Farewell

Farewell

Some thoughts on the views that have animated this column.

 

By Pete du Pont  in the Wall Street Journal

·  Biography

This will be the last of my columns for this publication, so I thought it fitting to note the views that have most influenced these writings. Foremost is my appreciation of America's character and strength and my opinion that the only earthly thing that can stop this great country is a national failure of will or a continual series of misguided political decisions.

My optimism is driven primarily by the ingenuity and resilience of America's people. A nation of more than 300 million will have its share of lawbreakers, slackers and charlatans, but America is so much more filled with people who are wise, honest and hardworking. The capacity of Americans to sacrifice—greatly at times—for others is truly impressive.

This is why I so often stressed that individuals, families and businesses should as much as possible be the ones making decisions instead of politicians and bureaucrats, no matter how well-intentioned. Some will argue against this view, and it is certainly true that individual decisions will not always provide the optimal result. But it is just as certainly true that this approach will work better over the long term than one-size-fits-all diktats of government. From the five-year plans of the former Soviet Union to ObamaCare, the troubles that can befall a country from top-down government control and political attempts to pick winners and losers are obvious.

My optimism has also been fueled by what history shows is the amazing ability of our economy to generate jobs, innovation and better standards of living, not just for our nation but for the world. We are rightly seen as the land of opportunity, and it is no wonder people from other nations flock here.

I must admit this optimistic view has been challenged over the past decade. One of the most obvious reasons for pessimism is the sad state of the national fisc. Deficits are not in and of themselves bad, but running large deficits for multiple years is. Burdening future generations with trillions of dollars of debt is a deplorable abdication of responsibility. One key to our future will be whether government can reduce the runaway spending that comes from trying to be all things to all people. It is critical that government instead focuses on its central responsibilities, reduces its tax bite, and gets rid of onerous regulations that sap the initiative of our people and the strength of our economy.

Another cause for concern is the stifling of economic growth and opportunity under the guise of environmentalism. We cannot afford continued attacks on our energy supplies. These policies, if carried to the fruition of which the left dreams, will crush our economy and with it our standard of living and our continued ability to be a strong presence in the world.

We are still the world's sole superpower, and like it or not, that role comes with certain responsibilities. We cannot continue to be a force for good across the globe if we continue the recent trends toward isolationism and a hesitancy to get our hands dirty. Recent efforts to shortchange our military and defense preparedness are not harbingers of success in this critical area.

We cannot let political correctness muzzle free speech. That this occurs with regularity on college campuses, where open debate should be most welcome, is a sad irony. Nor can we continue to impinge on the freedom of religion. Encouragingly, the recent Supreme Court ruling in Town of Greece v. Galloway reaffirmed the view that God has a place in the public square.

Since our strength flows primarily from our people, the character of future generations is important. Will the left succeed in making more of us dependent on government? Will the generations moving into the mainstream of politics and the economy over the next decades be like the college graduates recently in the news who seem to have majored in taking offense or claiming victim status? Or will they be more like the young men and women who have performed so amazingly in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the ones starting careers and families? The next generation does not have to be the greatest generation, but it cannot be the weakest generation.

Of course, education is critical. We must not let union bosses and other forces of the status quo stop innovations that would ensure a good education for all. We must find a way to make higher education more affordable so those needing a degree to pursue their profession are not blocked from seeking that degree or saddled with significant debt.

These are the views of, and hopes and concerns for, America on which my columns have been based. I must note my gratitude to James Taranto, my editor par excellence for these columns, and to Brad Zuber, who has provided me with research and other assistance for nearly two decades. These columns have been better because of their efforts.

Finally, I want to thank all of you, the readers. I know from the comments section that not all have agreed with what I wrote each month, but I hope you enjoyed thinking about and debating the issues I raised. Please continue to read the editorial section of this great publication. It is rare to find such an abundance of writers in one place who can so interestingly write in a way that separates the truly important policy essentials from the dross of today's political rhetoric.

It's been a pleasure to be associated with all this over the years, and I wish everyone the very best.

 

Harry Reid Hates the Redskins

Harry Reid Hates the Redskins

The U.S. Senate's speech enforcers won't stop with the NFL.

 

By Daniel Henninger  in the Wall Street Journal

 

Harry Reid is the Majority Leader of the Senate of the United States.·  @danhenninger

·  Dan.Henninger@wsj.com·  Daniel Henninger ·  Biography 

He occupies a position of influence at the pinnacle of the American system of government. Of late, the senator from Nevada has become a one-man, First Amendment wrecking crew.

