading man; for besides the exact knowledge of the forms, and orders of that council, which few men had, he had a very comely and grave way of expressing himself, with great volubility of words, natural and proper; and understood the temper and affections of the kingdom as any man; and had observed the errors and mistakes in government; and knew well how to make them appear greater than they were. After the unhappy dissolution of that parliament, he continued for the most part about London, in conversation and great repute amongst those lords who were most strangers to the court, and were believed most averse to it; in whom he improved all imaginable jealousies and discontents towards the state and as soon as this parliament was resolve to be summoned, he was as diligent to procure such persons to be elected as he knew to be most inclined to the way he meant to take. At the first opening of this parliament, he … seemed to all men to have the greatest influence upon the house of commons as of any man; and, in truth, I think he was at this time, and for some months after, the most popular man, and the most able to do hurt, that hath lived in any time.

In short, an intriguer and a natural trouble-maker. There's more, but nothing to alter the tone. Earlier, Clarendon has let himself go: “No man had more to answer for the miseries of his kingdom, or had his hand, or head, deeper in their contrivance.” From Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, excerpted in Clarendon at 245-49, 246-7 (G. Huehns ed. 1978).

Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon

Now that I have stupefied the faithful out of their skull with my persistent citations to David Hume, allow me to recall another voice in the same genre. That would be Edward Hyde, first Earl of Clarendon, great—perhaps the greatest—servant of the House of Stuart in the turbulent age of the English Revolution.

Hyde was, after his manner, a  remarkable historian, but he was more: through his daughter, he was the grandfather of two monarchs.  Still, his memorable achievement was how, in forced retirement—exile—out of power and otherwise unoccupied, he produced his masterpiece: his  History of the Rebellion, the record of his times and with it, his life. The book is not easy to describe: it is part narrative, part advocacy, part rumination on the tasks and possibilities of government. Also perhaps—though I'm not sure of this—the greatest single account of those years of upheaval.  I should think only real competitor would be Hume himself,* who undertook his own history a couple of generations later with a view to restoring the shopworn reputation of that same doomed Stuart monarchy. Aside: they say that history is written by the winners but is that really true? In the case of the English—also, I should say, the American Civil War—what the losers have lost on the battlefield, they seem at least partially to have recaptured in the library.

My guess is that Clarendon is even more completely forgotten than Hume. Hume, of course has his reputation as a philosopher to sustain him. Clarendon's name survived in the Clarendon Code which, inter alia, forbade nonconformist preaches from residing within five miles of their former livings unless they took a a loyalty oath. He also gave his name to the Clarendon Building, once the home of the Oxford University Press, and Clarendon House, in it time admired as one of the grandest great houses in London but long since demolished (and who remembers the people that building are named after, anyway?).

Clarendon's History itself, one would have to admit, takes a bit of patience. It's in part an old man's remembrance with some of the longeurs you would expect from that sort of thing. At times you'd have to suspect a certain amount of score-settling and self-justification. But his real strength is in his character sketches.  Clarendon was, after all, primarily a man of action, which means he lived in a world where your skill at judging your fellows can be a matter of life or death.  A friend of mine this morning writes that as he read Clarendon, "I kept saying to myself, when he looks at someone he sees so much more than I do."  All true; and in the end, what's remarkable is how fair-minded so much of it sounds.   Just by way of example:

He was of that rare affability and temper in debate, and of that seeming humility and submission of judgment, as if he brought no opinion with him, but a desire of information and instruction; yet he had so subtle a way of interrogating, and, under the notion of doubts, insinuating his objections, that he left his opinions with those from whom he pretended to learn and receive them. And even with them who were able to preserve themselves from his infusions, and discerned those opinions to be fixed in him, with which they could not comply, he always left the character of an ingenious and conscientious person. 

On first glance, this may appear to be just an encomium. But consider it again: “subtle a way of interrogating … insinuation of doubts … pretended to learn.” The thing is, the subject here is John Hampden, leader of the parliamentary forces against the King and necessarily therefore one of Clarendon's great adversaries. Last I knew, their statues stood facing each other across the lobby at the Palace of Westminster—a remarkable instance of assimilating implacable conflict into a common story.--Anyway, the delight of this history is the way the author is able to identify the talents and appreciate the virtues even of his foes.  Hampden was, in sum:

 

[A] man of greater cunning, and it may be said of the most discerning spirit, and of the greatest address and insinuation to bring any thing to pass which he desired, of any man of that time, and who laid the design deepest. … He was of an industry and vigilance not to be tired out, or wearied by the most laborious; and of parts not to be imposed upon by the most subtle or sharp; and of a personal courage equal to his best parts; so that he was an enemy not to be wished wherever he might have been made a friend; and as much to be apprehended where he was so, as any man could deserve to be.

