Mistakes

My father always said that there were only two ways to learn: cheap mistakes and expensive mistakes.

He said that mistakes are the tuition that our children pay for becoming adults. There is no scholarhip available for this degree. They will eventually have to pay the price to earn the title.

Each time we step in to save them from the consequences of an errant action, we only postpone the time of reckoning.

There is no way to short change this process.

If they don't make the mistake and learn from it at 14,15 or 16 then they will make it at 24, 34 or 44 when the cost is much greater.

Allowing our children the room to fail is allowing them the room to learn and grow.

Interestingly enough, the same is true for our own lives.

So many of us order our lives so as to avoid error at all costs that we stifle the creativity and spontanaiety that could be the engine for growth in our adult lives.

Is it true what they say about you people?

Is it true what they say about you people?

It's true; it's true!

Madeline Kahn - Blazing Saddles -1974

Those Israelis can really fly an airplane! I'm not talking about super-competent Israeli Air Force (which incidentally boasts the largest F-16 fleet in the world outside of the US) and I'm not speaking of the faux Bogie Air Force which flies against US pilots in training and is made upalmost exclusively of Israeli ex-fighter jocks. I'm not even talking about the Israel Aircraft Industry test pilots who are renowned in the aviation world for being able to diagnose mechanical ailments in any Boeing or Airbus metal within the first 20 minutes at altitude.

No, the incredible act of which I speak is beyond the bounds of even these high level of skills. Let me set the stage:

I am flying to Israel on El Al from JFK after a hard day of travel on very little sleep. No sooner have I sat down, than I am fast asleep. I awaken during meal service and briefly mid-flight to check our progress, but for most of the time, I am non compos mentis.

Upon landing I make the discovery that is both scary and exciting:

When we took off from New York, I was too tired to turn off my battery powered devices (BPD's)!

Undeterred by this terribly dangerous turn of events, the El Al pilots were able to take off, navigate and land the airplane safely.

I'm not talking about something as benign as a digital watch (which, of course, fits the FAA description of a device that must be powered down for safe flight). No, we're talking about a cellular telephone and a handheld yahtzee game!!!

Please do not try this yourself! These pilots were super-professionals. It is not certain that a US flag crew would have been able to safely pilot their passengers and crew to safety under similarly dire circumstances.

That must be why the FAA has mandated that flight attendants country-wide manically roam the aisles during their pre-flight check scanning for reckless risk-takers sporting iPods, pda's and other killer devices.

Having stared into the abyss and prevailed, I must admit that the thrill-seeker in me is somewhat intrigued. I can't guarantee that I won't do this again. Who knows, I may even leave on a BPD intentionally next time.

Don't Confuse Who You Are With What You Do (Part I)

The scene is repeated all through our lives and all around the world:

1962 - Kindergarten

Billy (to new acquaintance on the playground): Hi, I'm Billy Johnson. I live in the big house on the corner. My dad's a fireman.

1972 - 9th Grade

Billy (to new lab partner in chemistry): Hi, I'm Billy Johnson. I hope you're good at chemistry, because I stink at school. I'm really an athelete.

1976 - 12th Grade

Billy (to girl at party): Hi, I'm Billy Johnson. I'm the quarterback at Central High. I just got new mag wheels on my Charger. Do you wanna see 'em.

1980 - College

Billy (to girl at party): Hi, I'm Bill. I'm a Phys Ed major. What about you?

1984 - Happy Hour at the local watering hole

Billy (to a young lady at the bar): Hi, I'm William. I work at Merril Lynch. Can I buy you a drink?

1990 - 10 year college Reunion

Billy (to other alumnus spouse): Hi, I'm Bill Johnson. My wife's class of '80. I'm into investments. How about you?

2000 - Little League Game

Billy (to fellow spectator): Hi, I'm Bill. My son's pitching. Who are you here for?

2042 - Mortuary

Reverend to assembled Crowd: Here lies William F. Johnson III Devoted father, husband, grandfather and member of our community. William was known to all as a tireless worker in business, where he made a name for himself in investment banking and later in life as an active member of Sunset Village Retirement community where he spent the last 20 years with his wife Rose....................


Who was Bill?

Father?

Husband?

Son?

Brother?

Stockbroker?

Friend?

Sports Enthusiast?

I would say that most of us - including those who "knew" Bill the best would never have a clue. The vast majority of our lives, we confuse who we are with what we do.

We go to school so we say that we are students.

We marry a person and raise a family so we say that we are a father/mother and a husband/wife.

We work at a job so we say that we are that profession.

In point of fact we ARE none of these things. We DO all these things.

We ARE caring or harsh; honest or crooked; loving or cruel; spiritual or material; moral or immoral; courageous or cowardly; meaningful or inane; genuine or counterfeit.

We define our lives by the way that we do the jobs that we find ourselves in. Am I a loving son? A kind father? An honest stockbroker? A genuine friend?

That's what makes us WHO we are.

Don't confuse Who You Are with What You Do.

Laptop Tunnel 

China On My Mind

Why is China kicking butt?

Why is China kicking our butt in manufacturing?

Why is it that it's hard to buy any consumer goods not made in China?

It can't just be the labor cost advantage. Labor costs are lower in the Phillipines, India, Thailand, Mynamar and a host of other countries. In addition, shipping and logistics costs offset almost 80% of the labor cost savings.

It's not just productivity. As productive as the Chinese worker is, their quality control still negatively impacts unit throughput and productivity savings.

It's not just economies of scale. Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore and even Mexico are able to mass produce consumer goods in cluster communities that employ just in time logistics and other modern day manufacturing techniques.

What is the secret?

The answer is that it is not one secret. It' s several.

Secret #1 - The Nut, Part I

Not as in "you've got to be nuts to be in the manufacturing business." But rather as in overhead nut. Each business has a cost of opening the doors each day. That cost of doing business is called the "nut." The higher the nut, the higher the cost of each widget produced. The nut is comprised of taxes, regulation, property prices, insurance, legal liability and the cost of money. If the cost to produce a widget is $1.00 and the nut is 28% then a company selling widgets for $1.28 is breaking even, not making money.

Unfortunately, the nut for American manufacturers has been creeping ever upward. State and local tax rates increases have outstripped federal tax decreases in many locales. Regulation and the risk of class action has driven insurance rates through the ceiling and have themselves added to the cost of each unit of US production. In short, the nut has gone nuts.

Chinese manufacturers, by contrast, have been able to avoid much of the increased costs of operation that plague their American and European competitors. Overhead rates of 10%-15% are not unusual -- giving the Chinese manufacturer an incremental but significant advantage.

Secret #2 - The Nut, Part II

An important part of the company's overhead not mentioned above is the cost of the employees on the payroll that are not involved in the actual production of the end product. Payroll, purchasing, Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, Custodial, Human Resources, Sales, Marketing, Research and Development, Engineering, etcetera. All of these employees add significantly to the unit cost of a product.

The cost of this portion of overhead in China is less for three reasons.

First, the cost of labor is cheaper there than here (duh!).

Second, the Chinese don't accumulate needless FTE's to satisfy union rules, public sensibilities or from inertia. The United States and Europe, by contrast, struggle to re-train, re-orient and re-deploy personnel freed from administrative positions by technological innovation or market needs.

Finally, the Chinese are terribly stingy when it comes to "non-productive" jobs. Indeed, this is one of the frustrations of dealing with Chinese vendors. Their administration and communication can be infuriatingly inefficient.

Secret #3 - Hunger

The Chinese producer is hungry for business. Much hungrier for business than for margin. Take the garment industry (to quote Henny Youngman: "Please!"). The button and zipper manufacturer each have a margin requirement. So do the weavers and the notion makers. The margin requirement is the difference between the cost of the good (including the "nut") and the price paid by the customer. In the US, this margin normally runs between 20%-40%. So, in the example used above, the widget manufacturer who has a cost of $1.00 to make the good, a 28% overhead and a 30% margin will charge $1.82 to the wholesaler. The wholesaler in turn will charge $2.61 to the retailer, who in turn will mark it up to $3.73.

