Obviously, we are in the post-discovery age. There are few of us casting about for continents to "explore" and claim for king and lord. As if. Now, statistically, most of us are just trying to hang on to jobs and relationships -- as sub-contractors, in serial relationships. The King is dead, the employer is bankrupt, and the lenders are using bail-out money to hire public relations experts to make us feel grateful to them for not giving us loans. It's not like there is a New World out there. The shysters are not even trying to lure us onto ships, or trick and "Shanghai" us to "see the world".
So, today is really NOTHING like the Age of Discovery. When ships unfurled their beautiful sails and ports bustled with new people and things -- and sailors knew how to sing nautical songs and tie knots in hemp ropes, after being trapped into service for three years or so. There were headwaters and new languages to discover, species to name. Great Explorers mounted "expeditions", often suffering severe privations, and visiting their distress upon the "natives" they encountered in the ordeal.
Today, we board aircraft like buses, with SRO. The travel industry is hell-bent to make every location in the world a "tourist destination", with the same hotel, selling the same trinkets, offering the same "comforts" and pillow service, wherever you go. Much of the suffering, risk and danger -- and original discovery -- appears to be gone. Appears.
There really IS a world yet to be discovered....and there are still those severe risks and demands which are made by the struggle to learn and understand.
SOIL. According to the new "Underground Adventure" at the Chicago Field Museum, "one teaspoonful of soil from your own backyard" will yield more than a billion organisms, of which 40% are species unknown and un-named. We barely understand anything about bugs. We are just starting to grasp the importance of fungi in the lives of plants, the chemistry of slime-mold, and the morphology of water bears. And don't get me started about Ants!
WATER. One of the most useful, and it turns out, increasingly scarce comforts of our planet, is fresh water. We continue to find most curious facts about it. Recent studies drawn from lichen, which is one of the few life forms that can thrive with almost no water, indicates that water has a molecular affect on the growth clock of lichen. Living Things evolve faster in the tropics than in the desert...because of water. Crazy. The partnership of fungi and algae enables both to thrive where each would fail alone.
CULTURE. We are still waiting for a theory or explanation for why people have such bad taste. And why people are so wicked. Why you can get people to risk their life on a highway inside a weaponized automobile to drive to work or go shopping, but you cannot get them to stand up for their own basic human rights against dictators, for fear of what? Getting killed/martyred by a dictator? Dying for a great reason, for Freedom, instead of No Reason on the highway driving a car!
DANCERS. Explore this: Why do Dancers and Musicians do so much better at bringing Peace to the world than missles and tanks? And why are the Pentagon and Kremlin and Al Quada dedicating billions to weapons instead of piano and guitar lessons? A thin invalid with a soft voice has united the world -- just by moon-walking!. At almost no cost. Do we need to pay for weapons which will only blow ourselves up? Al Quada killed more Arabs, more Believers, in the 2001 World Trade Center attack than any attack by the West suffered by any Arab nation prior to that date. The Bolshoi has the biggest budget (relatively) of any dance troupe in the world, yet it is miniscule compared to the cost of running a single nuclear submarine carrying nuclear weapons. And compare the effects for the respect and dignity of Russia in the world today.
THE NET. Who will be the first to find a new continent of discovery by unfurling the web over a sea of information. We are just at the beginning of the Singularity. Who will colonize the floating city built in the Pacific Gyre? Who will conquer the new forms of playground equipment provided for children who will never make arrows to hunt in a real forest? Who will populate the islands that are uninhabitable for lack of potable water by introducing desalinization units? Who will translate the algorithmic language learned by the baby robots?
We need to really re-think how completely unknown, unexplored, so much of this world remains today. Wide open opportunity.
Tuesday, July 07, 2009
Milton's Paradise Lost - how did things go so terribly wrong?
Notes on Milton’s Paradise Lost and Found.
We are now 401 years after Milton’s birth in 1608. For perspective, note that Shakespeare lived approximately 1564-1616. Eleven volume series of all Milton’s works is come out, edited by Thomas Corns and Gordon Campbell
Paradise Lost, is a dilation on a moment in Genesis, written by a blind man who had fallen into “evil days”, with respectable people saying awful things about him, and calling for his arrest.
He names Satan’s palace Pandemonium – “all the demons”.
In his defense of free speech published earlier –“Areopagitica” – the title alludes to an Attic assembly or court – he compares Truth to the broken body of Osiris. We can never know Truth until the Messiah comes; therefore we must all search in every way we can, each for himself. Compare this to the Arthurian epic Search for the Holy Grail. Censorship can play no role in the Search for Truth.
Milton’s unrelenting optimism runs through all of his writing, even as he faced personal conflict and limns the tragedy of The Fall. With an explosive imagination, and cool statecraft, he marches with martial vigor into the war with Evil, hunting for the jewel in the head of the ugliest toad, and prefiguring the Nietzschean reduction “That which fails to kill me, makes me stronger”. Milton says “That which purifies us is trial, and trial is by what is contrary.” This, during a time of terrifying anarchy, the world that also produced Hobbes’ “Leviathan”.
Milton was Unitarian. Did not see the Son of God as the same as God or part of a Trinity. In Paradise Lost, he places the Son at the Creation, as a Son, a competitor of Satan.
The question he poses in Paradise Lost – how did things go so wrong – starts back to the moment that Adam and Eve (“our first parents”) ate the apple and brought “death into the world, all our woe”. Note the way he bring us all in – “our” parents, “our” woe. Then he steps back before Adam and Eve, in the tale within the tale, to the narrative of Lucifer who grows jealous of the promotion of God’s Son to the position of Messiah. Lucifer organizes a revolt, loses, and is “hurled headlong flaming from th’ ethereal sky With hideous ruin and combustion down to bottomless perdition”. Cast into Hell with his many followers.
In Milton’s view, God creates earth with its “images” of Himself, to make up for the angelic absence. Then Satan, hearing of the new toy, determines to take it by cunning for himself and his demon horde. The theme of the plotting failed revolutionaries echoes the bitter irony of Milton’s role as apologist for the Puritans, and his support for the regicide. Place and power is what is “lost” in the personal Paradise.
Satan seems charismatic as a leader of minions, although a tortured soul, slinking away in shame after seducing Eve. Milton’s God is dull, fixed, and sends Gabriel to do his fighting. Gabriel of course, does it badly, and fails to protect Eve and the earth from the demon snare. Gabriel does some trash-talking, threatening Satan, who in turn calls him a “limitary Cherub”. Perhaps our next Milton hankering to explore an unforgivable tragedy should write the epic of Gabriel.
Milton shows great compassion for mankind. Adam and Eve are holding hands in the garden basking in love when we first meet them, and we leave them exiled to a fallen world, again holding hands together. Milton says he set out to justify the ways of God to men, but he ends up defending human dignity to God. The freedom to fail – here Milton rejects mainstream Puritanism (moving directly to the center of Unitarianism) with its predestination.
My mother once listened rather openly to a socio-biological narrative of how individual decision-making is reducible to chemistry. Animal instinct and knee-jerk reactions are locked into the molecular structures of ganglia and brain capacity. The uber-train of “choice” actually runs on a double-helix rail. Once she realized the story led to a kind of determinism, however morphological, she reacted viscerally, strongly rejecting any suggestion that human beings do not have unfettered free choice. When I suggested that her response was a possible predisposition rising from her Miltonian Christianity, not to mention its consistency with her chemistry, she did not see the ironic humor. The idea of choice playing a necessary role in salvation, the idea that choice asserts itself, remains fixed in certain minds, even long after other beliefs have shifted.
This concept of individual freedom is also at the heart of the relationship between Adam and Eve. Adam alone was warned about Satan, and sought to husband Eve by having her near. His very act of trying to protect her – and it is fair to observe she never understood From What? – moved her to seek her own solitude. He will not relent and let her go off by herself until she argues that she must have freedom, even at the risk of harm: “What is faith, love, virtue unassayed?”
Adam praises her logic. They both recognize that she is right about the importance of being exposed to the risks of being wrong. Once alone, Eve is immediately tricked by the snake, and is condemned to die. Adam then chooses to take his bite of the forbidden fruit and fall with her. He would rather die with her than live alone: “To lose thee were to lose myself.”
Milton’s depiction of the Son of God at the Creation, is one of the first attempts to create a coherency between the Hebrew Bible with the New Testament. And we see the nature of evil – a despondent Devil having no hope of a happy home, devoting himself to destroying the lives of others.
Milton died still revising Paradise Lost in 1674. Hounded by calumny and accusation to the end, and facing poverty, the plague, intellectual isolation, loneliness, and his own demons. But he left us with the greatest work of epic verse in the English tongue. And it rings with hope and imagination.
Things go terribly wrong. It's not just YOU, your life. The planet. The universe. The "broken-ness" of the Osiris body. The lack of Judgment or Justice. So... celebrate! There is not a moment to lose!
We are now 401 years after Milton’s birth in 1608. For perspective, note that Shakespeare lived approximately 1564-1616. Eleven volume series of all Milton’s works is come out, edited by Thomas Corns and Gordon Campbell
Paradise Lost, is a dilation on a moment in Genesis, written by a blind man who had fallen into “evil days”, with respectable people saying awful things about him, and calling for his arrest.
He names Satan’s palace Pandemonium – “all the demons”.
In his defense of free speech published earlier –“Areopagitica” – the title alludes to an Attic assembly or court – he compares Truth to the broken body of Osiris. We can never know Truth until the Messiah comes; therefore we must all search in every way we can, each for himself. Compare this to the Arthurian epic Search for the Holy Grail. Censorship can play no role in the Search for Truth.
Milton’s unrelenting optimism runs through all of his writing, even as he faced personal conflict and limns the tragedy of The Fall. With an explosive imagination, and cool statecraft, he marches with martial vigor into the war with Evil, hunting for the jewel in the head of the ugliest toad, and prefiguring the Nietzschean reduction “That which fails to kill me, makes me stronger”. Milton says “That which purifies us is trial, and trial is by what is contrary.” This, during a time of terrifying anarchy, the world that also produced Hobbes’ “Leviathan”.
Milton was Unitarian. Did not see the Son of God as the same as God or part of a Trinity. In Paradise Lost, he places the Son at the Creation, as a Son, a competitor of Satan.
The question he poses in Paradise Lost – how did things go so wrong – starts back to the moment that Adam and Eve (“our first parents”) ate the apple and brought “death into the world, all our woe”. Note the way he bring us all in – “our” parents, “our” woe. Then he steps back before Adam and Eve, in the tale within the tale, to the narrative of Lucifer who grows jealous of the promotion of God’s Son to the position of Messiah. Lucifer organizes a revolt, loses, and is “hurled headlong flaming from th’ ethereal sky With hideous ruin and combustion down to bottomless perdition”. Cast into Hell with his many followers.
In Milton’s view, God creates earth with its “images” of Himself, to make up for the angelic absence. Then Satan, hearing of the new toy, determines to take it by cunning for himself and his demon horde. The theme of the plotting failed revolutionaries echoes the bitter irony of Milton’s role as apologist for the Puritans, and his support for the regicide. Place and power is what is “lost” in the personal Paradise.
Satan seems charismatic as a leader of minions, although a tortured soul, slinking away in shame after seducing Eve. Milton’s God is dull, fixed, and sends Gabriel to do his fighting. Gabriel of course, does it badly, and fails to protect Eve and the earth from the demon snare. Gabriel does some trash-talking, threatening Satan, who in turn calls him a “limitary Cherub”. Perhaps our next Milton hankering to explore an unforgivable tragedy should write the epic of Gabriel.
Milton shows great compassion for mankind. Adam and Eve are holding hands in the garden basking in love when we first meet them, and we leave them exiled to a fallen world, again holding hands together. Milton says he set out to justify the ways of God to men, but he ends up defending human dignity to God. The freedom to fail – here Milton rejects mainstream Puritanism (moving directly to the center of Unitarianism) with its predestination.
