Link Exchange: Making Holidays Less Fun Edition

Whether railing against Thanksgiving as ritualized commodity fetishism or condeming the imposition of the Atlantic economy on a native population or questioning the motivation of the Protestant religious fanatics who landed on our shores in the seventeenth century, academics can even take the fun out of Thanksgiving. Oh, believe me, we've already done a number on Christmas, Easter, Mother's Day and the Fourth of July.

While I believe in being critical of tradition and trying to understand it in a certain context, I am perfectly capable of leaving that hat in the library or lecture hall, pulling up my sleeves, tucking into enough food to feed ten normal people and try to care about the Detroit Lions.

Economists, unlike historians or cultural critics or anthropologists or others, at least try to have a little fun with the holidays. The preachiness is more missing, and people are considered amorally (as in without moral judgement) for their choices and preferences. That is what draws me into economics as a field of interest.

Anyway, here are some economic takes on the coming holiday:

• Ezra Klein on the behaviorial economics of thanksgiving. Here, Klein talks to NYT food columnist Mark Bittman about similar things.
• How price discrimination explains "Black Friday" sales.
• The "first" Thanksgiving as a victory for capitalism (or free choice of some sort). O.K., this one is a bit more polemical, but it fits the theme and I agree with it.

Enjoy the holiday.

The Chuckwagon: Chicken Adobo, Filipino Style

When one is terminally short of cash, one is always on the lookout for cheaper ways to do things. Thus it is with cooking.

Being stony broke forces one to become rather creative when it comes to food. One must use cheaper cuts of meat, more spices and different cooking methods. I find it to be rather an interesting challenge.

Let's see how little I can spend and still eat well?

That's why I love when I come across recipes like this one. It is cheap (you probably have most of this stuff sitting around), flavorful, aromatic and easy to make.

You might think that adobo would be a dish from the Spanish speaking world, and you'd be sort of right. The Spanish ruled the Philippines for hundreds of years, so something was bound to rub off besides the love of plaster statues of saints.

Adobo, in the Filipino context, refers not so much do a dish but to a method of preparation, which you will see below.

As with any recipe, alter the amounts or ingredients to suit your tastes. Some might like it sweeter, others tangier, others with more, less or different vegetables or meats. It's all up to you. That's another great thing about this recipe: flexibility.

Ingredients

• 1/2 lb. boneless, skinless chicken thighs, cut into pieces
• 2-3 garlic cloves, minced
• 1/2 medium onion, sliced
• 1/4 c. soy sauce
• 1/3 c. vinegar
• 2 tsp. sugar
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 c. water
• Black pepper to taste

Method

• Mix all ingredients in medium-sized pot. Stir and let sit for 5-10 minutes
• Cover and cook on medium heat for 30-40 minutes or until chicken is done
• After about 20 minutes, check the level of liquid in the pot. Add more soy sauce or water as needed.
• Great over white rice.

In A (Not So) Big Country

People seem to love smaller versions of larger things. The human brain seems to be hard-wired to be drawn to the miniature. The examples are legion: babies, Matchbox cars, puppies, cocktail hot dogs, Danny DiVito.

For me, I have always been fascinated with small countries, formally known as microstates. Or, to put it in terms both crude and politically geographical, when it comes to countries, I am not a size queen.

I guess this fascination started by playing Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? on our good, old Apple IIE (yes, they DID make something before the iPod) back in 1987. I could not believe that a places like San Marino or Andorra were real countries.

My fascination was fed by many early watchings of the great 1959 Peter Sellers movie The Mouse That Roared, that details the trials and tribulations of the microstate of Grand Fenwick.

I suppose it culminated with a visit to the 1994 American Numismatic Association convention where I actually shook the hand of an actual government official from a microstate (the director of the San Marino Monetary Authority).

Yes, if you were wondering, this whole being nerdy is far from being a new thing...

So, what is the draw of these places? Why are they at all interesting?

First off, the sheer lack of size in comparison is a good jumping off point. The entire country of San Marino has about as many residents as the Chicago suburb where I grew up. You could comfortably fit the entire country of Liechtenstein within the bounds of the City of Madison, WI.

Great, so what? These facts lead one to wonder: how did these tiny countries slip through the cracks? How did they remain independent even when their large, powerful neighbors fought bloody wars, shifted borders and coalesced into nation-states?

I think in a lot of cases, these places were just too small, remote and unimportant in the grand scheme for the great powers (such as they were) to expend the effort to crush and subdue them. They are not a threat, so why bother?

The flip-side of this is also interesting. The people of these microstates could have easily appealed to become parts of their larger neighbors, to grab the coat-tails of a European up-and-comer, to be a part of a unified, powerful nation. But they didn't. The spirit of independence, pride and sheer bloody-mindedness appeals to my political sensibilities.

These places are also pleasingly anachronistic in all the best ways. Because of their remotness and relative unimportance to wider political, economic and social forces, the past lives on in these places more than most.

Take San Marino, for example. They are probably the oldest constitutional democracy on Earth, having been so since 1243. Their military consists mainly of a corps of crossbowmen.