Now look at the example of a Chinese manufacturer who, because he is hungry to break into the American market and because of intense competition among other Chinese manufacturers is willing to cut his margin to 10% rather than 30%. And also assume that the Chinese companies are operating at 15% overhead. The $1.00 widget really costs $1.15 and will sell to the wholesaler for $1.27 (assuming that the labor savings are offset by shipping costs). The wholesaler will sell it to the retailer for $1.42 and the retailer will mark it up to $2.02 -- a whopping 46% less than the cost of a similarly made American product.

Secret #4 - Flexibility

American companies are notoriously inflexible in their willingness to start manufacturing a new line of products. They will plan and test and think and consider while an Chinese company will have already gone through three or four prototypes and brought a product to market. The willingness to try and fail is starkly different in the US and in China. Most Chinese companies are not burdened by Sarbanes Oxley or the pressure of quarterly SEC filings. If you show up at the factory with an idea and a napkin sketch, you can pick up a samples in a month. Try that in Europe or the US and the month will turn into a year (if you're lucky). The Chinese market is nimble in the way the tech industry was during the 1980's.

None of this is to make the case that China manufactures higher quality goods than the US - they don't. Nor do I believe that the Chinese will overtake the US in per capita GDP -- they won't. But I do believe that we are needlessly allowing many manufacturing jobs to leave these shores because of our inaction in areas such as tort reform, tax relief, regulatory reduction and transportation and logistic assistance.

South of the Border Two-fer

According to the September issue of World Trade magazine, we're in for several years of increased shipping rates due to the shortage of new vessel capacity coming online through the end of 2007. More than half of the breakbulk ships in the world fleet are over 20 years old and only 5% are scheduled to be replaced in the next couple of years. Experts expect rates to stay tight through 2010.

Given the high oil prices and the tight supply of container shipping capacity, wouldn't it make sense to begin the transition from a China-dependent consumer goods economy to one more focused on South of the Border production?

What better antidote than job growth is there to millions of job-hungry immigrants flooding our southern states?

Seems like a win-win to me. A growing economy in Mexico, lower shipping costs and oil consumption, less money spent on INS border patrols and mass deportations.

America's Flatulence Problem

flat·u·lence
1. Self-importance; pomposity.
2. The presence of excessive gas.

"When all is said and done, much is said and little is done."

This seems to be the motto of the US Congress in the continuing saga of obscenely high energy prices. It would be bad enough if we were - like most of Europe and Asia - bereft of resources to draw upon in this sector. Yet we possess one of the richest troves of energy stores in the industrialized world.

Between, Alaska, the Gulf of Mexico and the Outer Continental Shelf, the United States is estimated to hold some 406 trillion cubic feet of natural gas as well as over 70 billion barrels of oil. These numbers do not, of course, include the trillions of cubic feet of gas and multiple billions of barrels of oil readily available from our close allies and trading partners in Canada and Mexico.

Why then are we being told that we live in an era of scarcity? The problem, of course, is flatulence! See definition 1. above: "self importance, pomposity" What better description than that is there of the US Congress. The hundreds and thousands of pages dedicated to the useless posturing and pomposity of our elected representatives and still nothing is being done to unlock the treasure trove of energy available off our shores.

And yet, we are afflicted (blessed) with the second part of the definition of flatulence:

2. The presence of excessive gas

Trillions of cubic feet of excessive gas! Congress should ease regulations prohibiting the extraction of energy resources from Alaska and the Continental shelf. We would then see an easing of prices and the resultant relief to the US economy. Time is of the essence though, winter is fast approaching and although the lead times necessary to bring these fields online is measured in years not in weeks, quick Congressional action would calm the speculative fever that has gripped the trading floors of London, New York and Chicago.

Bugs & Blooms 

Maine Summer Blooms 

What do you think this is? 

Pray For Me

The July 15th edition of the San Francisco Chronicle carried a Rob Stein article entitled "Stranger's prayers don't help the sick, study finds"

The article reports that a double blind scientific study concluded that people who pray for themselves do better than those who don't, but that prayers by people of various religions for people that they don't personally know don't help at all.

I hope G-d wasn't reading that article. I would hate for him to find out that all of his work is for naught. What a downer that would be! Answering prayers day in and day out only to find out that the scientists and statisticians on earth have deemed your efforts ineffectual.

I pray for strangers all of the time. I believe that it helps them. I know that it helps me. I feel that since G-d says that we have the right of supplication that he must be listening. I know too that every prayer is answered. It's just that some times - many times - the answer is "No."

I like that I can ask the Creator for specific intervention and that he is considering the request. Even if the answer is no, I know that he's hearing me, listening, considering and answering.

So if I become sick again, and you hear about it - even if you don't know me - go ahead and chip in a prayer or two. I could use the help.

Rhapsodic Serendipity

If you don't know what Rhapsody.com is, or do and don't subscribe, skip this post. Otherwise, read on.

I have scores of playlists and hundreds of songs. I add, delete and re-order my lists when I'm bored or restless.

I accidentally juxtaposed two songs on my list: Leon & Mary Russel's "Tightrope" and Harry Nilsson's "Gotta Get Up."

Play the opening chords on both right after each other. Listen to the chords and the tempo.

Gravedigging for a Living

I picked up a newspaper last week in Europe and the following news item caught my eye:


Bulgaria unearths Thracian riches

A crown wreath of gold was found among the ruler's belongingsArchaeologists in Bulgaria have unearthed the treasure-filled tomb of what is thought to be a Thracian king.
A golden crown, ring, armour and other artefacts dating back 2,400 years were found with the skeleton in a tomb near the south-eastern town of Zlatinitsa....................Excavations of burial mounds across Bulgaria have unearthed similar finds.............Finds include ceramics, bronze, gold and silver jewels.................."Like the Egyptians built pyramids and used them as temples before they died, the Thracian rulers built mounds. When they died they were buried inside and earth was piled up on top. But here there was no mound." ............The bones are still being excavated and will be sent to Sofia for examination.

*****************


So I'm trying to figure out exactly what the difference is between what these archaeologists are doing and grave-robbing.

The only thing I could come up with is that grave-robbers don't generally issue press releases when they loot a tomb.

Grave-robbing is given a bad name because the looters steal for money. And Archaeologists? They are paid too. Museums around the world buy and sell these artifacts and provide a legitimate marketplace for the stolen objects.

I'm sure that the academic community would be aghast at the very question, but if you believe that a cemetery is a sacred and private place, then the number of years elapsing between the burial and the grave-robbing is not a material argument. Nor is the academic curiosity of the grave-robber's client.

Better that we should be ignorant of Thracian history (or ________ian history, you fill in the blank). I certainly hope that some time in the future the University of Thracia isn't interested in the burial habits of Springfield, Virginia residents. But just in case, I'm not going to be buried with any valuable artifacts.

Pacific Coast Hwy Near Stinson Beach 

California Dreamin

I grew up in Southern California and left 25 years ago for the East. Whenever I return to see family and friends I remember how nice it was -- the weather, the mountains, the beaches. But I have never been tempted to return until this weekend. My wife and I spent four days driving up the coast from San Francisco to Eureka and then back down through Sonoma and Napa valleys. Each town was quainter than the previous; each vista more breathtaking. The people were friendly and accomodating and so was the weather. While the East Coast was in the grips of a disabling heat wave, we enjoyed sweater clad mornings and evenings and temperate days. Stinson Beach, Point Arena, Fort Bragg, Garberville, Healdsburg, Loleta, Gualala, Fortuna, Ferndale, Eureka, Trinadad, Calistoga, St. Helena, Carmel, Monterey, Berkeley. Some were cities, some towns, some merely stops on a tourist map. All will hold great memories for the years to come.

It seems like only yesterday

My wife and I have been married for 22 years this weekend.

I'm tempted to say that it seems like only yesterday that we met and began dating, but that's not true at all.

The truth is that I don't really remember what it's like to not feel totally as one with this magnificent woman.

What was it like to be alone? I can recall the times, the dates and the places, but it's like recalling an old episode of Hogan's Heroes. I remember the details, but it's not like it was really me.

Trying to explain her worth and importance is an exercise in understatement. Nothing I can say or write will do justice to her value. It's like saying "I really love my lungs. I couldn't do without them."

Actually, it's more like saying this:

Rebecca,

You stole my heart.

You are my life.

Without you I am nothing.