My mother once listened rather openly to a socio-biological narrative of how individual decision-making is reducible to chemistry. Animal instinct and knee-jerk reactions are locked into the molecular structures of ganglia and brain capacity. The uber-train of “choice” actually runs on a double-helix rail. Once she realized the story led to a kind of determinism, however morphological, she reacted viscerally, strongly rejecting any suggestion that human beings do not have unfettered free choice. When I suggested that her response was a possible predisposition rising from her Miltonian Christianity, not to mention its consistency with her chemistry, she did not see the ironic humor. The idea of choice playing a necessary role in salvation, the idea that choice asserts itself, remains fixed in certain minds, even long after other beliefs have shifted.
This concept of individual freedom is also at the heart of the relationship between Adam and Eve. Adam alone was warned about Satan, and sought to husband Eve by having her near. His very act of trying to protect her – and it is fair to observe she never understood From What? – moved her to seek her own solitude. He will not relent and let her go off by herself until she argues that she must have freedom, even at the risk of harm: “What is faith, love, virtue unassayed?”
Adam praises her logic. They both recognize that she is right about the importance of being exposed to the risks of being wrong. Once alone, Eve is immediately tricked by the snake, and is condemned to die. Adam then chooses to take his bite of the forbidden fruit and fall with her. He would rather die with her than live alone: “To lose thee were to lose myself.”
Milton’s depiction of the Son of God at the Creation, is one of the first attempts to create a coherency between the Hebrew Bible with the New Testament. And we see the nature of evil – a despondent Devil having no hope of a happy home, devoting himself to destroying the lives of others.
Milton died still revising Paradise Lost in 1674. Hounded by calumny and accusation to the end, and facing poverty, the plague, intellectual isolation, loneliness, and his own demons. But he left us with the greatest work of epic verse in the English tongue. And it rings with hope and imagination.
Things go terribly wrong. It's not just YOU, your life. The planet. The universe. The "broken-ness" of the Osiris body. The lack of Judgment or Justice. So... celebrate! There is not a moment to lose!
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Michael Jackson - the legacy of dance and music
Michael Jackson died (June 25, 2009) at age 50, having been a “star” most of his life, with a gift for singing, dancing, and putting himself completely into the pose. His talent was original, it was the steam of consciousness, the part of being that wants to be and do the best image, the top of fashion, the most expressed expression.
He was one of the dancers who changed the world. Couple the moves with the music, and he changed how we think of ourselves, on a rainbow global scale. A black man whose talent was accepted by white people, and in his later years -- one hesitates to say "mature" -- as a white man who was accepted by people of color.
The debts of his estate are rumored to be $400 million. Clearly he was taken advantage of by those closest to him. He must have been completely isolated. Entirely alone, with the added certainty of having been betrayed, again and again.
Great dancers and musicians are more likely to change the world for the better, than any other occupational skill set. We seem to weaponize science, religion, law. But the arts, remain unifiers. Even when they are subversively invasive, they elevate the culture they invade. Even when they explode and pop, they do not destroy.
He was one of the dancers who changed the world. Couple the moves with the music, and he changed how we think of ourselves, on a rainbow global scale. A black man whose talent was accepted by white people, and in his later years -- one hesitates to say "mature" -- as a white man who was accepted by people of color.
The debts of his estate are rumored to be $400 million. Clearly he was taken advantage of by those closest to him. He must have been completely isolated. Entirely alone, with the added certainty of having been betrayed, again and again.
Great dancers and musicians are more likely to change the world for the better, than any other occupational skill set. We seem to weaponize science, religion, law. But the arts, remain unifiers. Even when they are subversively invasive, they elevate the culture they invade. Even when they explode and pop, they do not destroy.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Sweeteners
We do crave sugar. Why? We crave energy.
That craving, however natural, is not necessarily a healthy habit to feed. The sugar molecule is extremely sharp-pointed and mauls the walls of the tiny capillaries of the eye and toes as the red blood cell buckets bounce their way through the narrows. Diabetics go blind and lose their limbs to gangrene.
No fix for heart problems, high blood pressure, cholesterol, and weight is as good as dropping the excess sugar we consume. Excess sugar is linked to diabetes and cancer. I used it to control ants -- they find it irresistible, but sugar simply does not provide a basis for growth and expansion, even for family Myrmex...!
The Eating Plan should include reducing sugar. The "problem" is that poisonous SUGAR SUBSTITUTES have invaded the marketplace. Other sweeteners MAY help reduce sugar intake, but the "industry" preying upon our healthy desire to reduce sugar is now poisoning us. Huge fortunes have been made selling poisons to people who rely upon the false representations and deliberate deception of marketeers.
The following is my effort to sort through the facts, past the hysteria and the marketing, to evaluate the wonders of this molecule we crave:
SUCROSE - natural organic disaccharide derived from glucose and fructose, known as "table sugar", or saccharose. It is a complicated molecule with a single isomer (exists in forms having different arrangements of atoms but the same molecular weight). These forms are "spiky" and sharp edged. Like other carbohydrates, sucrose combusts into carbon dioxide and water--it is a fuel. It is water soluble and hydrolysis breaks the glycosidic bond, converting to glucose and fructose, which are then absorbed into the blood stream by the microvilli lining the duodenum. It is a suitable preservative
ASPARTAME - (Nutrasweet, Equal, Canderel) - can be used after cooking. Controversial, since excesses are linked to complaints of seizures, blindness. Contains Phenylalinine, Aspartic Acid, and Methanol, and should only use with its natural antidotes, ethanol and pectin, and avoid large or regular quantity. Becomes unstable in aqueous media (drinks). Often combined with dextrose and maltodextrin. (The combination used in Equal.)
PHENYLALININE - Amino acid sometimes used as a mood enhancer. Phenylketonurics containing P are a component of Aspartame.
SACCHARIN - (Sweet'n Low, Sugar Twin) - produced from natural, but not naturally edible substances; excess amounts linked to cancer. Often mixed with cream of tartar (an acid which accelerates the hydrolysis of sucrose into fructose), calcium silicate [anti-caking], and dextrose. (The combination in Sweet'n Low).
ACESULFAME-K - (Ace-K, Sunnette, Sweet & Safe, Sweet One) -
SUCRALOSE - (marketed in Splenda, with dextrose and maltodextrin) artificially weaponized sugar (disaccharide), manipulated to surrender a portion of the hydroxyls and replace them with chlorine atoms, to produce a chlorocarbon, or chloronated sugar. Chlorine is an excitable element used as a biocide and bleaching agent. "Sucralose" is a marketing term for a man-made poison used to replace aspartame, and is now the #1 artificial sweetener in manufactured foods and beverages. I don't think chlorine occurs naturally bound to sugar. It does bind to sodium, but the chlorocarbons are incompatible with healthy metabolism, which is why they are such effective insecticides.
CYCLAMATES
STEVIA (Stevia rebaudiana) - an herb containing NO sugar, used extensively in Japan for 25 years. No known side-effects. Large amounts of steviosol, a stevioside derivative, resulted in smaller and fewer off-spring in female hamsters. May disrupt metabolism of food into energy. Steviol can convert into a mutagenic compound. Sperm production reduced in rats after long period of (involuntary) high dosing.
NATURAL SOURCES: Cane juice, fruit juice, rice syrup, honey, licorce root (small amounts), Fructooligosaccharides (FOS), Amasake, vegetable glycerin, sugar alchohols (xylitol, sorbitol), maple syrup, barley malt.
Compare the chemistry of Sugar as the simplest of the carbohydrates. Unlike indigestible Hydrocarbons, Carbohydrates are soluble in water, with a double bond carbon-oxygen reactive center. To digest, metabolic enzymes must hydrolyse or otherwise break the glycosidic bond.
"-ose" denotes a sugar:
GLUCOSE - monosaccharide, primarily from maize or fruit. A blood glucose test measures the amount of this type of sugar, in your blood. Glucose comes from carbohydrate foods. It is the main source of energy used by the body. Insulin is a hormone that helps your body's cells use the glucose. Insulin is produced in the pancreas and released into the blood when the amount of glucose in the blood rises.
Normally, your blood glucose levels increase slightly after you eat. This increase causes your pancreas to release insulin so that your blood glucose levels do not get too high. Because of the shape of the sugar molecule, blood glucose levels that remain high over time can damage your eyes, kidneys, nerves, because of damage done to the capillaries, the small blood vessels.
FRUCTOSE - monosaccharide found naturally in many fruits. Most soft drinks are now made with "high fructose corn syrup", and glucose. (I see no studies showing that the substitution of sucrose with fructose alleviates the objections raised by the sucrose studies showing obesity, gout, hypoglycemia, and diabetes).
LACTOSE -
GALACTOSE -
SUCROSE - (saccharose) disaccharide found naturally in sugar cane and sugar beet, and along with the monosaccharide fructose, in many fruits. In pineapple and apricot, sucrose is the main sugar. In others, such as grapes and pears, fructose is the main sugar.
DEXTROSE - (main ingredient in Sweet/N Low, along with Saccharin, and in Splenda, along with Sucralose) two stereoisomers of the aldehexose sugars are known as glucose, L-glucose which cannot be metabolized, and D-glucose, which is destrose monohydrate, or "dextrose".
Starch and Glycogen - polysaccharides
Chitin and Cellulose - even more complex, indigestible as fibre.
Compare: plastic - cf. Carbohydrate and Hydrocarbon
The key similarity between Oil/plastic and biopolymers!
Butanol from biomass is an alcohol that is more similar to gasoline than it is to ethanol, and has been demonstrated as a fuel in internal combustion engines without modification of the engines.
AVOID - Splenda (a chorine-based "sucralose"), Equal (aspartame), Sweet'N Low (Saccharin).
That craving, however natural, is not necessarily a healthy habit to feed. The sugar molecule is extremely sharp-pointed and mauls the walls of the tiny capillaries of the eye and toes as the red blood cell buckets bounce their way through the narrows. Diabetics go blind and lose their limbs to gangrene.
No fix for heart problems, high blood pressure, cholesterol, and weight is as good as dropping the excess sugar we consume. Excess sugar is linked to diabetes and cancer. I used it to control ants -- they find it irresistible, but sugar simply does not provide a basis for growth and expansion, even for family Myrmex...!
The Eating Plan should include reducing sugar. The "problem" is that poisonous SUGAR SUBSTITUTES have invaded the marketplace. Other sweeteners MAY help reduce sugar intake, but the "industry" preying upon our healthy desire to reduce sugar is now poisoning us. Huge fortunes have been made selling poisons to people who rely upon the false representations and deliberate deception of marketeers.
The following is my effort to sort through the facts, past the hysteria and the marketing, to evaluate the wonders of this molecule we crave:
SUCROSE - natural organic disaccharide derived from glucose and fructose, known as "table sugar", or saccharose. It is a complicated molecule with a single isomer (exists in forms having different arrangements of atoms but the same molecular weight). These forms are "spiky" and sharp edged. Like other carbohydrates, sucrose combusts into carbon dioxide and water--it is a fuel. It is water soluble and hydrolysis breaks the glycosidic bond, converting to glucose and fructose, which are then absorbed into the blood stream by the microvilli lining the duodenum. It is a suitable preservative
ASPARTAME - (Nutrasweet, Equal, Canderel) - can be used after cooking. Controversial, since excesses are linked to complaints of seizures, blindness. Contains Phenylalinine, Aspartic Acid, and Methanol, and should only use with its natural antidotes, ethanol and pectin, and avoid large or regular quantity. Becomes unstable in aqueous media (drinks). Often combined with dextrose and maltodextrin. (The combination used in Equal.)
PHENYLALININE - Amino acid sometimes used as a mood enhancer. Phenylketonurics containing P are a component of Aspartame.
SACCHARIN - (Sweet'n Low, Sugar Twin) - produced from natural, but not naturally edible substances; excess amounts linked to cancer. Often mixed with cream of tartar (an acid which accelerates the hydrolysis of sucrose into fructose), calcium silicate [anti-caking], and dextrose. (The combination in Sweet'n Low).
