Carnival of Madness (Concert Season Review 2012 Edition Part 3)

My rock concert schedule is once again in lockstep with GOP headlines.  This time, I’m faced with the choice of reviewing the Carnival of Madness or discussing the GOP convention.  My selection should not surprise you.

I missed the entire opening performance, New Medicine, and most of the second performance, Cavo.  I’d never seen New Medicine and I’ve seen Cavo previously, but that was before I started doing concert reviews in the past couple years.  Having missed all/most of these performances, I won’t review them.  Rock shows that start at 5 on weekdays are hard for people who have first-shift jobs to be on time for.

In any event, Halestorm was up soon after Cavo finished.  The arena was pretty much as full as it was going to get for the evening by the time Halestorm started, which I wouldn’t realize until later for obvious reasons (my crystal ball is broken).  As you may know, I was only exposed to Halestorm a few weeks ago when they opened for Avenged Sevenfold, which I reviewed here.  The strong talent and energetic stage presence I highlighted then were all on display here again.  They were on for about 45 minutes this time around, as well.  The set list was slightly different, but included Love Bites (So Do I), Mz. Hyde, I Miss the Misery, Freak Like Me, Rock Show, You Call Me a Bitch (Like It’s a Bad Thing), and Here’s to Us from their second album, along with It’s Not You and I Get Off from their first album.  The excellent Familiar Taste of Poison performance was not repeated this time around, but we were instead treated to Break In as a piano duet between Lzzy Hale and Evanescence’s Amy Lee.  Yes, you read that right.  Two of the best female rock vocalists out there today did a duet.  This was an unbelievable performance and somewhat ironic for me because I did connect the two to a small degree in my last review (which was before I knew Halestorm would be at this show).  Like I tweeted after the performance, Halestorm killed it. 

Chevelle followed Halestorm and was on for about an hour or so.  This was not my first time seeing Chevelle, either.  I saw them a couple years ago, again before I started doing reviews.  Both times, they put on a solid musical performance, but the stage presence wasn’t there for me.  Audience interaction was rare and awkward when it did happen.  We heard mostly newer songs from Chevelle, along with their classics that I prefer, such as Send the Pain Below and Comfortable Liar.  They also did a sort of acoustic, sing-along version of The Red.  It deserves credit for creativity and experimentation, but I don’t really think it worked.  For whatever reason, the crowd didn’t seem too into it and I wasn’t really feeling it.  Maybe it works most other nights and this was just an off night for whatever reason, but I wouldn’t know since I’ve only seen them twice and they only did this once.  Hey, it’s an opinion blog.  I’m just calling it like I see it (or hear it, in this case).

With that, Evanescence came on.  They played for about an hour and a half or so.  This was my first time seeing them despite nearly a decade as a fan.  Evanescence put out a new album nearly a year ago, so this show spent a lot of time on that album.  I’d guess they played over half of that new album (Made of Stone, The Other Side, among others), along with a few songs from The Open Door (like Call Me When You’re Sober, and Weight of the World).  They also played songs from Fallen (some of which overlap with Origin, but they did not play anything that was from only Origin and they did play songs just from Fallen, so let’s simplify and say they all came from Fallen).  The Fallen songs included Imaginary, Bring Me To Life, and Whisper. 

They opened the show with What You Want, the first track from their new album, and they followed that right up with Going Under, the first track from Fallen.  Starting off that way was genius because it engaged both the ‘new’ and ‘old’ fans right off the bat (I am decisively in the old camp, yet I’m still under 30).  Their lighter performances were generally more riveting for me, including Lost in Paradise and My Heart is Broken from the new album.  Their best performance was, by far, closing the show with a piano and My Immortal.  This was a haunting and powerful performance between the piano, the lyrics, and Amy Lee’s voice.  It’s not a jab at the rest of the show so much as heavy praise for this last song.  Talk about ending strong.  Overall, Evanescence’s performance was solid and memorable.  Personally, I would have preferred more from Fallen (Hello, My Last Breath, Tourniquet, maybe?) and even something from Origin (Anywhere, perhaps?), but that’s just me.

