Leslie Flint spirit communication recordings upgraded

Leslie Flint (1911-1994) was a direct voice medium. Direct voice is the strangest, rarest, and most controversial form of mediumship. I know of no practitioner of it today, although it is likely that they exist but prefer to avoid publicity and work privately in a circle of friends.

Most mediums, who convey messages from spirits who have passed through death to the Other Side, speak -- either consciously or in a trance -- in their own voice, sometimes altered by the personality of the spirit. (This posting will avoid the tedium of qualifying every statement with words like "alleged," "claimed," etc.; your blogger is fully aware that mediumship arouses no end of skepticism and objections, which will be touched on briefly later.)

In contrast, a direct voice medium such as Flint enables the spirit to speak in his or her own voice, which seems to issue from somewhere outside the medium. That sounds impossible. We cannot say it is possible, only that it appears to happen. I hesitate to mention a suggested explanation, that a medium such as Flint creates a secondary voice box out of ectoplasm, because many fraudulent extrusions of ectoplasm have been exposed over the years. The word understandably has become a joke, but until a better explanation comes along we have to admit that ectoplasm may not always be a trick.

Leslie Flint, photo from the cover of his autobiography

The spirits who were called up by Leslie Flint over many years were recorded. Here is a partial list of those who spoke in his presence, with links to the recordings. These come close to the Holy Grail of psychical research -- a "permanent paranormal object" that can be studied continually, as opposed to most paranormal phenomena that happen spontaneously in a particular time and place and are then unrecoverable, so that all that is left is personal testimony (sneeringly dismissed by the Materialist Scientific Establishment as "anecdotal").

There has still been one problem with the Flint recordings: the sound quality is godawful. He used a home tape recorder and what seems to have been a primitive microphone. As if that wasn't enough, the voices came from mid-air, which means that lots of ambient noise was also captured.

Fascinated with the possibility of hearing the actual voices of spirits -- some of whom were famous during their Earth lives -- I have listened to a number of the recordings. Most have tried my patience. Not that the voices can't (in most cases) be heard and understood, but it's hard work making them out through the sonic grunge. Ever since the recordings first appeared on the Web many years ago, I wished that modern computer noise reduction techniques would be used to clean them up. I doubted it would happen in my lifetime, and possibly not ever.

But such a project apparently has started.

The Leslie Flint Educational Trust now offers a few of the recordings in vastly improved audibility on its own YouTube channel. Some examples follow.

Ellen Terry, image by the brilliant Victorian
photographer Julia Cameron

Ellen Terry (1847-1928) was the leading stage actress of her day, admired by almost all its leading artistic figures, even the sour George Bernard Shaw (with whom she carried on an extensive correspondence). Here is a brief recording of her spirit from the Flint tapes; here, a longer one.

I find these recordings convincing; aside from the elevation of the thoughts she expresses, the voice is what I would expect a leading actress of her time to sound like -- actors in the 19th and early 20th century were supposed to speak the "Queen's English," very posh. (I once saw a funny film clip of Laurence Olivier parodying the elocutionary style of stage dialogue he remembered from his youth.) You almost never hear an accent like this in England today, even in Oxford or Cambridge.

Arthur Conan Doyle devoted most of his last years to psychical research and wrote several books on the subject. Here he is in a Flint recording (if you're already familiar with his biography, you might want to skip the introduction):

Frédéric Chopin gives an eloquent description of his death and awakening in the afterlife:

The other recordings upgraded by the Leslie Flint Educational Trust can be accessed here.

Let us turn briefly to the skeptical objections to the authenticity of Leslie Flint's direct voice mediumship. A lot of them might as well be phrased, "The dead disappear, or they never return, therefore this carry-on is impossible, therefore it's phony." He produced his phenomena in the dark -- very common among mediums, which arouses much derision and has been used by fake mediums to hide their sins. Why spirits need darkness to appear has been the subject of elaborate discussion, and I don't fully understand the explanations given, but it is not prima facie evidence of fraud.

