Category Archives: journalism

The elite colleges, academic writing, and the Journal of Universal Rejection.

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What makes something elite? For elite colleges and academic journals, a large part is selectivity, the lower fraction of people who can go to your college or publish in your journal, or earn your credential, the more selective, thus the most elite. Harvard, boasts that “the best” apply, and of these, only 3% get in. Thus Harvard selects for the top 1%, or so they claim. These are not selected as the brightest, or most moral or motivated, but by a combination: they are the most Harvardian.

The top 20 most selective US colleges, 2022-23 according to Nathan Yau, FlowingData.com

Selectivity is viewed as good. That this 1% can get into Harvard makes the students elite and makes Harvard desirable. Some lower-class Ivy colleges (Columbia, for example) have been found to cheat to pretend higher selectivity; they’ve exaggerated the number of people who apply so they can inflate their rejection rate, and justify a high tuition, and presumably a high salary for their graduates. And it’s self-sustaining. Generally speaking, college professors and high-powered executives are drawn from elite institutions. Elite grads pick other elite grads as their way to get the best material, with the best education.

By this measure, selectivity, The Journal of Universal Rejection is the most elite and best. It’s the journal you should definitely get. The reject every article submitted on every subject. They are thus more elite than Harvard or Cal Tech, and more select than the quorum of US presidents, or Olympic gold winners, or living Chess champions, and they got there by just saying no. Many people send their articles, by the way, all rejected.

My lesson from this, is that selectivity is a poor metric for quality. Just because an institution or journal that is select in some one aspect does not mean that it will be select in another. Top swimmers and footballers rarely go to Harvard, so they have to pick from a lower tear of applicants for their swimming and football teams. It’s the same with the top in math or science, they apply to Cal Tech, with the rejects going to Stanford or Princeton. As for top chess players or US Navy Seals, a Harvard degree does nothing for them; few seals go to Harvard, and few Harvard students could be Seals. Each elite exists in its own bubble, and each bubble has its own rules. Thus, if you want to be hired as a professor, you have to go to the appropriate institution, though not necessarily from the top most selective.

From Nature, 2024. 20% of all academics come from just 8 schools, 40% come from the top 21.

As for journals to read or write in, an elevated reader like you should publish where you can be read, and understood, and perhaps to change things for the better, I think. Some money would be nice too, but few scientific journals offer that. Based on this, I have a hard time recommending scientific journals, or conferences. More and more, they charge the writer to publish or present, and offer minimal exposure of your ideas. They charge the readers and attendees such high fees that very few will see your work; university libraries subscribe, but often on condition that not everyone can read for free. Journal often change your writing too, sometimes for the better, but often to match the journal outlook or style, or just to suggest (demand) that you cite some connected editor. JofUR is better in a way, no charge to the author, and no editorial changes.

Typically, journals limit your ability to read or share your work, assuming they accept it, then they expect you to review for them, for free. So why do academics write for these journals? They’re considered the only legitimate way to get your findings out; worse, that’s how universities evaluate your work. University administrators are chosen with no idea of your research quality, and a requirement of number-based evaluation, so they evaluate professors by counting publications, particularly in elite (selective) journals, and based on the elite (selective) school you come from. It’s an insane metric that results in awful research and writing, and bad professors too. I’ve come to think that anyone, outside of academia, who writes in a scientific journal is a blockhead. If you have something worthwhile to say, write a blog, or maybe a book, or find a free, open access journal. In my field, hydrogen, the only free, open access journals are published in Russia and Iran.

And just for laughs, if you don’t mind the futility of universal rejection, there’s JoUR. Mail your article, with a self addressed return, or email it to j.universal.rejection@gmail.com. You’ll get a rejection notice and you’ll join an un-elite group: rejected, self effacing academics with time on their hands.

ROBERT BUXBAUM, January 16, 2025. If, for some reason, you want to get your progeny into an elite college, my niece, a Harvard grad., has a company that does just that, International College Counselors, they help with essays, testing, and references, and nudge your progeny to submit on time.

Half of Americans want to be kept from voting Trump

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Both Trump and Biden are unpopular. Academics and the press favor Biden, and find it inconceivable that anyone would like Trump but polls show him leading in the country as a whole, and leading in key swing states, Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, etc. Some 15.1% more Americans have an unfavorable view of Biden than a favorable view.

Biden’s problems include his age, the border crisis, and the economy. People say they find that essentials are expensive, while luxuries are cheap, and that Biden seems out of touch, perhaps that he favors the rich (the Democratic Party is increasingly the party of billionaires). Then there are religious objections, including to diversity, or gender-affirming child surgery, or abortion till birth and doctor-assisted suicide.

Trump leads in the polls, pointing to misuse of the Justice Department including Republican civil servants fired over phony mask mandates, the many illegal immigrants, the EV agenda, even Trump’s impeachment hearings that began as soon as he was elected, based on a made up “Russian collision” dossier. There’s a claim from Twitter, that the Biden’s DOJ demanded Twitter favor Biden, and then demanded that Trump be “deplatformed”, completely silenced before the election.

The Democrats fire back that Trump is ineligible to be president as he is a seditionist — citing an anti-confederate clause of the 14th amendment. They have so far, removed him from the ballot in two battleground states, Colorado and Maine, and are looking at removing him from the ballot in several others. These moves are surprisingly popular, supported by 49% of voters, despite the fact that Trump leads in the polls.

In New York, the district attorney ran on the platform that he would “get Trump,” that is put him in prison for something, and thus stop his presidential bid. NY has already pulled Trump’s business license and has indicted Trump on 48 felony counts based on the assertion that he paid a prostitute and called it legal fees on his internal books. They also claim he over-valued his buildings. No one has ever been charged or convicted on such crimes before this, but it seems certain he will be found guilty in NY. Either way, it’s is a big drain on Trump’s time and money, and the case allows the judge to command Trump not speak. Meanwhile, the ex-prosecutor has an open mike to claim he heads a crime family, now that he’s handed the case over to another DA. The judge has threatened to jail Trump for saying the charges are bogus and the treatment unfair.