Or Andorra. Their government is a relic of a fight between Spanish and French nobles over a chunk of the Pyrenees in the thirteenth century. Andorra has two heads of state, descended from the successors to those noble claims: the Bishop of Urguell in Spain and the President of France.

In a larger sense, though, I must consider that I look at these places as a native of a "big country," one of the great powers. Some in this position might look at places like Monaco or Malta and think, "well, who dives a good goddamn about little, piss-ant countries that time forgot? What did they ever do for history. They are the places that don't matter."

Not me, however. I see these places as interesting experiments, tested by history. In isolation and ignorance of the powerful, these countries made it work. They kept their independence, ran their lives and moved at exactly the pace at which they felt comfortable, not driven forward by the inexorable forces of geopolitics through the ages.

They also provide interesting examples of how sovereignty can operate on a small scale and how democracy can function best when it functions smallest. What I mean is that when the government and politics of a place can be tailored closest to the needs and wants of the people who live there, things tend to work out better than national-level decision making.

As a libertarian with strong anarchist leanings, this notion appeals to me greatly. Think a small piece of territory cannot be sovereign and survive? Think again.

More than mere geographical or historical curiosities, the microstates of the world offer a window into a different way of life.

Maybe I believe, at least where governments are involved, that small is indeed beautiful.

Wait a Minute...Herman Who?

Today, the news broke that the leaders of the twenty-seven EU member states selected the first full-time President of the European Council and the first permanent High Representative for foreign affairs.

If you are unclear about what these positions are, what they do and how the EU functions in general, well, join the club. But for a good introduction, click here.

Who are the lucky winners? Who are the latest unelected people to be chosen to influence policy and procedure in the EU, a regional alliance that has been growing in power and influence, most recently with the Lisbon Treaty?

Why, it was Belgian Prime Minister Herman van Rampuy and EU Trade Commissioner Baroness Catherine Ashton, of course.

Don't panic. I had never heard of either of them before today myself.

The big talk in the run-up to this decision, and the position taken by the British government, was that former British Prime Minister Tony Blair was all but a shoo-in for the job. Tony Blair...at least a guy that more people have heard of.

So, what happened? What led the leaders of the EU member states to choose two politicians who are virtual unknowns, who are thought to be "consensus builders," and neither of whom have much foreign policy experience?

Well, let's think about this.

It is no secret who are the "big dogs" when it comes to the member states of the EU. This position belongs to France and Germany, and most specifically, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicholas Sarkozy. These states and their leaders stand at the center of the "European project."

Why? Well, it is simple (at least to me). They both realize that to consolidate their relative positions economically and politically on the Continent, they need each other to survive. Furthermore, they need the smaller states of the EU to consolidate this position through offering attractive incentives (development money, union-wide institutions that could save individual states money) in exchange for tacit leadership by the larger states in the union.

What about Britain, then? To put it simply, the French and Germans don't trust them. The reasons are historical and, well, sort of cultural. Historical because there had been an aversion among British politicians to join the union and the corresponding rejections of British membership led by Charles de Gaulle in the 1960's. Cultural because, more than any other people who are members of the EU, the British really don't (and never have) considered themselves Europeans. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, Britain is in Europe, but not of Europe.

So, back to today's decision (which was a unanimous one among the 27 member states). Merkel and Sarkozy knew that a big-name British politician like Tony Blair could prove to be much more of a problem than some Belgian guy and an EU commissioner who is a Brussels insider.

They also knew that in no way, shape or form do they have to give any part of a shit about what Gordon Brown, the current British PM, wants. It is pretty clear that Brown and his Labour Party will not be in power (or at least not in a majority in the House of Commons) for much longer. Brown pushed for his old boss Blair to get the job, but he really has no bargaining position.

What are the larger implications of this? For one, anyone who tries to tell you that the EU marks the end of old, nation-state based politics in Europe is just plain wrong. The EU is just another forum for the various states of Europe to seek their own interests. It doesn't get rid of the game; it just provides a different playing field.

Another larger point that this reinforces plays to the nature of the EU itself. I believe it is a fundamentally undemocratic institution and this decision just further proves that. This decision does nothing to make the EU's institutions more representative. All it does is preserve the status quo, mainly in favor of France and Germany.

Everything I say here is debatable, and I might well be wrong. What I do think I have right, though, is the notion that the states of Europe and their leaders will use international institutions to pursue the interests of their own states.

International relations theorists can say all they want about mid-level explanations of interstate relations, or cosmopolitanism, or cooperation. Perhaps I look at this with the jaundiced eye of the historian, but I just don't see that at work here. Feel free to prove me wrong.

Oh, and this destabilizes domestic politics in Belgium, but really, who gives a shit?

Link Exchange

• Only in economics are floors above ceilings.
• John Stossel on the jiggery-pokery of stimulus.
• In the nineteenth century, it turns out that the poets were the bad guys and the economists were the good guys. I find this argument compelling, given the societies and cultures that produced these ideas.
• The always fascinating David Friedman on the ambiguity of utility.
• Drill the Antarctic for scotch? Count me in.
• The link between economic prosperity and religious liberty.
• Neat chart of UK government salaries, from the boss lady on down.