So, here’s the bottom line.  Halestorm stole the show.  Both the Break In duet and My Immortal to close the show were absolutely spectacular and unforgettable performances.  This show was well worth the money, even though I missed the first two bands.

Links: http://timsopinionblog.blogspot.com/2012/06/avenged-sevenfold-and-halestorm-concert.html

Boston and Mercury (Concert Season Review 2012 Edition Part 2)

I didn’t end up getting to the Rockstar Mayhem Festival earlier this month.  I did, however, end up going to see Boston and Mercury while visiting family out of town.  There was another blog-worthy event that weekend, as the GOP now has their vice presidential nominee in Paul Ryan.  Come on, you didn’t really think I was going to write about that before doing a concert review, did you? :-p

Mercury opened the show.  They’re a local band in the Pittsburgh area.  As I’ve said before, unknown opening bands are very hit or miss and the opener’s job is to get the crowd going for the headliner(s) while making a name for themselves.  Mercury was a hit and did the job quite well.  They were really good live, so we picked up their CDs after the show (hard to resist at $5 each).  I hadn’t listened to any of their music before the show, so I was able to listen to the CDs and recognize some of the songs they played live like The Undertow, River, and Automatic Savior.  Mercury did a great job getting the crowd ready for Boston, too.  It was good and authentic crowd banter with the local crowd, too.  My nephew caught a drumstick and the band was nice enough to sign it, so that was cool, too.  If you’re in the Pittsburgh area, I highly recommend checking them out.  Their music had the feeling of spanning a couple decades based on the live performance, which was also interesting. 

Then, there was Boston.  This wasn’t my first time seeing Boston, as I’d seen them once before (I think this was my brother’s 10^th time seeing them, and that is no exaggeration; he saw them three times in one year).  They put on an excellent show.  I liked the set list.  They played a roughly equal amount from their first four albums, including 6/8 tracks off their classic first album (leaving off Hitching a Ride and Let Me Take You Home Tonight).  Used to Bad News from their second album was a pleasant surprise to me.  Interestingly enough, they didn’t play anything from Corporate America, their fifth and final album.  On the whole, I was pleased with the set list. 

One of the coolest things about the Boston performance was the giant gong they had behind the drummer.  It wasn’t just a prop, as it was used in a couple songs.  This was a nice touch.  Add in all the lights and you have a pretty cool stage.

Here’s the bottom line.  If you’re a fan of classic rock, Boston’s still got it and Mercury put on a great show, too. 

Book Review – "Intellectuals and Society" by Thomas Sowell

I finally read Thomas Sowell’s Intellectuals and Society.  This is the second Sowell book I’ve read and reviewed, along with reading his syndicated columns.  I’m reviewing the original version here, not the recently expanded version.

The central themes of the book are two-fold.  First is how the intellectuals and intelligentsia have shifted their tactics.  Instead of trying to directly influence the leaders directly, which has historically been the way to go until the rise of mass media, they aim to influence the people themselves, who put pressure on the leaders because of the election process.  Sowell also demonstrates repeatedly that, not only do intellectuals and the intelligentsia often get it wrong, but the costs of them doing so enormous and much larger than one might think.

Sowell starts in Chapter 1 by defining what he means by ‘intellectuals’ and the ‘intelligentsia’.  Intellectuals as a profession, which is his focus here, deal in the generation and cultivation of ideas (the ideas need not be original) while the intelligentsia helps to spread and refine them.  In other words, intellectuals are a subset of the intelligentsia.  Intellectuals can be found in think tanks, academia, education, and the media, among other places.  Their work starts and ends with ideas, while validation comes from peers.  This is in direct contrast to people like engineers, doctors, and scientists whose work is intellectually demanding, but produces tangible products/services that are validated by real-world results   The irony that Sowell himself is an intellectual writing about intellectuals and the intelligentsia is not lost on me.

Chapter 2 is built around one key point, namely the importance of grasping the limitations of an individual’s knowledge base.  It explores notions versus knowledge and the value and perception of knowledge, as well as incentive structures, using experts to help make a decision versus helping to justify a decision already made, reasons as often a poor substitute for knowledge, and isolated incidents versus the bigger picture.  We also face the question of whether individuals or central planners are better suited to make decisions.