Yours forever,

Ben


From the Steve Martin movie The Jerk:


Navin: Marie, are you awake? (Marie is sleeping).........

I know we've only known each other four weeks and three days, but to me it seems like nine weeks and five days.

The first day seemed like a week and the second day seemed like five days and the third day seemed like a week again and the fourth day seemed like eight days and the fifth day you went to see your mother and that seemed just like a day and then you came back and later on the sixth day, in the evening, when we saw each other, that started seeming like two days, so in the evening it seemed like two days spilling over into the next day and that started seeming like four days, so at the end of the sixth day on into the seventh day, it seemed like a total of five days.

And the sixth day seemed like a week and a half.

I have it written down, but I can show it to you tomorrow if you want to see it.

Anyway, I've decided that tomorrow, when the time is right, I'm going to ask you to marry me, if that's o.k. with you.

Just don't say anything.

You've made me very happy.

Big is Bad

You've heard the saying "Bigger is Better."

Baloney!

Bigger is Badder. Worser. Horribler. Yuckier.

My doctor sent me to the hospital for a procedure and when I called to confirm the appointment the receptionist suggested that I arrive at least 30 minutes ahead of time.

At first I figured that this was Standard Medical Operating Procedure -- ask you to arrive 30 minutes early so the doctor can make you wait an hour.

But no! The receptionist was trying to tell me that I would need 30 extra minutes just to get from the parking lot to their office.

The hospital had a sign on it that said "Inova Fairfax Hospital."

What it should have said was "Incredible Giganormous BigAsTexas Hospital."

Once I turned off the highway into the hospital's driveway I was a good 1/2 mile away from my parking lot.

Once into the labrynthine structure and parked, I hiked for 15 minutes around construction crews and debris (they're building several additional structures because goodness knows you can't have too big a hospital nowadays) until I reached the side door.

Imagine that the the office I need to get to was New York City. My car was in Juneau and the side door was Seattle.

At this point, I had already used up 15 minutes of my 30 minute cushion, but I figured that I was inside, so how far could it be?

I asked the first scrub-clad medical looking person I saw for directions to the radiation lab and was told "take the green elevators to the second floor and radiation is right there."

No problem. I happily walked away until I realized that I didn't see ANY elevators - green, blue or otherwise.

So I stopped the next official looking person and asked for directions to the green elevators. I was directed through several sets of doors, down a hallway and around a corner to an information desk.

Time was now getting short.

When I arrived at the information desk. I saw three large stacks of paper. A green stack, a yellow stack and a blue stack. I was drawn by some mystical force to pick up a green sheet of paper and this is what it said:

Directions from Inova Heart and Vascular Institute to Green Elevators:

Turn Right at the patient/information desk.
Go past the coffee cart
Go past the gift shop
proceed therough the double wooden doors
proceed through the automatic door marked "Inova Fairfax Hospital Surgery Center
proceed into lobby.
Turn left after the first wooden desk
proceed through the double glass doors.
Make an immediate right turn.
Proceed almost to the end of the hallway.
Just before the wooden doors, turn left.
Pass the elevators on the left
Turn Right
Continue approximately 50 feet
Turn left at the first hallway on the left
Proceed to the end of the hallway.
The Green Elevators are on the left.

I was 20 minutes late for my appointment.

Alchemy

The history of modern science is rooted in the work of the alchemists. Scientist-Philosophers throughout the pre-modern era in all regions of the world sought to change the base into the precious. The plentiful into the rare. The common into the sublime.

In pursuit of this goal, science proceeded from microscopic to molecular, to atomic, and finally subatomic matter. The benefits to humanity in pharmacology, genetics, science, communications, agriculture, and physics dwarf any metallurgical gains that would have accrued from the accomplishment of the alchemist's original aims.

Yet we have now (and have always possessed) the means to achieve true alchemy. We can, using our particularly human ability to reason and think, change one type of matter into another.

This is not a physical transformation per se, but rather the ability to substitute the manufacture of one type of matter for another.

Take, for example, the manufacture of oil in New Hampshire by the John Deere Company of Iowa.

Everyone knows that neither New Hampshire nor Iowa has any indigineous petroleum production or refinery capacity. How then does the John Deere factory in Iowa produce petroleum in New Hampshire.

As new roads are built in northern New Hampshire, the Earth Movers made by Deere in Iowa flatten hilltops and burrow through mountains to level the new roadbeds. Over its 50 years life,tens of millions of automobile miles will be spent traversing these highways. The flatter the road, the fewer gallons of gasoline will be consumed by the automobiles (and too, fewer brake pads consumed and transmission parts worn).

Our modern alchemist can create an oil savings of millions of barrels of oils by substituting John Deere earth moving equipment.

While this process is not limited to the alchemic process of producing petroleum products, that particular item is reputed to be in such short supply and hails from such a contentious part of the globe, that it is worthy of some focus.

The subsidization of fixed rail mass transit is almost universally unpopular from a fiscal point of view, but from an energy policy standpoint, it seems quite wise. Automobiles burn refined petroleum products; most light rail systems utilize coal generated electricity. In essence this is the cheap way to convert coal to gas.

How about bio-diesel? Even at the current cost of diesel hovering around $2.35 per gallon, bio-diesel is plagued by distribution and refining difficulties that keep it from being a widespread alternative for the trucking industry in America (the largest consumer of diesel fuel).

The modern alchemist, however, would note that the next largest consumer of transportation diesel is the agricultural community. Perhaps the farmers of midwest could cooperatively refine a fixed portion of their Oilseed crop in exchange for bio-diesel for their combines, reapers, tractors, trucks and heating and drying equipment.

This type of alchemy is currently being done in the coal fields of West Virginia. Coal operators are committing a coal from their mines in 20-year fixed price contracts to a refiner who is committing to provide back refined truck diesel at equivalently fixed prices. The coal miners are alchemists creating Middle East Oil from their own coal.

The examples are endless, we need only use the one unlimited resource that we possess on earth -- the power of our minds.

Till Death Do Us Part

In my article "Put This Guy In Jail" I argue that Mark Felt violated his oath of secrecty and confidentiality when he leaked important information to the Washington Post.

Several respondents have posed the "Hitler Test." What if Felt was an officer of the SS during the Third Reich and was leaking information to the Allies about the abuses going on in the Death Camps?

The answer is simple and intuitive.

If the violation of your oath will save an innocent human life then it is justified. The converse is also true. Loyalty to an oath is never a justification for the taking of an innocent human life.

Nixon was not Hitler and Watergate was not Auschwitz. Felt could have gone to the Democrat controlled Congress. They would happily have heard his story and acted to preserve the interests of the citizenry.

No, Felt wanted it both ways. He wanted revenge on Nixon and he wanted to maintain his good guy image and high position at the FBI.

The foundation of justice is the adherence to principle and the rule of law. Felt abrogated both.

Public Relations Matter

I had lunch today in Vienna with some very astute European businessmen.

Astute businessmen who were dead wrong in everything that they thought about what was going on in the US!

How could they be both astute and so deadly wrong on every count?

Simple, they read everything available to them in the public press. They watch the BBC and CNN. They listen to the speeches and the commentators, devour the editorials and follow the issues closely. That's astute.

I remember as a undergraduate learning TECO on a DEC-10 in the 70's, my instructor was always quoting the programmer's mantra: "Crap in - Crap Out."

That's why these "astute" businessmen got everything so wrong.

According to the European story, everything in the US under George Bush is going to Hell in a handbasket.

Europe, on the other hand, is ascendant!

According to the media here in Europe:

The US budget deficit is out of control.

The dollar can no longer stand up as the world's reserve currency.

Iraq will never end and America is being sucked into another Vietnam.

Crime is rampant.

People are out of work as all of our jobs are exported to China.

The economy is spiraling downward.

A Democrat/Republican civil war is imminent.


No wonder the dollar is oversold! Who would invest in a country like this?

The only problem, of course, is that none of this is true.

The US budget deficit is large, but shrinking.

The Iraq War is tragic and costly, but we are also winning it and the establishment of a westernizing democracy in Iraq has already wrought positive changes in the Middle East.

All classes of serious and violent crime are in decline in America.

Unemployment in the US is half the rate experienced in the Euro zone and dropping.

