Motus Mentis

27 Comments

1. Alex Leibowitz says

   Well, we cross paths again! I think the article dodges the real issue, which is whether this “legislation by appropriation” is a good thing. It is rather irritating when people either directly try to argue or else insinuate that something is justified simply because its legal. Anyway, what is the point of going through the trouble to pass laws in the first place if the laws won’t be respected and enforced? This bill has been challenged time and time again, and so far it has not been defeated through the usual channels, so its enemies have resorted to this. To me, it really seems a dishonorable way of proceeding. I come to wish that people would tear the country apart cleanly and directly without the foreplay, since that is more and more the direction we are heading in. If there were a civil war, for instance, at least it holds up the prospect that the worst people on both sides could do away with each other, like Eteocles and Polynices.

   Well I get the news from my own sources, and there are probably many complicated and unpleasant aspects of this bill I could do to be more aware of, but it wasn’t as if there were thousands of options to reform health-care either. Have I been even more sheltered than I believe, or have Republicans made many proposals in their turn to try and make it easier for Americans to pay for health-care, all the while balancing their interest against the interest of the insurance companies and employers, which the Democrats have then rejected? Aside from the shutdown, which may or may not end up being such a big deal, couldn’t Republicans make us feel as if they had something to replace this law? It’s always seemed to me only that it was good to try and do something, that the Democrats, led by Obama, have tried to do something, and that mainly the concern of Republicans has been to undo it.

   But it does altogether make me wish I had the discipline never to read these various websites, never to look at the news, and to devote my time to something which might actually make me happy, like translating Chinese poetry or even if all else fails playing computer games. Politics has always been awful, the US has been in no way special in this regard, and whatever it is done, in the name of whomever (even in the name of the people), the people inevitably suffer.

   I’m still in China, by the way. The news from America is never much of an inducement to come back…

   Posted October 4, 2013 at 8:55 am | Permalink
2. Malcolm says

   Hi Alex,

   I agree with much of what you say here. This is bitter politics — each party going ruthlessly to the limits of what it can do under the rules, rather than refraining from action in the absence of consensus. (This is how the disputed Affordable Care Act was passed in the first place.)

   Of course, consensus is nowhere to be found, given the profound axiomatic differences that divide the two warring factions (which in turn reflect corresponding and equally incommensurable divisions in the nation itself).

   As for healthcare, which everyone agrees is a mess, there are indeed sensible ideas on the Right. One never hears about them in the press.

   You wrote:

   I come to wish that people would tear the country apart cleanly and directly without the foreplay, since that is more and more the direction we are heading in. If there were a civil war, for instance, at least it holds up the prospect that the worst people on both sides could do away with each other, like Eteocles and Polynices.

   Yes, a clean, mutually agreeable divorce is what we need, although America’s political geography makes that very difficult. What will happen instead, however, will be one of two, less attractive, outcomes: either a hedonistic majoritarianism will prevail, rooted in moral, cultural, and demographic collapse, and the nation will sink into suffocated, barbarous mediocrity (as in Britain, in which the entire apparatus of the State now exists to create, serve and maintain an expanding, ignorant, and utterly hopeless underclass) — or there will be civil war. It may be slow in coming — the United States was a very tall candle, and it will take time to burn it all the way to the bottom — but if we start to tip toward civil war, things could move very quickly.

   Enjoy China. Our daughter is there, teaching in Guangzhou; the mem and I paid a visit just this past spring. I was struck by how free the place felt. I realize of course that in big, important ways it isn’t free at all, but that was my impression, nevertheless.

   Posted October 4, 2013 at 9:51 am | Permalink
3. the one eyed man says

   Now I know what the difference is between conservatives and progressives. Conservatives have better morals! Progressives are uncultured and hedonistic wastrels, whose shameless lack of moral fiber will usher in the imminent demise of all that is noble and true (these traits, of course, are stoutly embodied by the brave conservatives at the barricades, keeping out all those deviants who don’t press one for English). Who knew?

   Those of us who do not get our moral bearings from Ayn Rand should apologize for breathing the same air as those principled and righteous conservatives, as our enthusiasm for a suffocating and barbarous mediocrity seems to inconvenience and annoy them greatly. This explains the sanctimony and self-righteousness of people like Ted Cruz and Rand Paul: they’re not opposing people with different worldviews, they are defending our civilization from Evil itself. We should all just bugger off and revel in our hedonism and self-indulgence, the better to root for moral collapse and the decay of Western civilization.

