Conservative Conversation and Community
Friends, as 2016 comes to a close, we want to highlight some of the best writing from our community this year. However, we have a small problem: Every year we have so much great writing here on Ricochet, that it’s easy to overlook some of the best stuff. So we’re hoping you can help us out.
We’re going to have two categories: Best Post by a Member and Best Post by a Contributor or Staff Member. You can help us out by nominating posts for our consideration.
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Over the past year, I have noticed a growing sense of connection, of clarity and hope in my life. I’ve often wondered if my sense of the Divine’s influence in those experiences is genuine or wishful thinking. And at the same time, I’ve thought paradoxically it might be both. As I struggle with life’s questions and embrace the opportunities to explore and understand them, I’ve wondered where creative ideas and a sense of wholeness come from, even as I stumble and pick myself up, again and again. This weekend I found the beginning of an answer.
When I read the Torah portion on the Sabbath, I also read a couple of commentaries. My favorite one is Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, who has written on four of the Five Books of Moses (known as the Chumash); I am reading his commentary on Genesis. He writes with such love and clarity on Judaism, that this week’s commentary stood out for me, because he addressed the seeming conflict between our understanding of divine providence (G-d’s influence on our lives) and free will. He points to the paradoxical question, how can G-d intervene in our lives if we have free will? He explains it with the following:
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In 1914, there were unofficial ceasefires along the Western Front, with men from both sides mingling in No Man’s Land, exchanging food and cigarettes, and playing football.
Until recently, historians saw this as a singular event:
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I’m a night owl and the rest of my family are not. So when Christmas Eve rolls around, the house is quiet and I’m wrapping a few last gifts, assembling bicycles, and arranging everything just so under the tree, I listen to quiet, reverent carols to fit the mood. Being of Finnish extraction, this is my favorite.
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I’ve been hauling quite a bit of freight throughout the Mid South region in recent weeks. Its during the inevitable long stretches of road that the mind wanders. The highway crosses the landscape, curving lazily around clumps of forest shaped like giant evergreen puzzle pieces. The sun’s descent toward the horizon is punctuated with an amazing array of fluorescent pink and orange hues on the clouds overhead — an artful touch from the palate of God.
Classical Christmas music fills the truck, much of it consisting of man’s finite attempt to understand and reflect that which is infinite. They call it, “the Christmas spirit,” a phrase I’ve heard since I was a child, back when it seemed more contagious. Lately though, it seems easier to catch a cold. Why is that?
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Upvoted by R> Members Hello again, Ricochet. It’s been a while. Being a fortysomething graduate student is turning out to be more time-consuming than I expected. Who could’ve guessed?
At least not much of note has been happening over the past few months.
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I actually think it’s poetic. As Hanukkah, a festival of Jewish resistance, approaches, the world turns on the Jewish state and a former ally shows its true colors. Much is being said about Obama’s choice to abstain from voting on the UN Security council resolution, condemning Israeli settlements as illegal, and much will continue to be said, but judging by what I have seen so far I am neither impressed nor overly interested.
None of us can really be that surprised, right? This was an obvious move by President Obama, a suitable last hurrah if you will, from a man who from day one set out to set himself apart as the breaker of ties and holder of grudges. He was never a friend of Israel, and combined with his not-too-subtle need for pompous pageantry, this last kick in the gut toward Israel was a given, and boy did he give it with a bang.
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On December 19, 1945, my father was with the Sixth Division in Korea and wrote a short note to my mother back in Indiana, full of longing to be home, and hoping she received the Christmas package he had sent earlier. I found this when re-organizing some family history stuff.
Upvoted by R> Members This post is to criticize Kevin Williamson for a recent column at National Review.
There was a previous post that was undertaken by another Ricochet member, in which he criticized Kevin Williamson for the same column. That post became to heated with emotional responses and unhelpful rhetoric. Factiousness emerged. Hopefully we can do better and consider the column on its merits at this post. The column is deserving of criticism.
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As Ricochet old-timers know, this time of year is when we send the goyische editors off to enjoy Christmas with their nearest and dearest, and the rest of us hold down the fort with a traditional Jewish Christmas.
And today is traditional Ricochet Jewish Christmas Eve!
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Upvoted by R> Members 
I had intended for today’s post in our 2016 Advent Calendar to focus on the tasty seasonal treats we enjoy as Christmas draws nearer. One I had in mind was marzipan, the almond paste used in so many European treats and particularly popular at Christmastime. Marzipan is one of those things that people either love or really do not like. I love it.
Another subject would be Stollen, the thick, somewhat dry cake with fruit, nuts, and often a marzipan center. Coated in butter and rolled in sugar, it’s incredibly delicious. The history of Stollen is intertwined with the dietary restrictions of Advent, a fasting season which precluded use of butter. Bakers could not create such masterpieces without butter, and after ardent appeals to several popes, Pope Innocent VIII finally relented in the famous “Butter Letter” of 1490. The most celebrated Stollen still comes from Dresden and bears the name Striezel, reflected in the unusual name given to Dresden’s 582-year old Christmas market: Striezelmarkt.
