About Richard Cohen, and Conventional, and (Somehow) Math

You've probably heard that Richard Cohen said some stupid, stupid words. I'm here to talk about one word in particular, and how I see it.

I'm a math major. I do the Maths, sometimes just for fun. And a lot of math, once you've seen your way past calculus and differential equations, doesn't look a whole lot like what you were doing before: you now have to prove stuff. And so I learn methods for doing certain types of things, including making general conclusions about a group¹ working only with the definition of that group. One specific tool I use for this type of thing is formally described in First Order Logic as Universal Introduction².

The basic process is this: take some group. Pick a random (read: typical or conventional) element in that group. If some general statement holds for that element, assuming nothing but inclusion in the group, then it holds for every element of the group. The key point is that there's nothing special about the element I chose; all I know about it comes from how the overall group is defined. So if I picked any other element from the group, I would have reached the exact same general statement. Therefore that statement must apply to every member of that group.

So, Cohen's "conventional" would apply back to the group he's picking from: the GOP, or maybe even a specific subset of that, of his own devising. He's going for what he thinks/claims he knows about the group: that a typical member of that group would see Mayor de Blasio's family as everything they feel is wrong in America, and thus the gag. Try replacing the "conventional views" with the phrase "views of a typical member of this group, the GOP". Now his horrible paragraph reads

"Today’s GOP is not racist, as Harry Belafonte alleged about the tea party, but it is deeply troubled — about the expansion of government, about immigration, about secularism, about the mainstreaming of what used to be the avant-garde. People with [views of a typical member of this group, the GOP] must repress a gag reflex when considering the mayor-elect of New York — a white man married to a black woman and with two biracial children. (Should I mention that Bill de Blasio’s wife, Chirlane McCray, used to be a lesbian?) This family represents the cultural changes that have enveloped parts — but not all — of America. To cultural conservatives, this doesn’t look like their country at all."

Let me say that I think he's still wrong. I would guess that a vast majority of today's GOP would feel fine with this marriage, and an even larger majority would say they feel fine with it. But to me, this is the first thing that popped into my head that even made an attempt at making sense of that abomination of a sentence. This paragraph now has a consistent internal structure.

tl;dr: Cohen's column is pretty bad. But we may be jumping to the wrong conclusion of what one single, specific word in it means.

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1 I use the word group in a standard, layman sense, not the precise mathematical sense, although it does apply to them too.^↩
2 See particularly pages 3 and 4.^↩

Review of Patrick Stewart's Macbeth

“It Is A Bloody Business”

Macbeth (2010) Dir. Rupert Goold

We need to talk about the fight. It is an extremely bold choice. I have never seen something like that. Macduff (Michael Feast) enters the room where Macbeth (Patrick Stewart) has taken refuge; he proceeds to empty his automatic weapon around Macbeth, apparently deliberately (?![1]). He then draws his knife (no more than 7” in length) and leaps toward Macbeth, who shoots him (mere inches from the heart) (!). After some more discussion, Macbeth decides to walk away (?!), assuming, apparently, that Macduff has received a fatal wound. Macduff assures him this is not so by challenging him, again bringing a knife to a gunfight (?). However Macbeth is now out of bullets, and so draws his own knife to fight Macduff. And he wins. Just as he has brought his knife to Macduff's throat (!!), the Weird Sisters (Polly Frame, Sophie Hunter, and Niamh McGrady) enter (?!?!), and as Macbeth sees them, an almost beatific spreads across his face. Then we cut away, leaving us no choice but to conclude that Macbeth allows Macduff to kill him (??). I don't find it completely convincing. Although the scene clearly shows Macbeth in an unstable state of mind, I find it difficult to believe he would forgo a chance to kill Macduff. The only plausible explanation is that Macbeth's mind finally breaks, and he suddenly decides that he wants to die. And I think it so bewildering that I pretty much lost interest in what followed. Willing suspension of disbelief, yes, but this is asking a bit much.

Now that that's out of the way, this is a wonderful rendition of Macbeth. It is compelling, brutal, and creepy. I think that many productions overlook the creepy aspect to their detriment. The witches should disturb you. And these witches do. Macbeth is portrayed masterfully by Patrick Stewart, as you would expect, and Kate Fleetwood gives a wonderfully strong and then insane Lady Macbeth.