In Colorado, the decision the case is stronger – sedition. They decision to remove Trump’s name from the ballot was made by a 5 to 4 vote in the Democrat-majority Supreme Court. In Maine the Secretary of State removed his name, acting alone. The claim is that what happened January 7 was not a protest, but an insurrection, and that Trump is guilty for it, along with many others who didn’t participate. Further they maintain that it is a false narrative that it was the FBI who entered the capital, fanning the flames as a sting operation against Trump. Similarly false is any claim that the Democrats skewed the election by stuffing the ballot box or overruling laws that required voter ID. That Trump says otherwise shows that Trump is a danger to democracy, they say. They find extremely offense that he calls them the “Department of Injustice.”

According to a January 16, 2024 Ispos, ABC poll, here nearly every voter who favors Biden favors removing Trim from the ballot. Most do not require that Trump be convicted. Not that it’s unlikely that Trump will be convicted of something. In NY it’s likely to be for paying a prostitute and for saying his buildings are worth more than the DA thinks they are. In Georgia, the DA took the unusual step of indicting Trump’s lawyers and his witnesses too. She thus prevents anyone who could testify for Trump from doing so. The Georgia DA seems to have done some other illegal things, but it seems certain that she’ll win her case, even if she goes to jail in the process. Several other battle-ground states’ DAs have said thay will remove Trump from the ballot, or try. Among these are Michigan, Arizona, and Georgia — states where Trump is the leading candidate.

Behi d the effort to remove Trump, guiltier not, is a generally low opinion of the legal system. Polls show that 53% of America believes that judges decide based on their politics, not on law. If Trump is found guilty, they believe it’s politics. If he’s found innocent, tit’s also politics, according to the majority of Americans. Given that folks are convinced the judges are crooked, they want to make sure that their crooked judges are the ones to stay in power, and those with other views are kept from office. It’s a tribal view of justice, not uncommon in 3rd world countries. Man for all seasons is a classic movie/ play about it.

In Russia and China the same tribal view of justice prevails, and the same story is playing out. Putin is running for president in 2024, and has take the precaution to jail his opposition as seditionist. Chinese chairman Xi has not only jailed his opposition, but also most major business leaders. The people in these countries don’t seem to mind, and seem genuinely supportive. The press there, as here, can’t understand why anyone would support anyone but the boss, and have warned against false news in an eerily unified voice.

Efforts are underway to keep Trump off the ballot in these states where he is winning, plus Wisconsin and Minnesota, states where he’s tied or losing by a small margin. A majority people don’t want him or Biden, so removal is popular.

Robert Buxbaum, Jan 31, 2024. To me, the removal of Trump from the ballot is related to the desire for term limits, and for our support, in Ukraine for the elimination of upcoming elections. Folks like democracy, in theory, but need to make sure the wrong person doesn’t win. It’s a paradox.

Chinese stocks lost 30% this year, has China’s lost decade begun?

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I predicted dire times for China six years ago, when Xi Jinping amended the constitution to make himself leader for life, in charge of the government, the party, the military, and the banks. Emperor, I called him, here. It now seems the collapse has begun, or at least stagnation. Chinese history is cyclic. Good times of peace and plenty give rise to a supreme emperor whose excesses bring war and famine, or at least stagnation. The cycle repeats every 50 to 100 years. Since Nixon opened China in 1973, the country has seen 50 years of prosperity and spectacular growth, but the growth has stopped and may be in decline. The stock market (Shanghai Shenzen 300) peaked in 2021 and has declined 50% from there. It’s down 30% for the last 12 months to levels seen in December 2010. US growth seemed slower than China’s but it’s been more steady. The main US stock market, the S+P 500, has more than tripled since 2010, up 24.5% this year.

Five years of the Shanghai 300 index with hardly any change. There has hardly been change in 15 years. One could argue that the lost decade is here and on-going. .

Each year Chairman Xi’s behaves more dictatorial. Last year he arrested his predecessor, Hu Jintao in front of the Communist party. He now tracks all his citizens actions by way of face recognition and phone software, and gives demerits for wrong thinking and wrong behaviors. You lose merits by buying western cars or visiting western internet sites. Taking money abroad is generally illegal. Needless to say, such behavior causes people to want to take money abroad, just in case. Last week, Xi proposed a limit on video game playing and clamped down on banks, demanding low interest rates. This is bad for the gaming corporations and teenagers, and banks, but so far there are no protests as there is no war.

Kissinger said that war was likely, though. Xi is building the navy at a fast pace, adding fast surface ships, nuclear submarines, aircraft carriers, and new attack airplanes. They’ve added hypersonic missiles too, and added listening stations and bases. There’s now a naval base in Djibouti, at the entrance to the Red Sea, where they oversee (or promote?) Iran’s attacks on Western shipping. Then there are the new Chinese Islands that were built to take oil and fishing rights, and to provide yet more military bases on key trade routes. These could easily be a trigger for war, but so far just one military interaction in the region. Last month, the Chinese and Philippines navy clashed over fishing!

In the Gulf of Finland last Month, a Chinese ship, New New Polarbear, destroyed the offshore cables and gas pipes between Finland and Estonia, in protest of Finland’s entry into NATO. It’s belligerent but not war. Undersea cables are not covered by the UN charter, law of the sea. Then there is the evidence that COVID-19 was the result of Chinese bioweapon development, and the Chinese spy ballon that was sent over the US. We maintain at peace, but an unsettled sort of peace — is it a preface to war? Wars don’t have to be big war against the west or Taiwan, more likely is Vietnam, IMHO.

China’s negative population growth means that property values will drop along with product consumption. Kids buy stuff; old folks don’t.