US economic growth is the highest in the industrial world with the exception of Switzerland and Sweden. By contrast, Eurozone growth is practically non-existant.

Democrats and Republicans in Congress are fighting like cats and dogs. But for goodness sakes, isn't that what we pay them to do? But the fight is all for show. Most Americans couldn't name their own Congressman on a bet. Nor could they name the respective national party chairmen.

Most Americans are working too hard during the day and playing too hard at night to care about what is going on in Congress.

No, the fact is, the only battle we are losing is the public relations battle in Europe and Asia. We need to do a better job of managing our public image overseas.

The lesson of the 1960 Presidential election is still instructive today. John F. Kennedy smiled and won the hearts of the television audience. Richard Nixon scowled and lost the election.

In more recent times, Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan smiled alot and told the world pithy stories. They were loved. George W. and Jimmy Carter were stern and school-marmish and the world believed that the US was doomed.

So, America, be like Albert Peterson in Bye Bye Birdie and "Put On A Happy Face."

The world will love you for it.

Immigration Is The Solution Not The Problem

I am somewhat frustrated to continue to have to read daily the angry rhetoric of the world's nationalists.

Voters in France who reject the EU Constitution (right move) because of the fear of immigrants (wrong move); or the American trade unions who fight immigration at every turn for fear that one of their members might have to compete on the open market for their job.

My favorite is the Sierra Club, which opposes immigration because it's bad for the environment. WHAT? You mean that an immigrant from, let's say, London is going to harm the environment here, but not in the UK?

Without too much trouble, I think one can make the case for open borders and virtually unlimited immigration. I also think that whatever problems are being cited as being caused by immigration, one can make a counter argument that immigration is the cure not the cause of these problems.

Take economic growth and personal income. Far from having a negative effect on personal income, open borders would be a great boon to the American economy.

Cargill, ADM, Microsoft, Coke, Proctor & Gamble, GM, Chrysler and McDonalds all spend tens of millions of dollars each year to try to get more Chinese to buy their products. Do you want 10 million more Chinese to buy your product? That's easy. Let them live here. They won't buy anything else.

Let's just say you let 10 million Chinese immigrants come here tomorrow (believe me there would be at least 10 times that number wanting to come). What would be the first thing that would happen?

Well, the government would collect about $350 million in immigration taxes immediately. US carriers (American, United, Northwest) would make about $10 billion in airfare. American telcos would make about $15 million in calls home from the immigrants wanting to say "Hi Mom. I got here safely." American grocers would sell another 20 million eggs the first day as all these immigrants got hungry for breakfast.

You get the picture. Lots and lots of new economic activity. Housing, transportation, clothing, domestic communications would all be in demand as 10 million new residents set up shop.

10 million seems like a whole lot of people to absorb, but look at what Israel did in the last couple of decades. The country absorbed over 1 million Russians and Ethiopians. A comparable number for this country would be 20 million people coming to live in California.

During the 1990's the Israeli economy grew at an average rate of 6%. Almost all of that growth is attributed to the influx of immigrants.

Sure there are costs. Sure there are dislocations. Sure it's uncomfortable. Those people don't look like us; they don't speak like us; they don't laugh at our jokes and they smell funny too.

Just like my grandparents when they got here. They spoke funny, ate funny, smelled funny and made the neighbors just a little bit uncomfortable.

But they raised good kids who were proud to be Americans; served in the Army, Air Force, Marines and went to college and paid taxes as they raised families and pursued the American dream.

Here's my test to the naysayers. Name one signer of the Declaration of Independence that didn't come from an immigrant family and I will concede this argument.

Just one!

Really, you don't have an answer?

I didn't think so.

Open the Doors. Let 'em in.

Statisticians Are The Real Problem!

I am in Vienna this week in meetings with some business associates from around the world. My hosts own hotels here in Austria, in Cyprus, Turkey and Greece. My other friends live in Tel Aviv, but have businesses in Greece, Italy and Poland as well as in Poland.

Tonight as dinner concluded we were speaking about the difference between cultures in the Mediterranean, Europe and America. On the subject of alcohol, my Greek friend Manolis was shocked to learn that Americans are not allowed to drink until the age of 21. His cousin, who was raised in the States, said "yes - 21 to drink and 16 to drive." This comment was met with much amusement by all. In most of the world, underage drinking is not a problem - it is part of dinner.

I told them that in the States we have a real problem with drinking and driving. I quoted the statistic that 40% of all traffic accidents with fatalities in the US involve a driver that is under the age of 23 - and that half of those accidents also involve alcohol.

My Israeli friend Richard said "I wonder why we don't have the same problem with underage drinking and driving in Israel and Greece."

With sage wisdom, Manolis deadpanned "We don't have as many statisticians."

Put This Guy In Jail

I don't know about you, but all this celebration surrounding the revelation of the true identity of "Deep Throat" really rubs me the wrong way.

Just to make sure I have it right, let's review the facts:

An agent, who is sworn to an oath of secrecy is entrusted with confidential information by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

This agent is invested with the police power of the state to investigate and interrogate, to detain and arrest and ultimately to incarcerate wrong-doers - people who have broken the law.

This same agent rises to become Assistant Director of the FBI - the highest domestic intelligence agency in the country - and is thus situated at the crossroads of an even greater current of sensitive and highly confidential information.

At this point, he decides that his oath of confidentiality is not really an oath, the law is not really a law, that top secret really only means "sort of" and that the Washington Post reporters Woodward and Bernstein are ex officio members of the Bureau anyway so why not tell them everything he knows.

Now, 30 years later this man, W. Mark Felt, is being hailed as a hero.

What a bunch of unmitigated, rotgut, unadulterated CRAP!

This guy should be reviled, scorned, excoriated, excommunicated, etcetera, et al, and so on, blah blah blah blah.

He was sworn to uphold the law not adjudicate it. He was sworn to protect secrets not reveal them. He was sworn to collect intelligence, not publish it.

Consider this, what if he had given this information to the Soviets and not to the Washington Post? (author's note: that might be a distinction without a difference) Would Felt not have been guilty of espionage and treason? Why is what he did so different? He knew that our enemies - both foreign and domestic - would read his revelations in the morning paper.

There is probably a good reason why Felt kept silent all of these years. He knew that what he did was illegal and improper. The practice of FBI agents leaking confidential information to the press still goes on regularly.

I have personally spoken to reporters from national press outlets who asked me questions about facts that they could only have known from FBI sources.

This situation must not be allowed to continue. At 91 years of age, Felt is probably beyond the age at which his arrest would be viewed by anyone as a positive step.

On the other hand, perhaps the FBI should revoke his pension and take other steps to ensure that a message is sent to everyone - both inside and outside the agency- that the power of the State which is vested in each Agent and employee, carries with it significant repsonsibility.

Inane Statism

What do you get when you cross 1984 and Alice In Wonderland?

Bumbling Bureaucratic Statism.

Now, put that on a scenic island in the Atlantic with beautiful beaches and you have Bermuda!

Last weekend my sister Linda and I decided that we would meet in Bermuda for a couple of days of tourism and relaxation. She was flying from New York and I had a later flight from Washington, DC.

When I arrived and entered the customs/immigration area, I was surprised to see her waiting for me inside of the secure area. She had obviously not cleared immigrations and I feared the worst - lost or expired passport.

What had happened was, from the point of the Bermudian government, almost as bad. Linda had committed the egregious crime against the state of not knowing what hotel she was staying in! She had delegated the task of finding suitable lodging to me and I figured that we would wing it and find a place once we got to the island.

I had, however, known enough to write "Fairmont Hotel" on my immigration form where it asks in which hotel you have a reservation. So when I arrived and saw that my sister was being detained by the head of immigration, I took out my immigration form and pointed to the name of the hotel (that I had only minutes before read about in the in flight magazine).

Having detained my sister for over an hour, you would think that he would be interested in my showing him some proof of my reservation - or perhaps that he would just pick up the telephone and confirm the reservation - or perhaps that he might just have easily let my sister use his telephone to find a room.

NO! The Bermuda rules say that immigrants have to fill out the form completely and that without the name of a person's home or hotel on the form, you are not allowed in the country.

So with the flourish of my ball point pen, we were allowed entrance into the inner sanctum of Bermudianism where we were able to spend a lovely 24 hours free of any further Orwellian Inanity.

