WB: Reversion to the Mean – Moon of Alabama

August 16, 2006

WB: Reversion to the Mean

Billmon:

Virginia is almost down to the Texas level now, which is about six standard deviations below the mean. It’s time for something better — or at least a little better, like Jim Webb.

Of course, Allen’s latest crack makes it clear that even a Macaca (whatever the hell it is) would be a big improvement.

Reversion to the Mean

Posted by b on August 16, 2006 at 05:05 UTC | Permalink

Comments

Macaque

The macaques (genus Macaca) are Old World monkeys of the subfamily Cercopithecinae.
Aside from humans (genus Homo), the macaques are the most widespread primate genus, ranging from northern Africa to Japan. Twenty-two macaque species are currently recognised, and they include some of the monkeys best known to non-zoologists, such as the Rhesus Macaque (as the Rhesus Monkey), Macaca mulatta, and the Barbary Macaque (as the Barbary Ape), M. sylvanus, a colony of which lives on the Rock of Gibraltar. Although several species lack tails, and their common names therefore refer to them as apes, these are true monkeys, with no greater relationship to the true apes than any other Old World monkeys.

Posted by: b | Aug 16 2006 5:08 utc | 1

Ollie North’s pal, Jimmy Webb, the far right wing ideologue who was appointed Sec. of the Navy by Reagan, but resigned in a snit ‘cuz Reagan wouldn’t agree to give him his wet dream 600 ship Navy, is marginally better than a rattlesnake – but, suffers by any other standards, even by the extremely generous standards of the Repug Party. And this sewer rat is running on the JackAss Party. Another reason not to ever vote for any of their candidates again.

Posted by: jj | Aug 16 2006 5:54 utc | 2

Slaughter of The Soul Atmospheric
George Armstrong Custer, another George of note, graduated from
West Point, last of a class of 34 cadets. Another over-achiever. Like
our apostiori George, Custer spent much of his career as paramour
to gentlemen of higher achievement. Custer’s style of battle often
bordered on reckless or foolhardy, although he did distinguish
himself heroically in the pivotal charge at the Battle of Gettysburg,
and was present at Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, which is more
field action than our apostiori George W. ever saw, or wanted to.
After the Civil War, Custer’s field rank was reduced, and he was
reassigned west to Kansas to fight in the so-called Indian Wars.
Boored, like our George W., Custer was court-martialed at Fort
Leavenworth, Kansas, for being AWOL, and suspended for a year.
His only known victory was the slaughter of a band of encamped
Cheyenne elders, women and children, much like our George W.’s
slaughter of the huddled civilian masses in Baghdad, 2003.
Custer discovered gold in the Black Hills, then it was “Let’s Roll!”
Custer swore by White Buffalo Calf Pipe, a pipe sacred to Lakota,
he would never fight Native Americans again. He lied out his ass.
At first delayed while testifying against the then Secretary of War,
Custer was able to talk his way back into a duty assignment,
leading a party West to put down the Indian “insurrectionists”.
The rest, of course is history. The Lakota, Northern Cheyenne and
Arapaho Nations suckered his party into an enfilade, where Custer
was unable to apprehend that he was being outflanked by superior
forces, and so was trapped, much like our George W. is in Iraq today.
News of the debacle soon spread to the East Coast Establishment,
just as news of Lebanon is roaring around the Right Wing Zealots.
The point for Custer, of course, was moot. He dead long alla-time.
Ensuing Buffalo Wars ended with the Slaughter of Wounded Knee,
just as the ensuing Oil Wars will inevitably lead to our own slaughter
of the Nations of Islam, and their internment on some radioactive rez.
Viv’ la peu de grand klaxon, George! Viv’ la fascisme grand égalitaire!
C’est la vue du Néo-Con’s, ca. 2006, en tant qu’aussi dedans 1896.