   Posted October 4, 2013 at 11:33 am | Permalink
4. Malcolm says

   Pretty much spot-on, Peter (though I don’t recall ever mentioning Ayn Rand). I’m glad to see I’m finally getting through to you. Your comment illustrates the breadth and depth of this fissure.

   “Many a truth is oft spoke in jest.”

   Posted October 4, 2013 at 11:39 am | Permalink
5. Malcolm says

   If you think you might be ready for the first of several red pills, go read this. I dare you.

   Posted October 4, 2013 at 11:45 am | Permalink
6. Malcolm says

   If I were to disagree with any of what you said, it might be this:

   Progressives are uncultured and hedonistic wastrels…

   I know lots of “Progressives”, many of whom are not themselves uncultured or (excessively) hedonistic. It is, rather, that “progressive” policies — inevitably, given the foundation of moral relativism, radical non-discrimination, victimhood and cultural Marxism upon which they are built — subsidize, exculpate, and therefore “incentivize” hedonism, cultural decay, irresponsibility, dependence, ignorance, fatalism, sloth, promiscuity, bastardy, barbarism, and wastrelsy.

   (Doubtless you will disagree, likely at great length.)

   I understand that most “Progressives” believe themselves to be acting rightly and compassionately. Therefore I do not characterize them as “evil”. (In this I break symmetry with the self-righteous, holier-than-thou Left, who routinely do portray conservatives as morally inferior, and often as Evil incarnate.)

   On the contrary: I think most of them, like yourself, have the best of intentions, and are simply mistaken.

   Posted October 4, 2013 at 12:42 pm | Permalink
7. JK says

   On the contrary: I think most of them, like yourself, have the best of intentions, and are simply mistaken.

   You’ll need Malcolm, some sort of “poll” asking two questions:

   1) Do you have the best of intentions?

   2) Is it possible you’re mistaken?

   Other than a poll, I don’t see any possibility of gleaning what’s what. Depending of course, whether the somehowevers fall between the magical 81% and 95%.

   Posted October 4, 2013 at 1:40 pm | Permalink
8. Malcolm says

   I think we can skip question 1) altogether.

   2) also, probably.

   Posted October 4, 2013 at 1:59 pm | Permalink
9. the one eyed man says

   The flaw in your argument is that your predicate (culturally and morally, things suck), your prediction (it’s getting worse), and your conclusion (it’s those damn liberals) are all unprovable assertions, highly amenable to confirmation bias and completely exogenous to rigorous analysis.

   You could argue that “cultural Marxism” (whatever that is) leads to ignorance, but then you would have to show that those who live amidst it (in Moscow?) are more ignorant than those who live outside it (Hong Kong?). I could just as easily argue that virtue increases as you slide down the socioeconomic scale, citing studies showing that the percentage of wealth given to charity increases as one’s personal wealth decreases. Neither argument can be proven with actual facts, so those voicing an opinion usually rely on anecdotes which “substantiate” what they want to believe in the first place.

   All it is, really, is feel-good chest thumping by those who wrap themselves in the cloak of moral superiority. Everyone wants to believe that their group is better than other groups. Christians want to believe that they are better people than Muslims, and fought a few crusades to prove the point. Yankee fans want to believe that they are better than Red Sox fans (although we all know that Eagles fans are bottom of the barrel). People who run triathlons feel they are intrinsically better people than couch potatoes. It’s a parlor game people play to boost their self-esteem at the expense of those who are different.

   Posted October 4, 2013 at 3:21 pm | Permalink
10. Malcolm says

    Sorry, I didn’t realize that you had no idea what the term “cultural Marxism” means. (It’s essentially the Who? Whom? model of traditional Marxism, with cultures and races taking the place of economic classes in the oppressor/victim roles.) The term is so common in contemporary political discourse that I assumed you’d be familiar with it.

    If you really (really?) don’t understand how the radical relativism and non-discrimination that arise from this mindset in our ruling elites ratify and foster ignorance (and the other qualities I mentioned) in an expanding dependent class, I urge you again to consider reading the book I linked to above. I really think, Peter, that you simply do not understand what’s happening to our civilization. That, or you simply don’t give a crap.

    (The other day, I passed one of those earnest young folks with clipboards who are trying to reinvent the world. This one wanted to enlist me in securing the rights of undocumented gay baby whales, or something. After I brushed him off, he said “Jesus, man. Are you ignorant, or just apathetic?” I said “I don’t know, and I don’t care!”)

