Gately's high school teacher was not completely wrong. There wasn't a mill coin, but it was (and is) an accounting unit. In this part of the country property tax propositions are still stated in terms of "mills" or thousandths per assessed dollar, instead of percentages.

Here's what the OED has to say:

1. One-thousandth of a dollar (one-tenth of a cent), a money of account in the United States and Canada, esp. in reckoning rates of taxation.

1786 in Amer. Museum (1789) II. 182 Mills, the lowest money of account, of which one thousand shall be equal to the federal dollar, or money unit. 1791 T. JEFFERSON in Harper's Mag. Mar. 535/1 At 20 cents pr lb it is 8 mills per dish. 1809 E. A. KENDALL Trav. Northern Parts U.S. I. xviii. 193 The denominations of money in the United States are dollars, cents or hundredth parts of dollars, and mills or thousandth parts. 1811 P. KELLY Universal Cambist I. 9 A uniform way of keeping Accounts has been established in the United States (by an act of Congress in 1789) namely, in Dollars of 10 Dimes, 100 Cents, or 1000 Mills. 1821 J. Q. ADAMS Rep. Weights & Meas. 55 Ask a tradesman..in any of our cities what is a dime or a mille, and the chances are four in five that he will not understand your question.

Also, the article he quoted refers to the "profit" that the mint earns on each penny. The technical term for the difference between real and face value is seigniorage, from seigneur, since the right to claim that profit was the sovereign's. It ranks right up there with frankalmoign as one of my favorite words. Both are from the very large medieval French law vocabulary that was imported into English between the 13th and 15th centuries.

Flory
- posted by Ior, auritulus cinereus @ 10:24 AM

 
This is terrible, I'm looking forward to Monday and Tuesday because it's finally going to warm up a little--highs of 30 instead of 12. It's weird but after a month between -5 and 15, freezing feels like spring is here.

In response to my last post, Gately sent a few thoughts about supporters of abortion:

As to the question of why atheists reject the obvious reasons for opposing abortion that you outlined, I think a lot of it certainly has to do with willfull ignorance. Many of them refuse to see the plain fact that because proscription of murder (of the "born") arises from a moral basis, that that does not make it a religious basis, necessarily. They then conflate the two on the subject of abortion, because of its most visible opponents. Attendant to this, I think many atheists are simply repulsed by the idea of the company that making this recogntion would put them into.

It's true, the speeches at the pro-life demonstration in D.C. yesterday were pretty much sure to put off all but the most perfervid believer. One Orthodox rabbi was actually shouting that the poison of compromise must be rejected. All the speakers I heard (broadcast on EWTN, the Catholic network, which may have skewed the sample) acted as if they had received personal revelations, and no one addressed the plain facts of the matter.

Flory
- posted by Ior, auritulus cinereus @ 1:23 PM

 
Today is the anniversary of Roe v Wade. It is likely that there were as many as 100,000 abortions annually in the years before the decision, but what an astonishing slaughter began with a few incoherent pages. It's yet another sign of the great change in American politics in the last twenty years that there are many reasons to be hopeful.

But what exactly is to be hoped for? A complete ban is unlikely; even Ireland is having some trouble maintaining a ban, despite its smaller and more homogeneous society, despite its post-colonial constructed identity as the Catholic republic, and despite the ease of travel to England. It is hard for me to imagine just what the radical left's response to a federal ban would be, but I expect that suffragettes chaining themselves to railings would be the least of it.

It would be best if abortion were simply and universally illegal, but political victory, when it comes, will be less perfect than that. Abortion was made legal simply and universally by the contemptible sophistry of our moral
masters. To ban abortion on the same terms that it has been legalized would require the replacement of the current judicial oligarchs with a different group of oligarchs. So long as this is a conservative cause, though, that will not be an option. Intellectual conservatism in America continues to respect constitutionalism and to hold the Aristotelian idea of politics as persuasion and compromise, and it is from conservative intellectuals that conservative high court justices are drawn.

What I hope to see in the next twenty years or so is a combination of social condemnation for abortion and prohibitory laws written in line with solid majorities at each governmental level. Social condemnation is developing; even Sex and the City showed a woman miserable over her planned abortion. The astonishing advances in ultrasound technology are also helping. Still, I doubt the Sex and the City class and the wealthier suburbs will go farther than vague regret.

Nationally, there is a very large majority in favor of banning late-term abortion; in fact, most people think it is already illegal. In this respect the situation is analogous to ballistic missile defense before this president. Most people were so infuriatingly ignorant that they thought the U.S. already had a ballistic missile defense. General ignorance, combined with the universal elite belief in the unshakeability of the ABM treaty, made missile defense difficult even to bring up for debate. Pres. Bush's success is still amazing to me, and I can only hope that some president will be able to bring similar boldness to abortion restriction. If federal money and the federal courts are taken out of the question, the individual states should then settle matters as well as they can; this is morally difficult to justify but would have to reduce the number of abortions. Or perhaps some great politician or political strategist will think of a way to do more than I can imagine--I hope so.


