My friend Claire told me that [i]Calumet K[/i]

is available as a free audio book! It's a great story about a guy building a grain elevator back in the 1890s.

LibriVox recording of Calumet "K", by Samuel Merwin and Henry Kitchell Webster. Read by Betsie Bush.

"A novel, with several elements of rather unusual interest. As a tale, it is swift, simple, and absorbing, and one does not willingly put it down until it is finished. It has to do with grain-elevator business, with railways, strikes, and commercial and financial matters generally, woven skilfully into a human story of love." --The Commercial Advertiser"
'Calumet "K"' is a novel that is exciting and absorbing, but not the least bit sensational. It is the story of a rush.... The book is an unusually good story; one that shows the inner workings of the labor union, and portrays men who are the bone and sinew of the earth."--The Toledo Blade.

"The heroine in this case is the hero's stenographer; but the action of the story grows out of the attempt of rival capitalists and grain men to balk the building of a grain elevator by a set date." --The Burlington Free Press

(Excerpts from the advertising material at the end of "The Merry Anne" by Samuel Merwin)



Note: This book contains racial comments that may be offensive to modern listeners.

For more free audio books or to become a volunteer reader, visit LibriVox.org.

M4B audiobook of Complete Book

Hey! Just got my copy of The Austrian School of Economics

The Austrian School of Economics

I'm just looking it over. Here's a nice quote from the preface:

Based on the assumption that the individual was the decisive economic agent, and thus centering its research on individual preferences and on the intersubjective balancing of these preferences in the context of markets, the Austrian school has consistently pointed to the fact that institutions such as money, states [?, ed.], and markets had emerged without any planning, without any central purpose, and without force [in the case of states, maybe kinda sorta]. They had emerged on the basis of human interaction alone, and in a manner that was therefore natural, befitting both humans, and human logic. This basic insight counters all political and economic ideologies that view such institutions as working arenas for the establishment or development of authoritarian activity aimed at influencing or even controlling the direction of individual preferences or their intersubjective balance.

This meant that during the interwar period in Austria, the Austrian School was attacked, sometimes fiercely, by political parties of both the left and the right. the Austrian school not only denied the legitimacy, but also the efficacy of many economic policies. furthermore, the school had always identified itself with a universal science in which there was no room for national, religious, or class-oriented constrictions. In ways it even represented a kind of alternate world to many of the country's idiosyncrasies: it focused exclusively on the individual and asserted that individual action on the basis of subjective preferences was the starting point of r research; it was based on a realistic image of humanity that was not suited for inconceivable flights of idealistic fantasy and therefore not amenable to cheap political exploitation; it was free of magniloquent utopias, upheld the principles of self-determination and non-violence, and was united in its fundamental criticism of any monopolistic and forceful intervention of the state. In addition, it emanated a highly scholarly ethos which made possible the emergence of an uncommonly cosmopolitan and tolerant discourse.

Hah! Only five typoes. Considering the complexity of some of those terms, I'm proud. Oh yeah, the bracketed comments are mine (I'm sure that was obvious).

To elaborate on that point... I mean, maybe the original groups who first decided to conquer and enslave their neighbors found themselves together in one place without planning or force, but they didn't accomplish their conquest without force. Although I'll have to consider whether a hierarchic society can arise without that special case of force we call fraud.

Funniness

You may have to hang out in some odd corners to get this guy's bit, but I think anyone can understand this one.

Hey! Atlas Shrugged opens Friday!

Marshall Rosenberg's Nonviolent Communication

is an important contribution to the development of interpersonal and world peace.

The Wikipedia article on him looks like a good place to start studying him and his works. And here's the article on Nonviolent Communication.

But back to Naomi Aldort

I thought I'd quote a bit from the intro to Raising Our Children, Raising Ourselves:

When you have the courage to stop defending the way you are, or the way your parents raised you, you can open up to the possibility that you are much greater and more magnificent and capable than you thought you were.

The Dallas SOS (Secular Organizations for Sobriety) group

has a helpful page - they call it a toolbox.  Here's one that I use a lot myself:

Fear — use it if you get it. Don’t live in fear, but use it. The same goes for horror, shame, regret or any other negative thoughts or feelings that may come when you think about your drinking days. Don’t stifle or deny these states of mind. Use them as tools to reinforce yourself, not stumbling blocks.

Maybe I should add the link to the page where I found this; there are a ton of other useful links there.

