Memirial Day Musically

Half the stations on the radio are running patriotic songs with military bands and the same narrative that was probably used 50 years ago. Half the stations are sneaking in (or featuring) protest songs from every era – after all our wars never seem to stop.

Cannot avoid thinking of the stupidity of all that destruction.  The intense passion and desire to send armed forces to third world countries to reverse any development that has been achieved never ends. It appears that contracts have been signed with DD Eisenhower’s favorite complex for another ten years in Kabul (without any discussion in Congress).

When will they ever learn.

Trying vs Cheating

Hot news topics include the Wall Street cheaters, and their quotes ‘If you ain’t cheating, you ain’t trying’    in all the press.  Actually this oft quoted phrase with better grammer can be attributed to Mark Grace when he played for the Chicago Cubs.  It is important to have a look at the world we know.

On Wall Street, they now have focused on ‘conduct risk’ and individual responsibility for ethics.  On main street, companies and retail merchants collect massive data sets, so that if a customer or employee behaves unethically, eventually the computers catch up.  Russian  motorists  find a dash video recorder is essential, and now everyone has to wear go-pro’s (hopefully turning them off in the toilet).

I did the money count at the honor box on my roadside vegetable stand last night.  As usual, there was more money than missing plants and a couple of notes with ‘I owe you 75 cents’ messages. Go figure.

Missing rail passengers

Fifteen years ago there was a horrific rail accident outside Paddington Station in London. Death and injury (31 and 250) were shocking, and the effect on hundreds of others who walked away unscathed was severe as well. The story that often escapes notice was the fairly large number of people unaccounted for.  They did not have a passenger manifest, but the two trains were full, and the dead and injured were added to many who were interviewed and several dozen people simply went missing after the accident.

Each year a few of the missing emerge and they all have similar stories – a contentious divorce, a difficult job, family problems, financial overload, and a general sense of frustration that gave them the brilliant idea to take advantage of the situation and simply walk away, presumably into a new life.

Traveling to places like Rio or Bali or the beach towns in Australia north of Sydney you can go to a restaurant and sit at the bar where nobody has a name. They seem content in their choice, having unburdened their former selves from the weight of a life too heavy.  They will never go back.

We should not expect all the missing from the Philadelphia rail crash to be discovered, at least not locally. They will be joining their fellow travelers in Bali.

Looking at the past as ‘self-fulfilling panic’

A beautiful Spring morning complete with the wafting aroma of wisteria and the morning birds is really a nice time to reflect on disasters over the past decade.  We get help from the thoughtful pundits, who tend to do the same.  Here is my conclusion:

The financial crisis, the global political crisis, and our own personal crisis (potentially plural) are the clear result of leverage (financial and personal), non-linearities,multiple equilibria, and self-fulfilling panic.

To be brief, just think about overextension we have all done over the past decade….more than our individual or collective capacity – that is leverage (with its cousin, risk). Observe that old patterns and structures have diminished, so people and institutions no longer follow linear (straightforward) paths. Then note that most strive to envisage a logical stability, when in fact there are several versions of stability that clash.  And finally, most of our fatal flaws come from panic. Mine did,,,

There, that’s the answer….don’t you feel better already?

 

Druggies

Drugged the dog last night…he had smashed his leg while jumping up into the truck and the vet said there was no damage just ‘soft tissue bruising’ and prescribed  Mobic – a popular human anti-inflammatory that is cheap (about 35 cents a pill).

I hat drugging anybody, particularly family, but just as I gave him his cheeseburger/ pill treat he looked up at me and said ‘how ‘bout you old man?’  So I (for the first time) popped one ibuprofen PM.

We both slept like babies…..