I think a better abbreviation for "annual" where there isn't enough room for all the letters, maybe not even the standard abbreviation, for that sign, would be "ANNL". I think most people would understand it.
Thanks for the Etsy story. For some years I tried to sell some of my beaded leather shoulder pouches on Etsy. The cost was affordable - small, really. But all it did was make it easier for others to view these products online. I never got a sale via Etsy. Finally, years ago, they made their payment system much tighter. It wasn't something I could deal with, so I left.
Let’s call it what it is: you just raised your prices.
Please show how you are using the increased revenue. Before and after line items are best. Not gonna offer any spoilers on how WHICH line item changes will affect opinion of Etsy as a merchant or neighbor; may The Golden Rule be a guide for each of us.
A 30% increase in fees is pretty outrageous, especially with such a fluffy superficial explanation. Particularly since the company annual report and market guidance said they expect to continue growth in sales and margins, without mentioning any fee increase. A company that makes a 21% net margin on sales should be very concerned about maintaining the wellbeing of their sellers. Let's hope that they pay attention to the feedback.
Eric, with all due respect you continue to surprise me, and I have to very respectfully confess, sometimes in disappointing ways. (But I'm freely willing to admit that probably runs both ways with us! 😉)
First, you make a big deal about the fact that Alderman Lopez appeared on the Tucker Carlson show as if that will somehow forever taint him with bad association. (In full disclosure, even as a conservative I am very upset with Carlson's comments about Ukraine and his seeming unwillingness to explicitly condemn Putin as the murderous thug that he is and the invasion and slaughter of thousands of Ukrainians.)
But Alderman Lopez is publicly stating the need to acknowledge and tackle the increasing problems of violent crime and gangs in Chicago, and this is something that Carlson agrees with him, as do a large majority of people in Chicagoland. How is that any different than Sean Penn recently appearing on the Sean Hannity program to talk about the time he spent in Ukraine and the huge need for the US and our allies to do more for these brave and suffering people?
Does appearing with someone for a discussion on one particular subject mean that any negative attributes of the other person automatically attach to the other? I am surprised that you are not registering a much higher tolerance for people of differing views to have discussion on any subject. I know that Carlson evokes visceral feelings in you, but I just don't see that Alderman Lopez taking advantage of an opportunity to talk about one of his issues on a leading National cable news show is somehow a bad thing. If Nikki Haley was invited onto a CNN program to have a discussion with the host, I would not think anything the less of her for doing it and would be delighted for the opportunity for her to broaden her message. (Yes, I am praying that Trump does not run in 2024 as I desperately want to win, and Haley is my preferred candidate.)
Secondly, you state that you are questioning another reader's correlation between black population and crime rates. Obviously, crime and anything to do with blacks these days is a very charged subject, but I believe we can at least all stick with hard facts, correct? That being the case, I would ask that you and others Google the FBI Uniform Crime Reports for the past couple years. You will see in the reports, where the ethnicity of the perpetrator is known, blacks who represent 13% of the population, represent over half of murder and homicide perpetrators, and over half of armed robbery perpetrators. So there is indeed a correlation between black population and crime, and it's simply is not racist to state that fact. (Many people will immediately rush to explain this by citing inner-city poverty, but there is also extensive rural poverty that is not accompanied by the level of violent crime in the inner city. But, that is discussion for another time.)
To end on a positive note, I commend your willingness to engage and allow all of us to engage in debate on anything and everything in the PS - I find that very intellectually gratifying and thank you for it! Also a quick shout out to Jerry B - always love your comments my brother - keep them coming! I wish everyone a good week and early Easter greetings!
Hi Jerry - not to worry, I do not take things personally unless they are intended as a personal insult. I greatly enjoy a robust debate of differing ideas on an intellectual basis, and that is a large part of my enjoyment reading the PS and debating the issues with our more liberal friend Eric.
