It's Kairos time again, you're gonna leave me

Outtakes from yesterday's Brooks that I can't process but can't quite let go of.

1. More on kintzugi:

I don’t know about you, but I feel a great hunger right now for timeless pieces like these. The internet has accelerated our experience of time, and Donald Trump has upped the pace of events to permanent frenetic.

Please don't eat the teacups.

"Timeless" has to be one of the most vicious words in the advertising lexicon. I remember especially from my magazine days how it used to be applied to watches. You'd be talking about this grotesquely ugly $30,000 diamond-studded time-keeper and the copy would be gushing over the "timeless masterwork". The hell you say. And there's nothing more time-ful than a kintzugi bowl, with all the vicissitudes of its life literally glowing through its body like streaks of pure pain.

Civilization and its Malcontents

This dude in the illustration run at the top of yesterday's David Brooks column ("The Crisis of Western Civ") is a Giant—extremely strong, in the ancient Greek cosmology, and maybe violent, but not huge in stature like Germanic giants—getting roughed up by a goddess, Doris, the consort of the sea god Nereus, in the colossal mythological battle of the Giants against the Olympian gods, the Gigantomachy, depicted in the frieze from the altar of Zeus of the Anatolian city of Pergamon, 2nd c. B.C.E., now at the Pergamon-Museum in Berlin, which was closed down when I was there a couple of years ago—I really wanted to go not so much because I knew what was there as because I love the sound of the name, and its hum of German classicalism. It's a huge moment in art history, though, of the transition between the calm majesty of the high Athenian moment and the violence and spectacularity of later Hellenism, like that from Mannerism to the Baroque in the 16h century.

The context in which the face is set can be seen below, from a somewhat different angle, where you can recognize the extent to which Doris (whose head has been lost over the millennia) is not simply pulling the unnamed Giant's hair, but has yanked his head back hard enough, maybe, to break his neck, and you can see the intensity of his pain in the way his eyes are rolled back into his skull as he tries desperately to pull her hand away:

Told you so. I: Greece

Photo by Yiorgos Karahalis/Reuters, June 2011, via The Guardian.

So remember how the resignation of Alexis Tsipras as Greek prime minister was a disastrous defeat for Tsipras and the Greek left? Anybody?

I just want the record to show that I called the situation correctly a month ago, specifically explaining that Tispras's decision to call new elections was not a defeat but a move forward, to get rid of some of the opposition in his own party. This is exactly what happened: the 25 candidates of variously Eurocommunist, Trotskyist, and Maoist inclination of Syriza's Left Platform who split from the party to form the Popular Unity group were neither popular nor unified and not one of them made it into the new parliament.

Tsipras will now have a majority (in the continuing coalition with the obnoxious anti-immigrant Independent Greeks) of 155 out of 300 seats, with the difference from the old one that the new one will do what they're asked to do, which includes some awful things demanded by the European Union (more cuts, privatizations, and health care charges, though all less awful than what the EU wanted), and the all-important improvement of tax collection and recapitalization of banks. It's ugly, ugly, ugly, but it is a path around catastrophe.

I wonder by the way if Greece will get cut any slack by the European Union for its massive work in the protection of refugees, such a contrast with certain austerity-loving governments in Central Europe (Hungary's crypto-fascist PM Viktor Orbán suggests the military solution of sending EU troops to Greece to "defend their borders", hmm).

Pyke's Pique

Updated 8/21/2015

Elefanisi Beach, Crete.

Bizarrely misconceived headline at ThinkProgress:

Greece’s Radical Leftist Prime Minister Resigns In Defeat

Government officials told reporters Thursday that Tsipras will turn in his official resignation papers this afternoon and call for a new parliamentary election on September 20th. Tsipras hung on for weeks longer than eccentric Finance Minister Yannis Varoufakis, who motorcycled off into the sunset immediately after a July referendum that appeared to put Greece on the verge of exiting the European Union.

