Dispersal

When you are a doggy
you can go from being soggy
to shaken sort-of-dry
in just the blink of an eye.

Labor Day Traffic

August comes to a screeching halt,
and bumps right into September.

This accident must be somebody's fault,
but I'm too dazed to remember.

How Smart Are They?

Yes, from the people who provide the power which makes this post possible:

ComEd confirms smart meters involved in 'small fires'

Small fires. Teeny tiny.
No need to worry or get all whiny.

Time For A Donut?

According to the NY Times, another alleged key to longevity has proven unsuccessful at unlocking that door.

They thought a good way to stay non-dead
was to stay underfed.

But, no:

...the bottom line was that the monkeys that ate less did not live any longer than those that ate normally.

You cannot live forever
by eating minimal food,
what's more, the whole endeavor
may keep you in a bad mood.

By Their Bites Shall Ye Know Them

Flea bites in the house!

I applied a fresh dose of topical bug killer to the dog. He's supposed to get it once every 30 days. I gave it to him 1 day early.

Of course, I'm blaming the cats.

Fleas,
if you please,
begone
before dawn!

Dismissive Reviews

I just read a scary article: Dismissive Reviews: Academe's Memory Hole, by Richard P. Phelps.

The summary says:

...exposes how scholars fail to consult the research that has been done on their chosen topic and blandly claim themselves to be pioneers in the area.

That's scary enough, but the author takes as an example the literature supporting the No Child Left Behind law.

With the single exception of the federal mandate, there was no aspect of the NCLB accountability initiative that had not been tried and studied before. Every one of the NCLB Act’s failings was perfectly predictable, based on decades of prior experience and research. Moreover, there were better alternatives for every characteristic of the program that had also been tried and studied thoroughly by researchers in psychology, education, and program evaluation. Yet, policy makers were made aware of none of them.

Ignorance is bliss,
and it's easy to dismiss
all prior work
that hints where problems lurk.

Denali and Denial

On Friday a grizzly killed a backpacker in Denali National Park in Alaska. It's reported to be the first "fatal mauling" since 1917.

Note: not the first mauling, just the first fatal one.

I wondered whether the backpacker was entitled to carry a gun for defense against predators. It looks like the current answer from the park service is a qualified yes - but:

Contrary to the belief of some, firearms are not needed for protection from bears, and studies have shown that pepper spray may actually be more effective in preventing a bear attack than firearms.

Note the "may". A study that shows something "may actually" be the case... is a study that hasn't decided the question.

So how did the park service handle this man-killing grizzly?

The bear suspected of attacking the man ...was shot on Saturday afternoon from a helicopter, Denali park Superintendent Paul Anderson said.

I don't suppose that was pepper spray they were shooting from the copter.

If they get sufficiently nervous,
even the peaceful park service
uses bullets of lead
to get the bear dead.

Second Chance

Last year I did the Fleet Feet Super Sprint Triathlon, and I did it this morning too.

Last year my time was 51:19. I came in 11 out of 25 men aged 50-59.

This year my time was 51:33. I came in 2 out of 9 men aged 60-69.

My speed stayed the same but because of the way age is reckoned,
this year I came in 2nd.

Reading of Amleth, Princess of Denmark

Play to be mounted in February. Video has sketches from the costume designer, and the voice of Amleth speaking words, words, words.

Saw the staged reading tonight, and, yes -
I predict a big success.

The Trial of the Haymarket Anarchists

I've started reading TheTrial of the Haymarket Anarchists: Terrorism and Justice in the Gilded Age, by Timothy Messer-Kruse.

In case you missed it in history class, the Haymarket Affair involved some socialist-anarchists who were tried and hanged for an 1886 incident, during which a bomb tossed with deadly effect at a bunch of policemen.

It happened right here in Chicago.

The standard story is those convicted were framed by authorities looking to crush the radical labor movement.

But the author, a professor of history, revisited the original source documents - which had recently been digitized, but had remained unstudied by scholars. He says he found the standard story was wrong, and that there was much of evidence of guilt.

In his introduction, the author explains how he got interested in the case:

Ten years ago, while I was teaching a labor history course, one of my students raised her hand and asked, "Professor, if it is true, what it says in our textbook, that there was 'no evidence whatsoever connecting them withthe bombing,' then what did they talk about in the courtroom for six weeks?" I had no answer for her because I had never though of the question this way.

Six weeks would be a long sprawl
for a trial with no evidence at all.

Kindergarten vs. U of M

This law needs a constitutional challenge - the "sooner" the better:

An Oklahoma City kindergartner was forced to turn his University of Michigan shirt inside out last week because it violated a city ban on any apparel not supportive of the state's college teams.

Oklahoma City,
your attitude's not pretty.

It's not OK
to act this way.

Casino Clawback

Well I can see where they'd be upset:

A New Jersey casino has sued a group of gamblers who won $1.5 million after they allegedly realized the eight decks of cards used in a game of mini baccarat were not preshuffled.

Now the casino feels burned,
and wants the winnings returned.

Killer Skillets

First I saw this local story:

An Elgin woman is charged with first-degree murder after allegedly hitting her boyfriend in the head with a frying pan during an argument in the home they shared.

Then I saw it was a national trend:

GREENEVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - Greene County authorities say a man has died after being hit on the head with a frying pan.

Then I realized it was an international problem:

A Russian man died after being hit on the head with a frying pan by his wife, who was "driven by jealousy," a local investigation committee said Saturday.

All these stories are from this year!

How many must die, before we ban
the often-deadly frying pan?

Makes Me Feel Sane

This is her 4th attempt:

American Diana Nyad endured several jellyfish stings as the 62-year-old endurance athlete sought to become the first person to swim unaided from Cuba to Florida without a wetsuit or a shark cage.

That's 103 miles, or 166 kilometers, of swimming.

Swimming for days, in light and in dark,
hoping she won't get bit by a shark.

Masculinity and Femininity

At our discussion group last night, we were talking about what masculinity and femininity mean, and how you might define them.

I had done a 20 mile run earlier in the day, and was probably not at my sharpest.

My own line of thinking is that male and female traits are deeply rooted in biological differences, hormonally actuated to a large extent, and that the differences are complicated, as biological things often are.

