I’m a sucker for some of these lists of the Top 10, in this case the American Film Institute’s lists of the top 10 actors and top 10 actresses (whose first film was before 1950), presented by MovieWeb. Here are the lists:

1. Joan Crawford
2. Marlene Dietrich
3. Judy Garland
4. Elizabeth Taylor
5. Marilyn Monroe
6. Greta Garbo
7. Ingrid Bergman
8. Audrey Hepburn
9. Bette Davis
10. Katharine Hepburn

And

1. Charlie Chaplin
2. Spencer Tracey
3. James Cagney
4. Clark Gable
5. Henry Fonda
6. Fred Astaire
7. Marlon Brando
8. James Stewart
9. Cary Grant
10. Humphrey Bogart

I find both lists odd, misleading, or idiosyncratic albeit in different ways. I’m not sure how they’re defining “actor” or “actress”. They seem to be striking some sort of balancing act among best actors, biggest stars, top box office, and most important to cinema history. So, for example, I think that Charlie Chaplin, Clark Gable, Fred Astaire, and Cary Grant are out-of-place among the actors while Marlene Dietrich, Marilyn Monroe, Ingrid Bergman, and Audrey Hepburn are misplaced among actresses although I wouldn’t doubt any of their charisma or importance. I’m judging by acting alone. Monroe in particular only gave one or two really good performances, e.g. Bus Stop.

Some of Hollywood movies’ greatest actors and actresses are missing from those lists. How do you list Jimmy Cagney without listing Edward G Robinson? Not only were Robinson’s performances as gangsters completely equal to Cagney’s but he had more breadth as an actor. See Our Vines Have Tender Grapes, for example. No list of top 10 actors is complete without Paul Muni.

The top 10 actresses list is evenly divided between Americans and non-Americans. I’m not sure how Audrey Hepburn and Marlene Dietrich make the cut while Irene Dunne and Norma Shearer don’t.

Comparing the lists is strange, too. How do you put Fred Astaire on a list of greats without including Ginger Rogers, who, in addition to her pairings with Astaire, gave some fine performances in comedies, romances, and dramas? My take is that neither of them belong in these lists if they’re really listing greatest actors and actresses.

Seems like a dumb question but it looks to me as though the Ukrainians, we, and, of course, the Russians have very different definitions of victory.

The Ukrainians have been pretty clear in their definition of victory: an ethnic state within the boundaries that existed prior to 2014 that isn’t under attack by the Russians and, presumably able to pursue those goals without fear of Russian attack.

Our definition is less clear. I think it’s for the Russians not to be attacking Ukraine but others have more expansive goals.

What the Russians’ goals are depend on who you ask. Some say it’s to reconstitute the old Russian Empire. The Russians say they’re defending ethnic Russians in Ukraine. I think it’s pretty clear that the Russians intend to hold Crimea and may think they’re defending ethnic Russians in Ukraine. Whether they’re accomplishing that or not is another question.

The direction in which we’re presently embarked appears to be to pursue the Ukrainians’ idea of victory. Should we support their desire to have an ethnic state within the pre-2014 boundaries? That’s something that has never existed before. I find the notion of Ukraine as an ethnic state antithetical to U. S. Interests. I don’t think that those goals are consistent with our values and are not worth risking 330 American lives to pursue. Other Americans see it differently.

I wanted to commend an article at Foreign Affairs to your attention. It’s an explication by Frank Costigliola of George Kennan’s cautions about Russia and Ukraine. If you’re not familiar with the name Mr. Kennan’s “Long Telegram” laid out much of what was to become our post-World War II foreign policy.

Here are some key passages:

In a policy paper titled “U.S. Objectives with Respect to Russia” completed in August 1948, Kennan laid out the United States’ ultimate aims in the event that the Russians invaded Ukraine. He realized that Ukrainians “resented Russian domination; and their nationalistic organizations have been active and vocal abroad.” It would therefore “be easy to jump to the conclusion” that Ukraine should be independent. He asserted that the United States should not, however, encourage that separation.

Kennan’s assessment grossly underestimated Ukrainians’ will to self-determination. Nevertheless, two problems identified by Kennan three-quarters of a century ago have persisted, particularly in the minds of Russian leaders. Kennan doubted that Russians and Ukrainians could be easily distinguished in ethnic terms. He wrote in a State Department memo that “there is no clear dividing line between Russia and Ukraine, and it would be impossible to establish one.” Second, the Russian and Ukrainian economies were intertwined. Setting up an independent Ukraine “would be as artificial and as destructive as an attempt to separate the Corn Belt, including the Great Lakes industrial area, from the economy of the United States.”

Since 1991, Ukrainians have struggled to establish a territorial and ethnic dividing line while forging economic independence from the Russian behemoth. Moscow has undermined these efforts by encouraging discontent in the eastern Russian-speaking regions of Ukraine, fomenting independence movements and now officially annexing four breakaway regions. With years of political and economic pressure and now with military brutality, Russia has tried to thwart Ukraine’s economic independence by disrupting its gas pipelines, grain exports, and shipping.