Say Goodbye to Copper

I saw the future today - and it is invisible. I was in Baltimore at the Spring ISPCON (Internet Service Providers Conference).

Most people know of ISP's like AOL and MindSpring. But a new breed of ISP is popping up all around the country. They are called WISP's or Wireless ISP's. These WISP's are speading a disruptive technology that allows the delivery of high speed internet to homes and businesses via un-licensed radio spectrum.

What this means is that any buckaroo entrepreneur with $20,000 - $30,000 can open up shop and deliver high-speed internet at prices and speeds competitive with Verizon DSL or Comcast Cable.

What's the scary part for the big Telco's and Cable companies?

The WISP has no investment in copper!

No cables in the ground!

No wires to run to the house!

No sunk costs to amortize!

Most important? The system is infinitely scalable. Whereas the large Telcos and Cable Companies must spend millions of dollars to build out a network of copper cables before they can sell their first customer, the WISP can spend a few thousand dollars and be in business inside of a month. The WISP can serve a small community of 40 users in Brooklyn, 400 users in Matewan, WV or 40,000 users in Augusta, GA. Or perhaps, the WISP will start at 40 users and grow in a few years to 40,000 users.

If I were a large ISP, the only thing that would make me feel good is that I'm not a incumbent wire line telephone company. Because the other thing that was quite obvious at this show is that VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) is a tsunami that is about to crest and wash away the old way of making and receiving telephone calls.

Five years ago I bought a VOIP system for a company I was running. We bought $500,000 of equipment and committed to spend an additional $3,000 per month in telco charges. Even at this cost, the company was saving money.

I priced the equivalent system today and it was $3,500 per month -- with NO EQUIPMENT CHARGES. It had all of the same features and benefits, but without all the equipment charges and the complicated management costs.

There is no way that the current model of business and residential telephony will survive the convergence of cheap wireless internet and cheap VOIP service.

I spoke to many of the equipment manufacturers at the show and they told me that much of the wireless internet and VOIP equipment being sold today is going to developing countries in Latin America and Asia. Many of these countries are completely bypassing copper and going straight to wireless services.

If I was a commodity trader, the first thing I would do is short oil (see "Grandpa Tell Me 'Bout the Good Ole Days); but then I would short copper.

Also posted at Blogger News Network

Everything I learned in life I learned in the Boy Scouts

My son Jacob and I went on our first Boy Scout camping trip together this weekend. It was an 11 mile canoe trip down the Rappahannock river in Virginia. Perfect days, good companionship and an icy swim in the river when we capsized in the rapids at mile 8.

But I was reminded of my days as a Boy Scouts and what valuable training it afforded me. You see the Boy Scouts are not really a "camping" organization although they teach a great deal of woods-craft. They are not a political organization - although you read a great deal about their struggle in the courts with various charity sponsors and the courts.

What the Boy Scouts of America are is represented by the various pledges and oathes a Scout is bound to uphold and by which he is to live his life.

Take the Scout Motto: Be Prepared!

Simple and yet very profound. Be prepared for a rainy day - save your money. Be prepared for life's hardships - get an education. Be prepared for the unexpected - make contingency plans - rehearse - research - plan. How many of the many mistakes that I have made in my life - both big and small - could have been obviated by a little bit of preparation.

How about the Scout Slogan: Do a good turn daily!

How many of our days go by without our being able to do a good turn? Where is the altruism of our early days? Not the automatic payroll deduction of $25 that goes to the local mega-charity-complex of companies that vaccum money out of our communities only to spend 65% of that money on overhead and other fundraising costs. I'm talking about finding someone to help and then helping them - person to person. I admit that it is virtually absent from my life and all the other people of my generation who are busy chasing their own tails.

How about the Scout Law: A Scout is Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Kind, Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty, Brave, Clean and Revererent!

Driving back from the river this weekend, one of the thousands of drivers jamming the freeway north into Washington, DC cut me off. As I suppressed the urge to lay on the horn and vent my obvious displeasure verbally at this vehicular misanthrope, I had to ask myself - under which category would this act fall? Helpful? Friendly? Courteous? Kind?

In today's world of drive by shootings and road rage, I figured out that it might only be considered Brave - and even then, not very smart.

IDEA - Sue Me Foundation

I can't tell you the number of times in our married life that my wife and I have had legal troubles with people who commit egregious wrong-doing with impunity, because they know that we don't have the financial means to go after them in court.

We sold a house to a man who wouldn't release $2,000 in escrowed funds after the closing and dared us to sue him to get the money. We ended up settling for less than half the money because the court costs and attorney's fees ate up the rest.

We rented a house to a friend (ex-friend) who skipped out on the rent and told us that we could sue him, but there would be no way to enforce the order since he was moving out of state.

We sold a business to a gentleman who breached several important terms in the contract and told us "sue me, you're moving out of state and it will cost you a fortune to get your money back -- even if you win."

In each of these cases, we could have spent the money on an attorney and the time in court and perhaps after years of aggravation and expense we could have won. But the risk was too high and we felt that the focus of our lives should not be litigation.

I wish there was a non-profit legal foundation formed for the purpose of going after these scofflaws. I would have gladly donated my rights in these (and other) cases to the foundation and let them use their lawyers to get these bad guys.

With a staff of attorneys and a reputation for honesty and ferocity, perhaps the bad guys wouldn't mess with them so easily. They could easily be funded by their winnings in the court room.

Sure I wouldn't have received any benefit from the cases - but I didn't anyway. At least this way I would have the satisfaction of knowing that the nice guy didn't always finish last.

Un-Baking the Social Security Cake Part I

The whole discussion of Social Security reform is so fraught with danger that I hesitate to venture into this mine field of emotion and misinformation. Perhaps the better metaphor (betterphor?) is wading into a pool of quicksand, since there is no one argument in this discussion that would cause instant rhetorical death. Rather the entire process of debate seems to suck one in and cause the suffocation of rational discussion.

In order to prevent such an untimely death on this important issue, I hope to write a number of briefs on this issue in an effort to unravel and illuminate the issues involved.

Before we "un-bake" the Social Security Cake, I think the first important task is to understand what type of cake we're talking about.

Most people don't realize that the fundamental difference between the two sides in this debate has to do with flavor preference

To wit: Is Social Security a retirement program or a social service entitlement program?

If Social Security is an entitlement program, then the Democrats are well within the national ideological construct to oppose the President who wants to take a give-away program from Congress and put shackles on it by privatization. If you believe Social Security to be this type of program, your objective is to maximize the payouts to the largest numbers of your constituents while at the same time trying to find the deepest pockets to pick in order to raise that revenue.

But - and this is a tremendous "But":

If Social Security is supposed to be a governmentally sponsored retirement program based on the same principles and structures as most other private sector retirement programs, then

"... bust my buttons! Why didn't you say that in the first place? That's a horse of a different color!"

A financially sound retirement program is based on mathematics, not politics. One can determine with a high degree of accuracy how long any group of 10,000 Americans are likely to pay into a retirement program and how long after retirement, they will likely draw on the same pool of deposited and invested money.

The only financially responsible way to manage such a program is to define the end benefits once and then begin to collect funds from workers and invest them at the hightest possible rate of return.

So the question is Chocolate or Vanilla: Is Social Security a Government Entitlement program structured as a give-away? Or is it a financially sound retirement program that is actuarially based?

"Don't mind that man behind the curtain.........."

As George Bernard Shaw once said, "A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always count on the political support of Paul."

This post is also available at Blogger News Network

Spiritual Optometry

I'm short-sighted, or far-sighted. I can never remember which one. Whatever causes you to see someone from 6 feet away as an amorphous ectoplasmic blob -- that's what I have.

But what a great day and age in which to have such an affliction! I have several different sizes and styles of eyeglasses (in several different states of disrepair). I can go to any one of a dozen local one-hour optometrists and get a prescription for contact lenses (soft or hard? colored or transparent? extended wear or throw away?). I can even choose any one of 31 flavors of laser eye surgery now being offered.

I wish our spiritual eyesight were so easily remedied.