If like Charles and David Koch, your political opinions offend Harry Reid's ears, or if like the Washington Redskins, your taste in sports-team logos offends his eyes, Sen. Reid will use his office to try to shut you up or make you disappear.

For those who think the Kochs or the Redskins' logo are unsympathetic victims, think again. The enforcers Sen. Reid is leading will get around to you eventually. In some places, they already have.

Sen. Reid, with Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington state, outputted a letter signed by a total of 50 Democratic senators and addressed to National Football League Commissioner Roger Goodell. It condemns Washington D.C.'s NFL team and its owner Daniel Snyder for not abandoning the team's logo, the Redskins.

The letter calls the Washington Redskins a "racial slur." Sen. Reid has accused the Washington Redskins of a "tradition of racism." The letter says "Redskins" is the equivalent of the racist remarks of Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling.

Continuing in this vein of senatorial logic, the 50 members of the world's greatest deliberative body more or less order Mr. Goodell ("Now is the time for the NFL to act") to use his power to coerce a name change for Washington's football team.

Should Commissioner Goodell buckle beneath Harry Reid's gang tackle, make no mistake: That same Senate letter would go straight to Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig, ordering him, under the Sterling Precedent, to kill the Cleveland Indians' logo, Chief Wahoo. Were Mr. Selig to do so, there of course would be riots in the streets of Cleveland, whose single most beloved citizen is . . . Chief Wahoo.

In recent weeks, people across the political spectrum professed to be aghast when a small coterie of "offended" students shut down commencement speeches by conservatives, centrists and liberals.

At Smith College, they didn't want to hear IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde. At Haverford College, they'd only let former Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau speak if he signed a letter of apology and guilt for his handling of the Occupy Cal sit-ins in 2011. How, the world of astonished adults wondered, have these students come to believe they could shut people up on any aggrieved whim?

They got it from the Majority Leader of the United States Senate and 49 senators. They got it from the many adults who think a little restriction on some speech is OK, and then cry shock when the mob goes too far. That Senate letter isn't just about the Washington Redskins. It's part of a broader, active effort to define and limit what people can say—not just in politics or sports, but anywhere anyone tries to open his or her mouth.

The New York Times, the New Republic and others have carried articles on the suppressive phenomenon known as "trigger warnings" for college courses. The idea is that professors should post warnings about course content that may "trigger" traumatic memories or thoughts in some students for a list of reasons related to feminist concerns, sex and multiple violations of social justice. Look for a letter soon from Harry Reid to Turner Classic Movies demanding trigger warnings on John Ford westerns.

Last fall at a private party at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Ore., two athletes—one of them white, the other black—were overheard trading racial jokes during a game of beer pong. Someone reported them to the administration. Lewis & Clark convicted the students of hate speech and ordered them to undergo "Bias Reduction and Bystander Intervention Training." To their credit, 40 Lewis & Clark professors signed a letter of concern about the school's notion of due process. American academics must be worrying they may have to go underground to teach freely. We could soon see samizdat doctoral theses.

In another corner of Harry Reid's Senate sits an attempt to expand federal surveillance of "hate speech." Sen. Edward Markey of Massachusetts just introduced a bill called the Hate Crimes Reporting Act. Its purpose, said Sen. Markey, is "to ensure the Internet, television and radio are not encouraging hate crimes and hate speech that is not outside the protections of the First Amendment." The potential causes of offense are "gender, race, religion, ethnicity or sexual orientation." In other words, anything.

Sophisticates will recognize that the bill should be better known as the Shut Up Fox News and Rush Limbaugh Act (newspapers are protected from any such regulation). But on their current, unrestrained course, federally deputized talk censors would get around to cleansing and sterilizing MSNBC, too.

We are moving way past the amusements of political correctness. A creeping, even creepy, effort is under way to shut people up for a broad swath of offenses. The distance is shortening between the First Amendment's formal protections and a "Fahrenheit 451" regime for torching speech in America. The time for adult pushback is overdue.

 

Aviation Week's Annual Airline Rankings

Aviation Week's Annual Airline Rankings

 

http://aviationweek.com/awin/TPA

Directive outlines Obama’s policy to use the military against citizens

Inside the Ring: Directive outlines Obama’s policy to use the military against citizens

By Bill Gertz of The Washington Times

A 2010 Pentagon directive on military support to civilian authorities details what critics say is a troubling policy that envisions the Obama administration’s potential use of military force against Americans.

The directive contains noncontroversial provisions on support to civilian fire and emergency services, special events and the domestic use of the Army Corps of Engineers.

The troubling aspect of the directive outlines presidential authority for the use of military arms and forces, including unarmed drones, in operations against domestic unrest.