ACESULFAME-K - (Ace-K, Sunnette, Sweet & Safe, Sweet One) -
SUCRALOSE - (marketed in Splenda, with dextrose and maltodextrin) artificially weaponized sugar (disaccharide), manipulated to surrender a portion of the hydroxyls and replace them with chlorine atoms, to produce a chlorocarbon, or chloronated sugar. Chlorine is an excitable element used as a biocide and bleaching agent. "Sucralose" is a marketing term for a man-made poison used to replace aspartame, and is now the #1 artificial sweetener in manufactured foods and beverages. I don't think chlorine occurs naturally bound to sugar. It does bind to sodium, but the chlorocarbons are incompatible with healthy metabolism, which is why they are such effective insecticides.
CYCLAMATES
STEVIA (Stevia rebaudiana) - an herb containing NO sugar, used extensively in Japan for 25 years. No known side-effects. Large amounts of steviosol, a stevioside derivative, resulted in smaller and fewer off-spring in female hamsters. May disrupt metabolism of food into energy. Steviol can convert into a mutagenic compound. Sperm production reduced in rats after long period of (involuntary) high dosing.
NATURAL SOURCES: Cane juice, fruit juice, rice syrup, honey, licorce root (small amounts), Fructooligosaccharides (FOS), Amasake, vegetable glycerin, sugar alchohols (xylitol, sorbitol), maple syrup, barley malt.
Compare the chemistry of Sugar as the simplest of the carbohydrates. Unlike indigestible Hydrocarbons, Carbohydrates are soluble in water, with a double bond carbon-oxygen reactive center. To digest, metabolic enzymes must hydrolyse or otherwise break the glycosidic bond.
"-ose" denotes a sugar:
GLUCOSE - monosaccharide, primarily from maize or fruit. A blood glucose test measures the amount of this type of sugar, in your blood. Glucose comes from carbohydrate foods. It is the main source of energy used by the body. Insulin is a hormone that helps your body's cells use the glucose. Insulin is produced in the pancreas and released into the blood when the amount of glucose in the blood rises.
Normally, your blood glucose levels increase slightly after you eat. This increase causes your pancreas to release insulin so that your blood glucose levels do not get too high. Because of the shape of the sugar molecule, blood glucose levels that remain high over time can damage your eyes, kidneys, nerves, because of damage done to the capillaries, the small blood vessels.
FRUCTOSE - monosaccharide found naturally in many fruits. Most soft drinks are now made with "high fructose corn syrup", and glucose. (I see no studies showing that the substitution of sucrose with fructose alleviates the objections raised by the sucrose studies showing obesity, gout, hypoglycemia, and diabetes).
LACTOSE -
GALACTOSE -
SUCROSE - (saccharose) disaccharide found naturally in sugar cane and sugar beet, and along with the monosaccharide fructose, in many fruits. In pineapple and apricot, sucrose is the main sugar. In others, such as grapes and pears, fructose is the main sugar.
DEXTROSE - (main ingredient in Sweet/N Low, along with Saccharin, and in Splenda, along with Sucralose) two stereoisomers of the aldehexose sugars are known as glucose, L-glucose which cannot be metabolized, and D-glucose, which is destrose monohydrate, or "dextrose".
Starch and Glycogen - polysaccharides
Chitin and Cellulose - even more complex, indigestible as fibre.
Compare: plastic - cf. Carbohydrate and Hydrocarbon
The key similarity between Oil/plastic and biopolymers!
Butanol from biomass is an alcohol that is more similar to gasoline than it is to ethanol, and has been demonstrated as a fuel in internal combustion engines without modification of the engines.
AVOID - Splenda (a chorine-based "sucralose"), Equal (aspartame), Sweet'N Low (Saccharin).
Saturday, May 30, 2009
"Prayer changes nothing but the pray-er".
It is obvious that prayer does not change anything. The futility of appeals to any or all gods is proved by the record of the saints and the demons, and all of us in between, who have begged, promised, pled and sacrificed, and were answered with silence and inattention.
Today, however, I heard a man declare that prayer changes ONE thing: The Prayer.
So true! Yes, the act of prayer fixes the pray-er to the message and massages the medium. To the one set of ears which hear the articulation, in the interaction of saying it, hearing it, and "getting it", there is a chance of change.
Of course, most of the time, the praying is formulaic. Iterations of "Bless this food to our bodies" locks us into the sleep likely to prevent the possibility of any "change" at the heart of the praying and prayed for.
Still, it is also obvious that we constantly pray. We do many things that do not really "change" anything, and prayer is one of them. The lack of change does not change, and we are not likely to wean ourselves from our futilities.
Today, however, I heard a man declare that prayer changes ONE thing: The Prayer.
So true! Yes, the act of prayer fixes the pray-er to the message and massages the medium. To the one set of ears which hear the articulation, in the interaction of saying it, hearing it, and "getting it", there is a chance of change.
Of course, most of the time, the praying is formulaic. Iterations of "Bless this food to our bodies" locks us into the sleep likely to prevent the possibility of any "change" at the heart of the praying and prayed for.
Still, it is also obvious that we constantly pray. We do many things that do not really "change" anything, and prayer is one of them. The lack of change does not change, and we are not likely to wean ourselves from our futilities.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Climbing - vocabulary
Definitions / words to help keep the climb in perspective. Note that climbing or exploring, like culinary activities, is dominated by French words:
Apparel - Outside, a durable, breathable, alpine soft shell with moisture-shedding doubleweave polyester, glued seams and stretch. Inside, wool, with layers of cotton.
Ascension - Ideal term for describing the upward climb. Contrast with "the Fall".
Big Wall - said of climbing a rock face.
Bivouac / bivouacked - temporary pitching of tent, with an intention that it is a place of rest and protection in the course of an ordeal. What is usually abandoned in the "last ditch descent".
Bottleneck - a geological feature that limits passage to a tricky and dangerous passage. On the Abruzzi route on K2, the B. is a 60-degree couloir at 27,100 feet.
British Paratroopers on Mt.McKinley (qv) climb - On June 4, 1998, a 10-man team of British soldiers set out to climb Mt.McKinley. The rangers at Talkeetna recommended the West Buttress (Grade 2), because some team members had no experience with glacier crossings and ice climbing. The rangers also told them to acclimatize for several days at 16,200 feet. The team ignored the outsider advice (see Groupness qv). They chose to climb the West Rib (Grade 4), and attempted to summit after only one day, and split the group 7 times in rescues required in attempting a highly technical finish. Found themselves on the mountain for three weeks, partially exposed in wet bivouc bags during bad weather.
Climber's Elbow - tendinits of the Medial Epicondyle (qv). Can be prevented with stretching and strengthening of the forearm.
Couloir - a deep gorge, where a gorge is a deep gulley. The big drop.
Everest - [None of the local names were established before British scientists named it after one of their own who had himself made every effort to use local names -- but see also Sagarmatha (Nepali: सगरमाथा), Chomolungma or Qomolangma (Tibetan: ཇོ་མོ་གླང་མ) or Zhumulangma (Chinese: 珠穆朗玛峰 Zhūmùlǎngmǎ Fēng)]– the highest mountain on Earth, as measured by the height above sea level of its summit, 8,848 metres (29,029 ft - first established by theodolites, then in 1999 by GPS unit embedded in the rock). The mountain, which is part of the Himalaya range in High Asia, is located on the border between Sagarmatha Zone, Nepal, and Tibet, China. 3,681 aspirants have summitted, with a death toll of 210. Note K2 is 4 times more dangerous -- qv.
Fixed ropes - clip lines and rappels anchored to the rock or with ice screws left in place by previous teams.
Frostbite - with hypothermia, frozen body tissue. Usually to ears, nose, fingers/hands, legs and feet. Appendages may be visibly curled, dysfunctional. Regarding the 2006 David Sharp controversy, although still living, he was climbing solo and already suffering from severe frostbite when first located by other teams ascending Everest.
Groupness - the downfall of many a good corporation and climbing team. Study by MIT Sloan showing relationship between how long a group has been together and how well it communicates with outsiders. New groups perform better than older groups which become insular and technically dysfunctional over time. Example: 1998 British paratroopers set out to climb McKinley, Alaska (qv.)
Hard go - a difficult climb or descent; cf. the euphemism, "highly technical climb".
K2 - 28,250 feet, in Pakistan's Karakoram Range, a much harder and deadlier peak than Everest. August 1, 2008 saw 11 climbers killed on the Abruzzi Ridge. First ascent was in 1954. By 2007, only 284 climbers had summitted, while 66 died trying.
Medial Epicondyle - inside of the elbow. Used to describe flat ridge leading up to a rock face.
Motivator - The dangerous condition on the climb, such as an oncoming storm, or a geological feature such as an overhanging serac above a bottleneck.
Rappel - a descent of a vertical cliff or wall made by using a doubled rope that is fixed to a higher point and fastened to the body.
Road - "A strip of land along which one may pass from where it is too tiresome to be, to where it is futile to go." - A. Bierce.
Prolotherapy Injections - Anti-anti-inflammatory: re-ignites the natural anti-inflammatory response with injection of glucose. Note that anti-inflammatory drugs reduce pain, but impede healing, by stifling the flow of regenerative proteins or even blood supply to damaged areas.
Serac - A pinnacle of ice among the crevasses of a glacier; also, one of the blocks into which a glacier breaks on a steep grade.
Sloughed off -- as when a serac that had hung in place for decades suddenly collapses off the mountain, and may cover the trail with freshly broken impedimenta. May refer to the natural removal of fixed ropes you counted on.
Summit - reach the top.
Technical - euphemism for a climbing difficulty.
Top out - reach the top.
Apparel - Outside, a durable, breathable, alpine soft shell with moisture-shedding doubleweave polyester, glued seams and stretch. Inside, wool, with layers of cotton.
Ascension - Ideal term for describing the upward climb. Contrast with "the Fall".
Big Wall - said of climbing a rock face.
Bivouac / bivouacked - temporary pitching of tent, with an intention that it is a place of rest and protection in the course of an ordeal. What is usually abandoned in the "last ditch descent".
Bottleneck - a geological feature that limits passage to a tricky and dangerous passage. On the Abruzzi route on K2, the B. is a 60-degree couloir at 27,100 feet.
British Paratroopers on Mt.McKinley (qv) climb - On June 4, 1998, a 10-man team of British soldiers set out to climb Mt.McKinley. The rangers at Talkeetna recommended the West Buttress (Grade 2), because some team members had no experience with glacier crossings and ice climbing. The rangers also told them to acclimatize for several days at 16,200 feet. The team ignored the outsider advice (see Groupness qv). They chose to climb the West Rib (Grade 4), and attempted to summit after only one day, and split the group 7 times in rescues required in attempting a highly technical finish. Found themselves on the mountain for three weeks, partially exposed in wet bivouc bags during bad weather.
Climber's Elbow - tendinits of the Medial Epicondyle (qv). Can be prevented with stretching and strengthening of the forearm.
Couloir - a deep gorge, where a gorge is a deep gulley. The big drop.
Everest - [None of the local names were established before British scientists named it after one of their own who had himself made every effort to use local names -- but see also Sagarmatha (Nepali: सगरमाथा), Chomolungma or Qomolangma (Tibetan: ཇོ་མོ་གླང་མ) or Zhumulangma (Chinese: 珠穆朗玛峰 Zhūmùlǎngmǎ Fēng)]– the highest mountain on Earth, as measured by the height above sea level of its summit, 8,848 metres (29,029 ft - first established by theodolites, then in 1999 by GPS unit embedded in the rock). The mountain, which is part of the Himalaya range in High Asia, is located on the border between Sagarmatha Zone, Nepal, and Tibet, China. 3,681 aspirants have summitted, with a death toll of 210. Note K2 is 4 times more dangerous -- qv.
