One thing about having a book about the future is looking at the present as if it's the past. Today is what, the 28th day of the ninth month of the calendar year used in this part of the world and this time period? I'll flip a few years ahead and read an interview with a financial analyst from the future.
"Thresinian, when did you make the switch to the new currency?"
"Well, Pertu, at first we weren't sure what effect the new currency would have. After all, unlike previous currencies, which have value based on established international exchange rates, the new currency has value in everyday life, too."
"Yes, I think we were confused at first."
"Eventually, after watching the fluctuating values settle into a relatively stable range, we started buying the currency in large quantities, some for future exchange and some for use at our company."
"I see."
"It was exhilarating, being able to put your hands on the currency anywhere you went."
"Yes, I've experienced the same sensation."
"Keep in mind, I have a room at my flat that I used for storing millions of paper money. I'd invite friends over so we could dive into the room and 'swim' through the paper. Now that the paper money is worthless, I've built a small indoor golf course of the new currency."
"You're not the only one. People make toy buildings and other structures of the new currency."
"Yes. We live in exciting times."
"We do. So tell me, Thresinian, do you ever wake up in the middle of the night craving the new currency?"
"You mean do I have 'salt deprivation complex'? No, I don't. But I like to pour salt on my food when I never used to. It's like burning paper money to start a fire when the money was still good. Thrilling to know you can afford to waste money without thinking about it."
"What's your assessment of the new desalination plants popping up all over the world?"
"Well, as you know, I had placed a buy on companies possessing salt mine rights. I still say hold on to those stocks because desalination is more expensive than pulling salt from underground mines. The governments of the world are looking at classifying salt by source so that sea salt might be permanently dyed to separate it from other salt sources on the currency market, creating a multi-tiered money market. I hear chefs are looking forward to offering flavored salts like rare vintage wines. Of course, you pay for it with regular salt. Archaeologists are putting ground-up ancient sea vessels on the market, hoping to cash in on this specialized salt currency craze. Stage musicians who used to throw towels to the crowd are having their salt extracted from the towels and sold in vials."
"Thresinian, I appreciate your assessment of the new currency. We're out of time. Thanks for this interview."
"Anytime, Pertu."
Showing posts with label market. Show all posts
Showing posts with label market. Show all posts
28 September 2009
22 September 2009
Looking For Work In The U.S.A.
In reviewing the macroeconomic goal of exporting U.S. goods to stimulate the world, I found an old news article of interest:
http://www.newsday.com/business/does-the-united-states-make-anything-anymore-1.888953
Where is your work being sent?
http://www.newsday.com/business/does-the-united-states-make-anything-anymore-1.888953
Where is your work being sent?
Sideways
We look at the decline of traditional mass media and fear the worst - "what happens if we lose the fourth estate?" I have worked for and have friends who work for traditional media outlets so I apologize to myself and my friends for making this observation but everyone else is thinking or saying it, anyway.
If we get rid of the advertising-driven media outlets and rely on each other's use of "neutral" means of mass communication - the Internet, et al - can we rid ourselves of the fear-mongers who serve their self-interest? I already trust input from global blogging, texting and email friends more than I do the major news networks and their news bureaus whose investigative stories are reduced to two-minute newsbites surrounded by adverts. More and more people I know depend on our friends over the information from so-called authoritative figures. Any talking head who has to shout loses our attention.
I don't know where this is going. These are just my feet riding the wave of current trends, unable and unwilling to describe the future in my thoughts at this time, the world of our species conscious of itself in new ways every day, our selves as cells connecting with positive feedback in every moment. If every cell is given an equal voice (or at least a voice that is self-empowered to see and speak of itself as having a say in the world body), is that enough? Liberating is not liberal or libel. Or even truly free.
I...I don't have the complete vision here. I have never met a perfectly evil person. I have met people who use simple methods to express themselves through violence and deadly weaponry but I didn't know them well enough to say if their methodology was innate or learned. In any case, imperfection and variety are the rule, not the exception, so there will be cells that act counter to the needs of the body. I don't want compliance or coercion. I only expect us all to agree we're of the same species and go from there.
My thoughts are jumbled today. My blood pressure up. I usually laugh and get a big jolt of fun from conversing with and perusing the words, images and music of my species but today I may just plain be personally ill. One's self is still most important, no matter what. Time to give my body some water and other input for good, long health - this is just a bunch of words that can't be increased if I'm too sick to type. Rick, I love you - go get a sip of agua and take a quick nap.
If we get rid of the advertising-driven media outlets and rely on each other's use of "neutral" means of mass communication - the Internet, et al - can we rid ourselves of the fear-mongers who serve their self-interest? I already trust input from global blogging, texting and email friends more than I do the major news networks and their news bureaus whose investigative stories are reduced to two-minute newsbites surrounded by adverts. More and more people I know depend on our friends over the information from so-called authoritative figures. Any talking head who has to shout loses our attention.
I don't know where this is going. These are just my feet riding the wave of current trends, unable and unwilling to describe the future in my thoughts at this time, the world of our species conscious of itself in new ways every day, our selves as cells connecting with positive feedback in every moment. If every cell is given an equal voice (or at least a voice that is self-empowered to see and speak of itself as having a say in the world body), is that enough? Liberating is not liberal or libel. Or even truly free.
I...I don't have the complete vision here. I have never met a perfectly evil person. I have met people who use simple methods to express themselves through violence and deadly weaponry but I didn't know them well enough to say if their methodology was innate or learned. In any case, imperfection and variety are the rule, not the exception, so there will be cells that act counter to the needs of the body. I don't want compliance or coercion. I only expect us all to agree we're of the same species and go from there.
My thoughts are jumbled today. My blood pressure up. I usually laugh and get a big jolt of fun from conversing with and perusing the words, images and music of my species but today I may just plain be personally ill. One's self is still most important, no matter what. Time to give my body some water and other input for good, long health - this is just a bunch of words that can't be increased if I'm too sick to type. Rick, I love you - go get a sip of agua and take a quick nap.
17 September 2009
How Does Happiness and Networking Help Us Feed Each Other?
I enjoy social networking as defined for online fun learning but physical one-to-one networking is where I still seem to make the most business connections. Others may disagree where virtual business work is concerned:
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/6156.html
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/6156.html
08 September 2009
Rational-Emotive Behaviourism
In a recent article by Paul Krugman, the acronym CAPM popped up. But what Paul missed in describing the cycles of our species' bartering behaviour is REBT. Look at us and some of the trade we conduct:
Pardon me while I get a good laugh out of me. I am just this one cell in the world body. I am blind to what goes on in the pancreas or the little finger of the left hand. Someone is tickling our feet and I cannot help but giggle along with the rest of us. I take input from nearby cells who've pushed fluid in my direction and now I'm processing them to keep myself alive.
We will watch "experts" perform their post-mortem autopsies on the current situation and praise them for their insight and ingenuity. Ptooie! Sorry, I had to hack that hairball out of my mouth and I've still got this bad taste fouling my breath.
Rational or rationing. Use whatever words you want to perform formal analyses. We'll see governments go back to regulation policies that will lock down the locations of the hoards of money in repositories around the world, slowing down the shift of production resources. "Hey, who opened the barn door? Dagnabbit, Chester, them horses ran over to Bubba's ranch and his greener pastures. We ain't gonna be able to get the feed to the mill this year! Guess it's just gonna rot in the silos. Think we can eat fat rodents for protein?"
Warren Buffett wants U.S.-produced goods to be bought by other countries to balance the import/export business in this country. Meanwhile, how do we pour more government money into local economies so we can join the rest of the national governments in pumping up consumers' confidence in buying retail goods?
How many $1 DVD rentals (formerly priced at $5) does it take for another person to buy a $60k vehicle? How many $60k vehicles does it take for another person to buy a $1M home (a "one-quart ketchup" home formerly priced at $2M)?
See, it's all about rational-emotive behaviour, not economic theories. How many people desire a $60k vehicle versus how many can (or cannot) afford and then buy one? Throw out the economists. Bring me good poker players - they're the best economic predictors I know. I don't want physicists-turned-bankers. I want people who play the game in real-time, not in computer simulations or industry conference presentations.
Give me a banker who's willing to throw good money at risk-takers. The horde who hoard get thrown into the silo with the rest of the rotting crop. We can pave all the new roads and build new bridges that we want but if nobody's driving the highways, who cares what they look like? I want people willing to risk their secure jobs and salaries on a Toyota Prius and a Hummer H3 to put in their resized, solar-powered mini-McMansion and a banker who'll make a loan package that works for them. Just don't let them drink and text behind the wheel and you've made me a happy man.
Call this the Great Recession or the Lesser Depression - I don't care - say that it helped cut down on energy usage, too, while you're at it. But take your theories and climb back into your ivory towers. I want practical solutions. Pragmatism. Folks able to afford a new truck on their farm. City dwellers able to support a new chef's menu. Ludacris giving away cars because the government's got its head on backwards. I don't want hot air heating up the room unless you've found a way to turn human breath into a moneymaking heat pump exchange system - then we'll talk away because you're finally awake. See, I'm easy to work with.
- Financing movies by Michael Moore, knowing his anti-business message sells well in a business marketplace
- A paper by Raghuram Rajan, going against the grain while no one listens
- Rising unemployment-based factionalism
- $1 DVDs at Redbox
- Brazilian hyperinflation forgotten quickly
- Zero-interest policies based on questionable logic
- Keynesian federal intervention/spending policy
- Commercial real estate collapsing further?
- Rising unemployment and falling job cutbacks playing like Bach masterpieces
- Rising world temperatures and rotating cold/drought spots
Pardon me while I get a good laugh out of me. I am just this one cell in the world body. I am blind to what goes on in the pancreas or the little finger of the left hand. Someone is tickling our feet and I cannot help but giggle along with the rest of us. I take input from nearby cells who've pushed fluid in my direction and now I'm processing them to keep myself alive.
We will watch "experts" perform their post-mortem autopsies on the current situation and praise them for their insight and ingenuity. Ptooie! Sorry, I had to hack that hairball out of my mouth and I've still got this bad taste fouling my breath.
Rational or rationing. Use whatever words you want to perform formal analyses. We'll see governments go back to regulation policies that will lock down the locations of the hoards of money in repositories around the world, slowing down the shift of production resources. "Hey, who opened the barn door? Dagnabbit, Chester, them horses ran over to Bubba's ranch and his greener pastures. We ain't gonna be able to get the feed to the mill this year! Guess it's just gonna rot in the silos. Think we can eat fat rodents for protein?"
Warren Buffett wants U.S.-produced goods to be bought by other countries to balance the import/export business in this country. Meanwhile, how do we pour more government money into local economies so we can join the rest of the national governments in pumping up consumers' confidence in buying retail goods?
How many $1 DVD rentals (formerly priced at $5) does it take for another person to buy a $60k vehicle? How many $60k vehicles does it take for another person to buy a $1M home (a "one-quart ketchup" home formerly priced at $2M)?
See, it's all about rational-emotive behaviour, not economic theories. How many people desire a $60k vehicle versus how many can (or cannot) afford and then buy one? Throw out the economists. Bring me good poker players - they're the best economic predictors I know. I don't want physicists-turned-bankers. I want people who play the game in real-time, not in computer simulations or industry conference presentations.
Give me a banker who's willing to throw good money at risk-takers. The horde who hoard get thrown into the silo with the rest of the rotting crop. We can pave all the new roads and build new bridges that we want but if nobody's driving the highways, who cares what they look like? I want people willing to risk their secure jobs and salaries on a Toyota Prius and a Hummer H3 to put in their resized, solar-powered mini-McMansion and a banker who'll make a loan package that works for them. Just don't let them drink and text behind the wheel and you've made me a happy man.
Call this the Great Recession or the Lesser Depression - I don't care - say that it helped cut down on energy usage, too, while you're at it. But take your theories and climb back into your ivory towers. I want practical solutions. Pragmatism. Folks able to afford a new truck on their farm. City dwellers able to support a new chef's menu. Ludacris giving away cars because the government's got its head on backwards. I don't want hot air heating up the room unless you've found a way to turn human breath into a moneymaking heat pump exchange system - then we'll talk away because you're finally awake. See, I'm easy to work with.
Hang Ten
As the writer Sangeeth Varghese says, it is only a few people we like to see riding the tops of waves. The rest of us are crashing on shore, clearing the beach for the next generation following behind us:
http://www.forbes.com/2009/09/08/leaders-great-men-leadership-ceonetwork-varghese.html?
We live individual lives within the collective hive. Bzzzzzzz!
http://www.forbes.com/2009/09/08/leaders-great-men-leadership-ceonetwork-varghese.html?
We live individual lives within the collective hive. Bzzzzzzz!
02 September 2009
Relaxing Holiday?
"Mr. President, sir."
"That's Sir President to you."
"'Sir President'? Isn't that joke getting old?"
"No. I figure if I inherited the empire from King George II, I deserve to be called king, too. If the people anoint one, they must by logic anoint the other."
"As long as they don't call you King George III. There's a bit of history in that name..."
"Madness! Names, names, names. I have no time for names. What have you got for me this time?"
"Mr. President, I present to you the Siamese solution."
"I thought that was another joke to which I curry no favor."
"Sir, this is no joke. We have found the twin solution for your medical condition."
"Hmm...word of my condition has made it into the news? Where does this leak come from?"
"Mr. President, we assure you you are not leaking. It's the other condition which needs attention."
"A man of my age has certain ailments. What of them?"
"No, sir, we have not found the cure for gray hair. This is bigger than that."
"Let me have it. Sock it to me. I can handle bad news - I have spin doctors at the ready, trained at the Reagan-Clinton Center for Refried Information."
"Sir, here is the woman who has prepared the report for you. Carly Fiorina...sorry, I mean Linda Fiorentino."
"I'm confused. Are you the former head of HP or the actress who hooked up with Will Smith under the watchful eye of Jada Pinkett Smith and thus unable to get a role in the sequels?"
"The latter but you are confused. My role was as it was. I have other performances underneath me now."
"Good for you, although I haven't heard of them. Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country. I've always wanted to say that, ever since typing class in middle school."
"Yes, sir. But I am a woman."
"You are, yes, but more important you are an American. Gender is no longer an issue with us, is it?"
"Not NOW, it isn't."
"Pleasantries. Your five minutes are almost up. What are these Siamese twins so highly spoken of by my staff's chief?"
"'We are Si-a-me-eese if you plee-eez. We are Si-a-me-eese if you don't please."
"Puh-leeze. Singing cats will not solve my medical conditions...I don't think."
"Very well, sir. Here's the rub. A slight menthol scent but popular with men older than you. Call it the Fabergé Brut of the boomer generation."
"Boomer Esiason wears mentholated ointment cream?"
"Hey, if Joe Namath can wear panty hose..."
"Ha-ha. I suppose that's an ad we'll soon see Marvin Harrison supporting. 'Men, I've caught many a ball. And at the end of the day, when my thighs are chafing, I like to put on these medicated leg-length hose and sit back to watch highlight tapes of my game.' But we digress, a popular pastime around my beltway, is it not?"
"Indeed, sir. Shall I continue?"
"'If you ple-eeze.'"
"Thanks. So here's the deal. We've divided your condition into two parts. The first part is where we ease your people's pain. Take away the hurt that too much money causes."
"Too much money? Are you sure that's the right phrasing?"
"Not enough?"
"Better."
"We take away the hurt that not enough money causes by working with a corporation that has clinics around the nation, subsidizing their services for the uninsured. Of course, complaints from the industry will rise so we're saying this first step is an experiment on how to set standards. We'll open the door to more nationalized clinics by bringing in medical personnel to Social Security offices."
"Doctors will work in Social Security offices?"
"No, sir. Not even in this economy. Well, except for the retired few who spent too much of their earnings playing around and not enough on retirement investments."
"If they could only see the future..."