I suppose we could pause and look at the varying shades of meanings of masculinity, maleness, manliness, virility, and so forth. I have the sense that masculinity is used more for the psychological side of human maleness, at least in everyday speech.

I think you have to start with something like these wikipedia definitions, which are amusingly non-parallel:

Masculinity is possessing qualities or characteristics considered typical of or appropriate to a man.

Femininity (also called womanliness or womanhood) is a set of attributes, behaviors, and roles generally associated with girls and women.

There are clusters of traits
of various weights
which tend
to trend
by sex.

But the way they play out is complex.

Scary Women

Putin fears the women of Pussy Riot.
He hopes that locking them will keep things quiet.

I think this will backfire. I think that by locking them up, he will make them more powerful than he can possibly imagine.

For the Riot's part in this all-too-serious game,
I'd put them into the Rock and Roll hall of fame.

Possessed

Good news for the defendants:

Two suburban Chicago parents accused of binding and blindfolding two of their children in a Wal-Mart parking lot in Kansas will stand trial separately on felony child abuse and other charges, a Douglas County judge ruled Thursday.

I figure it's good news for them because in separate trials each can blame the other for the bad treatment of the children.

I wonder if their attorneys will try to make it a freedom of religion case:

At a preliminary hearing this week, investigators said Adolfo Gomez told them he had been listening to an online preacher who was predicting the end of the world and that a “darkness had come over” their house in Northlake, Ill.

One of the defense attorneys said the unusual child-rearing practice was intended as protection from demons.

As far as I can tell from the story, the children weren't physically hurt, so I do wonder about the fairness of "felony child abuse" charges in this case. On the other hand, these people do sound like they've lost touch with everyday reality.

I have a spell,
that works very well
at keeping demons away.

"Demons begone!
Get off of my lawn!"
I've barely seen any today.

Running Out Of Other People's Money

Why must pyramid schemes,
with payouts of my dreams,
face the wrath
of basic math?

Assaulting My Ancestry

Researcher is determined to undermine the pride that I feel deep inside:

Study casts doubt on human-Neanderthal interbreeding theory

Cambridge scientists claim DNA overlap between Neanderthals and modern humans is a remnant of a common ancestor

I'm a Neanderthal-hybrid-hyphenated-American, and don't you forget it!

Sometimes I crave
to crawl in a cave
and scrawl on the wall.

Isn't that proof, after all?

Summers Traveled

Sixty summers traveled
round the golden sun,
thread not yet unraveled,
story not yet done.

When and where the ending,
that is known by none,
so I'll go on wending
while my decades run.

Vortex

We saw Vortex, the play that made Noel Coward famous. It does swirl rapidly with his witty dialog, but at its core it's a serious play, listing to the drama side of "comedy-drama".

Witty is how it starts off appearing
but then it goes veering
into the searing.

Reading Mary Shelley's book

The monster, in Frankenstein,
was ugly and less than benign.

His genius creator
figured out, somewhat later,
the need for more careful design.

Words Words Words

Major media figure says sorry:

Time magazine and CNN suspended Fareed Zakaria, the writer and television host, on Friday after he apologized for plagiarizing sections of his column on gun control in the Aug. 20 issue of Time.

If you need to cut and paste,
paraphrase so it can't be traced!

Apparently he did paraphrase somewhat, but not enough. Some paragraphs were still recognizable borrowings. Uncredited, of course.

I do think the "cut and paste" feature is partly responsible for all these famous writers getting caught. Writers paste in a paragraph they like - with the intention of rewording it. But, they're in a hurry, they lose track of which parts they reworded, and they let it slip through in recognizable form.

In the old days, when we worked on typewriters, there was no cut and paste. You looked at the original author's prose, and you paraphrased on the fly. That was safer. His exact words never made it into your document.

I think Word needs a "paste reworded" option.

Students doing papers would find it invaluable.

My friend William Dale tells me that Twitter is abuzz with reports that an assistant of Zakaria is the one who really made the mistake, and that Zakaria failed to catch it.

But... if my assistant is careful, and makes sure to write original prose, and then I put MY name on it... is that okay? Well it's ghostwriting, not plagiarism.

But it's still a bit misleading
as to whose prose you are reading.

"This is a certified all-original post."
Signed - My Ghost.

Cougar Alert

People are sighting cougars again in Illinois.

A Glencoe public safety officer spotted a "large cat-type animal resembling a cougar" on July 26 crossing a street near the intersection of Dell Place and Lakeside Terrace, just off the Lake Michigan shoreline, according to a police alert.

Of course, a few years ago, police shot a cougar dead in a Chicago alley.

I find this trend worrisome.

I'm not talking 'bout women
who want to go swimmin'
with men of the younger variety.

I'm talking 'bout creatures
with incisive features
who do not mix well with society.

Joy of Sects

There's a crazy Russian variety of Islam, called Fayzarahmanism, which would be an excellent Scrabble word except I'm not sure it would fit on the board.

It was started by a guy who declared his house to be its own Islamic state, and moved all his followers into bunkers under his house!

Members of a Russian sect found living in an underground bunker with some 20 children, many of whom have never seen the sun, have been charged with child abuse.

On the bright side, all these children were protected from skin cancer!

On the dark side,
their world has been narrow, not wide.

Readiness Potential

I always think there's something funny about neuroscientists trying to decide a question like "is there such a thing as conscious free will". They can't account, really, for consciousness itself, at least not yet, so how far can they get with "conscious free will". But back in the 80's a guy named Libet did some interesting experiments.

He gave people some decisions to make, and asked people to record the time when they decided them. He showed that there was a blip in the brain 550 milliseconds before a person was aware of deciding.

So he figured that blip, er, signal, was the real decision, occurring in some non-conscious way, and that the conscious mind became aware of the decision a teeny bit later and took credit for it.

This sort of fits the Freudian model. The id decides, the ego makes  up a reason for the id's dark doings.

But now... some other people ran some new experiments, which question whether that initial blip is really a secret decision or just the brain gearing up to decide.

"We argue that what looks like a pre-conscious decision process may not in fact reflect a decision at all. It only looks that way because of the nature of spontaneous brain activity."

There's many a slip
and maybe a blip
twixt the cup and the lip.

