Friedman family follies

[ritaxis]

Some of my friends here were also participants in the science fiction newsgroups in the past, or possibly still are. You might recall some political fights there, some involving the affable David Friedman demanding "free market" approaches to almost everything (he did allow as how some things were "natural monopolies" but he didn't allow that any of these ought to be considered utilities that ought to be provided at cost by governments). So for these friends, as well as for myself, this is interesting. David's son Patri is out there putting the loathesome theories of libertarianism into brutal practice, in Honduras, where judges who cannot be bought can be eliminated.


on another front, I was just trying to translate this Verbunk song, and I bumped into this cute kid performing it! I finally succeeded in translating it when I realized that two of the words were variants that the dictionary and online sources didn't know. One was sheer intuition: at first I thought the solider was proposing marriage to a knife sharpener, but I decided that sharp sword would make more sense, so I looked up the Czech for "saber" and I was right. Here's the words and my translation (which I contributed to google!)


Bude moja žena,

šabla nabrúšná,

/: ona ně vyseká,

dyž ně bude třeba :/

Neumru na zemi,

než umru na koni,

/: ej a dyž z koňa spadnu,

šabla mně zazvóní :/

She will be my wife, sharpened saber, /: she will not cut when it is not necessary :/ I will not die on the earth, nor die on a horse, /: Ej and when I fall from a horse, my saber rings for me :/

dyž = když , when

šabla =šavle, saber

This took some sleuthing and instinct! And it totally counts as research for not-Poland.

and finally, I totally failed to appreciate Meredith Monk this morning, but I did try.

Comments

[joycemocha.livejournal.com]

I had seen that story about Patri. He does not sound like a person I'd want to entrust with much...sigh.

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

I remember seeing an earlier story about his attempts to set up private kingdoms.

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link to that article about Patri Friedman. I my view Churchill was right when he said that "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." Those libertarians and free marketeers have no concept that their policies harm ordinary people, or if they are aware, they just don't seem to care.

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

Oh God. I met that kid. (Patri.)

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

I don't think I met Patri, but I met the youngest batch and also the most recent wife. They were pleasant. But David is pleasant in person too, though a bit odd. It's just when you try to talk about anything important that all this unsettling stuff comes out, unacknowledged of course.