The Lecturer as Rock Star?

One thing I have never had a problem with is speaking in front of groups. I have always found it hard to believe that lots of people fear it more than death, but this seems to be the case. Jerry Seinfeld even joked about it: "At a funeral, most people would rather be in the casket than giving the eulogy."

So, in my current line of work, it has been helpful not being a glossophobe. In being a TA and now a lecturer, I have to be in front of people as the central part of my job. This will be the case for my entire career.

In addition to this, I have always been somewhat aware of the performative aspect of education. A successful lecture or discussion section is built as much on the presentation as on the content. I actually will paraphrase former president Ronald Reagan here when I say that I don't know how anyone could go into education without having acting experience.

I never really had this awareness of performance and education brought home or clarified, though, until a recent conversation with my brother. For those of you who don't know him, my brother has been a musician, in one way or another, since he was in the fifth grade. He has performed in school bands and orchestras, pit orchestras for the stage, heavy metal bands, jam bands, bar bands and impromptu jam sessions of all sorts. I (and I might be showing family bias here) think he is quite an accomplished performer.

Recently I was talking to him about my frustration at sometimes not being able to tell if my students are getting it. I was frustrated that the best that I can do is see if they are obviously asleep or obviously surfing the web on their laptops.

My brother then drew the paralell between teaching a class and performing live on stage. You need to feed off the audience, drawing your energy and directing your performance in the direction of the audience. You have to try to keep the "diehards" going strong while drawing in the people who seem not to care or not to notice that there is a performance even going on. You need to constantly relate to your audience, establishing this connection so that the exchange can be mutually beneficial.

I was taken aback. Hell, he's absolutely right. They ARE pretty similar.

I had to counter with something, so I pointed out that while you mostly play at bars and music clubs, the lecture hall is a much different forum. He admitted that this was true, but that they were still people and they still act the same when something is going on in front of them on a stage.

Additionally, he said that the fact that the crowds at the average gig might be intoxicated (in one way or another) might be a double-edged sword. It might make them more "in to" what you are doing, or it might make them more ignorant, and you can never really tell.

Nail on the head, I'd say. This was not really shocking, though. My brother is in front of crowds at least four times every week and has been for most of his adult life.

So, does this mean that I think that lecturers and rock stars are the same? Well, yes and no. Yes, in the fact that they are both performers of a sort that depend on audience reaction for the energy behind their performances. No, in the fact that rock stars' performances are in the "entertainment" part of one's life, lecturers much less so.

It is drawing these paralells between the linements of human endeavor that I think lead to the deepest understanding of human behavior and the human experience.

So, if you'll excuse me, I have finish getting ready to rock Humanities 1131 with a blistering set of culture in interwar Europe.

Or, if you like, less people yelling, "play 'Freebird!'" than yelling "show us how culture influenced and was influenced by the dissolution and horror following World War I!"

Rock on, indeed.

The Chuckwagon: Fried Rice

Madison is a great eating town. For a city its size, the dining options are legion. Especially notable is the wide array of cuisine from cultures around the world that can be had in Wisconsin's second largest city. Peruse this website to get an idea of what I'm talking about.

There are two sorts of Americanized, bastardized ethnic foods, though, that Madison just can't seem to do right. These are standards in the American food pantheon, and I was surprised when I moved here that I could not find anything close to the standards that I was used to in the Chicago area.

I guess I am just an Americanized, bastardized ethnic food snob.

Oh, the two that I am talking about are pizza and what you might call American Chinese food.

Pizza is for another time, but suffice to say that Rosati's Pizza is just O.K. back in the Big Chi, but it is just about the best thing here.

I find it hard to believe that I cannot find take-out, white folded container, huge menu, kinda greasy Chinese food anywhere near the order of the places that I ate in the Chicago area. To put it in South Suburban terms, none of these places in Madison should be mentioned in the same sentence as Dragon Palace.

So, after a while of thrashing about, I decided to take matters into my own hands and make my own American Chinese favorites.

Fried rice is hearty, economical, a great way to use up leftovers, quick and tasty. This recipe is especially open to tinkering, so feel free.

Fried Rice

• 1-2 green onions
• 2 large eggs
• 1 tsp. salt
• Black pepper to taste
• Olive oil (or vegetable oil would work as well)
• 4 cups of cooked rice
• Soy sauce to taste
• Any sort of meaty add-ins: pork, chicken, shrimp, basically whatever you have

1. Wash and chop the green onions
2. Beat eggs with salt and pepper
3. Heat some oil (the two-times around the pan thing should be sufficient) in a large frying pan
4. When the oil is hot, add the eggs and lightly scramble
5. Remove eggs and set aside
6. Add more oil, rice, green onions, anything else and break up rice clumps with spoon
7. Add soy sauce to your taste
8. When heated through, add egg, mix and serve.