In the weeks since that vote, cooler heads prevailed and struck a deal to keep Greece in the currency group... The deal is a catastrophic defeat for Tsipras’ administration, and observers believed it was likely he would lose his job one way or another from the time that he reluctantly called for lawmakers to approve the bailout.

I don't think the writer, Alan Pyke, has a very clear idea of how parliamentary systems work. And it's a howl of Eeyore Caucus despair: on the assumption that Tsipras making a deal must have betrayed the international left by refusing to exercise his Green Lantern powers (he's just as bad as Obama!) because didn't he promise us the Revolution? (No.)

National Review fail of the day: I'll take ancient generals for $250, Alex.

Updated 7/21/2015

The Battle of Boju, 506 B.C.E., in which Sunzi, alas, probably did not take part, although you never know. Via Snipview.

Michael Auslin for the National Review:

The future may consider it a tragedy of unimaginable proportions that the president did not take time to read Thucydides before sending his negotiators off to Vienna. Over 2,400 years ago, the master historian stripped away false hopes such as those embraced by Obama with a clarity that has never been surpassed. In the very first speech of Thucydides’s history of the Peloponnesian War appears the following admonition:

“Concessions to adversaries only end in self-reproach, and the more strictly they are avoided the greater will be the chance of security.” (I:1.34)

It is a bitter truth in an anarchic world.

Can I just ask how many battles old Thucydides won? Far as I can find out from the usual sources, he had one mission in his career as a general, to relieve allies at Amphipolis in Thrace (a half-day sail from his home island of Thasos) from a Spartan attack, and got there too late, after the Amphopolitans had already surrendered. The Spartan general, Brasidas, had made a deal with them—he'd offered "concessions to adversaries"—and they gratefully gave in.

Breaking: Radical international organization condemns "unsustainable" Greek debt deal

Yes, the International Monetary Fund:

The financing need through end-2018 is now estimated at Euro 85 billion and debt is expected to peak at close to 200 percent of GDP in the next two years, provided that there is an early agreement on a program. Greece’s debt can now only be made sustainable through debt relief measures that go far beyond what Europe has been willing to consider so far. 

Via BBC. The IMF has officially (in a leaked document completed before the agreement was signed Monday—the IMF is not a direct party to the agreement, but can stop it from going forward)  come out with most respected economists against the deal, even as the Greek parliament is trying to approve it today; because it's too harsh, will not lead to Greece being able to pay its debts (in particular to the IMF, which is the creditor for about 10% of the total), and isn't even properly fleshed out:

The IMF study said European Union countries would have to give Greece 30-years to repay all its European debt, including new loans, and a dramatic extension on the maturity of its debts. Without such extensions creditors might have to accept "deep upfront haircuts" on existing loans, the IMF added.

One senior IMF official said the fund would only participate in a third bailout for Greece if EU creditors produce "a clear plan".

The current deal "is by no means a comprehensive, detailed agreement", the official said.

Meanwhile, how much more evidence do we need? The German/EU views on Greece are not rational.

Bundeskanzlerin. Via Fnord.

DEgress

Germany has isles too, you know, and the sun even comes out once in a while. Rügen.

The New York Times's magisterial diplomatic correspondent Steven Erlanger, happy as ever to lend a voice to the ignored and unheard, those whose desires and anxieties have no voice of their own, like German voters concerned about the excessive liberalism of the German governing coalition:

LONDON — Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany said about Greece on Sunday that “the most important currency has been lost: that is trust and reliability.” But many Germans think the most important currency that has been lost is the deutsche mark, the symbol of rectitude and confidence that embodied West Germany’s ascent from the ashes of World War II....

Indeed, maybe we've all been looking at this situation in exactly the wrong way. Maybe it's not Greece but Germany that ought to be exiting the Eurozone. Instead of a "Grexit" (isn't that what frogs say?) we could have a DEgress.

