Brian Gongol Show on WHO Radio - June 1, 2019
Please note: These show notes may be in various stages of completion -- ranging from brainstormed notes through to well-polished monologues. Please excuse anything that may seem rough around the edges, as it may only be a first draft of a thought and not be fully representative of what was said on the air.
Breaking news to watch
- Virginia Beach Municipal Center shootings
Segment 1: (11 min)
BUT FIRST: The opening essay
I was up late last night re-watching "The Tank Man", a powerful Frontline episode that asks: "Who was that lone individual who stood in front of the column of tanks in Tiananmen Square?" The episode never resolves the answer, but this 30th anniversary of the uprising is really the right time for you to set aside 90 minutes to watch the show.
In 1989, when the protests that led to the massacre occurred, China's population was 1.119 billion. Today, it's 1.384 billion. That's an increase of 265 million people -- larger than the entire population of any other country in the world, except for India or the United States.
So, since the crackdown that shattered the pro-democracy movement in China 30 years ago, it's as if a whole new country, the 4th-largest in the world, has been formed and placed under the power of an authoritarian regime.
The last 30 years, of course, have represented a massive success in terms of moving hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. That has been the successful part of China's change.
But it's still a place where the individual isn't free. Where the people do not choose their own government. Where the military responds not to civil authority but to the control of a political party: "[W]e can ensure the gun is always in the hands of those who are loyal to the party".
There are people who look at the Chinese system with admiration or even envy. And there are certain things that China gets right, at least culturally -- the patient, long-term view, for instance, which we are told looks at things from a perspective of centuries.
But for whatever good we can find in the culture, the socioeconomic system is built on false promises. The culture may favor a long-term view, but the Communist system only favors short-term self-preservation for those in power. As bad as Tienanmen Square was, what they're doing to the Uighurs is orders of magnitude bigger -- between one and two million people are being held in camps.
We coexist on a planet with the people of China. And if we are true to our own Declaration of Independence, we should see those people as being just as worthy of individual dignity as we are. Some of our people are quick to see them as either economic rivals or prospective consumers, but our concerns for their human rights ought to come before our economic self-interest.
A political system that is so rotten is bound to fail, sooner or later. But it's going to continue doing incomprehensible damage in the meantime, particularly if the authoritarians again feel their power slipping. That's why it's time for us to improve America's strategy for encountering China. Our government is using blunt economic instruments to address a precision failure: Namely, using tariffs to fight what really ought to be a battle over IP theft.
Yet do we care at all about the world the people of China are living in? It's not a problem that stays "over there" -- authoritarianism doesn't stay "over there". It comes to us, here in America, in forms ranging from Confucius Institutes, surveillance and intimidation of Chinese college students studying here, and the database hack of our own government's OPM, to the surveillance technology built into some of their products sold here. It bears repeating: Authoritarianism doesn't stay "over there".
China's economy continues to grow, but that's no substitute for fair recognition of their individual rights and freedoms. To borrow a metaphor (I wish I could acknowledge the original source): It's like they're loading coal on the fire that drives the engine of the train, at the same time someone is straining with all their might to pull the brakes. Something's going to give. Conducting our relations with them in a way that puts dignity and human rights first is the most important thing we can do.
Segment 2: (8 min)
Totally Unnecessary Debate of the Day
- Scripps National Spelling Bee
- Eight co-champions
- Nobody missed a word in the final five rounds
- All of them lasted 20 rounds
- Each kid gets a $50,000 check -- which is the normal single-champion prize
Totally Unnecessary Debate of the Day™:
— Brian Gongol Show (@briangongolshow) June 1, 2019
In honor of the 8-way tie at the Scripps National Spelling Bee, how do you feel about ties instead of clear-cut victories?
Totally Unnecessary Debate of the Day™:
— Brian Gongol Show (@briangongolshow) May 23, 2019
Which of these is the happiest food?
Segment 3: (14 min)
Make money
When is it time to worry about the economy?
Conor Sen says, "[H]aving lived through 2008, whenever the data is a little soft my inclination is to say 'ehh, this is nothing like 2008.' I'm always surprised by the alarmism of others." The counterpoint? In 2008, things got much worse much faster than most people imagined possible. That said, nobody knows the timing or the triggers for recession. We can only see whether evidence is mounting or dissipating.