It's not directly related, but reading the coverage of the anniversary reminds me how very strange it is that abortion is thought to be a religious question. It is true that in practice believing Christians, Mormons, Muslims,
and Jews all are more likely to oppose abortion, but I honestly don't understand why. I am not opposed to abortion on religious grounds any more than I am opposed to murder on religious grounds. Generation and birth are no longer obscure mysteries; it is now easy actually to see the humanity and separate identity of the developing child. The means of abortion are also easily discovered, and manifestly repugnant. Furthermore, unrestricted abortion has shown that the great majority of abortions are on entirely frivolous grounds, and that "safe, legal, and rare" is only a fraudulent slogan. Nat Hentoff makes the atheist's case for opposing abortion. What could a believer add to his statement that would give it greater moral weight? What about nearly all atheists leads them to reject his reasoning?

I honestly cannot figure it out, and so find it all too tempting simply to blame atheists generally for a lack of moral seriousness. Is that really it?

Flory
- posted by Ior, auritulus cinereus @ 11:28 PM

 
Apparently "the Girl" is an unacceptable nickname, even in the sense of Boy meets Girl under silver moon, silver moon is struck by killer asteroid and spirals into the Earth, all die in horrible apocalypse involving cannibalism. It was really just a slip, anyway, since I meant to say "the Chick," which I'm sure would have been fine.

I've been trying to think of good female characters, but they're all fairly disastrous. I like Mike Hammer's Velda, but her name always half brings to mind Scooby-Doo's Velma as well. So clearly the only possibility is Judith. If she registers for tents or swords, though, I think I may skip the wedding.

Which reminds me, Judith wanted me to include a really excellent part of the Anglican marriage ceremony:

...and [marriage] therefore is not by any to be enterprised, nor taken in hand, unadvisedly, lightly, or wantonly, to satisfy men's carnal lusts and appetites, like brute beasts that have no understanding...

And that's in the opening sentence, no less. Would that our wedding would have that kind of tabasco.

Modern ceremonies are mere cocktail sauce compared to that. Admittedly, they are also less likely to make a modern congregation shriek with laughter. There is a certain comedy in this suggested, modern Catholic prayer, though:

All-powerful, ever-living God, we now kneel before you very happy, but somewhat nervous. We feel you brought us together in the beginning, helped our love grow, and at this moment are with us in a special way.

Yes, that's just exactly what Judith and I want to say in front of everyone we know. It'd be less embarrassing just to ad-lib something Stuart Smalley style.

In 1662 a supportive, affirming tone was not required. At one point the priest says:

I require and charge you both, as ye will answer at the dreadful day of judgement, when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed, that if either of you know any impediment, why ye may not be lawfully joined together in Matrimony, ye do now confess it. For be ye well assured, that so many as are coupled together otherwise than God's Word doth allow are not joined together by God; neither is their Matrimony lawful.

In other words, speak up lest ye be fornicators, die, and burn.

Actually, I really like the Anglican service. It's definitely neat liquor in an age of blue drinks with umbrellas in them, but it is solemn and unashamed of the seriousness of marriage, family, and Christianity. I've just quoted the zippier parts; read the rest if you'd like a fairer sense of it.

Flory


- posted by Ior, auritulus cinereus @ 2:32 AM

 
The university paper has a sickeningly flattering profile of Gen. Clark today. Surprisingly, the paper managed to get a private interview, which Clark made sure to cram full of showing off. He led off by referring to the high ethical standards he was educated in at Oxford as--astonishing achievement--a Rhodes Scholar. I'm not really sure where this exaltation of the Rhodes scholarship comes from, whether it's general Anglophilia or awe of Oxford, but it really doesn't make a lot of sense. It's certainly something to take pride in, but D.C. is overrun with prestigious degrees, and not to any obvious benefit.

He got in a little intellectual name-dropping: "I like Plato and Hume because I believe they are the bookends of philosophy." It's a little curious if they're likeable because they're bookends, but they are undeniably likeable because they are Big Names that even many undergraduates can recognize.

It's kind of cheap to criticize mixed metaphors in impromptu speech, but this is too good to leave out: "I believe that as long as people aren't born on a level playing field, you have to help raise them up." This wreck should probably be put down to thinking in cliches--but at least it's a Rhodes scholar thinking in cliches.

He wants to increase the minimum wage to $7, because "we think Americans are worth more than $5.15 an hour, period." Of course raising the minimum wage is a terrible idea, both an affront to liberty and a burden on the poor (the chief beneficiaries of such increases are always middle class teenagers), but his reasoning is more interesting to me. The "period" implies that the sole reason for increasing the minimum wage is that there is some abstract correct valuation of labor, and that he personally knows it. The really curious thing is why the valuation is so low. If "Americans are worth" $7, why not $10? $20? Does he really mean to say that Americans are just worth a few bucks an hour? How about a million dollars? After all, in lawsuits the argument is always that a huge judgment, besides "sending a message," is necessary to uphold the dignity of the injured party. Particularly so when there's a death; who dares to say that this 63 year old plumber and champion smoker is worth a mere ? Human life is infinitely precious after all, so the award ought to be a number too large for the jury to understand, as that's close enough to infinity.