After all, isn't it Germany's bad example that makes it so hard for Portugal, Spain, Latvia, and Slovenia to follow the stern prescriptions for membership? With their high-living, free-spending ways and history of defaults (still haven't paid their debts from 1919, let alone 1945)? With their 1,371 average work hours per year (compared to 1,789 for the US, 2,042 for Greece) and labor unions on corporate boards? And their absurdly low VAT, at 19%, with reduced rates of 7% on food products, restaurants, and hotels, the lowest in the Eurozone (compared with 23%/13% in Greece, now to be extended to full rates for restaurants and hotels, presumably to give a competitive boost to the vital but endangered German tourism industry)?

Perhaps if Germany just went its own easygoing way the other countries would find it easier to buckle down to that austerity. Or perhaps, this is going to sound like a HUGE crazy paradox that nobody has ever thought of before, but perhaps people might look at the concept not just that austerity could be bad for a national economy, but that a well-planned social generosity of the kind that's been practiced in Germany since the 1950s might actually in some circumstances do some kind of good.

Pride goes before a pratfall too

Christian de Chalonge television version of Le Malade Imaginaire, 2008, via Le Figaro.

In a campaign speech before last January's parliamentary elections candidate Alexis Tsipras made a pretty audacious Greek literary reference, as The Guardian noted in a mysteriously Aristotle-bashing editorial:

The preceding five years had been ones of tragedy, he said. And after hubris, he warned, invoking Aristotle’s famous but flawed analysis of ancient drama, come nemesis and catharsis. The election, he added, was a battle between two approaches – on the one hand, the execution of austerity measures to the letter, whether or not those measures were working; on the other, a pragmatic notion – advanced by Mario Draghi, the head of the of European Central Bank – of “whatever it takes” to save the euro.

The latter view would prevail, said Mr Tsipras, and for an extra reason too: “Because Greece is the country of Sophocles, who taught us with his Antigone that there are moments in which the supreme law is justice.” Mr Tsipras was echoing the language of Antigone’s refusal to abide by her uncle the king’s edict that her dead brother be left unburied. In the drama she contrasts manmade laws, nomoi, with an ineffable, divine justice, Dike. Moral authority trumps mortal authority.

I'm not sure if he remembered that Antigone's view prevails in the end only after she herself is dead. King Creon's life is ruined too, with the suicides of his son and his wife, but that doesn't make it OK. It's a tragedy.

Brussels louts

Updated 6/28/2015

Image via Wikipedia.

I'll get to Greece presently, but first I want to whip you around Friedman-style for a minute.

Remember the story 20 years ago of how the EU was going to force all the member countries to make cheese exclusively from pasteurized milk, thus basically destroying the ancient and glorious tradition of French, Spanish, English, and Italian raw-milk cheeses that are to dairy products what the symphony orchestra is to music? Have you ever wondered how that went down, or why your Camembert doesn't taste any different, although come to think of it it never has tasted quite the way it did that time you were in France?

The whole thing was bullshit. There was never any such EU plan, it was a stupid rumor. That particular bureaucrat in Brussels doesn't exist. Your Camembert isn't any better than you think it is, but it's because of the US authorities, who forbid the sale of any raw-milk cheese that has been aged less than 60 days, meaning

The rectification of paragraph structure

Members of the Thessaloniki State Symphony Orchestra performing at a construction site in the city's Metro, August 2014.

A cogent example of how good reporting gets mowed under by obnoxious editorial practice, in which it's not a story unless it's some kind of drama of personal conflict, from today's Times.

Lede: Who's winning?

The new Greek prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, and his leftist Syriza party were elected last month as insurgents, promising to end austerity in Greece and inspire a broader backlash across Europe. But to avoid a banking crisis and keep the loan money flowing, Mr. Tsipras discarded his confrontational stance and is now committed to pushing through structural reforms and tougher tax collections: positions long advocated by European creditors.

Drama Syriza

Image by Rainer Hachfeld via cagle.com.

