RETHINKING MY POSTING PHILOSOPHY. Some recent observations from Virginia Postrel are on point.

Even the few brilliant scholars (Tyler Cowen, Eugene Volokh, Grant McCracken) who make blogging seem like it should foster serious thought limit their posting to topics they want to mull over in public. Current-affairs blogging of the Sullivan/Instapundit/name your favorite type is inherently quick, dirty, and disposable. It may add to the public discourse, but it doesn't tend to deepen the blogger's own thinking.

Must. Consider. This.

GOOD NEWS. The First Mate's pancreas transplant has worked well thus far.

She's looking better every time I see her, and she's been conversing with me today. She's not strong enough to take phone calls and she doesn't want visitors at all besides me, but she responds well to my jokes (she's the only one who laughs at them anyway) and she wants me here even if she's asleep.

King's prayer cannot have hurt.

WE. WILL. GET. THROUGH. THIS. Never mind the grippe, the coughs, the continued overcast that can't make up its mind whether to provide cold rain or wet snow. Pitchers and catchers are reporting.

YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR. The 'Net and Blogger are moving kind of slow right now. More tomorrow evening.

A SIMPLE DEBUNKING OF CONSPIRACY THEORIES. Voluntary Xchange proposes a simple exercise.

Every time this comes up in a class I ask the students if they've ever tried to order a pizza for 3 people, and if yes whether it was difficult to agree about what to get on it and how to divide it up. Occassionally a light bulb goes on over one of their heads when they make the connection that if pizza is this hard than conspiracy must be damn near impossible.

The linked readings are worth your consideration.

IF GRANDMOTHER HAD WHEELS, SHE'D BE A TRAMCAR. The Northern Illinois University womens' basketball team extends its losing streak to six.

"This is extremely frustrating," [guard Stephanie] Raymond said. "In the beginning of the season we felt we couldn’t win the first half. Now it’s switched and we can’t win the second half. We just don’t know what to do."

Umm, isn't that why teams have coaches?

"I’m very disappointed," said NIU coach Carol Hammerle, whose team has lost six in a row. "I thought our team executed throughout the majority of the game. We just didn’t win."

For this we are paying in the mid-hundred-Ks?

CARNIVAL CALL. Carnival of the Capitalists visits Weekend Pundit.

SOME GOOD NEWS. Please welcome Tran Thi ThanhChi Sjostrom, whose daddy also won an Irish weblog award.

ALLOCATING AWARENESS AMONG COMPETING ATROCITIES. Economics is everywhere, even in a discussion of the remarks Northern Illinois University's adjunct Professor Myron Kuropas made in his online column. I have had the opportunity to read the two columns, and agree with the position of the University. In neither column did Mr Kuropas exploit his stature as a faculty member or as a Littlejohn School teacher to advocate a position outside his area of expertise in those callings. The editorial board at the Northern Star comes to a sensible conclusion.

As uncomfortable as it is to confront, a public conversation on the issue is valuable. Discussion sheds light on how the Holocaust continues to be interpreted.

Inflammatory speech will always exist. It is society’s examination of it that determines if the speech is completely useless or if we can learn from it.

In an interview with the DeKalb Chronicle, Mr Kuropas observes,

"I regret this very much," he said of the media attention he's received. "I don't regret writing what I wrote. ... On occasion I can be a little strident. Perhaps some of my stridency should have been tempered."

Perhaps one would have reason for concern about the internal structure of any term papers students produced under Mr Kuropas's supervision based on the internal logic of his columns, but the conversation in which he is participating has an interesting twist.

Ukraine suffered in the 20th Century under the Soviet yoke and during the Nazi occupation. Ukrainian activists would like museums devoted to the Holocaust to pay more attention to other instances of mass death organized by government powers. In the earlier of the two columns, dated 5 September 1999, Mr Kuropas comments on Peter Novick's The Holocaust in American Life (details or compare prices), in which Mr Novick uses the phrase, "Jews were intent on permanent possession of the gold medal in the Victimization Olympics." The Amazon review goes on to note that Mr Novick asks the somewhat more pertinent question, why a national Holocaust memorial museum but as of yet no memorial to chattel slavery? So how does one allocate awareness among competing causes? Knowledge of the Holocaust is useful, as is knowledge of the Middle Passage and of the Famine? But How Much knowledge, and what else gets crowded out.