In Chapter 3, Sowell explores income, economic systems, businesses, and the economic cycle.  Some key themes that emerge in this chapter highlight the importance of looking at people as individuals, not as merely statistics or aggregates or groups and the intelligentsia’s tendency to transform an opposing argument rather than address it with logic and/or evidence.  He also spends some time discussing the Great Depression and how government intervention in the economy via central planning was a failure.

I suspect Sowell’s focus in the next chapter is what he spent a whole other book on, namely A Conflict of Visions.  Here, he details two core ways of looking at the world.  The vision of the anointed, as he calls it, is that the world is full of problems that intellectual elites alone are qualified to solve.  The tragic vision, on the other hand, sees civilization as something that needs strong and constant effort to preserve based on experience rather than theory.  Also in this chapter is discussion of more tactics intellectuals use, namely arguments without arguments, simplification of an answer by expansion of a question, and dismissal of an opponent’s worth.  He also rejects the left-right dichotomy in US politics and discusses change versus the current state, rhetoric and preferences, age, and notions versus principles.  The conclusion of this chapter, with its focus on real human beings in the real world versus abstract people in an abstract world, is also some excellent commentary.

Now, Sowell really gets into the intelligentsia’s tactics.  He talks about how they filter reality via selective sampling, suppression of information, making up characters, and shifting words (swamps become wetlands, for instance).  Objectivity versus impartiality pops up again.  He also mentions subjective versus absolute truth and multiculturalism.

Sowell then takes us into legal matters, focusing on property rights, judicial activism versus restraint, and gun control.  The latter is particularly important, as the issues of whether weapons or people kill people and whether being armed encourages or discourages violence will come up in the next two chapters. 

Next up are two chapters on war.  The first of these focuses on the two Great Wars, how the intelligentsia got it wrong both times, and how their error the first time directly contributed to their error the second time.  This is an extremely insightful chapter.  Anybody who wants to learn about what was really going in these decades should read it because there’s truth here that has been largely whitewashed out of history.

The second war chapter looks at the Cold War, Vietnam War, and the two Iraq wars.  This chapter disappointed me in two ways.  First, I would have liked to have seen some discussion about the Korean War.  I think the Korean War needed to be presented here, even if only because it provided some additional rhetorical fuel for the intelligentsia to use during the Vietnam War.  Second, Sowell pretty much glossed over the reasons behind the US entering the second Iraq war and instead focused almost entirely on the surge and whether it worked.  Don’t get me wrong, the section on the surge was very well done and I agree with his argument that the surge clearly worked despite the intelligentsia’s portrayals to the contrary.  I just feel like he missed an opportunity here because the intelligentsia was a very significant driver in getting the US back into Iraq in the first place.

And we come to the conclusion, where Sowell ties everything up quite nicely and drives home the point that intellectuals and the intelligentsia have done great harm to the modern world.

Here’s the bottom line.  I highly recommend this book to anybody interested in 20^th and 21^st century US and European history, members of the intelligentsia and intellectuals, those who fall outside those spheres, and anybody interested in concrete examples of and effective counters to the logical trickery so often employed by intellectuals and the intelligentsia.

Gay Marriage Legalized in Maryland and Thoughts on the Path to Legalization

Mentioning the issue in my last post reminded me that I haven’t put out an update on this issue in a while.  This one will be a bit longer than normal.  I considered breaking it into two posts, but didn't.

Continuing a string of gay rights victories, Maryland recently legalized gay marriage.  It is the eighth state to do so (Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, New Hampshire, Vermont, Iowa, Washington state, and Washington DC already allow it).  As a side note, New Hampshire also recently defeated a bill in its legislature to overturn its gay marriage law, so that’s another win. 

Like Washington state, there is an effort in Maryland to put gay marriage up for popular referendum in the fall.  In addition, Maine is expected to have gay marriage on the ballot in the fall.  Minnesota and North Carolina are still expected to have gay marriage bans on the ballot in the fall, as well.  California remains a hotbed due to the recent overturn of Proposition 8, as does the federal level (DOMA).