“This appears to be the latest step in the administration’s decision to use force within the United States against its citizens,” said a defense official opposed to the directive.

Directive No. 3025.18, “Defense Support of Civil Authorities,” was issued Dec. 29, 2010, and states that U.S. commanders “are provided emergency authority under this directive.”

“Federal military forces shall not be used to quell civil disturbances unless specifically authorized by the president in accordance with applicable law or permitted under emergency authority,” the directive states.

“In these circumstances, those federal military commanders have the authority, in extraordinary emergency circumstances where prior authorization by the president is impossible and duly constituted local authorities are unable to control the situation, to engage temporarily in activities that are necessary to quell large-scale, unexpected civil disturbances” under two conditions.

The conditions include military support needed “to prevent significant loss of life or wanton destruction of property and are necessary to restore governmental function and public order.” A second use is when federal, state and local authorities “are unable or decline to provide adequate protection for federal property or federal governmental functions.”

“Federal action, including the use of federal military forces, is authorized when necessary to protect the federal property or functions,” the directive states.

Military assistance can include loans of arms, ammunition, vessels and aircraft. The directive states clearly that it is for engaging civilians during times of unrest.

A U.S. official said the Obama administration considered but rejected deploying military force under the directive during the recent standoff with Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy and his armed supporters.

Mr. Bundy is engaged in a legal battle with the federal Bureau of Land Management over unpaid grazing fees. Along with a group of protesters, Mr. Bundy in April confronted federal and local authorities in a standoff that ended when the authorities backed down.

The Pentagon directive authorizes the secretary of defense to approve the use of unarmed drones in domestic unrest. But it bans the use of missile-firing unmanned aircraft.

“Use of armed [unmanned aircraft systems] is not authorized,” the directive says.

The directive was signed by then-Deputy Defense Secretary William J. Lynn. A copy can be found on the Pentagon website: http://www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/corres/pdf/302518p.pdf.

Defense analysts say there has been a buildup of military units within non-security-related federal agencies, notably the creation of Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) teams. The buildup has raised questions about whether the Obama administration is undermining civil liberties under the guise of counterterrorism and counternarcotics efforts.

Other agencies with SWAT teams reportedly include the Department of Agriculture, the Railroad Retirement Board, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Office of Personnel Management, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Education Department.

The militarization of federal agencies, under little-known statues that permit deputization of security officials, comes as the White House has launched verbal attacks on private citizens’ ownership of firearms despite the fact that most gun owners are law-abiding citizens.

A White House National Security Council spokeswoman declined to comment.

President Obama stated at the National Defense University a year ago: “I do not believe it would be constitutional for the government to target and kill any U.S. citizen — with a drone or with a shotgun — without due process, nor should any president deploy armed drones over U.S. soil.”

Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/may/28/inside-the-ring-directive-outlines-obamas-policy-t/#ixzz335y1jLJG

Officers of the Asheville

 



Opinion: F-35B Vertical Landings In Doubt For U.K.

Opinion: F-35B Vertical Landings In Doubt For U.K.

Air show plans highlight F-35B runway issues

May 26, 2014 Bill Sweetman | Aviation Week & Space Technology ertisement

U.S. Marine Corps aviation boss Brig. Gen. Matthew Glavy has said there are no plans for the F-35B to perform VLs in the U.K., because the program staff has not finished testing the matting that is needed to protect the runway from exhaust heat. (The program office, Marines and Lockheed Martin did not return emails about any part of this story.) It may sound like a simple issue, but it pops the lids off two cans of worms: the program’s relationship with the truth, and the operational utility of VL.

In December 2009, the Naval Facilities Engineering Command (Navfac) issued specifications for contractors bidding on JSF construction work. The main engine exhaust, the engineers said, was hot and energetic enough to have a 50% chance of spalling concrete on the first VL. “Spalling” occurs when water in the concrete boils faster than it can escape, and steam blows flakes away from the surface.

Lockheed Martin was dismissive. The specifications were out of date and based on worst-case assessments, the company said, and tests in January 2010 showed that “the difference between F‑35B exhaust temperature and that of the AV-8B is very small, and is not anticipated to require any significant Conops [concept of operations] changes.”

Navfac ignored Lockheed Martin and commissioned high-temperature-concrete VL pads at four sites. At the Navy’s Patuxent River, Md., flight-test center, F-35Bs perform VLs on a pad of AM-2 aluminum matting, protecting the concrete from heat and blast. Why didn’t the January 2010 tests result in a change to the specifications? How were those tests performed? The Navy has referred those questions to Lockheed Martin, which has repeatedly failed to answer them.