To me the most troubling part of Mr Kuropas's first column is his attempt to secure a stronger victim status for Ukrainians relative to Jews. That neither brings back the dead nor engages people in a conversation over the reasons for government-organized mass death, the real heart of the matter. There is neither Holocaust denial nor libel against Jews in the column.

The second column, dated 20 August 2000, comments on Norman Finkelstein's The Holocaust Industry (details or compare prices), a work that documents Israeli exploitation of the Holocaust as a way of keeping the United States allied after the Six Day War. What damages Mr Kuropas's commentary on the book is that the final seven sentences (the controversial "big money" passage) are non sequiturs. Had he stopped by calling out defenders of inaccurate if polemically appealing memoirs, one of Professor Finkelstein's lines of research, as besmirching the memory of all those killed by state action, his argument would have held more force.

In doing the research for this post, I found another opportunity cost argument in which an activist with a case for greater awareness of past atrocities raised the Holocaust-crowds-our-story-out argument. The activist: controversial Colorado ethnic studies professor Ward Churchill. Ace of Spades, who pointed to the story, notes that Professor Churchill's A Little Matter of Genocide (details only; he's PNGd at Price Compare) suggests Holocaust awareness crowds out the behavior of the European powers toward Native Americans as well as obscures Israel's behavior in the occupied territories.

Ultimately, then, is the debate over Mr Kuropas's policy advocacy, and Professor Churchill's policy advocacy, one of establishing some core principles for evaluating the behavior of governments that systematically kill off inconvenient residents, rather than over whether the behaviors existed? There appears to be no disagreement about the existence of specific policies aimed at eliminating Jews, Ukrainians, and Native Americans, or at enslaving Africans. That turns the debate into an economics problem: what is the equilibrium level of conceptual development -- a theory of atrocity, if you will -- and which examples make the most sense to include, and in what detail?

SIGNALLING. Professor Bainbridge discovers a little "thank you" from Citizens United, a political fundraising organization that supports President Bush's policies, to Hollywood's most famous friends of the opposition.

THE FOLLIES OF TRADEMARK YIELD MANAGEMENT. Triticale scoffs at attempts by prototype railroads to harvest rents from their heralds.

Altho, lucky for them, model railroaders are not political enough to rise up and organise a boycott, it is wondrously easy not to model the Union Pacific. Aside from the many competitors who see no need to resort to such measures, there is also a glorious tradition known as freelancing. One of the first truly great model railroads was the Gorre and Daphetid and I can expect as much acceptence and nearly as many contest points for models of Phoenix - Durango rolling stock as for those with known prototypes. There is also a trend toward starting over in a new scale and/or gauge; there may well be a disproportionate number of HO scale UP models cut up by people switching to On30.

The biggest reason that the Union Pacific is foolish for being so anal about trademark and IP is that altho their business is booming right now they are in competition with other railroads and with other forms of transportation. There are demographic reasons why antagonizing model railroaders and railfans is likely to be detrimental to the marketing of transportation service.

I think that last sentence means "traffic managers might have model trains, or kids who have model trains."

THE EVOLUTION OF THE INTERNET PROTOCOLS? Blogger allows its users to visit randomly selected weblogs, and I peruse my referrals from those random visitors. Sometimes an interesting tidbit turns up. For example, 36-173 offers some history of computer hacking.

The first group of people to be titled hackers was a group of students at MIT who were involved in the Tech Model Railroad Club. The TMRC was separated by members interested in the model trains and those fascinated by the system underneath the model trains. It was this group of students that would become highly involved in computer programming in the coming years.