I was recently in the hospital for a few days and read some interesting pieces on the modern vs. the classic view of humility. The modern world teaches that humility properly understood involves debasement of self -- a lowering of ones self below that of others. Meekness, submissiveness and a giving over of ones personal sovereignty to others. Indeed, the dictionary definition of humble is "low in rank, quality, or station; unpretentious or lowly."

This definition, however, is of a relatively recent vintage. The traditional understanding of the word humility comes from its biblical usage to describe the reason for G-d's choosing Moses to lead the people of Israel out of bondage and into freedom. It says that G-d chose Moses because he was the "most humble of men." Everyone remembers the part in Exodus where Moses protests the mantle of leadership by saying that he has a speech impediment, but the lesser recalled parts of the Bible are Moses exercising his wealth and power in what seem to be an almost Machievellian way.

How does this square with him being described as "the most humble of men?"

It turns out that the traditional view of humility is having a crystal clear view of who you are -- both good and bad. You are not boastful and you don’t bow and scrape the ground with false modesty. Humility in the traditional sense then is a true understanding of who and what you are.

After I read this I came to the inescapable conclusion that we have a humility crisis in the United States today! America's women are not humble enough!

I'm sure you've seen the signs as I have. Accomplished, intelligent, beautiful women with an abundance of character, compassion, wit and charm in a relationship with a man not nearly as capable.

Wives and mothers who have or are raising children, organizing the household, participating in book clubs, public services, religious institutions and many times paid careers too. They have advanced degrees, are bi and tri-lingual, artistic, caring, sympathetic, empathetic, energetic -- while the husband's claim to fame is that he "brings home the bacon."

These women cling to the modern view of "humility," taking a back seat to Harry Husband Homeowner who rules the roost, the checkbook and many times the tempo and tenor of the marriage.

It is my humble (traditionally defined) opinion that many women share my optical affliction, except that it is manifested not when physically looking at others, but when spiritually looking within.

When they look at themselves, instead of seeing the incredible energetic and dynamic person I see, they see an amorphous ectoplasmic blob.

This causes all manner of social and personal problems. Dysfunctional marriages and families; unhappy wives and mothers; children being raised in discordant households and having unnatural role models.

I feel like the Saturday Night Live Psychologist character Denise Venetti whose only remarks to her patients are “Have you taken a look at yourself? Take a look at yourself.”

Perhaps what’s needed is a Spiritual Optometrist.

Mandatory Relaxation

I, like most boomers, formed my impression of most things not experienced first hand by the cinema. Jail to me meant "Cool Hand Luke," or "The Longest Yard." At worst it was "Papillion" (actually, the worst was "Midnight Express" but that was more about the horrors of Turkey - not the horrors of jail). So it was completely without fear and trepidation that I entered two days of solitary confinement this week for my radiation therapy.

Here's the drill: I get to go into a first class hospital room on Tuesday afternoon and, after taking a dose of radioactive iodine, they shut the door and I get to (have to) stay in the room alone for 48 hours. With the exception of the nurses delivering food and water, I am without human contact for these two days.

At first, I am quite pleased. I bring with me several hundred pages of reading material, a note pad and pen, a deck of cards and my own fax machine. This will be a breeze -- even fun. The room has a great view, a television and I can both receive incoming and make outgoing telephone calls.

My wife Rebecca and son Sam enviously help me unpack and we make jokes about how we can get them the same treatment so that they can have a "vacation" too.

Then the radiation guy came to give me the medicine. He came with a lead-lined pharmaceutical bottle and a geiger counter. He told me "OK, as soon as I open this bottle, take the medicine as quickly as you can." He gave me the medicine and backed away from me as if I was highly radioactive (which, in fact, I was). He shooed my family out of the room and then shut the door.

I don't know what exactly it was about the "click" of the door shutting. It wasn't locked and I knew I would be free to go in a couple of days. But that "click" loosely translated into english was "you are trapped."

All of a sudden, the free two day vacation became a mandatory two day isolation. Incarceration not freedom. Isolation not separation. I felt uncomfortable, but was still looking forward to getting my reading done.

The first day, the hours tick by and I am making great progress on my backlog of articles and notes. I go to sleep thinking "That wasn't too bad. I could definitely do this for a while."

The next day everything changes. I'm looking at how I can make a clean break out of the joint. I start to tie the bed sheets together and realize that the windows don't open. AACK! No way out the back. The ceiling tiles are glued into place. The only way out is the front. "Calm down" I tell myself. It's only another day. That helps for about 6 minutes. Then I'm on the phone calling people I know to chat. Chat about anything, or nothing. It doesn't matter. Just so long as I can be rassured that they'll still take my phone call and that they'll be there when I'm paroled - I mean released.

The phone calls get shorter and shorter as people hear from me more and more frequently during the day. I know they want to say "didn't we just speak 20 minutes ago?" but being my friends they sympathetically listen to me figuratively run my tin cup across the bars yelling "ATTICA, ATTICA."

And then, it's over. As quickly as it started. The guy with the geiger counter comes in and says that I'm not quite the nite-lite I was 48 hours ago and that I'd better get my stuff together so that they can discharge me and he can prepare the room for the next patient.

"Wait a minute" I think to myself. I know the health insurance people have paid for this room for the whole day. You can't kick me out so soon. I'm entitled to another 6 hours........"

Read & Loved (5 of 5 stars)

The Great Influenza

John M. Barry

Viking - 461 pp.

The Great Influenza is Barry's fifth book and reading this masterful history of the Influenza outbreak of 1918 makes me want to read the other four right away. This magnum opus traces the history of medical science to the post-Civil War period in America and Europe.

It is shocking to learn that as late as 1869, the President of Harvard University and the faculty of the Medical School there were arguing over whether or not to require WRITTEN EXAMS!

Professor of Surgery Henry Bigelow protested to the Harvard Board of Overseers, "[he] actually proposes to have written examinations for the degree of doctor of medicine. I had to tell him that he knew nothing about the quality of Harvard medical students. More than half of them can barely write. Of course they can't pass written examinations....."

Several short decades later America and the world would face the dual scourge of World War and disease. This book is non-fiction history, but it reads like a murder mystery. Hat's off to Barry.

The River Runs Deep

It just occurred to me that the opposite of outlaws is in-laws.

How appropriate!

My in-laws are great people. Knowing what I know now, I would have asked my wife to marry me sooner just to spend more time with my in-laws (as it was, my wife and I were married before I had known her a year).

Outlaws take. They rape and rob and burgle and pillage.

My in-laws give and give. They help and nurture. They are sympathetic, empathetic, energetic and, when all else fails, symbiotic. Then, they give some more.

I bring that up today because I am sitting in the sun room of their lake house in Virginia. As I look out over the beautiful lake front garden I see that the wind is pushing the water into frothy westward waves (As Frank Herzog would say "from left to right across your television screens").

From where I sit, you can't see the ends of the lake and the opposing shore here makes this passage about wide as the Potomac River. The wave action gives the lake the appearance of current. Indeed, if you were not a resident, you'd swear that this is a river front, not a lake front.

What's the difference? The water in front of me has some permanence. It has depth and contour and stability. True, there is an occasional shoreline eddy and seasonal drift and exchange, but the lake is the lake.

A river is a channel through which an ever-changing torrent of water runs constantly. It can carry you away, or carry you under. Frequently it does both.

The allure of motion and change is as old as the serpent in the garden. We should take care to see that we are not jumping into an unknown current that will wisk us away from our safe harbor.

In 1982, I jumped in quickly.

Fortunately, I ended up in this beautiful lake.

Justice and Jonathan

I was serving in the Reagan Administration when Jonathan Pollard was arrested. I suffered as much shame and embarrassment as most Jews during this period. Perhaps more. I had made my then nascent career in the Republican Party fighting the stereotypes of Jews as being monolithically Liberal, Democratic and, by extension, only mildly pro-American.

It was the Jews, after all, who would fight to the death to keep the US out of any foreign entanglements -- unless, of course, it was to support Israel. They would fight to the death in Congress to eviscerate Defense spending -- unless, of course, it was money going to defend Israel. They would fight to the death to circumscribe the power of the State vis-a-vis individual and civil rights -- unless, of course, you were talking about the State of Israel.

There was always the underlying feeling that as a Jew, policy makers were waiting for you to make the case against Israel just to prove that you were a loyal American.