Link Exchange

• Fascinating developments in Detroit, alternately seen as an urban wasteland and the new frontier in urban design and planning.
• How a recession helps to less burglaries.
• Hate having to wash your hands or wear a seatbelt? Blame these guys.
• Why are there so few women in philosophy? I agree with Wilkinson in the main, but would also say that while women might be less aggressive than men, I think they are no less competitive.
• Are women picky? Interesting thoughts on speed dating, decision making and the differencec between the sexes.
• Thoughts on this Armistice Day. Controversial line: "The names of Asquith, Bethmann-Hollweg, Berchtold and Poincare are barely remembered, yet on any reasonable accounting they belong among the great criminals of history." Wow.
• Why Joseph Schumpeter is important. Think "creative destruction" here.
• Interested in creative destruction? This book looks good.
• Watch amazing color footage of London in 1927.
• Rock music quality vs. oil production.

The Incentive's Always Waiting at the Liquor Store for Me

Those who know me know that if I believe any one thing unshakably, it is that people respond to incentives. Incentives and people's choices when faced with them show their preferences, and these preferences are a window into the sort of person they are.

We make choices constantly. It seems that we are hard-wired to be decisionmakers. Just think for a moment how many choices you make before you leave the house for the morning, and you'll see what I mean.

I have long been fascinated (and even worked for a time) with people's behavior in retail outlets, especially grocery stores. Grocery stores are where most people have their longest contact with the economy, so it is a place where competing preferences and incentives are constantly in intricate interplay.

Now, there has been a lot of interesting work done on people's retail behavior, including (but not limited to): how to pick the fastest checkout lane, price discrimination (getting people to pay different prices for the same stuff), and the deadweight loss of Christmas.

One sector of retail behavior that has always fascinated me is people's behavior in liquor stores (or the liquor sections of grocery stores). I have been observing this behavior (and admittedly participating in it) for some time, and I wanted to offer a few observations.

First, I think there is a lot of signalling involved in buying liquor. The particular liquor one chooses conveys information about that person. The bunch of dudes with a cart full of thiry-packs of PBR is sending a different message than the old codger with a liter of bourbon or the couple with pretentious eyewear with the wine from somewhere foreign.

I think much of this has to do with brand image and how this relates to one's own image. It is the ultimate victory of the advertising industry, in my opinion. You don't want to send the wrong message, especially with a product that, in a lot of ways, sends negative messages anyway.

This is, of course, silly. A consumer product is an inanimate object, devoid of moral force. It is simply another commodity, and what it says about you should not be a factor in your incentive calculations. But, the problem is that, well, this seems to be true. We fall for it all the time and liquor is no different.

Second, the mantra, "incentives matter" plays out in interesting ways in the liquor store. I see this operating in two ways:

1. The person who seems to float between different sections and different potent potables, seemingly in a quest for the most "bang for the buck," as it were. These are incentives at their most pure: what am I getting for what I am giving up? To put it another way, what is the opportunity cost of going for a lot of cheap booze or a little better stuff? To put it yet another way (the way the most calculating and hardened drinkers think about it, I imagine) what is the highest alcohol content per volume that I can get at a certain price?
2. The items left in the liquor department of grocery stores often tell an interesting (and occasionally depressing) story about people and incentives. I've seen discarded packages of diapers, allergy medication, coloring books, contraceptives, bread, milk and motor oil in liquor departments. Liquor went up against all of these things and (seemingly) won out. This might say more about the person than their purchases, but that's the whole point. By making this choice, they convey information about themselves.

Lastly, it is fascinating to me to conjecture on how people change their liquor buying decisions based on external factors. Of course, there are the people who will buy the same thing no matter the time, place or company (people who respond to the whole brand image thing I talked about earlier).

I wonder, though, how people's liquor buying decisions are altered by the people around and the time of day and also the place itself. The crowd at the average liquor dispensary is very different on a Tuesday afternoon than it is on a Friday evening. To give but one possible scenario:

You are standing in front of the beer case at your favorite liquor emporium. You are ready to go the "most bang for buck" route and grab the one thirty-pack of PBR that those dudes left behind. All of a sudden, an attractive (depending on how you define this) person walks up next to you and appears to engage in the same behavior.

The question becomes: do you change your PBR decision and go for a twelve of Stella Artois? Or a local microbrew? Or an armful of forties of Steel Reserve? How does the presence of this other person influence your beer incentive scheme?

Well, enough of this talk. I am going to pour another beer from the $6.99 case that I bought this afternoon.

Go ahead. Pick out my signalling, analyize my decisions and figure out my incentive scheme.

You know you want to.

Oh, and cheers!

Link Exchange

• Don Boudreaux on why voting is unnecessary.
• A great debate on how we became "modern." If we ever did, that is.
• The history of money as the history of government extracting wealth from the population. I think they are on to something here...
• Why pride should make you feel awkward. No, it has nothing to do with Cardinal Sins.
• Economic stimulus by lotteries open to the unemployed. I personally think it is better NOT to inflate the currency further to encourage spending. Take that, Keynes.
• NFL "power rankings" reconsidered.
• Denver to Singapore and back again in five minutes.

The Chuckwagon: Guinness Beef Stew

I have thought about this a lot, and I have concluded that I am much more a winter food person.

Now, before you throw your barbecue tools at me, hear me out. I would never turn my nose up at a brat, burger, ribs, chicken or a steak the size of a garbage can lid off the grill.