    But hey, up to you. I long ago abandoned any hope of persuading you about any of this. As far as “provability” goes, you’d think any rational person could sufficient evidence in the catastrophe of illegitimacy, educational failure, joblessness, illiteracy, sexual license, crime, moral degradation, and general hopelessness that has unfolded among America’s lower and lower-middle classes since this pernicious ideology took hold in the 1960’s, but apparently not.

    Posted October 4, 2013 at 4:14 pm | Permalink
11. David Brightly says

    suffocated, barbarous mediocrity (as in Britain, in which the entire apparatus of the State now exists to create, serve and maintain an expanding, ignorant, and utterly hopeless underclass)

    Bollocks, Malcolm, bollocks.

    Posted October 4, 2013 at 4:25 pm | Permalink
12. Malcolm says

    Now that’s a pithy response. Always nice to see you here, David.

    Perhaps the word “entire” does overstate the case. In Britain the State does of course perform other vital roles, such as keeping up the roads, and cracking down on hate speech.

    Posted October 4, 2013 at 4:27 pm | Permalink
13. the one eyed man says

    “Illegitimacy, educational failure, joblessness, illiteracy, sexual license, crime, moral degradation, and general hopelessness?” Let’s take a look.

    The high school dropout rate is at a forty year low. Doesn’t sound like “educational failure” to me. Quite the opposite.

    http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/06/high-school-graduation-rate-hits-40-year-peak-in-the-us/276604/

    Joblessness is obviously something which is levered to the economy. However, when you smooth things out over economic cycles, it hasn’t changed much in the last forty or fifty years, despite the fact that we have a much larger work force, due to the number of women and immigrants who have been added to it.

    http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNU04000000?years_option=all_years&periods_option=specific_periods&periods=Annual+Data

    The literacy rate in the US — defined as people over fifteen who can read and write — is at 99%. I was unable to get historical rates from NCES (something about a government shutdown), but I doubt it has fallen much over the past few decades. You know what? Considering that it’s currently at 99%, my guess is that it probably went up, in spite of all those awful social welfare programs.

    https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/us.html

    The crime rate? Near historic lows.

    http://www.nationalmemo.com/u-s-crime-rate-stays-near-historic-lows/

    Illegitimacy is up. However, there has been a sea change over the past few decades, where straight couples living together and gay couples are having families to a far greater extent than in the past. If you equate fornication or gay couples with kids with moral turpitude, then maybe we are on the highway to Sodom and Gomorrah, driving 85. However, if you think that two people in a committed relationship having children is not much different than Ward, June, and the Beaver, then you might not view this as proof positive of moral decline.

    Ditto for “sexual license.” I’ve noticed that sex is a pretty popular activity. Many people enjoy it. My guess is that lots of people did it during the age of Donna Reed, even if — gasp! — they were not wed in holy matrimony. Personally, I think that being libidinous is a good thing, and sexual intercourse — even among complete strangers! — is a consummation devoutly to be wished. Especially if the lissome and callipygian Megan Fox is the receiving party. (To be honest, however, I wish she would stop emailing me. It’s getting annoying. I keep telling her that I’m too much man for just one woman. She never listens. But I digress.)

    As for moral degradation: I dunno, I think that lynching black people, making them eat at segregated restaurants, harassing gays, and letting bright women have career choices ranging from secretary to librarian is pretty degraded, morally speaking. Others may disagree.

    General hopelessness? Who knows about that one. My guess is that many senior citizens are less hopeless now that Social Security will prevent them from dining on Alpo and Medicare will ensure that they have health care. You didn’t mention the poverty rate, but it has fallen considerably since the 1950’s. I’m guessing that people who have running water, electricity, and something to eat are less hopeless than the people Robert Kennedy met in Appalachia.

    As Herman Cain notably said, the problem with your analysis is that it is incorrect. Hiding behind the skirt of “any rational person can see” is insufficient when confirmation bias meets demonstrable fact.

    Posted October 4, 2013 at 5:15 pm | Permalink
14. Malcolm says

    I haven’t time at the moment to address this whole farrago, but regarding your first item: it’s easy enough to boost “graduation rates” when the people you graduate are just pushed along like cattle, without any regard to what they have actually learned. Far more telling than graduation rates is the fact that the average high-school “graduate”, entering college, can barely write a coherent sentence. Reading-comprehension scores on the SAT, for example, are at their lowest level in forty years. (This also applies to your comment about literacy.)