That's why being a Reaganite was so liberating. Reagan said that everything we wanted for America, he wanted for Israel! Strong defense, open economy, secure borders, individual freedom, mutually defensible borders. There was no disconnect between the Reaganite in me and the pro-Israel Jew.

Then Pollard.

It raised all of the old canards of double loyalty, Julius and Ethel, "what would you do if the US and Israel were at war?"

I felt that Pollard had betrayed American Jews. He had committed a Chilul Hashem (disgracing G-d's name), and put Jews worldwide in mortal danger.

The truth is, I still feel that way.

But as I grow older, and have seen the pitiful sentences handed out to spies such as John Walker, I have an growing sense of unease. A sense that there is an injustice here.

Either we have to step up punishment for more serious spies than Pollard -- Aldrich Ames comes to mind - or we have to let Pollard go. I support either option.

The precedents are all around us.

In December 2000, my wife and I were allowed inside Angola prison in Louisiana and onto Death Row to meet some of the prisoners there. We were personally escorted on our tour of Death Row by the prison warden and by Wilbert Rideau.

Rideau, you may remember, murdered a bank teller in 1961 and tried to kill his other hostages. He was tried four times and never recanted his crime, yet just last year, Rideau walked free. Why?

The courts determined that Rideau was the only black Louisiana murderer convicted in 1961 still in prison. The courts determined that their was an imbalance -- an injustice -- that would not stand, and so they released him into free society. A man who murdered in cold blood -- released into free society.

I believe that there are only two options here. Either we tighten up parole laws so that all murderers are kept in prison, or we end up releasing the Walter Rideaus of the world.

I would prefer to tighten up the sentencing and incarceration standards -- for murderers as well as for spies.

But if you're not going to do that, then you have to let Pollard go.

Happy Mother's Day - Poetry

She is ever present

But I miss her every day.

She sews the buttons on my pants

that I long ago outgrew.

She sheltered me under wing

From the storms that raged

But pushed me out of the nest

So I would learn to fly.

Her silent actions deafened me;

Her class a reproach to my ego.

And her smile healed

the multitude of scrapes and bruises

suffered at the hands of a cruel world.

As she made her exit

from this world without complaint

I never knew how much a part of my life she was.

She is ever present

But I miss her every day.

The Matrix & The Perfect Marriage

The rabbis have long taught that the physical world is only a reflection of the spiritual world. That there is nothing in this world that is not present in a spiritual construct in the heavenly sphere. Indeed, the Kabbalists teach that the physical world is really just a physical manifestation of spiritual energy waiting interaction with humans for the release of spiritual energy. I believe Einstein said something like that too -- physical mass is just energy awaiting release into the atmosphere.

The movie "The Matrix" was brilliant theater based on this type of physical/spiritual interplay, with many deeper levels of spiritual and religious insight. It it, however, not the purpose of this blog to explore the screenplay for these insights, but rather only to point out that the physical world can be an fascinating mapquest into our spiritual and emotional lives. Each day I discover more and more of these journeys and from time to time I would like to open my atlas and share a particular road trip.

Take Concrete Floor Finishing for example (puhleeze!). Diamond polished concrete floors are the newest thing in construction. Wal-Mart, Lowes, Costco and Home Depot are all specifying polished concrete in their newly constructed stores.

The process is quite interesting. Concrete is a mixture of crushed stone, limestone, cement, sand and water. Early in the mixing process, the concrete is liquid and pours easily -- conforming to the boundaries of the container into which it is poured. With a little guidance it will also level itself out and begin to harden -- eventually becoming as hard as a rock.

Diamonds, on the other hand begin as rotting vegetation, which under tremendous pressure, time and heat become coal and then eventually the hardest crystalline structure known to man.

Concrete floors are polished by mechanically subjecting their surface to diamond cylinders rotating at high speed and pressure. As the friction and heat mount, the diamonds and the concrete are simultaneously worn away and the floors become shiny and new looking.

Here's the interesting part: once used on a particular floor, the diamond cylinders can only be used together as a set since their surfaces conform to the shape of the softer concrete floor.

It occurred to me one day that this process of friction and change between two incredibly hard surfaces describes quite well the interaction in a good relationship. My wife and I have been married for 21 years. On some issues she's the diamonds and and I'm the concrete and sometimes its the other way around. But we're both hard to change and it is only by dint of pressure, time and friction that we are able to become polished. But through it all, we conform more and more to each other.

Concrete Polishing equals a good marriage? Perhaps it's a bit of a stretch, but I hope the point is not too obtuse. My point is that the physical world is constructed in such a way as to teach us spiritual matters. Next time: light refraction and truth.

Oil Fraud - Part 1

Am I the only one scandalized by the sloppy laziness of the press? Or could it be that there is a vast left-wing enviro-cabal that conspires to defraud the world of it's happiness.

Consider this post from reporter Melanie Gosling of the Cape Times in South Africa as she reports on the visit of US "scientist" Richard Heinberg:

Academic warns of global crisis as oil production peaks

US invasion of Iraq 'A resource war'

"With the rapid decline of global oil supplies, the United States is heading for an economic crash unlike anything since the 1930s. And the collapse of the dollar will affect every nation on earth"


At current levels of consumption - and allowing for no new discoveries of oil, we have 55+ years of oil remaining in known reserves. Obviously, consumption will grow, but so will discoveries of new oil. In 1970 we were told that we would be completely out of oil by now. They were off by over 60 years then, we're probably off by a similar amount now.


"Global oil discovery peaked in the 1960s and oil production is likely to peak as soon as 2007. With a world economy based on fossil fuel, the economic and social consequences will be dire."

Global oil discovery peaked in the 1950 and then again in the early 1963. In each of those years, we "discovered" over 55 billion barrels of oil per year. This, at a time when gas was selling for pennies per gallon. Oil production will peak when demand peaks. If demand continues to grow, then people will continue to search for and find oil. Oil from shale, oil offshore, oil in Mongolia.......

"Natural gas extraction will peak a few years after oil, extraction rates for coal will peak in decades, nuclear energy is dogged by unresolved problems of waste disposal and solar and wind energy will have to undergo rapid expansion if they are to replace even a fraction of the energy shortfall from oil. And the enthusiasm about a hydrogen economy comes from politics rather than science, Heinberg said."


Here Gosling blindly accepts Heinberg's assertions without comment or analysis. The measure for remaining gas and coal reserves in the world is not decades, but centuries. Nuclear waste disposal is not "dogged" by anything but the Sierra Club; while the "Hydrogen Economy" is already growing as companies such as General Motors and BP invest billions of dollars in its future.

I am not an energy company executive; nor am I an energy consultant. But any two-bit reporter with Google could do enough fact checking to know that virtually every assertion made by Heinberg (and by extension Gosling) here is false.

Happy Mother's Day

I remember growing up how mad it used to make my father when we would make a big deal about Mother’s Day.

As a child, it mystified me. I always thought to myself, "What's not to like?"

We would get up and cook breakfast, serve it to her in bed (complete with flowers cut fresh from the neighbor’s garden), clean the kitchen, our bedrooms and then the rest of the house. In short, we were cherubic caricatures of perfect children.

Some years, Dad would just scowl and walk out in disgust. But as we got older, I learned what the problem was. He was furious that we would only think to treat her that way one day a year. The annual kindness shown by us only highlighted for him how much we neglected her the other 364 days.

It was tough to hear then, but I really appreciate the sentiment now. The fact is, second to our good health, Mother’s have the highest value:appreciation ratio.

Let’s all resolve to bring the Motherhood V:A ratio in our own lives more into balance during the coming year.

Growing Up - Poetry

Raspberry Dawns
Pink Dew Covering Fields of Crunchy Sugar Coated Pecans

Reclining on Couches of Hostess Ho Ho's
Drinking from a river of A&W Root Beer

No School
No Homework
No Chores
No Anything

Chocolate sunsets of love

At 8 years

I hold my breath

Wish for this and blow out the candles

At 46, I now know

This is not the real wish

This will not bring Satisfaction, Happiness, Nirvana

No

It should be Chocolate Dawns and Raspberry Sunsets of Love

bloggingben

Ross Perot - A Tale About (a) Character

The year was 1986. My friend Bruce Soll was planning a meeting for the Reagan Library Finance Board with the President and he needed someone to attend to the needs of the Committee Members as they waited in the White House Reception Area. I volunteered and found myself hours later chatting amiably with Ross H. Perot.