I haven't mentioned lately that I'd like to get together with like-minded ex-drunks (perhaps I should put that in quotes - it's an ongoing struggle) for a stroll through one of our local parks here in the northern suburbs of Minneapolis. Or Minneapolis, itself, of course - wonderful parks there, too.

I really like Naomi Aldort

I'll link her own webpage - the articles page - but her videos on YouTube are great stuff too.

Progressive Parenting: get with it.  (Don't confuse true progress with that proto-Nazi crap Presidents Wilson and both Roosevelts were pushing.)

It's quite likely your parents raised you wrong.

Mourn.

If that's the case, you're probably raising (or already did raise) your kids wrong.

Apologize and make amends.

Here's how.  To do the latter, not the former.

I was looking at my photo albums of my German trips

Back in the early '80s and I came across some pics of myself that kind of blew me away.

I guess I always thought I always had the gut I have now.  I mean, yeah, it was bigger a couple times - and pretty huge when I was guzzling gallons of beer daily - but I saw it as pretty big even back before I graduated high school.

I find these pics rather inspirational!  I believe I'll go exercise more.

Well, not right now.  It's damn near 1:30 AM.  It took me this long to figure out where the h my scanner hid the pictures. 

By the way, even though it's been almost 30 years to the minute since I've seen the G-- family, I still remember their names.  That's Roland behind me, Frau G-- (I'm afraid that's as much of her name as I ever got), Birgit (yes, that's spelled right), and Herr (Joseph) G--.  If they give me permission, I'll put their whole last name here.  Interestingly, their name translates to almost the same thing as the town they lived in.

I enjoyed my stay with them immensely, and I learned a lot of German from them.  Heck!  They took me to Austria and Switzerland, with a heck of a long side-trip to Luxemburg!  And the Bodensee (Lake Constance) from Lindau to Meersburg!  Each of those was a daytrip.

Roland took a trip to Canada and the US the next year (1982) and stayed with us one night.  And I missed him on my second trip to Stuttgart, because I butchered the plans to meet.  I had arranged - well, I agitated for it anyway - the group tour of the Mercedes-Benz factory, because I wanted to tell my Dad all about it, so I didn't feel I could skip it.  But I was hoping to get away in time to catch Roland. 

But it was a big factory.  Whenever the guide said, "Now let's go see the blah, blah, blah..." my heart just sank with dismay.  I was the only one who cared and all I could think about was getting back to the D--s place to catch Roland.

The D--s, now...  Let's just say that that was about nail number 297 in the coffin of that relationship.  Not the final one, but one of them.  I pounded the last one home myself.  But that's a shameful story that won't ever be written down anywhere.

And I don't remember having any big conversation about the Mercedes factory with Dad either.

I just got the VLC Media Player

Seems pretty cool.  It's nice to be able to speed up Youtube videos.

It's free.  Here's their website: http://gofree.com/download/Video/Media-Players/vlcmediaplayer.php?gclid=CI_o_r3QzKcCFZFoKgodU27dFQ

Oh! Crap! We're springing ahead tonight?!

But I'm not ready!!

Out of the nest the chick must fly

The nest fits him not for eternity.

-Rhyme R Us.

It's likely that this couplet has been written before, but I claim to have come up with it independently. I like the double meanings in the archaic form.

I said this to my daughter this morning. She took her gloved hand off the doorknob and, rather flatly, asked, "What does that mean?"

"What do you think it means?"

"Uh...Leaving the house?"

That's what I get for offering my pearls in such a concrete situation.

Here's a fun quote

from Reimarus,

"Contradiction is a devil and father of
lies, who refuses to be driven out either by fasting
and prayer, or by miracles."

Pg. 76. It's a quick read. I've gotten this far since 9:00. About half the book.

You might want to look to the WikiPedia article to find out who Reimarus was.

Guess I'd better go to bed now.

My run yesterday reminded me a bit too much of Jack London's short story

To Build a Fire.

It was 1°F and snowing lightly when I headed out at 11:15 AM. Not windy at all. It was supposed to warm up into the teens sometime, so I expected to benefit from that before I was done, so I didn't bother with the balaclava or the strip of polar fleece I tie around my face to protect my nose and cheeks. And I didn't wear the safety vest, because it was daylight.

Everything went along just dandy for four miles, then the wind picked up. I managed another two miles into that before I gave it up as a bad job and headed back home. The plan was to run another three into that wind, but my beard and mustache were iced up - I mean solid - like a half inch thick - and my energy drinks were already turning to slush, so they'd be worthless, excess weight if I didn't head straight back right then.