Trucking industry puts on the hazard lights
Slides from a Bank of America presentation signal that capacity is growing and the outlook for demand is softening...a lot. There's good reason to wonder what that may portend for the economy.
Guest: Karl Smith
The moral of the story:
Segment 4: (5 min)
The moral of the story:
Segment 5: (11 min)
Technology Three | The week in technology
Rumor has it a simplified program is coming to replace it. And good riddance, too: Never has another app caused the ordinary user as much frustration with its incessant forced updates, crude attempts to piggyback other unwanted applications with it, and infuriating auto-loading by default in Windows.
SimCity: Still quite popular after all these years
Survey randomly finds that half of registered voters under age 30 have played the game. The original had a number of preset scenarios where you had to take over a city with a defined crisis and work your way out of it. It was basically Giuliani Mode, back when that would have been an honorable thing. Just imagine, though: Now there are computer games that have lasted long enough to transcend generations of childhood.
Severe weather inbound for the Upper Midwest
There's a whole lot to dislike about this situation, not the least of which is that the area of highest risk overlaps a great deal with the areas of least radar coverage.
Facebook says another 51 accounts and 31 pages have been booted
Something's rotten, but it isn't in Denmark: Facebook says these efforts are "coordinated inauthentic behavior that originated in Iran".
HP adds a wood finish to some laptops
Too late to bring back Ricardo Montalban and his "fine Corinthian leather", perhaps, but quite nearly as fancy as an old Chrysler.
"Mankind has never been in this position before. Without having improved appreciably in virtue or enjoying wiser guidance, it has got into its hands for the first time the tools by which it can unfailingly accomplish its own extermination." Words from Winston Churchill well over half a century ago, and yet someone could speak them today with equal validity.
The moral of the story:
Segment 6: (8 min)
Hot (social) topics
- Dollar Tree adds booze
- Closing 390 stores
- Converting 200 Family Dollar stores to Dollar Tree
- Testing "Dollar Tree Plus! multi-price point products" in 100 stores
- "Plans to add adult beverage product in approximately 1,000 Family Dollar stores"
- Bothered a lot by tariffs
- Alcohol a notoriously good item for profits
- Does alcohol belong in some stores and not in others?
- North Korea may have executed the special envoy to the United States
- One anonymous source to a major South Korean newspaper
- Plausible, but very hard to verify
- Don't forget: Seoul is closer to the DMZ than downtown Des Moines is to Ames
The moral of the story:
Segment 7: (14 min)
The moral of the story:
Segment 8: (5 min)
21st Century conservatism
We can (and must) be decent, even in our disagreement
This is an argument well-put by David French. Society isn't a fight, and social problems aren't best resolved by cage match. As Margaret Thatcher put it, "I believe implicitly that you can never make people good by law, but only from something inside them." Those who think that all bad things must be resolved by law, and that by extension, obtaining political power is the only good that matters, ought to reconcile themselves with the facts that (a) humans are inherently flawed and limited, (b) all good is not perfectly knowable, and (c) life is not static -- not for individuals and not for society. There is no end-state of perfection to be attained. There is struggle and there is conflict, and those are the things that ultimately produce growth. And much better to resolve those struggles and conflicts in the hearts of people rather than by waging politics by means that seem a lot like war.
"No political 'emergency' justifies abandoning classical liberalism"
David French's take on the rise of Christian statism is worth considering seriously. The problem with Christian statism is the same as with all statism, summed up quite tidily by Margaret Thatcher: "Choice is the essence of ethics: if there were no choice, there would be no ethics, no good, no evil; good and evil have meaning only insofar as man is free to choose." The shocking enthusiasm with which some people are willing to surrender process in pursuit of a temporal goal is distressing. But what it highlights is the prevalence of a static mindset -- one that thinks of victories as permanent and failures as fatal. It may be quite natural for people to fall into that kind of convention, but it's unhealthy: Most good things aren't a destination so much as a journey or a path. Freedom isn't a level you unlock like a video game; it's an active thing that requires grappling, struggling, and reflecting upon at every turn. The same would go for most good things -- progress, education, parenting, whatever. Thus it is more important to get the process right than to win specific achievements and think of them as forever locked in place.
Noah Rothman has little love for the way a populist wave has crashed into power. And it's not to be trusted -- in the words of Margaret Thatcher, "The essence of a free society is that there are whole areas of life where the State has no business at all, no right to intervene." (It doesn't matter if your "team" happens to have political control of the state at the moment or not.)