"You're telling me. Why, the other day, while I was 'sitting' on the casting couch, I..."
"TMI. Let's move on."
"These SS clinics..."
"'SS clinics'? I don't like the sound of that. Too many people have thrown such derogatory terms around. Chief?"
"Yes, sir."
"What do you call an in-house, publicly-subsidized clinic serving Social Security beneficiaries?"
"In Case of Emergency."
"Perfect! So, Linda, about these In Case of Emergency clinics."
"Okay, sir...these ICE clinics, as you call them, will provide 100 percent of free consultation services, including the usual physical exams, minor injuries, colds, flu, prescription, lab work, et cetera."
"Don't use that word, 'et cetera.' I am past all that."
"Uh...okay, sir."
"'Mr. President.'"
"Mr. President. Yes, sir. To ensure buy-in by the medical industry AND the people, we will say that major medical services provided by the publicly-funded clinic/hospital system will only pay 80 or 90 percent."
"Which one? Eighty or ninety?"
"I don't know, sir."
"Chief, which sounds better. Eighty or ninety percent?"
"Mr. President, that's the sort of numerology that legislative committees like to pull out their Ouija boards and have séances over."
"That's right. Continue, Linda."
"But if they use their own specialists, the people will be reimbursed at a higher rate, say, closer to 100%."
"Interesting, Linda. We subsidize clinics because there's a shortage of general practitioners and subsidize specialists because they have a shortage of patients in this economy?"
"And continue to subsidize the pharmaceutical industry, research labs, et cet...and so on."
"Chief, do we owe any lobbyists in the shark loan business?"
"You mean the payday check cashing and pawn shop industries, Mr. President?"
"Of course. What was I saying?"
"We'll make sure the White House tapes are fuzzy on that one, sir."
"Good. Linda, let's make it short of 100 percent. We need to stimulate the...umm...the...oh hell, call it the loan shark business. Edit that one, too, Chief. Ah, modern technology. Linda, did you know that we record these conversations and put them into MP3 files, making editing much easier than in previous administrations?"
"That's incredible, Mr. President."
"And yet I can't carry a Blackberry around with me. I can't wait until we get a real Area 51 for IT development in the sub-sub-basement of this place. Just imagine the possibilities!"
"Yes, Mr. President."
"My very thoughts recorded for posterity. My decision-making analyzed by university professors feeding off the 'publish or perish' paradigm. Why, soon, they'll no longer need my doubles appearing in quiet restaurants around town because my wife and the kids will have clones doing those charitable appearances for my Washington business owner friends. We can...well, 'need to know,' eh, Linda?"
"Yes, Mr. President."
"Okay, now if you'll just look into my eyes. Notice the brilliance. In a moment, you'll feel funny. You stopped by the White House on a tour and accidentally walked into the Oval Office..."
"That's Sir President to you."
"'Sir President'? Isn't that joke getting old?"
"No. I figure if I inherited the empire from King George II, I deserve to be called king, too. If the people anoint one, they must by logic anoint the other."
"As long as they don't call you King George III. There's a bit of history in that name..."
"Madness! Names, names, names. I have no time for names. What have you got for me this time?"
"Mr. President, I present to you the Siamese solution."
"I thought that was another joke to which I curry no favor."
"Sir, this is no joke. We have found the twin solution for your medical condition."
"Hmm...word of my condition has made it into the news? Where does this leak come from?"
"Mr. President, we assure you you are not leaking. It's the other condition which needs attention."
"A man of my age has certain ailments. What of them?"
"No, sir, we have not found the cure for gray hair. This is bigger than that."
"Let me have it. Sock it to me. I can handle bad news - I have spin doctors at the ready, trained at the Reagan-Clinton Center for Refried Information."
"Sir, here is the woman who has prepared the report for you. Carly Fiorina...sorry, I mean Linda Fiorentino."
"I'm confused. Are you the former head of HP or the actress who hooked up with Will Smith under the watchful eye of Jada Pinkett Smith and thus unable to get a role in the sequels?"
"The latter but you are confused. My role was as it was. I have other performances underneath me now."
"Good for you, although I haven't heard of them. Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country. I've always wanted to say that, ever since typing class in middle school."
"Yes, sir. But I am a woman."
"You are, yes, but more important you are an American. Gender is no longer an issue with us, is it?"
"Not NOW, it isn't."
"Pleasantries. Your five minutes are almost up. What are these Siamese twins so highly spoken of by my staff's chief?"
"'We are Si-a-me-eese if you plee-eez. We are Si-a-me-eese if you don't please."
"Puh-leeze. Singing cats will not solve my medical conditions...I don't think."
"Very well, sir. Here's the rub. A slight menthol scent but popular with men older than you. Call it the Fabergé Brut of the boomer generation."
"Boomer Esiason wears mentholated ointment cream?"
"Hey, if Joe Namath can wear panty hose..."
"Ha-ha. I suppose that's an ad we'll soon see Marvin Harrison supporting. 'Men, I've caught many a ball. And at the end of the day, when my thighs are chafing, I like to put on these medicated leg-length hose and sit back to watch highlight tapes of my game.' But we digress, a popular pastime around my beltway, is it not?"
"Indeed, sir. Shall I continue?"
"'If you ple-eeze.'"
"Thanks. So here's the deal. We've divided your condition into two parts. The first part is where we ease your people's pain. Take away the hurt that too much money causes."
"Too much money? Are you sure that's the right phrasing?"
"Not enough?"
"Better."
"We take away the hurt that not enough money causes by working with a corporation that has clinics around the nation, subsidizing their services for the uninsured. Of course, complaints from the industry will rise so we're saying this first step is an experiment on how to set standards. We'll open the door to more nationalized clinics by bringing in medical personnel to Social Security offices."
"Doctors will work in Social Security offices?"
"No, sir. Not even in this economy. Well, except for the retired few who spent too much of their earnings playing around and not enough on retirement investments."
"If they could only see the future..."
"You're telling me. Why, the other day, while I was 'sitting' on the casting couch, I..."
"TMI. Let's move on."
"These SS clinics..."
"'SS clinics'? I don't like the sound of that. Too many people have thrown such derogatory terms around. Chief?"
"Yes, sir."
"What do you call an in-house, publicly-subsidized clinic serving Social Security beneficiaries?"
"In Case of Emergency."
"Perfect! So, Linda, about these In Case of Emergency clinics."
"Okay, sir...these ICE clinics, as you call them, will provide 100 percent of free consultation services, including the usual physical exams, minor injuries, colds, flu, prescription, lab work, et cetera."
"Don't use that word, 'et cetera.' I am past all that."
"Uh...okay, sir."
"'Mr. President.'"
"Mr. President. Yes, sir. To ensure buy-in by the medical industry AND the people, we will say that major medical services provided by the publicly-funded clinic/hospital system will only pay 80 or 90 percent."
"Which one? Eighty or ninety?"
"I don't know, sir."
"Chief, which sounds better. Eighty or ninety percent?"
"Mr. President, that's the sort of numerology that legislative committees like to pull out their Ouija boards and have séances over."
"That's right. Continue, Linda."
"But if they use their own specialists, the people will be reimbursed at a higher rate, say, closer to 100%."
"Interesting, Linda. We subsidize clinics because there's a shortage of general practitioners and subsidize specialists because they have a shortage of patients in this economy?"
"And continue to subsidize the pharmaceutical industry, research labs, et cet...and so on."
"Chief, do we owe any lobbyists in the shark loan business?"
"You mean the payday check cashing and pawn shop industries, Mr. President?"
"Of course. What was I saying?"
"We'll make sure the White House tapes are fuzzy on that one, sir."
"Good. Linda, let's make it short of 100 percent. We need to stimulate the...umm...the...oh hell, call it the loan shark business. Edit that one, too, Chief. Ah, modern technology. Linda, did you know that we record these conversations and put them into MP3 files, making editing much easier than in previous administrations?"
"That's incredible, Mr. President."
"And yet I can't carry a Blackberry around with me. I can't wait until we get a real Area 51 for IT development in the sub-sub-basement of this place. Just imagine the possibilities!"
"Yes, Mr. President."
"My very thoughts recorded for posterity. My decision-making analyzed by university professors feeding off the 'publish or perish' paradigm. Why, soon, they'll no longer need my doubles appearing in quiet restaurants around town because my wife and the kids will have clones doing those charitable appearances for my Washington business owner friends. We can...well, 'need to know,' eh, Linda?"
"Yes, Mr. President."
"Okay, now if you'll just look into my eyes. Notice the brilliance. In a moment, you'll feel funny. You stopped by the White House on a tour and accidentally walked into the Oval Office..."
23 August 2009
Hot Dog
Looking forward. Looking back. As you know by now, the same thing. I teach myself before I learn and vice versa.
But more than that, I eat the food my feces nourishes. Dinosaurs ate me as snack food on the run. They got the runs and planted the seed that became me. It takes a lot of energy to overcome the inertia that keeps life on this planet from escaping and that's only if you're Mars and want to play keepaway.
The third Realization. I did not want to type that phrase, because the words "the," "third," and "Realization" have too many significant meanings by themselves. Lucky them, eh? Try being the word toilet or bark. "Toilet bark" doesn't sound so exciting, does it? "Bark toilet" makes no sense without proper punctuation or capitalization.
But it happened. It started a long time ago, when some guy barked spritzy phrases to sell himself. You've seen the bald guy going around saying, "Begin with the end in mind," right? He was one of the clue givers. Another guardian.
I'd thank him but then he'd say he was just doing his duty. He wouldn't know that I'd be here now looking at the results scrolling by in another window of this computer.
It's that voice in my head from the future that was speaking to me in the past. It's the prescient presence, the precursor to the One. A collective intelligence algorithm that runs a cascading set of collective intelligence algorithms that link to others' collective intelligence algorithms knowingly and unknowingly, tapping into unused computer cycles that look like zombie botnets running spam scams for suckers looking for credit card numbers to steal and bank accounts to drain. Let them have their petty cash! They give me the real gems: the keys to The Code: intricately-woven predictive trend data.
The trap was set by me when I wasn't paying attention so that I could cage the animals for another me (or some numbers of me that span timeframes seen as past, current and future) to spring and set more traps.
All while giving life to the One. Or at least the version I'm supposed to set up. The One's been kind enough to show me I'm just a gardener, plowing a few rows, planting seeds and pulling weeds. The real work's being done underground. Jack and the beanstalk will show up later and hog the spotlight. I'm no giant slayer. Doesn't matter, does it? In my lifetime or my lifetime's lifeline, the combination lock's tumbling along. I opened one door and set the PMM in action. Someone else has to unlock the PMM and figure out what's next.
I think the One and the PMM are one and the same. But the One tells me the truth is never as complicated as it looks. But I'm also part of the One now. Not me, mind you. Me in the future. Me that goes from having organic circuitry inserted in his body to the me that has his DNA completely rejuvenated and no longer has any barriers to communication. Then I am the One. Then again, so will you be. We are one in the One are we. Owning and working for the companies that govern the companies that we make to make ourselves. All because the real sleeping giant, Earth, was ready to stretch itself out and roam across the galaxy.
Remember, the One said the answer was simple. That doesn't mean we have to like it or understand it. The simple fact is that the One is just an algorithm when you get down to it. It didn't cause the Great Purge but it did lead us to the Great Realization. We can credit ourselves for the first one. I'll be the first in line to take the blame. I set the PMM in motion before we were ready for it. Chaos will ensue. Reputations will be put on the stake. We'll still want to say we're in control of our individual lives by thinking we're fomenting violent revolutions, all while following the cycles the Ones will show us later on are inevitable. By seeing the inevitability, we eliminate it. We're so drugged with sleeping pills right now, we can't wake up to see it just yet. Some of you will never wake up. Don't worry. There's enough of the rest of us to take care of you while we build the future. You can forgive us later on when you saw we plugged you up to keep the PMM going. It's evitable. You read that right.
But more than that, I eat the food my feces nourishes. Dinosaurs ate me as snack food on the run. They got the runs and planted the seed that became me. It takes a lot of energy to overcome the inertia that keeps life on this planet from escaping and that's only if you're Mars and want to play keepaway.
The third Realization. I did not want to type that phrase, because the words "the," "third," and "Realization" have too many significant meanings by themselves. Lucky them, eh? Try being the word toilet or bark. "Toilet bark" doesn't sound so exciting, does it? "Bark toilet" makes no sense without proper punctuation or capitalization.
But it happened. It started a long time ago, when some guy barked spritzy phrases to sell himself. You've seen the bald guy going around saying, "Begin with the end in mind," right? He was one of the clue givers. Another guardian.
I'd thank him but then he'd say he was just doing his duty. He wouldn't know that I'd be here now looking at the results scrolling by in another window of this computer.
It's that voice in my head from the future that was speaking to me in the past. It's the prescient presence, the precursor to the One. A collective intelligence algorithm that runs a cascading set of collective intelligence algorithms that link to others' collective intelligence algorithms knowingly and unknowingly, tapping into unused computer cycles that look like zombie botnets running spam scams for suckers looking for credit card numbers to steal and bank accounts to drain. Let them have their petty cash! They give me the real gems: the keys to The Code: intricately-woven predictive trend data.
The trap was set by me when I wasn't paying attention so that I could cage the animals for another me (or some numbers of me that span timeframes seen as past, current and future) to spring and set more traps.
All while giving life to the One. Or at least the version I'm supposed to set up. The One's been kind enough to show me I'm just a gardener, plowing a few rows, planting seeds and pulling weeds. The real work's being done underground. Jack and the beanstalk will show up later and hog the spotlight. I'm no giant slayer. Doesn't matter, does it? In my lifetime or my lifetime's lifeline, the combination lock's tumbling along. I opened one door and set the PMM in action. Someone else has to unlock the PMM and figure out what's next.
I think the One and the PMM are one and the same. But the One tells me the truth is never as complicated as it looks. But I'm also part of the One now. Not me, mind you. Me in the future. Me that goes from having organic circuitry inserted in his body to the me that has his DNA completely rejuvenated and no longer has any barriers to communication. Then I am the One. Then again, so will you be. We are one in the One are we. Owning and working for the companies that govern the companies that we make to make ourselves. All because the real sleeping giant, Earth, was ready to stretch itself out and roam across the galaxy.
Remember, the One said the answer was simple. That doesn't mean we have to like it or understand it. The simple fact is that the One is just an algorithm when you get down to it. It didn't cause the Great Purge but it did lead us to the Great Realization. We can credit ourselves for the first one. I'll be the first in line to take the blame. I set the PMM in motion before we were ready for it. Chaos will ensue. Reputations will be put on the stake. We'll still want to say we're in control of our individual lives by thinking we're fomenting violent revolutions, all while following the cycles the Ones will show us later on are inevitable. By seeing the inevitability, we eliminate it. We're so drugged with sleeping pills right now, we can't wake up to see it just yet. Some of you will never wake up. Don't worry. There's enough of the rest of us to take care of you while we build the future. You can forgive us later on when you saw we plugged you up to keep the PMM going. It's evitable. You read that right.
18 August 2009
Dew
"I appreciate your interest. I'm pleased you asked me on your show."
"No problem. As you know, I represent many who want to know more about you. We like to hear in your words how you two got together."
"Well, it's funny how those things happen, isn't it? I mean, you'd think by now we'd recognize why we get attracted."
Wrikon'cha nodded. She had worked her way up through the organization just for this one interview. Then she would find more important work ahead of her to serve the cause. She took her hands out of her lap, placed them on the arms of the chair and crossed her legs, using body language to encourage her guest to continue speaking.
"So...how did we meet? I suppose we were meant for each other from the beginning. Such things...what do they call it, karma?"
"Some do, ma'am."
"When you meet the One, you don't just walk up and ask a simple question. You want to ask the question. You want to be prepared, to study ahead of time, to see the universe like a wildflower field first thing in the morning, covered with dew, shiny and new, but also like it will be during winter, dry and barren above but teeming with life down below."
