Not for the first time

The news that Greece is planning to build a fence along its border with Turkey (the very idea of it ever being completed makes one fall about with laughter) has reminded Stewart Baker of Volokh Conspiracy of something even more amusing: the different ways EU spokespeople of various stripes view fences when they are proposed by the United States and by member states of the EU. He does not mention it, but a certain other fence, put up to keep out terrorists in the Middle East has also been described as being particularly evil. Not the Greek one, though. Justified but likely to be only short-term.

Censorship will not make anything better

One of the most shocking reports from the United States was a relatively small one: it seems that a man who has the barefaced cheek to describe himself as a Mark Twain scholar will be publishing editions of the two great novels Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn without what he refers to as "racial slurs". In other words the words "nigger" and "injun" will not appear in the text. Instead of the first one there will be the word "slave" and it is not clear what there will be instead of the second one.

I am glad to say the news has been greeted with an uproar of indignation. The comments on the piece I have linked to are all negative, pointing out the ridiculousness of it all. The Freedom Association has done a good job putting together some of the arguments. I can't help thinking about one of the best early teen novel that came my way some years ago, Nat Hentoff's The Day They Came to Arrest the Book. It deals with a school that decides to ban Huckleberry Finn because of the many unpleasant words in it and the fight against that ban in the name of freedom of speech and the need to understand history.

Professor Gribben, it seems, is using this method to ensure that the books are read at all in some American schools as teachers say they can't or, more like, won't teach them because of those painful words. The fact that they have not the ability or the courage to explain why those painful words were used, how Mark Twain made sure that his readers shared his outrage and how things have changed is a sad reflection on those teachers.

A bowdlerized version will not do much for the children who cannot face up to the truth of history or for teachers who have no ability to explain. It means that they will never really understand the horrors of slavery on the one hand or Mark Twain's brilliant writing and angry denunciation on the other. "Nigger" Jim is one of the finest characters in literature. Furthermore, by the end of the book he is a free man, so calling him a slave makes no sense. "Injun" Joe, on the other hand, is one of the nastiest, most frightening characters around and even his death is terrifying. And that is what they were called in Mississippi in those days and in many other place for many years afterwards. That is reality. The idea that ignorance should be perpetuated because of some artificially cultivated sensitivity about the past is very sad and one knows exactly who will suffer - the children who will not get a chance to read the real novels of Mark Twain.

UPDATE: When I was writing that post yesterday I wanted to refer to one of the most memorable moments in Huckleberry Finn, when Huck's pap, a drunken good-for-nothing liability complains bitterly about a free "nigger" who is regarded as a real human being and can vote. Clearly the monologue is powerful as other people remember it, too. I found that out when I discussed the whole issue with another fan of the book yesterday and this morning the rant is quoted in full by James Taranto in the Wall Street Journal. He has some harsh words for Professor Gribben and others of that ilk who do not know and will not learn history. (And I don't care how well known Professor Gribben is as a Twain expert.)

How shameful

I was trying to find the latest news on the Russian ships trapped in the ice in the Okhotsk Sea (the Boss has been following the saga in detail on EURef) and saw that the most up-to-date story was was from Kyiv Post. I clicked on it and found this

The Kyiv Post, effective Dec. 14, 2010, is blocking access to all web traffic originating from the United Kingdom in protest of the draconian libel laws there that hinder legitimate free speech and threaten the work of independent journalists, authors, scientists and others worldwide. In a phenomenon known as “libel tourism,” rich and powerful plaintiffs file lawsuits in London – “the libel capital of the world” – to exploit laws stacked in their favor, stifling journalism and threatening news organizations and others with costly lawsuits.

If you have comments about the Kyiv Post ban, please address them to letters@kyivpost.com and include your name, city of residence and contact telephone number for verification.

Well I could come up with a few tu quoque comments but what's the use? They are right.

Tax Freedom Day 2011

An e-mail from the Adam Smith Institute tells us that Tax Freedom Day 2011

"falls on 30 May this year. That's three days later than last year, thanks almost entirely to the rise in VAT. It's now up to 20p in the £. Thinking about it, 20p in the pound seems to be roughly what we're left with after the government's had its slice. Wouldn't it be nice to have a government that lived within its means, not yours?"

The trouble with governments and politicians that they do not have a clear idea of the difference between meum and tuum. Bring back classical education, say I.