The chasm opening up between liberal and illiberal conservatism is fascinating to me.
— (Stephanie) Slade (@sladesr) May 30, 2019
It's also horrifying to me, but I'm going to try to focus on the fascinating part.
I only wish we had an unambiguous set of definitions to go by. "Liberal conservatism" is exactly right from a denotative standpoint, but no reasonable Twittersphere discussion could survive the connotations.
I've tried for years to come up with a suitable shorthand label (to use for myself on the radio), and the closest I've come is "Open-Minded Conservative". And even that is woefully inadequate.
I’m pondering the extent to which the thing I just called liberal conservatism could actually be subsumed into (thin) libertarianism.
— (Stephanie) Slade (@sladesr) May 30, 2019
I wrangle with this a lot. I have a hard time telling whether I'm:
(a) a libertarian who reluctantly acknowledges the necessity of a conservative civic framework; or,
(b) a conservative who distrusts power so much that I default to libertarianism unless persuaded otherwise.
Pluralist conservative, maybe?
— Alex Muresianu (@ahardtospell) May 30, 2019
Perhaps that's a fair name, acknowledging the "conservative" sense of caution while embracing the pluralist notion that we're all different and entitled to be that way. It's a lot like tracing one's genealogy -- you come "from" a whole lot of places, but you only end up with one surname that doesn't do justice to the rest of the lineage.
Ultimately, the schism we never really talk about is between those who believe in fixed end-states of society and those who realize that society is permanently dynamic. Both the right-wing reactionary and the left-wing revolutionary fall for the myth of the static end-state.
The moral of the story:
Unsorted and leftovers:
This week
HBO cancels Wyatt Cenac's show
It's a disappointing choice: "Problem Areas" has taken an original and thoughtful approach to advocacy journalism. Cenac is smart and funny -- a genuine talent -- and he doesn't have to reach all of the right conclusions to be very good at highlighting problems worthy of attention.
Japan and China, forever in competition
China's using the Belt and Road program to take some pressure off its oversupplies of construction labor and funding. Japan, meanwhile, is giving cash to many places that might have wanted Belt-and-Road projects.
A mile wide, with a path nearly 32 miles long. That's a very significant tornado. 18 injured, but nobody killed.
Omaha gets late-May hail so deep it called for shovels
2019 is delivering decidedly one of the most wickedly persistent severe-weather seasons in memory around the Midwest.
Crowded Mount Everest becomes a death trap
It's just so...unnecessary. The mountain has been climbed. Many, many times. It's not much of a badge of honor anymore.
Do with your limitations what you can (not only when making art).
Why Ronald Reagan mystified Edmund Morris
The thing about "Dutch" (Morris's fiction-heavy biography of Reagan), especially when contrasted with Morris's books on Roosevelt, is that somehow the fictionalized second person seemed dishonest -- whereas the omniscient third-person narrator gives us plausible deniability to believe everything he wrote about TR.
Judging development not just by income
Noah Smith argues that a country's degree of resource dependency ought to be considered alongside its per-capita income. This is a valid dimension that should be added to any meaningful analysis of development. Moreover, measuring resource abundance is also essential to understanding where generous social-democratic states stand a chance at success (e.g. Norway) and where they do not. Converting resource abundance into a durable social-safety net is attractive -- but very hard. All too often, resource abundance turns into the resource curse.
IP theft by China isn't just for industrial production
Paradoxically, American conference organizers often require presenters to (a) release rights for their slides to be disseminated online, and (b) be circumspect about any commercial trademarks or self-identifying info...which is a recipe for inviting this type of theft.
By the numbers
Circulation at college libraries is plunging
Library dean Dan Cohen: "There has been a 64 percent decline in the number of books checked out by undergraduates from Bass Library [at Yale] over the past decade [...] At my library at Northeastern University, undergraduate circulations declined 50 percent from 2013 to 2017". It's not necessarily a calamity: Library use has changed for many reasons, and digital books play a role. Cohen also notes that adaptations could actually serve a larger public interest if a rise in off-site storage, digitization, and sharing networks "closes the gap between elite institutions such as Yale and the much larger number of colleges with more modest collections."