To this point, I’ve been content to leave aside the question of what is the most appropriate avenue for getting gay marriage legalized.  I want to look at that here.  There are court rulings, the legislative process, and popular referendum at the state level, along with DOMA, the legislative process, and potentially the Supreme Court on the federal level.  I’ve never looked into the possibility of a popular referendum on the federal level, but I suppose it is possible in theory. 

Here’s the reality.  In the United States, the rights of the minority are not subject to the will of the majority.  It is one of the most fundamental underpinnings of the Constitution.  We see it repeatedly throughout the document, like the 14^th Amendment as I’ve laid out before.  This very basic tenet of America is the reason popular referendum, be it on the state or federal level, is simply not an appropriate way to address the matter.

So, with popular referendum out, we are left with the legal or legislative process.  They are simultaneously somewhat parallel, yet related, paths to the same end.  The courts could (and should) keep overturning gay marriage bans and upholding gay marriage legalization based on the Constitution, but they are limited by the cases brought before them.  The legislature, on the other hand, can write and pass a bill at any time (assuming the will is there, of course).  Both are appropriate paths to legalizing gay marriage.

We’re also left with the question of whether state-level or national-level action is appropriate.  This is kind of tricky.  On one hand, we have the states’ rights question, which I’ll address below.  On the other hand, even if we break away from the 14^th Amendment or legal rights issue, we see two additional layers. 

First, it’s my view that individual freedom is the ultimate deciding factor.  Basically, it’s the, “My rights end at your face,” line of thought.  I would pose the question to opponents how their rights are infringed upon by allowing gay marriage (it’s very obvious the rights of gay people have been infringed upon by being denied the right to marry).  This is actually a very significant question and I see no valid answer provided religious organizations are not forced against their will to marry gay people.  So, the rights of gay people are being restricted and ending that infringement would not impact everyone else.  This is an important underpinning to the gay marriage argument, and with that, we can move on to the next step.

The Constitution is the supreme law of the land and was written with the intent not to limit the rights of the individual, but to limit the power of the government to limit individual freedom.  Simply put, if the local and state governments are unwilling to take the appropriate action to ensure the rights of the individual, then the federal government is obligated to intervene to that end.  The inverse also applies, meaning that the state and local governments must also take appropriate action to ensure individual rights should the federal government attempt to violate them.  In other words, the rights of the individual trump the rights of the government on all levels.  The Civil Rights movement is a great historical example of the concept.  This can get very philosophical very quickly and we can branch off into a lot of other questions, but I want to stay on topic here and move onto the next facet of the federal versus state action discussion.

Second, as I’ve written before, a marriage license issued by one state must be recognized by all other states per federal law.  This is often framed in terms of age.  Suppose State A’s legal age for marriage is 16 and State B’s is 18.  If a pair of 16-year olds get married in A and go to B before turning 18, B still must recognize their marriage.  The same logic applies to marriage licenses for gay couples.  Alabama, for example, acts illegally when they refuse to recognize the legitimacy of marriage licenses issued to gay couples by another state (to my knowledge, Alabama is the only state to do this).  Interstate issues like that often ultimately require federal-level arbitration. 

The bottom line here is that, between the 14^th Amendment and interstate issues, federal-level resolution will ultimately be necessary to at least some degree unless all 50 states legalize gay marriage on their own.  I think DOMA would have to be overturned somehow (legislative process or Supreme Court ruling) because, as I’ve detailed before, a large number of states defer to DOMA.  Additionally, federal action that either explicitly disallows state-level bans on gay marriage and/or legalizes gay marriage throughout the USA may be necessary.

What about a Constitutional amendment?  It would be pointless because it would be entirely redundant to the 14^th Amendment.  We’ve seen this before.  Feminists were agitating for a similar amendment for women a few decades ago.  Back then, the amendment ultimately failed to gain traction due to the redundancy logic.  A similar amendment for gay marriage would fail in the same way for the same reason.