When I got back to Thirty Sixth Avenue, about three miles from my house, I decided to walk for a bit and finish off my first slushee. The wind quickly bit through the layers wet clothing - the outer layer was wet with snow melt (even though I looked like a walking snowman) and the inner three layers were wet with sweat). At the verge of shivering I had to start running again.

Like Jack Frost's sled dog, I had to keep up a good pace all the way home, or feel the bite of the lash. Running over the railroad bridge at two miles was a bitch, because I was completely exposed to the wind. I tried walking again at a mile, but I got chilled even quicker that time.

Oh, I should mention that the first time I started walking, besides to drink, it was because the restriction of my vision caused by my hood pulling my hat brim down, a slight fogging of my glasses and the fact that the whole world was white caused me to miss the fact that the sidewalk dipped down suddenly to the street and I had a rather jarring landing that caused my hip to hurt.

Another post-mortem thought - a lesson I need to take - is that I really didn't power-up enough for the run. I only had one medium-large bowl of cereal to eat for breakfast. Even though I run slow, with the low temperature, I was probably burning more that 100 Kcal/mile.

I wish someone had snapped a picture of me when I got in the door. I got that wet crap off me as quick as I could and jumped in the shower. I still had ice chunks to pick out of my beard as the water was heating up.

I went to grade school with this guy!

He won't be at the reunion, though.



He's different now, though. I guess being reincarnated as an orange has mellowed him out and made him funnier.

Oh my god! The 30th reunion is coming up!

The guys organizing it sent out a list of everybody so they can update their info. Looking at all the names of all the girls I had crushes on, but was too shy to do anything about...

Going down that list, I had the hots for darn near all them at one point or other.

One of them lives quite close here, it appears. Actually too close to make her place a destination for a long run. Wait, that's right - I've got to run home again, too. Well, I've got one scheduled for that distance in late May. Not that she'd want to have a chat - let alone an illicit rendezvous - with a tired, sweaty, bald guy. There're undoubtedly people who make that kind of thing work, but I've never figured it out.

I don't know if my problem was shyness, as much as it was that I couldn't figure out how to narrow my choices. The moment I figured that out, I ended up married.

Huh.

Yeah, there were guys back in high school, too. Didn't think about 'em much. Spent all my time with them, but that was just a given. They didn't require thought.

Frickin' hilarious how terrified I used to be of maybe discovering that I was actually gay. That lurking terror... I'd like to find out how to get that out of young boys' minds. It's the source of so many tragedies.

Anyway... I don't think I can be of much help to the reunion committee. I've lost touch with everybody. I can't even keep track of a GDSOB phone number for 12 hours. I won't go into that except to say, when I had the phone in my hand and couldn't find the number, I had to wonder what my unconscious was trying to say. At the least it was saying, "Wait a bit." I won't entertain other possibilities here.

Then there're those with "deceased" after their names. There were two of those whom I didn't know at all. The rest were friends of mine, or people I liked and wanted to know better. I hope we don't learn that there are more than we know about now. It doesn't look like the list has grown much since the twenty year reunion.

Maybe it's just me, but I have the impression that the SSHS Class of '81 liked each other more than the average group of 400-some kids. I might have been one of the harder ones to get along with myself. I remember having some extraordinary mood swings.

I'm having a flashback to one explosion that's making me sick to my stomach. I think my whole life since has been dedicated to making sure that doesn't happen again. Mostly unconsciously, thwarting my efforts to achieve anything great.

I gotta go burn up this adrenalin.

You're wrong, Kenny

A little song can change the world. Though, I can't think of one of yours that would have.

Look at what Sara Bareilles did.

I want everyone armed with King of Anything. How long has it been out, and what's been going on in the world during that time?

This is beautiful.

This has meaning to someone today.

No, just one simple meaning.

I've signed up for a couple races.

Grandma's Marathon in Duluth on June 18th and the Afton 50K Trail Run on July 2nd. Grandma's will actually function as a training run for the latter.

Just so you know, a Marathon is about 42K; a 50K is an ultramarathon. I mean, sure, the big boys in ultramarathoning consider it a weenie race, but I kind of think it's a big deal. You should see the altitude profile of this thing: up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down... And that's just the 25K course! We get to start all over again! And it's a trail run, so it's all grass and dirt. Some of those things have you jumping over logs, scrambling over rocks and wading rivers. I don't think this one is like that, but I don't know. I'm going to have to do some training runs over there and scout the place out.

