More white stuff

[altivo]

Despite the weather service continuing to insist that there was "no more than four inches of accumulation" we have a good six inches at work and five inches at my house. And it's still snowing, with the so-called weather advisory extended until midnight tonight. Driving was very dangerous this afternoon and has probably gotten worse since sunset. Schools were closed in Harvard, and the library had very few visitors today, even with the kids being out of school.

This wasn't a particularly impossible amount of snow, but the conditions were very bad because it started as rain, heavy rain at times, and a temperature just above freezing. We got dropping temperatures, and heavy snowfall on top of wet pavement and ground. The snow turned to wet slush at first and then began to freeze as more powdery snow accumulated on top of it. The ultimate effect is quite a booby trap, and more than a few boobies got trapped all right.

Four more of those 1909 best sellers arrived and were cataloged today, so we have only two more to arrive. They actually look like readable novels, not outdated junk. One or two of the authors are still well-remembered, particularly mystery writer Mary Roberts Rinehart and historic/adventure writer Rex Beach. The eight volumes are now lined up on a shelf in the director's office, looking like the centenarians they are, battered but not yet bowed. Those old catalog records are very poor by today's standards: no subject headings, no plot summary, no tracings for the illustrator. A couple of them are illustrated with full color plates, paintings by notable artists of the time.

I do hope we find that people are curious enough to actually want to read them. Some of these do deserve reading.

Oh, and the governor of Illinois was arrested and hauled off to jail for racketeering. Hardly anyone was surprised except the governor himself. We've known for a while that he was untrustworthy and dishonest, just like the last guy who had that office, and despite the fact that he's from the other party and promised reforms and a cleanup. I guess he meant he was going to "clean up" while in office, but we're all hoping he's going to get his clock cleaned instead. Reportedly they caught him actually offering to sell the appointment to the Senate (to replace president-elect Obama) to the highest bidder in cash or favors. The legislature is hurrying to find a way to amend the state laws so that replacement senators will no longer be appointed by the governor but will instead be chosen by a special election. Costly, but given the corrupt history of Illinois politics, probably a sensible move. Blagojevich is out on a signature bond of just $4500, but it looks as if he'd better resign his post quickly or he may be facing impeachment. No loss. Nor was his Republican predecessor any loss, the man was an obvious crook. That's the way politics has been in Illinois just about as long as there has been an Illinois, and regardless of parties. Neither candidate in the last two governor's campaigns has been even the least bit acceptable. When both parties nominate rotten eggs, what do you do? Vote for the lesser of two evils? Lessee, should I pick Pol Pot or Adolf Hitler? Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden? I wrote in "no" for governor both of the last two elections.

For Obama's detractors who are so eager to seize on this as "proof" that Obama is a fraud or a thief or whatever: Obama was never an Illinois state politician. He never served in the Illinois legislature, or the Chicago city council, or in a state level cabinet post. He has no attachment to the so-called "machine" in Chicago except in that he runs as a Democrat. Note that George Wallace ran as a Democrat too, but that didn't make Ted Kennedy into a racist any more than Spiro Agnew's income tax evasion made a thief of Barry Goldwater.

[Edited for correction: I overstated this. Obama served in Illinois political positions in recent years but was never an Illinois politician in the sense of being accepted into the existing structure. The NYT has some interesting comments on that today in which they point out that he has backed away from various former "friends" over the years as their questionable activities became obvious. In particular, they suggest that his strong backing of an ethics reform in the Illinois legislature this year, which helped to get the bill passed in spite of Gov. Blagojevich's veto, generated pressures on Blagojevich such that the latter maneuvered himself right into the hands of the feds. We are relieved here in Illinois to see that former state senator Emil Jones is now unlikely to be appointed to the US senate vacancy.]

Comments

[jmaynard.livejournal.com]

Obama was never an Illinois state politician. He never served in the Illinois legislature
Uhm. He was an Illinois state senator from 1997 to 2004.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

So I let all your complaints about his "lack of experience" convince me that he really had none, eh?

[jmaynard.livejournal.com]

He had no executive experience, and I'll stand by that. He had some legislative experience, although his record there is uninspiring.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

The fact that the Illinois legislature is historically uninspiring no matter which party is in control just might have something to do with that. The Illinois state government is almost totally dysfunctional and has been that way for as far back as anyone remembers.

[jmaynard.livejournal.com]

I'd greatly prefer a dysfunctional government to one that is Bound and Determined to Do Good. The latter almost never does, since governments have the Midas Muffler touch: everything they touch turns into a muffler.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

And I prefer one that is determined to do good over one that is as obviously determined to do evil as the outgoing federal administration has been.