No Sympathy

Good to know:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid wants no sympathy for the heat he’s taking over his unproven accusation about Mitt Romney’s taxes.

“No one should feel sorry for me,” Reid said in Las Vegas on Monday afternoon...

Don't cry for me, U.S. people...

I'm in a very good humor.
The truth is I'm just spreading rumors
that grow like malignant tumors.

Rumor Mongering

A certain politician spread an evidence-free rumor that a presidential candidate had paid no income tax during certain years.

Now, in retaliation, people on the web are purposely spreading a baseless rumor about the first politician.

It's poetic justice for the liar,
but situations can turn dire
when fire is fought with fire.

Long Run

Did a long run today in hot weather (90s F). I took in a lot of fluid while running, or so I thought.

My route is designed to visit a lot of water fountains in public parks. And i also made 3 convenience store purchases along the way - 2 Gatorades and 1 Mountain Dew.

Still, when I was done running, I was 3 pounds lighter than when I got up in the morning. That's 3 pints of water missing from my body.

Sometimes your pores are pumping water out faster than your gut can take it in.

When your sweat is dripping,
keep sipping.

World Record

I just watched Missy Franklin break the world record for the women's 200 meter backstroke.

As swimming records go, she smashed it by more than half a second.

She's 17.

These people live strange lives. At 17, how many hours has she logged in pools, swimming lap after lap? Compared to most folks, Olympians exhibit a level of focus that looks like monomania.

You see the focus in her face,
the drive that brought her to this place,
to share this strange amazing grace.

The Appearance Of Impropriety

Finished reading The Appearance of Impropriety: How the Ethics Wars Have Undermined American Government, Business, and Society, by Peter W. Morgan and Glenn Reynolds.

The thesis, in brief, is that the Watergate era spawned a lot of formal ethical claptrap, the announced purpose of which was to remove "even the appearance of impropriety," but the actual result of which was a fog of ethical confusion. People get prosecuted for mere appearances despite having done nothing really wrong, and other people commit gross ethical violations while hiding behind the fact that they followed the official ethical check list.

Beware of confusingly detailed ethical rules
designed to play the innocent for fools.

Chick-Fil Full

I'm fine with the formal hitching of gay folk, but I'm amused by the chicken backlash.

It was a mistake, I believe, for politicians to threaten a sandwich chain's owner for believing what Obama said he believed four years ago. The Chicago stores were reportedly quite busy today. Apparently free speech remains a local value.

Somehow there was no similar boycott drama
four years ago about the beliefs of Obama.

Chatting About The Cattiness Of Cats

I sip at, Wikipedia, fount of neutral wisdom:

The problem of universals is about their status; as to whether universals exist independently of the individuals of whom they can be predicated or if they are merely convenient ways of talking about and finding similarity among particular things that are radically different.

It seems a hard choice - "independent" or "merely convenient".
I seek another path, objective but lenient.

No Spoilers

For me, Dark Knight Rises
held pleasant surprises.

Graphic Failure

Here's a light-bulb-with-caduceus graphic, from a Chicago Tribune article. The opinion-piece, by an "ethicist," argues that tech innovation will thrive under the new health care reform law.

Getting efficient about handling records, data, imaging, biomonitoring and sharing information is a key goal of reform.

Yes, they need more info about your health on federal computers. And it's going to work well! After all, it's a "key goal".

(I will say nothing about how well federal programs generally meet their announced "key goals".)

Anyway, what interests me is the graphic. Why does an article about federally-induced tech innovation feature an old-fashioned incandescent light bulb? Shouldn't it feature a federally-mandated twisty fluorescent?



These pricey bulbs, although
mandated from above,
have failed to earn the glow
of consumer love.

South Shore Tri

I did Chicago's South Shore Triathlon this morning.

Last time I swam without a wetsuit. This time I wore won. My swim was faster this year - by about two minutes.

But my transition from swimming to biking was slower this year - by about two minutes.

The trouble with wetsuits in triathlon is - the time you spend getting OUT of them counts against  you.

The advantage gained
was not retained.

Polling the Disturbance in the Force

So now everybody's polling the "didn't build it" thing:

Republicans are doing their own voter surveys, and they note that Mr. Obama's problem is that his words cause an emotional response, and that they disturb voters in nearly every demographic.

"Nearly" every. Well, clearly some demographic likes it! Progressive intellectuals, I suppose.

The clip, even the long version, sounds too much like a person who is begrudging the success of others. That makes Americans uneasy. They sense there's a sort of sin involved in assaulting simple success.

Envy eats at the soul.
Don't let it gobble you whole.

Why Did The Mantis Cross The Sidewalk

I'm not sure why he was crossing the sidewalk, but he was, which is why I was able to see him. In the grass he would have been invisible to me.

I knelt low to take this photo, so low that a lady driving by stopped to ask me if I was okay!

Why did he venture across the gray
open expanse of concrete?

Was he going to church to pray,
or looking for something to eat?

Time and Time Again

Finished reading Alan Ayckbourn's comedy, "Time and Time Again". As usual with his plays, I thoroughly enjoyed the reading, but felt dissatisfied with the end. There's laughter in the chase and a bitter aftertaste.

In Context

Context doesn't always soften
an ugly quotation.

Often,
it makes the reputation
of the speaker
even weaker.

Repeat What I Meant, Not What I Said

New York's mayor went on tv and declared he couldn't understand why cops don't go out on strike to demand tighter gun control laws:

“I don’t understand why the police officers across his country don’t stand up collectively and say, ‘We’re going to go on strike. We're not going to protect you unless you, the public, through your legislature, do what's required to keep us safe,” Bloomberg said Monday on CNN’s “Piers Morgan Tonight” as part of his ramped-up campaign against illegal guns in the wake of the Colorado theater massacre.

Of course, a lot of people thought this was an idiotic proposal. So the next day he tried to rewind that that suggestion:

“I didn’t mean literally go on strike. In fact, in New York, they can’t go on strike. There’s a law against it."

That thing I said? I didn't mean that. Somebody else repeated it!

They repeated it word for word,
and somehow it sounded absurd.

Tri Training

Workouts make Thighs ache.

Got Bot?