I'm tempted to keep quoting the general, since it's all funny, but just one more. "I think [an academic background] is important because people in high leadership positions have to grapple with serious issues. You need a broad academic background to run the country for everyday Americans."

Not, I suppose, that anyone should be surprised that one of the leading Democratic candidates, the candidate of the Clintons and the DNC, thinks of the federal government as a class of enlightened elites controlling the mundane masses. It's still astonishingly frank, though.

Flory



- posted by Ior, auritulus cinereus @ 2:03 AM

 
The Wedding Special

Wedding planning is pretty exhausting. It tires me just watching it, so I think that's as much as I could be expected to contribute. Well, that and irrelevant or unhelpful observations, so I've got some more.

Today I checked the Anglican Book of Common Prayer for suitable texts to supplement the new Roman marriage ceremony, since it has a truly awful shared prayer. It's pretty silly to personalize the liturgy, apart from choosing the readings and so on, but this prayer is terrible. I'll post it Friday if I can remember to pick up the book. At any rate I found a good substitute and enjoyed reading the old Anglican wedding service.

Among other interesting things, it had this passage:

First, It [marriage] was ordained for the procreation of children, to be brought up in the fear and nurture of the Lord, and to the praise of his holy name.
Secondly, It was ordained for a remedy against sin, and to avoid fornication; that such persons as have not the gift of continency might marry and keep themselves undefiled members of Christ's body.
Thirdly, It was ordained for the mutual society, help, and comfort that one ought to have of the other, both in prosperity and adversity.

In 1662 they were much franker about things.

The first two reasons are distinctly out of fashion of course. They also summarize Andrew Sullivan's argument for gay marriage. If procreation isn't connected to marriage any more, and the idea of continency is unintelligible, then surely marriage is only about mutual society. And what kind of bigot wants to deny the benefits of help, comfort, and society to anyone? There are plenty of answers (a decline in standards does not justify abandoning them; the society in question is the particular one of Gen. 2:18-24; an abstract principle of society offers no limits at all), but it's still interesting to look back up the slippery slope.

The Girl and I tried to use her new bread maker today. Following on such notable recipes as Black-crust Cookies and Smoke-alarm Bacon, we've developed Flat Hyperdense Herb Bread. I don't want to boast, but I think I'm chiefly responsible for the originality in these recipes. The bread is a bit of a mystery though, since we followed the directions exactly--is it at all likely that the yeast was mostly dead? Anyway Hyperdense Herb Bread still tastes OK and uses less space than conventional breads.

Flory
- posted by Ior, auritulus cinereus @ 11:45 PM

 
OK that was a long and lazy interruption. On the other hand I managed to sleep less during the vacation than during finals week. I have now officially spent enough time in Ohio to qualify for a share of the corn subsidy and am accordingly intending to vote Democrat.

Other good news (for me, not for you) is that my thoughts are stirring their eel-like forms again and soon enough will be sniggled from their holes, staked through the head on a wooden board, and filleted from end to end for dining pleasure.

But in the meantime I am enjoying the carpet dryer that has been on for sixteen hours now. The pipes froze in the upstairs laundry room and then burst; contrary to reason, a frozen pipe acts more like a fire hose than an ice machine. Although I'm in the back here, I was for some reason the first person to notice the thunderous cascade coming over the stairwell. The water was a couple of inches deep and pouring down around a lit light fixture, but I decided to risk a little electrocution to see whether my upstairs neighbors had accidentally summed Ulmo, the Lord of Water Elementals. It just turned out to be the pipe, sadly. The water was 4-5 inches deep in the laundry room and there was a nice room-wide spray at eye level, so my exploration was not very productive. Fortunately maintenance can be paged for instant response at all hours. Unfortunately, "instant" is defined in U.N. terms, so I spent the next half hour in useless negotiations with the French aka the voice mail service, before unilaterally calling 911. They put me through to the local utilities department, who actually managed to get someone out here before maintenance even called back, and a couple of hours before maintenance showed up.

So, my apartment, which was dry as a Mormon for the first forty-five minutes was (and pretty much is) wet as a sewer alligator. What with spending the night moving stuff around and dealing with UNMAINT--whose brilliant idea was to slice half of the wet carpet pad off and throw it outside, screwing up the carpet without significantly drying anything --I managed to get little enough sleep to justify blowing off classes. And thus we see that all is for the best in this best of all possible worlds.

Flory

- posted by Ior, auritulus cinereus @ 5:57 PM