News from China is increasingly unreliable so it’s hard to tell what’s going on. There were claims of a coupe, but perhaps it was fake news. Reporters and spies have been arrested or shot so there is no window on anyone who knows. There are claims of high unemployment, and COVID deaths, and claims of a movement to “lie flat” and stop working. Perhaps that was behind the ban on excessive gaming. Who knows? Xi claims that China is self sufficient in food production, but record food shipments from the US to China suggest otherwise.

Major businesspeople have disappeared, often to reappear as changed men or women. Most recently, Jimmy Lai, the Hong Kong clothing magnate, was indicted for sedition by tweets. Perhaps he just wanted to fire workers, or pay down debt, or move abroad (his daughter is). Many businesses exist just to make jobs, it seems. Not all of these businesses are efficient, or profitable. Some exist to violate US patents or steal technology, particularly military technology. I suspect that China’s hot new car company, BYD, is a money-losing, job factory, behind Tesla in every open market. Some 91 public firms have delisted over the last two years, effectively vanishing from oversight. Are they gone, or still operating as employment zombies. Will BYD join them? If China manages to avoid war, I have to expect stagnation, a “lost decade” or two, as in Japan saw from 1990 to 2010, as they unwound their unprofitable businesses.

A sign suggesting that a Chinese lost decade has begun is that China’s is seeing deflation, a negative inflation rate of -0.2%/year according to the world bank. It seems people want to hold money, and don’t want Chinese products, services, or investment. Japan saw this and tried a mix of regulation and negative interest rates to revive the interest, basically paying people to borrow in hopes they spend.

In Japan, the main cause of their deflation seems to have been an excess of borrowing against overvalued and unoccupied real estate. The borrowed money was used to support unprofitable businesses to buy more real estate. This seems to be happening in China too. As in Japan, China originally needed new lots of new apartments when they opened up and people started moving to the cities. The first apartments increased in value greatly so people built more. But now they have about 100% oversupply: one unoccupied or half-built apartment for every one occupied, with many mortgaged to the hilt against other overvalued apartments and flailing businesses.

Chinese Dept, personal and corporate match Japan’s at the start of the lost decade(s). Personal debt is at 150% of GDP, corporate debt is at65% of GDP, all propped up by real estate.

As in Japan 30 years ago, China’s corporate + personal debt is now about two times their GDP. Japan tried to stop the deflation and collapse by increased lending, and wasteful infrastructure projects. People in the know sent the borrowed money abroad confident that they would repay less when they repaid. We are already seeing this; low interest loans, money flowing abroad and a profusion of fast trains, unused roads, and unused bridges. I suspect most fast trains don’t pay off, as planes are faster and cheaper. These investments are just postponing the collapse. China is also seeing a birth dearth, 1.1 children per woman. This means that within a generation there will be half as many new workers and families to use the trains, or occupy the apartments. As the country ages, retirees will need more services with fewer people to provide them. China’s culture promotes abortion. China’s working population will decline for the next 30 years at least.

Japan came through all this without war, somewhat poorer, but unified and modern. It helped that Japan was a democracy, unified in culture, with an open press and good leaders (Abe). There was no collapse, as such, but 20 years of stagnation. China is a dictatorship, with a disunited culture, and a closed press. I think it will get through this, but it will have a much rougher time.

Robert Buxbaum January 9, 2024. China isn’t alone in facing collapse and/or lost decades. Germany is in a similar state, especially since the start of the Ukraine war. It’s a democracy like Japan, and pacifist for now.

Cybertruck an almost certain success

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Leading up to the Cybertruck launch 4 weeks ago, the expert opinion was that it was a failure. Morgan Stanley, here dubbed it as one, as did Rolling Stone here. Without having driven the vehicle, the experts at Motor trend, here, declared it was worse than you thought, “a novelty” car. I’d like to differ. The experts point out that the design is fundamentally different from what we’ve made for years. They claim it’s ugly, undesirable, and hard to build. Ford’s F-150 trucks are the standard, the top selling vehicle in the US, and Cybertruck looks nothing like an F-150. I suspect that, because of the differences, the Cybertruck can hardly fail to be a success in both profit and market share.

Cybertruck pulls a flat-bed trailer at Starbase.

Start with profit. Profit is the main measure of company success. High profit is achieved by selling significant numbers at a significant profit margin. Any decent profit is a success. This vehicle could trail the F-150 sales forever and Musk could be the stupidest human on the planet, so long as Tesla sells at a profit, and does so legally, the company will succeed. Tesla already has some 2 million pre-orders, and so far they show no immediate sign of leaving despite the current price of about $80,000. Unless you think they are all lying or that Musk has horribly mispriced the product, he should make a very decent profit. My guess is he’s priced to make over $10,000 per vehicle, or $20B on 2 million vehicles. Meanwhile, no other eV company seems to be making a profit.

The largest competing electric pickup company is Rivian. They sold 16,000 electric trucks in Q3 2023, but the profit margin is -100%. This is to say, they lose $1 for every $1 worth of sales –and that’s unsustainable. Despite claims to the contrary, a money-losing business is a failure. The other main competitors are losing too. Ford is reported to lose about $50,00 per eV. According to Automotive News, here, last week, Ford decided to cut production of its electric F-150, the Lightning, by 50%. This makes sense, but provides Cybertruck a market fairly clear of US e-competition.

2024 BYD, Chinese pickup truck

Perhaps the most serious competitor is BYD, a Chinese company backed by the communist government, and Warren Buffet. They are entering the US market this month with a new pickup. It might be profitable, but BYD is relatively immune to profitability. The Chinese want dominance of the eV market and are willing to lose money for years until they get it. Fortunately for Tesla, the BYD truck looks like Rivian’s. Tesla’s trucks should exceed them in range, towing, and safety. BYD, it seems, is aiming for a lower price point and a different market, Rivian’s.

A video, here, shows the skin of a Cybertruck is bulletproof to 9mm, shotgun, and 45 caliber machine gun fire. Experts scoff at the significance of bulletproof skin — good for folks working among Mexican drug lords, or politicians, or Israelis. Tesla is aiming currently for a more upscale customer, someone who might buy a Hummer or an F-250. This is more usable and cheaper.