If a robot kiss
would fill you with bliss,
perhaps you should hurry and order this:

Marat/Sade

Saw Marat/Sade tonight, in its spectacular Right Brain Project production. I had never seen or read it before and was surprised by what a philosophical play it is. Ah - the French. They do like plays with some abstract argumentation! It's also a lively and very theatrical script, and this was a very well done production.

I also had no idea how musical a play it is.

It was closing night - and sold out - but I went anyway and they had a few cancellations so I was able to get a seat.

Lucky me,
I got to see.

Real Dirt

Some spoilsport scientist is debunking my favorite rule of low cuisine: the "5-second rule".

This rule states that food dropped to the ground is still safe to eat if you can pick it up within 5 seconds.

“A dropped item is immediately contaminated and can’t really be sanitized,” says Jorge Parada, MD, MPH, FACP, FIDSA, medical director of the infection prevention and control program at Loyola University Health System. “When it comes to folklore, the ‘five-second rule’ should be replaced with ‘when in doubt, throw it out’.”

What I like about this guy is that his new rule, 'when in doubt, throw it out,' rhymes.

But here's one point I wish to insert -
every carrot was once in the dirt.

But about that dirt we don't care at all,
even though it's a place where bacteria crawl.

You People

Today at work someone was cluck-clucking about Ann Romney reportedly saying "you people..."

I asked who she had said it to. It sounded like she had said it to reporters. If so, I though, this didn't amount to much. Reporters aren't an oppressed group that people feel sorry for.

Since then, I'd heard she was answering a black reporter, which would raise the question of whether she meant "you reporter people" or "you African American people".

But, now it seems she didn't even say the offending phrase.

I'm still not sure why "you people" sounds so bad. If you said "you human beings" it wouldn't sound nearly so awful, would it?

It's a case of misquotation
with unfortunate connotation.

For the Birds

Some crows spilled some flour,

which somehow tied up a HazMat team for an hour.

Races Enumerated

Athlinks.com let me know recently that it had found 100 races I'd run. It's an online web service that robo-searches through "race results" web sites and ties the results back to individuals.

Because it's a program, it does make some mistakes. Sometimes it double-counts a single race. Other times it mixes me up with a different John Enright, who's a couple of years younger than me, but who lives in the greater metro area. So once every couple of years I go in and clean up their data.

So, instead of them having 100 of my races, it was more like 91.

But... their data for me only goes back to 1996, and they don't catch every race.

I do have every race I've run. In a text file. Very old school. It's not set up for easy counting, but I just counted. Races completed: 206.

I had no idea and I'm kind of shocked. Granted, that goes back 25 years.

I'm thinking of all the entry fees
I've paid to go pounding the road with my knees,
and all the rubber soles
I've scuffed away in pursuit of my goals.

Somebody Else

Over at Taranto's "best of the web" on the Wall St. Journal site:

Barack Obama really does seem like an Ayn Rand villain at times.

He's referring to this bit of brilliance:

If you've got a business--you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen.

Right, there are no individual contributions. There's no such thing as earned success.

Don't bother working hard.
For no matter what you do,
he's ready to play the card:
"Somebody Else" helped too!

Today At Calumet Park Beach

I saw a couple married on the sand.
It was a public beach, the children played,
the lifeguards rowed. I lounged and read my book.
They stood in white and joined their lives together.

When it was done, the two walked hand in hand
toward the water, for a calf-deep wade,
then kissed, and turned, and waved and threw a look
back to their friends, and up to sunny weather.

Perhaps The Police Could Teach The Proper Technique

In Stockholm, Sweden, police arrested a bunch of middle school kids for pot smoking, but none of them tested positive for drugs in their bloodstream, so they were all set free again.

Widell of the police also had a theory as to why none of the students tested positive for marijuana.

"Kids at this age don’t inhale the smoke properly. That’s one explanation why they didn’t test positive,” he said.

I know there's a Bill Clinton joke in here somewhere!

When kids don't inhale
marijuana smoke,
police raids fail
and look like a joke.

Third in Chinatown

I see that I took third place in my age group yesterday in the Chinatown 5k. There were only 8 in my age group.

They did not hand out age group medals. So I'm glad I didn't hang around afterward! I mean, I thought I had a chance. It was a smallish race. And it seemed to have drawn lots of young people, not lots of old people.

Age group medals are kind of a funny thing. It's not quite "everybody wins!", but it's a step in that direction.

In that little 8 person race,
I took third place.

Sarah Hoyt on Better Outcomes

Sarah Hoyt, who was born in Portugal, writes of an encounter at the DMV where she met an American woman who said she wanted to leave the U.S.

“You see, here we don’t have a right to free health care.”

At which point I rotated my head like something out of The Exorcist and said in my best *I am controlling my voice because otherwise I’ll shriek so loudly people from Kansas will run in to see what is going on* tone: “You don’t want the free health care they have in other countries. I grew up with it. And Portugal is not as bad as some.”

She smugly gave me the “Better outcomes. Cheaper.”

At this point I started giving her home truths and anecdotes. I started with the “better outcomes” being because it’s so hard to GET in the system (and not be sent home to die) that most people aren’t in the system when they die — hence, not “outcome” of health care.

I love Sarah Hoyt when she gets on a rant. There's more of it, and I enjoyed it all, including the explanation of how Portugal's actual health system improved when they brought back private insurance.

The price is free.
But you must wait.
Your turn, you see,
may come too late.

Strong Will

I'm reading What I Talk About When I Talk About Running: A Memoir, by Haruki Murakami.

It's odd, but I'm ripping through it.

It was a Christmas gift from my brother Bill, and for some reason I picked it up. I'm a terrible person to buy books for. I like to read, but I tend to read what I feel like reading next, usually on some exploratory agenda of my own.

He's telling the story while training for a marathon in his late fifties. Which, I will note in passing, is my current situation.

I was amused by this:

When I tell people I run every day, some are quite impressed. "You must have a strong will," they sometimes tell me.

He then makes the point that he likes running, so whether he has a strong will or not, he runs because it suits him.

But later in the book he quotes from an article about his first marathon run, which was a solo run from Athens to Marathon, in summer heat:

At around twenty-three miles I start to hate everything. Enough already! My energy has scraped bottom, and I don't want to run anymore. I feel like I'm driving a car on empty.
...
I've totally forgotten how to move my body. All my muscles feel like they've been shaved away with a rusty plane.