This is a very impressionistic film. There is a lot of recurring imagery, much if not all textually supported. For instance, hands come up quite regularly. The opening image is of a bloody hand wracked with pain, and obviously there is Lady Macbeth's obsession with her hands later in the play. There are also a lot of rapid jump cuts[2], presenting perhaps a second or two of a scene, then cutting elsewhere, but all to paint a single coherent picture. For instance, after Banquo's murder, we see several short scenes indicating that Banquo's death is part of a larger purge of those whose loyalty is in question or who may be powerful enough to pose a threat to Macbeth[3] (Did I mention this appears to be set in the Soviet Union? It is). Even this finds at least some support, as Malcolm states that Macbeth has sent agents to him trying to trick him back into Scotland.

The lighting is also done well. There are scenes in which the lighting suggests that the characters are not quite human: see, for instance, Lady Macbeth at the beginning of 2.2: her face is lit in such a way that it appears slightly green or sallow. The effect is quite striking. And Macbeth, in 2.1, stands and is lit in such a way that the stage-left half of his face seems to fade into the black behind it. And after the last lines – ! We see the lights go out sequentially down a hallway, with darkness encroaching. Then we see the Macbeths riding an elevator together, only half awake, with bloody hands (this shot is identical to the one at 48:08, at the end of 2.2). There is a clear implication that the elevator is conducting them to hell. It is a nice little period at the end of the play.

The witches appear to be the Fates, a reasonable choice. They are ubiquitous, showing up as nurses in the opening scene, serving staff at Dunsinane, morticians, and also as themselves. As nurses, they euthanize the Sergeant who reports to Duncan in the opening scene, then rip his heart out and reanimate it (by the by, scenes 1.1 and 1.2 are transposed. I have no objections to this). If they're not magic, they clearly operate outside the normal bounds of nature: they walk straight through Macbeth when leaving him in 1.3. And of course there is their appearance at the end. Do they make Macbeth lose? Does their appearance there lead to Macbeth recognizing what they are, and then this recognition leads to him yielding to Macduff? I would tend to go with the latter, but I could certainly be persuaded otherwise. The fact that they are present during events that they are not directing seems again to point towards them as the Fates.

The Porter (Christopher Patrick Nolan) deserves some mention. He is by far the creepiest Porter I've ever seen. Also, he does some doubling, serving (quite well) as the “Old Man” in scene 2.4, and as Seyton at the end. The pleasure he takes in describing hell as the Porter actually fits quite nicely with him playing Seyton as well. In a similar vein, Lennox is the Third Murderer (and also kills the Second Murderer), and also is present for the murder of Macduff's family, about which more will be said soon. This, to me, presents quite the problem, because he seems violently pro-Macbeth, until his next appearance (5.2), in which he is joining the forces opposing Macbeth. Not only do we not see the change he must have undergone, but we are left to wonder why in the world Malcolm would want him on his side. He has clearly been acting as one of Macbeth's chief enforcers, and surely that reputation would have made its way to England and Malcolm. Certainly Macduff would not stand for it if he knew Lennox had a hand in his family's murder. The text gives him an out, by having his last appearance be when Macbeth declares his intent to kill Macduff's family, allowing him to silently object and desert immediately (For instance, as all leave, Macbeth et al. could exit one way, while Lennox hesitates, then exits the opposite way). In the world of Shakespeare, you can't be both a baby killer and a good person[4].

The Macduff murders are not shown on-screen, which I think most people will agree is a good thing, but they are troubling nonetheless. Four people enter the room to kill Lady Macduff and her children: the First Murderer, Lennox, the Porter/Seyton, and finally Macbeth himself. While the point is obvious, that Macbeth has finally lost all of his humanity, I still find it troubling. Not only is there no reason for Macbeth to be there, so far he has been quite content to let his lackeys carry out his commands. In fact, none of them should be there: the next we see of First Murderer and Lennox, they are defecting to Malcolm's side; before murdering innocent women and children would have been a much better time to defect, especially because it appears that this was the final straw for them. And when we next see Macbeth, he is weary of life: “I have lived long enough: my way of life / Is fallen into the sear.” [5.3.22-23] I find this inconsistent with personal involvement in the murders. I also want to mention again how creepy the Porter is: when he enters, he is carrying a hacksaw, and smiling in a truly malicious way. Certainly consistent with Seyton and the Porter being one and the same.