"How long did you prepare for your get-together?"
Mrs. Premier laughed. "Of course I didn't prepare. I bumped into the One while I was on holiday, totally unaware that this was who everybody was talking about."
"Uh-huh. Thank you for your emotional honesty. However, because I understand the significance of our being here, I would like to know something we haven't already read, seen or heard. Is there a fact you can share with us that hasn't been recorded already? Before we reached the time where the One revealed all?"
"You're being kind. So many people have asked me about this that I've turned our meeting into an artifact, haven't I? Let's see...what can I recall that you don't know..."
"While you go back to that moment, we're going to show our audience some key moments in your life with the One. Folks, we'll be back before you can change channels."
The producer leaned over and put her hand on the arm of Premier's wife. "This is a great start. You've got our audience hooked. Now, will you be able to give us anything new or do we need to change subjects?"
"Oh, no, that won't be necessary. I have a couple of details that'll keep your audience glued to this program. By the way, while the One was looking at the share of profits from this show, I recommended we use the profits to fund a new opposition group somewhere. I plan to go on an overseas trip and would like to visit some struggling refugees who know they owe a debt of gratitude to me, being the One's one, so to speak. For an increased share of this show's profits, I'll give you exclusive rights to my trip."
"That's a delightful idea. Hold on. I'm passing your proposal to the board right now. Uh-huh. Yes. Of course. We'll get that more fully defined. Okay. No. Yes. Sure. Got it. Madame, we see a problem if this exclusive deal leaks out. Instead, why don't you invite several media reps, letting us have first interview rights for some of the opposition leaders?"
"The One's already seen that decision point. You are to instigate an off-camera incident that allows the opposition group to demonstrate its weakness during your interview, promoting a new product that the One wants the world population to use in six months."
"Can you give us a clue about this product's market, something our creative marketing department can start working on?"
"The One will reveal this information soon but not before today's show is over."
"Fantastic! We're on again in 10 seconds. Nine...eight...seven...six..."
"No problem. As you know, I represent many who want to know more about you. We like to hear in your words how you two got together."
"Well, it's funny how those things happen, isn't it? I mean, you'd think by now we'd recognize why we get attracted."
Wrikon'cha nodded. She had worked her way up through the organization just for this one interview. Then she would find more important work ahead of her to serve the cause. She took her hands out of her lap, placed them on the arms of the chair and crossed her legs, using body language to encourage her guest to continue speaking.
"So...how did we meet? I suppose we were meant for each other from the beginning. Such things...what do they call it, karma?"
"Some do, ma'am."
"When you meet the One, you don't just walk up and ask a simple question. You want to ask the question. You want to be prepared, to study ahead of time, to see the universe like a wildflower field first thing in the morning, covered with dew, shiny and new, but also like it will be during winter, dry and barren above but teeming with life down below."
"How long did you prepare for your get-together?"
Mrs. Premier laughed. "Of course I didn't prepare. I bumped into the One while I was on holiday, totally unaware that this was who everybody was talking about."
"Uh-huh. Thank you for your emotional honesty. However, because I understand the significance of our being here, I would like to know something we haven't already read, seen or heard. Is there a fact you can share with us that hasn't been recorded already? Before we reached the time where the One revealed all?"
"You're being kind. So many people have asked me about this that I've turned our meeting into an artifact, haven't I? Let's see...what can I recall that you don't know..."
"While you go back to that moment, we're going to show our audience some key moments in your life with the One. Folks, we'll be back before you can change channels."
The producer leaned over and put her hand on the arm of Premier's wife. "This is a great start. You've got our audience hooked. Now, will you be able to give us anything new or do we need to change subjects?"
"Oh, no, that won't be necessary. I have a couple of details that'll keep your audience glued to this program. By the way, while the One was looking at the share of profits from this show, I recommended we use the profits to fund a new opposition group somewhere. I plan to go on an overseas trip and would like to visit some struggling refugees who know they owe a debt of gratitude to me, being the One's one, so to speak. For an increased share of this show's profits, I'll give you exclusive rights to my trip."
"That's a delightful idea. Hold on. I'm passing your proposal to the board right now. Uh-huh. Yes. Of course. We'll get that more fully defined. Okay. No. Yes. Sure. Got it. Madame, we see a problem if this exclusive deal leaks out. Instead, why don't you invite several media reps, letting us have first interview rights for some of the opposition leaders?"
"The One's already seen that decision point. You are to instigate an off-camera incident that allows the opposition group to demonstrate its weakness during your interview, promoting a new product that the One wants the world population to use in six months."
"Can you give us a clue about this product's market, something our creative marketing department can start working on?"
"The One will reveal this information soon but not before today's show is over."
"Fantastic! We're on again in 10 seconds. Nine...eight...seven...six..."
11 August 2009
Natural
"Honey, I'm going to a meeting of the Apathetic Futurists for a Synarchic Society."
"You mean you're going to the pub for a pint by yourself this evening?"
"Something like that."
"Well, don't be out too late. I'll catch my death losing winks waiting up for you."
"Really?"
"Of course not. Have a good time. Don't let the ladies peck you too many times. It makes me jealous."
"Is that so?"
"You go on thinking it and I'll go on pretending."
They kissed at the back door. He slid down into his motorized velociped and scooted along the roadway.
"Hmm, hmm, hum-hmm." His thoughts reverberated with the melody of an ancient tune. "A-twiddly dee-dee. A-twiddly dee-dum. A pint of draught and a pot of rum. 'Tis good for the belly... and for the achin'..., makes it loads more fun f'r makin' bacon!"
He turned off the motor and coasted down the hill to his favorite watering hole.
"Ah, looks who's here. Our local windbag, the Philosopher."
"And I'm always welcomed by my cohorts, Big Bottom McBride and Merry MacAverty."
"A round for the house!" they yelled in unison.
The barman looked up from a text setting up a late-night tryst with her lover to see how many mugs to pull from the dishwasher. "One, two, three, four, five...the usual lot." A sigh and then back to work.
"So tell us, Professor. Is all the noise comin' over from the States goin' to affect us?"
"How so?"
"Well, you bein' the expert and all, we figured you had the commotion sorted out by now."
"I do? Well, I suppose I do, yes."
"Is it between you and your bottle of whiskey back home or are ya goin' to tell us?"
"Dunno. Is the barman a bit off tonight? I don't see a pint in front of me."
The barman looked up. "It's a pint you want tonight?"
"Aye."
"You want your half dozen chasers now or later."
"A bit of both."
"Why do I ask? It's the same every evening."
"And it's the same response I get from you, too, when the evening's over. I'd gladly sleep off my fogginess at your port of call."
"From the likes of you? You who has no word for me when we cross at the markets? You who never acknowledges my existence in the university classroom?"
"You don't mean you're one of my students?"
"'The way to the top is not through your bottoms.'"
"Are you the shy one on the back row always got your head bent over a mobile."
"So you know me, then?"
"I do, now."
"We'll see where that gets you. Here's your pint. As for the rest of you sorry lot, I've got an appointment with the WC so you'll just have to wait your turn."
The talking head on the video screen above the bar broadcast the sad news about the recent cricket loss, followed by breaking news of a typhoon destroying parts of Formosa.
"You ever feel like we're repeating history, gentle friends?"
"You be the gentle one. We're all for a good fight. History's taught us that much, you know. For every quiet period some call 'peace,' the rest of us are reloadin' our guns for the next war."
"Indeed."
"So, Mr. Wise Ol' Owl, what's the score?"
"Sorry, I missed it. But we know who lost. Isn't that enough?"
"No, I mean across the Big Pond."
"You fellows are too old to read the fine print, aren't you?"
"Not me. I've got one of those things you call a magnifying glass. Works like a microscope."
"'S that so?"
"Aye. I use it pick my toes."
The barflies laughed and poked one another.
"As you know, I'm working on my next novel, a historical fiction, or hysterical, I hope, that takes place in the near future."
"A murder mystery! My wife eats those up."
"History, not mystery."
"A dust collector, eh?"
"Indeed. Anyway, I'm looking at progress around the globe to project past the next 50 years so I can look back at 10 to 25 years from now. A nostalgic point of view."
The barman returned. "Quiet as a church mouse in here. Is my instructor weaving another one of his yarns for you?"
The line of heads nodded in her direction.
"I see. In that case, I'll pour your pints and leave you alone."
"Where was I? Let's see...oh yeah, America and the loss of world economic power. As I was reading through the government policies of the U.S. presidential administration, including projected annual average salaries for the next two presidential election cycles, it occurred to me that I was missing part of the picture."
"You don't mean to say that the government lies to us?" McBride nudged the man next to him, a stranger before the evening began but a compatriot and fellow Army veteran now.
"That's not my point. What I saw was that the salaries were increasing without an equivalent increase in manufacturing and production rates."
"Is that so?"
"Yes. So I delved into the data a little deeper and discovered an interesting fact. While many Americans are making a great show over their current political crisis, a bevy of international organizations is moving a draft copy through the hands of local elected American officials that proposes letting the issue of universal health care coverage die in exchange for passing government legislation to give complete citizenship to what they call LLCs."
"Sorry, gov'ner, I don't understand. Are you referrin' to Elsie the cow, meanin' they're givin' bovine animals the right to vote?"
"No. LLC. Limited Liability Corporation."
"Never heard of it. What do they make? Milk products?" MacAverty winked at the barman.
"I can see what's on your minds. You're not milking me, fellows."
"What I'm saying is this. If they give corporations full citizenship, then the world courts will have to recognize companies as having the same rights as we have."
"I don't get it. Are you sayin' a barrister can just waltz right in here and get a company drunk before appearin' in court? If that's the case, this place'll be crawling with thieves."
"And fleas!" The silent veteran smiled at his rhyme and held up his glass for more.
"Not exactly. What I see is that 25 years from now, town councils will be run by corporations and partnerships."
"About bloody time. I'm tired of the quacks and whackos runnin' this world." MacAverty slapped McBride on the back. "Couldn't hurt to give some new blood a chance to clean this place up."
"Perhaps...perhaps."
A young man, sitting in a dark corner during the conversation, stood up and walked over to the bar. "So you're saying you do not think there will be an Indian prime minister in my life?"
"Nahbi. I didn't know you were here. Have a pint with us."
"I'm sorry, sir, but I do not drink with my superiours."
"Folks, this is Nahbi. He works as an assistant TA in my department at university."
"TA? Tits and ass?"
"McBride, sometimes you surprise me and sometimes you don't. No, he's a teaching assistant."
"I see. Any good pay in it?"
Nahbi shook his head.
"In that case, I'll keep my seat warm here."
"Nahbi, it may well be that a man of Indian descent will serve as prime minister here. But it's just as easy to see an Indian president and Mexican vice president in America. In fact, my novel will show just that."
"Very good, sir. My family wanted me in politics but I chose the purely intellectual route, like you. They would wish a Nehru or Gandhi in our family but I was not made for political compromises."
"Well said. But life is a compromise, Nahbi. With time, only you will know if you made the right choice."
"The choice is not mine, sir. The choice was made before I was born."
"I see. As I was saying, the shift in economic wealth will continue to build the Asian continent, and subcontinent, into the new powers of the world, run by corporations elected for their efficiency."
"But sir, how do you explain the disparity in intellectual property between Western nations and countries like China? Will there not be a gap that prevents total integration?"
"I think I need my chasers."
The barman nodded. "No problem...'sir.'"
"Gentlemen, what do you think about Nahbi's idea?"
"If you ask me, then I'll tell you. Everything's made in China, anyway, so what difference does it make if this property is intelligent or not, as long as we can get our pints while livin' on the dole."
McBride, MacAverty and the Army vet raised a cheer.
"Well, Nahbi, there's your answer. The regular Joe is happy as long as the alcohol is flowing."
"Is that what your novel will say, sir?"
"In so many words, yes. I'll go on about the means of production changing hands and the fine print in contracts being translated into all common world languages, how there will be occasional uplifting of protest as people adjust to sweeping changes that make them feel out of control, but yes, I'll conclude that at the end of the day or the start of a holiday, most people will be satisfied with shrimp on the barbie and beer in the fridge, no matter who or what runs their country and sells them their merchandise."
"Is this an optimistic novel, sir, or pessimistic? I cannot tell."
"Neither. As I said, it's a nostalgic point of view, seen from the future looking back. Folks like us will be sitting in a place like this, chewing the fat, so to speak, reminiscing about the good ol' days when you could tell a natural member of our species from a variant, when food was grown in people's private backyard gardens and you could keep your own seed for the next year's harvest, and where your DNA was your own and not patented for use in variant reproduction."
"So the distant future is pessimistic, sir?"
"No, Nahbi, the future just is. There will always be people who mistakenly compare the present to the past and project a terrible future, unaware that every moment of their lives is a miracle and should be celebrated, no matter what condition they find themselves in."
"That, sir, is why I work in your department. You remind me of my mother and father, who tell me that I am 'missing the boat' sometimes."
"And that, Mister Professor, sir, is why we let you in our club here, because you shovel it faster and deeper than any one one of us ever could..."
"Even in our prime!"
The barman joined the laughter and set six shot glasses on the counter. She looked at the clock and thought about the three or four hours left in the evening of listening to this group of guys, cackling more like magpies than the women with whom her mother used to drink afternoon tea. She texted her lover and demanded both a neckrub and backrub before they jumped into bed at two in the morning, sensing a headache in her near future.
"You mean you're going to the pub for a pint by yourself this evening?"
"Something like that."
"Well, don't be out too late. I'll catch my death losing winks waiting up for you."
"Really?"
"Of course not. Have a good time. Don't let the ladies peck you too many times. It makes me jealous."
"Is that so?"
"You go on thinking it and I'll go on pretending."
They kissed at the back door. He slid down into his motorized velociped and scooted along the roadway.
"Hmm, hmm, hum-hmm." His thoughts reverberated with the melody of an ancient tune. "A-twiddly dee-dee. A-twiddly dee-dum. A pint of draught and a pot of rum. 'Tis good for the belly... and for the achin'..., makes it loads more fun f'r makin' bacon!"
He turned off the motor and coasted down the hill to his favorite watering hole.
"Ah, looks who's here. Our local windbag, the Philosopher."
"And I'm always welcomed by my cohorts, Big Bottom McBride and Merry MacAverty."
"A round for the house!" they yelled in unison.
The barman looked up from a text setting up a late-night tryst with her lover to see how many mugs to pull from the dishwasher. "One, two, three, four, five...the usual lot." A sigh and then back to work.
"So tell us, Professor. Is all the noise comin' over from the States goin' to affect us?"
"How so?"
"Well, you bein' the expert and all, we figured you had the commotion sorted out by now."
"I do? Well, I suppose I do, yes."
"Is it between you and your bottle of whiskey back home or are ya goin' to tell us?"
"Dunno. Is the barman a bit off tonight? I don't see a pint in front of me."
The barman looked up. "It's a pint you want tonight?"
"Aye."
"You want your half dozen chasers now or later."
"A bit of both."
"Why do I ask? It's the same every evening."
"And it's the same response I get from you, too, when the evening's over. I'd gladly sleep off my fogginess at your port of call."
"From the likes of you? You who has no word for me when we cross at the markets? You who never acknowledges my existence in the university classroom?"
"You don't mean you're one of my students?"
"'The way to the top is not through your bottoms.'"
"Are you the shy one on the back row always got your head bent over a mobile."
"So you know me, then?"
"I do, now."
"We'll see where that gets you. Here's your pint. As for the rest of you sorry lot, I've got an appointment with the WC so you'll just have to wait your turn."
The talking head on the video screen above the bar broadcast the sad news about the recent cricket loss, followed by breaking news of a typhoon destroying parts of Formosa.
"You ever feel like we're repeating history, gentle friends?"