Note the absence of the executive branch.  Though it can serve as a bully pulpit, I don’t view executive action, either by a governor or a president, as a viable or legal path to legalization.  The executive branch lacks the power to do this unilaterally, though this hasn’t stopped them from trying (and often succeeding) to stretch/abuse their power in many other areas (also known as the imperial presidency).  Indeed, the executive branch on either level can be completely locked out from the process.  Legislatures can often overturn an executive veto with a 2/3 majority in both houses, the judicial branch is largely independent of the executive branch, and popular referendum doesn’t involve the executive branch at all.  The executive branch also has no place in the amendment process of the Constitution.

All that said, I’m a pragmatist on the matter and I want to see it legalized as widely as possible as quickly as possible.  The state legislative process is probably the best way to go on the offensive (as long of a grind as it is to get through 40+ more states), whereas the state legal process can be used more for both offense and defense (bearing in mind the limitations imposed by what cases face the courts). 

Given the 0 for 31 record gay marriage supporters have in state popular referendum, I have a different take there.  Principle and strategic disadvantage make popular referendum a bad place to be.  Obviously, playing defense there to counter bans is vital, but it’s not the place to play offense.  Victories here are still essential, especially on defense.  Going on offense in Maine is risky only in the sense that the odds of success aren’t favorable based on history, but there is nothing to lose besides resources and there is everything to gain because another state would legalize gay marriage and the momentum of a first popular referendum win would be very powerful.

Barack Obama and the Constitution

For my 100^th post, I wanted do something a bit more encompassing than I usually do, something that spans the 99 previous posts.  Because I write about a lot of different things, it’s not easy to string it all together, so I decided to take a look at Barack Obama’s presidency as it relates to the Constitution.  I figure this can help people assess his presidency.

Like it or not, the Constitution is the supreme law of the land.  On the whole, I think Obama’s record on the Constitution is not favorable (even compared to his predecessor, George W. Bush, who had a bad record here) and we see several areas in which he has either applied the Constitution in a questionable manner or ignored it entirely.  I find this tragically ironic because he was a professor of Constitutional law.  I’d think he’d use that expertise to uphold the Constitution rather than dismantle it so he could build an imperial presidency.  I’ve gone into detail previously on many of these, so this is more of a list rather than an expansive review of each scenario. 

On the negative side, we start with the Obamacare individual mandate, which would force an individual to engage in commerce by purchasing a government-approved health insurance product or face the consequences.  I think the Supreme Court got the ruling wrong by upholding it as a tax and it’s a very dangerous precedent, so I will count it against Obama (I’ll do a future post about the ruling and my opinion may change).  Feel free to disagree on either the constitutionality of the measure or my counting it against Obama’s constitutional record. 

Next, there’s this whole recess appointment business, in which Obama has disregarded checks and balances by attempting recess appointments while Congress was not in recess. 

Then, there was the Libya situation (probably others, as well) and Obama’s disregard for the War Powers Act.  At least when Bush took us into Afghanistan and Iraq, he took the time to get it approved by Congress versus Obama simply committing our forces to the effort without Congress’ approval.  We’ve also recently learned through the New York Times that Obama has continued and expanded the Bush administration’s cyber attacks on Iran’s nuclear program, which could be taken as an act of war.

More recently, he sidestepped Congress with regards to immigration by basically implementing portions of the DREAM Act via executive order.  Article I, Section 8 clearly empowers Congress, “To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization,” which is the Founding Fathers’ way of saying that the president cannot unilaterally set immigration policy and Congress has power in the matter.  Note that Congress has repeatedly rejected the DREAM Act in a show of checks and balances, not obstructionism.  This also gets into the 14^th Amendment questions I’ve previously discussed regarding citizenship in the US.

The biggest problems of all were in the “War on Terror”.  If you thought Bush was bad here, wait until you see how Obama’s taken the torch and run with it during his term.  In general, yes it was George W. Bush who started us down this tyrannical path and laid the foundation for the future, but Barack Obama has gone down that path even more aggressively.  Here are a few examples of how Obama built upon Bush’s foundation.