Posted by: Peristroika Shalom | Aug 16 2006 6:18 utc | 3

Apparently “macacca” is one of the new upper-class-racist codewords, so they can reassure each other that they’re all bigots together without unduly disturbing those of us melanin-deprived types who no longer allow more blatant slurs to pass unchallenged. The most generous interpretation is that George Felix the Younger may have learned the phrase from his momma, who was Tunisian-French-Jewish. Although I don’t believe GF the Y brings up THAT part of his familial “heritage” much around his neckless supporters.

Posted by: Anne Laurie | Aug 16 2006 6:24 utc | 4

Let’s put it this way. “macaque” was a nasty racist slur at a time where “nigger” was routinely used on a daily basis as a neutral word.

Posted by: CluelessJoe | Aug 16 2006 7:08 utc | 5

I don’t think he said “macacca.” He probably said “macaco”, which is Spanish for “Monkey.”

Posted by: Alan | Aug 16 2006 7:14 utc | 6

Billmon’s got reversion to the mean wrong, it seems. Actually, a series of high data points are likely to be followed by more average ones, not low ones. This is just another way of saying that events are independent.
The way ha phrases it, on the other hand, is something like the old misconception that a series of tails while flipping a coin increases the probability that the next flip will yield a head.

Posted by: Martin | Aug 16 2006 7:58 utc | 7

Not Spanish. French.

Posted by: fad | Aug 16 2006 8:23 utc | 8

So glad to see slimey George is getting icked around the blogoshpere as he deserves. Our regional paper in Roanoke actually has an editorial and a followup story. I can’t imagine George would have even attempted the half assed “apology” he did were it not for his grandiose (we fervently hope) aspiration to replace Shrub.
RT link

Posted by: DonS | Aug 16 2006 12:07 utc | 9

I tried a link, but I’m so damned challenged when it comes to formatting that it didn’t work. Its, short, so here’s the editorial:
(Roanoke Times, 8/16)Allen Slips Again On Race
The senator’s dismissive explanation of a possibly racial insult neither satisfies nor reassures.
Sen. George Allen says he meant no offense when he singled out one of his opponent’s campaign volunteers — an American of Indian descent — from a crowd last week and held him up to ridicule.
Allen’s apology on Monday was late and it was lame — an “I’m sorry if he was offended” act of noncontrition.
Worse, it showed the senator who hopes one day to be president lacks any understanding that, in an increasingly diverse state and country, appeals to racial divisions that might be good politics today will be bad for the body politic tomorrow.
“Let’s give a welcome to Macaca here,” Allen had urged an overwhelmingly white audience that turned out Friday for a campaign stop in far Southwest. “Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia.”
Har har. Just a little ribbing by a candidate looking to score cheap political points with a vaguely racist allusion.
S.R. Sidarth, who was videotaping Allen’s appearance for Democratic opponent James Webb, took the jab as a demeaning reference to his color.
Sidarth, a fourth-year student at the University of Virginia, was born in Fairfax County. He might show the senator “the real world of Virginia” in the 21st century, rather than the 19th, where Allen seems to prefer to be.
The young George who wore a Confederate flag on his lapel in a photo from his high school days was simply showing youthful rebelliousness, his handlers explain. The older George who kept a Confederate flag in his cabin was merely a collector of flags.
And the George who, as governor, proclaimed Confederate History Month without mention of the tragedies of slavery? That he never explained.
Chalk it up to, at best, racial insensitivity that dogs him still.
“Macaca” might be a monkey, a town in South Africa or a racial slur, depending on who’s using the word. Allen says he meant only to refer to Sidarth’s haircut, a mullet, which looks to him like a mohawk, which sounds like macaca — right?
Macaca sounds like something, but mohawk isn’t it.

Posted by: DonS | Aug 16 2006 12:12 utc | 10

I cringe when I hear bloggers use “maroon” as an insult, as Billmon did here in reference to Allen. From an online dictionary: maroon n.
1. often Maroon
1. A fugitive Black slave in the West Indies in the 17th and 18th centuries.
2. A descendant of such a slave.
2. A person who is marooned, as on an island.