"You be the gentle one. We're all for a good fight. History's taught us that much, you know. For every quiet period some call 'peace,' the rest of us are reloadin' our guns for the next war."
"Indeed."
"So, Mr. Wise Ol' Owl, what's the score?"
"Sorry, I missed it. But we know who lost. Isn't that enough?"
"No, I mean across the Big Pond."
"You fellows are too old to read the fine print, aren't you?"
"Not me. I've got one of those things you call a magnifying glass. Works like a microscope."
"'S that so?"
"Aye. I use it pick my toes."
The barflies laughed and poked one another.
"As you know, I'm working on my next novel, a historical fiction, or hysterical, I hope, that takes place in the near future."
"A murder mystery! My wife eats those up."
"History, not mystery."
"A dust collector, eh?"
"Indeed. Anyway, I'm looking at progress around the globe to project past the next 50 years so I can look back at 10 to 25 years from now. A nostalgic point of view."
The barman returned. "Quiet as a church mouse in here. Is my instructor weaving another one of his yarns for you?"
The line of heads nodded in her direction.
"I see. In that case, I'll pour your pints and leave you alone."
"Where was I? Let's see...oh yeah, America and the loss of world economic power. As I was reading through the government policies of the U.S. presidential administration, including projected annual average salaries for the next two presidential election cycles, it occurred to me that I was missing part of the picture."
"You don't mean to say that the government lies to us?" McBride nudged the man next to him, a stranger before the evening began but a compatriot and fellow Army veteran now.
"That's not my point. What I saw was that the salaries were increasing without an equivalent increase in manufacturing and production rates."
"Is that so?"
"Yes. So I delved into the data a little deeper and discovered an interesting fact. While many Americans are making a great show over their current political crisis, a bevy of international organizations is moving a draft copy through the hands of local elected American officials that proposes letting the issue of universal health care coverage die in exchange for passing government legislation to give complete citizenship to what they call LLCs."
"Sorry, gov'ner, I don't understand. Are you referrin' to Elsie the cow, meanin' they're givin' bovine animals the right to vote?"
"No. LLC. Limited Liability Corporation."
"Never heard of it. What do they make? Milk products?" MacAverty winked at the barman.
"I can see what's on your minds. You're not milking me, fellows."
"What I'm saying is this. If they give corporations full citizenship, then the world courts will have to recognize companies as having the same rights as we have."
"I don't get it. Are you sayin' a barrister can just waltz right in here and get a company drunk before appearin' in court? If that's the case, this place'll be crawling with thieves."
"And fleas!" The silent veteran smiled at his rhyme and held up his glass for more.
"Not exactly. What I see is that 25 years from now, town councils will be run by corporations and partnerships."
"About bloody time. I'm tired of the quacks and whackos runnin' this world." MacAverty slapped McBride on the back. "Couldn't hurt to give some new blood a chance to clean this place up."
"Perhaps...perhaps."
A young man, sitting in a dark corner during the conversation, stood up and walked over to the bar. "So you're saying you do not think there will be an Indian prime minister in my life?"
"Nahbi. I didn't know you were here. Have a pint with us."
"I'm sorry, sir, but I do not drink with my superiours."
"Folks, this is Nahbi. He works as an assistant TA in my department at university."
"TA? Tits and ass?"
"McBride, sometimes you surprise me and sometimes you don't. No, he's a teaching assistant."
"I see. Any good pay in it?"
Nahbi shook his head.
"In that case, I'll keep my seat warm here."
"Nahbi, it may well be that a man of Indian descent will serve as prime minister here. But it's just as easy to see an Indian president and Mexican vice president in America. In fact, my novel will show just that."
"Very good, sir. My family wanted me in politics but I chose the purely intellectual route, like you. They would wish a Nehru or Gandhi in our family but I was not made for political compromises."
"Well said. But life is a compromise, Nahbi. With time, only you will know if you made the right choice."
"The choice is not mine, sir. The choice was made before I was born."
"I see. As I was saying, the shift in economic wealth will continue to build the Asian continent, and subcontinent, into the new powers of the world, run by corporations elected for their efficiency."
"But sir, how do you explain the disparity in intellectual property between Western nations and countries like China? Will there not be a gap that prevents total integration?"
"I think I need my chasers."
The barman nodded. "No problem...'sir.'"
"Gentlemen, what do you think about Nahbi's idea?"
"If you ask me, then I'll tell you. Everything's made in China, anyway, so what difference does it make if this property is intelligent or not, as long as we can get our pints while livin' on the dole."
McBride, MacAverty and the Army vet raised a cheer.
"Well, Nahbi, there's your answer. The regular Joe is happy as long as the alcohol is flowing."
"Is that what your novel will say, sir?"
"In so many words, yes. I'll go on about the means of production changing hands and the fine print in contracts being translated into all common world languages, how there will be occasional uplifting of protest as people adjust to sweeping changes that make them feel out of control, but yes, I'll conclude that at the end of the day or the start of a holiday, most people will be satisfied with shrimp on the barbie and beer in the fridge, no matter who or what runs their country and sells them their merchandise."
"Is this an optimistic novel, sir, or pessimistic? I cannot tell."
"Neither. As I said, it's a nostalgic point of view, seen from the future looking back. Folks like us will be sitting in a place like this, chewing the fat, so to speak, reminiscing about the good ol' days when you could tell a natural member of our species from a variant, when food was grown in people's private backyard gardens and you could keep your own seed for the next year's harvest, and where your DNA was your own and not patented for use in variant reproduction."
"So the distant future is pessimistic, sir?"
"No, Nahbi, the future just is. There will always be people who mistakenly compare the present to the past and project a terrible future, unaware that every moment of their lives is a miracle and should be celebrated, no matter what condition they find themselves in."
"That, sir, is why I work in your department. You remind me of my mother and father, who tell me that I am 'missing the boat' sometimes."
"And that, Mister Professor, sir, is why we let you in our club here, because you shovel it faster and deeper than any one one of us ever could..."
"Even in our prime!"
The barman joined the laughter and set six shot glasses on the counter. She looked at the clock and thought about the three or four hours left in the evening of listening to this group of guys, cackling more like magpies than the women with whom her mother used to drink afternoon tea. She texted her lover and demanded both a neckrub and backrub before they jumped into bed at two in the morning, sensing a headache in her near future.
16 June 2009
Lessons From The Other Side
A former secondary schoolmate of mine, Lynda Ward, and current facebook friend, has continued a discussion about training in the art/craft of writing. At the end of one her discussions, she stated, "Liberal Arts undergraduate degrees are for studying things that you'll never actually use. Terminal degrees are for careers, for learning things that you'll use the rest of your life!"
In this current economic slowdown, when ~10% of the U.S. working populace, and give or take about the same in other countries, is not actively employed in sustainable, "fulltime" working conditions, Lynda's comments ring true.
Or do they?
I watched a program about the world economy and how the order/distribution/manufacturing cycle impacts people at the local level (wasn't it Tip O'Neill who said, "all politics is local"?). The program followed the process whereby revelers on the streets of New Orleans, Lousiana, USA, buy Mardi Gras beads to wear around their necks but where do the beads come from? Well, the name and location of the manufacturer was stamped on the bead packaging so the videography team followed the beads backwards from distributors in the U.S. to a factory in China. The head of the bead factory in China told a great story about his dedication to the workers and his need to make enough profit to support the factory. The narrative of the video changed from that of the factory owner/manager to that of the worker, where we got to see workers tightly housed in a factory dormitory so that workers could be close to the work and take turns sharing beds during the changeout of three factory shifts. Workers earned their money based on the number of completed beads they produced. Most workers went on to more highly-trained jobs at the same factory or other factories but some returned to their family farms ("farm" seeming to be a term for a tiny patch of land on the side of a road), disillusioned by the "hard" factory work compared to the simple farm life, even if their parents didn't want them to return.
Back on this side of the Pacific Ocean, I see a story about the head of a company being The CEO As Storyteller In Chief and about those who "talk too much" on the Internet Leaving 'Friendprints'.
What have I learned from these segments, these slices, of economic/technological life? Liberal arts is not dead -- history repeats itself; reading and writing eloquently, and making critical decisions about how you present yourself, are keys to succeeding in today's economy.
I do not teach at a liberal arts school. Instead, I perform my duties as an adjunct instructor at a for-profit technical institute. Therefore, why I am on a soapbox preaching about liberal arts? Because I believe in the human capacity to create more than survival, hands-on, or on-the-job skills.
But I don't know the limit that separates survival from overkill (that is, overuse of our capacity to create). More on that later.
My parents grew up on farms and wanted their children to have more than they did. I have had friends who bought and operated farms for a while and moved back to the city because running a farm was "too much work." In China, India, Africa and other "developing" economies of the world, the same is going on - more people moving off farms and into urban areas.
Therefore, for a large portion of the human population, it seems that being a primate directly attached to the natural environment is not a desirable thing to do. We really seem to enjoy leisure time, showing we're more than just animals raising other animals and plants for food, shelter and clothing.
In today's economy, that's certainly true.
My whole life is an example of a society seeing something useful in one of its own, encouraging me as a young person to seek training in arts/crafts more complex than farming such as engineering or science. Then again, I am only one example of seven billion or so, but I can extract some of my tendencies into a general human trend.
Let's ignore me for a moment. Look at yourself. You have the capacity to learn a computer system even if you don't know how to program a computer. You learned how to read, write, and type somewhere along the line, most probably through a formalized education system. You read history and learned some math. In other words, you benefit from some or all aspects of a liberal arts education: art, music, literature, languages, philosophy, politics, history, mathematics, and science.
But Lynda's argument is that a liberal arts education in and of itself is not enough - one must move forward to a higher or postgraduate degree in order to have a career [in today's economy], with acronyms like PhD, JD, MFA, etc.
I disagree. In my experience as a manager and classroom instructor, I've found it's not a person with technical training who excels in daily technical work, it's the person who thrives on learning. Thus, I'd rather hire a person trained in the liberal arts, who brings a plethora of "things that you'll never actually use" to the job along with a burning desire to learn, so that while that person is learning to master technical skills, he/she is training the rest of us in the liberal arts, helping us master skills in art, music, literature, languages, philosophy, politics, history, mathematics, and science.
I'd like to think that we humans would improve our chances for long-term survival by also mastering skills on the farm, showing us that we truly are connected to the natural environment in more ways than being inconvenienced by a passing thunderstorm on our way to and from the office place. [On a side note, I credit the wife of the current U.S. president for encouraging us to dig our hands into the soil again, even if she seems to spend most of her time shuttling back and forth from one fancy restaurant to another -- such is the life of the nouveau riche, caught between being homefolks and royalty -- a juxtaposition/dichotomy to be envied. I spent the first 10 years of home ownership by raising flowers, herbs and fruit trees, keeping a tidy lawn and neat landscape, but slowly giving way to longer and longer workhours at the office, either in the hometown or in foreign offices, so I see the difficulty in trying to do two things at once -- one or the other occupation has to suffer if one wants to spend time on a third occupation (in this case, writing) -- my yard has been a deciduous jungle for a long time now. At least the president's wife has landscape or groundskeepers to tend her garden. My "quiet millionaire next door" budget does not include professional groundskeepers.]
Since we don't farm, we develop, for lack of a better word, non-natural habits and skills we share with one another, seeking specializations that help improve our workplace worthiness economically and give us a sense of personal worth.
As we decide the economic paths to take to improve ourselves and give job opportunities for all employable persons, let's remember the skills that separate us from being repetitious automatons, skills in the area of liberal arts, as well as the skills that still put food on the table, such as farming and ranching. When deciding whether to hire a person from a technical school or a liberal arts school, I challenge all of us to hire the person who has a burning desire to learn, who'll teach others in the process, no matter whether the person's skills are in liberal arts or technology. So, too, a person fresh off the farm can be your best work asset if he/she wants to excel strongly enough.
In all cases, don't forget to add a dash of liberal arts to one's education along the way, professionally or self-taught. It's like making a gourmet meal - a little bit of the right spice turns bland to extraordinary but too much turns it into sensory overload. On the other side, one person's work of fine art is another person's forgotten background.
Lastly, in these economic times, while remaining true to the principle that humans can protect and defend their right of survival of its species, at the reasonable cost of the lives and extinction of other species, realizing our place in the confines of living in the natural environment we call Earth, there is still a place for "l'art pour l'art."
In this current economic slowdown, when ~10% of the U.S. working populace, and give or take about the same in other countries, is not actively employed in sustainable, "fulltime" working conditions, Lynda's comments ring true.
Or do they?
I watched a program about the world economy and how the order/distribution/manufacturing cycle impacts people at the local level (wasn't it Tip O'Neill who said, "all politics is local"?). The program followed the process whereby revelers on the streets of New Orleans, Lousiana, USA, buy Mardi Gras beads to wear around their necks but where do the beads come from? Well, the name and location of the manufacturer was stamped on the bead packaging so the videography team followed the beads backwards from distributors in the U.S. to a factory in China. The head of the bead factory in China told a great story about his dedication to the workers and his need to make enough profit to support the factory. The narrative of the video changed from that of the factory owner/manager to that of the worker, where we got to see workers tightly housed in a factory dormitory so that workers could be close to the work and take turns sharing beds during the changeout of three factory shifts. Workers earned their money based on the number of completed beads they produced. Most workers went on to more highly-trained jobs at the same factory or other factories but some returned to their family farms ("farm" seeming to be a term for a tiny patch of land on the side of a road), disillusioned by the "hard" factory work compared to the simple farm life, even if their parents didn't want them to return.
Back on this side of the Pacific Ocean, I see a story about the head of a company being The CEO As Storyteller In Chief and about those who "talk too much" on the Internet Leaving 'Friendprints'.
What have I learned from these segments, these slices, of economic/technological life? Liberal arts is not dead -- history repeats itself; reading and writing eloquently, and making critical decisions about how you present yourself, are keys to succeeding in today's economy.
I do not teach at a liberal arts school. Instead, I perform my duties as an adjunct instructor at a for-profit technical institute. Therefore, why I am on a soapbox preaching about liberal arts? Because I believe in the human capacity to create more than survival, hands-on, or on-the-job skills.
But I don't know the limit that separates survival from overkill (that is, overuse of our capacity to create). More on that later.
My parents grew up on farms and wanted their children to have more than they did. I have had friends who bought and operated farms for a while and moved back to the city because running a farm was "too much work." In China, India, Africa and other "developing" economies of the world, the same is going on - more people moving off farms and into urban areas.
Therefore, for a large portion of the human population, it seems that being a primate directly attached to the natural environment is not a desirable thing to do. We really seem to enjoy leisure time, showing we're more than just animals raising other animals and plants for food, shelter and clothing.
In today's economy, that's certainly true.
My whole life is an example of a society seeing something useful in one of its own, encouraging me as a young person to seek training in arts/crafts more complex than farming such as engineering or science. Then again, I am only one example of seven billion or so, but I can extract some of my tendencies into a general human trend.
Let's ignore me for a moment. Look at yourself. You have the capacity to learn a computer system even if you don't know how to program a computer. You learned how to read, write, and type somewhere along the line, most probably through a formalized education system. You read history and learned some math. In other words, you benefit from some or all aspects of a liberal arts education: art, music, literature, languages, philosophy, politics, history, mathematics, and science.
But Lynda's argument is that a liberal arts education in and of itself is not enough - one must move forward to a higher or postgraduate degree in order to have a career [in today's economy], with acronyms like PhD, JD, MFA, etc.
I disagree. In my experience as a manager and classroom instructor, I've found it's not a person with technical training who excels in daily technical work, it's the person who thrives on learning. Thus, I'd rather hire a person trained in the liberal arts, who brings a plethora of "things that you'll never actually use" to the job along with a burning desire to learn, so that while that person is learning to master technical skills, he/she is training the rest of us in the liberal arts, helping us master skills in art, music, literature, languages, philosophy, politics, history, mathematics, and science.