Bush opened Guantanamo Bay and Obama went back on his campaign promise to close it (hypocrisy aside, the facility’s existence violates so much of the Constitution that I don’t even know where to start).    

Bush increased security at airports, which was bad enough, but Obama’s taken that to a whole new level with invasive body scans and searches, trampling the 4^th Amendment like I mentioned a while back. 

Bush also expanded the military commissions instead of and in addition to the courts for trials.  Obama has continued this practice.  I’ve also questioned the constitutionality of using military commissions versus civilian courts (at least with regard to US citizens).

But, wait, there’s more because Obama’s done a lot to blaze his own path.  Obama also assassinated Anwar al Awlaki, who was an American citizen.  This tramples on the 5^th, 6^th, 8^th, and 14^th Amendments (probably others, too).  I didn’t post about Anwar al Awlaki at the time because I was unable to verify his US citizenship, but I did recently and this episode becomes another bad one for Obama.  The government can’t be allowed to murder its own citizens.  Also, note the details recently published by the New York Times about the hitlist meetings. 

As if assassinating an American citizen wasn’t bad enough, Obama also more recently signed the NDAA to authorize the indefinite detention of US citizens without the right of a trial.  Surely, I can’t be the only one who’s troubled by a president who thinks he has the authority to indefinitely detain and/or murder American citizens (and, as I’ve mentioned before, there’s a school of thought suggesting that the legal protections outlined in the Constitution should be extended beyond US citizens to non-citizens). 

It gets even worse as Obama also recently signed an executive order updating the government’s power of eminent domain as it applies to “emergency” situations.  This is not limited to war and can be applied during times of peace.  Essentially, the government says it is allowed to seize and control pretty much anything it wants (food, water, energy, raw materials, etc.).  To be fair, the only real changes from the 1994 version of the order were to add in the Department of Homeland Security, so we can really only blame Obama here for upholding too broad of an existing power rather than new power like elsewhere in this list.

We’ll close this sorry list out with a quick mention of the NSA’s new Utah facility, which is another attack on our individual legal rights, as it enables the government to implement Obama’s recent guidance to the intelligence community stating that he thinks they now can store digital information on US citizens with no suspected ties to terrorism for up to five years (versus the previous directive to destroy it immediately).

On the positive side, Obama did stand up for the 1^st Amendment with regards to SOPA/PIPA, essentially forcing those bills to be dramatically altered, scrapped entirely, and/or restarted from scratch out of concerns for free speech and cybersecurity.  I’m sure this isn’t the end for the matter and I see this as an ongoing battle.

Obama gets both credit and criticism on gay rights.  He repealed DADT.  Obama has not yet pushed for a full repeal of DOMA and its unconstitutional measures, but he has stopped defending it.  So, he gets credit for agreeing with me on the constitutionality of DOMA.  However, the problem is the president is required by the Constitution to, “Take care that the Laws be faithfully executed,” per Article 3, Section 3.  So, he’s violating the Constitution in the process here.  We can’t have a president deciding that, just because he disagrees with a law, he won’t enforce it, whether we like the law or not.  The same goes for a president trying to enforce a law that doesn’t exist.  Both are dangerous.  Again, this is an ongoing battle.

Did I miss any?

I think it can always be worse, but I’m not about to detail exactly how.  Obama doesn’t need my help in coming up with ways to trample the Constitution.

Book Review – Myth of the Robber Barons by Burton Fulsom Jr.

I recently read “Myth of the Robber Barons” by Burton Fulsom Jr.  This is the second book of his I’ve read and reviewed, with “New Deal or Raw Deal” being the first. 

Let me just start off by saying this is a very quick read.  I read it on my way to Las Vegas this spring, which was a 6-hour flight.  It’s a short book at less than 150 pages with pictures and a large, spread-out font.  In addition to being small, it’s also hard to put down once you start a chapter. 

Fulsom challenges the popular historical notion that all of the successful big business leaders of 19^th and early 20^th century America were evil, exploitive, greedy, detrimental to society, etc.  He does this by acknowledging that, yes, some of them lived up to the anti-capitalist rhetoric.  However, he also presents several examples of men who did not. 