    When all else fails: lower your standards. Works every time. (If the facts don’t confirm your bias, make new facts.)

    If you think illegitimacy and the breakdown of the traditional family (which “progressive” policy and ideology encourage and subsidize) have nothing to do with the persistent problems of the inner cities and lower classes, you have your head in the clouds.

    In which big city is crime down the most? Here in New York, which defies the Prime Directive of Progressivism — radical non-discrimination — in order to profile likely perps. (Full credit to Michael Bloomberg for continuing that wise policy.) Let’s see what happens once uber-prog Bill DiBlasio takes over.

    And so on. More later, perhaps, though it seems pointless.

    Read that book. I dare you. It will haunt your dreams.

    Posted October 4, 2013 at 5:27 pm | Permalink
15. the one eyed man says

    Sorry to get all factual on you, but it you are going to posit a dystopia brought on by progressives, first you have to prove the dystopia. If you are going to claim that crime and unemployment are up, while educational achievement and moral standards are down, you need to substantiate your assertions with something weightier than the confident pronouncement of what “all rational people” know to be true. Since you were eager to blame progressives for the putative failings of society, now that you have learned that the opposite is the case, surely you are giving credit to progressives for all of the happy news. Am I right, or am I right?

    The “persistent problems of the inner cities and lower classes” probably has as much, if not more, to do with a society where economic mobility is frozen than with any putative decline in the family structure. Crime may be falling in New York City, but it’s falling everywhere else, too. The FBI report was based on national data. Lower scores on reading comprehension tests may reflect the larger number of college freshmen who have English as a second language who are whizzes in math and science. We can quibble about minutiae, but the broad outlines which the data present show progress, not decay.

    Regardless of whether things are a whole lot better, a little better, or about the same as before, your thesis — to the extent that there is one — rests on the notion of a broad etiolation of society which is asserted but never justified. To the extent that we can use metrics — such as the ones above — things are better than before, and perhaps greatly so. Positing a world somewhere between Clockwork Orange and Soylent Green without anything more substantial than a dyspeptic worldview says more about the observer than that which is observed.

    Posted October 4, 2013 at 6:55 pm | Permalink
16. Malcolm says

    You gush about graduation rates. I give you “metrics” that show that most of these “graduates” can’t read. You then fantasize about legions of alien math “whizzes” who can’t speak English, and thereby skew the numbers. Then you chide me about imagining things.

    I point out the crisis of illegitimacy and family breakdown in the underclass, and the doomed, hopeless lives it has created, and you get a boner about Megan Fox.

    My daughter taught high school science in Brownsville, Brooklyn. She (and I, when I went to speak to her students about career choices, or just to visit her) saw a world you clearly cannot imagine. (And her school was considered one of the better ones.)

    “Metrics” abound. (Random selections: Gang membership up 40% since 2009. America has the highest child-abuse death rate in the world. Highest divorce and teen-pregnancy rates, too. One in four teenage girls in America now has an STD.)

    You don’t even need “metrics”, for God’s sake. Entire cities have been laid waste.

    But you’ve worn me out, Peter, for tonight at least. You’re like Aarfy, from Catch-22. See what you want to see.

    Hail to thee, blithe spirit. I can’t say I don’t envy you, a little, as I do, a little, those who are comforted by religion.

    Posted October 4, 2013 at 9:52 pm | Permalink
17. Alex Leibowitz says

    I don’t think all progressives are motivated by moral relativism. Some of them are utilitarians (many of my friends, for instance).

    Also, I would be careful to distinguish between moral relativists and moral skeptics. I think it’s difficult to know what’s good and bad in cases where there’s widespread dispute, but I do think there’s a truth of the matter. Relativists, on the other hand, don’t care what the truth is, I think — or they want to have their cake and eat it too — to make a virtue of disagreement by suggesting that both sides are right…

    On the other hand, is it really better to be a moral absolutist and dogmatist if your beliefs about what’s moral and immoral are wildly off-base? To use a relatively safe example (for the sake of this discussion), Al Quaeda may be many things, but they are certainly not moral skeptics or relativists — and I would much prefer the rule of the latter over the former!

    But as for the left, I think if anything sometimes the problem is there’s too *little* skepticism about moral matters, not too much.

    Posted October 4, 2013 at 11:49 pm | Permalink
18. the one eyed man says

    There is no reason to be disdainful of empiricism. It comes in really handy sometimes. Empiricism is your friend!