I'd like to think that we humans would improve our chances for long-term survival by also mastering skills on the farm, showing us that we truly are connected to the natural environment in more ways than being inconvenienced by a passing thunderstorm on our way to and from the office place. [On a side note, I credit the wife of the current U.S. president for encouraging us to dig our hands into the soil again, even if she seems to spend most of her time shuttling back and forth from one fancy restaurant to another -- such is the life of the nouveau riche, caught between being homefolks and royalty -- a juxtaposition/dichotomy to be envied. I spent the first 10 years of home ownership by raising flowers, herbs and fruit trees, keeping a tidy lawn and neat landscape, but slowly giving way to longer and longer workhours at the office, either in the hometown or in foreign offices, so I see the difficulty in trying to do two things at once -- one or the other occupation has to suffer if one wants to spend time on a third occupation (in this case, writing) -- my yard has been a deciduous jungle for a long time now. At least the president's wife has landscape or groundskeepers to tend her garden. My "quiet millionaire next door" budget does not include professional groundskeepers.]
Since we don't farm, we develop, for lack of a better word, non-natural habits and skills we share with one another, seeking specializations that help improve our workplace worthiness economically and give us a sense of personal worth.
As we decide the economic paths to take to improve ourselves and give job opportunities for all employable persons, let's remember the skills that separate us from being repetitious automatons, skills in the area of liberal arts, as well as the skills that still put food on the table, such as farming and ranching. When deciding whether to hire a person from a technical school or a liberal arts school, I challenge all of us to hire the person who has a burning desire to learn, who'll teach others in the process, no matter whether the person's skills are in liberal arts or technology. So, too, a person fresh off the farm can be your best work asset if he/she wants to excel strongly enough.
In all cases, don't forget to add a dash of liberal arts to one's education along the way, professionally or self-taught. It's like making a gourmet meal - a little bit of the right spice turns bland to extraordinary but too much turns it into sensory overload. On the other side, one person's work of fine art is another person's forgotten background.
Lastly, in these economic times, while remaining true to the principle that humans can protect and defend their right of survival of its species, at the reasonable cost of the lives and extinction of other species, realizing our place in the confines of living in the natural environment we call Earth, there is still a place for "l'art pour l'art."
22 May 2009
The Future of Netbooks
Depending on your view, technology usually enhances either your business life or your personal life. I remember when a tiny form factor computer called the Timex-Sinclair 1000 hit the market, people said it was either a toy or a great computer for small business owners, almost exactly the same stories I heard when the TRS-80 computer appeared in Radio Shack.
In other words, no one knew exactly how or where these new general purpose tools would be used.
General purpose technology is like an unlabeled cardboard box or plastic bottle - somebody figured out how to build a great product but who really needs it? The companies that use cardboard boxes may not have a product that'll sell well in a plastic bottle or at least aren't sure if they do until they try it. In some cases, they won't - unsealed cardboard boxes don't store liquids very well and two-liter plastic bottles aren't made to store reams of paper.
The same goes for portable computing devices. I used to have a Gateway2000 subnotebook computer called the HandBook 486 (that sported a 486 DX2-50 processor - 50 MHz!). It handled Microsoft Windows 3.1 and Microsoft Office applications pretty well. I could comfortably type Word documents and review Excel documents anywhere I traveled, but didn't use it when I was seated at home or in the office - it was neither an office productivity computer nor a gaming machine (unless you like playing Solitaire). Later, I purchased an HP Jornado 720 for portable typing. In both cases, my purpose for purchasing these devices was reading offline emails and writing short stories and or novel chapters. The Handbook I had bought as a used/preowned model at Unclaimed Baggage Center and it contained a lot of financial data about a company called Saudi Aramco so it was obvious to me that the subnotebook was capable of serious business spreadsheet use on the go.
For portable computing, I have also used the Palm series of PDAs and an Archos Jukebox [loaded with the RockBox OS]. My wife occasionally uses her iPod Touch.
By now, many of you use cell phones or smartphones to accomplish your lightweight-duty office/home computer work, replacing the old days of email with texting and using mobile apps to look at files stored on your home or office PCs.
Cloud computing, after many years of fits, starts, promises and vaporware, seems to be catching on, making me wonder if netbooks are the real future of handheld computing, offering big-enough computer screens for data entry/review and limited capability for browsing and photo/video viewing.
While researching this subject, I came upon an article about the next generation of netbooks:
A smaller market existed for precloud computing devices, including UMPCs like the OQO, a product I drooled over a few years ago, thinking that a portable PC that worked as your desktop PC would be the wave of the future. News today implies that OQO has called it quits. No one wanted to pay the price of a fully-loaded desktop PC to get a miniaturized version of an average or even pretty-good desktop.
On the opposite end, the OLPC generated a lot of buzz when it was slated to be a $100 low-end portable PC for third-world countries. Now you can only donate $199 to send one to a child in a third-world country.
Meanwhile, special-purpose devices like the Amazon Kindle and the Sony e-reader carve out a niche for digital books. I remember my impression of the first e-book I read on a Palm III - I liked the pocket portability of some public domain books I loaded, including Aesop's fables and John Donne's poetry, as well as being able to search the text, but I missed being able to hold my fingers in three sections and flip quickly between them or scribbling handwritten notes in the margins.
I own another device that falls in between a portable digital audio recorder and a tablet PC, a digital pen called the livescribe pulse. The pen seems to best serve the lecture hall or office meeting environment or any place where one would want to tie audio recording to handwritten notes (journalists like it, too). I have used the pen at family functions and found it rewarding to go back and listen to family discussions again while reading what I wrote at the time. Otherwise, business colleagues of mine don't like me to make audio recordings of our meetings because it puts them on the record when sometimes they like to talk off the cuff or crack the occasional dirty joke, something they don't want to be recorded for posterity.
I am a middle-aged man who no longer desires new technology like a starving fox in a henhouse or a hungry kid in a candy store. So, for me, the netbook, no matter what form it will take, seeks a younger buyer, whose needs and desires will drive the low-cost, handheld computer market, combining some office and some personal computer use but probably not heavily leaning toward one or the other, remaining somewhat general purpose, so that the major computer manufacturers can survive on the economies of scale that allow them to eake out a slim profit margin. No one wants to be the next OQO.
In other words, no one knew exactly how or where these new general purpose tools would be used.
General purpose technology is like an unlabeled cardboard box or plastic bottle - somebody figured out how to build a great product but who really needs it? The companies that use cardboard boxes may not have a product that'll sell well in a plastic bottle or at least aren't sure if they do until they try it. In some cases, they won't - unsealed cardboard boxes don't store liquids very well and two-liter plastic bottles aren't made to store reams of paper.
The same goes for portable computing devices. I used to have a Gateway2000 subnotebook computer called the HandBook 486 (that sported a 486 DX2-50 processor - 50 MHz!). It handled Microsoft Windows 3.1 and Microsoft Office applications pretty well. I could comfortably type Word documents and review Excel documents anywhere I traveled, but didn't use it when I was seated at home or in the office - it was neither an office productivity computer nor a gaming machine (unless you like playing Solitaire). Later, I purchased an HP Jornado 720 for portable typing. In both cases, my purpose for purchasing these devices was reading offline emails and writing short stories and or novel chapters. The Handbook I had bought as a used/preowned model at Unclaimed Baggage Center and it contained a lot of financial data about a company called Saudi Aramco so it was obvious to me that the subnotebook was capable of serious business spreadsheet use on the go.
For portable computing, I have also used the Palm series of PDAs and an Archos Jukebox [loaded with the RockBox OS]. My wife occasionally uses her iPod Touch.
By now, many of you use cell phones or smartphones to accomplish your lightweight-duty office/home computer work, replacing the old days of email with texting and using mobile apps to look at files stored on your home or office PCs.
Cloud computing, after many years of fits, starts, promises and vaporware, seems to be catching on, making me wonder if netbooks are the real future of handheld computing, offering big-enough computer screens for data entry/review and limited capability for browsing and photo/video viewing.
While researching this subject, I came upon an article about the next generation of netbooks:
Netbooks of Tomorrow: Notebook, Meet theIf predictions are correct, Apple will jump into the netbook market with a larger iPod Touch (or do they plan to just take on the gaming world of the PSP and Nintendo DS, instead?). Are we moving to the keyboardless tablet PC again? Touchscreen computing works fine if you're searching the Web or looking at photos/video but I certainly wouldn't want to type large documents or spreadsheets and rely on my fingers resting in the QWERTY keyboard typing position for long stretches of time on a flat surface. I don't like holding a Blackberry or other thumb-oriented keyboard for very long, either, even when on the go.
Smartphone - CIO.com - Business Technology Leadership [Posted using ShareThis]
A smaller market existed for precloud computing devices, including UMPCs like the OQO, a product I drooled over a few years ago, thinking that a portable PC that worked as your desktop PC would be the wave of the future. News today implies that OQO has called it quits. No one wanted to pay the price of a fully-loaded desktop PC to get a miniaturized version of an average or even pretty-good desktop.
On the opposite end, the OLPC generated a lot of buzz when it was slated to be a $100 low-end portable PC for third-world countries. Now you can only donate $199 to send one to a child in a third-world country.
Meanwhile, special-purpose devices like the Amazon Kindle and the Sony e-reader carve out a niche for digital books. I remember my impression of the first e-book I read on a Palm III - I liked the pocket portability of some public domain books I loaded, including Aesop's fables and John Donne's poetry, as well as being able to search the text, but I missed being able to hold my fingers in three sections and flip quickly between them or scribbling handwritten notes in the margins.
I own another device that falls in between a portable digital audio recorder and a tablet PC, a digital pen called the livescribe pulse. The pen seems to best serve the lecture hall or office meeting environment or any place where one would want to tie audio recording to handwritten notes (journalists like it, too). I have used the pen at family functions and found it rewarding to go back and listen to family discussions again while reading what I wrote at the time. Otherwise, business colleagues of mine don't like me to make audio recordings of our meetings because it puts them on the record when sometimes they like to talk off the cuff or crack the occasional dirty joke, something they don't want to be recorded for posterity.
I am a middle-aged man who no longer desires new technology like a starving fox in a henhouse or a hungry kid in a candy store. So, for me, the netbook, no matter what form it will take, seeks a younger buyer, whose needs and desires will drive the low-cost, handheld computer market, combining some office and some personal computer use but probably not heavily leaning toward one or the other, remaining somewhat general purpose, so that the major computer manufacturers can survive on the economies of scale that allow them to eake out a slim profit margin. No one wants to be the next OQO.
The Ten-Inch Size Factor
What size do you like? When you look at a computer screen, more than likely you use a GUI-based operating system like Microsoft Windows or a flavor of Linux, so you dedicate some portion of the screen to static images - icons, text menus, etc. Therefore, what size computer screen best fits your most frequent use of a computer?
And in this day and age, are you always looking at a computer screen when you're using technology? Good question.
I have used large CRTs to manage computer programs (four 19" tubes to run a CAD program for designing the space shuttle main engine controller) as well as a cell phone to look at spreadsheet data (about a 2.5" viewing area).
From my experience, the breaking point between serious computer work and casual/quick work falls around a 10" piece of viewing real estate. Anything smaller and you're good for surfing the Web, typing emails or playing a computer game.
More later...gotta go.
And in this day and age, are you always looking at a computer screen when you're using technology? Good question.
I have used large CRTs to manage computer programs (four 19" tubes to run a CAD program for designing the space shuttle main engine controller) as well as a cell phone to look at spreadsheet data (about a 2.5" viewing area).
From my experience, the breaking point between serious computer work and casual/quick work falls around a 10" piece of viewing real estate. Anything smaller and you're good for surfing the Web, typing emails or playing a computer game.
More later...gotta go.
20 April 2009
Fifteen miles on the Erie Canal
Do you know who your friends or pals are? I had been in the habit of posting suggestions about my stock market investing but a friend of mine cautioned me against it because it might be construed as advice. Since I'm not a professional investor for myself or others, I don't see how someone could misconstrue my free blog posts as advice. However, in this day and age of a re-emerging stock market, I'll stick to my sage advice and listen to my wise friends, keeping my market observations to myself. I doubt someone would want to pay me to help them become an at-risk millionaire, anyway, let alone anyone thinking he/she would become a millionaire on my free ramblings. Besides, it's so easy to make money everyday right now that I think the cardinals chasing each other outside my window could get rich if I just stuck birdseed on a computer keyboard and let them peck their way to a full stomach.
09 March 2009
Some quick trend observations
Stating the obvious here for some people but recording these thoughts because I don't want to bother with writing them down on paper and then later eliminating or expanding upon them here when I turn some of them into a humorous story:
- Will the decrease of paper newspapers and journalism as a viable profession have any effect on the effectiveness of community citizenship and Internet censorship? And what are the macro-effects of Internet censorship on citizen journalism? Who causes the macro-effects?
- Is there a trend where we keep encapsulating our lives, insulating us from diversity, that our subcultures become virtually isolated from each other, despite the openness of the Internet?
- Is the Internet really open?
- Can the global economy support a human population fully connected to the Internet?
- What is the definition of "fully connected to the Internet" - 70%, 80%, 90%, 95%, 99%? And to what extent does the information trickle-down effect of one person connected to the Internet to that person's unconnected peers have to do with the first part of this question?
- How many of us completely ignore dissident views to begin with (censorship at the personal level)?
- In the isolated subcultures, what future revolutions are being fomented? In the battle for the mind, what propaganda techniques are the isolated subcultures using against each other?
- The modern struggle is economic, with government military posturing securing/comforting the general population. How long will this unsure balance last before someone declares war?
- What does it take for money to become obsolete?
- How does an isolated subculture rise to power without money or military strength? "Flash market" techniques? Texting "wars"? Play up dissidence in its group while playing up complacency in nearby subcultures?
- How subtle are the influences of the Internet if you're a full-fledged member of a subculture? In other words, how many subculture adherents stray into overlapping arenas (general news sites, etc.)?
- In the need to promote the free marketplace of ideas in citizen journalism, how do freedom writers endanger that freedom by inadvertently spreading subliminal messages from those who want their own subculture to dominate?
- Terrorism is a tactic with many methods of deployment, not all of which have obvious negative implications or immediately evident connotations. A stop sign placed on a busy thoroughfare has more than a benign effect on those drag racing across a side street when met by a driver who refuses to stop for anyone.
- When is a depression not a depression? When is a war not a war? When is money not money? Where do you think you're going if you don't know what it's all about (especially, if you think you do)?
I look forward to writing this story!
08 March 2009
Taking the Shortcut
"Wrote blog entry about mirrored DJIA pattern. Will take walk along concrete path in Hays Nature Preserve."
Sit in my old BMW at the top of the driveway, under one of the circus tents that dot the yard (reflecting my life view - a grand comedy, accompanied by trapeze artists, captive animal performers and human-like magicians), enjoying the warm day, writing a note to myself in my miniature Moleskine about moments outside this one. Remember the day our builder told us about how to hook up a device to the whole house power meter that would shortcut the circuit and make the meter under-read our actual power use.
What is MSRP? Who cares except game show contestants who must pay taxes on gifts they receive, sellers and salespersons promising savings that shortcut the middleman, or police claiming the street value of a large drug bust? Why do I feel like I'm walking well-worn word trails, behind the footsteps of vaudevillian barkers like Vonnegut, Ballard, Barthelme, DFW, etc., and...
Well, will you look at the white mold growing on the dead branches of the burning bush (Euonymus alata "Compactus") overhanging the BMW at the end of our driveway? A shortcut to the point my eyes were making when my brain was not.
I am not the men who went before me. I am not my father. I am not any man or woman. I am me. Satisfaction guaranteed. Time to close this chapter of my life. Was it fun? I don't know. It was. That makes it wonderful.