When it comes to variety, though, I have to say that once you cycle through all your grilling choices, you find your self repeating yourself repeatingly redundant.

Winter food, though, is a more open playing field. You could go a month and eat nothing but variations on the casserole. I don't recommend that you do this, but if you are from Minnesota, you probably do this anyway.

One of my favorite food categories with a million variations is the stew, otherwise know as soup's brawnier brother. It is the simplest of foods, invented by cultures the world over through the centuries. Meat, vegetables, liquid, heat. Everything else is completely up to you.

A favorite in the English-speaking world is beef stew. From Dinty Moore to the Lancashire hot pot, it never fails to deliver that stick-to-the-ribs warming feeling that is one of the reasons I like winter food.

This recipe is one of my favorites. I first ate it about a year ago, and have made it several times since. It is easy and delicious. In fact, when I served it at my St. Patrick's Day extravaganza last year, it was gone before the corned beef was.

You do need a CrockPot, but if you don't already have one, pony up and get one. It is well worth it.

So, here you go (with a tip of the tweed pinch cap to Julie Norkus).

Guinness Beef Stew

• 3 tbs. olive oil
• 3 tbs. flour
• 3 lbs. beef stew meat
• 1 medium bag of baby carrots
• 6 large potatoes, peeled and cubed
• 1 onion, cubed
• 4 cloves of garlic, smashed
• 2-3 cups of beef broth
• 1 7oz. can of tomato paste
• 16 oz. of Guinness
• 2 cups of green peas
• thyme
• oregano
• parsley
• salt and pepper

1. Thickly dredge beef in flour and fry in olive oil until brown

2. Put ingredients into CrockPot in this order: potatoes, carrots, onion, garlic, meat, Guinness, broth and tomato paste (mix together first), generous sprinkling of thyme, oregano and parsley

3. Cook on High for six hours.

4. With about an hour and a half to go, stir and add peas

5. Give yourself about forty-five minutes-hour leeway to make sure everything is done.

Oh, you might want to leave the house while this cooks...the smell of it all day will drive you mad with desire.

Link Exchange

• Bryan Caplan on libertarians quoting Trotsky. No, this is not fake.
• Athletes, performance, signalling and "excessive celebration," from Robin Hanson.
• In the next week, we celebrate twenty years since Die Berliner Mauerfall. Links, all good, from Cato@Liberty. I particularly like the one about "paradise imposed at gunpoint."
• Interesting map of the Biblical flood that shows a lot about faith and science in the seventeenth century.
• Exploring the pros and pitfalls of Wikipedia. I think the demographic data is particularly illuminating.

Ayn Rand, Ayn Rand, Everywhere

With two new books out about her, sales of her books higher than ever, and new interest in her philosophy in the world's largest democracy growing, it might seem that we are living in a Randian moment.

Love her or hate her, it is hard to ignore her and her ideas, her strange personality, her evangelical followers (even though they would hate that phrase) and her vehement detractors.

I intend this post as a collection on some recent, useful writing on the subject for the curious. I have already made my opinions known here at COTL back in 2005. Read those here.

Now, the reading list (which is by no stretch of the imagination exhaustive). Oh, and if you don't throw up a little at the (thankfully fake) picture in the GQ article, you might not be human.

• The Reason Foundation's "Rand-a-Palooza." You might expect Reason to be chest-thumpingly adulatory, but they do complicate this expected bias towards Rand and her ideas.
• According to GQ, "The Bitch is Back," apparently. For some, she never left. More a personal reflection for, well, the sort of people who read GQ.
• Alex Tabarrok of Marginal Revolution's take. I especially like his ideas about Rand and a modern virtue ethics.
• Article in New York about Rand's personality and its relationship to her ideas. I particularly like the notion of the unreality of Objectivism.
• NYT book review that details Rand's difficult relationship with conservatives. I would add that this difficulty extend to libertarians, liberals...pretty much everyone who didn't accept Objectivism whole and uncut.
• A bit of humor mixed in with the criticism. Murray Rothbard's delightful one-act play entitled, "Mozart Was a Red." This zeroes in, with humor, on one of the things that I find most objectionable about her philosophy.

Vacation From The City Of Tiny Lights

As you all can tell, I have decided to take a break.

I have a lot to do in the next few months and I figured I'd give the old electronic mouthpiece a rest.

The upshot of all this is that I will have a lot to talk about when I come back.

I intend to pick back up in July.

So, until then, keep your eyes open and ears to the ground.

Not, "Oh No, Not Again."

Don't worry.

I have not disappeared as has become my custom in recent years.

Allow me to explain.

The post below, the first of my weekly features, turned into a beast. I had to tame it down a little and change focus.

Also, I have lost the wireless signal at home, leaving me dead in the water, Internet-wise. Expect another "crappy customer service" post if this does not work out well.

In partial penance for my disappearance, I have included a bonus post below on how to read a Supreme Court case. It will help the uninitiated wade through the sometimes inscrutable legalese.

Well, anyway, enjoy.

How To Read A Supreme Court Case

For my lawyer friends, this post can easily be skipped. For others, read on...