Unfortunately for fans of modernization, updating to guns just feels a bit awkward. Not in the use of guns per se, but in the fact that enough of the dialogue makes references to blades and swords that they try to keep some in by converting them to knives. It just looks silly. As mentioned above, Macduff deliberately avoids shooting Macbeth with his rifle, because otherwise we miss a ton of fun dialogue, and instead jumps across a room wielding a knife. Macbeth shoots him with a pistol. The same thing happens with Young Seward, which again makes him look not brave, for challenging Macbeth, but stupid, for challenging Macbeth with a knife. But I am aware that this is a real problem in updating Shakespeare[5].

I'm being too nit-picky; this is a very good adaptation that I thoroughly enjoyed. The acting is great (and it grows on you with repeated viewings), and so is the ambiance. Macbeth's world is not happy or bright or cheerful. It is dark and empty and sterile, which the interior of Dunsinane embodies perfectly. As I said before, I'm a big fan of the lighting of this play, and with the impressionist manner (to the extent the text allows) in which it conveys information.

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[1]In chess notation, ?! indicates a dubious move that probably weakens one's position. ?!?!, while not recognized, follows the system of repeating marks for emphasis (e.g. a !! is a brilliant move whereas a ! is a very good move).

[2]Director of Photography: Sam McCurdy

[3]Highly reminiscent of the 1937 Soviet purge, and with similar consequences: Macbeth does not have a competent army to repel Malcolm's forces.

[4]This may apply to more than the Shakespearean world.

[5]See for instance the inane way it was handled in Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet, with guns named “Longsword” and “Rapier.”

What to do?

While trying to figure out what, if anything, this will become, I thought I'd post some of my schoolwork that I liked.  For now, that is some physics and some Shakespeare.

Charity is Wasteful

Charity* is wasteful,  and possibly counterproductive.  I specifically looked at research oriented charities last post, but the main points apply generally.  Let's go over what's wrong with charity, and what to do about it.

It's Wasteful
Charitable donations are tax deductible - this means that the government is paying the donor to donate.  For every x dollars someone donates to charity, the government writes of some portion of x, call it y, dollars.  This has the same effect as the government giving x dollars to the charity directly, and then giving you y dollars.  Why not just have the government give x, or better yet x + y, directly?

And governments are far more efficient at "fundraising."  In fiscal year 2012, the IRS spent about $12.5 billion and collected about $2.5 trillion, a 200 to 1 return.  I challenge you to find me a large charity that's more efficient than that.

And if you look at what some charities spend fundraising, you could do quite a bit of lobbying: according to the Center for Responsible Politics, so far this year the top 20 lobbies combined have spent about the same as the American Cancer Society spends yearly on fundraising.

What To Do
Be more efficient.  By that, I mean let the government run it.  It turns out they are remarkably cost efficient, at least when mandated by law.  The Social Security Administration will pay out over $900 billion this upcoming fiscal year with an administrative cost of about $12 billion, or 1.33%.  This is tiny.  Again, I challenge you to find me a large charity** with similar administrative costs.

Final Thoughts
I think much of the appeal of charities stems from the idea that they're non-governmental.  I think this way of thinking, conscious or unconscious, is dangerous.  Which would you rather: (a) pay, say, $1.5 trillion to charities to cure all cancer forever; or (b) fund a government program that does the same thing for $1 trillion?  If you choose (a), I suggest that you're not actually committed to the purported goal of the charity.  I would suggest this is a knee-jerk anti-government reaction.

And if your response to the second and third paragraphs was to say that it's unfair to charities to compare their fundraising abilities to that of the government, I feel you're making my case for me.

Also
As the blog title implies, this is just part of a conversation.  I'm happy to hear other parts of it, regardless of whether I agree with it or not.