According to the Wikipedia article about Flint:

The Society for Psychical Research investigated Flint and concluded that the voices heard at his séances were auditory hallucinations brought on by hypnosis. Another experiment conducted by Dr. Louis Young involved roping Flint to a chair and putting colored water to hold in his mouth during the séance. After the ceremony, the researchers found that the water that was stored in Flint’s mouth was only fractionally less, which implies that his throat did not open in an attempt to speak. Other studies conducted by The Society for Psychical Research as well as other researchers of Flint involved conducting séances with plaster-sealed lips, microphones wired to amplifiers placed over his larynx to magnify noises, and the fixation of an infrared telescope on Flint to focus on his every movement in the dark. Flint was also investigated by Professor William Bennett of Columbia University, who after extensive testing concluded that Flint was genuine. Despite these studies failing to disprove that Flint was producing the noises through his throat, it is believed that he may have produced voices from his stomach. He has also been accused of using prerecorded tapes to produce voices, as well as live accomplices providing a two-way voice channels.

Being able to hypnotize a tape recorder time after time is perhaps more bizarre than enabling spirits to speak in their own voices. So is the idea that Flint was a ventriloquist who could speak with his lips sealed and holding water in his mouth. If he produced the voices with his virtuoso stomach, then I can sing "Celeste Aida" by wiggling my ears.

It is theoretically possible that the speakers might have been living accomplices, though most of his sessions were attended by witnesses who probably would have sensed the presence of an extra person even in the dark. Besides, it would take an actress of Royal Shakespeare Company or National Theatre caliber to convincingly emulate the Ellen Terry we hear, and it's hard to imagine a reputable actress being willing to participate in any such dodgy enterprise.

Some commenters I've read claim the voices all sound suspiciously alike, or like Leslie Flint. That is so wide of the mark that I can only assume they are from Americans, who are clueless about British accents -- reviewers on the American Netflix site gripe that British films should have subtitles.

Consider the recording of the spirit of John Brown, Queen Victoria's companion in her later years at her estate in Scotland. It's not one of the cleaned-up recordings, but it's fairly clear. That's Scottish speech if I ever heard it. (There has been much speculation about the reason for the close relationship between Victoria and Brown; based on the Flint tapes of them both, Brown was a medium and Victoria a secret spiritualist -- the monarch obviously could hardly make her belief public.)

Or Thomas Jefferson.  This one, unfortunately, was recorded at too low a level, but if you boost the volume to the max or your computer is connected to an amplifier, you can make him out. To my ear, he talks in a combination of the speech of England and the lovely traditional Virginia drawl. I live in Virginia and recognize it. The hybrid accent is exactly what you would expect of a man born in the British colony of Virginia.

And hark to Jeremiah, who was killed serving in the army of Oliver Cromwell whose forces de-throned and eventually de-headed King Charles I. I've never heard an accent like this. We may be listening to the voice of a man of the 1640s, as if we traveled back in time.

None of this means there can be no reasonable objections to the phenomena. Although I have little doubt that Flint was able to bring spirits into his environment, not all were necessarily the persons they claimed they were. Many childish spirits take great amusement in conning the living and impersonating famous deceased. I have read they can be quite convincing.

Like everything else in psychical research, the meaningful question is not whether we have strict proof. The verdict rests on a more commonsense consideration: what seems most likely based on the evidence, taken as a whole?

Cicero on moral ends

 

Marcus Tullius Cicero's On Moral Ends is probably among the least read of his works, limited to a scholarly audience. (His "best seller" remains the collection of letters to his friend Atticus.) I happened on this book by chance, rescuing it from a batch about to be tossed out. It was the original 1914 Loeb Classical Library edition, with the Latin and English translation on facing pages. After a century it was in delicate shape, and eventually the pages started coming loose from the binding as I turned them; although I was able to read it through, it was beyond my attempts to repair it. I will be the last person to read this copy.

Obscure it may be, but only because Cicero's other literary creations outshine it, as the sun dims the stars by day. I found it thoroughly absorbing and finished reading it with an even greater respect for its author.