Fixed ropes - clip lines and rappels anchored to the rock or with ice screws left in place by previous teams.
Frostbite - with hypothermia, frozen body tissue. Usually to ears, nose, fingers/hands, legs and feet. Appendages may be visibly curled, dysfunctional. Regarding the 2006 David Sharp controversy, although still living, he was climbing solo and already suffering from severe frostbite when first located by other teams ascending Everest.
Groupness - the downfall of many a good corporation and climbing team. Study by MIT Sloan showing relationship between how long a group has been together and how well it communicates with outsiders. New groups perform better than older groups which become insular and technically dysfunctional over time. Example: 1998 British paratroopers set out to climb McKinley, Alaska (qv.)
Hard go - a difficult climb or descent; cf. the euphemism, "highly technical climb".
K2 - 28,250 feet, in Pakistan's Karakoram Range, a much harder and deadlier peak than Everest. August 1, 2008 saw 11 climbers killed on the Abruzzi Ridge. First ascent was in 1954. By 2007, only 284 climbers had summitted, while 66 died trying.
Medial Epicondyle - inside of the elbow. Used to describe flat ridge leading up to a rock face.
Motivator - The dangerous condition on the climb, such as an oncoming storm, or a geological feature such as an overhanging serac above a bottleneck.
Rappel - a descent of a vertical cliff or wall made by using a doubled rope that is fixed to a higher point and fastened to the body.
Road - "A strip of land along which one may pass from where it is too tiresome to be, to where it is futile to go." - A. Bierce.
Prolotherapy Injections - Anti-anti-inflammatory: re-ignites the natural anti-inflammatory response with injection of glucose. Note that anti-inflammatory drugs reduce pain, but impede healing, by stifling the flow of regenerative proteins or even blood supply to damaged areas.
Serac - A pinnacle of ice among the crevasses of a glacier; also, one of the blocks into which a glacier breaks on a steep grade.
Sloughed off -- as when a serac that had hung in place for decades suddenly collapses off the mountain, and may cover the trail with freshly broken impedimenta. May refer to the natural removal of fixed ropes you counted on.
Summit - reach the top.
Technical - euphemism for a climbing difficulty.
Top out - reach the top.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Book: "JESUS; the man who lives" by Malcomb Muggeridge
This work is a wonderful walk through the biographical portions of the first four Gospels, with full-page Art illustrations. Our "St. Mugg" provides the narrative company of a perpetually skeptical but late to his ardency, Believer. Muggeridge does note that no historical sources outside of the Gospels are available to corroborate anything said or done by Jesus. [To date, the actual existence of Jesus remains uncorroborated by real or direct evidence. He left no artifact or archeology or contemporary record. This lacuna is highlighted by the forged insertion into Josephus' history.]
The three chapters explore His Coming, His Teachings, and His Dying and Living. The Teachings of Jesus should be of interest to everyone, and they are honestly quoted and helpfully explored -- admitting to the obscurities. Jesus presents no theology, no law, nor even a Church.
"The religion Jesus gave the world is an experience, not a body of ideas or principles. It is in being lived that it lives, as it is in loving that the love which it discloses at the heart of all creation become manifest." [71]
The study is as comprehensive as the Gospels themselves. Intense, even comparative across these sources, noting the discrepant versions of events and parables -- for example, the three very different versions of the spikenard episode: "When Jesus was in Bethany with Lazarus, [who he had previously raised from the dead when Martha sent for Jesus to advise him that his beloved had died]... while Martha was preparing supper, Mary took a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and annointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair..." [124].
The emphasis is on what actual sins are, and that sin is rarely what the authorities say it is -- for example, Jesus roundly abuses hypocrisy -- the Pharisees "who say and do not" -- as the worst possible offense.[130]
Those of us not given to power over others or to accumulations of material things, will be gratified by Muggeridge's faithful recitation and explosion of the Beatitudes, and in particular, the bits about the poor and the meek. On the eve of of his crucifiction at Gethesemane -- this must be important -- Jesus told a lawyer to sell everything, give the proceeds to the poor, and "follow me". [114]. Jesus repeats this "distribute unto the poor" admonishment to his close friends, Lazarus, Martha and Mary.[116] If a "Christian" is one who follows the teachings of Jesus Christ, then there cannot, cannot, be more than a few dozen Christians in the world today. What a hypocrite professes makes the point.
A light on St. Mugg's own conversion is shed in the summary of Jesus' teachings provided by Jesus himself:
"Jesus summarized all his teaching for us in two great propositions which have provided Christendom with, as it were, its moral and spiritual axis...: 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and the second, like unto it: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.' On these two commandments, he insisted, hang all the law and the prophets. His manner of presenting them indicates their interdependence; unless we love God we cannot love our neighbour, and, correspondingly, unless we love our neighbour we cannot love God. Once again, there has to be a balance...".[130]
"The simple fact is that to be truly loved God has to become a Man without thereby ceasing to be God. Hence Jesus, ... Thus the two commandments become one...". [133]
Here we may have but the core of Muggeridge's conversion to Catholicism late in life.
Of course, he managed at the end to regain his certainty that Faith had no meaning, and died knowing there was no immortality or God. But that is another book, not this one. Much of the grace and gratitude of the religion which St. Mugg did so brilliantly express is so in this one.
The three chapters explore His Coming, His Teachings, and His Dying and Living. The Teachings of Jesus should be of interest to everyone, and they are honestly quoted and helpfully explored -- admitting to the obscurities. Jesus presents no theology, no law, nor even a Church.
"The religion Jesus gave the world is an experience, not a body of ideas or principles. It is in being lived that it lives, as it is in loving that the love which it discloses at the heart of all creation become manifest." [71]
The study is as comprehensive as the Gospels themselves. Intense, even comparative across these sources, noting the discrepant versions of events and parables -- for example, the three very different versions of the spikenard episode: "When Jesus was in Bethany with Lazarus, [who he had previously raised from the dead when Martha sent for Jesus to advise him that his beloved had died]... while Martha was preparing supper, Mary took a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and annointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair..." [124].
The emphasis is on what actual sins are, and that sin is rarely what the authorities say it is -- for example, Jesus roundly abuses hypocrisy -- the Pharisees "who say and do not" -- as the worst possible offense.[130]
Those of us not given to power over others or to accumulations of material things, will be gratified by Muggeridge's faithful recitation and explosion of the Beatitudes, and in particular, the bits about the poor and the meek. On the eve of of his crucifiction at Gethesemane -- this must be important -- Jesus told a lawyer to sell everything, give the proceeds to the poor, and "follow me". [114]. Jesus repeats this "distribute unto the poor" admonishment to his close friends, Lazarus, Martha and Mary.[116] If a "Christian" is one who follows the teachings of Jesus Christ, then there cannot, cannot, be more than a few dozen Christians in the world today. What a hypocrite professes makes the point.
A light on St. Mugg's own conversion is shed in the summary of Jesus' teachings provided by Jesus himself:
"Jesus summarized all his teaching for us in two great propositions which have provided Christendom with, as it were, its moral and spiritual axis...: 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and the second, like unto it: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.' On these two commandments, he insisted, hang all the law and the prophets. His manner of presenting them indicates their interdependence; unless we love God we cannot love our neighbour, and, correspondingly, unless we love our neighbour we cannot love God. Once again, there has to be a balance...".[130]
"The simple fact is that to be truly loved God has to become a Man without thereby ceasing to be God. Hence Jesus, ... Thus the two commandments become one...". [133]
Here we may have but the core of Muggeridge's conversion to Catholicism late in life.
Of course, he managed at the end to regain his certainty that Faith had no meaning, and died knowing there was no immortality or God. But that is another book, not this one. Much of the grace and gratitude of the religion which St. Mugg did so brilliantly express is so in this one.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Leadership - vision, passion, integrity, adaptive capacity
Our local County Bar President, Michael G. Yoder, prepared for his post by reviewing studies on LEADERSHIP. Great idea. One of the leading authorities on leadership is Dr. Warren Bennis, the Distinguished Professor of Business Administration and Founding Chairman of the Leadership Institute at the University of Southern California. In his widely recognized classic, On Becoming a Leader, Dr. Bennis isolates four qualities of an effective leader: (1) Vision – a leader must have a clear idea of what he or she wants to accomplish; (2) Passion – A leader must have a distinctive voice that can inspire and move others; (3) Integrity – A leader must stay true to his or her core values in order to earn the trust of others; and (4) Adaptive Capacity – A leader must be able to recognize and respond to change.
What an admirable way to prepare for taking a position of leadership. Is there something "undemocratic" about requiring nominees or candidates to reveal their achievements against the criteria that scholars, as well as the citizens, journalists, and historians will judge them?
What an admirable way to prepare for taking a position of leadership. Is there something "undemocratic" about requiring nominees or candidates to reveal their achievements against the criteria that scholars, as well as the citizens, journalists, and historians will judge them?
Saturday, December 27, 2008
New York City
I spent a year in New York City one month during a summer between classes. In the late 60's I shared an elegant flat with two female scholars and a wealthy Iraqi potter who despised Americans. One afternoon I recall having some time on my hands -- this is a vague feeling I almost always have -- and we all took the ferry to Ellis Island. The others took the immediate return boat back to Manhattan, but I felt I had stepped on the hallowed ground of Liberty and wanted to ascend the Lady. In the next hour, I was seduced by joyful strangers, conversationed by memoirists on their Hajj, and back in Manhattan, assaulted by a quartet of robbers.
The seductions went so far as kissing. Foreplay by two delightful older women who simply understood the richness of soft words. Without explanation, they took me into their company as familiars with New York, spending an hour with an obvious country boy. They were filled with puns and the names of food and places. And their lips wandered up and down my face, gently exploring the places in between emotions, between the gift and the longing of lips. Each of them boldly brought kisses--many of them--directly to my mouth. There was joy and sadness, there was the certainty we would not meet again, and that we would never forget the introduction. I learned that kissing can change one's hole idea of the mouth, of breathing, and eating. There are resuscitations of breath shared in the kindness of kisses offered without a hidden pudenda. As they left me, returning to their cruise, we spoke of remembering, and I do.
Half-way up the Lady-- a bronze spiral staircase, an Indian-file passage of simple intimacy -- the line stopped. Years now, looking back, I cannot remember why the processional was delayed, but I do remember that it was unexplicable at the time and disturbed me. As it happens, the elderly fellow behind me was an affable Hungarian who had married an Irish lady. Perhaps only because I was feeling trapped in a long line going nowhere, I asked this couple how they met. They took the "liberty" to tell me their entire life stories--growing up in the motherland, coming to America, and meeting each other. They were obvious characters. Again, my memory banks were overflowing.
As I boarded the ferry returning to Manhattan Island, two young beautiful Californian girls stood next to me. Being from California myself, we struck up a conversation and next thing you know, more kissing.
Finally, as I was returning to the flat later that night, and having been delayed by my own love of the Statue and the crowds and the kisses and the stories, the streets and neighborhoods did not appear to be "safe". I began singing DIES IRAE to myself, transporting my spirit to a place of midieval comforts:
1
Dies iræ! dies illa
Solvet sæclum in favilla
Teste David cum Sibylla!
{Day of wrath! O day of mourning!
See fulfilled the prophets' warning,
Heaven and earth in ashes burning!
As David bore witness with the Sibyll}
2
Quantus tremor est futurus,
quando judex est venturus,
cuncta stricte discussurus!
{Oh what fear man's bosom rendeth,
when from heaven the Judge descendeth,
on whose sentence all dependeth.}
3
Tuba mirum spargens sonum
per sepulchra regionum,
coget omnes ante thronum.