The old gang can do their recruiting somewhere else. I want a united world, not one divided by those who want to shortcut others. Here, you can have my words. I set them free! No need to know the original MSRP. You can't get a cut out of nothing, can you? How can you milk the cow if you stop its milk production? Reminds me of two of my old poems.*
Saw Soos Weber at the Hays Nature Center parking lot, along with some geocache enthusiasists (woodland nerds, in my view; BTW, I'm a word nerd). Walked a mile or so on the river trail. Drove into town, cruising down a boulevard of blooming Bradford pears. Shopped at Party City for my wife to buy St. Patrick's Day plates and cups to use at a gathering next weekend. Ate early dinner at Longhorn's restaurant using a $25 gift certificate. Returned home to read. Played with cats. Sat down to write, using a note I'm writing to myself in my miniature Moleskine.
Reread blog entry and feel the door of destiny closing behind me. I have not expanded the universe with these words. I have no offspring to call my own. My genetic material mutates with time, inertia winding down to inert and finally to ert or in. I, despite the virtual breath of fresh air I take with each intake of the wondrous universe, am getting old.
Time to set this virtual pen down and let the next generation take over. It's your turn to play with words. Maybe you can transcribe a better mousetrap. Let me be an example to you. Best not be sitting inside the trap when you write it. Unlike the fairy tales, you can't hide a shortcut in here; eventually, you'll starve from lack of words, your vocabulary becoming a stale, dry joke with no meaningful, thirst-quenching punchline.
And one more thing - I was wrong. Life is a sentence. Have fun with the dangling modifiers. Fill your life with ellipses...say,uh, um, whatever, you know, that is, short stops and starts, ahem, that give you time to think, too (even parenthetical phrases can give you pause, separated by commas, if you will, and stretch out the exciting moments), leaving misssspellings and incomplete thoughts for all to. Whatever the judgment that put you in the sentence, do what you can before you reach the ending punctuation like "." or "?"! Yes, feel free to end your life on a question mark as long as you remember you won't be around to find out the answer. Better yet, go out with a "!" - don't slip out of this world unannounced.
= = =
*The Official Social Protest Songs
I. Familial Norms
Wasted, wornout baby, way to go,
You messed up the morning you cried;
The doctor announced your death,
Said you could've done worse.
Honey, in the morning when I leave,
Kiss the baby, tell her she's loved;
We only have 1.5 more to go,
A station wagon and a dog.
Chorus I:
Corporation Mama, teach me the stocks,
Businessman Daddy, when will the interest rates rise?
We're on a collision course toward nothing,
Tax shelters, IRAs, we know the solution
Beating out evolution's path.
II. On Equal Terms
TV antennae sprouting atop consistent shingle madness,
Smoking charcoal eats leftover curtain stains;
Tailored tomorrows, discount store no-credit everyday bargains,
Paid in forgotten ambitious selection,
Hold out green angels, golden apples, some god's heaven,
Earthy images of monkeys raping Mother Nature's plan.
Chorus II:
Network communication,
The Master equals Media Man,
Presidential, precedental,
Sunday evening, July eighty-four.
Repeat Chorus I
Repeat Chorus II
[Published in Gallery 1985, a Walters State Community College publication, spring 1985]
Striving For Efficiency
Undocumented love songs do appeal
To unrelenting robots at the job,
The automatic working people's deal
About their heavy hearts' (in stillness) throb.
You people! See your wasted VCRs!
Take comfort with the loved ones from the rain,
Wave pennants at the ballgame, and our cars
Shall eat the track. Replace oldtimer's train
With progress' routes, invented by the Old
Guard, so the New will build starcruiser ships --
The labored, never-ending future, cold
Beyond imagination -- mindless trips.
The words we say, the plans we've made in haste,
Perspective bears their worthiness or waste.
[Published in Gallery 1985, a Walters State Community College publication, spring 1985]
Sit in my old BMW at the top of the driveway, under one of the circus tents that dot the yard (reflecting my life view - a grand comedy, accompanied by trapeze artists, captive animal performers and human-like magicians), enjoying the warm day, writing a note to myself in my miniature Moleskine about moments outside this one. Remember the day our builder told us about how to hook up a device to the whole house power meter that would shortcut the circuit and make the meter under-read our actual power use.
What is MSRP? Who cares except game show contestants who must pay taxes on gifts they receive, sellers and salespersons promising savings that shortcut the middleman, or police claiming the street value of a large drug bust? Why do I feel like I'm walking well-worn word trails, behind the footsteps of vaudevillian barkers like Vonnegut, Ballard, Barthelme, DFW, etc., and...
Well, will you look at the white mold growing on the dead branches of the burning bush (Euonymus alata "Compactus") overhanging the BMW at the end of our driveway? A shortcut to the point my eyes were making when my brain was not.
I am not the men who went before me. I am not my father. I am not any man or woman. I am me. Satisfaction guaranteed. Time to close this chapter of my life. Was it fun? I don't know. It was. That makes it wonderful.
The old gang can do their recruiting somewhere else. I want a united world, not one divided by those who want to shortcut others. Here, you can have my words. I set them free! No need to know the original MSRP. You can't get a cut out of nothing, can you? How can you milk the cow if you stop its milk production? Reminds me of two of my old poems.*
Saw Soos Weber at the Hays Nature Center parking lot, along with some geocache enthusiasists (woodland nerds, in my view; BTW, I'm a word nerd). Walked a mile or so on the river trail. Drove into town, cruising down a boulevard of blooming Bradford pears. Shopped at Party City for my wife to buy St. Patrick's Day plates and cups to use at a gathering next weekend. Ate early dinner at Longhorn's restaurant using a $25 gift certificate. Returned home to read. Played with cats. Sat down to write, using a note I'm writing to myself in my miniature Moleskine.
Reread blog entry and feel the door of destiny closing behind me. I have not expanded the universe with these words. I have no offspring to call my own. My genetic material mutates with time, inertia winding down to inert and finally to ert or in. I, despite the virtual breath of fresh air I take with each intake of the wondrous universe, am getting old.
Time to set this virtual pen down and let the next generation take over. It's your turn to play with words. Maybe you can transcribe a better mousetrap. Let me be an example to you. Best not be sitting inside the trap when you write it. Unlike the fairy tales, you can't hide a shortcut in here; eventually, you'll starve from lack of words, your vocabulary becoming a stale, dry joke with no meaningful, thirst-quenching punchline.
And one more thing - I was wrong. Life is a sentence. Have fun with the dangling modifiers. Fill your life with ellipses...say,uh, um, whatever, you know, that is, short stops and starts, ahem, that give you time to think, too (even parenthetical phrases can give you pause, separated by commas, if you will, and stretch out the exciting moments), leaving misssspellings and incomplete thoughts for all to. Whatever the judgment that put you in the sentence, do what you can before you reach the ending punctuation like "." or "?"! Yes, feel free to end your life on a question mark as long as you remember you won't be around to find out the answer. Better yet, go out with a "!" - don't slip out of this world unannounced.
= = =
*The Official Social Protest Songs
I. Familial Norms
Wasted, wornout baby, way to go,
You messed up the morning you cried;
The doctor announced your death,
Said you could've done worse.
Honey, in the morning when I leave,
Kiss the baby, tell her she's loved;
We only have 1.5 more to go,
A station wagon and a dog.
Chorus I:
Corporation Mama, teach me the stocks,
Businessman Daddy, when will the interest rates rise?
We're on a collision course toward nothing,
Tax shelters, IRAs, we know the solution
Beating out evolution's path.
II. On Equal Terms
TV antennae sprouting atop consistent shingle madness,
Smoking charcoal eats leftover curtain stains;
Tailored tomorrows, discount store no-credit everyday bargains,
Paid in forgotten ambitious selection,
Hold out green angels, golden apples, some god's heaven,
Earthy images of monkeys raping Mother Nature's plan.
Chorus II:
Network communication,
The Master equals Media Man,
Presidential, precedental,
Sunday evening, July eighty-four.
Repeat Chorus I
Repeat Chorus II
[Published in Gallery 1985, a Walters State Community College publication, spring 1985]
Striving For Efficiency
Undocumented love songs do appeal
To unrelenting robots at the job,
The automatic working people's deal
About their heavy hearts' (in stillness) throb.
You people! See your wasted VCRs!
Take comfort with the loved ones from the rain,
Wave pennants at the ballgame, and our cars
Shall eat the track. Replace oldtimer's train
With progress' routes, invented by the Old
Guard, so the New will build starcruiser ships --
The labored, never-ending future, cold
Beyond imagination -- mindless trips.
The words we say, the plans we've made in haste,
Perspective bears their worthiness or waste.
[Published in Gallery 1985, a Walters State Community College publication, spring 1985]
06 March 2009
Calculating my net worth
[A reminder to those who read this blog or see it as notes/posts in other software apps like facebook or plaxo: the majority of these blog entries call themselves fiction. Thus, if an entry discusses subjects that you find incredible, it is and they are. This entry and the last one, however, are not.]
Well, well, well*...what have we here? A bit of the old ultraviolence, I see. What say you about this economic tailspin? Like an airplane augering in, eh? Don't think we're going to gently land in the Hudson River this time so say your prayers while you can. No truancy officer's here to help you get back into school, so forget about the appy-polly-loggy.
[* ode to Anthony Burgess, Stanley Kubrick and "A Clockwork Orange"]
Millions of people out of work. Think the governments of the world are a bit worried? After all, nothing like restless youth with nothing to do listening to unemployed adults with plenty on their minds.
Speaking of which, my wife and I found ourselves meandering the miles of aisles in a big box store down the street from our humble abode, aimlessly looking for a handheld, single use, multifunction computer. In other words, a calculadora cientifica / calculatrice scientifique, hecho en China / fabrique en China (or scientific calculator made in China, if you must insist on English as your only language, "with instruction sheet included," no less!).
The digital display on this inexpensive calculator goes out to 10 digits. That's nine billion and change, to those keeping count.
Believe it or not, I minored in math in college, taking such doozies as calculus, linear algebra, differential equations, and other classes I can no longer remember, kind of like my memory of math in general. For instance, my wife pointed out to me that the two buttons on this calculator, "log" and "ln," do not stand for logging into a computer and line items but logarithm and natural log. Did I tell you my wife is smarter than me? Well, if I haven't, she is. I accept this as fact and despite my propensity for arguing fine points with her at the drop of a hat, she has more scientific data, information and knowledge in her head than I have.
Fact is, I depend on her. She is part and parcel of my net worth. Unlike the stocks, mutual funds and other goodies whose values I can look up in the wavering, teetering and tottering market in steroid detox right now - and then sum up on this pocket computer - my wife's value to me is uncalculable.
Commas, periods, and other punctuation marks have zero value in the relationship between my wife and me. I use the term "my wife" only because of the convenient understanding that you, the reader, have for the general meaning of the phrase. She is more than my wife. She is - that's the most important fact. I am alive because "she is." No money, no fancy vacations or any other objective evidence enhances our relationship (although, they make the moments varied and fun, of course).
Everything I do, everything I say and everything I see comes to life through the eyes, ears and mouth of a person who gladly calls himself the husband of a woman he has known since he was a rising seventh grader in secondary school.
We are who we are because of each other.
That's why I don't see an economy that's taking away people's retirement, putting people who were recently comfortable financially into positions where they need jobs but there are no positions to be had. This game of musical chairs leaves a lot of people standing up. Whether I'm standing up or sitting down, I have my wife.
At the end of the day, when all around us is chaos, I have my wife's hand to hold, and there is no gold or magic elixir that can replace the simple touch of my wife.
Over the next few months and years, people all over this world will fight and scratch to get their hands on whatever they need to put food on their family's table. Desperate times and desperate measures, as they say. I suggest you put aside emotions that will rise and fall according to the signs of the time, ignoring those doomers, gloomers, instant-fixers and experts who are screaming at you from their soapboxes because they want your attention in order for them to make money off you and thus put food on their tables at your emotional expense.
Be smart. Become a student of human history. Realize that bad times and bad people have been around and will always be around. But that doesn't make you bad (unless you want to be; if so, that's a road you've got to take alone, without the likes of me). You are you, miraculous in your uniqueness.
If you find yourself on the downside, reach out to someone special to you. Hold that person's hand or give each other a hug. There is nothing and I mean absolutely nothing at all, not even close, that compares to basic human-to-human contact when you think you're at the end of your financial patience.
So if you think you're in financial straits, scream and holler for help. There is someone out there who wants to help you. Even better, there is someone out there who needs your help. Like my wife and me, for instance. We need you. We don't care if you know a logarithm from a biorhythm. Hey, if I can admit I minored in math and don't even remember the buttons on a scientific calculator, then you can admit you need another human being. It's not hard. In fact, it's simple. And yes, life is grand because of you. I can see that smile of yours in the mirror.
Keep smiling - it's the one asset in this economy that doesn't lose its value!
Well, well, well*...what have we here? A bit of the old ultraviolence, I see. What say you about this economic tailspin? Like an airplane augering in, eh? Don't think we're going to gently land in the Hudson River this time so say your prayers while you can. No truancy officer's here to help you get back into school, so forget about the appy-polly-loggy.
[* ode to Anthony Burgess, Stanley Kubrick and "A Clockwork Orange"]
Millions of people out of work. Think the governments of the world are a bit worried? After all, nothing like restless youth with nothing to do listening to unemployed adults with plenty on their minds.
Speaking of which, my wife and I found ourselves meandering the miles of aisles in a big box store down the street from our humble abode, aimlessly looking for a handheld, single use, multifunction computer. In other words, a calculadora cientifica / calculatrice scientifique, hecho en China / fabrique en China (or scientific calculator made in China, if you must insist on English as your only language, "with instruction sheet included," no less!).
The digital display on this inexpensive calculator goes out to 10 digits. That's nine billion and change, to those keeping count.
Believe it or not, I minored in math in college, taking such doozies as calculus, linear algebra, differential equations, and other classes I can no longer remember, kind of like my memory of math in general. For instance, my wife pointed out to me that the two buttons on this calculator, "log" and "ln," do not stand for logging into a computer and line items but logarithm and natural log. Did I tell you my wife is smarter than me? Well, if I haven't, she is. I accept this as fact and despite my propensity for arguing fine points with her at the drop of a hat, she has more scientific data, information and knowledge in her head than I have.
Fact is, I depend on her. She is part and parcel of my net worth. Unlike the stocks, mutual funds and other goodies whose values I can look up in the wavering, teetering and tottering market in steroid detox right now - and then sum up on this pocket computer - my wife's value to me is uncalculable.
Commas, periods, and other punctuation marks have zero value in the relationship between my wife and me. I use the term "my wife" only because of the convenient understanding that you, the reader, have for the general meaning of the phrase. She is more than my wife. She is - that's the most important fact. I am alive because "she is." No money, no fancy vacations or any other objective evidence enhances our relationship (although, they make the moments varied and fun, of course).
Everything I do, everything I say and everything I see comes to life through the eyes, ears and mouth of a person who gladly calls himself the husband of a woman he has known since he was a rising seventh grader in secondary school.
We are who we are because of each other.
That's why I don't see an economy that's taking away people's retirement, putting people who were recently comfortable financially into positions where they need jobs but there are no positions to be had. This game of musical chairs leaves a lot of people standing up. Whether I'm standing up or sitting down, I have my wife.
At the end of the day, when all around us is chaos, I have my wife's hand to hold, and there is no gold or magic elixir that can replace the simple touch of my wife.
Over the next few months and years, people all over this world will fight and scratch to get their hands on whatever they need to put food on their family's table. Desperate times and desperate measures, as they say. I suggest you put aside emotions that will rise and fall according to the signs of the time, ignoring those doomers, gloomers, instant-fixers and experts who are screaming at you from their soapboxes because they want your attention in order for them to make money off you and thus put food on their tables at your emotional expense.