With regard to Tucker Carlson, he went on an infamous rant shortly after Putin's invasion of Ukraine wherein he rhetorically asked, Why should I hate Putin? Putin never called me a racist. I really did not find any intellectual substance to his rhetoric in that case, and I continue to be very disappointed in the people like Carlson, Trump and others who to this day refuse to explicitly condemn Putin for the murderous thug that he is in the manner that his military is targeting civilian population centers and generally disregarding Geneva Convention War protocols. I agree with you there is a great deal of room for caution and I certainly would not endorse American boots on the ground or a no-fly zone putting us in direct aerial combat with Russian planes. But to the overwhelming majority of Americans, it is patently clear that Russia is clearly the militaristic aggressor, and Ukrainians the victims who are deserving of all the military and economic support we can provide to them in their time of great need. 🇺🇦🙏
All good points my friend. I served 3 years in the front lines of the Cold War in NATO with a NATO Secret clearance, and what we knew then still applies today - the Russian Bear respects only strength and will pounce at the first sign of weakness. Aside from Ukraine surrendering their sovereignty, the best and quickest way to bring this to an end is to make Putin and Russia bleed profusely, on the battlefield with unacceptable military losses which are even now starting to stir resentment across Russia, and in every sector of the Russian economy which must be choked hard with sanctions even at the cost of economic sacrifice to the US and our allies. Even then Putin will not accept total defeat at any cost, and he will likely annex the Donbas and eastern border regions as he did Crimea in 2014. But the incredibly courageous Ukrainians, with significant US and European support, have bloodied Putin's military badly in defense of their families and homeland, very likely causing him to think long and hard before he would ever again contemplate invading Ukraine, or the Baltic states which presumably would have been his next targets to reconstitute the former Soviet Union bloc of enslaved nations. And you are exactly right that this should cause us to re-examine the many dependencies we have formed in our relationship with China which have served to fund their growing militarism and provocative International behavior.
Whoops - with apologies, I need to make a self-correction on my earlier post. In the Uniform Crime reports, the category is simply Robbery (which is the taking from another by force or threat of force). I had mistakenly used the term armed robbery, which is not a category in the FBI report. My bad, and again, my apologies for the inaccurate reference.
Regarding "Money (That's What I Want)," to use its complete title, it was the first ever recording done in the Motown studio, a piece of trivial for those who savor such items.
How should we think about lawyers who routinely choose to represent the blatantly guilty? I think people are lucky if they can make a living at work they like and are good at, and so I set a high bar for broadly disfavoring any legal means of doing that. Those who make a living through legal but indefensible trickery probably clear it. In The Good Place, the model job for the model horrible person was telemarketer of bogus drugs to the sick and elderly. They're horrible! How would I feel, though, about the lawyer who represents the telemarketing company in court?
I know people who decided they would never represent certain industries, but I also know people who didn't decide that, and I don't think I can fault them. Once again, they don't make the laws or decide the cases. But they are necessary participants in a process that ultimately upholds the rule of law. One reason lawyers feel this way is that they are inculcated with the ethics of the profession which is, similar to a doctor's, I have a job to do, a role to play, and I have to be faithful above all to that job, that role. Our system relies on lawyers feeling that way. Even if all they do is assure a plea bargain is in line with what others similarly situated have gotten, they are doing the Lord's work as far as I'm concerned.
Any professional criminal defense attorney will be defending people who are guilty most of the time. Those are just the odds. There are organizations and lawyers who specialize in innocence cases, of course, but those won't pay everyone's bills. So, in that sense, most criminal defense attorneys are routinely choosing to represent the blatantly guilty. I suppose that I would look askance at a lawyer who took a case only for the fame or money, but only because those are not good reasons for doing anything.
Excellent point about the professional model, which is perhaps hiding in plain sight behind the whole question. That model authorizes compartmentalization, where doing the "right thing" as a professional is not necessarily the same as doing the "right thing" according to a purely utilitarian calculus or even a "common sense" view.
Speaking of journalists, think of the reporter who shields a source thus obstructing a criminal investigation or a photographer who documents mayhem rather than diving in to help stop it. Whether law or convention supports them or not, they are acting out of what they see as a professional imperative -- we have to be able to do this in order to shed necessary light, not just in the immediate case but in all the next ones as well.