He finished anyway. He says that he almost always feels that way at mile 23. Which I think settles the question of whether he has a strong will.

Pushing through that much pain and fatigue
puts him in the "strong-willed" league.

Capitalism and Romance

Troy Camplin linked to a Cato piece that asked a strange question:

Was Ayn Rand right that romanticism is the proper literary reflection of capitalism?

It's a strange question, at least to me, because I don't recall her putting the issue that way. She did think something along those lines:

Romanticism is a product of the nineteenth century—a (largely subconscious) result of two great influences: Aristotelianism, which liberated man by validating the power of his mind—and capitalism, which gave man's mind the freedom to translate ideas into practice (the second of these influences was itself the result of the first),

William H. Patterson Jr., the author of the Cato piece, comes to his question from a different direction:

I like to work by referring questions to the nature of the genre.

He then shifts to discussing the romance, as a genre, describing it as story of "personal status lost and then restored". Which is all very well, but not what Rand had in mind exactly.

His piece is an interesting meditation on genre and narrative arc,
but he and Rand, terminologically, are ships that pass in the dark.

In Love With Friedrich Hayek

There once was a woman named Moe...

Well, it's short for Maureen, I believe, a common enough shortening, except usually it's rendered as : "Mo".

Anyway, this woman named Moe wrote a hit-piece on Gawker.com against a young woman, a college student named Dorian.

Unfortunately for rhyming purposes, Dorian doesn't seem to have a one syllable nickname.

If Maureen goes by Mo,
shouldn't Dorian go by Do?
But... no.

The reason for Moe's wrath? Dorian did a couple of light-hearted market-themed music videos, including this one: "I'm in Love with Friedrich Hayek".



Which is loads of nerdy fun, in my opinion.

I thought this was the funniest part of the song:

Come to my couch, on which you can rest
I'll make tea, we'll talk credit and interest
Then I can talk about my interest in you
Of course we'll talk 'bout the economy, too

Too Early To Tell

They're not sure yet, but it's a great headline:

Illinois inmates may be receiving illegal unemployment benefits
State begins cross-checking records, finds 420 suspicious cases

I guess Illinois isn't actually mailing any unemployment checks to prison addresses.

But someone on the outside might collect
and fraudulently cash an inmate's check.

Pyramid Scheme

Not sure how seriously to take this:

An online magazine has offered translations to Arabic news sources that purportedly indicate that Egypt's Salafi party has come forth with plants to demolish Egypt's Great Pyramids in an effort to bring down what it calls "symbols of paganism."

Of course, it does bring to mind the fate of those big Buddhist statues in Afghanistan:

They were dynamited and destroyed in March 2001 by the Taliban, on orders from leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, after the Taliban government declared that they were "idols".

Is the persistence of the pyramids at odds
with that rule about "strange gods"?

I hope it's just a scare
that doesn't have a prayer.

State Secret

In Jacksonville, Florida, a drug-resistant form of TB first spread through their homeless population, and then branched out into the general citizenry. But authorities didn't want to tell people.

“What you don’t want is for anyone to have another reason why people should turn their backs on the homeless,” said Charles Griggs, the public information officer for the Duval County Health Department.

When the homeless cough and hack,
I admit I turn my back.

The key problem is that TB takes a while to treat.

Some wanderer doesn't stay on their meds.
Soon it spreads.

So how is that working out?

In 2012, the CDC was invited to help with a sudden spike in cases of the same rare strain the schizophrenic patient had. What they found is the worst outbreak they have investigated in 20 years, and it is not contained.

Not contained. Great.

Don't tell anyone, but the homeless sector
can be an illness vector.

Depression as Disability

I recently spoke with an acquaintance, a very experienced psychologist, who said she had heard that depression is increasingly being used as a justification for getting on permanent disability benefits. What bothered her about this trend is that she sees depression as highly treatable, by multiple methods. With treatment, she said, it should rarely be a permanent condition.

Her suspicion was that the system is being gamed.

Would people on a benefits quest
simply pretend to be depressed?

UPDATE - click below for detailed description of how depression is evaluated by the Social Security Administration:

Depression is a common allegation on Social Security and Supplemental Security Income disability claims. Sometimes depression is found to be disabling, and sometimes it isn’t. It all depends on the severity of the depression. Here is a description at what the Social Security Administration looks at when evaluating the severity of depression to determine eligibility for Social Security disability benefits.

Charlie's Paradox

"Money isn't the important thing--as long as you have a bunch of it."

-Charlie McDanger's page-a-day calendar

Of course, the thing about money is that it enables the acquisition of so many other things. After all, money evolves first as a solution to the problem of arranging complex barter arrangements.

Barter remains. It does not vanish completely.

Friendship, from an economic point of view, is kind of like barter. You don't pay your friends money to be your friends. But you exchange values, enjoyments, and kindnesses.

If you have a punning sort of mind,
you might call friendship "payment in kind".

Unemployment and Disability

Distressing headline from the Daily Mail:

85,000 Americans went on disability benefit in June (while only 80,000 jobs were added in same period)

And it's not a one-month fluke. As Investor's Business Daily reports, it's a trend:

While the economy has created 2.6 million jobs since June 2009, fully 3.1 million workers signed up for disability benefits.

I suppose some of this is our aging population. The baby boom is in the red zone for disability claims - old, but not old enough for Medicare and Social Security based on age alone.

But a lot of it is the unemployment situation. People can't find a job they want to do, or possibly any job at all. Their unemployment benefits run out. And if they have a condition that might qualify, they go through the hassle of applying for disability benefits. They wouldn't have done that if they had a job, or unemployment insurance, but... they don't.

I've known "disabled" people who could, in fact, have been doing productive work. Not all, but definitely some.

It's a bad trend.
When will it end?

Hack and Stretch

As Mary Catelli writies:

A story has a natural length, and hacking or stretching it past those limits distorts it -- not to its benefit.

They are very well paid for their trouble, but I do feel bad sometimes for writers who work on TV shows.

Their stories have to work out nicely
while fitting in a time slot precisely.

Hot Spell Going Well?