I also fully intend to run the Twin Cities Marathon again this year. I believe I'll be presenting a different image come the Holidays.

I've started running again.

Yes, in the middle of the godawful cold of the coldest weeks of a godawfully cold winter. Ya bundle up. And don't try to set any records.

I've been running about every other day, averaging about four miles per run, since the 14th. Actually the every other day thing bounced me over the 24-below day, so I didn't have to decide whether to skip a run or not that day. The two 'abouts' a couple sentences ago I feel the need to explain: the first one is because I've actually run more than that - I ran back-to-back days twice, and the second one is because the route I've run most is 4.22 miles, according to MapMyRun. I did 2 shorter routes (3.05 and 3.88) and one slightly longer (4.29).

The longest route is the nicest, it goes the long way through a long park along Shingle Creek, but, when the temp's below 15 and there's any kind of wind, you don't want to go that way. There's no view when you've got your hood pulled tight around your face and your hat brim is blocking out everything beyond ten feet in front of you.

The passion's back, though. I was getting the urge to go out again late this afternoon. I suppressed it by sitting down to watch the Packer game. They held on to beat the Bears for the NFC Championship. They're going to the Superbowl!

Three paragraphs from Alice Miller

From her book Banished Knowledge. This comes from chapter 2, "Innocence of the Parents," page 34 of the paperback, after a quote from a book by Phil Donahue, in which he is his usual, "even-handed," "moderate" self:

Although Donahue's discussion ostensibly proceeds from the question of which parental behavior might exert a traumatizing and lasting effect on the child, and although it would appear to give priority to concerns for the child, the second paragraph shows that basically it is concerned only with liberating parents from justified guilt feelings. They are assured that their actions pose no danger: The child will suffer no harm if he knows that he is being tormented out of "love" and "for his own good." This kind of reassurance that relies on untruths is based on the statements of "experts" quoted here and, I need hardly say, corresponds to the wishes of all parents who are not prepared to question their own behavior.

But might not there be a different way, other than reassurances? Might not one explain to the parents, in all honesty and frankness, why they traumatize their children? Not all of them would stop tormenting their children, but some would. We can be certain, however, that they would not stop if they were told, as were their own parents thirty years earlier, that one slap more or less does no harm, provided they love the child. Although this phrase contains a contradiction, it can continue to be handed down because we are used to it. Love and cruelty are mutually exclusive. No one ever slaps a child out of love but rather because in similar situations, when one was defenseless, one was slapped and then compelled to interpret it as a sign of love. This inner confusion prevailed for thirty or forty years and is passed on to one's own child. That's all. To purvey this confusion to the child as truth leads to new confusions that, although examined in detail by experts, are still confusions. If, on the other hand, one can admit one's errors to the child and apologize for a lack of self-control, no confusions are created.

If a mother can make it clear to a child that at that particular moment when she slapped him her love for him deserted her and she was dominated by other feelings that had nothing to do with the child, the child can keep a clear head, feel respected, and not be disoriented in his relationship to his mother. While it is true that love for a child cannot be commanded, each of us is free to decide to refrain from hypocrisy. I don't know whether hypocrisy exists in the animal world; at least I have never heard of a young animal growing up with the idea that it has to be tormented almost to death so that one day it may become a "decent and disciplined animal." Kagan's well-meant but naive trust in the ability of the "human animal" to survive a traumatic childhood unscathed ignores completely the potent, destructive, and disastrous nature of the traumas inflicted on the child. Many comparisons between human and animal aggression also ignore the fact that, in light of humans' destructive atomic power and readiness to destroy (as documented by Hitler and Stalin), all the bared animal teeth in the world are bound to appear downright innocuous. Is it possible that Harvard professors don't know this? Absolutely. If they derived their trust in the harmless nature of childhood traumas from the convictions of the grandmothers, they will learn nothing from facts because this trust clearly remains unshaken throughout their lives. But in view of the great confusions they are causing, in view of the dangerous hypocrisy they support, this trust is anything but harmless, since it is precisely the consequences of those universally ignored childhood traumas that threaten the world today.

This is the conclusion of the chapter.  The preceding pages support the conclusion.  Her discussion of Hitler and Stalin is in her book, For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence.  She produces much more evidence for her conclusions, including her own experiences, patient cases as a psycho-therapist and other studies.