This isn’t the only instance where Lockheed Martin has tried to shoot the messenger on the basis of weak facts.  When a Rand Corp. report last year concluded that the JSF will cost more than three single-service programs, Lockheed Martin accused Rand of using “outdated data” but founded that criticism on numbers that were not in the report.

After the fiscal 2011 Selected Acquisition Report showed the F-35A cost per flight hour to be 40% higher than the F-16’s, program leaders asserted that the Pentagon’s accountants had misinterpreted their own numbers. Two reports later, the numbers have barely budged.

The bigger issue is that the Pentagon bought the F-35B for two reasons: it can land on an LHA/LHD-class amphibious warfare ship, and it can operate from an improvised forward operating location (FOL), created around a 3,000-ft. runway. The capabilities are complementary. Without an FOL, the amphibious force is limited to six fighters per LHA (unless essential helicopters are off-loaded). But a short runway is of little value unless you can use it twice.

And what Navfac calls “standard airfield concrete” is military-grade, made with aggregate and Portland cement. Many runways are built with asphaltic concrete—aggregate in a bitumen binder—which softens and melts under heat.

The Marines could use AM-2 landing pads. But AM-2 is not a friend to the agility that justifies the F-35B over other forms of expeditionary airpower. An Air Force study calls it “slow to install, difficult to repair, [with] very poor air-transport-ability characteristics.” A single 100 X 100-ft. VL pad weighs around 30 tons and comprises 400 pieces, each individually installed by two people.

Rolling or creeping vertical landings can spread the heat load over a greater area. But there is no sign that they have been tested on concrete, asphalt or AM-2 over asphalt. What about multiple, close-together landings? Will hot asphalt debris stay off the fighter’s low-observable skin? 

Nobody seems willing to say when such tests will be conducted—which is odd, because we conduct flight tests to prove an aircraft can meet requirements. How was the requirement for the F-35B to VL on a non-standard runway framed? Indeed, was that requirement formally defined at all? 

At least $21 billion of the JSF’s research and development bill—including the F135 engine and the crash weight-reduction program of 2004 as well as the powered-lift system—is directly attributable to the F-35B, which also has the highest unit cost of any military aircraft in production. The design compromises in the F-35B have added weight, drag and cost to the F-35A and F-35C. It would be nice to know that—air shows aside—it will deliver some of its promised operational utility. 

Posters comments:  It is being proposed to have the F-35B participate in the ceremonies surrounding the newest aircraft carrier in the UK Navy.

 

How To Make Natural Yeast

How To Make Natural Yeast

 

 

Introduction to No-Knead Bread

Introduction to No-Knead Bread

A New Entry in the Annals of Academic Cravenness

A New Entry in the Annals of Academic Cravenness

If colleges won't stick up for free speech, why would they

oppose the implicit censorship of 'trigger warnings'?

 

By Joseph Epstein in the Wall Street Journal

 

For those who have not yet caught up with it, in the academic world the phrase "trigger warning" means alerting students to books that might "trigger" deleterious emotional effects. Should a Jewish student be asked to read "Oliver Twist" with its anti-Semitic caricature of Fagin, let alone "The Merchant of Venice," whose central figure is the Jewish usurer Shylock? Should African-American students be required to read "Huckleberry Finn," with its generous use of the "n-word," or "Heart of Darkness," which equates the Congo with the end of rational civilization? Should students who are ardent pacifists be made to read about warfare in Tolstoy and Stendhal, or for that matter the Iliad? As for gay and lesbian students, or students who have suffered sexual abuse, or those who have a physical handicap . . . one could go on.

Pointing out the potentially damaging effects of books began, like so much these days, on the Internet, where intellectual Samaritans began listing such emotionally troublesome books on their blogs. Before long it was picked up by the academy. At the University of California at Santa Barbara, the student government suggested that all course syllabi contain trigger warnings. At Oberlin College the Office of Equity Concerns advised professors to steer clear of works that might be interpreted as sexist or racist or as vaunting violence.

Movies have of course long been rated and required to note such items as Adult Language, Violence, Nudity—ratings that are themselves a form of trigger warning. Why not books, even great classic books? The short answer is that doing so insults the intelligence of those supposedly serious enough to attend college by suggesting they must not be asked to read anything that fails to comport with their own beliefs or takes full account of their troubled past experiences.

Trigger warnings logically follow from the recent history of American academic life. This is a history in which demographic diversity has triumphed over intellectual standards and the display of virtue over the search for truth. So much of this history begins in good intentions and ends in the tyranny of conformity.