Don’t try this with other trucks.

Another way Cybertruck could fail is through criminal activity. Musk could be caught paying off politicians or cheating on taxes or if the trucks fail their safety tests. So far, Cybertruck seems to meet Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards by a good margin. In a video comparison, here, it appears to take front end collisions as well as an F-150, and appears better in side collisions.

This leaves production difficulty. This could prevent the cybertruck from being a big success, and the experts have all harped on this. The vehicle body is a proprietary stainless steel, 0.07″ thick. Admittedly it’s is hard to form, but Tesla seems to manage it. VIN number records indicate that Tesla had delivered 448 cybertrucks as Friday last week, many of them to showrooms, but some to customers. Drone surveys of the Gigafactory lot show that about 19 are made per day. That’s a lot more than you’d see if assembly was by hand. Assuming a typical learning curve, it’s reasonable to expect some 600 will be delivered by December 31, and that production should reach 6000 per month in mid 2024. At that rate, they’ll be making and selling at the same rate as Rivian or Ford, and making real money doing it. The stainless body might even be a plus, deterring copycat competition. Other pluses are the add-ons, like the base-camp tent option, a battery extension, a ramp, and (it’s claimed) some degree of sea worthiness. Add-ons add profit and deter direct copying (for a time).

Basecamp, tent option.

So why do I think the experts are so wrong? My sense is that these people are experts because of long experience at other companies — the competitors. They know what was tried, and that innovation failed. They know that their companies chose not to make anything like a Cybertruck, and not to provide the add-ons. They know that the big boys avoid “novelty cars” and add-ons. There is an affinity among experts for consensus and sure success, the success that comes from Chinese companies, government support and international banking. If the Cybertruck success is an insult to them and their expertise. Nonetheless, if Cybertruck succeeds, they will push their companies towards a more angular design plus add-ons. And they will claim cybertruck is no way novel, but that government support is needed to copy it.

Robert Buxbaum, December 25, 2023.

Relativity’s twin paradox explained, and why time is at right angles to space.

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One of the most famous paradoxes of physics is explained wrong — always. It makes people feel good to think they understand it, but the explanation is wrong and confusing, and it drives young physicists in a wrong direction. The basic paradox is an outgrowth of the special relativity prediction that time moves slower if you move faster.

Thus, if you entered a spaceship and were to travel to a distant star at 99% the speed of light, turn around and get here 30 years, you would have aged far less than 30 years. You and everyone else on the space ship would have aged three years, 1/10 as much as someone on earth.

The paradox part, not that the above isn’t weird enough by itself, is that the person in the spaceship will imagine that he (or she) is standing still, and that everyone on earth is moving away at 99% the speed of light. Thus, the person on the spaceship should expect to find that the people on earth will age slower. That is, the person on the space ship should return from his (or her) three year journey, expecting to find that the people on earth have only aged 0.3 years. Obviously, only one of these expectations can be right, but it’s not clear which (It’s the first one), nor is it clear why.

The wrong explanation appears in an early popular book, “Mr Tompkins in Wonderland”, by Physicist, George Gamow. The book was written shortly after Relativity was proposed, and involves a Mr Tompkins who falls asleep in a physics lecture. Mr. Tompkins dreams he’s riding on a train going near the speed of light, finds things are shorter and time is going slower. He then asks the paradox question to the conductor, who admits he doesn’t quite know how it works (perhaps Gamow didn’t), but that “it has something do do with the brakeman.” That sounds like Gamow is saying the explanation has to do with deceleration at the turn around, or general relativity in general, implying gravity could have a similarly large effect. It doesn’t work that way, and the effect of 1G gravity is small, but everyone seems content to explain the paradox this way. This is particularly unfortunate because these include physicists clouding an already cloudy issue.

In the early days of physics, physicists tried to explain things with a little legitimate math to the lay audience. Gamow did this, as did Einstein, Planck, Feynman, and most others. I try to do this too. Nowadays, physicists have removed the math, and added gobbledygook. The one exception here are the cinematographers of Star Wars. They alone show the explanation correctly.

The explanation does not have to do general relativity or the acceleration at the end of the journey (the brakeman). Instead of working through some acceleration, general relativity effect, the twin paradox works with simple, special relativity: all space contracts for the duration of the trip, and everything in it gets shorter. The person in this spaceship will see the distance to the star shrink by 90%. Traveling there thus takes 1/10th the time because the distance is 1/10th. There and back at 99% the speed of light, takes exactly 3 years.

The equation for time contraction is: t’ = v/x° √(1-(v/c)2) = t° √(1-(v/c)2) where t’ is the time in the spaceship, v is the speed, x° is the distance traveled (as measured from earth), and c is the speed of light. For v/c = .99, we find that √1-(v/c)2 is 0.1. We thus find that t’ = 0.1 t°. When dealing with the twin paradox, it’s better to say that x’ = 0.1x° where x’ is the distance to the star as seen from the spaceship. In either case, when the people on the space ship accelerate, they see the distance in front of them shrink, as shown in Star Wars, below.

Star Wars. The millennium falcon jumps to light speed, and beyond.

That time was at right angles to space was a comment in one of Einstein’s popular articles and books; he wrote several, all with some minimal mathematics Current science has no math, and a lot of politics, IMHO, and thus is not science.

He showed that time and space are at right angles by analogy from Pythagoras. Pythagoras showed that distance on a diagonal, d between two points at right angles, x and y is d = √(x2 + y2). Another way of saying this is d2 =x2 + y2. The relationship is similar for relativistic distances. To explain the twin paradox, we find that the square of the effective distance, x’2 = x°2 (1 – (v/c)2) = x°2 – (x°v)2/c2 = x°2 – (x°v/c)2 = x°2 – (t°2/c2). Here, x°2 is the square of the original distance, and it comes out that the term, – (t°2/c2) behaves like the square of an imaginary distance that is at right angles to it. It comes out that co-frame time, t° behaves as if it were a distance with a scale factor of i/c.