Even at the height of the Cold War, Kennan insisted that “we cannot be indifferent to the feelings of the Great Russians themselves.” Because the Russians would remain the “strongest national element” in the area, any viable “long-term U.S. policy must be based on their acceptance and their cooperation.” Again, Kennan likened the Russian view of Ukraine to the American view of the Midwest. A separate, independent Ukraine could “be maintained, in the last analysis, only by force.” For all these reasons, a hypothetical triumphant United States should not seek to impose Ukrainian independence on a prostrate Russia.

Should the Ukrainians achieve independence on their own, Kennan advised the State Department, Washington should not interfere, at least initially. It was nearly inevitable, however, that an independent Ukraine would be “challenged eventually from the Russian side.” If in that conflict “an undesirable deadlock was developing,” the United States should push for “a composing of the differences along the lines of a reasonable federalism.”

Another passage:

By 1997, Kennan was further alarmed by Washington’s decision to have NATO not only admit the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland but also to initiate military and naval cooperation with Ukraine. The redrawn line dividing east from west was compelling Ukraine and other nations to choose sides. “Nowhere does this choice appear more portentous and pregnant with fateful consequences than in the case of Ukraine,” Kennan warned Talbott in a private letter.

There are links to several of Mr. Kennan’s letters in the article.

Few of the attitudes Mr. Kennan has described have changed in the intervening years and his views remain relevant. Sadly, we have not heeded him.

On the one hand I’m as saddened by San Francisco’s woes as Lee Ohanian of the Hoover Institution is:

No major American city has failed at the same level as Detroit, whose population dropped from 1.85 million people in 1950 to about 630,000 today. Move over Detroit, here comes San Francisco, which lost 6.3 percent of its population between 2019 and 2021, a rate of decline larger than any two year-period in Detroit’s history and unprecedented among any major US city.
Detroit’s fall was primarily driven by the relocation of the US auto industry to southern, right-to-work states, where auto producers, including foreign firms who build autos here, have avoided the union conflict that was endemic in Detroit. San Francisco’s decline is driven by absurdly bad local economic policies. How bad? As some city blocks have been taken over by drug gangs selling fentanyl in open-air superstores (think of an opioid version of Costco, without the membership card), city supervisors have spent their time talking about defunding police, abolishing rent, abolishing prisons, and demanding that if Whole Foods is to be allowed to develop a grocery store in a vacant building in the city, it must include affordable housing.

Some blame San Francisco’s high cost of living for the exodus. San Francisco housing costs have contributed to this loss, but many of those leaving the city are those with very high incomes who can afford to live in San Francisco. Instead, they are choosing to move to locations, many of which are also expensive, that have much more sensible city governance.

They are moving to destinations that do not have San Francisco’s drug and crime issues, its poorly performing public schools, its homelessness, its extremely high cost of doing business, and other issues that people have tolerated for so long, only because San Francisco was once one of the world’s great cities. As someone who loved San Francisco, it pains me to say it no longer is. And I suspect that those who departed San Francisco, whose exits left the city with 60,000 fewer taxpayers, feel the same way.

However, I differ from him in that I don’t think that San Francisco’s problems are much like those of Detroit, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, or St. Louis in that San Francisco’s problems are completely reversible. Without the manufacturing and related jobs that Detroit and many other cities have lost, as sad as it is to say it, no one would want to live there. St. Louis has a particularly beastly climate. From June 15 to about September 15 both the daily high heat and humidity hover around 100. As I’ve said before I’ve lived through many a St. Louis summer without air conditioning including one working in a steel mill so I know what I’m talking about. None of the cities in that list are garden spots. I doubt that anyone moves to Detroit for the scenery.

San Francisco on the other hand would have people wanting to live regardless of the employment situation. Its problems have been created by reckless governance and are completely reversible by better governance. Whether it will see better governance is another question.

Will tanks be decisive in the upcoming Russian winter and spring offensives? I’m seeing opinions in both directions.

I doubt that the Leopard and M1 tanks will be decisive for reasons I’ve already given: their utility has been overstated, they may not be suitable to task, and, most importantly the enemy always has a vote.

Please persuade me I’m wrong.

In an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal Bjorn Lomborg writes about polar bears:

The official assessments from the leading scientists who study these animals—the Polar Bear Specialist Group within the International Union for Conservation of Nature—peg the global population today at 22,000 to 31,000. That’s higher than the 5,000 to 19,000 polar bears scientists estimated were around in the 1960s.

The main reason has nothing to do with climate. An international agreement enacted in 1976 limits polar-bear hunting, always the key threat to polar bears’ numbers. Polar bears survived through the last interglacial period, 130,000 to 115,000 years ago, when it was significantly warmer than it is now.

He makes haste to clarify:

None of that means climate change isn’t real or doesn’t affect people or the planet. But to deal effectively with these problems, we need to use good data rather than defaulting to ideologically inspired narratives. It does more good for polar bears, and the rest of us, if those trying to help them use accurate facts.