Sometime in the 1950s, American universities determined to acquire students from less populous parts of the country to give their institutions the feeling of geographical diversity. In the 1960s, after the great moral victories of the civil-rights movement, the next obvious step was racial preferences, which allowed special concessions to admit African-American students. In conjunction with this, black professors were felt to be needed to teach these students and, some said, serve as role models. Before long the minority of women among the professoriate was noted. This, too, would soon be amended. "Harvard," I remember hearing around this time, "is looking for a good feminist."

All this, most reasonable people would concur, was fair enough. Then things took a radical twist. Suddenly women, African-Americans, and (later) gay and lesbian professors began teaching, in effect, themselves. No serious university could do business without an African-American Studies Department. Many female professors created and found an academic home in something called Gender Studies, which turned out to be chiefly about the suppression of women, just as African-American Studies was chiefly about the historical and contemporary maltreatment of blacks. Something called Queer Studies came next, with gays and lesbians instructing interested students in the oppression of homosexuals.

Over time, the themes of gender, class and race were insinuated into the softer social sciences and much of the humanities. They have established a reign of quiet academic terror, and that has made the university a very touchy place indeed.

Meanwhile many of those students who in the late 1960s arose in protest have themselves come to prominence and even to eminence as professors in their 60s and early 70s. Having fought in their youth against what they thought the professorial old-boy network, they now find themselves old boys. Unable to discover a way to replace the presumably unjust society that they once sought to topple, they currently tend to stand aside when students and younger professors cavort in bumptious protest, lest they themselves be thought, God forfend, part of the problem.

University presidents and their increasingly large army of administrators have by now a 50-year tradition of cowardice. They do not clamp down when students reject the visits on their campuses of such courageous or accomplished women as Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Christine Lagarde or Condoleezza Rice because their views are not perfectly congruent with the students' own jejune beliefs. When students and younger faculty line up behind the morally obtuse anti-Israel BDS (Boycott, Divest, Sanction) movement, wiser heads do not prevail, for the good reason that there are no wiser heads. The inmates, fair to say, are running the joint.

The trigger warning is another passage in the unfinished symphony of political correctness. If the universities do not come out against attacks on freedom of speech, why should they oppose the censorship implicit in trigger warnings? The main point of these warnings, as with all political correctness, is to protect the minority of the weak, the vulnerable, the disheartened or the formerly discriminated against, no matter what the price in civility, scholarly integrity and political sanity. Do they truly require such protection, even at the price of genuine education?

Nearly 200 years ago Alexis de Tocqueville, in his book on American democracy, feared the mob of the majority. In the American university today that mob looks positively pusillanimous next to the mob of the minority.

Mr. Epstein's latest book is "A Literary Education and Other Essays," published this week by Axios Press.

 

Lord Obama

Lord Obama

By Victor Davis Hanson in PJ Media

If we were living in normal times, the following scandals and failures — without going into foreign policy — would have ruined a presidency to the point of reducing it to Nixon, Bush, or Truman poll ratings.

Think of the following: the Fast and Furious scandal, the VA mess, the tapping of the communications of the Associated Press reporters, the NSA monitoring, Benghazi in all of its manifestations, the serial lies about Obamacare, the failed stimuli, the chronic zero interest/print money policies, the serial high unemployment, the borrowing of $7 trillion to no stimulatory effect, the spiraling national debt, the customary violations of the Hatch Act by Obama cabinet officials, the alter ego/fake identity of EPA head Lisa Jackson, the sudden departure of Hilda Solis after receiving union freebies, the mendacity of Kathleen Sebelius, the strange atmospherics surrounding the Petraeus resignation, the customary presidential neglect of enforcing the laws from immigration statutes to his own health care rules, the presidential divisiveness (“punish our enemies,” “you didn’t build that,” Trayvon as the son that Obama never had, etc.), and on and on.

So why is there not much public reaction or media investigatory outrage?

In one sense there is: an iconic, landmark president was ushered into office with a supermajority in the Senate and a solidly Democratic House, at a time the public felt angry over the Iraq war and the 2008 financial meltdown. Six years later, Obama’s poll ratings bottomed out at about 43%. He lost the House in 2010, and he probably will see the Senate gone in 2014. But that said, amid such failure Obama will never descend to 30% approval ratings, and that again bring to mind the question: why?