For some reason people today read books on science by non-scientist ‘explainers.’ I These books have no math, and I guess they sell. Publishers think they are helping democratize science, perhaps. You are better off reading the original thinkers, IMHO.

Robert Buxbaum, July 16, 2023. In his autobiography, Einstein claimed to be a fan of scientist -philosopher, Ernst Mach. Mach derived the speed of sound from a mathematical analysis of thermodynamics. Einstein followed, considering that it must be equally true to consider an empty box traveling in space to be one that carries its emptiness with it, as to assume that fresh emptiness comes in at one end and leaves by the other. If you set the two to be equal mathematically, you conclude that both time and space vary with velocity. Similar analysis will show that atoms are real, and that energy must travel in packets, quanta. Einstein also did fun work on the curvature of rivers, and was a fan of this sail ship design. Here is some more on the scientific method.

Yiddish newspapers and talking cows, a case for Jewish education

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Jewish education is a mess according to the Times. Most anyone outside it, who’d look in would agree: Ancient books, pre-science outlooks, anti-inclusive, and taught in a garble of languages, Yiddish, English, Aramaic, Hebrew. The New York Times has runs regular editorials claiming that Jewish education robs children of a future, or an entrance to society, producing adults who know nothing of geometry or higher math, or modern history, incapable of voting intelligently in today’s elections (they often vote Republican). The Times’s experts, are often the products of this education, but claim to have risen above it, only because of extra work. As a proof, they often cite the Talmud as a source of useless knowledge of ancient Jewish law, rejected Bible history, and only the most basic views of math. By way of a response, I’d like to quote something I’d heard in synagog a couple of weeks back:

“I’m so glad that I learned geometry in school, and not taxes. It’s really come in handy this parallelogram season.“

The speaker was an accountant, and the point of the joke is that there is no parallelogram season. There is a tax season, though, and tax law follows a bizarre logic that is not geometric, but is somewhat talmudic. As for the useless languages, they are all in use, both as spoken languages and written languages, no less useful than Latin, and certainly more alive. There are currently 5 yiddish-language newspapers being published in New York alone, see below. They compete with each other for readers, while competing also with the Times, the Post, and with another ten or more Hebrew and English journals, several of them Jewish, either published on paper or as web-journals. People read them, though the Times prefers to ignore their existence.

There are five newspapers published currently in Yiddish in New York. The Forward (Tony Curtis and duck) and the Vort are left-leaning, the Algeminer, the Blat, and the Zeitung, are more right and center. There is a readership. Why a duck?

And that brings us to the subject matter, Talmud. Much of Jewish learning is Talmud, either distilled or pure, study of a set of books written between 1000 and 2000 years ago in Israel, Babylon, and France mostly, with commentaries from Spain, Morocco, Egypt, Germany, and Poland. Those who learned talmud tend to find it useful. The legal organization and approach resonates to them in the understanding of taxes, contracts, building, damage assessment, marriage, ethics, even in dealing with alcoholism. Talmud is so useful that it’s common for working, orthodox Jews to continue their learning it throughout their lives. A common practice is to learn a page every day in synchrony with other Jews. Today’s page, when I started writing this post, was Nazir 10. It includes a talking cow, just the sort of section that the Times likes to cite to show the uselessness of it all. I’ll forgive their lack of understanding, but not their laziness for not even bothering to try to understand.

Nazir 10 begins by saying: “If a cow says, ‘I will be a Nazir (that is, I will give up wine for a month) if I stand up’. Then, if it gets up, one school of rabbinic thought (Bais Shammai) says he is a nazir. Another school of thought (Bais Hillel) says he is not a nazir.” The page goes on to speak about taking doors, but I’ll stop here after the first 2 sentences and will try to explain what the Times does not care to examine.

Notice that cows are female, and they typically don’t speak, but here you find a “he” who might have to give up wine. This “he”, this male, is understood to be a person looking at the cow, likely a person with an alcohol problem. He sees a cow lying on the ground (in the mud figuratively) and identifies it to himself. That is, he sees himself lying in the mud. He thinks it’s impossible for the cow to get up because he imagines that he himself can not get up. (This is just the Talmud’s way of discussing things). According to Bais Shammai, the person is understood to have said to himself, “if that cow can get up, I will take it as a sign that I can get up, and I will take it on myself to avoid wine and wine products for a month.” Now, according to Bais Shammai, if the cow gets up, the man is obligated to stop drinking for a month.

“I love television, and find it very educational. When someone turns it on, I go read a book.” G. Marx

Bais Hillel says he is not obligated at all. They say that a drunk who wants to change, must do more than be inspired, he must make a real verbal commitment. He must verbally obligate himself to give up drink. We follow this latter opinion, but learn Bais Shammai’s view too, because there are important ideas about self-identity.

Those are just the first two lines of the page. In secular school, you learn stories too, sometimes stories with talking animals, but these are usually modern stories, where the challenges are external, bullying say, but in a sense such stories are sanitized. The internal demons are removed, and these are often the hardest to battle. Even dealing with external problems is often pushed on an external authority, a teacher usually. You are considered to be too weak to deal with a problem. Sometimes that’s true, usually there is at least some part you could deal with. The lack of self-obligation leaves modern school stories flat. Few kids enjoy them, or feel they get anything from them. A result in Detroit is that schools have <50% attendance. Kids leave barely literate with appalling math skills. We blame the teachers and the subject. It’s the book: Sally has 15 tomatoes and wants to give 4 to a friend, how many will she have left? is this relevant? Does this excite?

Talmud teaches some logic, some math, and some geometry, but only for measuring distances and volumes, the application that geometry was named for (geometry = measuring the earth). They learn the rest as needed, and often learn quite a lot.

As Groucho Marx said: “My education is self inflicted.”