We all know that the duties of confidentiality and loyalty that lawyers owe clients often conflict with other more immediate moral instincts -- at least in '90s-era TV shows produced by (former attorney) David E. Kelley, less so perhaps in real life. But the professional model is justified, if it is, by whether we approve of the rule or not. Do we want to live in a world where doctors judge the worthiness of people for treatment? Where lawyers give 100% when representing supposed good guys and something less when representing supposed bad guys or unpopular guys? Where lawyers, or priests or therapists for that matter, feel free to disclose damaging information if, in their judgment, it's serious or ugly enough? You don't even need a Kantian perspective to answer no to those questions. Rule utilitarianism, which asks you to compare not just the costs and benefits of this or that action but of this or that rule (or no rule), can get you there.
You don't have to be a professional to engage in this sort of thinking. I think it comes naturally, if you're willing to think about the issue for more than a minute and from a broader perspective. Take free speech. Most I think can grasp the thinking behind the cliche, "While I disagree with what you say, I will defend to the death your right to say it." That's a statement that preserving the principle is more important than punishing the malign speech in the particular case. I think it's fine to continually test and question professional commitments -- to ask whether the rule does in fact produce the world we want to live in -- but I tend to think that the erosion of such rules is the greater danger. People are prone to getting upset and impatient when angered in the particular case and will all too easily toss aside broader concerns.
Regarding ranked choice voting, I’ve been opposed for a long time, but might be coming around. I always think back to the election of Harold Washington over Byrne and Daley. You can bet that with tanked choice that would never have happened (at that time). Ranked choice not only makes it harder for fringe candidates to win, but harder for any ‘minority’.
I think a better abbreviation for "annual" where there isn't enough room for all the letters, maybe not even the standard abbreviation, for that sign, would be "ANNL". I think most people would understand it.
Thanks for the Etsy story. For some years I tried to sell some of my beaded leather shoulder pouches on Etsy. The cost was affordable - small, really. But all it did was make it easier for others to view these products online. I never got a sale via Etsy. Finally, years ago, they made their payment system much tighter. It wasn't something I could deal with, so I left.
Prove it, Etsy.
Let’s call it what it is: you just raised your prices.
Please show how you are using the increased revenue. Before and after line items are best. Not gonna offer any spoilers on how WHICH line item changes will affect opinion of Etsy as a merchant or neighbor; may The Golden Rule be a guide for each of us.
A 30% increase in fees is pretty outrageous, especially with such a fluffy superficial explanation. Particularly since the company annual report and market guidance said they expect to continue growth in sales and margins, without mentioning any fee increase. A company that makes a 21% net margin on sales should be very concerned about maintaining the wellbeing of their sellers. Let's hope that they pay attention to the feedback.
As always, I very much enjoyed your inclusion of the "visual tweets.
I enjoyed your use of "Teutonic conventions." Would "Frate Elevator" be an example of that?
Eric, with all due respect you continue to surprise me, and I have to very respectfully confess, sometimes in disappointing ways. (But I'm freely willing to admit that probably runs both ways with us! 😉)
First, you make a big deal about the fact that Alderman Lopez appeared on the Tucker Carlson show as if that will somehow forever taint him with bad association. (In full disclosure, even as a conservative I am very upset with Carlson's comments about Ukraine and his seeming unwillingness to explicitly condemn Putin as the murderous thug that he is and the invasion and slaughter of thousands of Ukrainians.)
But Alderman Lopez is publicly stating the need to acknowledge and tackle the increasing problems of violent crime and gangs in Chicago, and this is something that Carlson agrees with him, as do a large majority of people in Chicagoland. How is that any different than Sean Penn recently appearing on the Sean Hannity program to talk about the time he spent in Ukraine and the huge need for the US and our allies to do more for these brave and suffering people?