{Wondrous tone/sound the trumpet sounds/; flingeth;
through earth's sepulchers it rounds/; ringeth;
all before the throne it crowns;/ bringeth.}
My whispered missal probably did not attract the four assailants who come upon me in the half-lit avenue coming up to our flat. However, my slight form and obvious indifference to their profiles was at least an invitation to break the tedium of their lives with predation. The four blocked my way, but I saw no weapons. I nodded to one of them who was speaking, then whirled and fired a fist into the solar plexus of the biggest one standing slightly behind me and broke through their ring. I sprinted away into the middle of the street. Frankly I thought they had a "back up" or a leader hidden somewhere nearby and did not want to run into him. I was pretty certain I could outrun any assailant and did not believe they would shoot me even if they were armed. Or at least not without more provocation.
One or two may have started to give chase, but I was well away, running low and straight, then leaping into high gear. I did not even slow down for six blocks, and then I made two corners, cutting off possible visibility. I ducked into an attended valet station and stood smiling at the car jockeys, panting. They looked at me with amazement and waited for me to catch my breath. They were noticably nervous because I kept looking back from where I had come.
The boys standing at the valet station never asked, and I never told them, what I was running from. I will always be grateful, however, for the feeling of protection they quietly offered.
These memories seem to come to mind now on the occasion of the 400th anniversary of the discovery of Manhattan Island by Henry Hudson in 1609. The present inhabitants may not have the specific details, but they share a general sense that NYC is a marvelous and important place in this universe. For some of us, it is simply a crown jewel of tidal estuaries and urbanity, at the deep-water head of a river system that drains from Minnesota, and then merges and quiets the Atlantic, that mariner's road to the rest of the world. There is no more archetypal city on the planet, and none built so quickly. I never knew what "wall street" referred to until I gazed at its walled streets.
I hope that NYC celebrates its 400th. Without more provocation.
The seductions went so far as kissing. Foreplay by two delightful older women who simply understood the richness of soft words. Without explanation, they took me into their company as familiars with New York, spending an hour with an obvious country boy. They were filled with puns and the names of food and places. And their lips wandered up and down my face, gently exploring the places in between emotions, between the gift and the longing of lips. Each of them boldly brought kisses--many of them--directly to my mouth. There was joy and sadness, there was the certainty we would not meet again, and that we would never forget the introduction. I learned that kissing can change one's hole idea of the mouth, of breathing, and eating. There are resuscitations of breath shared in the kindness of kisses offered without a hidden pudenda. As they left me, returning to their cruise, we spoke of remembering, and I do.
Half-way up the Lady-- a bronze spiral staircase, an Indian-file passage of simple intimacy -- the line stopped. Years now, looking back, I cannot remember why the processional was delayed, but I do remember that it was unexplicable at the time and disturbed me. As it happens, the elderly fellow behind me was an affable Hungarian who had married an Irish lady. Perhaps only because I was feeling trapped in a long line going nowhere, I asked this couple how they met. They took the "liberty" to tell me their entire life stories--growing up in the motherland, coming to America, and meeting each other. They were obvious characters. Again, my memory banks were overflowing.
As I boarded the ferry returning to Manhattan Island, two young beautiful Californian girls stood next to me. Being from California myself, we struck up a conversation and next thing you know, more kissing.
Finally, as I was returning to the flat later that night, and having been delayed by my own love of the Statue and the crowds and the kisses and the stories, the streets and neighborhoods did not appear to be "safe". I began singing DIES IRAE to myself, transporting my spirit to a place of midieval comforts:
1
Dies iræ! dies illa
Solvet sæclum in favilla
Teste David cum Sibylla!
{Day of wrath! O day of mourning!
See fulfilled the prophets' warning,
Heaven and earth in ashes burning!
As David bore witness with the Sibyll}
2
Quantus tremor est futurus,
quando judex est venturus,
cuncta stricte discussurus!
{Oh what fear man's bosom rendeth,
when from heaven the Judge descendeth,
on whose sentence all dependeth.}
3
Tuba mirum spargens sonum
per sepulchra regionum,
coget omnes ante thronum.
{Wondrous tone/sound the trumpet sounds/; flingeth;
through earth's sepulchers it rounds/; ringeth;
all before the throne it crowns;/ bringeth.}
My whispered missal probably did not attract the four assailants who come upon me in the half-lit avenue coming up to our flat. However, my slight form and obvious indifference to their profiles was at least an invitation to break the tedium of their lives with predation. The four blocked my way, but I saw no weapons. I nodded to one of them who was speaking, then whirled and fired a fist into the solar plexus of the biggest one standing slightly behind me and broke through their ring. I sprinted away into the middle of the street. Frankly I thought they had a "back up" or a leader hidden somewhere nearby and did not want to run into him. I was pretty certain I could outrun any assailant and did not believe they would shoot me even if they were armed. Or at least not without more provocation.
One or two may have started to give chase, but I was well away, running low and straight, then leaping into high gear. I did not even slow down for six blocks, and then I made two corners, cutting off possible visibility. I ducked into an attended valet station and stood smiling at the car jockeys, panting. They looked at me with amazement and waited for me to catch my breath. They were noticably nervous because I kept looking back from where I had come.
The boys standing at the valet station never asked, and I never told them, what I was running from. I will always be grateful, however, for the feeling of protection they quietly offered.
These memories seem to come to mind now on the occasion of the 400th anniversary of the discovery of Manhattan Island by Henry Hudson in 1609. The present inhabitants may not have the specific details, but they share a general sense that NYC is a marvelous and important place in this universe. For some of us, it is simply a crown jewel of tidal estuaries and urbanity, at the deep-water head of a river system that drains from Minnesota, and then merges and quiets the Atlantic, that mariner's road to the rest of the world. There is no more archetypal city on the planet, and none built so quickly. I never knew what "wall street" referred to until I gazed at its walled streets.
I hope that NYC celebrates its 400th. Without more provocation.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Bernard L. Madoff - the SEC failed to investigate repeated defalcations
Mr. Madoff was a broker-dealer; he held himself out as a sophisticated "genius" at the craft of investing OPM - Other People's Money. The OPM stake was worth billions. It turns out, he simply operated a Ponzi-scheme. He did not craft a brilliant trading strategy, he made no market, and he managed no portfolios in his exclusive floor of a New York skyscraper. He simply took money from people. How smart does anyone have to be to do this?
The SEC had received numerous complaints against Madoff. In spite of documented fraud claims, however, the SEC failed to scrutinize the Madoff securities "market maker" operations which were clearly within its jurisdiction.
The Madoff swindle is in excess of $50 billion. This type of theft at this scale will carve a large hole in the free market, as investors face the fact that hedge fund managers and investment brokers are not "policed" or regulated in any effective way. Thus, we see the debilitation of market entry -- investors now joined with lenders in an unwillingness to place their funds into a "marketplace" overrun by predators. Capital not already in the hands of the pirates, is held hostage or at bay, and no longer available to productive enterprises.
The SEC had received numerous complaints against Madoff. In spite of documented fraud claims, however, the SEC failed to scrutinize the Madoff securities "market maker" operations which were clearly within its jurisdiction.
The Madoff swindle is in excess of $50 billion. This type of theft at this scale will carve a large hole in the free market, as investors face the fact that hedge fund managers and investment brokers are not "policed" or regulated in any effective way. Thus, we see the debilitation of market entry -- investors now joined with lenders in an unwillingness to place their funds into a "marketplace" overrun by predators. Capital not already in the hands of the pirates, is held hostage or at bay, and no longer available to productive enterprises.
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Cat Paradise; with apologies to The Hound of Heaven, by Francis Thompson
The Pussy-Cat of Paradise
Calling in the night push-push
I chased her, down the stairway of days and up
the veils of night, I chased
until chastened but not caught,
not in my arms;
there was nothing
Only nothing
I searched for her
Listened for the sound of eyelids opening
and for the songs of cats in love
My ear peeled, my keening throughout the house,
creating the house,
I searched.
I pled, I begged like an outlaw caught
with his red hand in a bucket of greed.
I pleaded for the tender mercies, all for me, and
all about me,
everyone everywhere could hear this oyez plea!
For though I knew love, I did not know I knew,
and knew not how
new love would know.
Or having love, I dreaded what else I must have.
For so often
You get what you never saw
And scratched by its paw.
Was searching so,
through a window darkly for the black cat of love,
dressed to the nines of its liquid life
As Love to pursue
the little spotted margay
so troubling the bear at the gateway of the stars
or the jawed jaguar
Wrestling the alligator of our intermittencies
searching for the furred stop, the rejoinder,
with the mystery of its passion,
frisking the feathers of hope with its love of risk.
I searched on full moon nights the pale ports of mystery.
The shut doors of pure unholy ignorance,
gob-smacked down
the empty halls of cold marble
harked to the echo of distant trumpets
Gone smoking astray
I said to Dusk: be quick – to Dawn: be soon;
With the scattered rose find me one tremendous Lover,
heaping with blossoms
Float this veil and sail the carpetings of magic things
to the solid hearth
Where the heart’s content will lay down among its cats.
Their truth, their soi-disant claims to simplicity.
Only I clung to the whistling dark.
There was no answering purred remark.
I said to the world: be still – to its turning: stop.
With the twine of caresses not yet receiving
did I yearn for Love’s redeeming.
Lip to lip, the soft keening breath.
Be still. And yet, it did not stop.
Lucent-weeping yet, it only promised tears are wet.
The wind-walled palace of my hopes
were spiraled out in milky tropes.
All willful seem the clouds to be
how awful the snortings of the sea
And all that’s born and dies
comes face to face with skies
of possibility and doom.
Felt a failure, the search was done;
hoped for all, but found none.
I was heavy with the Even
and surrounded by the lonely blue shadowings
of cathode rays
around the day’s dead sanctity.
Then, BOOM!
You landed as if from the sea.
You mustered my commingling heats
gathered up the fur
the push-push and curling tail, so curing
the human smart.
Now, let Love live, who lives Love.
Cat my paradise.
Calling in the night push-push
I chased her, down the stairway of days and up
the veils of night, I chased
until chastened but not caught,
not in my arms;
there was nothing
Only nothing
I searched for her
Listened for the sound of eyelids opening
and for the songs of cats in love
My ear peeled, my keening throughout the house,
creating the house,
I searched.
I pled, I begged like an outlaw caught
with his red hand in a bucket of greed.
I pleaded for the tender mercies, all for me, and
all about me,
everyone everywhere could hear this oyez plea!
For though I knew love, I did not know I knew,
and knew not how
new love would know.
Or having love, I dreaded what else I must have.
For so often
You get what you never saw
And scratched by its paw.
Was searching so,
through a window darkly for the black cat of love,
dressed to the nines of its liquid life
As Love to pursue
the little spotted margay
so troubling the bear at the gateway of the stars
or the jawed jaguar
Wrestling the alligator of our intermittencies
searching for the furred stop, the rejoinder,
with the mystery of its passion,
frisking the feathers of hope with its love of risk.
I searched on full moon nights the pale ports of mystery.
The shut doors of pure unholy ignorance,
gob-smacked down
the empty halls of cold marble
harked to the echo of distant trumpets
Gone smoking astray
I said to Dusk: be quick – to Dawn: be soon;
With the scattered rose find me one tremendous Lover,
heaping with blossoms
Float this veil and sail the carpetings of magic things
to the solid hearth
Where the heart’s content will lay down among its cats.
Their truth, their soi-disant claims to simplicity.
Only I clung to the whistling dark.
There was no answering purred remark.
I said to the world: be still – to its turning: stop.
With the twine of caresses not yet receiving
did I yearn for Love’s redeeming.
Lip to lip, the soft keening breath.
Be still. And yet, it did not stop.
Lucent-weeping yet, it only promised tears are wet.
The wind-walled palace of my hopes
were spiraled out in milky tropes.
All willful seem the clouds to be
how awful the snortings of the sea
And all that’s born and dies
comes face to face with skies
of possibility and doom.
Felt a failure, the search was done;
hoped for all, but found none.
I was heavy with the Even
and surrounded by the lonely blue shadowings
of cathode rays
around the day’s dead sanctity.