Back in 1995, Chicago had a streak of very hot weather around the start of July, and a bunch of people died from the heat, quite of a few of them old people who died in their apartments.

In the typical case, the person had no a/c, and had sealed up their windows, and had stayed in their apartment, perhaps because they lived in tough neighborhoods.

Well, we're having a record hot spell this year, but so far I haven't heard of a high number of such heat deaths. I know programs were put in place to try to prevent this from happening - including programs where neighbors check on old people in their neighborhoods on hot days. Also, "cooling centers" were designated and announced - you know, public places with air conditioning.

I'm hoping this July
fewer die.

Batty for the Fourth

While the fireworks were booming,
we watched a bat zooming.

For a drink it went skimming
a pool meant for swimming.

Black Comedy

By the way, Peter Shaffer's Black Comedy is very clever but so dark.

It's set in an apartment where the electric lights are out for most of the play.

The play is written to be staged under a reversed lighting scheme: the play opens on a darkened stage. A few minutes into the show there is a short circuit, and the stage is illuminated to reveal the characters in a "blackout." On the few occasions when matches, lighters, or torches are lit, the lights grow dimmer.

It was fun to read, but I found the characters so unappealing
that I was left with an unhappy feeling.

First Choice, Best Choice

Or is it just a bias?

Experiment 1 demonstrated an implicit preference to buy goods from the first salesperson encountered and to join teams encountered first, even when the difference in encounter is mere seconds. In Experiment 2 the first of two consumer items presented in quick succession was more likely to be chosen.

I can see where it could be a time-saving bias, but the best shoppers I know are patient comparison shoppers.

When it comes to shoppers, I'm one of the worst.
I always buy whatever's first.

The Library At Alexandria

I visited the Library at Alexandria today.

Alexandria, Virginia, that is. Nice little library, but their a/c wasn't working properly.

Tonight I'm back in the City of Wind,
wishing someone would rescind
this massive wave of sweltering heat.

Please, Mr. Summer, sound the retreat!

Switcheroo Report

CBS reports our chief justice switched his vote on the health care mandate. And they suggest he caved in the face of pressure from opinionated opponents:

Some even suggested that if Roberts struck down the mandate, it would prove he had been deceitful during his confirmation hearings, when he explained a philosophy of judicial restraint.

It was around this time that it also became clear to the conservative justices that Roberts was, as one put it, "wobbly," the sources said.

Of course, this leak just makes him look deceitful in a different way.

Of course, we don't know how true this version of the story is. How could we? Even if he did change his vote, it's hard be sure exactly why he did from the facts provided.

I continue to be grimly puzzled by the fact that the Congress cannot regulate inactivity, but can tax it.

I search the constitution
in vain for a solution.

WF in DC

Showed the video of my play, Wild Flowers, to an audience here at the Atlas Summit conference in DC. Enjoyed sharing it with friends, and watching it again myself.

I miss the cast.
We had a blast
Helping that play
Find its way.

Reconstituting the Penalty

So it turns out the individual mandate penalty is actually a tax on not buying something - sort of a non-sales tax.

As the joke goes:

Shopkeeper: Would you like to buy something?

Browser: No thanks. You don't have what I want.

Shopkeeper: That will be 14.95.

I'm not a legal scholar,
but it makes me want to holler.

• 
  

Deja Vu

Last night in my post I mentioned the Chicago Tribune's infamous "Dewey Defeats Truman" headline.

And today... CNN duplicated that feat, covering themselves in something other than glory.

As Chief Justice John Roberts began reading his decision on the future of President Obama's health care overhaul, the CNN team inside the courtroom jumped the gun, believing that Roberts was saying the individual mandate was unconstitutional and would be overturned.

CNN, it doesn't please me
when you tease me.

Alternate Futures

The Chicago Sun-Times reportedly posted alternate versions of tomorrow's lead story online. That is, they put up their stories for:

1) the health care reform act is completely overturned
2) the health care reform act is partly overturned
3) the health care reform act stands as law

Well, it's not as bad as the time the Chicago Tribune had a paper headline announcing "Dewey Defeats Truman".

There will be joy and sorrow
whatever comes tomorrow.

Whirl

I just spent some time staring at a ceiling fan. If I stared at one spot on the fan, such as the center, I saw a blur of motion. But if I let my eyes wander over the fan, individual blades emerged briefly from the blur, before dissolving back into it.

Out of the blur, a blade
catches my eye,
then merges back in the pack
without a goodbye.

Overwhelmed by speed,
the eye makes do
by catching what it can
as it comes through.

Unwise Rulers

I really feel for this guy:

A University of Illinois math professor who derided states ethics training as childish, “petty tyranny” and “Orwellian” ended his four-year boycott by agreeing to pay a fine and submit to the training, a state ethics panel disclosed Monday.

Unwise rulers? Surely not here in Illinois! Oh, wait...

an ethics program put into place in 2004 by impeached ex-Gov. Rod Blagojevich

Maybe the math professor has a point. But the state has kept after him with threats of serious fines, and he is finally caving in.

Well, he tried.

By coincidence, I am reading The Appearance of Impropriety: How the Ethics Wars Have Undermined American Government, Business, and Society, the thesis of which is:

That our tut-tutting society
has become cluttered with rules
which can be useful as devious tools,
but which do little to stop actual impropriety.

Obama Campaign Registry

Snopes verifies:

Got a birthday, anniversary, or wedding coming up?

Let your friends know how important this election is to you—register with Obama 2012, and ask for a donation in lieu of a gift. It’s a great way to support the President on your big day. Plus, it’s a gift that we can all appreciate—and goes a lot further than a gravy bowl.

So if you're dreading
receiving gifts for your wedding,
redirect your swag
into his campaign bag!

Die Zirkusprinzessin

Last night we went with friends to see a production of "The Circus Princess", an operetta by Emmerich Kalman.

It was in an English translation, which still seems to be done with operettas, although it seems to be verboten with operas these days.

I enjoyed it. Charming music, strong voices, and lots of spectacular circus elements. The acting was a bit uneven, but you almost expect that in musical productions, where singing tends to trump acting.

There was a bit of a stage mishap involving accidental broken glass on the floor in the final act. And yes, before it was over, one of the actors had cut himself.