Reading Supreme Court cases can be a bit bewildering if it is something that you have never done before. It can seem like, well, legal gibberish. You must forgive it for that; it WAS written by lawyers, after all. (Mark and Andy, don't be mad. You still are, right?)

Every case is different and the written opinions of the Supreme Court have changed dramatically. The court and its role was different in the 1790's and so are its opinions. The people are different, too.

Supreme Court majority opinions are assigned according to a rotating schedule and are therefore written by different people at different times. The personality and legal style of the authors come through in their opinions and dissents. This can be, as ever, very different for different justices.

There are four factors, however, that all Supreme Court cases have in common. Keep these in mind when reading the cases and my posts about them. They are:

1. A description of the facts of the case.
2. A carefully framed statement of the issue posed by the case.
3. The application of the relevant law and precedent to the issues and facts.
4. The conclusion or holding, which is just another way of saying the court's decision.

Written cases are usually in this order, usually with some mention of the arguments presented in court and the concurrences and dissents following after.

Concurrences and dissents, you ask? The majority opinion of the court is expressed by the aforementioned justice who's turn it is (really). This majority opinion can by joined or concurred with by the other justices. If they join it, they simply agree with the reasoning and conclusion presented by the justice who wrote the opinion. If they concur, they issue a separate statement whereby they usually agree with the conclusion but not the reasoning used to arrive at it.

Dissents are issued by justices who do not agree with the conclusion and see the application of the law and precedent to the facts of the case in a different way. Dissents can be joined by other justices just as majorities and concurrences can.

So, in reading a Supreme Court case for our purposes, don't read it like someone in law school. You are not trying to learn the law in order to apply it in any way. You are reading these cases (well, I am, anyway) for the interest in how the law has developed over time, the social and cultural impact of the decision, the changing nature of the court and the personalities involved in this branch of government.

So, with that in mind, dig into Miller v. California. As I said, it is not boring. The word "genitalia" is used a lot.

SCOTUS Wednesday: Miller v. California (1973)

(NOTE: I realize this is being published on a Tuesday. If you read the posts above, the reason for that will become more clear.)

Click here for a synopsis of the case and audio of the oral arguments. Click here for the full text of the decision.


The Background


Marvin Miller, the appellant, was one of the largest dealers in "adult material" on the West Coast. He dealt mainly in explicit books and magazines. In an attempt to sell more of his products, he sent out a mass mailing advertising some of these illustrated, ahem, picture books. This advertising not only included detailed descriptions of the books, but also featured pictures of nude males and females, most including full frontal shots depicting genitalia. One of these advertisements found its way to a restaurant in Newport Beach, CA where it was opened by the restaurant owner and his mother. They were offended by the material, had not requested it and took Miller to court.


The California state court found Miller guilty of a misdemeanor charge of "distributing obscene material," and ordered him to be fined. Miller took the case to the California Court of Appeals and the decision of the lower court was upheld. Miller then decided that the California Penal Code section under which he was convicted conflicted with his rights to free speech, claiming that the materials that he distributed were covered under the First Amendment.


The Question


Is the sale and distribution of obscene materials by mail protected by the free speech guarantee in the First Amendment?



The Precedents


Before 1973, the prevailing test for obscenity was the court's decision in Roth v. United States (1957). In Roth, the Court repudiated the old Common Law standard for obscenity defined in the 1868 case of Hicklin v. Regina from Great Britain. The test for obscenity in Hicklin allowed material to be banned that tended to "deprave and corrupt those minds who are open to such influences."


In a 6-3 decision in Roth, the Court decided to further define the test for obscenity. In the majority opinion written by William J. Brennan, the Court defined as obscene any material whose "dominant theme taken as a whole appeals to the prurient interest to the average person applying contemporary community standards." Only material that meets this test could be banned as obscene.


Although this further defined material considered as obscene, Brennan reaffirmed that obscenity was not protected by the First Amendment and upheld the conviction of Roth that brought the case to the court. First Amendment "literalists" Hugo Black and William O. Douglas dissented in Roth, stating clearly that obscenity was protected speech.


What followed Roth were several decisions on which the Court could not conclusively decide on a further test for obscenity. 1964's Jacobellis v. Ohio found that a movie theater owner could not be held responsible for showing a movie that didn't quite meet the Roth test for obscenity. This case, by the way, also saw the coining of the most famous phrase in the history of American obscenity law. Potter Stewart, in his concurrence with the majority opinion, wrote:

• "I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that (emphasis added)."

As if that was not ambiguous enough, in Memoirs v. Massachusetts (1966), the court ruled that a piece of literature (John Cleland's Fanny Hill, written in 1750) might be "patently offensive," but it was not completely without social value. This decision also showed how split the court was on obscenity, with four justices writing special concurrences because they could not unanimously agree with the majority opinion written by Brennan.

The Decision and Dissents

The court held that:

• "Obscene materials are defined as those that the average person, applying contemporary community standards, find, taken as a whole, appeal to the prurient interest; that depict or describe, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by applicable state law; and that, taken as a whole, lack serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value."

