Rethink.

• “What the Vot­ers Told Us Last Night,” Jay Cost — lots of thought­ful reflec­tion on what elec­tions may mean. fta: As the great polit­i­cal sci­en­tist, E.E. Schattschnei­der, once famously said (and I’m para­phras­ing here): the vot­ers are a sov­er­eign with a vocab­u­lary of just two words, yes and no; more­over, they can only speak when spo­ken to. Reflect­ing on this insight over the years, I have found it to be one of the most pro­found lessons for under­stand­ing Amer­i­can elec­tions. The nature of our elec­toral sys­tem is such that vot­ers are given a very lim­ited role in the process of gov­er­nance. With the excep­tion of bal­lot ini­tia­tives, they do not get to sound off on spe­cific issues. And, when it comes to elec­tions for office, they only get to reg­is­ter their pref­er­ences for a can­di­date. They do not get to indi­cate what they liked about their can­di­date, what issues moti­vated them, what prob­lems are wor­ry­ing them, and so on.
• “Great Britain Loses one of its Finest,” Michael Yon — from the BBC: Lieu­tenant Colonel Robert Thom­son, com­mand­ing offi­cer of 2 Rifles Bat­tle Group, said: “Staff Sgt Oz Schmid was sim­ply the bravest and most coura­geous man I have ever met.” “No mat­ter how dif­fi­cult or lethal the task which lay in front of us, he was the man who only saw solu­tions.” “He saved lives in 2 Rifles time after time and for that he will retain a very spe­cial place in every heart of every rifle­man in our extra­or­di­nary bat­tle group.”
• “Why Mid­dle Class Tax Hikes are Com­ing,” Josh Barro — fta: When we last ran such large deficits on a pro­longed basis (from the early 1980s to the early 1990s) our finances were bailed out by the end of the Cold War, which enabled dras­tic cuts in mil­i­tary spend­ing. It’s not easy to envi­sion a sim­i­lar res­o­lu­tion for the deficits pro­jected for the next decade.
• Martha Arg­erich, Chopin Sonata No. 2 1st Move­ment — look­ing for the other move­ments on Youtube by her. If the Chopin is too dra­matic for you, try Mit­suko Uchida, Mozart Piano Con­certo No. 9 3rd Movement

• Links, 10/24
• Links, 10/18/08
• Links, 12/3/09
• Links, 6/2/10
• Links, 8/22/10

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