One wonders if the MIT railroad was wired in the common rather haphazard fashion or if track feeders and signals were arranged systematically. The convention oh the real railroad for structuring an interlocking has some principles that would generalize to the creation of a network. The levers or circuiting must be arranged in such a way that all lineups are made toward an approaching train: the switches farthest away, working back toward the train's track; next, any switch locks, finally signals, again, with the innermost home signal cleared first, then any intermediate home signals, and last the approach signal. (Thus, a train cannot be given indication of a clear road until the road, truly, is clear.) The signalling version of rebooting was as frustrating as it is for contemporary computer users: if the signal operator changes his mind, he must start a timer that locks all the levers for three or four minutes. The purpose is to prevent a switch from being thrown under a moving train.

ANOTHER MYSTERY SOLVED. Hermann Goering's guard unwittingly assisted the highest-ranking Nazi captive commit suicide. (Via Owen at Boots and Sabers.)

MAU-MAUING A COLLEAGUE. The exchange of opinions about Northern Illinois adjunct Professor and official U.S. delegate to the Ukrainian inauguration Myron Kuropas continues. Mr Kuropas has written a statement in his own defense to the DeKalb Chronicle. His defense offers an echo of the show trial. Will it ever be possible for somebody accused of a racist remark to simply say "you are wrong" without having to preface it with a litany of one's civil rights bona fides. Do we have to wait for public intellectuals of a certain age who still approach any civil rights problem as if it is the Selma Bridge to die off?

On to the substance. Mr Kuropas's perspective is that Ukrainians have been falsely accused of collaboration with the Nazis.

Unfortunately, as some Ukrainian dialogue partners and I became more involved with the defense of John Demjanjuk, accused of being "Ivan the Terrible of Treblinka," our dialogues became more strained. Soon it was obvious to all of us that we were getting nowhere, so we decided to issue a statement in which we essentially agreed to disagree. The Ukrainian-Jewish dialogue was postponed.

After spending six years in an Israeli jail, Mr. Demjanjuk was found not guilty by the Israeli Supreme Court and he returned to the United States, his citizenship restored. When our Jewish partners remained adamant that Mr. Demjanjuk must be guilty of other crimes against the Jews, any hope of further dialogue ended. Today, I continue to support Mr. Demjanjuk, and it appears that certain members of the Jewish community have never forgiven me for my beliefs in this regard.

He also insists that the Congressional press release from Representatives Rahm Emanuel (D-Gold Coast) and Henry Waxman (D-Malibu) are the consequence of careless reading of some book reviews he wrote for a Ukrainian emigre newspaper.

All of the statements attributed to me regarding "the Holocaust industry" were taken out of context from my biweekly columns in the Ukrainian Weekly. The particular quotations in question were actually part of a review of the book "The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering" by professor Norman G. Finkelstein of City University of New York. Another column of mine was a review of "The Holocaust in American Life" by Peter Novick. All of my commentaries can be accessed at http://www.ukrweekly.com/.

The site does not have a search engine. Searching from this desk will resume after an evening's rest. His statements can be placed in context if Mr Kuropas's assertion is true.

A retired psychology professor now living just to the northwest of Rep. Waxman's district has decided that the continued employment of Mr Kuropas as an adjunct is simply intolerable. In an open letter to Northern Illinois's John Peters, he claims,

Your public statements on the issue are, to any person familiar with the academic world, surprisingly lame: "It would be inappropriate (for NIU) to comment in specific terms on what this man has written or what he has said in the past." Good grief, President Peters, all hires are based on a faculty member's past behavior! "There is not enough of a connection between Kuropas' private affairs and his teaching at NIU to warrant (a review of his statements)." Now, President Peters, are people not called to task at any reputable university for exceedingly offensive behavior? Basketball coaches have not been renewed for less! Whether one's prejudiced behavior is related or not to the course one teaches has not been a criterion in any reputable institution in my memory. One's antisocial behavior, as it affects the fabric, unity and respect for diversity of a campus, is a matter for weighing in instructor reviews. I argue that his past behavior is relevant to his representing NIU and his impact on a campus environment allegedly oriented toward respect and tolerance, whatever the narrow content of the course he teaches.

What if Mr. Kuropas' remarks had been directed at racial minorities? Would we see less ducking and weaving on your part?