Okay, that's 3 shows I've seen in the past few years where people got cut on stage from dropped glass.

Actors on stage are bundles of nerves
and sometimes can drift toward the spastic.

To deal with their unaccountable swerves
"glass" props should be made of plastic.

This clip, from somewhere else, give an idea of what the music is like:

Up From The Projects

I just finished "Up From The Projects," by Walter Williams, a prominent black free-market economist. I found it quite charming. It's a short book, told in an apparently simple, just-the-bare-facts sort of style.

Thomas Sowell wrote of the book:

The first chapter, about Walter’s life growing up in the Philadelphia ghetto, was especially fascinating. It brought back a whole different era in black communities — an era that is now almost irretrievably lost, to the great disadvantage of today’s generation growing up in the same neighborhoods where Walter grew up in Philadelphia or where I grew up in Harlem.

The civil rights revolution was helpful in many ways, but Williams points out that it was accompanied by worsening crime problems in black neighborhoods, and a lessening of expectations for black students in schools.

Some policies were built
on feelings of white guilt
without carefully thinking through
what those policies would do.

(Reason interview with Williams about his biography is here.)

Credit Divide

I read today about the "credit divide" - a situation where people with great credit scores can borrow cheaply, but other people cannot borrow much at all.

A lot of it's an effect of the Lords of Finance doing somewhat contrary things. On the one hand, the Fed has pursued an easy money policy. On the other hand, after the mortgage bubble collapsed, banking regulators have pursued tight lending rules.

It's like putting a humidifier and a dehumidifer together in a room, and letting them fight it out!

If you're credit's great,
don't wait,
borrow today and stimulate
that big sluggish horse
we call Workforce.

He's lumbering slowly along the course.

Real Gains

One other Deirdre McCloskey quote that struck me as worthwhile:

Efficiency is not the chief merit of a market economy: innovation is.

Efficiency may be sufficient to survive,
but innovation makes us thrive.

Reality Based

Deidre McCloskey on a rampage, trying to impart some historical knowledge to fellow academics:

It seems to me that a political philosophy based on fairy tales about what happened in history or what humans are like is going to be less than useless. It is going to be mischievous.

How do I know that my narrative is better than yours? The experiments of the 20th century told me so.

Observe the flood
of blood.

Bandwagon in Reverse

We went to the Second City comedy club last night. There were political jokes, as always. And they cut deeper into the elephants than the donkeys, as always. But there was vocal pushback from some members of the audience.

One of the performers shot back, "If you're booing now, hold onto your f---ing hats!"

 But in decades of going to Second City, I have never heard Republican pushback before. Never. This is Chicago, of course.

 I took it as a startling sign
that donkey chances are in decline.

Mystery of Grandfather Resolved

That's my mom's dad. My mom's parents split up very early in her life, and contact had been lost. My mother heard that he had remarried and had a couple more children. My mother invited him to her wedding, writing to the the last known address, but never heard back from him.

As we found out much later, her dad was already dead at the time of her wedding. We figured that out from an inquiry to Social Security.

My mom died a few years ago. But recently my brother Mark and his wife and I finally dug up enough information to track down my mother's half-siblings, a brother and a sister, who are still alive.

The internet is a cornucopia of confusing data, but we sifted through it. It didn't help that my grandfather had a fairly common name - Harold Wright.

My brother Bill, who lives in the Bay Area, met the other night with our long lost aunt who lives in the same area. He found her very charming. She provided the photo above, which is the only color photo I've seen of the man. It was taken shortly before his death, at 46, of a heart attack. He was working long days as an executive at a plant where they made aircraft engines during World War II. He came into work, didn't feel well, and died at the office.

I'm sure my mother would have liked to meet
her siblings, so this ending's bittersweet.

The Tricking of America

That hitchhiking writer who got randomly shot, the one ironically writing a book called "The Kindness of America"?

Turns out it wasn't a random shooting at all. It was, as I speculated, a publicity stunt.

Valley County sheriff's officials said they believe 39-year-old Ray Dolin shot himself as a desperate act of self-promotion, but they offered no further details.

You know, it's not really nice to send law enforcement officials on a wild goose chase looking for a fictional assailant.

Next time, find a stunt
that doesn't involve a gun in front
and an exit wound behind.

To yourself, and America, be kind.

Autonomous Autos

When all cars are Google cars, able to drive without human intervention, when the technology is solid, will people stop learning to drive, the way most Americans have stopped learning to drive stick?

Parents won't have to ferry their kids to each and every location.
Instead, just put them in the car and state a destination!

Quick Acting Kayaker

A first-time kayaker fished a man in a business suit out of the Chicago River yesterday:

"I thought about putting him on the kayak, but his body was really heavy," Gonzalez said. "So I grabbed him by the back of the head, with his shirt, and put my other hand under his chin to hold his head up."

Apparently the victim was reading on the riverwalk and passed out, tumbling into the slow-flowing waters of dubious cleanliness.

Close to that river ain't
a safe place to faint.

Overloading The Nation's Irony Detection System

If it's not just a publicity stunt:

A West Virginia man who was hitchhiking across the United States and writing a memoir titled “The Kindness of America” was shot by a motorist in a random attack in northeastern Montana, authorities say.

Perhaps at this point it's vital
to change the title.

Protective Reaction

There are things that make a man lose his temper:

Residents of the small Texas town of Shiner are standing up for a father who beat another man to death when he allegedly caught him trying to molest his 4-year-old daughter, saying they would have done the same thing to protect their child, reports CBS affiliate KENS.

Of course, I don't know if the story is true.

But you can see where a guy might see red
till the other guy was dead.

Daunting

There are people who find innocence an offense, and who heap abuse on the innocent in order to disabuse them of the notion that life is fair.

And the innocent march on with hesitant feet,
puzzled by the monsters that they meet.

Life on Mars

On Netflix we watched all the episodes of the American version of Life On Mars, a series about a police detective who gets hit by a car in 2009 and wakes up on the street in 1973. How that could happen is the continuing mystery of the series. I figured it would never get satisfactorily explained, especially with clues that seem to point in different directions, and so I was quite surprised when the final episode actually offered what I felt was a satisfying explanation.

It seemed, at least, preplanned,
Not at the last minute, off hand.

