Did political correctness facilitate the Fort Hood massacre?

The Atlantic's Ta-Nehisi Coates isn't sure. Neither are most of his commenters. In about an hour of my life I won't get back, I took a slightly different view in the comments there.

Coates and Co. on The White City

There's a spirited discussion on Ta-Nehisi Coates's Atlantic blog about Aaron Renn's essay The White City, and Renn himself stops by to join in the conversation. In his essay, Renn noted that many cities such as Portland and Seattle that are praised for their progressiveness have something in common: few African Americans. One objection Coates raised to Renn's argument was that Renn excluded large cities such as New York that do have significant African American populations and of course also attract young progressives. In response, I noted that many of the soi dissant young progressives in New York end up congregating in trendy neighborhoods that are far less diverse than the city as a whole.

I made a similar comment in the comment thread following Renn's essay and linked to a post of mine from earlier this year that included the photo above, from a New York Times article on the burgeoning culinary entrepreneurship movement in Brooklyn. I noted that the photo gave a sense of the sort of diversity one might find in some of the trendier neighborhoods in New York City.

Van Jones, Green Jobs Czar

Longtime readers may remember this post about Van Jones from last fall ("A Green New Deal?"). At the time, I didn't know he'd be picked by the Obama Administration to be a 'green jobs czar', but I figured his ideas would have some valence with team Obama. Now he has gotten into trouble for some past statements and actions unrelated to his green jobs advocacy (See The New Republic: "Is Obama's Green Jobs Guru In Trouble?". HT: Ta-Nehisi Coates). In a way, this is unfortunate, because it detracts attention from the weakness of his "green collar economy" thesis. How can a robust, job-creating economy be built on winterizing homes and installing more expensive sources of energy?

Darryl Green and Me

A couple of weeks ago on Ta-Nehisi Coates's Atlantic blog, a commenter posted this clip, of the NFL Hall of Fame corner back Darryl Green running down the Hall of Fame running back Eric Dickerson. If memory serves, at the time this happened, Dickerson was arguably the best running back in the league. Twelve seconds into the clip, you hear play-by-play man Pat Summerall effectively call the TD for Dickerson. If you pause the video there for a moment, and you've spent any time watching football, you can see why Summarall calls out "Goodnight!" at that point: Dickerson, having broken through the secondary, is in the clear. Darryl Green though, in addition to being a great football player, was, at the time of this game (and for much of his 20-year career*) the fastest man in the NFL.

A couple of nice touches at the end of the play: Green taking a second to collect himself after putting everything into that play, and Green and Dickerson congratulating each other as they head back to their respective huddles.

The second-angle replay later in the clip shows that Green didn't even have the best angle of pursuit coming after Dickerson -- Green is aiming too far to the right -- and Dickerson widens the distance a little more by drifting to his left. It doesn't matter: Green corrects and runs Dickerson down. There probably wasn't another man on earth who could have run down Dickerson from the same point on the field.

That's enough of a reason to be impressed by this play. But another reason it impresses me so much is because I've always been such a slow runner. Even as a young and fit high school kid, I was an awful sprinter. If you're an average sized guy and you don't have speed, the most forgiving position for you in high school football is probably inside linebacker, and that position isn't all that forgiving. You can compensate for your lack of speed somewhat by trying to anticipate plays, or by adjusting your angle of pursuit, but only so much. If you don't have speed, all the grit in the world won't do you much good.

Probably the first semi-competent play I made as an aspiring inside linebacker in high school was making a solo tackle on a right sweep play during a JV game. I 'flowed' to my left with the play, but I was afraid if I dived at the ball carrier I'd miss him so I grabbed his jersey and swung him to the ground. The next day at school, during study hall, I sat down at the library table where the JV coach was grading papers. "Coach," I said, "Did you see my tackle last night?". The coach, a 6'5", 300lb+ Irish guy who had been an offensive lineman at an Ivy League school, looked up from the papers he was grading, leaned back, and acted out my unconventional tackle with his hands, indicating he'd seen it, while implying by his facial expressions that I had been surprised that I had caught the guy. Then he said, "You're a linebacker, Dave. You're supposed to make tackles." And he went back to grading his papers.

*One of the related videos that pops up along with this one is of Green running a 4.2 second forty yard dash when he was forty years old. He retired at forty two.

Talent: Not Everyone Has It...

...And those who do have it often don't seem to realize that. That thought came to mind twice recently, first when skimming a recent post on GuruFocus about Joel Greenblatt's book about special situations investing, You Can Be a Stock Market Genius. Clicking on the Amazon link, I found this comment by a reviewer from Orange County, CA named Mike Ferry:

Look before you LEAP

I get up in the morning and walk my dog on the walking path just off the beach (Pacific Ocean adjacent). On my walk I always say hello to Mrs. Rothchild who is reading the Investor's Business Daily while sitting on her polished teakwood patio set. I jibe her that she should switch to the Wall Street Journal and get a real job investing like I do. After a quick but nutritious breakfast, I settle down to my state of the art computer where I E-trade my way to this lavish lifestyle I currently enjoy (takes no more than an hour!). After my "investing", I'll cruise PCH in my new convertible BMW and work on that driving tan. Thanks Joel Greenblatt!

What the heck? Oh drat, the alarm went off. I was having that dream again; now I must get ready for the drive to Pomona in my '98 Daewoo. So kick me, I am not yet a stock market genius. Can I be if I apply the lessons of this book? Maybe... but I have neither the time nor the money. For the person with both it might still be a great idea to have a stock market genius walk them through the paces for a few months.