Fulsom created a vital distinction early in the book between market and political entrepreneurs (MEs and PEs for brevity from here on).  The PEs are what we would call crony capitalists today, meaning entities who tried to succeed in the economy not through competition (innovation, cost reduction, addition/creation of value, etc.), but by connection to and/or preferential treatment from the government (bailouts, carve-outs, regulations that help the PE at the ME’s expense, government contracts, etc.).  MEs are what we would call free market capitalists today and succeed through competition rather than government favoritism.

Fulsom presents several examples and key takeaways from each, which I’ll list briefly below.

The first chapter looked at Commodore Vanderbilt and steam ships.  The key takeaway is that price cuts can benefit people.  By competing on price, Vanderbilt made steamship travel accessible to the average American in the regions where he operated. A luxury became a commodity, in essence.  This forced the competition to cut prices to stay up with him (who says deflation is always a bad thing?).  He also presents a good example of an ME versus a PE, with Vanderbilt being the ME and winning multiple times. 

Chapter 2 explores James Hill and railroads.  This chapter was a compare and contrast exercise between Hill’s railroads and the Transcontinental Railroad.  What was interesting here was the discussion of incentive structures in the context of the public and private sectors.  The Transcontinental Railroad builders were paid on a per-mile basis, so they would lay as much track as fast as possible, leading to both shoddy work (that would need to be redone) and inefficient, windy paths.  Hill focused on building the tracks right, with straight lines and low grade whenever possible.

And we move onto the Scrantons, iron rails, and cities.  Here, it’s a discussion of the iron rail industry in the area and a compare and contrast of Scranton versus Wilkes-Barre (both in Pennsylvania) back when the state wasn’t fully settled.  Scranton is presented as an example of smart urban planning and preparation for expansion.  The most interesting discussion here was about succession of wealth and how well families can maintain a wealthy status over multiple generations.  Basically, dynasties aren’t so easy to build and especially don’t survive as well as commonly believed.

Chapter 4 takes us to Charles Schwab, Andrew Carnegie, and the steel industry.  The main thing to take away from this chapter is that high pay for high performance actually works as a compensation model.  It was how Carnegie and Schwab were able to dominate the steel industry (on multiple occasions).  Their workers were properly incentivized.  Schwab also presented an example of wealth not necessarily staying once it’s been built. 

We come to John Rockefeller and the oil industry next.  By dominating the industry via competing on price, Rockefeller brought energy to the masses.  What was previously a luxury confined only to the rich (oil-based energy) became accessible to the average American.  This is another example of price cuts (aka deflation) benefitting people and a luxury becoming a commodity.  Rockefeller was not unlike Vanderbilt from before.

Chapter 6 looks at Andrew Mellow as Secretary of the Treasury and the birth supply-side economics in today’s terms.  Mellon’s policies, and the results thereof, showed that tax rates cannot be confused with tax revenues.  Fulsom presented IRS data to make his case, which is an interesting one. 

The last chapter focuses on why most historians today miss the mark on this period of American history.  Aside from the ME/PE distinction, there is the question of whether these men got rich through monopolies, as many historians argue, or whether they got rich by being the best at what they do, as Fulsom argues.  Fulsom also highlights that these men often succeeded where the government failed.  He shows samples from several prominent US history textbooks and why their accounts are both misleading and inaccurate.  This was a nice, neat way to close it up.

Here’s the bottom line.  This is a quick and worthwhile read.  It’s particularly good for those who believe these men truly were robber barons rather than successful entrepreneurs.  Obviously, there are more detailed books about each individual, but this is a solid compilation.

Avenged Sevenfold and Halestorm (Concert Season Review 2012 Edition Part 1)

I’m expecting a light concert season for 2012, as I only have two shows confirmed.  The first was this past Friday (Avenged Sevenfold and Halestorm at the Mohegan Sun Arena) and the second won’t be until late August (Carnival of Madness, same venue). 

I’ll put the review for Friday’s show first and follow that with a couple concert season odds and ends.