    Let’s review. You have suggested the hypothesis that not only are various social ills on the rise, but also that they are rising at a catastrophic level. I responded with data showing that the exact opposite is taking place. The claim that crime is rising catastrophically is disproven by the FBI showing that it is at historic lows. The claim that joblessness is rising catastrophically is refuted by a chart showing that it hasn’t. You can draw a straight line between a 30% drop in the poverty rate since the 1950’s, coupled with the emergence of Medicare and Medicaid, and declining hopelessness among the old, sick, and poor. Etc.

    Rather than publicly admit that your claims are baseless, you respond with various items which are irrelevant, unimportant, or just plain wrong.

    You claim that “the average high-school ‘graduate,’ entering college, can barely write a coherent sentence,” yet offer no proof of that. Your “evidence” is that “reading-comprehension scores on the SAT, for example, are at their lowest level in forty years.” The second statement does not prove the first (because it gauges reading comprehension in relative terms, and not absolute terms. If being unable to write coherently is a score of ten or below, and the median score went from 60 ten years ago to a historic low of 58 today, it does not show that the average score is under a ten). Moreover, the SAT is a self-selecting sample — comprised only of those who take the test — and is not necessarily representative of all high school seniors. As a test, it is inherently subjective, and changes over time (unlike, say, high school graduation rates, which is a single standard which is constant over time). The fact that a greater number of students do not have English as their mother tongue also would tend to lower reading test scores, although it says nothing about the quality of education those students received. Also, you can’t count out improved security measures for SAT tests, which have eliminated brainy students who skewed the results by accepting money from less capable students to take the test for them. Ahem.

    Citing Brownsville High School as a synechdoche for the education system is no more valid than citing Palo Alto High as being typical. The Ocean Hill Brownsville school district has always been a problem, and was the flashpoint for the New York City school teachers strike in the 1960’s. The relevant criterion is not whether Brownsville High School has many problems — it was ever thus — but rather whether it is getting better, worse, or staying the same. Taking a school in a Brooklyn slum and extrapolating it to the entire country is a fatuity to gross to be allowed to pass unchallenged.

    The US has an average of 1,570 child abuse deaths per year out of a population of 314 million, or 0.000005%. Why this miniscule number is proof positive of widespread cultural decline is a mystery to me. Ditto for gang members. They are a fraction of a percent of the population, and whether that fraction goes up or down says nothing about the larger society.

    The US does not have the “highest divorce rate in the world.” At 53%, we’re surpassed by France, Spain, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Cuba, Estonia, Portugal, Luxembourg, and — in last place — Belgium at 71%.

    I have no idea how one measures teenage pregnancy rates, but the rate of births to teenage girls in 2011 was 31.3 out of one thousand women aged fifteen to nineteen. This is a record low for as long as records have been kept.

    Your larger implication seems to be that Americans screw too much, and hence have weaker morals than other countries which have less extramarital sex (like Saudi Arabia, for example). This is puzzling. We don’t demean tennis lovers for having lots of tennis partners. Why demean people who have a lot of sex partners? Is there something wrong with screwing? I can only assume that you feel that Muslim countries, which tend to be far more modest and sexually restrained than ours, have higher ethical standards than we do.

    “Did you sleep with my daughter?”

    “No sir! Not a wink!”

    Ahem.

    * * * *

    My point is not that people are more moral, less self-interested, or have better posture than in years past. Rather, it is that society is like an organism, insofar as its structure and norms evolve over time to respond to threats both internal and external. I doubt that less people have criminal intent than before, but rather that improvements in policing have led to less crime. We have a word for this: progress.

    One could say that conservatives are fearful of change, while progressives embrace it. (Generally speaking, all generalizations are false. If we are to do all things in moderation, does that extend to moderation itself?) The normal human reaction to upheaval and change is to posit a halcyon past which never existed, and to shake your fist at an incomprehensible world and blame your perceived enemies for its demise. While this may be a comforting worldview, its predicate of social dysfunction can be quantitatively measured, and the assertions you make to justify this worldview are demonstrably false.

    * * * *

    This weekend is Hardly Strictly Bluegrass. As you may know, a rich hedge fund guy who loved bluegrass left a pile of money in his will so every year Golden Gate Park is home to a free concert of bluegrass and folk music. Steve Martin will be there playing his banjo, along with Elvin Bishop, Boz Scaggs, and many more. (There’s that hedonistic, cultural collapse you helpfully alerted us to: in the most progressive city in America, hundreds of thousands of people gather every year to groove on the sounds of American folk music. The horror!) So in order to spare you any further embarrassment in front of friends, family, the blogosphere, and humanity at large, this will be my last word on the subject. I’m off to see Elvin and Boz.