Then, BOOM!
You landed as if from the sea.
You mustered my commingling heats
gathered up the fur
the push-push and curling tail, so curing
the human smart.
Now, let Love live, who lives Love.
Cat my paradise.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
What lives, hungers.
What do living things "have in common"? The Hunger. As if in order to live, existance has to curl around a need, the desire to live that moves the prepositional object.
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Consumer Protection replaced by Consumerism
In AlterNet:
How Our Gutless Media Helped Trigger the Credit Crisis
By Trudy Lieberman, Columbia Journalism Review. Posted November 20, 2008.
http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/102963
"As Dean Starkman, who runs The Audit on cjr.org, pointed out in this magazine in March ("Red Ink Rising"), American credit-card debt now stands at more than $900 billion, up 9,000 percent from 1968, having risen by a third between 2001 and 2006. Worse, he noted that more than three quarters of the credit industry's profits now come from people who make minimum monthly payments. As he further reported, these industry-wide changes followed a regulatory rollback and were by and large missed by the nation's press."
During the Bush-Cheney-Rove regime, Americans preserved an appearance of prosperity even as they lost it, by dramatically deepening their dependence on rolling credit. The "investment bank" packaging of CDS/Credit Default Swaps with sub-prime mortgages was just the beginning of the financial collapse. The Trillion Dollar credit card debts which underemployed people will never be able to pay back has not yet begun to blight the rapidly eroding "fundamentals".
How Our Gutless Media Helped Trigger the Credit Crisis
By Trudy Lieberman, Columbia Journalism Review. Posted November 20, 2008.
http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/102963
"As Dean Starkman, who runs The Audit on cjr.org, pointed out in this magazine in March ("Red Ink Rising"), American credit-card debt now stands at more than $900 billion, up 9,000 percent from 1968, having risen by a third between 2001 and 2006. Worse, he noted that more than three quarters of the credit industry's profits now come from people who make minimum monthly payments. As he further reported, these industry-wide changes followed a regulatory rollback and were by and large missed by the nation's press."
During the Bush-Cheney-Rove regime, Americans preserved an appearance of prosperity even as they lost it, by dramatically deepening their dependence on rolling credit. The "investment bank" packaging of CDS/Credit Default Swaps with sub-prime mortgages was just the beginning of the financial collapse. The Trillion Dollar credit card debts which underemployed people will never be able to pay back has not yet begun to blight the rapidly eroding "fundamentals".
Ants - why we like them - complex system analysis
For those of us who really love ants, the Web is wonderful bait. My essay on the thirteen Great Myths About Ants (part of my series on almost everything you believe is just wrong) is already out of date.
One current view and point of research is running the hive as a model for Complex Systems. Ants have no leader, and they get their marching orders from larvae, yet millions of ants -- and the scale is part of this interactive success pattern -- following almost pre-instinctive rules of individual behavior, can build bridges with their bodies and forage for food along vast efficient highways. They farm, cultivate, protect, and have thrived with an almost indifference to evolution, in their present form for 100 million years.
What are the rules these little guys are following? Can we run the model and project it to the next scale?
In complex systems, through local interactions and self-organization, stable or semi-stable patterns emerge at a next level or a higher scale. They project.
They adjust to small changes in the system or initial conditions and re-apply across new conditions. Very promising research models.
....Well, back to the ANTS, here is a short Digg List:
Army Ants Have Defied Evolution For 100 Million Years (May 9, 2003) — Army ants, nature's ultimate coalition task force, strike their prey en masse in a blind, voracious column and pay no attention to the conventional wisdom of evolutionary ... > read more
Clemson Fire Ant Research Uses Biological Approach (Dec. 21, 1998) — In the ongoing war to control fire ants, a new, biological approach is being tested at Clemson University. Entomologists here have introduced a naturally occurring disease into fire ant colonies as a ... > read more
Parasites Prevent Ants From Protecting Coffee Plants (Aug. 8, 2003) — Azteca ants are voracious predators that live on coffee plants and aggressively defend their territories. That’s generally good for the coffee plants, which are protected in the process against ... > read more
Some Tropical Birds Depend Completely On Army Ants To Flush Out Prey (Oct. 17, 2007) — In the jungles of Central and South America, a group of birds has evolved a unique way of finding food -- by following hordes of army ants and letting them do all the work. Some of the birds rely ... > read more
Army Ants Form Living Pothole Plugs For Their Roads (May 28, 2007) — Certain army ants in the rainforests of Central and South America conduct spectacular predatory raids containing up to 200,000 foraging ants. Remarkably, some ants use their bodies to plug potholes ... > read more
Ants Are Experienced Fungus Farmers (Mar. 25, 2008) — It turns out ants, like humans, are true farmers. The difference is that ants are farming fungus. Entomologists are providing new insight into the agricultural abilities of ants and how these ... > read more
Get 'Two Steps' Ahead Of Fire Ants With Organic Control (May 12, 2004) — Red imported fire ants love wet, rainy, cool days like the ones that ushered in spring. That's why so many of their mounds have been popping up all over Texas this year. But help is only two ... > read more
Ability To Capture Large Prey May Be Origin Of Army Ants' Cooperative Behavior (Dec. 15, 2005) — Scientific insights come at the darnedest times. Animal behaviorist Sean O'Donnell was having an afternoon cup of coffee when a giant earthworm exploded out of the leaf litter covering the jungle ... > read more
One current view and point of research is running the hive as a model for Complex Systems. Ants have no leader, and they get their marching orders from larvae, yet millions of ants -- and the scale is part of this interactive success pattern -- following almost pre-instinctive rules of individual behavior, can build bridges with their bodies and forage for food along vast efficient highways. They farm, cultivate, protect, and have thrived with an almost indifference to evolution, in their present form for 100 million years.
What are the rules these little guys are following? Can we run the model and project it to the next scale?
In complex systems, through local interactions and self-organization, stable or semi-stable patterns emerge at a next level or a higher scale. They project.
They adjust to small changes in the system or initial conditions and re-apply across new conditions. Very promising research models.
....Well, back to the ANTS, here is a short Digg List:
Army Ants Have Defied Evolution For 100 Million Years (May 9, 2003) — Army ants, nature's ultimate coalition task force, strike their prey en masse in a blind, voracious column and pay no attention to the conventional wisdom of evolutionary ... > read more
Clemson Fire Ant Research Uses Biological Approach (Dec. 21, 1998) — In the ongoing war to control fire ants, a new, biological approach is being tested at Clemson University. Entomologists here have introduced a naturally occurring disease into fire ant colonies as a ... > read more
Parasites Prevent Ants From Protecting Coffee Plants (Aug. 8, 2003) — Azteca ants are voracious predators that live on coffee plants and aggressively defend their territories. That’s generally good for the coffee plants, which are protected in the process against ... > read more
Some Tropical Birds Depend Completely On Army Ants To Flush Out Prey (Oct. 17, 2007) — In the jungles of Central and South America, a group of birds has evolved a unique way of finding food -- by following hordes of army ants and letting them do all the work. Some of the birds rely ... > read more
Army Ants Form Living Pothole Plugs For Their Roads (May 28, 2007) — Certain army ants in the rainforests of Central and South America conduct spectacular predatory raids containing up to 200,000 foraging ants. Remarkably, some ants use their bodies to plug potholes ... > read more
Ants Are Experienced Fungus Farmers (Mar. 25, 2008) — It turns out ants, like humans, are true farmers. The difference is that ants are farming fungus. Entomologists are providing new insight into the agricultural abilities of ants and how these ... > read more
Get 'Two Steps' Ahead Of Fire Ants With Organic Control (May 12, 2004) — Red imported fire ants love wet, rainy, cool days like the ones that ushered in spring. That's why so many of their mounds have been popping up all over Texas this year. But help is only two ... > read more
Ability To Capture Large Prey May Be Origin Of Army Ants' Cooperative Behavior (Dec. 15, 2005) — Scientific insights come at the darnedest times. Animal behaviorist Sean O'Donnell was having an afternoon cup of coffee when a giant earthworm exploded out of the leaf litter covering the jungle ... > read more
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Spam - the unwanted tide
The number of unsolicited and unwanted emails transmitted on the Internet exceeds 180 billion per diem. Spam now makes up 90% of the content of email. Curiously, the 10% balance is roughly double the Postmaster's figures for the percentage of personal snail mail. We seem to combine a tolerance for wildly arbitrary commercial assaults with reticence, no matter what form of communication our technology provides.
I am reminded that in 2004, Bill Gates predicted that the distribution of bulk emails spam would be marginalized. Was he not making a serious prediction? Or was he just that wrong?
Clearly, it is "personal life" that is marginalized; persons as such have almost no life. Between being over-run and being bored, or between being a victim of mass media and being one of the spammers, what vitality is left?
I am reminded that in 2004, Bill Gates predicted that the distribution of bulk emails spam would be marginalized. Was he not making a serious prediction? Or was he just that wrong?
Clearly, it is "personal life" that is marginalized; persons as such have almost no life. Between being over-run and being bored, or between being a victim of mass media and being one of the spammers, what vitality is left?
Saturday, November 15, 2008
CRIMINALITY OF STEALING MONEY / PRIVATE FRAUD REMEDIES
New laws and regulations are not necessary to "save" the world from thieves. What has been missing for 8 years is a prosecutor, or a "police" agency willing to maintain conventional standards of behavior in the Market place.
It appears that the appointment of a vigorous Prosecutor would resolve both the financial and psychological aspects of the present "crisis" presented to us by the defalcation of President Bush, who appointed an Attorney General who did nothing to protect us. What is The Law for that we do not enforce?
There are also conventional "private" remedies -- civil causes and even class actions. However, these were also compromised by an Executive who was extremely hostile to legal relief for consumers against institutional predators.
If an investor has been damaged by a fund manager, the investor may have a cause of action against the manager. If a pension fund is involved, the fiduciary duty is even higher. The point is, investors can hire private attorneys to sue investment bankers for breach of fiduciary duty, negligence, or fraud. Interestingly, most of the investment bankers have liability insurance policies covering negligence.
The cause of the present financial crisis is that poor credit risk sub-prime loans were deliberately packaged by investment bankers as "high grade structured credit enhanced leverage funds" for sale to our pension funds. In other words, by giving the security a title that makes it appear to be financially "sound", the bankers were able to aggregate sub-prime loans into "derivatives" that created billion-dollar transactions to support their million-dollar bonuses.
BTW, no one even knows WHAT these new securities are, much less how much they are worth. When it is an aggregation of billions of dollars assigned distantly from the initial loan parties, a CDS - “credit default swap”, or a “derivative” is a meaningless description for an unknown gas for which no amount or value can be attached, but which apparently floated huge bonuses to CEOs.
For years, the plaintiffs' Bar has been trying to put a check on this kind of fraud by suing the bankers -- but of course, there were no "damages" while home equity was rising, and nobody asked, "By the way, how much is the collateral actually worth?"
Bankers with almost no information about the borrowers or the collateral, and with no basis for believing they knew what the value of the security was, were trading the paper. By consolidating huge piles of this paper, they increased the paper value -- pulling enormous commissions out on each successive assignment.
But isn't it fraudulent to NAME this consolidated paper a "high grade structured credit enhanced leverage funds" when in fact it was drawn from a loan broker without verification of income or reasonable "collateralization of risk"?
Isn't it a breach of fiduciary duty to put our pension funds into a "high grade structured credit enhanced leverage fund" the managers have not actually collateralized? Calling this a "derivative" may be fraudulent, because up until July of 2008, the word gave the impression that the Seller was financially sophisticated.
We must also note that there is a hybrid Janus-like quality of both foreseeability and "surprise" in the marketing of derivatives. The collapse was not unforeseeable or unforeseen -- many economists and investors (apparently all outside the Bush Administration and Treasury) had warned about the over-valued and fictionally-valued derivatives.