And finally:

In a word, what was said of Cinna might well be applied to him; 'he had a head to contrive, and a tongue to persuade, and a hand to execute, any mischief.' His death [emphasis added—ed.] therefore seemed to be a great deliverance to the nation.

As one might say, with enemies like that, who needs friends? 

Access to Clarendon is in some ways easier than to Hume, in some ways harder. If you are a glutton for punishment with a bottomless wallet, you can buy all six volumes from Oxford (of course) at upwards of $200 per volume (nothing as cheap or convenient as the Liberty Edition Hume, though).  Or you could read what appears to be a complete reprint here. Oddly enough, there doesn't seem to be any Clarendon at Gutenberg or Librivox.

For those of more restrained enthusiasm, Oxford offers a selection in its World Classics line—paperback, and also Kindle. There's an older one-volume including selections from the history along with selections from an autobiography (excellent introduction by Hugh Trevor-Roper, who also did a biography of Clarendon). There's other stuff out there; just in general, if you are searching I think you may have better luck at Amazon.co.uk than in the US list. Oxford also offers some helpful audio.

Acknowledgment I got my own introduction to Clarendon through another neglected gem: The Legal Imagination (1973) by James Boyd White, surely the most interesting (and unusual) law classroom book I've ever encountered. It seems to be out of print; Amazon offers only five copies, those from after-market sellers (there is an “abridged paperback”--I'll bet someone talked him into paring it down for the undergraduate market--but it's not a patch on the real thing). White (who has continued to produce important work on the frontier between law and literature) offers a bit of context on the book here. White says in his acknowledgments that he learned about Clarendon from this man.

Fun Fact: Google “Edward Hyde,” and you'll likely wind up here.

*  I suppose another contender might be G.M. Trevelyan's England Under the Stuarts, but I haven't read it.

Fie on Goodness, Fie!

Still keeping company with Hume.  I went to Hume as a followup to what I've been reading about Scandinavia--not, I recognize, to get the last word on Anglo-Danish relations, but at least to get some sense of what one so influential in his own time might have thought and taught on the subject.

So be it, although I have learned something since I began that I didn't know before. That is: Hume actually composed his history as it were backwards, beginning with the runup to the Revolution of 1688 and working thence by degrees back to the beginnings in the Celtic swamps and bogs.  This gives rise to the suspicion that he might have been doing this last (first?) part just for money, as a followup to the later (earlier?) volumes that appear so to have engaged his attention

No matter: Hume is a shrewd and clear-sighted observer even when (if?) he is proceeding in overdrive, and he tells an old story with a fluency and with may not have its match anyplace else. Here's a Hume reflecting on the vagaries of power in a semi-civilized world:

The extensive confederacies, by which the European potentates are now at once united and set in opposition to each other, and which, though they are apt to diffuse the least spark of dissension throughout the whole, are at least attended with this advantage, that they prevent any violent revolutions or conquests in particular states, were totally unknown in ancient ages; and the theory of foreign politics in each kingdom formed a speculation much less complicated and involved than at present. Commerce had not yet bound together the most distant nations in so close a chain: wars, finished in one campaign, and often in one battle, were little affected by the movements of remote states: the imperfect communication among the kingdoms, and their ignorance of each other's situation, made it impracticable for a great number of them to combine in one object or effort: and above all, the turbulent spirit and independent situation of the barons or great vassals in each state, gave so much occupation to the sovereign, that he was obliged to confine his attention chiefly to his own state and his own system of government, and was more indifferent about what passed among his neighbors. Religion alone, not politics, carried abroad the views of princes, while it either fixed their thoughts on the Holy Land, whose conquest and defence was deemed a point of common honor and interest, or engaged them in intrigues with the Roman pontiff, to whom they had yielded the direction of ecclesiastical affairs, and who was every day assuming more authority than they were willing to allow him. \

David Hume, History of England. This interlude occurs in the eve of the accession of Henry II, who took the throne in 1154.