[avon-deer.livejournal.com]

Despite the weather service continuing to insist that there was "no more than four inches of accumulation" we have a good six inches

That is the exact polar opposite of the way it works in the UK! We get to told that the country is going to end up resembling Hoth, and instead get barely half an inch. Of course, this being Britain, it does not stop everything breaking down.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

In general, the rule here on snow seems to be "If NWS says it will be heavy snow, there will in fact be none; but if NWS says there will be light flurries, you'd better stock up on food and firewood and batten down the hatches."

Oddly enough, they do much better at predicting rainfall. For some reason, snow befuddles them.

[avon-deer.livejournal.com]

Snow seems to require a very specific set of variables to come together at the same time, it seems. Maybe it's harder to predict as a result.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure it's that difficult. Precipitation is precipitation. Sometimes it's hard to know whether it will reach the ground as rain, snow, or something in between, or even whether it will reach the ground at all or evaporate on the way down as sometimes happens here. But predicting its occurrence isn't that difficult with the data inputs the NWS has.

They used to do rather better eight or ten years ago than they do now. To my perception, this is a result of two big factors.

Most important is government budget-cutting. Republicans in Congress actually proposed doing away with the weather service entirely and letting commercial services that sell forecasts to the radio and television stations take over the whole job. That idea was killed partly because the military and NASA didn't like it at all, and rightly so. Commercial sources don't provide the information needed for the government's own purposes, and are not very useful for agriculture either. Agricultural needs were the original impetus behind the founding of the NWS here, I think. Though the service survives, its funding has been cut quite a lot, and as a result the staffing has deteriorated. There are fewer experienced meteorologists and a lot more clerks and novices who grew up in the computer era and are inclined to just run computer models and accept the output. Hence the announcement that "It's raining" sometimes is made when a simple glance out the window would reveal a clear sky and blazing sun. The computer models need a lot more work.

The other is a fear of legal consequence, which has permeated nearly every function of society and economy in the US. Because failure to broadcast a severe storm warning might lead to lawsuits, the warning is often given falsely. Further, any twenty word warning must be followed by 250 words explaining what such a warning means, and advising people in the most verbose manner possible that they should "take shelter" or "move to higher ground" or "beware of ice on the road." It has become absurd and irritatingly wasteful. In fact, radio warnings are sometimes useless in emergency conditions because it takes so long to read all the "cover our ass" clauses on the end of each one that the emergency is past before the warnings can all be issued.

[avon-deer.livejournal.com]

Litigation. I see. We're getting that more and more where I work these days.

[schnee.livejournal.com]

I'm curious about the way write-in votes work now. If a write-in candidate gets a majority (or at least plurality) of the votes, then will he actually win the election (assuming that he accepts, of course)?

I imagine that this is the case (the whole thing would be rather pointless otherwise), but what if it isn't an actual, specific person? For example, imagine that - just as an example - 60% of all people wrote in "no" or "I don't want anyone at all" or something similar; would that actually lead to a situation where the post would be left vacant, or would the write-in votes be ignored in that case and the post awarded to the actual *candidate* (write-in or not) with the highest number of votes?

I suppose you could argue for either option. :)

[avon-deer.livejournal.com]

That;s the reason no opt out votes are allowed in the UK. So much faith have we lost in the whole process. :(

[schnee.livejournal.com]

*noddles* They don't exist in Germany, either. Of course, Germany is a civil law system rather than a common law system, which may account for a different underlying attitude - much more of an emphasis is placed on predeclaration here in general -, but I also personally think that Germany is not a democracy but rather a party-based oligarchy. Ultimately, it's the parties that wield the power; the people just have the ability to choose their poison. (Of course, it's likely similar in many places, including the USA and the UK, but in Germany, it's particularly bad. FWIW, we - the people - don't even elect the chancellor, or the president, or even half the parliament.)

[avon-deer.livejournal.com]

Ouch; and I thought it was bad here. :/

[schnee.livejournal.com]

Oh, it probably is, based from what I've heard, but it's ALSO bad here. :P

And don't get me started on parliament, BTW - the Grundgesetz stipulates that MdBs are only accountable to their own conscience, but in reality, we've got party whips just like the UK does (less officially so, maybe, though). Which is one of the many reasons why I think we live in a party-o-cracy (I really should look up the Greek term for "party") rather than a democracy or anything like that.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

The bottom line is that write-in votes are ineffective in most jurisdictions except as a statement of disgust.

The actual mechanism varies from one state or county to another. In my location, write-ins are not actually counted unless the name being written in is one that was formally registered for intent to run as a write-in candidate prior to the election date. Writing in "no" as I have sometimes done has no official effect other than giving the voter personal expression and withholding a vote from any of the candidates listed on the ballot. Sometimes people write in their own names instead, but the result is the same.

The real problem is that the means by which names are screened and selected for placement on the ballot is often ineffective and actually tends to favor the least desirable of all possible candidates.

[schnee.livejournal.com]

Ah, OK, thanks for the explanation.