Obvious answers:

1) His record support among minorities will not change since 70-90% of various hyphenated groups see the Obama tenure as long-overdue representation of their own interests — economic, ethnic, and symbolic. It does no good to cite rising unemployment rates among African-Americans or a deterioration in household income among Latinos. The point is that Obama feels their pain, even if his policies helped cause it. In this view, expecting blacks, to take one example, to defect from Obama would be as if right-wing rural Texans would have abandoned Bush in 2006, or the Malibu set would have given up on Clinton during Monicagate. In short — unlikely.

2) The media is not just overwhelmingly hard left, but hard left with a chip on its shoulder that its own views are neither accepted by the majority nor usually implemented by government.

All the above scandals and embarrassments would have ruined a Bush, given that such mishaps would have been headlined daily  in the New York Times (e.g., “VA, Benghazi, AP, NSA, IRS overwhelm sinking Bush administration”) or Washington Post (“Bush Cabinet Paralyzed by Scandal”).

For the media, Obama is not Jimmy Carter or even Bill Clinton whom they overwhelmingly supported. He is quite different — the first gold-plated liberal president since FDR, and probably the last for a while, intent on fundamentally transforming the United States, by redistributing income and accumulated wealth, and recalibrating the American profile abroad.

The media believes that both are socially just and long overdue. Why then nitpick a president on details, when his intentions are noble? Extraordinary ends sometimes require tawdry means. Note here: when Obama leaves office, and should he be replaced by a Republican president, then we will see a press playing catch-up, intent on restoring its shattered image by exposing cabinet members who violate the Hatch Act and the insidious revolving door between Wall Street/ banking and White House billets. But for now, the media is invested in seeing Obama as a once-in-a-lifetime emissary of its own politics.

3) The well-off are indifferent to the Obama record, interested only in its symbolic resonance. Doctrinaire liberalism resonates mostly with the very wealthy. We see that by the voting patterns of our bluest counties, or the contributions of the very affluent. In contrast, Republicanism is mostly embedded within the middle class and upper middle class, while liberalism is a coalition of the affluent and the poor.

The result is that the Kerrys, Gores, and Pelosis are dittoed by millions of the affluent in Malibu, Silicon Valley, the Upper West Side, the university towns, Chicago, academia, the arts, highest finance, corporate America, foundations, the media, etc. Their income and accumulated wealth exempt them from worries about economic slowdowns, too much regulation, higher taxes, or the price of gas, electricity, or food. That under Obama gasoline has gone from $1.80 a gallon to $4.10 is as irrelevant as it is relevant that he has so far not built the Keystone Pipeline. That the price of meat has skyrocketed or that power bills are way up means little if global warming is at last addressed by more government.

For the liberal grandee, there is a margin of safety to ensure that the California legislature takes up questions like prohibiting the sale of Confederate insignia or ensuring restrooms for the transgendered or shutting down irrigated acreage to please the delta smelt. In their view, Obama represents their utopian dreams where an anointed technocracy, exempt from the messy ramifications of its own ideology, directs from on high a socially just society — diverse, green, non-judgmental, neutral abroad, tribal at home — in which an equality of result is ensured, albeit with proper exemptions for the better educated and more sophisticated, whose perks are necessary to give them proper downtime for their exhausting work on our behalf.

But one objects that these one-percenters — the Steyer brothers, the Sean Penns, the George Soroses, the Paul Krugmans, the Al Gores, etc. — are very few. Yes, but these few million are enormously influential, given that their money and ideologies are manifested not just in nice homes, vacations, and perks, but in public venues, movies, universities, newspaper editorials, NPR, PBS, the major networks, foundations, PACs, political donations, etc.

I leave you with one final paradox. Is one reason that Obama resonates so well with the very wealthy his assurance to them that the muscular successful classes will not be following them into the elite?

Whom does the liberal elite detest? Not the very poor. Not the middle class. Not the conservative wealthy of like class. Mostly it is the Sarah-Palin-type grasping want-to-be’s (thus the vicious David Letterman jokes or Katie Couric animus or Bill Maher venom).

Those of the entrepreneurial class who own small businesses (‘you didn’t build that’), who send their kids to San Diego State rather than Stanford, who waste their ill-gotten gains on jet skis rather than skis and on Winnebagos rather than mountain climbing equipment, who employ 10 rather than 10,000, and who vacation at Pismo Beach rather than Carmel. The cool of Obama says to the very wealthy, “I’m one of you. See you again next summer on the Vineyard.”

Obama signals to the elite that he too is bothered by those non-arugula-eating greedy losers who are xenophobic and angry that the world left them behind, who are without tastes and culture, who are materialistic to the core, and who are greedy in their emphases on the individual — the tea-baggers, the clingers, the Cliven Bundy Neanderthals, the Palins in their Alaska haunts, and the Duck Dynasty freaks. These are not the sort of successful people that we want to the world to associate with America, not when we have suitably green, suitably diverse zillionaires who know where to eat in Paris.