Nothing suddenly happened. The "due dates" for balloon payments, and stock calls, were all known in advance. The investment bankers like Lehman Brothers and insurers like AIG, all knew well in advance what dynamics were in place.
All the more reason to question the tactic of declaring an emergency so as to obtain a government bail out on the eve of a regime change in Washington DC. ALL of the "risk" was anticipated, joked about ( http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/187.html ), and in fact discounted by the securities market already.
The fact that Paulson pressured Congress for funds (which Congress would have to borrow, ahem, from "Lenders") in order to buy worthless and toxic assets FROM LENDERS to keep them in business, and when Congress gave him the billions he asked for HE DID NOT DO WHAT HE SAID HE WOULD DO, raises at least some question about whether he understood what appears to be an entirely fictional "crisis".
Paulson may have a good faith belief that there was a "crisis". ALL of his friends are investment bankers, and many of them were CEO's on whose watch their corporate vessels had run into the unpleasant shoals of "due dates" and money famine. And there is no question that the prosperity of the country depends upon the availability of loans.
However, if "loan availability" is necessary, why not just set up a "bank" (or a central bank that loans to local banks) that makes loans? Why was it necessary to invest in worthless paper or inject bail-out money into sinking ships? Is there any question in anyone's mind that the CEO's who secretly awarded themselves million dollar bonuses on the eve of the crash of their companies cannot be trusted with money?
It appears that the appointment of a vigorous Prosecutor would resolve both the financial and psychological aspects of the present "crisis" presented to us by the defalcation of President Bush, who appointed an Attorney General who did nothing to protect us. What is The Law for that we do not enforce?
There are also conventional "private" remedies -- civil causes and even class actions. However, these were also compromised by an Executive who was extremely hostile to legal relief for consumers against institutional predators.
If an investor has been damaged by a fund manager, the investor may have a cause of action against the manager. If a pension fund is involved, the fiduciary duty is even higher. The point is, investors can hire private attorneys to sue investment bankers for breach of fiduciary duty, negligence, or fraud. Interestingly, most of the investment bankers have liability insurance policies covering negligence.
The cause of the present financial crisis is that poor credit risk sub-prime loans were deliberately packaged by investment bankers as "high grade structured credit enhanced leverage funds" for sale to our pension funds. In other words, by giving the security a title that makes it appear to be financially "sound", the bankers were able to aggregate sub-prime loans into "derivatives" that created billion-dollar transactions to support their million-dollar bonuses.
BTW, no one even knows WHAT these new securities are, much less how much they are worth. When it is an aggregation of billions of dollars assigned distantly from the initial loan parties, a CDS - “credit default swap”, or a “derivative” is a meaningless description for an unknown gas for which no amount or value can be attached, but which apparently floated huge bonuses to CEOs.
For years, the plaintiffs' Bar has been trying to put a check on this kind of fraud by suing the bankers -- but of course, there were no "damages" while home equity was rising, and nobody asked, "By the way, how much is the collateral actually worth?"
Bankers with almost no information about the borrowers or the collateral, and with no basis for believing they knew what the value of the security was, were trading the paper. By consolidating huge piles of this paper, they increased the paper value -- pulling enormous commissions out on each successive assignment.
But isn't it fraudulent to NAME this consolidated paper a "high grade structured credit enhanced leverage funds" when in fact it was drawn from a loan broker without verification of income or reasonable "collateralization of risk"?
Isn't it a breach of fiduciary duty to put our pension funds into a "high grade structured credit enhanced leverage fund" the managers have not actually collateralized? Calling this a "derivative" may be fraudulent, because up until July of 2008, the word gave the impression that the Seller was financially sophisticated.
We must also note that there is a hybrid Janus-like quality of both foreseeability and "surprise" in the marketing of derivatives. The collapse was not unforeseeable or unforeseen -- many economists and investors (apparently all outside the Bush Administration and Treasury) had warned about the over-valued and fictionally-valued derivatives.
Nothing suddenly happened. The "due dates" for balloon payments, and stock calls, were all known in advance. The investment bankers like Lehman Brothers and insurers like AIG, all knew well in advance what dynamics were in place.
All the more reason to question the tactic of declaring an emergency so as to obtain a government bail out on the eve of a regime change in Washington DC. ALL of the "risk" was anticipated, joked about ( http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/187.html ), and in fact discounted by the securities market already.
The fact that Paulson pressured Congress for funds (which Congress would have to borrow, ahem, from "Lenders") in order to buy worthless and toxic assets FROM LENDERS to keep them in business, and when Congress gave him the billions he asked for HE DID NOT DO WHAT HE SAID HE WOULD DO, raises at least some question about whether he understood what appears to be an entirely fictional "crisis".
Paulson may have a good faith belief that there was a "crisis". ALL of his friends are investment bankers, and many of them were CEO's on whose watch their corporate vessels had run into the unpleasant shoals of "due dates" and money famine. And there is no question that the prosperity of the country depends upon the availability of loans.
However, if "loan availability" is necessary, why not just set up a "bank" (or a central bank that loans to local banks) that makes loans? Why was it necessary to invest in worthless paper or inject bail-out money into sinking ships? Is there any question in anyone's mind that the CEO's who secretly awarded themselves million dollar bonuses on the eve of the crash of their companies cannot be trusted with money?
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Limbaugh, Hannity, O'Reilly - incompetent critics
Criticism is a vital part of the polity. The fact that a position or a decision is evaluated by people not predisposed to it, or "yes men", is what corrects our course. Diversity in the POV (Points of View) is what makes for wisdom, in Crowds and in Kitchen Cabinets.
However, our polity is crippled by the commercial success of idiots who are given voice and attention by mass media which they dominate. How did this happen?
It is a simple process:
(1) NEGATIVE INFORMATION. "Bad news" sells well. Negative information has pretty legs. Elections actually require ventilation of choices and investigations into the lives of the candidates. Hence, even "Swift-boating" -- a campaign of distorting the facts on the eve of an election with a Big Lie -- has almost First Amendment protection, although legal counterattacks for slander may remain viable, and there is a scientific question about whether attack ads "work" or not. Credit Reports pay for derogatory information, and provide almost no positive reportage. The fact is negative information has serious commercial value.
(2) ATTRACTS IDIOTS. Of course, what kind of person is most attracted to the purveying of this commercially valuable negative information? Greedy idiots who are indifferent to truth. And the examples abound in Talk Radio. Nasty little people with shameless motives are instinctively attracted to the money and the content of negative media events.
(3) SUCCESS TURNED ON ITS HEAD. Once the negative purveyors become commercially successful, then their ends continue to justify their destructive means. People who become rich by attacking others with lies, simply take their place in the halls of notorious figures, and begin to blend in with other public figures. For example, there is a qualitative difference between the content of the New York Times and the content of the periodicals known for "yellow journalism". And yet, many of the "yellow" journalists and editors actually make more money than the actual reporters of true news events. Negative and mendacious voices naturally sell more, and ride to success over the heads of the true or positive.
(4) COMPETENCE. The problem for the Polity is that we really NEED criticism; we need to hear the people who disagree with the choices, who see dangers perhaps not clearly recognized by our leaders. And we have to listen to criticism. However, criticism which is dishonest and outright misleading is not helpful. When the criticism is motivated by hatred or greed, it is not even "criticism" -- it moves into pure fabrication and malicious fiction. For example, Talk Radio provides an abundance of criticism, but much of it is simply incompetent noise or hate-mongering -- not helpful.
We need Critics, but we only need "competent" critics. People who tell us the truth, even if it is not what we want to hear. Three leading radio hosts in particular are Great Disappointments in terms of guiding a mature polity:
RUSH LIMBAUGH. This self-serving drug addict claims to have the largest number of listeners at 25 million. In fact, the actual number is closer to 2 million depending on what a "listener" is, and this exaggerated distortion, is just the beginning of his lies, which only get bigger and bigger. Limbaugh's hypocrisy was highlighted without refutation in a book by the notorious Al Franken.
Recently, and I mean three months before Obama had ever set foot in the Oval Office, Limbaugh announced that "the Obama recession is in full swing". Apparently the fraudulent packaging of subprime loans as high-grade securities by investment bankers, the collapse of the automobile industry, and the tripling of oil prices have less impact on economics than the arrival of a campaigner who could motivate millions of people to join an effort to bring hope back to America. We all know how the stock market reacts to Hope...wait, doesn't optimism tend to increase participation? The eagerness to assign blame to people who are not responsible, and the inability to research the objective facts of causation, is the watermark of a Nazi.
SEAN HANNITY. This Fox News anchor is angry and eager to assign blame to "liberals", using that word in a manner he would like everyone to misunderstand. Hannity describes Obama as "an extreme liberal", and excoriated Obama for choosing "one of the hardest left-wing radicals on the left", Rahm Emanuel, as his chief of staff.
Somehow Hannity overlooked the fact that Emanuel's record and history reveals a Clintonesque Centrist, described by McCain's ally, the South Carolina Republican Senator, Lindsey Graham, as "a wise choice". Graham spent years working with Emanuel and described him as "honest, direct and candid...willing to work to find common ground".
The use of an inflammatory label as a conclusion, "hardest left-wing radical", without bothering to substantiate a basis for the conclusion, is the watermark of an idiologue.
BILL O'REILLY. The creator of "the No-spin Zone" in the highest rated news network, this former attorney and creator of news, a "news entrepreneur", is as intensely ideological as any: He constantly spins. He is unique from other media personalities in his claim that he is NOT ideological. His hypocrisy is highlighted in painful detail on the website, www.oreilly-sucks.com. O'Reilly is perhaps the most wealthy of the bullies in the sandbox, and he apologized for failing to give close oversight over the Bush Administration and its defalcations with respect to the "massive corruption" forces which have destroyed America. He apologized! During the campaigns, in an interview with Guiliani, O'Reilly recommended that McCain appoint Guiliani as Attorney General and Romney as Secretary of Treasury -- with both of them empowered to interrogate "and punish every banker" involved in the financial collapse. This is an example of a "solution" that is barely more than self-promotion, and makes no practical sense. To his further credit, O'Reilly did acknowledge that Wall Street was taken over by "gangsters". But appointing one of them, Romney, as a "go to guy" to PUNISH investment bankers, would solve nothing.
The Polity really needs commentary, recommendations, and hearings. We need the jury poll, the forum, the marketplace of ideas. We just do NOT need hate-mongerers appealing to our fears. We do not need people who got rich by spouting ignorance all over our public airwaves. We need people who will address the urgencies and gravities of our days and our nights, as we fall deeper into this impoverishment of opportunities. We need critics of policy who are competent to investigate facts.
However, our polity is crippled by the commercial success of idiots who are given voice and attention by mass media which they dominate. How did this happen?
It is a simple process:
(1) NEGATIVE INFORMATION. "Bad news" sells well. Negative information has pretty legs. Elections actually require ventilation of choices and investigations into the lives of the candidates. Hence, even "Swift-boating" -- a campaign of distorting the facts on the eve of an election with a Big Lie -- has almost First Amendment protection, although legal counterattacks for slander may remain viable, and there is a scientific question about whether attack ads "work" or not. Credit Reports pay for derogatory information, and provide almost no positive reportage. The fact is negative information has serious commercial value.
(2) ATTRACTS IDIOTS. Of course, what kind of person is most attracted to the purveying of this commercially valuable negative information? Greedy idiots who are indifferent to truth. And the examples abound in Talk Radio. Nasty little people with shameless motives are instinctively attracted to the money and the content of negative media events.
(3) SUCCESS TURNED ON ITS HEAD. Once the negative purveyors become commercially successful, then their ends continue to justify their destructive means. People who become rich by attacking others with lies, simply take their place in the halls of notorious figures, and begin to blend in with other public figures. For example, there is a qualitative difference between the content of the New York Times and the content of the periodicals known for "yellow journalism". And yet, many of the "yellow" journalists and editors actually make more money than the actual reporters of true news events. Negative and mendacious voices naturally sell more, and ride to success over the heads of the true or positive.