Be smart. Become a student of human history. Realize that bad times and bad people have been around and will always be around. But that doesn't make you bad (unless you want to be; if so, that's a road you've got to take alone, without the likes of me). You are you, miraculous in your uniqueness.
If you find yourself on the downside, reach out to someone special to you. Hold that person's hand or give each other a hug. There is nothing and I mean absolutely nothing at all, not even close, that compares to basic human-to-human contact when you think you're at the end of your financial patience.
So if you think you're in financial straits, scream and holler for help. There is someone out there who wants to help you. Even better, there is someone out there who needs your help. Like my wife and me, for instance. We need you. We don't care if you know a logarithm from a biorhythm. Hey, if I can admit I minored in math and don't even remember the buttons on a scientific calculator, then you can admit you need another human being. It's not hard. In fact, it's simple. And yes, life is grand because of you. I can see that smile of yours in the mirror.
Keep smiling - it's the one asset in this economy that doesn't lose its value!
04 March 2009
The Definition of Commerce
While thinking about how I'm going to tie the simple way that commerce works into the three topics I'll teach this next quarter, I had a flashback.
Ahh...flashbacks. Movies and books use flashbacks all the time to keep a story from getting boring - to add foresight and hindsight, to give insight into characters' motivations and to stay away from the straight "telling" method of storytelling (using "showing," instead).
My flashback is more of a regret, if you must know.
When I was a teenager, before I reached the age of 18, that is, I mowed lawns as a means to make spending money. Mowing lawns, and lawn service in general (including bush trimming, raking, bulb planting and anything else homeowners want for their landscaping and are willing to pay someone else to perform the dirty work), teaches you many business skills and knowledge, including selling, buying, price-fixing, profit, loss, etc.
My customers ranged from extremely elderly to very vivacious. The elderly I treated as special because they gave me little money in return for their homemade lemonade, and told me stories about their younger days that I would sit for hours sometimes and enjoy - business-wise, their lawns were a loss to me, but the lessons they taught me have lasted a lifetime. As far as the other customer(s) I mentioned in this paragraph's first sentence...sigh...there's where today's lesson in the definition of commerce comes into play.
Usually, when I added a new customer to my lawncare business, the gender was male. Typically a busy father who didn't have time between his job and his family to bother with lawn duties. On the other hand, the neighborhoods around me contained a small population of single women, sometimes divorced or widowed and sometimes not-yet-married professional women who'd moved out of an apartment in order to have a mortgage to deduct from their taxes (we didn't have condominiums in my hometown when I was a teenager; that has changed since then).
The majority of my female customers were sufficiently flush financially that they didn't worry about the cost of lawncare. Often middle-aged divorcees with a strong alimony.
With one exception.
I don't know if the woman is still alive but I'm sure her children are around so I'll spare you the details of the customer's life. I will tell you that she was relatively young, kept in good physical shape and always had a "boyfriend" in her house when I went inside to pick up my check after mowing her lawn.
I knew she didn't have a lot of money. In fact, one time she borrowed money from me, asking me to hold my lawncare check for a month until funds cleared her bank account. So, I shouldn't have been surprised what happened next.
Because lawnmowing takes place in the warmer months in east Tennessee, we lawncare guys wear shorts, socks, shoes and maybe a shirt. I always wore a T-shirt because I tend to sunburn easily and it was a good place to wipe off sweat and lawnmower grease during my working days.
My customer in question always sunbathed while I mowed, even if she had guys over to her place on the weekends when I was mowing, so I was used to her getting a suntan on the back deck. She'd wave at me occasionally, leaning up and showing me she had no top on. I figured it was her way of getting a cheap thrill so I'd wave back and keep on mowing.
One day, after I finished mowing, I walked the yard looking for the scrap pieces of paper, trash, dead snakes or turtles I'd run over, put them in a trash bag and headed back to the station wagon I used to cart around my lawncare gear. I knew that the customer was out of cash so I had decided to skip speaking to her and would come by later in the month to get the money she always owed me.
Just as I was opening the driver's door, she yelled at me from the back door.
"Hey, come here a minute, will you?"
"Okay."
I walked down the driveway and stood at the back door. She looked at me with a grin, her tanned leather skin glowing from her usual UV ray bath.
"You know anything about toilets?"
"Toilets?"
"Yeah, the toilet in my bathroom is stopped up. You mind taking a look?"
Now, I know what you're thinking. This is one of those really bad movies that star people like "Delta Darling" and "John Hulk." In any other story, that would be correct. Unfortunately, this is a true tale so hang on here with me another moment.
I followed the customer through the kitchen and dining room, down the hallway past the guest bathroom, waved at the customer's daughter who was watching TV in her room, and into the customer's bedroom.
It was pretty much like the rest of the rooms in the house, with photo collages leaning up against the wall because there was no guy to frame them, and piles of clothes or other junk in the floor.
The customer pointed me to the bathroom and I walked in. Sure enough, the toilet was stopped up. I got a plunger out from under the sink and was able to flush out the toilet. While I was working on the toilet, I heard a door close but didn't give it much thought, assuming that the customer's daughter had closed her door.
As I washed off the plunger in the bathtub, the customer yelled at me.
"Hey, you about finished in there?"
"Yeah." I shook the water off the plunger, put it back under the sink and walked into the customer's bedroom.
Okay, right now I'm sitting here trying to remember how many naked women I had seen in person versus how many airbrushed photos of women I had seen in my friends' fathers' hidden stack of smut magazines. No doubt, the airbrushed versions won the count. So, to my teenage mind's eye, a woman had no wrinkles, no stretch marks, nothing sagging and nothing obviously out-of-place.
Sitting on the edge of her bed, the customer looked me in the eye, while I tried to return the gaze without looking at her naked body. Out of the edges of my vision, I clearly discerned stretch marks and small sagging breasts.
"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know you were dressing. I'll leave now." I walked toward the closed door.
"Wait a minute." The customer stood up and put her hand on my shoulder. "I know I owe you a lot of money. Give me a chance to repay you."
Repay me? Now how is a naked woman in her bedroom going to find the money to give me so I can buy gas to fuel my lawnmower and car, not to mention the weedeater strings and garbage bags I used to make the exterior of her place look nice?
I did not turn around. "Well, okay. But can you put something on?"
The customer laughed. "Put something on? Are you kidding me? I want you to take something off!"
I was so flustered, I could not honestly see what she meant. To me, I was standing at the closed door of a woman's bedroom, with a "boyfriend" drinking a beer on the patio outside, her daughter in the room across the hall from me, her son playing in the basement, my parents at their house expecting me home in a few minutes and my friends finishing up their day so we could all go out to a movie later that evening, after eating dinner with our separate families in the next hour or so. There was nothing in my life that had prepared me for a naked adult woman to be standing behind me, one hand squeezing my shoulder and the other one reaching around my waist.
I put my hand on the door handle and turned around. The customer took that as a non-neutral move, giving her the opportunity to put both arms around my waist and thrust her pelvis area into mine.
"Good. I thought we could negotiate."
I smelled alcohol, tobacco and marijuana on her breath. "Umm...sure." I let go of the door knob, reached around behind me and pulled both her hands away from me. "Tell you what. I've got to get home right now. How about I mow your lawn for a while and we can figure out some sort of payment method later on?"
The customer put her hands on her hips. "You don't like what you see, do you?"
"No, it's not that. It's..."
"I'm just an old woman to you, aren't I?" [From my recollection, I'd say she was 32 years old at the time, less than twice my age.]
"No. It's just..."
"What?"
"I don't know."
I opened the door and ran out of the house.
I continued to mow her lawn for free. She would come up with excuses for not paying me, like saying that I'd broken a window pane with a large rock that my mower had sent flying (meaning I'd have to keep mowing her lawn until it "paid for" the window (that she never fixed)) or that I hadn't picked up the trash after mowing, or left little strips of unmown grass in places, etc.
I told you I wouldn't give any details about the customer but I feel now's the time to tell you a few, since they're on the record, so to speak. The customer's first husband died of unusual circumstances. Or rather, he was known for abusing the woman and she put a bullet through the back of his head one day after she'd had enough, conveniently collecting a large insurance policy just recently issued in her husband's name, in a shaky signature that barely looked like his. She shot her second husband in front of witnesses in her driveway, coming out of her house with bruises on her face that she claimed her husband had just given her. Because all of the witnesses were drunk at the time, none of them could remember if, in fact, the customer's husband had or had not been in the house at all in the past few hours. A jury agreed that the husband must have stepped inside to urinate at some point, thus clearing the woman of a second murder charge. She collected a small insurance settlement.
Every time I stopped at her house, an assortment of guys and gals on old motorbikes were hanging around, offering me shots of whiskey, swigs of beer or tokes of marijuana. I declined their offer because I was dehydrated from either mowing a previous customer's lawn or hers.
= = =
What is the definition of commerce? Well, the Merriam-Webster dictionary gives the following:
As an adult, what do I take from this lesson and tell my future students? Well, in a declining economy, people will increase the use of their bodies for commercial transactions. I have reached an age where such exchanges are uncomfortable for my wornout joints and unused muscles. It's up to you to decide if a momentary act helps build your portfolio. I haven't yet found it adds anything to mine but I am not you. For me, the act of flirting is more fun, the playfulness more fulfilling and the later unnecessary reconciliation on the books great to avoid. Again, I am not you. Only you alone can determine the definition of commerce. You can hang moral, ethical and other ideas on the act of commerce, but those are just ideas, not concrete action. It's in the realm of concrete action where I'll be teaching commerce. I won't shy away from showing you what words like commerce mean but I won't show you what to do. I can show you how to think but I can't think for you.
Ahh...flashbacks. Movies and books use flashbacks all the time to keep a story from getting boring - to add foresight and hindsight, to give insight into characters' motivations and to stay away from the straight "telling" method of storytelling (using "showing," instead).
My flashback is more of a regret, if you must know.
When I was a teenager, before I reached the age of 18, that is, I mowed lawns as a means to make spending money. Mowing lawns, and lawn service in general (including bush trimming, raking, bulb planting and anything else homeowners want for their landscaping and are willing to pay someone else to perform the dirty work), teaches you many business skills and knowledge, including selling, buying, price-fixing, profit, loss, etc.
My customers ranged from extremely elderly to very vivacious. The elderly I treated as special because they gave me little money in return for their homemade lemonade, and told me stories about their younger days that I would sit for hours sometimes and enjoy - business-wise, their lawns were a loss to me, but the lessons they taught me have lasted a lifetime. As far as the other customer(s) I mentioned in this paragraph's first sentence...sigh...there's where today's lesson in the definition of commerce comes into play.
Usually, when I added a new customer to my lawncare business, the gender was male. Typically a busy father who didn't have time between his job and his family to bother with lawn duties. On the other hand, the neighborhoods around me contained a small population of single women, sometimes divorced or widowed and sometimes not-yet-married professional women who'd moved out of an apartment in order to have a mortgage to deduct from their taxes (we didn't have condominiums in my hometown when I was a teenager; that has changed since then).
The majority of my female customers were sufficiently flush financially that they didn't worry about the cost of lawncare. Often middle-aged divorcees with a strong alimony.
With one exception.
I don't know if the woman is still alive but I'm sure her children are around so I'll spare you the details of the customer's life. I will tell you that she was relatively young, kept in good physical shape and always had a "boyfriend" in her house when I went inside to pick up my check after mowing her lawn.
I knew she didn't have a lot of money. In fact, one time she borrowed money from me, asking me to hold my lawncare check for a month until funds cleared her bank account. So, I shouldn't have been surprised what happened next.
Because lawnmowing takes place in the warmer months in east Tennessee, we lawncare guys wear shorts, socks, shoes and maybe a shirt. I always wore a T-shirt because I tend to sunburn easily and it was a good place to wipe off sweat and lawnmower grease during my working days.
My customer in question always sunbathed while I mowed, even if she had guys over to her place on the weekends when I was mowing, so I was used to her getting a suntan on the back deck. She'd wave at me occasionally, leaning up and showing me she had no top on. I figured it was her way of getting a cheap thrill so I'd wave back and keep on mowing.
One day, after I finished mowing, I walked the yard looking for the scrap pieces of paper, trash, dead snakes or turtles I'd run over, put them in a trash bag and headed back to the station wagon I used to cart around my lawncare gear. I knew that the customer was out of cash so I had decided to skip speaking to her and would come by later in the month to get the money she always owed me.
Just as I was opening the driver's door, she yelled at me from the back door.
"Hey, come here a minute, will you?"
"Okay."
I walked down the driveway and stood at the back door. She looked at me with a grin, her tanned leather skin glowing from her usual UV ray bath.
"You know anything about toilets?"
"Toilets?"
"Yeah, the toilet in my bathroom is stopped up. You mind taking a look?"
Now, I know what you're thinking. This is one of those really bad movies that star people like "Delta Darling" and "John Hulk." In any other story, that would be correct. Unfortunately, this is a true tale so hang on here with me another moment.
I followed the customer through the kitchen and dining room, down the hallway past the guest bathroom, waved at the customer's daughter who was watching TV in her room, and into the customer's bedroom.
It was pretty much like the rest of the rooms in the house, with photo collages leaning up against the wall because there was no guy to frame them, and piles of clothes or other junk in the floor.
The customer pointed me to the bathroom and I walked in. Sure enough, the toilet was stopped up. I got a plunger out from under the sink and was able to flush out the toilet. While I was working on the toilet, I heard a door close but didn't give it much thought, assuming that the customer's daughter had closed her door.
As I washed off the plunger in the bathtub, the customer yelled at me.
"Hey, you about finished in there?"
"Yeah." I shook the water off the plunger, put it back under the sink and walked into the customer's bedroom.
Okay, right now I'm sitting here trying to remember how many naked women I had seen in person versus how many airbrushed photos of women I had seen in my friends' fathers' hidden stack of smut magazines. No doubt, the airbrushed versions won the count. So, to my teenage mind's eye, a woman had no wrinkles, no stretch marks, nothing sagging and nothing obviously out-of-place.
Sitting on the edge of her bed, the customer looked me in the eye, while I tried to return the gaze without looking at her naked body. Out of the edges of my vision, I clearly discerned stretch marks and small sagging breasts.
"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know you were dressing. I'll leave now." I walked toward the closed door.
"Wait a minute." The customer stood up and put her hand on my shoulder. "I know I owe you a lot of money. Give me a chance to repay you."
Repay me? Now how is a naked woman in her bedroom going to find the money to give me so I can buy gas to fuel my lawnmower and car, not to mention the weedeater strings and garbage bags I used to make the exterior of her place look nice?
I did not turn around. "Well, okay. But can you put something on?"
The customer laughed. "Put something on? Are you kidding me? I want you to take something off!"
I was so flustered, I could not honestly see what she meant. To me, I was standing at the closed door of a woman's bedroom, with a "boyfriend" drinking a beer on the patio outside, her daughter in the room across the hall from me, her son playing in the basement, my parents at their house expecting me home in a few minutes and my friends finishing up their day so we could all go out to a movie later that evening, after eating dinner with our separate families in the next hour or so. There was nothing in my life that had prepared me for a naked adult woman to be standing behind me, one hand squeezing my shoulder and the other one reaching around my waist.
I put my hand on the door handle and turned around. The customer took that as a non-neutral move, giving her the opportunity to put both arms around my waist and thrust her pelvis area into mine.
"Good. I thought we could negotiate."
I smelled alcohol, tobacco and marijuana on her breath. "Umm...sure." I let go of the door knob, reached around behind me and pulled both her hands away from me. "Tell you what. I've got to get home right now. How about I mow your lawn for a while and we can figure out some sort of payment method later on?"
The customer put her hands on her hips. "You don't like what you see, do you?"
"No, it's not that. It's..."