O.K. So, what the hell does that mean in English? It basically means that the Roth test was overturned and a new definition was added to the old one to form a new federal test for obscenity. The "taken as a whole, lack serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value" part tries to further define the sort of works that can be deemed obscene and banned by the states.

The court split 5-4 in this decision with Chief Justice Warren Burger, Byron White, Harry Blackmun, Lewis Powell and William Rehnquist making up the majority and William O. Douglas, Brennan, Thurgood Marshall and Potter Stewart making up the dissenting side.

Chief Justice Warren Burger wrote the opinion for the majority. He had pushed during the deliberations for a "looser" definition of obscenity to open the door for more state-level prosecutions. His opinion is summarized by the above definition.

The dissents in this case were by William O. Douglas and Brennan. Douglas dissented on the basis of his belief in the absolute letter of the First Amendment (as he had done in Roth). Brennan, as you can see, had a change of heart since his opinion in Roth in 1957. He was now of the mind, similar to Douglas and Black, that all obscenity is protected speech unless it is distributed to minors or exposed offensively to adults without their consent.

The Significance

Miller is a landmark case in that it redefined the standard by which obscenity is judged. Most importantly, and worryingly, it further defined the community standards idea.

Why does this worry me? Well, think about it. This is saying that what is obscene in Massachusetts is different than what is obscene in, say, Utah. In a general sense, this might be true.

At a deeper level, however, I agree with Brennan and Douglas on this case. The First Amendment protection for free speech is as extensive as the many forms that speech itself takes. To say that "contemporary community standards" are to rule is to say that these standards are somehow agreed upon by all members of the community.

Now, how is this really possible? This applies a utilitarian notion of "greatest good for the greatest number" to an issue that, for me, is all about an individual right. I do agree that distribution of obscene materials to minors and showing them to unconsenting adults are not really defensible (although one can argue over whether our definition of "minor" is really a good one).

Apart from these groups, though, I am not sure how the state can have the power to regulate what sort of speech I create and to whom I deliver this speech in a media of one form or another. As Brennan argues, the First Amendment is there to protect the rights of individuals to have access to whatever forms of speech they'd like, regardless of their perceived "value."

In other words, I am not sure that the idea of "contemporary community standards" can ever be brought into line with the letter (or the spirit, come to it) of the First Amendment. Obscenity is a form of speech and I should not be limited in my consumption of it if I so choose.

So, the next time you hear swear words on television, buy porn or go to a strip club, think of yourself as a warrior in the battle for the First Amendment. To hell with your "community's standards." Seek out the speech you want and don't let anyone stand in your way.

It is our right and we need to use it everyday.

Because with rights, it's use 'em or lose 'em.

New Feature: The Results Are In...

...and they're, well, inconclusive.

My poll last week asking for you good people to vote on a new feature for COTL attracted four votes. Thanks to the four who voted or the person who voted four times but for two different things or any combination of these.

It appears that the votes were evenly split between "Thrilling Tales of Europe's Past," and "Fun With Supreme Court Cases."

Seeing as there was equal interest between these two categories, I will compromise. I will switch off weeks between these two categories.

I also intend to broaden out the SCOTUS entries, focusing not just on cases, but on justices, ideas and the historical development of the Court from the 1790's to the present.

By the flip of a coin, the Supreme Court comes first.

So, sometime tomorrow, look for the first of my Wednesday history features.

We will get off to an exciting start, I assure you.

How?

It involves porn.

Northwest Airlines Sucks

So, you thought that my bad travel experiences last month were and isolated incident, right?

Will couldn't POSSIBLY have ANOTHER bad trip so soon. Man, oh, man...no one is THAT unlucky, are they?

Well, folks, it happened again.

I was supposed to present at a conference at the University of Akron last weekend. I was flying out of Madison on a Northwest Airlines flight that was to leave at 7:00AM and arrive in Detroit at 9:34AM. I then had a lay-over in Detroit, boarding my connecting flight to the Akron-Canton Regional Airport at 11:04AM. I was supposed to arrive in Akron at 11:59AM, in plenty of time to check in at the hotel, slap on a tie and make it to the University of Akron for my panel at 5:00PM.

Everything went to plan that morning. I was packed, showered, in a new sportcoat and on my way to the Dane County Regional Airport by 5:15AM. I checked in and went through security without incident (the TSA staff in Madison was courteous, professional and quick...drive down to O'Hare and teach those assholes a lesson, why don't you?).

I got to my gate, sat down, drank a pop and read the paper. I even ran into someone I knew, so I would have someone to pass the time with on the plane. 6:45AM rolls around and they announce the pre-boarding call, so I get up and begin to make my way toward the gate (I was in Seat 6B, so I would get on first).

It was at this point when the suckitude began to ooze to the surface.

They announced that the plane was having "mechanical problems" and that we would be "slightly delayed." No problem, I thought, I had a sizeable lay over in Detroit, so this was just eating into the time I would have to kill in Detroit.

A half an hour passed (it was now 7:30AM) and the next announcement of dissapointment came. The plane required a part that they didn't have in Madison. It had to be flown in from Minneapolis on a flight that would arrive at 11:00AM. They were also having a mechanic drive in from Milwaukee to work on the plane in Madison with the part from Minneapolis.