* - In this case, I'm talking about charities that raise money and then distribute it or buy stuff with it and distribute that stuff - most but certainly not all charities.
** - I must add that I found a couple.  Small sample size, and all that, but the only ones with similar ratios of administrative costs to total distribution are food banks.  Do with this what you will.

That time of year again

 It's getting to be that time of year again.  Cancer season.  In the NFL it's breast cancer awareness.  In baseball you see their Stand Up To Cancer ads.  Every fraternity and sorority on campus wants to raise more money than the others.  For charity.  And it's all wrong.  Here's why.

 Cancer is a terrible thing, and lots of money should be spent on the research and development of effective treatments, cures, and prevention.  And it turns out, lots is: every year, the National Institutes of Health - i.e. The Government - gives out some.  More accurately, around $5,700,000,000.00.  Each year.  And people try to supplement this by asking me if I'd like to donate a dollar for some other charity to research a cure for cancer.

 And the answer is no.  You want to know the most effective way you as a citizen or as a charity can fight cancer?  Talk to Congress.  Tell them that more needs to be done.  Convince them to raise funding for cancer research.  How much do you think would need to be spent lobbying Congress to get a permanent 1% - just 1% - increase in research grants?  Because that's the same thing as fundraising $57 million every year.

 Let's look at the big boys in the game: The American Cancer Society raised about $900 million last year.  This cost them about $200 million in fundraising expenses.  How much do you think that $200 million worth of lobbying would convince Congress to raise funding by?  10%?  Then you've just raised $570 million every year.  Charities have to come back each year and ask people to give again.

 So that's my central complaint: giving money to charities to support research has no multiplier effect; convincing Congress does.  Because Congress gets to write into the bill how long the increase in funding lasts.

UPDATE: This was on my shopping cart today:

They're everywhere.  And I realize I left out another important reason to avoid using charity: it's tax deductible.  That's added waste; essentially we're paying them money to invest in research, instead of doing it ourselves.  When, say, a dollar is donated to charity for research, if it all goes into research (it doesn't), the government gives say 10 cents away to subsidize it.  Do that for all $900 million that the ACS raised and that's $90 million sent to the donors that could otherwise have been given in research grants.

On the Human Element in Sports

Or, why we should get rid of Umpires in baseball (mostly). For consideration of my biases: I am a fan of the Boston Red Sox, and I was a (Little League) Umpire. Umpire Dana Demuth made a bad call. There is really no dispute about this. And then someone mentioned to him that he was wrong. The other umpires gathered and overturned the call. Justice was served. And then this happened:

Dana Demuth appeared to be looking at base not glove and assumed kozma had it and dropped..still dont think it should be over turned

— karl ravech (@karlravechespn) October 24, 2013

no question the right call was eventually made but that is a non reviewable play..everyone loves human error right?

— karl ravech (@karlravechespn) October 24, 2013

Human error is part of what makes sports great. We can go down numerous rabbitholes about how games turn on people blowing sure things followed by someone else making highly improbable plays. See Asante Samuel blowing a sure interception just before the too ridiculous to believe David Tyree catch. That's why nobody talks about the Perfect Pats of 2007.

But here's the thing: sports is about Fallible Humans vs. Fallible Humans, not Fallible Humans vs. Fallible Humans vs. Fallible Humans. The teams should not have to fight a coin flip over whether what actually happened is counted to have happened. We have the technology to know, within seconds, whether an umpire made the right safe/out call. Next year, there will be coaches' challenges. But why not just always get it right? It wouldn't be that hard.

And the same argument holds for balls and strikes. We have enough cameras in all stadiums that we know exactly where every pitch goes, instantly. There are websites where you can watch the ball/strike calls for any game seconds after it happens: Look at this.

The Human Element is an essential part of the charm of sports. And that is why it must be removed from sports.

Hi.

The start of a conversation:  "Hi.  I'm David.  This is my blog."
"Why?"
"Because sometimes I feel like sharing some of the conversations my brain has with itself."
"What kind of conversations?"
"Oh, you know.  Math, Philosophy, Politics, Human Stupidity (and the vastness thereof).  Possibly Video Games.  Those very narrow subjects and their intersections.  Welcome."