"I'm just an old woman to you, aren't I?" [From my recollection, I'd say she was 32 years old at the time, less than twice my age.]
"No. It's just..."
"What?"
"I don't know."
I opened the door and ran out of the house.
I continued to mow her lawn for free. She would come up with excuses for not paying me, like saying that I'd broken a window pane with a large rock that my mower had sent flying (meaning I'd have to keep mowing her lawn until it "paid for" the window (that she never fixed)) or that I hadn't picked up the trash after mowing, or left little strips of unmown grass in places, etc.
I told you I wouldn't give any details about the customer but I feel now's the time to tell you a few, since they're on the record, so to speak. The customer's first husband died of unusual circumstances. Or rather, he was known for abusing the woman and she put a bullet through the back of his head one day after she'd had enough, conveniently collecting a large insurance policy just recently issued in her husband's name, in a shaky signature that barely looked like his. She shot her second husband in front of witnesses in her driveway, coming out of her house with bruises on her face that she claimed her husband had just given her. Because all of the witnesses were drunk at the time, none of them could remember if, in fact, the customer's husband had or had not been in the house at all in the past few hours. A jury agreed that the husband must have stepped inside to urinate at some point, thus clearing the woman of a second murder charge. She collected a small insurance settlement.
Every time I stopped at her house, an assortment of guys and gals on old motorbikes were hanging around, offering me shots of whiskey, swigs of beer or tokes of marijuana. I declined their offer because I was dehydrated from either mowing a previous customer's lawn or hers.
= = =
What is the definition of commerce? Well, the Merriam-Webster dictionary gives the following:
- social intercourse: interchange of ideas, opinions or sentiments
- the exchange or buying and selling of commodities on a large scale involving transportation from place to place
- sexual intercourse
As an adult, what do I take from this lesson and tell my future students? Well, in a declining economy, people will increase the use of their bodies for commercial transactions. I have reached an age where such exchanges are uncomfortable for my wornout joints and unused muscles. It's up to you to decide if a momentary act helps build your portfolio. I haven't yet found it adds anything to mine but I am not you. For me, the act of flirting is more fun, the playfulness more fulfilling and the later unnecessary reconciliation on the books great to avoid. Again, I am not you. Only you alone can determine the definition of commerce. You can hang moral, ethical and other ideas on the act of commerce, but those are just ideas, not concrete action. It's in the realm of concrete action where I'll be teaching commerce. I won't shy away from showing you what words like commerce mean but I won't show you what to do. I can show you how to think but I can't think for you.
FHMS
For those of you with two hours to kill, put a pot of coffee on to percolate, prop toothpicks in your eyelids and spend time listening to the webinar, "Teaching Unprepared Students: Strategies for Promoting Success and Retention in Higher Education," by Kathleen F. Gabriel, Ed. D. The webinar covers topics related to engaging at-risk students. To me, the best part of the seminar was the statement that there are no quick fixes or magical solutions -- for example, when you have a student with low reading skills (3rd to 6th grade level, or thereabouts), make the student realize that it will take 2-3 dedicated years of catchup (too bad it's not ketchup) to meet the demands of typical higher education training techniques.
I could go on about the other details of the doctor's dilettantish dissertation but I won't. Suffice it to say she covered the topics well, if perhaps a bit boringly (i.e., not following her own advice to keep the audience engaged). She suggested a teacher/coach encourage a high level of teacher-student contact and networking between the students themselves (using social networking tools like myspace and facebook, or old-fashioned methods like IMing and emailing).
Here are some of the individuals and reading material that should help any of you who struggle with reaching out to those for whom education is a chore, bore and full of worthless ancient lore:
What does FHMS mean? Fort Henry Mall Syndrome, a phrase coined by a primary schoolmate, indicating the useless information exchange that takes places primarily in commercial shopping districts and involves conversations about items that are nonessential to life. Often accompanied by "valley talk" or other dialects devoted to crass commercialism. Heavily promoted to the masses to encourage wasteful spending.
In the current economy, we face a crisis of identity. How many of us have been bred and raised solely to live as pure examples of masochistic sufferers of FHMS? How many FHMS sufferers no longer have a means to temporarily ease their pain using retail therapy because they're afraid to spend the money they have, or have no money or credit to use at all?
If you're willing to go through a fun but confusing retraining process, then my classes at ITT Tech will show you how to overcome FHMS. I don't promise that, by the end of one of my classes, you will be free of FHMS. Instead, I will show you how to put others' FHMS inclinations to your use. You help them feel better and feed your family at the same time.
Despite accusations from my esteemed colleagues, I'm not here to condemn FHMS. No, I understand that FHMS is integral to the way our economy works. However, I want to show those willing to open their eyes to new ways of living that FHMS is like a river that you can tap, dam, divert or otherwise consider your personal source of energy. You can live a happy life without immersing yourself in those waters. See yourself sitting on the shore of FHMS with your favorite drink in one hand and your favorite person in the other, both of you watching the rush of people flowing past you in their innocent ride down the mighty FHMS. Go ahead and wave at each other because all of you are enjoying life the way you know it.
I could go on about the other details of the doctor's dilettantish dissertation but I won't. Suffice it to say she covered the topics well, if perhaps a bit boringly (i.e., not following her own advice to keep the audience engaged). She suggested a teacher/coach encourage a high level of teacher-student contact and networking between the students themselves (using social networking tools like myspace and facebook, or old-fashioned methods like IMing and emailing).
Here are some of the individuals and reading material that should help any of you who struggle with reaching out to those for whom education is a chore, bore and full of worthless ancient lore:
- August Wilson - high school dropout and Pulitzer Prize winner
- Making the Most of College: Students Speak Their Mind, by Richard J. Light
- The Art of Changing The Brain, by
- How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School, by
- Applying the science of learning, by Halpern and Hakel, Change magazine (2003)
- Use Both Sides of Your Brain, by Tony Buzan
- Learn the Lingo, by Kathleen F. Gabriel
- The Teaching Professor, by E. Hester
- Classroom assessment techniques, by T.A. Angelo and K.P. Cross
- John Wooden - "Failing to prepare is preparing to fail."
- I Dream A World, by Brian Lanker
- TEACHING UNPREPARED STUDENTS: Strategies for Promoting Success and Retention in Higher Education, by Kathleen F. Gabriel
What does FHMS mean? Fort Henry Mall Syndrome, a phrase coined by a primary schoolmate, indicating the useless information exchange that takes places primarily in commercial shopping districts and involves conversations about items that are nonessential to life. Often accompanied by "valley talk" or other dialects devoted to crass commercialism. Heavily promoted to the masses to encourage wasteful spending.
In the current economy, we face a crisis of identity. How many of us have been bred and raised solely to live as pure examples of masochistic sufferers of FHMS? How many FHMS sufferers no longer have a means to temporarily ease their pain using retail therapy because they're afraid to spend the money they have, or have no money or credit to use at all?
If you're willing to go through a fun but confusing retraining process, then my classes at ITT Tech will show you how to overcome FHMS. I don't promise that, by the end of one of my classes, you will be free of FHMS. Instead, I will show you how to put others' FHMS inclinations to your use. You help them feel better and feed your family at the same time.
Despite accusations from my esteemed colleagues, I'm not here to condemn FHMS. No, I understand that FHMS is integral to the way our economy works. However, I want to show those willing to open their eyes to new ways of living that FHMS is like a river that you can tap, dam, divert or otherwise consider your personal source of energy. You can live a happy life without immersing yourself in those waters. See yourself sitting on the shore of FHMS with your favorite drink in one hand and your favorite person in the other, both of you watching the rush of people flowing past you in their innocent ride down the mighty FHMS. Go ahead and wave at each other because all of you are enjoying life the way you know it.
27 February 2009
The Mother of Necessity
Waiting for my food at a local restaurant last night, I overheard a conversation between a man and a woman sitting beside us. He seemed distressed or a little confused and she seemed bored. The man said that he wondered how long it would be before all the government debt issued during the Bush and Obama administrations would be owned by China and thus when would China officially announce it had annexed the United States, not to mention other countries. The woman didn't seem to care - she wanted to get back home to see a particular popular TV program with her kids.
One thing about living in a town where the average level of formal education is higher than most cities is hearing interesting comments like that, usually followed up by discussions about the latest NASA rocket launch (a dud, in this case) or continued level of government military funding (still unknown).
The couple beside us who voiced the view on China looked African-American and represent the typical young couples pouring into north Alabama over the last few years, bringing a modern view to a sleepy Southern state.
And of course, my dreams were filled with variations on that guy's questions, with friends of mine appearing as members of a panel of peers in a mock debate.
During the debate, one side held the view that this is a global economy and the strengths of the few are the strengths of the many. Therefore, one's view of ownership must be changed, not placated. In other words, when one country captures the means of global production and by doing so holds a vast sum of money, it still depends on the rest of the world to give the money any value. The currency market could be manipulated by the indebted countries in such a way that foreign reserves become worthless, even if such a shakeup would devastate the world market for years to come.
The other side argued that such a view is a theory - the reality is that many countries that used to depend on internal tax structures to prop themselves up (municipal, local, state and national taxes) were convinced by corporate citizens to give up billions of tax dollars, letting corporations buy and trade among themselves tax-free by using a peer-to-peer free trade zone called the Internet. Thus, a country's worth that used to be measured in tax collections had slipped out the back door in the form of profit-taking by foreign entities, corporate-like in makeup (with virtual or brick-and-mortar offices using Internet addresses), forcing such countries to prop themselves up on the foreign purchase of each country's debt issuance to cover tax shortfalls.
My buddy, Helen, who always saw things from a different perspective than mine but one which I understood, stopped the debate. She said that she and her husband had raised their kids buying American goods, sent their kids to private school and could look at their lives as successful. When the stock market started falling, they had converted most of their market holdings to cash reserves and dividend-bearing stock. They had done their share to pay taxes and live the American Dream. What, in all this debate, could an average American like her see as worthwhile? Had any of the debate team members raised children? What's the purpose of debating unless you can propose solid solutions?
There was a lot of laughter. The "American Dream"? What was she talking about?
Helen looked straight into my eyes and said, "See, that's why I'm here. I don't just raise children. I have a brain, too."
Of course she has a brain. And that's what the debate team seemed to be missing -- the wisdom of mothering.
For years we have run our countries like men, as if our tough-guy, warlike modes of seeing teh* world were the perfect models for progress. "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," etc., blah, blah, blah.
["teh" = ode to Ganesh Sivananthan]
What was it the wise gurus of the past had told us? "Have children. Take care of your family." Oh yeah, that. Funny how it's usually the guys who are credited with the wise sayings of the past when what I've often seen is that it's the women who are having the children and taking care of their families while us guys go off to play.
I woke up after Helen spoke to me, partly because what she said was so startling and partly because a raging rainstorm battered our house, stirring my wife and cats, and thus, me.
You know that saying, "Necessity is the mother of invention"? Well, who is the mother of necessity? In other words, if one looks at life, what is necessary? Are we guys going to keep playing around and pretending we're important by sitting in our clubhouses debating the high ideal of when a country is a country? No, we're going to listen to the women who are in the marketplace with us and turn our ideals into shovels.
In the new "shovel ready" economy, let's roll up our sleeves and put our money where our mouth is, placing a few side bets on the currency exchange market while we pour our personal cash reserves into the local economy, and spend our former play (I mean, debate) time with our families.
I'll help you if you want to build schools and improve the local roads but if you want my cash to get your mortgage out from under you, well...sometimes you've got to pay the price for not taking care of your own family. I know the whole "it takes a village to raise a child" thing should mean I care about your family, too, and shouldn't let them be punished for your overpriced house and overextended mortgage. But you know what? Your kids will learn a valuable lesson when they see you have to move to a smaller domicile and sell off all your toys -- Mommies and Daddies who weren't paying attention in class don't always know what's best for themselves and their families, so you better pay attention in class and get good grades 'cause the cellphone texting and other diversions of your classmates ain't going to help you learn how to pay the bills when you're a adult.
One thing about living in a town where the average level of formal education is higher than most cities is hearing interesting comments like that, usually followed up by discussions about the latest NASA rocket launch (a dud, in this case) or continued level of government military funding (still unknown).
The couple beside us who voiced the view on China looked African-American and represent the typical young couples pouring into north Alabama over the last few years, bringing a modern view to a sleepy Southern state.
And of course, my dreams were filled with variations on that guy's questions, with friends of mine appearing as members of a panel of peers in a mock debate.
During the debate, one side held the view that this is a global economy and the strengths of the few are the strengths of the many. Therefore, one's view of ownership must be changed, not placated. In other words, when one country captures the means of global production and by doing so holds a vast sum of money, it still depends on the rest of the world to give the money any value. The currency market could be manipulated by the indebted countries in such a way that foreign reserves become worthless, even if such a shakeup would devastate the world market for years to come.
The other side argued that such a view is a theory - the reality is that many countries that used to depend on internal tax structures to prop themselves up (municipal, local, state and national taxes) were convinced by corporate citizens to give up billions of tax dollars, letting corporations buy and trade among themselves tax-free by using a peer-to-peer free trade zone called the Internet. Thus, a country's worth that used to be measured in tax collections had slipped out the back door in the form of profit-taking by foreign entities, corporate-like in makeup (with virtual or brick-and-mortar offices using Internet addresses), forcing such countries to prop themselves up on the foreign purchase of each country's debt issuance to cover tax shortfalls.
My buddy, Helen, who always saw things from a different perspective than mine but one which I understood, stopped the debate. She said that she and her husband had raised their kids buying American goods, sent their kids to private school and could look at their lives as successful. When the stock market started falling, they had converted most of their market holdings to cash reserves and dividend-bearing stock. They had done their share to pay taxes and live the American Dream. What, in all this debate, could an average American like her see as worthwhile? Had any of the debate team members raised children? What's the purpose of debating unless you can propose solid solutions?
There was a lot of laughter. The "American Dream"? What was she talking about?
Helen looked straight into my eyes and said, "See, that's why I'm here. I don't just raise children. I have a brain, too."
Of course she has a brain. And that's what the debate team seemed to be missing -- the wisdom of mothering.
For years we have run our countries like men, as if our tough-guy, warlike modes of seeing teh* world were the perfect models for progress. "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," etc., blah, blah, blah.
["teh" = ode to Ganesh Sivananthan]
What was it the wise gurus of the past had told us? "Have children. Take care of your family." Oh yeah, that. Funny how it's usually the guys who are credited with the wise sayings of the past when what I've often seen is that it's the women who are having the children and taking care of their families while us guys go off to play.
I woke up after Helen spoke to me, partly because what she said was so startling and partly because a raging rainstorm battered our house, stirring my wife and cats, and thus, me.
You know that saying, "Necessity is the mother of invention"? Well, who is the mother of necessity? In other words, if one looks at life, what is necessary? Are we guys going to keep playing around and pretending we're important by sitting in our clubhouses debating the high ideal of when a country is a country? No, we're going to listen to the women who are in the marketplace with us and turn our ideals into shovels.
In the new "shovel ready" economy, let's roll up our sleeves and put our money where our mouth is, placing a few side bets on the currency exchange market while we pour our personal cash reserves into the local economy, and spend our former play (I mean, debate) time with our families.
I'll help you if you want to build schools and improve the local roads but if you want my cash to get your mortgage out from under you, well...sometimes you've got to pay the price for not taking care of your own family. I know the whole "it takes a village to raise a child" thing should mean I care about your family, too, and shouldn't let them be punished for your overpriced house and overextended mortgage. But you know what? Your kids will learn a valuable lesson when they see you have to move to a smaller domicile and sell off all your toys -- Mommies and Daddies who weren't paying attention in class don't always know what's best for themselves and their families, so you better pay attention in class and get good grades 'cause the cellphone texting and other diversions of your classmates ain't going to help you learn how to pay the bills when you're a adult.
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