Posted by: tedb | Aug 16 2006 13:21 utc | 11

Ten bucks says that this Macaca issue will help Allen in Virginia. At the very least it’s not going to hurt him. It’s Virginia, after all.

Posted by: Blackbird | Aug 16 2006 13:24 utc | 12

I think Billmon meant “Reversion to the Mean” as a pun, not as a literal fact.

Posted by: Ferdzy | Aug 16 2006 13:51 utc | 13

Okay, for once I sort of disagree with Billmon — not about Allen, but about Virginia. When I moved here in 1975, I was surprised to find that Virginia was even more conservative than my home state of South Carolina. Since then, though, the state has changed dramatically, especially in the last decade. While no one would accuse either Mark Warner or Tim Kane of being leftist, our two most recent governors were real Democrats (I admit, that’s like saying a snake is a rat snake instead of a cobra, but you get my point).
Two things (well, three) should scare Allen and the Republicans shitless. First, not only did Kerry (the worst Democratic candidate since Dukakis) carry Northern Virginia, he carried Fairfax County, the most populous county in the state, and the richest in the country. Heck, Kerry carried McLean, home of the CIA. Second, Fairfax County’s population is now nearly 20% foreign born. Not all those people vote, or can vote, but a lot of them do, and a lot of them have kids, friends, and neighbors who certainly do. Good ol’ boy GF made a fundamental mistake — in Northern Virginia, Indians are considered White, just like Koreans and Iranians. It’s not about skin color, George — it’s about social class and, well, not being black.
Finally, Webb won the Democratic primary because Fairfax County, arguably the second-most liberal county in the state, went for him by 2:1 over a more liberal mainstream Democrat — because people thought Webb could beat Allen.
Unfortunately, the rest of Billmon’s piece is pretty accurate. In the roll call of recent Virginia morons, though, he left out Bobby Scott, a Senator in the 1970s who, when the Washington Post named him the dumbest man in the Senate, called a press conference to deny it. John Warner, our other Senator, is no genius, but compared to Allen, he’s downright brilliant. So, statistically, we should be headed back towards the mean, and get some elected leaders who are of least average intelligence.
By the way, tedb, the use of “maroon” is a pun on “moron,” I think. Since Billmon is possibly the best living writer I know (seriously, the guy’s fucking brilliant), I’m pretty sure he knew exactly what he was saying. But I’m occasionally (well, often) wrong …

Posted by: Aigin | Aug 16 2006 14:14 utc | 14

The Maroons were blacks who had escaped slavery and were living/hiding in their own isolated communities. They were either too strong, or too isolated, to be brought back into the slave system. As such, they are to be thought of as heroes, or as Reagan might have said, true freedom fighters. From this experience comes the myth of the “outlaw” freedom fighter, which has persisted in the West Indies, most notably given popular expression in the movie, “The Harder They Come.”
There were communities of Maroons all around the Carribean. In St. Croix, were I lived, the Maroons made off for the Northwest of the island where they lived in two isolated valleys flanked by steep hills that were not suited to the cash mono-crop of the time, sugarcane. There they subsisted on river fish, from a since largely dried up river, land crab, local fruit and berries such as sweet lime and various varieties of sops, corn, and crops from their native Africa: okras, callaloo and various greens, and cacao; as well as wild boar and Virginia short tail deer, both introduced by early settlers to the island in the 17th century. They made furtive nighttime forays to the isolated coves of Hams Bay, Maroon Hole, Annaly, and Wills Bay to fish and crab. The undeveloped estates they hid out in were named Caledonia, Ham’s Bluff, Nicholas and Pleasantvale, Spring Garden, and Annaly. To this day, when hiking the valley floors one can still find evidence of their habitations in unexpected plantings of cacao, and later, mango and papaya, as well as the ubiquitous shards of pottery.
Slavery was abolished by the Danish Governor, von Scholten, in 1848. The Maroon community remained intact, and even flourished, as the transition from defacto slave to wage-slave proved to be cruel, resulting in the immiseration of some 30,000 ex-slaves. The “Fireburn” rebellion of 1878, a labor insurection aimed at redressing some of the inequalities, led by “Queen Mary,” contained a sizable Maroon contingent. The remaining Maroons were gradually integrated into society, though remnants of the community persisted until after the US purchase of the islands in 1917. During the depression corrupt land assessors suceeded in consolidating the title to most of the islands land in the right hands.
I had a girlfriend, by the name of Lithia, who was descended from Maroons on one side. She lived in a primitive shack without electricity or running water nestled into a steep hilltop on the outer side of Maroon Ridge overlooking the sea, at least a mile from any other habitation. At night, you could see the faint flicker of St. Thomas, forty miles to the North, and, at an elevation of 700 feet, you had the eerie feeling that you were literally floating above the horizon, the twinkling stars extending right down to the edge of the black sea so far below you. That was one of the three spots on St. Croix where I either saw or felt the presence of ghosts. All manner of animals wandered in and out, and, as I fondly recall, the piglets used to get jealous and quite nasty when you attempted to interpose yourself between them and their “mama.”