    Posted October 5, 2013 at 10:49 am | Permalink
19. Loki says

    In Chicago, gang members are now 5% of the population.

    Nearly 80% of NYC high-school graduates now need remedial instruction in basic skills.

    Posted October 5, 2013 at 11:57 am | Permalink
20. JK says

    You claim that “the average high-school ‘graduate,’ entering college, can barely write a coherent sentence,” yet offer no proof of that.

    WTF!!??

    Posted October 5, 2013 at 1:27 pm | Permalink
21. JK says

    One-Eye?

    How’s your daughter’s study of “culture” coming along?

    Posted October 5, 2013 at 2:22 pm | Permalink
22. Malcolm says

    Alex, the epistemological/ontological distinction you describe is philosophically interesting, but less so in practical terms — and life is a practical matter. Though radical skepticism and mere relativism are of course distinct, their effect is the same — and neither is a solid foundation upon which to erect a well-functioning, enduring, and competitive society. (‘Competitive’, that is, in terms of not being at a disadvantage with regard to other, more confident and cohesive societies.)

    Indeed, in combination with secularism, a consistent radical skepticism leads to the ‘event horizon’ of moral nihilism. (As a skeptical atheist myself, with a concern for the future of my civilization, I find all of this more than a little worrisome.)

    I’ll take this up in a post of its own.

    Posted October 5, 2013 at 2:24 pm | Permalink
23. Malcolm says

    So: sex equals tennis.

    I have said often that the fundamental problem we face is that of incommensurable worldviews, and how it makes productive discourse impossible. If we can’t even agree that there’s a problem, we’ll never get farther than that. And whether or not there’s a problem depends on what we value, and how we understand the world to work.

    Peter, I can think of nothing more to say to you about any of this. (I stand corrected on the divorce rate: we are not, currently, at the very bottom. Great news.)

    Enjoy the concert.

    Posted October 5, 2013 at 2:33 pm | Permalink
24. Loki says

    One-Eye?

    How’s your daughter’s study of “culture” coming along?

    She’s been too busy with her sex lessons.

    Posted October 5, 2013 at 5:09 pm | Permalink
25. JK says

    Nah Loki,

    I was referring to something One-Eye mentioned in comments awhile back. He’d been playing some music when (as I recall) the kid exclaimed, “Dad, what’re you doing listening to that, that’s what I listen to, to get cultured.”

    I distinctly however recall how Malcolm responded.

    She’d be better off going with Staphylococcus Aureus!

    Posted October 5, 2013 at 8:33 pm | Permalink
26. Malcolm says

    Hey, let’s leave Peter’s daughter out of this.

    Point taken, though, Loki. Just another form of recreation.

    Posted October 5, 2013 at 11:57 pm | Permalink
27. the one eyed man says

    Thanks! The concert was awesome. Hardly Strictly Bluegrass is a three day festival which takes place under the towering Monterey pines of Golden Gate Park, on the same hallowed ground where Janis, Jorma, and Jerry performed in days of yore. It is spread out on five stages, so it can easily accommodate the hundreds of thousands of people who attend every year. The performers are mostly local — Boz Scaggs owns a restaurant here, Bonnie Raitt lives in Mill Valley, etc. — which is not hard to do in an area with the wealth of musical talent which resides here. Neil Young — who has his own concert every year to benefit local schools — shops at my local Costco. (Who doesn’t like a bargain?) A friend of mine plays in a pick-up softball league with Phil Lesh. Jerry Garcia may now be residing in a Marin mausoleum, but I’m sure he is grateful to be there.

    Warren Hellman was a phenomenally successful businessman, who was also a competitive athlete and an active philanthropist, supporting causes as diverse as sports programs for kids, the San Francisco free clinic, and a UCSF program for those with dementia. He played banjo and was a lifelong lover of bluegrass, so he started a festival thirteen years ago for bluegrass and beyond. Before he died of leukemia, he set up a trust so that “after I croak” there will be funding to support the festival for many years to come. It’s a life fully lived by someone who was — to borrow a phrase from Moby Grape — a truly fine citizen.

    Posted October 6, 2013 at 10:45 am | Permalink