Problems for the Polish government

It would appear that the Polish government's plans to overhaul the pension system is running into difficulties. First, let us have a look at this overhaul:

To curb budget deficits and the growth of debt, the government plans to significantly reduce cash transfers to private pension funds—from 7.3% of employee wages transferred now to just 2.3%. The freed-up cash will go to the state’s pension system, which will operate pension accounts, according to Prime Minister Donald Tusk. The government will be able to cut subsidies to the social security administration, reducing borrowing needs, deficits and debt.

Hmm. Well, there is a phrase for that and it involves the words "state", "grab", "private" and "pensions".

The problems have a good deal to do with the well known inefficiency of the Polish state pension scheme.

It took the state’s pension system years, not weeks or even months, to fine-tune its enormously complicated software system after private pension funds were introduced in 1999. The software—put in place by a private company that it now part of Asseco Poland, Europe’s fifth-largest software vendor by sales—may have been hailed as the best electronic system in European public administration for 2005, but it’s been a bumpy ride.

An even bigger problem is time, or lack thereof. The government wants the new system to operate as of April. This leaves less than three months to get all the necessary laws passed by parliament, approved by the president, printed in the journal of laws, and—most importantly—processed by the byzantine pension organization.

It will need to create additional individual pension accounts for 15 million people. To do that, it needs the specifics of the legislation, which will take many weeks to draft.

To make things worse, the state-run pension system has to lay off 10% of its 50,000 staff.

The process of private pension grabbing freeing up cash for the state-run pension scheme should be interesting to watch.

Nothing like a healthily growing backlash

Bruno Waterfield, the Telegraph's hack in Brussels, tells us that there is a growing backlash against perks for EU officials. Fury, he informs us, is spreading. Well, good for fury, say I. And, indeed, for backlash. Maybe I shall call my next two cats Fury and Backlash. I have no doubt they will grow and spread all over the house. But let's be practical. Exactly, what are those terrible twins, Fury and Backlash going to do? Here are a few indications:

Despite being paid six figure salaries, 1,962 of EU's most senior civil servants have been allowed to join a "flexitime" scheme, originally meant for lower paid secretarial staff, that gives an extra 24 days off work every year for those that put in an extra 45 minutes a day in the office.

The perk comes on top of annual holidays of 24 days as well as seven days off for public holidays, and in 2010, 11 "non-working" days out of the office when the Brussels institutions are closed in summer and at Christmas.

The allowances mean that last year many EU staff were entitle to 66 days or 13 weeks or a quarter of the year off work.

Inge Grassler, the German Christian Democrat MEP who uncovered the time off perk, has urged that the "flexitime" is tightened up to exclude senior EU officials, whose working hours are not measured by the clock.

"This information must mean the death of the myth of the hard-working Commission official," she said.

"I have no sympathy for time off in leadership roles. Those who earn six figures must sometimes be willing to work more than 37.5 hours – as is customary in industry."

Stephen Booth, of the Open Europe pressure group, said: "If the top ranks of the EU's civil service can take this much time off it raises interesting questions about how much work they're actually doing."

And if that was not frightening enough:

On Tuesday, Bavaria's Christian Democrats, key allies of Chancellor Merkel, declared that a "radical overhaul" of EU pay and privileges was long overdue.

Markus Ferber, a senior German MEP, said: "The privileges of EU officials must be abolished as quickly as possible."

Besides, as Mr Waterfield reminds us, one must not forget that David Cameron has "wooed" Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel into accepting the notion of freezing future Brussels budgets. Oh no! Not the great budget freeze! Just look how successful it was this time round.

This looks rather familiar

Ed Morrissey on Hot Air details the disagreements between what the Russian government and the American government think the new START agreement is about. As he says, these matters should be discussed before the pact is ready to be ratified and has, indeed, been by one side and is about to be by the other. If the Russians decide to add their own interpretation, the new treaty will have to be taken back to Senate who will, probably, not agree to those words about limiting defensive systems.

What caught my eye especially was this paragraph:

This leaves us with very little assurance that Obama has not bargained away missile defense. Their argument, that the preamble is not legally binding, is rather weak. Certainly the preamble exists for a reason; if Obama wanted to protect missile defense, why allow it to be mentioned at all? Doesn’t the existence of the at-least confusing language in the preamble have any meaning, and if it didn’t, why even bother to have a preamble? Clearly, the Russians wanted that language and wanted the preamble, and someone on the American side should have given that enough thought to understand that the Russians would find it meaningful.

How often have we heard from British negotiators of various EU treaties that the Preamble is not legally binding and is of no importance only for them and us to find that it is, indeed, binding and comprises the most important part of the particular agreement. I am rather shocked to find that American negotiators are no better than the British ones.