Posted by: Malooga | Aug 16 2006 15:04 utc | 15

Jeez, you learn something every day. I thought “maroon” was just another term for idiot — as in “Maroon Cartoons” in Who Framed Rodger Rabbit?
I was aware that that my version of mean reversion wasn’t correct, but I didn’t want to imply that George Allen was average — not even by the standards of Virginia politics.

Posted by: billmon | Aug 16 2006 15:39 utc | 16

Information on Allen’s mother from Wikipedia article on George Felix Allen:
His mother, Henrietta Lumbroso, was a Jewish immigrant of Tunisian/Italian/French background.

Posted by: lysias | Aug 16 2006 15:56 utc | 17

… heavenly piglets… heavenly mamas… heavenly vistas all around.

Posted by: Guthman Bey | Aug 16 2006 16:25 utc | 18

Interesting, Malooga. Thanks.
I went to a beer and bands festival in northern VA a couple months ago. There were lots of booths set up between the beer stands and the sound stage to pitch products and causes. About 20 yards from the sound stage were 2 booths: a Republican candidate booth with pictures of George Allen and a pro-life booth right next to it. I spent most of my time listening to bands and had an easy view of the activity at these 2 booths – which was absolute zero during my observation.
The Dem booth was strategically located between the sound stage and the 20 or so beer stands. During one of my frequent trips to the stands, I stopped and asked the 2 young volunteers about Jim Webb. “He’s against the Iraq war” one said helpfully. I asked when he became a Dem. “Sometime after 2000, I think,” one said. Why did he leave? “I don’t know, but it probably had something to do with the war.” What’s his position on the Patriot Act? Warrantless surveillance? Tax cuts and deficits? Military spending? Abortion? Etc, etc? One handed me a 2 sided 3×8 glossy with a picture of Webb on one side and some bullet points on the other. “I’m not sure, read this.” In less than 30 seconds, I’d exhausted their knowledge about their candidate, his position on issues and their willingness to speak to me.
The fact that a Reagan Republican is the liberal in this race speaks volumes about how successfully the right wing has moved the country in the last 25 years. But they had help from a clueless, easily manipulated people. Even the kids donating their own time to work for the guy didn’t know much about him and didn’t seem to want to learn much, either. Spectacle over substance. Our problem is much deeper than George Allen/Jim Webb.
The beer and the bands were good, though.