Finally, Obama has “cool.” Or what his wife calls “swag.” The very wealthy are with him also because he instructs them how to indulge, to ignore the problems of others, to be narcissistic and self-absorbed with a veneer of hipster cool. Golf, shoot hoops, wear shades, hang with Jay-Z and Beyonce, talk about your rap menu on your iPhone, fluctuate your cadences, do you Final Four predictions — all that means you can be cool and very rich and very self-absorbed while fooling hoi polloi and feeling great about your privilege at the same time. If you are a jean- and T-shirt wearing Silicon magnifico, Obama is your guy. The palatial estate, the imported cars, the indulgent hobbies — they are not really one-percenter excesses (try water skiing for that), but the swag that assures others that outsourcing, offshoring, tax-avoiding, lobbying, and insider cronyism are just part of the hip deal.

Before we reach November of 2016, we will see unimaginable things under this administration, but one of them will not be a defection of his constituencies.

 

Hiking in Spain's Picos de Europa Mountains

Hiking in Spain's Picos de Europa Mountains

 In the rugged range in Northern Spain, you can hike deep gorges and towering ridges, feasting on cheese and chorizo along the way

 

By Alan Wechsler in the Wall Street Journal

There's nothing difficult about drinking sidra—Spanish hard apple cider—in the Picos de Europa, a towering mountain range in Northern Spain. The trick is in the pouring.

In one hand, you hold your cup around knee level. With the other, you raise the bottle as high as possible, letting the cider cascade into your glass. Or, in my case, onto the floor.

The purpose of these alcoholic acrobatics is to "crack" the flavor of the drink through aeration. But I thought the sidra tasted fine without the plunge. Better than fine—cloudy, earthy and mildly bitter, it bears little resemblance to the drink we call hard cider in the U.S. Sidra is a quintessential taste of northern Spain, which is exactly what my girlfriend, Barbara, and I were looking for after two weeks in the well-trodden cities of Barcelona, Seville, Granada and Toledo.

The Lowdown: Picos de Europa, Spain

 

 

Getting There: The easiest way to reach the Picos de Europa is by car. If you're renting, make a reservation in advance. Plan on a six- or seven-hour drive from Madrid, and expect to get lost at some point.

Staying There: In Potes, Casa Cayo has large rooms overlooking a river, and an excellent restaurant (from about $70 a night, casacayo.com ). In Arenas de Cabrales, the modern Hotel Picos de Europa is down the street from many cheap and tasty cafes and siderías (from about $70 a night, hotelpicosdeuropa.com ).

Eating There: Casa Cayo's bustling, slightly formal restaurant looks out over the river; dishes include suckling pig, leg of lamb, sweetbreads and local peppers with goat cheese. Nearby Asador Llorente is more relaxed. In Arenas de Cabrales, restaurants tend to be cafe-style. Cerveceria La Xana offers local fare; some of the cheeses it serves are made a few hundred yards away. Sidra is available everywhere.

Hiking There: Most English-language guidebooks on Spain provide basic information on popular hikes in the Picos; trailheads are well marked, and routes easy to follow. For longer treks, local maps and guidebooks are available, but few are in English. A number of tour companies offer multiday hiking trips to the Picos, good options for the less intrepid.

The Picos de Europa ("Peaks of Europe") are relatively unknown in America—and that's a pity. The mountain range, located just a few miles from Spain's northern coast, occupies less land than New York City yet contains some of the most rugged terrain on the Iberian Peninsula. The rocky limestone peaks and tiny villages below them are as breathtaking as anything you might find in the Alps, Dolomites or Pyrenees. The grandest mountain in the Picos, Naranjo de Bulnes, is an 8,264-foot-tall monster with vertical stone walls, tempting only for experienced rock-climbers. Surrounding it is a well-marked network of less-intimidating trails; travelers can easily spend weeks trekking from one quaint hamlet to the next.

While we didn't have enough time for backpacking, we were able to do three days of day-hikes, riding the cable car at Fuente De and exploring the dramatic Cares Gorge, feasting on local cheese and sausage along the way.

There's scant public transportation to the Picos, so we rented a car in Madrid, a half-day's travel to the south. The driving proved to be more challenging than the hiking. Spanish roads are well-marked and easy to follow—until you reach a town. Then the highway turns into a city street, which splits and splits again, and goes through several roundabouts to ensure that your confusion is complete. ("Donde esta la autopista?" is what to ask should you find yourself in similar circumstances.)