Cicero wrote this at a bad time in his life, although nothing in the text suggests that. In 45 B.C. his beloved daughter Tullia had recently died; the storm clouds of the Civil War that would end the Roman Republic were gathering, and Cicero the lawyer and politician was out to pasture. Perhaps to divert his mind, he turned his attention to moral philosophy, his subject here.

The form is a fantasy debate among spokesmen for three philosophical schools (and some derivatives) that vied for acceptance in his day: the Epicurean, the Stoic, and the Academic -- in the sense of the then-current version of Plato's Academy at Athens. (In fact, part of the book is "set" in Athens.)

This is far more profound than a mere "he said, then he said" kind of debate. Each advocate is given the opportunity for an extended argument. Then the narrator, "Cicero" (it's not clear to me whether the character actually represents the historical Cicero's views) answers each point. If this sounds dry and academic in the modern sense, it seemed to me anything but. It's a fabulous intellectual showpiece. 

"Cicero's" criticisms of each school of thought aren't so much an attempt to arrive at Truth as to counter arguments by either showing the weaknesses of the premises or accepting the premises but trying to show that they lead to false conclusions or unacceptable consequences.

Reading De Finibus one gets a vivid impression of why Cicero was a much admired (and feared) courtroom advocate. Rome had no state prosecution office for criminal accusations; individuals accused and prosecuted (with the representation of their attorneys) other individuals. A Roman lawyer worked as both accuser and defender, depending on his client. You can observe in the book how cleverly Cicero could argue either side of a case. In character for the advocate of a philosophical position, he makes a detailed, organic pitch for that view. I found myself thinking each time, in effect: this is devastating. Then he argues against it just as cogently.

It's impossible to convey the spirit of the book through quotation, because of this extended combat of ideas. But for a taste, here is the Epicurean, arguing that pleasure (in its most refined sense) is the ultimate good:

We are inquiring, then, what is the final and ultimate Good, which as all philosophers are agreed must be of such a nature as to be the End to which all other things are means, while it is not in itself a means to anything else. This Epicurus finds in pleasure; pleasure he holds to be the Chief Good, pain the Chief Evil. 

This he sets out to prove as follows: Every animal, as soon as it is born, seeks for pleasure, and delights in it as the Chief Good, while it recoils from pain as the Chief Evil, and so far as possible avoids it. This it does as long as it remains unperverted, at the prompting of Nature's own unbiased and honest verdict. Hence Epicurus refuses refuses to admit any necessity for argument or discussion to prove that pleasure is desirable and pain to be avoided.

Anticipating the reply that people do choose painful things at times for various reasons, he adds:

No one rejects, dislikes or avoids pleasure itself, because it is a pleasure, but because those who do not know how to pursue pleasure rationally encounter consequences that are extremely painful. Nor again is there anyone who loves or pursues or desires to obtain pain of itself, because it is pain, but because occasionally circumstances occur in which toil and pain can procure him some great pleasure. To take a trivial example, which of us ever undertakes laborious physical exercise, except to obtain some advantage from it? ...

In a free hour, when our power of choice is untrammeled and when nothing prevents our being able to do what we like best, every pleasure is to be welcomed and every pain avoided. But in certain circumstances and owing to the claims of duty or the obligations of business it will frequently occur that pleasures have to be repudiated and annoyances accepted. 

The wise man therefore always holds in these matters to this principle of selection: he rejects pleasures to secure other greater pleasures, or he endures pains to avoid worse pains.

There is much more sophisticated argument about the Epicurean system, pro and con, as there is about the other concepts of the most important ends to seek in life.

Cicero was obviously an extraordinary figure in his time, and he probably invented most of the dialogue as a mental exercise. I doubt that he could have found such eloquent real-life champions of the philosophies considered. Still, Romans who had any ambitions to be known as learned did emulate the Greeks whose culture was so admired, including their philosophical systems. Say this for them: important men, among the most powerful in the world, took seriously the ultimate question, what is life's highest goal?