How are names screened and selected for placement on the ballot, then?

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Getting on the ballot is almost always the result either of meeting the approval of "party leaders" who then make sure you get nominated, or else jumping through a number of bureaucratic hoops that start with getting some large number of signatures of registered voters on petitions. Neither process is particularly democratic. In elections for high office, the party nomination process is ultimately guided by "marketing" and "gaming" theories that are calculated to select a candidate most likely to win rather than a candidate who will actually do anything useful. Since that amounts to marketing whatever sells, we get uniformly brainless and superficial candidates like Dubya and his predecessors Bill Clinton, Bush Sr., and Ronald Reagan.

Obama is something of a fluke in that he is such a charismatic and powerful speaker that he was able to pull votes from the other side. I don't think this was really expected or planned, and in fact the usual juggernaut nomination process seemed hell-bent to choose Hillary Clinton regardless of any kind of intelligent thinking. Obama also had an extra advantage in that Dubya has been such a poor leader that even the densest people began to see through the facade and felt a need to vote against the Republican Party for what it has become, more than they were actually voting for Obama.

[schnee.livejournal.com]

*noddles* That certainly... although there still seem to be some who think he's the communist anti-christ hell-bent on destroying America™, and especially their own business. c.c Which always strikes me as a bit weird given that he hasn't even done anything yet - he's not even in office.

Ah well.

That said, yeah, it doesn't seem particularly democratic, although this, too, doesn't appear to be a uniquely US-American problem. I suppose it's the iron law of oligarchy at work, and I still think Washington was on the right track when he warned against political parties:

[Political parties] serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation, the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels, and modified by mutual interests.

Rather makes you wonder whether he had a crystal ball to see into the future, doesn't it?

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Washington, unlike most of the recent US Presidents, was a man with a broad liberal education and substantial leadership experience (much of the latter apparently forced upon him against his will.) Like most of the early founders of the US, he was a deep thinker and well-read in the thoughts of philosophers and political scientists of previous eras. I don't think he needed a crystal ball, because he had clear vision of a grand scope. Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin were men of similar vision and background, though they certainly didn't all agree on every political point.

Parties are not in their nature bad, I'd say, but can become a real serious problem as they have in the US today. Having only two parties in a system that has become so focused as to literally prevent the successful building of other factions leads inevitably to the severe polarization we see in the US today. There is no longer a middle ground in US politics, it is all extremes.

I think Washington's concern with parties, though, was based on his observation of parties as they work in the British Parliamentary system (and by inheritance in most of the commonwealth and former colonies) where voters are presented, essentially, with only the ability to vote for a party. The party runs the government, the voters only get to choose from among the parties. Gaining a toehold for a fresh viewpoint is just as difficult in that system as it is in the US system.

[saythename.livejournal.com]

For the Guvnuh;

Its the Chicago Way.

For the books...

I hope you embark on some sort of "1909! Life Like Yours!" or
some sort of campaign. It'd be great for those books to be
highlighted and people, at least some, pick them up and be
suprised at how the same things are.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm updating the catalog records of course, and we are going to feature all ten best sellers in the display cases for a few weeks before putting them out to be read. I think they'll get some attention all right.

As for the governor, the Chicago way is to do it without getting caught or arrested. He fails, big time. Amusingly, he was sent to the legislature to replace Rostenkowsky (I think that's the right spelling) who also got sent to prison for fraudulent dealings. He went to the governor's mansion to replace George Ryan, who also got sent to prison for racketeering/extortion/perjury. Both times he promised to "clean up" the corruption. Guess he didn't really mean that, eh?

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Oh, and some long time crooked Chicago politicians are getting caught now too. Alderman Ed Vrdolyak, long known by everyone to be a crook, mobster, racketeer, and other things, was finally caught and indicted this year. He pleaded guilty on some sort of plea bargaining deal I think, and hopefully putting an end to another dynasty of Chicago criminals. I'd like to see Daly next, but he's too slick to get caught probably.

[shep-shepherd.livejournal.com]

I was in Wheeling and Carol Stream for a bit at the end of last month and there was hardly any snow at all...

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Yup, I heard you were at MFF. Sorry I didn't get to meet you then. I saw bariki a couple of times but he was the only UK representative I knew.

And yes, snow in November is usually light and quickly gone, though the temperatures can dip below freezing as you no doubt did notice. Even in December, in the last decade or so we've rarely seen snow accumulating on the ground. It falls in little fluffs and melts. January is when it starts arriving in force, and sticks around until March or so. Last year was a record snowfall year, starting in December, and we got over 62 inches before the season ended. (Normal is more like 40 or so.) This year seems to be off to a heavy start as well. There's 3 or 4 inches standing on the ground right now. The rest of yesterday's accumulation melted or blew away, but no more melting now because it's too cold.