Krugman offers a really helpful analogy for the Greek crisis from Weimar Germany, which we always remember for the hyperinflation of 1923 when we ought to be thinking of the terrible deflation brought on by the austerity policies (cutting wages and welfare payments, tightening credit, and raising taxes) of Chancellor Heinrich Brüning in 1930-32, which was a decisive factor in bringing you-know-who into power in 1933. Austerity was a really bad idea for Germany, and has been a really bad idea for Greece so far.

An earlier and deeper cause of the collapse of the Weimar Republic, he goes on to note, was the terrible burden of debt imposed on Germany after the Great War by France and England under the terms of the Versailles Treaty in 1919, and the fruitless attempts of the Powers throughout the 1920s to collect this money (which they never came close to doing, even when French and Belgian troops occupied the Ruhr district in 1923-25 with the idea of taking it out directly in the form of coal).

Cheap shots and chasers 6/22

Look out, Tom! It's another one! From the Portland Mercury.

Eat your heart out, Friedman—those benighted North Africans who will never amount to anything because of their uncreative classrooms and rote learning, unlike the Singaporeans and South Koreans with their uncreative classrooms and rote learning, are going to save the world from global warming.

The Tunisian company Saphon Energy is selling a new approach to wind power using an ancient technology, with a four-foot circular sail on the top of a pole where it captures the kinetic energy of the wind that sways it back and forth. It's noiseless, and harmless to birds. Read the whole story at TPM and check out the company's website.





Now that retired pitcher Roger Clemens has been found not guilty of lying to Congress about his alleged use of steroids and HGH in his second trial (the first trial fell apart when prosecutors showed the jury inadmissible evidence), I wanted to take another look at this map, unearthed by bmaz at emptywheel a little while back, illustrating the bases covered in the FBI/Department of Justice investigation of Clemens in the four years they worked on the case, giving you a powerful sense of what an enormous elephant they constructed to pick up this little pea. "Any more questions," bmaz asked plaintively at the time, "why DOJ cannot get around to prosecuting banksters?" And that was when it still seemed likely they might get a conviction!

Still and all, it goes to show you: The arcs of the Department of Justice bend toward the moral universe, but they're too damn long.

What a difference a day makes! Before the elections, Antonis Samaras of Greece's New Democracy Party was such a Gloomy Gus, and now?

“Samaras today is completely different than what he was two weeks ago,” [hard-right politician George] Kirtsos said. “Two weeks ago, he was very negative about cooperating with Pasok.”

You have to read the Times story pretty carefully to find out why, but it's there all the same:

Critics say that Mr. Samaras destabilized Greece with his insistence on calling elections to replace the government led by Lucas Papademos, the technocratic prime minister whose mandate was to sign Greece’s second loan agreement.

“He just wanted to be prime minister,” said Thanos Veremis, a political historian who said he voted for New Democracy as a last resort. “It was pure ambition, pure and simple. Even in this state of collapse, he wanted to be Nero, playing his harp.”

Yes: after the May elections nobody wanted to ask Samaras to be prime minister and he had a great big sad. So they had to have another election—that's €47.9 million, cheaper than the €70.4 million they spent in May, but still a good bit for a bankrupt treasury to shell out. But hey, Antonis feels better now, so it's worth it, right? Thugs.

Hook that drive and you could land in the moral hazard

If somebody were to turn over a very large amount of cash to me, I could not only pay off all my credit card debt and the mortgage, but buy a new, much larger apartment, with a washer and dryer, and a big pantry with a chest freezer.

Sausage. From Free-Extras (?).

Then I'd do my basic shopping at Costco, and buy a whole free-range chestnut-fed pig from a gentleman farmer and make my own sausage, and that's not all. I'd start getting really
good clothes—especially shoes—so that I wouldn't have to buy them so often, and season tickets to the opera and the Philharmonic, and memberships in all the museums. Jesus, being rich can save you so much money!

All the people with power keep telling us that a national economy is just like a family, meaning that the nation has to sit down around the kitchen table (assuming it can afford [jump]