Have fun
There's no way not to be impressed by Simone Biles
The gymnast has developed some techniques that are completely astonishing
Clean up after yourself
Rep. Duncan Hunter wants a one-month legal amnesty for returning servicememberes
This is a shockingly bad idea. As a society, we shouldn't just treat the time after a deployment like some giant mulligan. We owe it to our professionals in uniform to commit the appropriate resources to proper mobilization and demobilization. If we can't do that, we have no business sending troops into combat in the first place. That's the basic principle of cleaning up after yourself.
Respecting the troops on Memorial Day
"[T]he American soldier, in spite of wisecracking, sometimes cynical speech, is an intelligent human being who demands and deserves basic understanding of the reasons why his country took up arms and of the conflicting consequences of victory or defeat." - Dwight Eisenhower
Can the Pentagon do better to stop suicide?
Carl Forsling: "Perhaps the answer is to normalize it, or more precisely, to normalize mental health care. If someone breaks his ankle, we don't freak out. We give him a cast and put him to work doing whatever he can do."
Mind your business
Immigrant doctors are critical to rural health care
America is a giant, unstoppable magnet for talent from all over the world. We're incredibly stupid not to take advantage of that at every possible opportunity.
Quote of the Week
James Madision, the internationalist
"[I]ndependently of the merits of any particular plan or measure, it is desirable, on various accounts, that it should appear to other nations as the offspring of a wise and honorable policy..."
"We are more likely to prosper on the basis of rewards for men and women who build up success, than on the basis of politically directed industry and commerce." - Margaret Thatcher
Your role in cyberwar
Iowa news
A volatile atmosphere, you say?
Evidence on this dramatic tornado season so far
In the midst of an unusually wet spring, the City of West Des Moines asks what residents think ought to be done about managing stormwater.
Iowa's crop progress is abysmal
Iowa's corn is 76% planted. The 5-year average for this point in the season? 96%. Soybeans are at 32% planted. 5-year average: 77%. And it's raining again.
Contrary to popular opinion
How lawyers can avoid lawsuits
If you can't be trusted to behave like an adult in the presence of members of the opposite sex, you probably can't be trusted with most other duties, either. This is shared in a context for and about lawyers, but it sure seems applicable more generally.
Hyperbole is going to kill us all
Curiosity, competence, and humility
In the long run, most Presidents earn nothing more than a single line in the history books (some even less than that -- see Millard Fillmore). History isn't written about fractional differences in GDP growth. It's written about the broader impressions of the times, and the unique crises that occur along the way. Thus, the more the President complains about his interminable list of persecutors (real or imagined), the more he makes his complaints his one line. The utter forgettability of some Presidencies reflects choices those Presidents made, either in choosing to do wrong or in failing to do good (to borrow the words of the Catholic prayer). Obscurity is earned.
Rep. Justin Amash can't do it all by himself
The Michigan Republican has broken out as someone who is thinking clearly about what the Mueller Report told the world. He's read the full report -- available to us all -- and he's angry: "The ball is in our court, Congress."
Have a little empathy
A story that's good for the soul
An adult bone-marrow donor meets the toddler whose life he saved. Sign up with Be the Match if you're eligible.
Inbox zero
Stop the deliberate ignorance
When Congress calls, White House staffers are obligated to answer
Howsoever you treat Congress, so you treat the American people. Members of Congress may be grandstanding, self-serving, and pandering -- but in the end, they are those things because that is what American voters want. Refusing to answer them is refusing to answer all of us.
Tin Foil Hat Award
New tariffs? The taxation addiction is out of control.
The President screams that he will impose new import taxes on Mexican goods. It's a bad use of a blunt policy to go after goals not well-related to the policy tool. It all feels both misguided and terribly artificial.
Yay Capitalism Prize
Capitalist solution of the week
Kickers
When the weather team starts stocking up on Diet Mountain Dew and Twizzlers, it's time to make sure your speediest path to the basement is clear. https://t.co/DSIIjZPBoS
— Brian Gongol (@briangongol) May 28, 2019
One year ago
Five years ago
Ten years ago
Programming notes
Live read: iHeartRadio app
iHeartRadio app
Live read: Contests
Live read: Smart speakers (hour 1)
Smart speakers
Live read: Smart speakers (hour 2)
Smart speakers
Calendar events to highlight
Recap
♫ Listen to the full episode from _____ 2019 here
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