Now, come on. Not only do you not have parts to fix the planes in service from Madison, you don't have a mechanic that can fix the plane? Isn't this an airport? Aren't you an airline? Isn't this, I don't know, what you fucking do?

It gets better (if by better you mean more suck-filled).

They announced because of their, ahem, maintenance arrangements, the flight would be further delayed. The flight to Detroit, originally scheduled to leave at 7:00AM was now going to leave at...wait for it...1:30PM - at the earliest.

Before, the delay was not a problem. Now it was a big, hairy, shambling, red-cheeked fucking problem.

I would now miss my connection for sure. I had to rebook, if necessary on a different airline. I called the airline and was immediately mired in what my dad appropriately calls, "automated attendant hell." I guess it is a different sort of hell than the people waiting in line at the gate. An entire plane of people being rebooked and rerouted by a grand total of two slow NWA employees.

When I finally reached a human being (or a reasonable facsimile thereof), I calmly described my problem and asked what could be done. I was brusquely asked if the flight was cancelled. I said that it was (people were to collect their baggage and make other plans). I was then all but accused of lying about the cancellation and asked again about the status of the flight.

Look, madam, you work for the airline. You have the schedules for flights of yours and other airlines a keystroke away. I'm stranded in a fucking airport. Who is in a better position to answer that question, asshole?

I then asked if there was any way, connecting through anywhere, that could get me to the Akron-Canton Airport by 3:00PM. After a short pause, the disembodied, snotty voice on the other end said, "not a chance."

Hey, I don't expect you to kiss my ass. I also don't expect a triumphant air of near joy in telling me that my travel plans are now ruined. You know who does things like that? Petty little shitheads with nothing to do in their lives except make other peoples' lives miserable.

I should have just accepted my refund there. But, no. I had to have the foresight of a back-up plan. I asked Her Assholiness if there was a way to get me to Cleveland sometime early this afternoon. I could fly to Cleveland, rent a car and drive to Akron (they are not at all far from each other).

After no pause at all (which tells me, dipshit, that I know you didn't check this out), I was informed, "Uhhhh, no."

Northwest Airlines and Their Unhelpful Employess and Bad Maintenance, 1: Will Shannon, 0.

I gave this woman my address to get my refund. She then had the audacity to ask me if I wanted it as a check or credit toward future travel. She opened the door and I walked through.

"Well, seeing as I never plan on flying your airline again," I declared, "I think I'll go for the check."

"Well, I'm sorry to hear that," she said, reading right from the goddamned script that these dipfucks are given.

"Are you?" I asked.

"Thank you for flying Northwest Airlines. Good bye," she said as she hung up.

I suppose she was interpreting the term "flying" rather loosely seeing as I NEVER LEFT THE FUCKING AIRPORT.

Well, I went home and have never felt as "dressed up with nowhere to go" in my life. I was in a sportcoat and tie, with a packed bag, standing in my apartment and it was 9:30 in the morning. I ended up having a topping day nonetheless. I played golf, took a nap and hit the town with the Shealy brothers. Thanks, Greg and Drew; you helped wash the Northwest Airlines shit taste out of my mouth. All the beer, whiskey and gyros helped.

I could go on about why I think airline service is so bad today (after deregulation in 1978, which was overall a good thing, airlines no longer had to compete on service at lower price points). I could lament the plight of the legacy carriers and their failure to adapt to a changing market.

But I won't. Don't want to spoil a good rant with any clear thinking. Not in this case, anyway.

So, to Northwest Airlines, I say your people are as bad as your service and you ruined a trip that I actually wanted to take. Your ill-mannered employees and shoddy ground procedures put me out and wasted my time and money. The next time I am presented with the choice of travel on your airline or walk there, I'm opting for the old Heel-Toe Express.

Oh, and the next time I want to get dressed up, spend a lot of money for nothing and get blue-balled, I'll try to go on a date.

At least then the woman rejecting me will be in person.

Assholes.

Multum In Parvo

Many interesting pieces crossing the wires (so to speak) today...

• Ed Glaeser on how entrepreneurship saved New York and damned Pittsburgh. Cities have to compete for scarce resources (residents and their money), too.
• Fascinating work on the geography of personality. Find the full paper here. This is interdisciplinary social science at its best. It also shows the Midwest (at least the part I'm from) in a really good light.
• Patri Friedman's exhortation to libertarians to quit whining and try to make a freer society actually happen. He makes a lot of sense, really.
• Will Wilkinson on cooperation and civil society. His discussion of "higher-level" public goods relates closely to the issues I raised about the SSIP.
• Gary Becker argues that the drop in housing prices has not influenced overall consumption very much. His argument about "wealth effects" and housing prices is especially compelling.
• A fascinating interactive graph of shifting religious identification in the USA. Apparently, we are becoming less likely to identify as religious and the center of this population is shifting eastward. Read a decent article in Newsweek that relates to this notion here.
• Richard Posner's review of this book on psychology and economics. I think this issue is critical to understanding not only the economic crisis but human behavior more generally.