On the merits of readability, Greenblatt dishes out the drudgery in a well presented and entertaining style. You get case studies, nifty chapter summaries, advice not to run through dynamite factories with lit matches, and a Gilligan's Island hit in the glossary (not bad for fourteen Yankee Dollars).

P.S. All you reviewers and review readers out there, have any of you struck pay dirt following the advice in this book?

I didn't read all the other comments, but, in the ones I did read, I don't recall anyone mentioning that he had struck it big implementing Greenblatt's advice. Has Joel Greenblatt considered that maybe we can't all be him? Maybe he has, and that's why he came up with the Magic Formula, so retail investors could lose invest their money in an automated fashion.

The second time the thought in the title of this post came to mind was a few minutes ago, when I read this post by the Atlantic's Ta-Nehisi Coates, "Taking Myself Way Too Seriously". From his post:

I went to the Met yesterday, the boy likes to draw, so we've put him in a class there. I've been several times before, indeed we have a family membership. And yet somehow, I'm never prepared for the raw power of the place. Samori [Ta-Nehisi's son] went up with the kids to sketch in the modern art gallery.

[...]

I found my way down to the sculpture garden and circled The Burghers Of Calais a few times. It's funny to know something is beautiful, and not know why.

[...]

I sat for a minute, insecure, because everyone else sitting was sketching and I can't draw a lick, and for some reason, I think I should be able to.

[...]

I stopped in front of a color pencil drawing of two women smiling over a small cake. According to the description, the women were strangers. Some guy stopped next to me and took me for an artist. I think it was my gutter style--hoodie and Air Force ones, but perhaps not, since he introduced himself as an artist too. He was wearing a three-piece suit. I told him I did not have the gift, and he shook his head. "Just get some pencils and put some stuff down man."

This struck me.

It's exactly what I tell people when they say things like, "I wish I could write." or "I wish I had the gift to write." In my mind there is no gift--there is a considerable amount of labor, but I don't have much interest in talking about talent. There are a lot of talented niggers on the corner, in jail, under early tombstones. That's what my mother used to say.

I probably disagree with what Ta-Nehisi writes more often than not, and as an autodidact, he'll make a grammar mistake occasionally (as he readily admits), but the man can write. He's got talent, but, like many talented people, he doesn't seem to realize that not everyone does. That doesn't make what his mother used to tell him wrong: there are plenty of talented people who never achieve much -- that's true. But that's not the same as saying that everyone has talent. It just means that some measure of talent is often a necessary, but not sufficient, requirement for success.

Senate Apologizes for Slavery

On his Atlantic blog, Ta-Nehisi Coates notes that the Senate passed a resolution apologizing for slavery. The comment thread below this post included the following exchange:

Stacy:

Apparently, a lot of members of the CBC [Congressional Black Caucus] aren't happy with the verbiage. They say it allows the State to dip out of any further responsibility. My hometown's Rep was quoted...

"The language is unacceptable," said Rep. William Lacy Clay, D-Mo., "I'm a reparations man — how else do you repair the damage?"

I have to admit that this made me shudder a bit.

Juba:

Yeah I was hoping there'd be a legal opening for civil action also.

Stacy:

No, this makes me shudder for St. Louis. The town is ass backwards when it comes to race relations. Gotta be one of the worst in the country. That comment is not going to go over well, but Clay doesn't need the white vote to win...

SV:

I aint payin a dime for 'reparations' and I'd say the same thing if I was white.

Juba:

Well you're not sitting on the Board of Directors for companies like Aetna which has direct ties to slavery and still exists today, either. If you were, I'd be putting your company in the crosshairs and rightfully so.

After reading that last comment by Juba, curiosity prompted me to look up the board of directors of Aetna. Aetna's board includes three African American directors -- one of whom, Ronald A. Williams, is the company's CEO. Pictured above are, from left, Mr. Williams, and Aetna's other two African American directors, Frank Clark, the CEO of Commonwealth Edison, and Earl Graves, the publisher of Black Enterprise magazine.

The O.E.D. on "Conversate" and "Aks" versus "Ask"

On his Atlantic blog, Ta-Nehisi Coates transcribes a conversation he had with Jesse Sheidlower, Editor at Large of the Oxford English Dictionary ("Added Bonus: Irregardless of what you think, "conversate" is a word"). English mavens may find this of interest. Here's an excerpt:

TNC: What fuels the notion that certain words aren't really words?

JS: There a lot of different things. People feel that there is a certain kind of language that's appropriate and a certain type that isn't appropriate. And these judgments are based on many things--some may make sense, some might not. People take these things very seriously. People are told things about the language in school that are demonstrably untrue, and they think anyone who doesn't follow along with those beliefs is stupid or wrong.

Let me give you an example, in terms of looking at things historically. At the beginning of this conversation you pronounced the word "ask" as "aks." This is something that people often object to. People say it's the wrong pronunciation, and it's stupid. But if you look at the history of the English language, you can't tell if the correct pronunciation is "aks" or "ask." The "aks" pronunciation goes back 1000 years. It's in Beowulf. It's in Chaucer.

What happened was both were in use. But at some point, the dialect in which the "ask" pronunciation was used became dominant. But both continued and have been in use since then. When you look at America, the "aks" pronunciation is widespread in Southern American English. African-Americans used this because they were in the South--it's not especially African-American, but its Southern.

Now, if you look at other Germanic languages, the "correct" pronunciation is, in fact, "ask"--but you can't tell that looking just at English and it ultimately doesn't matter. If I asked you to name the ordinal number between "second" and "fourth" you'd say, what?

TNC: Third.

JS: Right, third--but the old pronunciation is "thred," it comes from three. But if you were to say thred, you'd be considered a moron--even though it's "correct."