But ... even they seemed to have no spiritual life. The gods are scarcely mentioned, and then casually, as a figure of speech (like atheists today say, "Oh my God!"). Lucretius, who lived not long before Cicero, wrote a celebrated poem whose theme was not to worry about imaginary gods, just enjoy the lovely play of matter.

It was one of many ways in which Roman culture was similar to the dominant outlook in the West now.

A tour of the Dreamliner

I was invited on a guest tour of Boeing's new 787 Dreamliner, parked at Reagan National Airport as part of a multiple-stop promotional tour. They didn't have to ask me twice. 

This particular 787, the third to come off the assembly line, was built for certification testing and demonstration. (Deliveries were delayed by several years, but began last year; I think Japan's All Nippon Airways is the only airline currently using it in commercial service. Another 800-some orders are booked.)

It's by no means the biggest airliner, but impressive from the outside -- possibly because those of us in the tour group entered by walking outdoors on a fenced-in path to airstairs, rather than going through the usual jetbridge. As a result we had a full view rather than the tiny glimpse you get entering an airplane cabin from the jetbridge.

I paused to look, much closer than a passenger normally can view it, at the left engine. Again, not the world's largest, but quite the monster. A Rolls-Royce Trent 1000, 70,000 pounds thrust and 20 percent more fuel-efficient than the 767's engines. The nacelle (the engine's outer covering) ends in a pleasingly scalloped edge, which is said to reduce noise.

Normally I am irritatingly immune to being dazzled by technical marvels, but the sight did penetrate my defenses. The engine, and its twin on the right wing, can carry a giant aircraft and 250 people from (for example) Washington to Honolulu nonstop. A secular miracle.

Our tour group was led through the length of the plane's interior. We were not, understandably, allowed to enter the cockpit but could peek into it. It was a typical modern "glass" cockpit with the usual computer monitor displays, but I was interested to see a pink "window" between the captain's seat and the airplane windshield. (I'm sure one is available to the first officer when the FO is the pilot flying a segment.) This is a "head-up display," which conveys the critical flight information to the pilot in a see-through view, allowing an instrument scan without having to look down and away from the outside.

Another display I hadn't seen before: one screen had a "moving map" of the airport, the position of the ship shown on a diagram of the taxiways and runways. When the airplane is moving through the airport before takeoff or after landing, the map changes like a GPS monitor (which I guess it is) to show its location.

We were allowed into the crew rest quarters, something I'd never visited. On long-haul trips, a relief crew accompanies the original crew and flight crewmembers can use the space for sleep or rest. It is not luxurious. You couldn't stand up in it. Not for those with an allergy to confined spaces. (There's another, for cabin crewmembers, aft of the passenger cabin.)

You've probably read about the trippy lighting effects in the cabin. The overhead lights are LEDs in multiple colors, capable of producing individually or in combination various "mood" effects. This is a welcome development: more atmospheric and softer than the harsh white glare of traditional airliner cabins.

The windows are terrific. They're quite a bit larger than on other planes, which offers a better view and I imagine reduces the feeling of confinement during flight. The electronic "window shades" are operated by pushing a button. You can select between clear and "closed" as the window modulates through gradations of green -- it can go dark but is never entirely opaque. About one minute is needed to go from one extreme of translucence to the other. Maybe it's no big deal once the novelty wears off, but the plus-size windows are definitely an asset.

The demo 787 had sample seats in the business class cabin (no first class) and the economy class cabin. In-flight entertainment systems are constantly getting fancier, but don't expect more room if you fly economy in the Dreamliner. The same economics will apply. Seating configurations (determined by the airline, not Boeing) will be designed to put as many bodies as possible in the space allotted. Wider aisles? Don't be ridiculous.

I've never flown in business class on a long-haul flight. I spent a few moments in a Dreamliner business class seat, or maybe chair is a better word, savoring the experience. I may not have it again.

Was there ever a United States of America?

 

Emphasis on United? No, not really.