Posted by: lonesomeG | Aug 16 2006 16:30 utc | 19

lonesomeG:
Great points. I think that the reason is that we donot educate or populace to be “citizens”. We train them to become “consumers”. Like little pigs they just show up to gobble and grunt — Christmas Shopping, Sales, running up debt, keeping up with the Joneses to buy shit they don’t need — well THAT is what the American public was groomed for. From elementary school through College our whole society is focused in only that direction and we donot want any distracting messages about “citizenship”, mister. Our folks are BRED to spend day and night thinking only of what things they need to buy next. They don’t think about anything else…

Posted by: Elie | Aug 16 2006 16:53 utc | 20

It’s so embarrassing. Now Delay wants to live here too. But it’s not as bad as you think, Billmon, even in the capital.

Posted by: beq | Aug 16 2006 16:54 utc | 21

You mean I can be for both Ned Lamont AND Jim Webb? Wow, lonesomeG, you’ve made my day!
I don’t know where the Nedhead stands on all these complicated issues either, but at least now I know that I don’t have to know all this stuff.
I do know that Ned is also “against the war,” or actually he is for phased redeployment of a majority of our soldiers (he’s never mentioned the 30,000 private contractor/killers roaming the country), but that’s the same thing, isn’t it?
Please make your reply short as we have our semi-annual tax holiday here in Massachusetts and I need to rush out and buy a whole bunch of stuff.
By the way, I haven’t seen this Jim Webb guy yet — how’s his smile? Is he tall dark and handsome? Would I want to have a beer with him? Does he have a lovely family and a doting wife? Does he believe in values?
You don’t seem to get around to the important stuff which tells me whether I can trust him or not.
This Democracy stuff is not as easy as it looks, and you could be more helpful.

Posted by: Malooga | Aug 16 2006 17:26 utc | 22

george allen trivia
this stuff is funny, evidently his sister wrote a book!
“My brother George welcomed him by slamming a pool cue against his head.”
“Ever since my brother George held me over the railing at Niagara Falls, I’ve had a fear of heights.”
“We all obeyed George. If we didn’t, we knew he would kill us. Once, when Bruce refused to go to bed, George hurled him through a sliding glass door. Another time, when Gregory refused to go to bed, George tackled him and broke his collarbone. Another time, when I refused to go to bed, George dragged me up the stairs by my hair.”
there’s more…

Posted by: annie | Aug 16 2006 17:58 utc | 23

“What a maroon!” is one of Bugs Bunny’s immortal lines. Billmon is his rightful heir.
Bugs on Wiki

Posted by: Lish | Aug 16 2006 18:37 utc | 24

You beat me to it Lish.
I spent only a few years in Virginia but it was
such a relief upon leaving to know that my state
capital was Not Richmond. And this was before Allen.

Posted by: YouFascinateMe | Aug 16 2006 19:30 utc | 25

@ Malooga #22
“he’s never mentioned the 30,000 private contractor/killers roaming the country),”
actually, the number of FPS (Facilities Protection Services) is closer to 140,000…

Posted by: crone | Aug 16 2006 23:04 utc | 26

140,000?
Holy Shit! I didn’t have a clue.
Do you have any sourcing for this number?
140,000 Hit men running around the country without any legal accountability. This has to be worse than even the US military presence. And of course it keeps everything they do off the front pages of the papers.
On reflection, that number must include all the Sri Lankan and Pakistani truck drivers and underwear washers who are really just underappreciated Men Godfrey to our fighting boys and gals.
But still……yikes.

Posted by: Malooga | Aug 17 2006 3:35 utc | 27

I wonder what Bugs Bunny meant by the phrase? Probably was just a funny pronounciation for “moron.”

Posted by: Malooga | Aug 17 2006 3:37 utc | 28

140,000 Hit men running around the country without any legal accountability
“Legal accountability”- sounds just like a damn donkeyass party guy – always lookin’ for some new fangled way to make dem trial lawyers rich..

Posted by: jj | Aug 17 2006 4:01 utc | 29

Could be that Bugs meant maroon in the traditional sense. Remember when Mickey and Goofy’s nemesis was called Black Pete? The only difference being that maroon was too subtle for the mid’s 80’s thought police.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Aug 17 2006 7:33 utc | 30

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