Does appearing with someone for a discussion on one particular subject mean that any negative attributes of the other person automatically attach to the other? I am surprised that you are not registering a much higher tolerance for people of differing views to have discussion on any subject. I know that Carlson evokes visceral feelings in you, but I just don't see that Alderman Lopez taking advantage of an opportunity to talk about one of his issues on a leading National cable news show is somehow a bad thing. If Nikki Haley was invited onto a CNN program to have a discussion with the host, I would not think anything the less of her for doing it and would be delighted for the opportunity for her to broaden her message. (Yes, I am praying that Trump does not run in 2024 as I desperately want to win, and Haley is my preferred candidate.)
Secondly, you state that you are questioning another reader's correlation between black population and crime rates. Obviously, crime and anything to do with blacks these days is a very charged subject, but I believe we can at least all stick with hard facts, correct? That being the case, I would ask that you and others Google the FBI Uniform Crime Reports for the past couple years. You will see in the reports, where the ethnicity of the perpetrator is known, blacks who represent 13% of the population, represent over half of murder and homicide perpetrators, and over half of armed robbery perpetrators. So there is indeed a correlation between black population and crime, and it's simply is not racist to state that fact. (Many people will immediately rush to explain this by citing inner-city poverty, but there is also extensive rural poverty that is not accompanied by the level of violent crime in the inner city. But, that is discussion for another time.)
To end on a positive note, I commend your willingness to engage and allow all of us to engage in debate on anything and everything in the PS - I find that very intellectually gratifying and thank you for it! Also a quick shout out to Jerry B - always love your comments my brother - keep them coming! I wish everyone a good week and early Easter greetings!
Hi Jerry - not to worry, I do not take things personally unless they are intended as a personal insult. I greatly enjoy a robust debate of differing ideas on an intellectual basis, and that is a large part of my enjoyment reading the PS and debating the issues with our more liberal friend Eric.
With regard to Tucker Carlson, he went on an infamous rant shortly after Putin's invasion of Ukraine wherein he rhetorically asked, Why should I hate Putin? Putin never called me a racist. I really did not find any intellectual substance to his rhetoric in that case, and I continue to be very disappointed in the people like Carlson, Trump and others who to this day refuse to explicitly condemn Putin for the murderous thug that he is in the manner that his military is targeting civilian population centers and generally disregarding Geneva Convention War protocols. I agree with you there is a great deal of room for caution and I certainly would not endorse American boots on the ground or a no-fly zone putting us in direct aerial combat with Russian planes. But to the overwhelming majority of Americans, it is patently clear that Russia is clearly the militaristic aggressor, and Ukrainians the victims who are deserving of all the military and economic support we can provide to them in their time of great need. 🇺🇦🙏
All good points my friend. I served 3 years in the front lines of the Cold War in NATO with a NATO Secret clearance, and what we knew then still applies today - the Russian Bear respects only strength and will pounce at the first sign of weakness. Aside from Ukraine surrendering their sovereignty, the best and quickest way to bring this to an end is to make Putin and Russia bleed profusely, on the battlefield with unacceptable military losses which are even now starting to stir resentment across Russia, and in every sector of the Russian economy which must be choked hard with sanctions even at the cost of economic sacrifice to the US and our allies. Even then Putin will not accept total defeat at any cost, and he will likely annex the Donbas and eastern border regions as he did Crimea in 2014. But the incredibly courageous Ukrainians, with significant US and European support, have bloodied Putin's military badly in defense of their families and homeland, very likely causing him to think long and hard before he would ever again contemplate invading Ukraine, or the Baltic states which presumably would have been his next targets to reconstitute the former Soviet Union bloc of enslaved nations. And you are exactly right that this should cause us to re-examine the many dependencies we have formed in our relationship with China which have served to fund their growing militarism and provocative International behavior.
Whoops - with apologies, I need to make a self-correction on my earlier post. In the Uniform Crime reports, the category is simply Robbery (which is the taking from another by force or threat of force). I had mistakenly used the term armed robbery, which is not a category in the FBI report. My bad, and again, my apologies for the inaccurate reference.