As I see it there are several different views on climate change. First, there are those who think it’s primarily caused by human action, is a dire emergency, and any data that detracts from that is to be denied and fought. Then there are those who think that climate change is a hoax and anyone who thinks anything differently is either a fool, a crook, or being deceived. Then there are those who may think it’s either true or not but that human action is not the primary agent of climate change and there isn’t much we can do about. If I’m interpreting Dr. Lomborg’s position correctly he believes in anthropogenic climate change, does not think it’s a dire emergency, and thinks that good policy requires looking at the actual data with clear eyes. I think that view approximates my own. The nuance I would add is that IMO anthropogenic climate change is more pronounced in some places than others, local climate change may be a serious problem in some places, but that those places are frequently politically inmconvenient.

Dr. Lomborg concludes:

Relying on the data I referenced used to be uncontroversial. When a CNN science journalist did an investigation similar to AFP’s in 2008, he spoke to numerous scientists and they agreed “that polar bear populations have, in all likelihood, increased in the past several decades.” When polar bears in 2008 were listed as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act, the decision noted that the population “has grown from a low of about 12,000 in the late 1960’s to a current worldwide estimate of 20,000-25,000.” The data here haven’t changed, only the media’s willingness to disregard annoying facts.

The result is that the public is denied access to accurate data and open debate about these very important topics. Ridiculous points on one side are left standing while so-called fact-checking censors inconvenient truths. If we’re to make good climate policy, voters need a full picture of the facts.

Besides, even today some 700 polar bears are killed by hunters each year. If we want to help polar bears, why not stop shooting them?

I only have two remarks to make about the killing of Tyre Nichols. The first is that it doesn’t reflect a race problem. It reflects a police problem. I honestly don’t know what to do about that. As I think I’ve mentioned before my college roommate, somewhat surprisingly, became a police officer and I attended a number of cop parties. My observation was that there is a tremendous temptation among police officers to divide the world into two groups: police officers on the one hand and perpetrators on the other. Not a police officer? You’re a perpetrator.

Policy isn’t the problem. I haven’t heard of any police department that had a policy of rousting out innocent people and murdering them. Is it who they’re recruiting as police officers? Is it inherent? That would be tragic.

My other observation is that to whatever extent anyone is making the killing of Tyre Nichols about race, they’re making a grave error if not engaging in active mischief. Any pullback in policing in black neighborhoods will hurt black people the most.

The editors of the Washington Post want a “reset” of the CDC:

How the CDC reached this point is clear. Political pressure and manipulation by the Trump administration early in the pandemic played a role, as has deep polarization in American politics, which has fostered greater skepticism about science and debate over whether public health interventions infringe on personal freedom. But the trouble also lies in how the CDC is structured, funded and directed. These deficiencies can be fixed in the wake of the pandemic, and the CDC could come out of it stronger and more nimble. The nation needs a more robust CDC — not a smaller one, as former Food and Drug Administration commissioner Scott Gottlieb recently called for in a Post op-ed.

They point to a report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Every bureaucracy, public or private, has many of the problems they identify. The larger the bureaucracy the more endemic the problems. Can the CDC by improved? Definitely.

IMO there are three umbrella objectives:

1. Focus
2. Reduce overlap with other agencies
3. Increase accountability

The CDC originally began as a mosquito abatement agency. While I don’t think it needs to go back that far, it should focus more narrowly on domestic public health. It shouldn’t have international programs—that should be under the State Department. It shouldn’t do research or issue grants for research except as it relates directly to public health. Basic research should be within the province of the National Institute of Health. It shouldn’t be in the approvals business—that should be the Food & Drug Administration.

Professional management might help.

I don’t have insider knowledge on how to increase accountability but that’s obviously an issue. The CDC isn’t alone in this regard.

One last observation. If they’re looking for rapid response, IMO they may want to try the military (although I’m beginning to have doubts). Large civil bureaucracies just aren’t built for rapid reponse.

I guess the big news today is that Germany and the United States will be shipping tanks to Ukraine. I have read tactical, logistical, and strategic arguments that is a mistake.

The tactical argument is that both the Leopard and M1 are too heavy for Ukrainian bridges or pontoons so their utility will be limited. The logistical argument is that both tanks require substantial training and specialized support. It has been suggested that if the tanks are to be of any use in the near term, they will be operated and maintained by NATO forces. The strategic argument is that is a substantial escalation of the war. Stay tuned.

The Commerce Department announced 2.9% growth in GDP in the fourth quarter of 2022, faster than expected, but not all of the news is good:

The Commerce Department’s advance fourth-quarter gross domestic product report on Thursday showed half of the boost to growth came from a sharp rise in inventory held by businesses, some of which is likely unwanted.

While consumer spending maintained a solid pace of growth, a big chunk of the increase in consumption was early in the fourth quarter. Retail sales weakened sharply in November and December. Business spending on equipment contracted last quarter and is likely to remain on the backfoot as demand for goods softens.

It could be the last quarter of solid GDP growth before the lagged effects of the Federal Reserve’s fastest monetary policy tightening cycle since the 1980s are fully felt. Most economists expect a recession by the second half of the year, though a short and mild one compared to previous downturns, because of extraordinary labor market strength.