It was doomed before it even existed, in the 17th century, the moment a black slave set foot on soil that would eventually become part of the USA. Importing slaves from Africa was the Original Sin. 

In a thinly populated country, the plantation owners believed they had no choice if they wanted labor to work in their fields. White indentured servants wouldn't do it. You couldn't hire freeborn people for that kind of work. All that. Jut the same, they were spiking the country that had yet to be born. 

As to the morality of the slave trade: it was understandable; it was immoral. But more to our point today, it set in motion the situation that led to where we are now. The Not-United States.

History, right up to the current news, shows that an African tribal culture cannot be grafted onto a European-derived republic. It has never worked; it does not work.

What about the great experiment in self-government created by Jefferson, Madison, Washington, Hamilton, and all the rest of the founders? It was as brilliant a start as any nation has ever had. But there was no United States even after Independence. The states could barely be persuaded to join in a federal union. The tensions between North and South were always there; sometimes subdued, sometimes sharp. Only a series of compromises (most notably the Missouri Compromise of 1820 and that of 1850) held the union precariously together, until finally it snapped.

The War Between the States "settled" the matter only by brute force, culminating in something close to terrorism by the North. For 20 years after the war the South was occupied territory, its governance turned over to northern carpetbaggers and blacks. This was not a United States.

 

I'll own that there was a relatively brief stretch when we were something like a cohesive country. For an arbitrary start date, I'll say 1900, when the War generation was mostly gone and personal memories of Reconstruction, so-called, were fading. The great immigration tide, which transformed the demography of the North, yet consisted largely of Europeans who came here to become Americans.

World War II probably postponed the dissolution. Americans believed they were fighting for civilization itself. Despite a few race riots and zoot suit riots, they overwhelmingly pulled together.

The era of a Something-Like-United States ended -- again, to choose an arbitrary date -- about 1960.

Unlike the majority of our population now, I remember the pre-1960 America. I was a child, but some childhood memories remain vivid. It was nothing like the super-Balkanized mess we live in today. 

In my view, it cannot be put back together again. I sympathize with people who consider themselves patriots and want to believe in a restoration of the old America, but they are far outnumbered by others who not only don't know what the old America was like, but think of it as a model of everything that was racist and sexist and imperialist.

It's time to let go of warm fantasies. 

Original Sin has caught up with us. Cultural Marxism rules the national institutions. The federal system is dead, Washington, D.C. the sun around which we all revolve.

Many people don't accept these things, but they are powerless. The national political class may yet discover what people are capable of when they feel they have no other option. We are heading for either civil war or repression on a near-totalitarian scale. The only alternative is an agreed-on set of rules whereby states or other jurisdictions can peacefully and legally detach themselves from what they deem intolerable.

Secession. Peaceful, legal secession. We have to make it possible ... not easily or at a whim, but when certain criteria are met.

We don't have much time left.

Queer theory

A queer thing happened at a recent May Day protest. But the queerest bit was how it was reported.

The Dissociated Press produced its annual tear-stained "news" story about how few immivasion activists showed up for the Gimme Citizenship Festival. However, a rival Victim Group™ swelled the protester numbers by at least one.

ATLANTA (AP) — While a black preacher told about 100 immigration protesters that incarcerated blacks and detained immigrants faced similar challenges, Jesse Morgan stood to one side of the May Day demonstrators, holding a large sign that read "Radical Queers Resist."

Although the rally was geared toward illegal immigrants, the 24-year-old Georgia State sociology major said gays can relate, too, because they often face discrimination.

"And besides," he said. "There are queers who are undocumented."

Undocumented queers! If a county fair offered a blue ribbon to the first prize politically correct identity, that would be a strong contender.

Incidentally, the Dissociated Press does not discriminate against reporters who can't write very well. Take the first sentence: "While a black preacher told about 100 immigration protesters that incarcerated blacks and detained immigrants ... " The syntax had me wondering at first why the immigration protesters had incarcerated blacks and detained others of their persuasion. 

But there was yet more queerness.