The products of Jewish education become successful, often in business, hiring their better-educated brothers. Some become lawyers, accountants, writers, businessmen, or psychologists — more than our share in the population — or mathematicians and scientists. Some even excel in academics or journalism. The Times does not mention this.

Groucho, Chico, Harpo, and Karl Marx

My three children all went to Jewish, religious school and got the education that the Times calls abuse. So far, my son (31) has two masters degrees, both in artificial intelligence/ computer science. My older daughter (28) is getting her PhD in Psychology, and my younger daughter (23) is working on her masters in epidemiology. I suspect they benefited from the education. My suggestion to the Times, is in another Marx quote: “If you find it hard to laugh at yourself, I would be happy to do it for you.”

Robert Buxbaum, March 1, 2023. “History may not think with its feet, but it certainly doesn’t walk on its head.”– Karl Marx, the less-funny, Marx brother. Jewish educated, he became a journalist.

John Kennedy’s Nazi spy lover

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Photo and biographical background from Julian Wiles

Kennedy was a well-liked president with several character flaws. The most famous were his sexual dalliances. One these was with a Nazi spy, Inga Marie Arvad, “Inga Binga”. He continued with her, on and off, from his days in Naval Intelligence through his election to congress in 1946 despite being informed of her background by the navy and the FBI. When they began their relationship, Inga Marie was beautiful, 28 and married. That didn’t seem to matter, as she was beautiful, the ex-Miss Denmark, charming and instantly in love with Kennedy. She was also a close friend of Hitler, Goring, and Göebbels, and in the employ of both The Washington Times-Herald and of Axel Wenner-Gren, a suspected Nazi spy master who owned the largest private yacht in the world. It was suspected that the fuel Wenner-Gren bought for his yacht was used to refuel German U-boats in the area.

Before becoming involved with Kennedy, Ms Arvand had married Kamak Abdel Nabi, an Egyptian diplomat, and then Paul Fejos, a Hungarian film-maker. She traveled the world with Fejos, financed by Wenner-Gren, meeting, greeting, and film-making. Still married, she left Fejos in 1936 to move to the US and study journalism at Columbia University. Getting a job at the Washington Times-herald, she wrote light hearted articles based on interviews with the movers and shakers of DC, supported by $5000 checks from her friend, Wenner-Gren.

The affair with Kennedy began in the fall of 1941. Kennedy was working at the Office of Naval Intelligence, a post he’d gotten with influence from his ambassador father, “Big Joe Kennedy”. Joe was an opponent of going to war. Ms. Arvand heartily agreed. She met Jack Kennedy through his sister, Kathleen, “Kick”.

The office of Naval Intelligence had rules against adulterous relationships. Kennedy ignored them. In this case it was particularly problematic as Inga was married, Protestant, and an associate of Hitler. The navy told Kennedy to stay away, and transferred him to Charlestown with orders to stay there, “not to venture more than 50 miles”. Ms Arvad visited him there often under an assumed name, Barbara White. They stayed together, took in movies, plays, and golf. The FBI watched as Arvad was thought to be a spy. Kennedy was again told to stay clear; he did not. Eventually, Hoover intervened and got Kennedy transferred to the South Pacific despite his bad back and other health problems. Inga broke off with Kennedy though he continued to write love letters. She ignored them. Perhaps she thought Kennedy was no longer interesting, even a liability. She was trying to get a job with US overseas intelligence, the forerunner of the CIA.

Inga with husband, and two children. Note that the older, Ronald, looks like J. Kennedy. Photo from Geoffrey Gray.

When Inga didn’t get the job, she moved to Los Angeles where she continued in journalism, working for Harpers Bazar, interviewing the movers and shakers in LA and New York, generally pushing for peace. In January, 1944, she started writing to Kennedy again. He was a hero with political ambitions. She reunited with Kennedy in LA, for a private interview, published, about the sinking of his PT boat. They continued dating well into 1946, after Kennedy was elected to congress. Inga got pregnant from someone (Kennedy?) and left to marry an actor she’d been dating, Tim McCoy. Some months later, Inga gave birth to a boy who looks a lot more like Kennedy than like her husband, see photo.

While Inga no longer contacted JFK, nor JFK her, it seems that Inga was a major factor influencing Kennedy to go into politics — where he could make the world more peaceful. Inga died of Colin cancer in 1973. She only revealed her part of the affair to her eldest son, the Kennedy look-alike, near the end of her life.

The FBI’s knowledge of this story this emerged from the private files of J. Edgar Hoover, recently unsealed, reported by investigative writer, Geoffrey Gray. He speculates that Hoover used his knowledge of Kennedy’s affairs to keep from having to retire, though well past retirement age. Hover was eventually removed by Nixon, and FBI got back at Nixon by leaking as much negative as they could to the press, and more-recently helping the Democrats bug the Trump campaign, then helping spread Russian collusion documents. Also, according to the BBC they were behind the plot to kidnap MI governor Whitmer — a crime they immediately “solved”. I’m not convinced that the FBI, isn’t more of a danger than a protection. See a previous essay, “who will protect us from our protectors?”

Regarding John Kennedy, I’m less-bothered by his sexual dalliances, than by his tendency to suddenly reverse himself. Kennedy called for an attack on Cuba, then reversed while the attack was in progress, dooming the attackers. He reversed again in South Vietnam, first first supporting the government then overthrowing it, and on civil rights. Vigorous persistence, even in the face of criticism is a good trait in a president, something I liked about LBJ, Nixon, Clinton, and Reagan.

Robert Buxbaum, October 14, 2022.

Girls are doing better, Boys are doing far worse.

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When I began college in 1972, the majority of engineering students and business students were male. They from the top of their high school classes, and from stable homes mostly; they went on to high paying jobs. Boys also dominated at the bottom of society. They were the majority of the criminals, drug addicts, and high-school dropouts. Many went off to Vietnam. Some, those who were handy, went to trade schools and a reasonable life, productive life. Society did not seem bothered by the destruction of boys in prison, or Vietnam, or by drugs, but there was an outcry that so few women achieved high academic levels. A famous presentation of the problem was called “for every 100 girls.” An updated version appears below showing the status as of October, 2021. A more detailed version appears further down.