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Upvoted by R> Members Chant it with me, “MORE NUKES!” Or, so it would seem this is the plan for the president elect who tweeted yesterday that we must strengthen and expand our nuclear capability.
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Upvoted by R> Members As you undoubtedly have heard by now, an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association this week says that female doctors have better results than males. Our legitimate news media (the ones who eschew fake news and only go with the real stuff) summarize the JAMA findings with informative headlines like, “Female Doctors May Be Better Than Male Doctors,” (The Atlantic), “Female Doctors Save More Lives,” (Science Magazine), “Women Really Are Better Doctors,” (Washington Post), and “Replace Male Doctors With Female Ones” (LA Times). I am partial to this latter headline, as it not only states the news, but also provides an action plan.
As a male doctor, you might think I would take umbrage at such a ridiculous notion. But I do not. I am foremost a scientist, and I will follow the science wherever it may lead, whatever that might mean to my own personal prestige or self-image. So let us have a look at the science, and consider its implications. For, if we are all better off having women doctors, we had better figure that out quickly so we can get in line.
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Aleppo is crumbling, Libya is in ruins, Russia is threatening its neighbors, and China is militarizing the South China Sea. But the UN is taking action against Israel. And Obama let them:
MoreThe U.N. Security Council on Friday passed a resolution demanding Israel cease Jewish settlement activity on Palestinian territory in a unanimous vote that passed when the United States abstained rather than using its veto as it has reliably done in the past.
Silicon Valley is known as the home of tech innovation, so it’s no surprise Uber chose San Francisco as the test site for their ride-sharing app in 2011. But now that Uber’s successful, the once Golden State wants to tangle their future research in red tape.
Uber began testing a fleet of 16 self-driving Volvo SUVs in San Francisco on December 14. A week later, California’s Department of Motor Vehicles revoked all 16 registrations, insisting that a special permit was required and that Uber must publicly report statistics from their R&D program. Not wanting to invest millions in research to benefit their competitors, the company sought a state that celebrates entrepreneurship.
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Upvoted by R> Members This week we are joined, for the last podcast of 2016, by Ricochet member and author of the ever popular “Ricochet Silent Radio” series, Mr. Gary McVey!
I promised some links, but am in a bustle trying to get some Christmas-vacation packing done, so I promise to update this post ASAP.
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The incoming Trump administration has promised dramatic transformations on many vital domestic issues. The best gauge of this development is the fierce level of opposition his policies have generated from Democratic stalwarts. One representative screed is a New York Times Op-Ed by Professors Michael Greenstone and Cass Sunstein, who lecture the incoming president on climate change: “Donald Trump Should Know: This is What Climate Change Costs Us.”
Greenstone and Sunstein have a large stake in the game: During their years in the first Obama administration, they convened an interagency working group (IWG) drawn from various federal agencies that determined that the social cost of carbon (SCC)—or the marginal cost of the release of a ton of carbon into the atmosphere—should be estimated at about $36 per ton (as of 2015). Choose that number and there is much justification for taking major policy steps to curb the emission of carbon dioxide. Greenstone and Sunstein hoped that the working group process would draw on the “latest research in science and economics,” and establish the claimed costs by “accounting for the destruction of property from storms and floods, declining agricultural and labor productivity, elevated mortality rates and more.”
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So much good stuff in this Financial Times interview with Nobel economist Angus Deaton, conducted by Shawn Donnan. For instance, Deaton talks about his research — with his coauthor and wife, Anne Case — into the rising mortality of middle-age white Americans: “[Deaton] seems more willing to blame pharmaceutical companies and doctors for overprescribing opioids. A surge in addiction (drug overdoses caused more deaths in the US last year than auto accidents) has, he argues, proved far more fatal than globalisation.”
Just as relevant and interesting are Deatons’ views on globalization and inequality. He seems far more worried about the challenge of automation than trade, unlike the message given by the 2016 presidential campaign:
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Upvoted by R> Members My father once brought home a CD of Gershwin’s Rhapsody In Blue. He saw it in the bargain rack, and knowing how much my mother likes the piece, leapt at the chance to surprise her with it. The thing is, it was in the bargain rack for a reason. Produced by some low-budget Eastern European orchestra, the recording was comically Slavic. Gershwin’s 1924 paean to New York didn’t sound American at all. The foreign accent was just too thick.
Replicating the American character in art is actually quite difficult. Leonard Bernstein, in his televised series of Young People’s Concerts, devoted an entire episode to American music and identifying the components of the unique American sound. Foreign actors, too, struggle to speak in an American voice; not every Brit can sound as authentically Yank as Hugh Laurie. And spaghetti westerns can often be more spaghetti than western.
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