Contrary to the caricaturizing of this man by the esteemed 4th estate (who collectively have caused more individual human misery than most dictatorial regimes in history), Perot is a bright (I would say brilliant), insightful, humorous and principled man.

I knew of him in two ways.

First, I briefly shared an office suite with Perot's daughter Nancy in the White House Office of Presidential Personnel. My father always used to say that parents deserve the children they get. Nancy was nothing like you'd expect a billionaire's daughter to be. Personable, helpful, engaged and engaging, she always struck me as the real McCoy -- a class act -- in short, a mensch(ette). How bad could the guy be if he raised a daughter like that?

Second, I had just finished Ken Follet's book "On the Wings of Eagles," the story of how Ross Perot had authorized and funded a rescue mission of his own EDS employees from the wreckage of Post-Shah Iran. This private rescue effort succeeded while a simultaneous rescue of Americans from the clutches of the Ayatollah Khomeni's radical thugs by the Carter Administration failed miserably in the desert. If the Follet account was true, I was a big fan of this guy Perot.

But one thing from the book nagged at me and I resolved to ask Mr. Perot. So at the appropriate moment (in fact, in an official function like that, there is no appropriate moment for staff to be bugging the Board Members), I approached Mr. Perot and posed the question: "Mr. Perot, you called all of your top EDS lieutenants 'Eagles.' Lone flyers who soared above the rest in a quest for excellence and achievement. How did you know who these people were when you first interviewed them?"

He smiled his now famous smile and said "It's really quite simple. I only looked for three things. First, I look for people who were successful early in life. People who were scout leaders and won spelling bees. People who make a habit of being successful early in life end up being successful later in life. "

I liked that and said that while I had never considered it before, it certainly made alot of sense. "What about the other two?" I asked.

"Second, I find people who love to win. People who love to win, win."

"And" he said "If I couldn't find people who love to win, then I would look for people who hate to lose."

At that moment, the door opened, the President of the United States walked in and my interview was over.

Blog Irony - Poetry

We are all blind in a sighted world
All of us deaf in a swirling cacophony
Unfeeling in a crowded mass

But no one is mute

Our voices rise a bit at a time until
they dull the other senses

No one is seen
No one is heard
No one is felt

But we all talk

bloggingben

Quite a Quote (5 of 5 Stars)

A master artist looks at an entirely different world than someone who lacks his vision.
We can all train ourselves to see more deeply.
When you see the world as a place in which to do kindness, you see a different world.
You see a world full of spiritual opportunities wherever you are and wherever you go.
Let this be your world.

Rabbi Zelig Pliskin

Recently Heard & Liked (4 of 5 Stars)

Artist: Elliott Smith
Track: Memory Lane
Album: From a Basement on the Hill
Label: Anti

Grandpa, tell me 'bout the good ole days.

As I was growing up, I loved to listen to the stories my parents would tell of growing up during the Great Depression:

Penny candy that would feed three kids; monthly apartment rentals on the West Side of Chicago under $20; mind-numbing poverty; and community born of shared dependence. I never thought I'd have the power to conjure up stories from my past that would hold the thrall of my children as I was held captive by the world gone by of my parents.

And yet recently I happened to mention to one of my sons that I remember being in the car when my dad paid 26 cents per gallon for gasoline. His countenance quickly became one of wonder and awe. Knowing a good opening when I see it, I quickly launched into a "yeah and that's not all" story. I told him all about the gas lines of the '70s and the formation of the blackmailing oligopoly we've come to know and love as OPEC. His countenance quickly changed back to "what am I doing in the car with my old man." But it did get me to thinking.

Recently Americans have been acclimating to $2.25 gasoline and the economic press is predicting $100 per barrel oil. The futures markets have recently seen $58 per barrel oil and despite recent retreats to $52 per barrel, we are being told that this is temporary and that we'd better get used to a Europe-like permanent hike in the cost of energy. Let me beg to differ.

The recent spike in oil prices is a speculative bubble that will burst in due time. The data doesn't support any other conclusion.

It is true that we haven't built an oil refinery in the US in 30 years, but other countries have. Refining capacity hasn't changed radically during the last year.

It is true that unused production capacity in Saudi Arabia (the so-called Central Bank of Oil) is at recent lows, but it is also true that new fields in Gabon, Equatorial Guinea and Iraq are all coming online and increasing production.

It is true that the Chinese economy is growing at an unprecedented rate, but it's only unprecedented for China. The absolute growth in the consumption of oil in China is not a reason for the doubling of the price of oil in the world markets. Most Chinese are still biking to work.

It is true that there is war in the Middle East. But it is also true that this war has opened the world markets to Libyan and Iraqi oil that was until now withheld from Ma & Pa Kettle (although one should note, not from Kofi and the Anon clan).

It is true that the demand for electricity worldwide is on a stiff upward slope. But it is also true that most of the growth in demand for electricity will be met by other fuels. Coal and gas will satisfy most of the growth needs of the world's power plants for the decades to come. Nuclear and alternative energy will also take up some slack here.

It is true that in 1971 proven oil reserves were only 670 billion barrels and that since then we have consumed over 750 billion barrels. But it is also true that because of human ingenuity, we currently have proven reserves in excess of 1.3 trillion barrels.

It is true that alternative energy sources such as hydrogen, synfuels and agfuels are relatively unused or unproven. That is true only because oil has been so cheap for the past several decades. Indeed, in constant 1996 dollars, oil is still cheaper than it was in 1973. But by comparison to long-term $60 per barrel oil, synfuels and ethanol are proven, deployable and cost-effective solutions that would act as a damper on world demand for oil. Hydrogen is not far behind.

In short, there is no shortage of oil, oil reserves (estimated or proven), tankers, pipelines, refineries, distribution depots or trucks.

The current "energy crisis" is an artifice; a ruse; an illusion.

It is a replay of the same Malthusian soundtrack that gains traction in the media every decade or so as otherwise thoughtful people shelve rationality and subscribe to the febrile belief that the world has suddenly and without warning run out of natural resources.

As the belief in the imminent shortage of oil gains credence among the populace and in the press, the market makers in production, supply and distribution hike prices in anticipation of the coming squeeze. This in turns provides a feedback loop to the markets that they were right all along, encouraging additional speculation which encourages further hoarding of resources thought to be scarce.

Eventually, the bubble will burst and the price of oil will descend to the historically supportable levels of $25-$35 per barrel. Gas prices will move too (although not collapse, gas prices tend to move more like the graph drawn by the nose of a Jose Canseco bobble head sitting on the dashboard of a car traversing railroad tracks).

To paraphrase Winston Churchill: The only thing we have to fear is the fear of high oil prices itself.

This is not an investment missive urging you to go out and short the oil markets. (If I knew exactly WHEN this was going to happen, you'd be reading a short Haiku on breakfast cereal right now).

But I do think that the days of $1.25 gas are not gone for good. If I'm right, that should at least be good for one or two "GRANPA! Tell us the story again about how gas used to be under $2.00 a gallon."

This post is also available at Blogger News Network

Cancer and Losing IQ Points

One of the steps in recovering from Thyroid Cancer is to have what little thyroid tissue remaining in your body "ablated." This means that you go off your thyroid medication for six weeks at the end of which they give you some radioactive iodine which is taken up by the thyroid tissue. This kills the thyroid tissue and, hopefully, any chance that you might have a recurrence of cancer. Unfortunately, the side effects of going off the thyroid medication is that you become a bit loopy. I've been tracking it for about a month now and I figure that in terms of IQ points, I'm down about a quart. I still have another two weeks before the ablation and by that time I know I'll be at rock bottom.

My energy level has also taken a dive. I can physically do the things I was formerly able to do, but I just don't feel like it. My preference is to take advantage of the kindness of everyone around me. I don't disabuse my wife of the notion that I am an invalid when she offers to fetch things for me and do things for me that I could certainly do myself. I'm apathetic, uninteresting, uninterested, slow, dim-witted. If not for the fact that I am gaining new insight into the lives of others, this slow descent into the life of a Democrat would truly be depressing.