From the table above, you can see that women are now the majority of those in college, the majority of those with a bachelors degree or higher, and a majority of those with advanced degrees. Colleges added special tutoring, special grants, and special programs. Each college had a Society of Women Engineers office, and similar programs in law and math. All of these explicitly excluded men or highly discouraged their presence. The curriculum was changed too; made more female-friendly. Dirty, and physical experiments were removed, replaced with group analysis of the social interactions — important aspects of engineers that boys were far-less adept at doing well. Perhaps society and engineering is better off now, but boys (men) are far worse off. This is particularly seem by the following chart, looking at the bottom. Boys/men provide the vast majority of the prison population, of those diagnosed as learning disabled, of those expelled, or overdosed, and among the war dead.

I’ve previously noted that a majority of boys in school are considered disruptive, and that these boys are routinely diagnosed as ADHD and drugged. It is not at all clear that this is a good thing, or that the drugs help anyone but the teacher. I’ve also noted that artwork and attitudes that were considered normal for boys are now considered disturbing and criminal like saying I wish the school was blown up. The cure here, perhaps is worse than the disease. I’m not saying that we should encourage boys to say such things, but that we should acknowledge a difference between an active and a passive wish. And we should find a way to educate boys/men so they don’t end up unemployed, addicted, or dead. Currently boy, particularly those at the bottom are on the scrap-heap of society.

Here is some source material for the above:

  • For every 100 women enrolled in US colleges (degree-granting postsecondary institutions) at all levels there are 75 men enrolled. 
    Source: National Center for Education Statistics
  • For every 100 women enrolled in US graduate schools there are 68 men.
    Source: Council for Graduate Schools (2020)   
  • For every 100 women who earn associate’s degrees from US colleges, there are 61 men. 
    Source: National Center for Education Statistics (2021-2022)
  • For every 100 women who earn bachelor’s degrees from US colleges and universities, there are 73 men. 
    Source: National Center for Education Statistics (2021-2022)  
  • For every 100 women who earn master’s degrees from US colleges and universities, there are 65 men. 
    Source: National Center for Education Statistics   
  • For every 100 women who earn doctor’s degrees from US universities, there are 85 men. 
    Source: National Center for Education Statistics   
  • For every 100 women who are recent college graduates but not in the labor force, there are 108 men. 
    Source: Department of Labor
  • For every 100 women with an advanced degree but not in the labor force there are 114 men. 
    Source: Department of Labor
  • For every 100 women ages 16-24 in the civilian labor force who are enrolled in college there are 68 men. 
    Source: Department of Labor

Robert Buxbaum, May 28, 2022

Ukraine looks like Vietnam or the beginnings of WWI

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The press and our Russian experts claim we’re helping in Ukraine, protecting it from a Russian invasion. I suspect they are wrong, and that our help and protection will prove to be as deadly to all as in the Vietnam war. I’m also uncomfortable with their presentation their framing of Putin as an out of touch autocrat. Putin has popular support, and acts with a strong sense of history, as I see it, just not our version of history. In the Russian version, it was Russia that stopped the Nazis — of Germany and Ukraine. We are not the heroes of WWII in their telling; I doubt we’ll be the heroes of this conflict either.

We have a habit of seeing ourselves as saving heroes as we enter other people’s conflicts. It is how we got into Vietnam, to save the South from the North. It’s also how Europe got into WWI: Russia was saving Serbia, Germany was saving Austria, etc (see cartoon below). We meddle our way, and leave much later than we planned. The result, as in Vietnam and Afghanistan is far more death and destruction than if we’d minded our own business. And US war-dead too. In Vietnam 58,000 US deaths. In Afghanistan 2,400 US dead. and no obvious accomplishment. As Henry Kissinger famously commented: “It’s dangerous to be America’s enemy, but deadly to be America’s friend.”

European aggression in WWII started with the good intention of preventing aggression. It got out of hand, as I fear our good intentions will in Ukraine.

The US troops we’ve sent to Ukraine are not called soldiers. They are “fighting advisors” sent to help the Ukrainians use our weapons. In WWI and Vietnam, fighting advisors are called invaders; it’s how we got drawn into Vietnam. The Russians claimed to send advisors when they entered the Crimea and later the Dundas. We called it an invasion. We can’t be that blind to our own words. Sooner or later, the advisors will start killing each other– something we’ll call an unprovoked attack. Our high tech aid including anti-tank missiles are reported to have killed some 10,000 Russians so far. We don’t seem to think the Russians will mind, or that they’ll give up as the body count mounts. In Vietnam, the more we killed with our high-tech weapons, the more the Vietnamese on both sides called us the villains, and the more Vietnamese joined the fight against us. That’s the future I fear for Ukraine, or worse. The conflict in WWI spiraled quickly beyond the borders of Serbia to include the whole world, and continued through WWII.

Our approach to diplomacy is counterproductive too, in my opinion, and similar to Vietnam too. We call Putin a terrorist, a madman and a narcissist, and then we begin talks with him to end the war. Biden has asked to have Putin removed by assassination.Does he think this will help, or if Putin is removed his successor will be a friend of the US? We demonized Ho Chi Minh, and propped up our favored, corrupt leaders. Minh was popular, as is Putin, and both have valid reasons for opposing us. Putin worries about the expansion of NATO. It’s not an illegitimate worry given Russian history of repeated invasions from the west.

Our desire to remove Russian leadership is a long-standing mistake. It does not lead to peace, or good negotiation, nor even peaceful co-existence.