(4) COMPETENCE. The problem for the Polity is that we really NEED criticism; we need to hear the people who disagree with the choices, who see dangers perhaps not clearly recognized by our leaders. And we have to listen to criticism. However, criticism which is dishonest and outright misleading is not helpful. When the criticism is motivated by hatred or greed, it is not even "criticism" -- it moves into pure fabrication and malicious fiction. For example, Talk Radio provides an abundance of criticism, but much of it is simply incompetent noise or hate-mongering -- not helpful.
We need Critics, but we only need "competent" critics. People who tell us the truth, even if it is not what we want to hear. Three leading radio hosts in particular are Great Disappointments in terms of guiding a mature polity:
RUSH LIMBAUGH. This self-serving drug addict claims to have the largest number of listeners at 25 million. In fact, the actual number is closer to 2 million depending on what a "listener" is, and this exaggerated distortion, is just the beginning of his lies, which only get bigger and bigger. Limbaugh's hypocrisy was highlighted without refutation in a book by the notorious Al Franken.
Recently, and I mean three months before Obama had ever set foot in the Oval Office, Limbaugh announced that "the Obama recession is in full swing". Apparently the fraudulent packaging of subprime loans as high-grade securities by investment bankers, the collapse of the automobile industry, and the tripling of oil prices have less impact on economics than the arrival of a campaigner who could motivate millions of people to join an effort to bring hope back to America. We all know how the stock market reacts to Hope...wait, doesn't optimism tend to increase participation? The eagerness to assign blame to people who are not responsible, and the inability to research the objective facts of causation, is the watermark of a Nazi.
SEAN HANNITY. This Fox News anchor is angry and eager to assign blame to "liberals", using that word in a manner he would like everyone to misunderstand. Hannity describes Obama as "an extreme liberal", and excoriated Obama for choosing "one of the hardest left-wing radicals on the left", Rahm Emanuel, as his chief of staff.
Somehow Hannity overlooked the fact that Emanuel's record and history reveals a Clintonesque Centrist, described by McCain's ally, the South Carolina Republican Senator, Lindsey Graham, as "a wise choice". Graham spent years working with Emanuel and described him as "honest, direct and candid...willing to work to find common ground".
The use of an inflammatory label as a conclusion, "hardest left-wing radical", without bothering to substantiate a basis for the conclusion, is the watermark of an idiologue.
BILL O'REILLY. The creator of "the No-spin Zone" in the highest rated news network, this former attorney and creator of news, a "news entrepreneur", is as intensely ideological as any: He constantly spins. He is unique from other media personalities in his claim that he is NOT ideological. His hypocrisy is highlighted in painful detail on the website, www.oreilly-sucks.com. O'Reilly is perhaps the most wealthy of the bullies in the sandbox, and he apologized for failing to give close oversight over the Bush Administration and its defalcations with respect to the "massive corruption" forces which have destroyed America. He apologized! During the campaigns, in an interview with Guiliani, O'Reilly recommended that McCain appoint Guiliani as Attorney General and Romney as Secretary of Treasury -- with both of them empowered to interrogate "and punish every banker" involved in the financial collapse. This is an example of a "solution" that is barely more than self-promotion, and makes no practical sense. To his further credit, O'Reilly did acknowledge that Wall Street was taken over by "gangsters". But appointing one of them, Romney, as a "go to guy" to PUNISH investment bankers, would solve nothing.
The Polity really needs commentary, recommendations, and hearings. We need the jury poll, the forum, the marketplace of ideas. We just do NOT need hate-mongerers appealing to our fears. We do not need people who got rich by spouting ignorance all over our public airwaves. We need people who will address the urgencies and gravities of our days and our nights, as we fall deeper into this impoverishment of opportunities. We need critics of policy who are competent to investigate facts.
Extinctions - blood-suckers, flesh-borers, meat wasps...
Why is the polity so tolerant of pestilence, and at the same time so willing to see wonderful forms of life disappear right before our eyes?
MOSQUITOES. As fascinating as this tribe is, they are not an essential part of a food chain (could be replaced by other creatures), and their hemotaphagous dirty needles spread immense suffering: The Culiseta family is the most dangerous disease vector known. WHO estimates about 250 million people are infected by malaria, and mosquitoes also spread West Nile virus, four forms of encephalitis, yellow fever, dengue fever, rift valley fever, meningitis, and other diseases. Not to mention they also cause sleepless nights and ruin fishing trips and the crepuscular magic of the tropics. Who could possibly miss them? Ironically, I still find people KILLING the "mosquito hawk", Toxorhynchites, in paroxysms of bug-ophobia. This giant of the mosquitoes actually cannibalizes its nasty little brethren. It should always be protected and released.
MEAT BEES ("yellowjackets"). I value creatures whose lifestyle includes eating the other undesireables in my neighborhood. It is my understanding that most of the Vespidae Family, and the Vespula Genus in particular, eat an assortment of insect pests. Our local picnic area and watering hole is often made tricky to use by invasions of aggressive flies which mimic wasps, and a few wasps. Although the sting, usually repeated, of a wasp is painful, and an altercation with a large hive can be fatal, I recommend letting them "be", so to speak. When the occasional paper wasp nest or hornet hole is found too close to my work in the garden, of course, I remove it.
{further list}
MOSQUITOES. As fascinating as this tribe is, they are not an essential part of a food chain (could be replaced by other creatures), and their hemotaphagous dirty needles spread immense suffering: The Culiseta family is the most dangerous disease vector known. WHO estimates about 250 million people are infected by malaria, and mosquitoes also spread West Nile virus, four forms of encephalitis, yellow fever, dengue fever, rift valley fever, meningitis, and other diseases. Not to mention they also cause sleepless nights and ruin fishing trips and the crepuscular magic of the tropics. Who could possibly miss them? Ironically, I still find people KILLING the "mosquito hawk", Toxorhynchites, in paroxysms of bug-ophobia. This giant of the mosquitoes actually cannibalizes its nasty little brethren. It should always be protected and released.
MEAT BEES ("yellowjackets"). I value creatures whose lifestyle includes eating the other undesireables in my neighborhood. It is my understanding that most of the Vespidae Family, and the Vespula Genus in particular, eat an assortment of insect pests. Our local picnic area and watering hole is often made tricky to use by invasions of aggressive flies which mimic wasps, and a few wasps. Although the sting, usually repeated, of a wasp is painful, and an altercation with a large hive can be fatal, I recommend letting them "be", so to speak. When the occasional paper wasp nest or hornet hole is found too close to my work in the garden, of course, I remove it.
{further list}
Thursday, November 06, 2008
The Pollsters did a very good job of predicting the outcome...
My favorite Poll-master - at Electoral-vote.com, has analyzed the relative success of polsters against actual voting results. Looks like ARG, Insider Advantage, and
Quinnipiac U. were on the money at 100% accuracy/correspondence to reality.
Mason-Dixon and Rasmussen were relatively inferior, missing the close calls, although even they came in favoring Obama in overall outcome.
"In Colorado, for example, the scaled poll predicted an Obama vote of 52.7% and a McCain vote of 45.9%. The candidates got 52.5% and 45.9%, respectively. Thus the polls were remarkably close to the actual vote and there is not a hint of Obama polling well but doing badly on election day.
Now look at the eight other swing states. In Florida the pollsters were right on the money. In Indiana, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, and Virginia they were off by a maximum of 1.2% for Obama. In the other two states, Nevada and New Mexico, the polls for Obama were off by 4.1%, which is within the margin of error. In both cases Obama did better than predicted, so clearly there is no Bradley effect here. If nothing else, any future discussions of the "Bradley effect" can be quickly ended with the statement: "It didn't exist in 2008."
Comparison of the Pollsters
There are various ways to compare the pollsters. Professional statisticians look to see if the actual results were within the bracketed range predicted by the pollster. For example, if a pollster predicted Obama 51% and McCain 49% with a 3% margin of error and the final result was McCain 51% and Obama 49%, the pollster would claim to have gotten it right because Obama fell within the predicted range of 48% to 54% and McCain fell into the predicted range of 46% to 52%. Laymen would probably say the pollster got it wrong--because they don't understand what the prediction really is. To keep it simple, let us use the second approach and see which pollsters predicted which states right. Here are the data.
Pollster CO FL IN MO NV NM NC OH VA Rt/Tot Pct
ARG Yes Yes Tie Tie - - Yes Yes Yes 5/5 100%
Insider Advantage Yes Yes - Yes Tie - Tie Yes - 4/4 100%
Quinnipiac U. Yes Yes - - - - - Yes - 3/3 100%
Opinion Research Yes Yes No Yes Yes - Yes Yes Yes 7/8 88%
SurveyUSA - Yes Tie - - Yes No Yes Yes 4/5 80%
Research 2000 - Yes Yes No Yes - Yes - - 4/5 80%
Mason-Dixon Yes Yes - - Yes - No No Yes 4/6 67%
Rasmussen Yes No No - Yes Yes No - Yes 4/7 43%
In some cases the pollster predicted a tie, that is, said it was too close to call. Let us remove those from the sample. In that case the scores for these pollsters are given in the last two columns. If you want to play with the data yourself, here they are .csv format."
Quinnipiac U. were on the money at 100% accuracy/correspondence to reality.
Mason-Dixon and Rasmussen were relatively inferior, missing the close calls, although even they came in favoring Obama in overall outcome.
"In Colorado, for example, the scaled poll predicted an Obama vote of 52.7% and a McCain vote of 45.9%. The candidates got 52.5% and 45.9%, respectively. Thus the polls were remarkably close to the actual vote and there is not a hint of Obama polling well but doing badly on election day.
Now look at the eight other swing states. In Florida the pollsters were right on the money. In Indiana, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, and Virginia they were off by a maximum of 1.2% for Obama. In the other two states, Nevada and New Mexico, the polls for Obama were off by 4.1%, which is within the margin of error. In both cases Obama did better than predicted, so clearly there is no Bradley effect here. If nothing else, any future discussions of the "Bradley effect" can be quickly ended with the statement: "It didn't exist in 2008."
Comparison of the Pollsters
There are various ways to compare the pollsters. Professional statisticians look to see if the actual results were within the bracketed range predicted by the pollster. For example, if a pollster predicted Obama 51% and McCain 49% with a 3% margin of error and the final result was McCain 51% and Obama 49%, the pollster would claim to have gotten it right because Obama fell within the predicted range of 48% to 54% and McCain fell into the predicted range of 46% to 52%. Laymen would probably say the pollster got it wrong--because they don't understand what the prediction really is. To keep it simple, let us use the second approach and see which pollsters predicted which states right. Here are the data.
Pollster CO FL IN MO NV NM NC OH VA Rt/Tot Pct
ARG Yes Yes Tie Tie - - Yes Yes Yes 5/5 100%
Insider Advantage Yes Yes - Yes Tie - Tie Yes - 4/4 100%
Quinnipiac U. Yes Yes - - - - - Yes - 3/3 100%
Opinion Research Yes Yes No Yes Yes - Yes Yes Yes 7/8 88%
SurveyUSA - Yes Tie - - Yes No Yes Yes 4/5 80%
Research 2000 - Yes Yes No Yes - Yes - - 4/5 80%
Mason-Dixon Yes Yes - - Yes - No No Yes 4/6 67%
Rasmussen Yes No No - Yes Yes No - Yes 4/7 43%
In some cases the pollster predicted a tie, that is, said it was too close to call. Let us remove those from the sample. In that case the scores for these pollsters are given in the last two columns. If you want to play with the data yourself, here they are .csv format."
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
Politics - the legacy of joy and profundity has begun
With the huge turnout and participation of The People in this election, we demonstrate a love of the "State" in the true sense of patriotism. The one in which l'etat c'est moi, and moi has a dog in the race. A wonderful dog. We are our best friend. Suddenly we have a future again. Time to get over the obstacle of outrage and shame.
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