Regarding "Money (That's What I Want)," to use its complete title, it was the first ever recording done in the Motown studio, a piece of trivial for those who savor such items.
How should we think about lawyers who routinely choose to represent the blatantly guilty? I think people are lucky if they can make a living at work they like and are good at, and so I set a high bar for broadly disfavoring any legal means of doing that. Those who make a living through legal but indefensible trickery probably clear it. In The Good Place, the model job for the model horrible person was telemarketer of bogus drugs to the sick and elderly. They're horrible! How would I feel, though, about the lawyer who represents the telemarketing company in court?
I know people who decided they would never represent certain industries, but I also know people who didn't decide that, and I don't think I can fault them. Once again, they don't make the laws or decide the cases. But they are necessary participants in a process that ultimately upholds the rule of law. One reason lawyers feel this way is that they are inculcated with the ethics of the profession which is, similar to a doctor's, I have a job to do, a role to play, and I have to be faithful above all to that job, that role. Our system relies on lawyers feeling that way. Even if all they do is assure a plea bargain is in line with what others similarly situated have gotten, they are doing the Lord's work as far as I'm concerned.
Any professional criminal defense attorney will be defending people who are guilty most of the time. Those are just the odds. There are organizations and lawyers who specialize in innocence cases, of course, but those won't pay everyone's bills. So, in that sense, most criminal defense attorneys are routinely choosing to represent the blatantly guilty. I suppose that I would look askance at a lawyer who took a case only for the fame or money, but only because those are not good reasons for doing anything.
Excellent point about the professional model, which is perhaps hiding in plain sight behind the whole question. That model authorizes compartmentalization, where doing the "right thing" as a professional is not necessarily the same as doing the "right thing" according to a purely utilitarian calculus or even a "common sense" view.
Speaking of journalists, think of the reporter who shields a source thus obstructing a criminal investigation or a photographer who documents mayhem rather than diving in to help stop it. Whether law or convention supports them or not, they are acting out of what they see as a professional imperative -- we have to be able to do this in order to shed necessary light, not just in the immediate case but in all the next ones as well.
We all know that the duties of confidentiality and loyalty that lawyers owe clients often conflict with other more immediate moral instincts -- at least in '90s-era TV shows produced by (former attorney) David E. Kelley, less so perhaps in real life. But the professional model is justified, if it is, by whether we approve of the rule or not. Do we want to live in a world where doctors judge the worthiness of people for treatment? Where lawyers give 100% when representing supposed good guys and something less when representing supposed bad guys or unpopular guys? Where lawyers, or priests or therapists for that matter, feel free to disclose damaging information if, in their judgment, it's serious or ugly enough? You don't even need a Kantian perspective to answer no to those questions. Rule utilitarianism, which asks you to compare not just the costs and benefits of this or that action but of this or that rule (or no rule), can get you there.
You don't have to be a professional to engage in this sort of thinking. I think it comes naturally, if you're willing to think about the issue for more than a minute and from a broader perspective. Take free speech. Most I think can grasp the thinking behind the cliche, "While I disagree with what you say, I will defend to the death your right to say it." That's a statement that preserving the principle is more important than punishing the malign speech in the particular case. I think it's fine to continually test and question professional commitments -- to ask whether the rule does in fact produce the world we want to live in -- but I tend to think that the erosion of such rules is the greater danger. People are prone to getting upset and impatient when angered in the particular case and will all too easily toss aside broader concerns.
p.s. Thank you Eric for lightly editing my post so skillfully for clarity. Editors are the real unsung heroes!
Regarding ranked choice voting, I’ve been opposed for a long time, but might be coming around. I always think back to the election of Harold Washington over Byrne and Daley. You can bet that with tanked choice that would never have happened (at that time). Ranked choice not only makes it harder for fringe candidates to win, but harder for any ‘minority’.
Regarding the tweet about someone writing in a yearbook “stay cool”
I’ve got a few entries in my yearbook where kids would write vile things, and then (in case parents read it) would end with ‘just kidding’
Fun memories.