At the news aggregation (or aggravation) site Lucianne.com, the story's opening was quoted:

ATLANTA — While a black preacher told 100 immigration protesters that incarcerated blacks and detained immigrants faced similar challenges, Jesse Morgan stood to one side of the May Day demonstrators, holding a large sign that read "Radical Q****s Resist." Although the rally was geared toward illegal immigrants, the 24-year-old Georgia State sociology major said gays can relate, too, because they often face discrimination. "And besides," he said. "There are q****s who are undocumented." 

So the original story apparently deemed "queer" too insensitive to print, like n****r ... even though it was a self-described q****r who used the word. The story is now slugged "Updated 09:32 p.m., Wednesday, May 2, 2012."

But in the interim, either the Dissociated Press or Chron.com -- the latter a derivative of the San Francisco Chronicle -- must have changed its proto-mind about whether the Q word was derogatory. After all, a lot of the Chronicle readers are proud to bear the title of queer, or undocumented queer.

One hopes the non-queer undocumented invaders, in Jesse Morgan's phrase, "could relate."

Middle class to California: Drop dead

California, where I lived for more than 10 years, is an American tragedy writ large.

By now no one doubts that. Even Californians who used to express a smug condescension toward less favored parts of the formerly United States can't hide from reality. The state's quality of life has been all but destroyed other than for the very rich. There are people who have made an art form of writing obituaries -- at the old pre-tabloid Times of London it was a respected, plum job -- but the demise of the Golden State is so sad that it's painful to consider.

California can't be fixed, except perhaps in a purely economic sense that leaves out of account almost everything that formerly lured Americans to the place. (Even that is doubtful.) Maybe there is some point in analyzing the cataclysm that has turned California into Mississippi with Mexicans on the plantation and millionaires in the plantation house.

Steven Greenhut, writing in the Orange County Register (the county is a tapestry of suburbs south of L.A.), still wants to believe in the "Dream" but seems to recognize it's near hopeless. His commentary is headlined, "California to middle class: drop dead."

The state is run for the benefit of the very rich, the very poor and public employees. As a result, population growth has slowed as younger people and businesses are pushed out. ...

The state is still growing, but this decline in the rate of growth is a symbolic turning point: The California Dream is over. People don't want to come here even though this is, with little question, the most beautiful state in the union. Americans – even those who like to mock our state – ought to think about what this means for our nation.

California has always been a magnet – a land that has attracted people from across the nation and the world. It's a place that was known for its entrepreneurial spirit and open culture. But it has been turned into a regulatory and tax nightmare, a place where those who already have money can live in their coastal palaces and enjoy the splendor of the landscapes, but where it's unnecessarily difficult to move one's way up the economic ladder. The USC study doesn't reveal anything new as much as it confirms established trends.

We'll get back to that in a moment. First, though, Greenhut does understand some of the state's apparently statutory dysfunction:

California's elected officials have been doing as little planning as possible, unless one counts planning to spend tens of billions of dollars the state doesn't have on a high-speed rail line that will partially replicate what the airlines already do. Our leaders are battling new water-storage facilities and punishing farmers with absurd water-use restrictions. They impose roadblocks to building new highway systems, and land-use regulations make it nearly impossible to build the homes and businesses necessary to meet the needs of a growing population. You can hardly call that planning. ...

This is not a healthy society. And the demographic changes point to an aging population. Far from reducing the burdens on the state government, this will increase them. State officials are not building to meet future needs, but they have been squandering future dollars on excessive pay and pension packages for public employees. Look for a battle between spending to provide services for lower-income Californians and retirement benefits for the most powerful special interest group in the state, public employees. There's no chance the state's most serious fiscal issues will be solved or even addressed soon. Earlier this month, Democratic Assembly leaders announced that they have no time to deal with the governor's modest pension reform plan. They do have time to deal with hundreds of other bills, most of which range from the silly to the crazy.

In other ways, though, Greenhut misunderstands the California problem. Like many of his fellow citizens, and certainly not only in California, he thinks the trouble is about not enough growth. He is typical of homo economicus; he can't conceive of a good life that isn't tied up with more of everything, including population.