Posted via LiveJournal app for iPhone.

Missed Race Report

Just spent 2 hours looking for a 5k race at Main Park in Mokena, IL. Google actually gave me not one but two bad locations.

The second bad location was a different park, where a local was able to give me good info. Another person there mentioned that others had come before me, looking for Main Park.

Got to Main Park with a little time to spare, but the parking lot was full. Plenty of police, but no sign they knew their lot was full. Was directed to park about a quarter mile away, but by then it was simply too late to make the start.

Mapquest, to its credit, does know the right location.

It turns out that the organizers gave the address as being at 10925 LaPorte Rd. Google needs the address to be La Porte Rd. Otherwise Google sends you to Francis Rd.



If you give LaPorte to Google without the space
it turns out you're in danger of missing the race.

The Shaw-Rostand Connection

I found out today, by reading some of his letters, that George Bernard Shaw liked the plays of Edmond Rostand. I had no idea.

Apparently Shaw had a good understanding of French, although he didn't like to speak it with Parisians, which is perfectly understandable, since they pretend not to understand you unless you speak it perfectly. As Mark Twain had it:

In Paris they just simply opened their eyes and stared when we spoke to them in French! We never did succeed in making those idiots understand their own language.

I have seen the Shaw and Rostand opposed to one another, and with good reason:

In an age when Bernard Shaw was writing cynical tracts like Man and Superman, Rostand revels in romanticism:

I sing, dream, laugh, and go where I please, alone and free. My eyes see clearly and my voice is strong. I'm quarrelsome or benign as it suits my pleasure, always ready to fight a duel or write a poem at the drop of a hat.

What was the connection? My take is that Shaw was not really a cynic, more of a disappointed idealist, and he shared with Rostand a hatred of hypocrisy and a love of the authentic.

Rostand was far more lyrical,
but both were sharply satirical.

Lope de Vega

Lope de Vega was a Spanish contemporary of Shakespeare's.

Reportedly he was on one of the ships of the ill-fated Armada that sailed to attack England.

His reputation in the world of Spanish literature is second only to that of Cervantes, while the sheer volume of his literary output is unequalled, making him one of the most prolific authors in the history of literature.

That "sheer volume" includes about 1800 plays, typically in verse.

Many of his works are lost, possibly as many as 1,000 to 1,300 of them.

Talk about prolific. But how many are available in English? Not as many as I would like. I'm thinking I could find online Spanish texts and feed them through translation software. But feeding golden age Spanish verse through a translation program gives you stuff like this:

As scene opens: Cyrus and Mithridates, the two in habit of villains.

MITHRIDATES:
Take away I have the life.

CYRUS:
Take, father, the Cudgel ;
that I suffer, raised,
but I can fall.

And my own Spanish, at its very best,
is not up to the test.

Bumper Crop

We have some cherry trees in our front yard, that Marsha planted years ago. In recent years we've had a problem with the cherries getting moldy or blighted before they were ripe. Marsha blamed wet weather.

But this year the weather has cooperated and we have so many cherries we are having trouble picking them all. Well, some are simply too high to pick. But we've had local children over to pick for their own families.

You can see a small sample above.

Luscious, sweet,
and too many to eat!

Never Mind

Apparently the exit polls in Wisconsin predicted a tight race and a long night.

But the actual polls were a Walker landslide.

Put not your faith in exit polls.
Their scientific method must contain some gaping holes.

Another Goodbye

Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago has moved to a new building. Which turns out to be hard on the hearts of some grieving family members whose deceased children were treated there, lived there, died there. So the hospital staff set up a farewell ceremony for the building itself.

To cushion the psychic blow of the old building’s loss, the hospital staff organized a “closing reception for bereaved families” on Sunday afternoon on the rooftop of the parking deck overlooking the hospital.

We did not go. The building didn't inspire that depth of feeling in us. But I understand how it happens.

All that emotion
of love and devotion
can fasten on a place
that calls to mind the face
of the one
who is gone.

Tall Tale Fail

My new random hypothesis about Elizabeth Warren is that she started off by telling gullible Easterners tall tales - the way Westerners sometimes do - just to amuse herself.



Probably she had a bunch of Massachusetts people believing in jackalopes (pictured above), and she just kept going with this wacky stuff about "pow wow chow" with Grey Poupon, and her parents having to elope because her mother was 1/16th Native American, and the latest story about her grandma driving a wagon in a land rush.

Maybe instead of "she misspoke"
it's just that she was telling a joke.

Surely the voters will be good eggs
once she admits she's been pulling their legs.

Habit Hiatus

In January, our local park district indoor pool tends to close for cleaning. Typically for a month. I never seem to know about it in advance. This year I showed up one day and there was the sign, so I drove back home.

But once I get out of the habit of going, I never seem to go back to swimming until summer is here and triathlon season looms.

Yes, I went swimming today. Outdoors.

I really shouldn't let a one month closing
make my swimming habit start decomposing.

Prom Night

He had a busy night:

A West Side man has been charged for allegedly hijacking a sports-utility vehicle at gun-point before he went to prom with his girlfriend.

The girlfriend called to complain to police that her prom was ruined.

Why rent a limo
when you can jack a car?

But if you're caught
your prom will turn subpar.

Choosing When To Live

I was reminded today of a quotation I love:

Anyone who fights for the future, lives in it today.

It's a statement of great rhetorical flourish, which actually invites some analysis, because of course it can't be literally true. You can't really live in the future.

Yet we speak constantly of choosing to live in the time of our choice. We are told not to live in the past. We are told, very often lately, to live fully in the present.

What people are talking about is where our mental focus is, where our minds dwell.

I think of us as living in a wildly elastic present. Our minds are built to grasp vast epochs of time. This is not a gift that we should turn away from as a matter of policy. Living only in the moment, if understood literally as not looking ahead or behind, is a recipe for short sighted disaster and a strange obliviousness about the course of one's life.

I am reminded of some haunting words from Into The Woods:

Oh. if life were made of moments,
Even now and then a bad one-!
But if life were only moments,
Then you'd never know you had one.

We are possessed of both memory and vision, and the one supplies the other with the raw materials for bettering our existence.

You have to breathe now
but it's up to you how
your mind leaps about
as it works your life out.