First up was Halestorm.  The name sounded familiar, but I’d never heard any of their music, live or otherwise.  Opening bands are a crapshoot, especially if you’ve never heard their music before.  Halestorm delivered in a big way and probably are the best new (to me) opener I’ve ever heard.  They were on for about 45 minutes, if I recall correctly, and their set included songs from both of their albums.  Freak Like Me, American Boys, and Here’s to Us were off their new album and were all solid performances, but the one that sold me was Familiar Taste of Poison from their first album.  I actually ordered both of their albums from Amazon the day after.  They were that good.  Musically, the band is excellent, but I was impressed with the drummer and especially the lead singer.  Their lead singer is a powerful female vocalist with the certain gruffness or edge to her sound (like a Janis Joplin) but still has a flair for softer, slower, and darker (like the lead singers of Evanescence or Nightwish, except without the classically-trained feel).  The drummer can pound and the guitars and bass come into the mix nicely, with speed and hardness, but not overpoweringly so.  Their stage presence was great, as well.  Halestorm clearly knew how to work the room and did thank the fans for making it possible.  A good opener will prime the crowd for the headliners and make a name for themselves, as well.  Halestorm did both masterfully here.

Then, we got Avenged Sevenfold (A7X).  This was my first time seeing them live and I have all five of their studio albums.  It should’ve been my second time, but that story comes later.  A7X started with Nightmare, the title track of their most recent album, and blew the roof off.  The crowd was absolutely on fire and that frantic pace kept up for pretty much the entire 90 or so minutes they were on.  These guys rock hard, really hard.  Beast and the Harlot and Welcome to the Family followed.  They even went back to the Waking the Fallen album on multiple occasions.  Buried Alive was an absolutely awesome performance, complete with pyro.  These higher-energy songs were consistently mind-blowing, but the “lighter and slower” (relative versus absolute) songs like So Far Away, Afterlife, and A Little Piece of Heaven were possibly even better, particularly the last two.  A7X is extremely talented musically all the way through.  Guitars, vocals, bass, and drums are all incredibly strong, certainly one of the best collections of talent on the scene today.  I hear both the 80’s/90’s heavy metal and the 90’s/2000’s hardcore and hard rock in A7X, which is truly awesome.  The stage presence was great and even had a little light drinking, though obviously not enough to impair performance.  They of course thanked the fans for making it possible and absolutely delivered.

Overall, this was one of the best concerts I’ve ever been to.  It was well worth the price of admission and the venue was great.  The arena played Metallica and similar rock during the intermissions.  Both bands took the time to acknowledge the fans and thank us for making it possible for the bands to do what they do (this is a simple gesture that is more noticeable in its absence than its presence, as I detailed in a previous review for a band I won’t name here).  I’ll gladly pay to see either band again and will follow them.  I even walked away with a new zip-up hoodie and a hat (I usually only get one item per show, so I was a big spender getting two this time). 

And the extra notes I mentioned.

The Rockstar Mayhem Tour in early August is a maybe.  I have calendar questions, and I have issues with the nearest venue, namely the Comcast Center in Hartford.  I went to Mayhem there last year, which was a great show, but the lawn area was flea-infested (and you’re not safe even in the seated area).  I was covered in bites.  When I got home, I stripped naked on the back porch and left clothes, shoes, and stuff outside before going straight for the showers.  Probably not what you want to hear, but this was no joke.  Furthermore, I was supposed to go to the Rockstar Uproar Tour there last September, but didn’t because I broke my foot the day before and the venue’s accommodations for injured/handicap people were, in my view, deficient to the point of being dangerous whether using crutches or a wheelchair.  Even if I didn’t have calendar issues, I’d still think twice about going there, at least during the summer.  The sound quality is sold, but the venue itself is beyond awful.

Unlike last year, when I didn’t start doing concert reviews until well into the season, I’ll do a whole post for each concert I attend.  I need stuff to write about outside of the world’s three-ring circus comprised of the 2012 US election, the Eurozone collapse, and miscellaneous history/current events. 

And that, as they say, is that.