"Four million more people have left California for other states in the past two decades than have come here from other states, according to demographer Joel Kotkin," Greenhut says. "The population growth has been coming mainly from immigrants and in-state births, but now the USC study shows that immigrants are going elsewhere. A cynic might say that California's liberal elites have ended the state's contentious battles over illegal immigration by destroying opportunities here."

If I read him correctly, he thinks population growth is by definition a good, or a necessary condition for good. Immigrants "going elsewhere," that's by definition bad. He concludes his tangled thought by implying that destroyed opportunities are a bummer because illegals look for better opportunities elsewhere.

Greenhut calls Joel Kotkin "an old-time liberal." I wouldn't go that far; I'd go farther, call Kotkin insane, an America-hating sickbag. He thinks immigration is our only hope, along with "America’s successful evolution toward a society that will eventually be majority nonwhite, a factor that could prove critical in U.S. relations with developing nations, who will dominate the world’s economic growth for the foreseeable future." You can almost picture him rubbing his hands and salivating as he imagines "persons of color" the dominant ethnicity.

But is Greenhut any different, really, from Kotkin? Greenhut says:

California's leaders want a slower-growing population. Many Californians, even more conservative ones, will be happy that there will be fewer people and less development. But it's disturbing that California's official policy has been to punish people who want to pursue their dreams here. The state's Draconian land-use policies involve limiting growth, thus inflating the cost of property near the coast and pushing less-affluent people inland and to other states.

Greenhut has it backwards, or at least, his view is entirely one-sided. California may be inviting the middle class to drop dead, but the middle class feels the same about California. High taxes and kudzu-like regulations are part of the reason, but unlike demographers and economists, ordinary people have some human values left. According to the Public Population Institute of California, "With just over 37 million people, according to the 2010 Census, California is one and a half times as populous as second-place Texas (25 million). By 2020, California’s population is projected to reach 42 to 48 million people."

No amount of planning can deal with even the state's current overpopulation, let alone an additional 5 to 10 million. The best that planners can do under these circumstances is forcing greater density -- squeezing ever-greater numbers into the same space. More high rise Tokyo-style dwellings. More people commuting in the kind of mass transit cattle cars typical of New York and Boston. Greenhut thinks this will enable immigrants to "pursue their dreams."

"What I find reprehensible beyond belief is that the people pushing [high-density housing] themselves live in single-family homes and often drive very fancy cars, but want everyone else to live like my grandmother did in Brownsville in Brooklyn in the 1920s," Kotkin said, pointing to the "smart-growth" policies that dominate development decisions across California.

It sounds like he's not arguing against high-density housing; rather, he wants it to be equally forced on the wealthy, so they can discover the joys of Brooklyn slum dwelling with families packaged eight or ten to a room. Another post on his blog, however, reveals that he's made his peace with the single family house ... as long as it's home to a big immigrant family.

Some companies, such as Pulte Homes and Lennar, are betting that the multi-generational home — not the rental apartment — may well be the next big thing in housing. These firms report that demand for this kind of product is particularly strong among immigrants and their children.

Lennar has already developed models — complete with separate entrances and kitchens for kids or grandparents — in Phoenix, Bakersfield, the Inland Empire area east of Los Angeles and San Diego, and is planning to extend the concept to other markets. “This kind of housing solves a lot of problems,” suggests Jeff Roos, Lennar’s regional president for the western U.S. 

No it doesn't. A neighborhood of single-family houses shared by three generations is a horizontal Brownsville, with almost the same problems of crowding, noise, and traffic. 

You begin to understand the California disaster. Greenhut probably thinks he's ideologically opposite, or at least different, from Kotkin. But they both believe the future depends on population growth -- Kotkin because he worships immigration, Greenhut because he worships, well, any kind of growth as the road to an abstract prosperity. Neither can imagine that lots of Americans detest, and many middle class Californians are fleeing, the ever-denser Hell of their common Utopia.