 

Bert Lance and the Politics of Fear

Somehow I was distracted; I missed the death of  Bert Lance, Jimmy Carter's sometimes budget director, remembered even in the lede to his New York Times obituary as having been "forced to resign...because of  accusations ..."

I confess to having had a soft spot for Ol' Bert.  Considering his impressive rise through the treacherous underbrush of Georgia politics and finance, I wouldn't be at all surprised if he skated around a few corners, but I never counted him among the world-class criminals who seem to regard  banking and politics as their summum bonum (or, perhaps, malum).

No; they got him, I think, by the convergence of two unfortunate forces. One, he looked like a criminal.  I mean, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, catch the picture at right.  The chin, the nose, the shifty eyes.  Granted, I don't really know what shifty eyes are, but with that chin and nose, he must have them. is this the sort of man you would trust with your wealth and the nation's fortune?  Yes, on the facts I guess the question answers itself but I think he is sterling evidence for the proposition that if you are going to face public judgment, you'd better have a pretty face.

And more important, reason two: nobody feared him.  They didn't fear him because they didn't fear his boss, Jimmy Carter.  Taking down a carter  intimate was away of showing the cracker-boy was in charge in the big city and how he'd better mind or something worse might happen to him.    Wouldn't have acted that way with Lyndon Johnson.

Hume on William the Conqueror: Harold Tricked

William of Normandy, not yet William the Conqueror, sees that he may be able to exploit the weakness and disorder of his adversaries to make himself King of England.  His chief obstacle is Harold Godwinson.earl of Essex .  William isn't afraid of using violence when appropriate--he is, after all, the man who won the Battle of Hastings.  But he also knew how to proceed via unction and guile:

By mischance, Harold is delivered up as a prisoner to William:

 William received [Harold] with every demonstration of respect and friendship; and ... he took an opportunity of disclosing to him the great secret of his pretensions to the crown of England, and of the will which Edward [the extant king]  intended to make in his favor. He desired the assistance of Harold in perfecting that design; he made professions of the utmost gratitude in return for so great an obligation; he promised that the present grandeur of Harold's family, which supported itself with difficulty under the jealousy and hatred of Edward, should receive new increase from a successor, who would be so greatly beholden to him for his advancement Harold was surprised at this declaration of the duke; but being sensible that he should never recover his own liberty, much less that of his brother and nephew, if he refused the demand, he feigned a compliance with William, renounced all hopes of the crown for himself, and professed his sincere intention of supporting the will of Edward, and seconding the pretensions of the duke of Normandy. William, to bind him faster to his interests, besides offering him one of his daughters in marriage, required him to take an oath that, he would fulfill his promises; and in order to render the oath more obligatory, he employed an artifice well suited to the ignorance and superstition of the age. He secretly conveyed under the altar, on which Harold agreed to swear, the relics of some of the most revered martyrs; and when Harold had taken the oath, he showed him the relics, and admonished him to observe religiously an engagement which had been ratified by so tremendous a sanction.  The English nobleman was astonished;  ....

David Hume, History of England, Vol. 1, Part A. 

That New Epigraph

Sophocles, Antigone, line 332.  There are lots of translations but I prefer my own:

There are many wonders, but none so wonderful as humankind.

I had the great privilege of reciting this line last year while standing center stage in the ancient theatre at Epidaurus.  I was standing next to a professor of Greek.  I don't think he understood a word I was saying, nor that it was Greek.

The passage continues (from Jebb's translation, lifted from Perseus):

[335] This power spans the sea, even when it surges white before the gales of the south-wind, and makes a path under swells that threaten to engulf him. Earth, too, the eldest of the gods, the immortal, the unwearied, [340] he wears away to his own ends, turning the soil with the offspring of horses as the plows weave to and fro year after year.

Update:  I'm thinking maybe Taxmom (infra) wants me to go all the way to 375.  Okay by me:

[343] The light-hearted tribe of birds [345] and the clans of wild beasts and the sea-brood of the deep he snares in the meshes of his twisted nets, and he leads them captive, very-skilled man. He masters by his arts [350] the beast who dwells in the wilds and roams the hills. He tames the shaggy-maned horse, putting the yoke upon its neck, and tames the tireless mountain bull. 