The stress that came with repeatedly getting lost fell away when we first saw the pale peaks of the Picos, which rose from the dusty flatlands with ever-increasing majesty. But we soon realized that we were not, as the map seemed to indicate, an hour from the village of Potes, where we planned to spend the night. With twists, turns, tunnels and a mountain pass several thousand feet high, the drive took most of the evening. By the time we arrived, the hotel had given away our reservation.

Potes, which dates back to the eighth century, is built in stone around the shallow Rio Quiviesa. Elegant arched bridges cross the river; a cobblestone footpath runs along its banks. Century-old buildings decorated with rose-filled flowerboxes overlook the water. With the fresh mountain air completing the scene, it's hard to imagine a more pleasant place to be.

Less than pleasant was the backup hotel we wound up in that first night—our cramped room overlooked a noisy bar, and the lumpy bed seemed at one with the local topography. We drowned our sorrows with a little sidra at a tavern down the street

We were up early the next morning, eager to get outdoors. Our Lonely Planet guidebook recommended several Picos hikes, including one near the hamlet of Fuente De, home to a cable car that ascends a 2,500-foot cliff in four minutes. There was no line at 9 a.m.; we paid the 10-euro fare and boarded the car, which climbed at such a steep pitch, it felt as if we were riding an elevator.

It was mid-June, but the top of the ridge was covered with snow fields; a number of hikers carried crampons and ice axes. With the bright sunshine, we were warm enough in T-shirts and shorts. The hike back down and around to our car was an easy six miles, but it took much of the day as we lingered over the views, followed side-trails, watched alpinists ascend to the horizon. We passed tall wildflowers and herds of cattle and sheep. Eventually, the trail led through the woods and skirted the base of the mountain to return us to the bottom of the cable car.

Happily, a room at our original and much nicer hotel, Casa Cayo, had opened up. Our new quarters were large and furnished with dark wood furniture; we had a view of the river. After a dinner of chicken, pasta and sangria, we fell asleep with a breeze coming through the open window.

The following day, we drove to Arenas de Cabrales, a mountain town just a few miles from the area's most famous hike, the Cares Gorge. The gorge is a gash in the mountains several thousand feet deep. A path a few feet wide, originally built to service an old hydroelectric sluiceway, traverses its length, connecting the communities of Poncebos and Cain at each end. The route follows the contours of the canyon, at times a thousand feet above the river. There is no guard rail.

After a steep initial climb, the trail was fairly level and smooth enough, although there was no shelter from the hot afternoon sun. It's a popular route, and we passed hundreds of hikers as we headed deeper into the canyon.

Halfway through the gorge, we ran into a gang of wild mountain goats, who almost seemed to be lying in wait for us. Barbara offered them an apple core from her bag. I pointed out that such feedings were illegal and had probably habitualized the goats to humans in the first place. Then the biggest goat headed right toward me.

He was a good three feet high, tan and black and sporting a pair of sharp horns. Did he want food? Was he guarding his turf? I eyed the 500-foot drop behind me, and wondered how much force a charging goat could generate. Barbara took out her camera.

The goat raised his mouth as if to bite. Then he stopped in front of me and began to lick my sweaty arm.

"I thought you weren't supposed to feed them," Barbara said.

"Very funny."

Back in Arenas de Cabrales, we had the town seemingly to ourselves on that Sunday evening. We wandered down the main street to a sidería and sat at an outdoor table. I ordered some cider; the waitress brought us a green bottle with no label, and a squat plastic barrel over which to pour. At other tables, locals expertly filled their glasses from great heights, like Turkish waiters pouring tea.

We shared a cheese platter, which included several versions of local sheep and goat cheeses, as well as the region's famous Cabrales blue cheese. I added a plate of chorizo; Barbara saved her appetite for dessert—flan-like tocinillo de cielo ("heaven's little pig").

The third day's excursion was to Bulnes, one of the most remote villages in Spain, named for the area's highest peak. It has a mere 20 residents, and until a funicular was tunneled through the rock a few years ago, the only way to reach Bulnes was on foot or donkey. We skipped the ride in favor of hiking up a steep, foggy valley. When we arrived after a two-hour walk, the village seemed desolate. We wandered past pastures and barns, nodding to a lone farmer, and paused at a small cafe.

According to our map, it was a three-hour march uphill to Naranjo de Bulnes peak. Several other routes headed deeper into the mountains. A misty rain fell, a slight breeze crept up and the urge to explore was as thick as the air. But first, perhaps, one last bottle of sidra.