Pedant's note: basketball coaches don't have tenure, and they are paid somewhat more handsomely (sometimes to make the same mistakes again and again.)

Would my retired colleague (the letter writer used to participate in the same exercise program I still participate in; this letter appears to be somewhat intemperate) have been so quick to seek the denunciation of a colleague who repeated a canard about Eichmanns in the World Trade Center or mocked the adoption of snipers as adopting Nazis? Isn't the real issue whether his statements are truthful or not? Is my retired colleague suggesting that telling the truth about diversity admissions would be reason for denunciations? Infelicitous choices of words are a lesser transgression. Genuine prejudgements are another matter, but without a careful review of the online record, I'm not ready to go that far. More after an evening's rest.

STATUS ANXIETY. University Diaries has the right attitude on the gratuitous use of Ph.D. and other honorifics on business cards, correspondence, and door placards.

Any professor who routinely puts Ph.D. after his or her name is, UD assumes, an unimpressive, provincial, vain, and insecure person. The use of Dr. is even worse. It's just like the Wizard of Oz sticking all those letters after his name.

Ayup. The Ph.D. was a hard-won prize for me (in a number of ways.) But I'm still standing because two papers out of that dissertation plus some followups that built on the original methods and evidence made it into print within the time limit.

Now if I could persuade the office staff to tone down my door card, and the Illinois Council on Economic Education (is it an accident that the proliferations of Ed.D., M.Sc., D.D.L.M., and the like flourish most robustly in Colleges of Education?) to simply address invitations to Professor Stephen Karlson, Department of Economics ...

A colleague who had a similarly jaundiced take on the promiscuous use of "Doctor" used to threaten to start giving physicals. With my reputation I'd best not go there ...

A NEW SOURCE OF COMPANY MAIL. Via King at SCSU Scholars comes word of a new weblog operated by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. The newest post addresses what happens when you turn a grievance movement into an academic discipline and apply the same standards of disciplinary freedom to that movement that established disciplines -- perhaps once upon a time parvenus themselves -- enjoy.

Oh, and if the operators of Fire's Torch are tracking back, did you know there is still a free speech zone policy at Northern Illinois University?

WE. WILL. GET. THROUGH. THIS. Grippe and coughs affect many of the students and faculty at Northern Illinois. To add aesthetic insult to injury, our pretty snow melted although the snow cover may be replenished by morning. Such aesthetic compensations will not be available in Jackson or Knoxville.

MORE ON WARD CHURCHILL. Welcome, Poliblogger readers. The post Professor Taylor linked to is here. There is more today, and Sean At The American Mind has also been following the story. If you haven't read the Poliblogger post, which is extensive and rich in links, get over there.

SIXTY YEARS AGO. Sgt. Karlson's unit is quartered in a farmhouse outside Manderfeld, Belgium. "20 GIs slept all over the floors, while the family stayed in one room. Rainy, cold, but not so frigid. Rest of the Battery lived similarly in 4 nearby houses."

On February 7, the Russians crossed the Oder River.

ROLLING UP THE WEB OF TERROR. Book Review No. 7 is Endgame (details or compare prices), written by two retired Generals. This is a rather sobering book, considering a number of worst-case scenarios for further terrorist attacks, including those abetted by governments. It offers a look at several countries that offered or offer haven for the web of terror, including Afghanistan (the establishment of a fully functioning civil society is years in the future), Iraq (the authors recommend staying the course; the recent election is probably a step in the right direction), Iran (reminds the authors of the Soviet Union in 1989), North Korea (complicated diplomacy involving the other Pacific Rim states), Syria (a domino waiting to fall; the authors argue that Syria has Saddam's chemical and atomic weapons, and Israeli intelligence knows that), Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan.

The authors propose a message of five freedoms that the United States ought communicate to the citizens of nations disposed to harbor or fund the Web of Terror. These are freedom of education, of the economy, of information, of the person, and of governance.

On the other hand, the authors also suggest the creation of a special counterterrorism agency -- a cabinet department -- with secure Special Terrorist Courts. That's a bit much. Does security of the nation trump individual liberties to that extent?