[354] Speech and thought fast as the [355] wind and the moods that give order to a city he has taught himself, and how to flee the arrows of the inhospitable frost under clear skies and the arrows of the storming rain. [360] He has resource for everything. Lacking resource in nothing he strides towards what must come. From Death alone he shall procure no escape, but from baffling diseases he has devised flights.  [365] Possessing resourceful skill, a subtlety beyond expectation he moves now to evil, now to good. When he honors the laws of the land and the justice of the gods to which he is bound by oath, [370] his city prospers. But banned from his city is he who, thanks to his rashness, couples with disgrace. Never may he share my home, [375] never think my thoughts, who does these things!

 Long for an epigraph, but still good.

Terminated with Extreme Prejudice

Hardicanute, Canute the Hardy, succeeded his father, Canute the Great, as  king of Denmark in 1035.  He felt he also had claim to the throne of England but he was squeezed out of it by his half-brother, Harold Harefoot.  Fortuitously, though, Harold died and a deputation of worthies asked Hardicanute to take his place.

David Hume takes up the story:

The first act of Hardicanute's government afforded his subjects a bad prognostic of his future conduct. He was so enraged at Harold for depriving him of his share of the kingdom, and for the cruel treatment of his brother Alfred, that in an impotent desire of revenge against the dead, he ordered his body to be dug up, and to be thrown into the Thames; and when it was found by some fishermen, and buried in London, he ordered it again to be dug up, and to be thrown again into the river; but it was fished up a second time, and then interred with great secrecy. 

David Hume, History of England, vol. 1, ch. 3.

Doesn't say whether they buried the fishermen with him.

 

Where Politics Works

The Sunday Times puff piece on Boston's Thomas Menino is a gratifying reminder of the one place where politics sometimes works: city hall.  Okay, grant we still have our clueless incompetents and our corrupt scoundrels, but a remarkable number seem to generate a lot of voter support, and with apparent good reason: they seem to be good at what they do.

The reasons aren't any mystery: mayor isn't quite a political job, in the sense that Congress or the Presidency--where there are almost by definition fundamental clashes of policy--might be.  A good deal of the time, even in "divided" cities, there will be broad agreement on what a mayor ought to do: keep the streets safe, pick up the garbage and make sure the buses run up on time.  Correspondingly, there is a lot of surveillance: if the buses don't run on time, then the voters know it and the mayor is going to hear about it.

Perhaps more remarkably, the job of mayor seems to attract people who really like being mayor as distinct from, say, liking just to run for office and take bribes.  The good mayors are the ones who can't think of anything more fun than, say, to muck around in a pond of raw sewage.  Menino conveys that attitude, but there are plenty of others.

I suppose the classic exemplar is New York's Fiorello LaGuardia, reading the comics to the kiddies, but there are plenty of others.  A classic genre can be comprised under a now-nearly-forgotten epithet: the "sewer socialists" who kept Milwaukee running from 1892 to 1960.  Jasper McLevy who served 24 years in Bridgeport deserves companion membership in the same order (I wonder if Bernie Sanders, socialist senator from Vermont and onetime mayor of Burlington,  belongs in the same category). The "socialist" thread is not quite accidental: all of these appear to be people who like politics but who like governing better, perhaps to the point of micromanagement. Seen in this light, the phenomenon seems to transcend national boundaries: it used to be said that commiunist Bologna was the best-managed city in Italy.

I suspect  more modern instance would be Louisville's Jerry Abramson, and  his career adds an  interesting fillip.  In so many other cities, the strain of old-fashioned sewer socialism seems to have foundered on the intractable issue of race.  Abramson, who is white (and Jewish) is the son of a man who ran a market in a black neighborhood.   I have to assume this background has something to do with his continued overwhelming popularity in a city that has its own share of racial strife.



 

 Coda:  I indulge myself with an anecdote drawn from my own encounter with urban management during my days (pre-Abramson) covering Louisville city hall for the old Louisville Times.  I'm remembering the indecent hilarity that ensued when the city works crews responded to an Ohio River flood by putting the floodgates in upside down.  No human was damaged but a lot of reputations took a hit.  It fell my job to garner a postmortem from the mayor, Bill Cowger an affable and smooth-talking mortgage broker with a knack for deflecting responsibility.   To his credit, Cowger did show up on scene .  He found that a number of people had evacuated from the flood zone.  "And when I saw what was wrong," he said, "I nearly evacuated myself."

 

I gave my copy to my sharp-eyed desk editor, Sam Harvey, who flashed a smile.  "Heh," he said, "I'll bet he nearly evacuated himself."   Such, I suppose, is the life of an urban mayor.