Russia has been invaded many times. US schools mention Napoleon’s invasion in 1812 and the German’s in 1941, but there are more. They were invaded by the Germans in WWI too, and by the Ukrainian Cossacks in the days of Khmelnytsky, 1646-57. Before that the Polish Lithuanians, 1609-1618, the Swedes, 1701-1709, and in the early days, it was Tartars, Mongols, who invaded and ruled Russia from about 1225 til they joined with the Russian Tzars about 1650. Add to that, our help in the war of the Whites vs the Reds (1917-23) that produced Ukrainian independence — I talk about the relevance here. With a history like that, Russia has every reason to worry about NATO expansion. We should be cognizant of this and stop calling Putin a madman. Let’s accept the Russian version of history, and the sitting ruler of Russia.

Some cite the Budapest memorandum that lead to the removal of “Ukrainian” nuclear weapons –– read it here. It’s short, only 1 page, and deliberately vague. it was signed by Putin’s predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, for the Russian Federation, along with representatives for Ukraine, The US, and The UK. The missiles were not Ukrainian, they were Soviet, and pointed at us. As a result of that agreement, they were dismantled and moved into Russia. There is no sense that this is an invitation for us to protect Ukraine against Russia. The co-signers sort-of agree to protect Ukraine from outsiders (Germany, Turkey,..?), but that’s not clear. We commit ourselves to peace in the region, and can claim that Russia violated the peace first, but there’s no invitation for us to violate it second. Until recently, the UK provided no military aid. China and most of the EU still trades with Russia; if they see a villainy, it’s not enough to stop trade.

Robert McNamara was Secretary of Defense under Kennedy and Johnson, and a key “Whiz Kid” pushing for war in Vietnam. Years later, he decided Vietnam was a mistake. A sad cartoon: the veterans are walking past the grave monument for the 58,000 US dead. I worry we’ll have a similar cartoon after this war.

In my opinion, our best course is to reduce our military aid to providing only basics: bullets, blankets, food… We should reopen discussions with Putin, not demonize him, or try to remove him. Ukraine will likely fight on even without our high-tech weapons. Perhaps they’ll buy from Europe, or from independent dealers. The death rate on both sides will be lower and peace will come quicker without us. Crimea might remain Ukrainian or Russian, but that will not be our decision. We’ve done enough damage for now. It took many years after the end of the Vietnam war for the instigators admit is was a mistake.

Robert Buxbaum April 3, 2022. Much of my thinking about Vietnam comes from Francis Fitzgerald’s wonderful book “Fire in the Lake”. I see it all happening again here. Also worth reading is this 2014 letter by Henry Kissinger about how to negotiate a peace: “Damning Putin is not a foreign policy; it’s an alibi for the lack of one.” It’s a nice insight. He seems to understand diplomacy about as well as anyone.

Billionaire Democrats and union Republicans

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In the last presidential election, the largest billionaires in the US were vocal Democrats, and two billionaires, Yang and Bloomberg were candidates. Bloomberg had been an anticrime Republican when he ran for mayor but in 2020 he spent $!B of his own money on anti Republican ads, and paid the debts of thousands of Florida felons who he thought would vote his way. It’s a strange new world.

Other vocal Democrats include: Jeff Bezios, majority owner of Amazon and The Washington Post, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook, Bill Gates, founder and largest owner of Microsoft (just today blasting the Republicans over global warming — Is that logical — is cold better?), and Warren Buffett who likes to note that he pays a lower tax rate than his secretary does (IMHO that’s because he games the tax system and pays no social security tax). Meanwhile union workers and white middle class folks were mostly Republicans in 2020.

Union leadership are still Democrats, but the last few elections saw union workers voting R. These were called “The basket of deplorables, unredeemables” by candidate Clinton. R support among black people is less than 50%, but growing too. it’s quite a lot higher than two decades ago. Many showed up at MAGA rallies, you’ll see plenty in videos at “the insurrection”. The only person shot and killed at the insurrection was a white woman, unarmed, shot in the face by Capital police — no charges filed, but the liberal press, who usually hate such things, was silent. Almost to the man, they sided with the police over the mob.

I notice that the Black Lives Matter rallies are populated with the well off and the well educated. A Princeton lawyer was photographed driving around with a box of Molotov cocktails, and his co-worker, another lawyer tossed a lit fire bomb into a police car. It used to be that Princeton lawyers didn’t do that, at least not in person.

Portrait of a Democrat. From the New Yorker.

It’s not like the platforms have reversed. The Democratic party was always for high taxes, high regulation, and for soft money that they could give away. They still are. In 1900 the call was for “free silver“, now it’s “stimulus money.” It used to be that rich people didn’t like this. They would point of that printing money didn’t add to wealth, but just redistributed it from those who had savings to those who did not. Now they uniformly blast anyone who doubted the wisdom of printing 1.9 trillion in new money ($6000 per person, of which $1400 is given to you), and going on to blast anyone who doesn’t like additional oversight to prevent the systemic racism they see in the less-well-off.

One reason these richest billionaires are no longer Republicans is that they are no longer involved industrial manufacturing in the US. Thus the regulations they favor don’t apply to them. In the olden days, rich people made steel or cars. Regulations were annoying. Rich industrialists had money in US banks. For them inflation was theft. Now rich people own intangible industries that largely operate outside of the country. What money they earn is earned off-shore, tax free. As individuals, they live on US debt, and possess little or no hard cash. Inflation helps them pay off their debt, and high taxes don’t hurt them. Buffett can be down-home and pro environment. He flies private jet to meetings on global warming while investing in overseas petroleum.

Elon Musk seemed like a Republican during the Trump administration, but not so much now. He still makes stuff in America, but has moved to manufacture abroad. In January, he said he was fired up for Biden. He has put a significant chunk of his wealth into bitcoins. Its a protection from the inflation caused by printing money, and it’s a bet that’s paid off handsomely. I expect that we’ll have billionaire Democrats and union Republicans for the foreseeable future.

Robert Buxbaum, March 14, 2021. It’s pie day. Eat a pie at 1:59:27. (Edited Apr. 28, 2021)