I don't think that bringing up Hitler and Stalin is hyperbole.  That they existed in the real world, and similar people and their admirers exist now, is evidence that the problem she is fighting is not an imaginary one.  They are simply the most widely known and acknowledged exemplars of evil.  Miller's theory explains how they could do what they did and why people cooperated with them.  And how we can keep from repeating that history. Other theories do a suck-@$$ job of that.

And, when I say "we", I mean you and me; right here, right now.

Are Handerpants for real?

I gotta know!

If so, I gotta get me some!

Intro to Internal Family Systems Therapy

And make sure you see his video on grief.

Edit: I'm going to give a quick summary of IFS, for those who can't or won't watch the video: don't just accept every notion that pops into your head as the be-all and end-all of wisdom. Question them carefully to see if they coincide with what you really want to do (or say or think).

That inner critic is often the internalized voice of some know-it-all busy-body whom you'd tell to pound sand if they were a real person outside your head. Sadly, it doesn't work to do that to inner voices: you have to find out what they're trying to accomplish and make deals with them.

That's a very quick summary; if that's all you learn about it, you'll likely misunderstand it and/or take off on a bizarre tangent. I'm hoping you'll look more deeply into it.

Amazon Boobs, Ancient Gods and the End of Evil

Test blog 1: Top 5 Political Videos 2010

Test blog 1: Top 5 Political Videos 2010

This is Sheldon Richman's article

I'm putting it here because it's important enough that it needs to be available even to my readers who can't download Adobe Acrobat or don't want to take the time to read through back issues of FEE's magazine, The Freeman.

Oh, actually, here it is in plain text. Well, I'm still going to take the chance that somebody won't like me having the full text here.

Full Context
Peripatetics
BY SHELDON RICHMAN

In The Wealth of Nations Adam Smith famously
wrote, “People of the same trade seldom meet
together, even for merriment and diversion, but the
conversation ends in a conspiracy against the publick, or
in some contrivance to raise prices.” It may seem strange
that history’s best-known advocate of the free market
would cast such aspersions on business people. But there
is nothing strange about it. A defense of the market, and
of voluntarism in general, should never be mistaken for
a defense of particular business interests.

Opponents of the free market love that quote from
Smith. For obvious reasons they rarely add the sentences
that follow: “It is impossible indeed to prevent such
meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or
would be consistent with liberty and justice. But though
the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from
sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to
facilitate such assemblies; much less to render them necessary”
(book I, chapter X, part II, paragraph 27; emphasis
added).

As Smith well knew, government often facilitates
such assemblies. Effective “conspiracy[ies] against the
publick” would be impossible without state support.
Absent political privilege,“contrivance[s] to raise prices”
would crumble under the pressure of free competition.
It takes a state to make a tariff, a price support, or a punitive
tax or regulation on one’s competitors.

Smith’s book was a brief against mercantilism, the
nationalistic system of business privilege. But we sometimes
forget that the economic system that succeeded
mercantilism was not free of all mercantilist features.
Especially in the second half of the nineteenth century
and at the hands of the Republican Party, mercantilism
(in the form of Henry Clay’s old American System) had
wide influence at the national level. (The states had their
own modest versions earlier in the century.) Its program
consisted of protective tariffs, taxpayer-financed infrastructure
projects (“internal improvements”), regulation
of private infrastructure, a national bank for credit
manipulation, and other forms of government intervention
intended to guide society’s development and in the
process benefit the well-connected business class.A good
deal of land was also parceled out to politically favored
interests, such as most of the major railroads. Dominant
business figures did not oppose this program; on the
contrary, they championed it because they stood to gain
from the above-market prices, lucrative government
contracts, and burdens on smaller competitors.

Later, the Progressive Era “reforms” were not only
supported, but were often proposed, by big business.
Meat inspection, railroad regulation, drug-safety monitoring,
and policing of competition were activities
favored by the major players in the relevant industries. It
is not widely appreciated how much big-business support
the New Deal had (or how the New Deal actually
began under Hoover). The industry codes enforced by
the National Recovery Administration were a godsend
to businessmen who for years had striven, unsuccessfully,
to create stable cartels to assure long-run profits.Government
economic planning during World War I had
given many businessmen (and bureaucrats) a taste of
what it was like to run an economy. They liked it
enough to return to Washington during Franklin Roosevelt’s
tenure in the White House.

What today is called rent-seeking, exploiting others
through political means,was as common in earlier times
as it is now. It was a rare business proprietor who favored
laissez faire.Why risk your money in the unpredictable
marketplace when you could have stable prices and
profits with government intervention? Even an income
tax might be a small price to pay for that safety. Most
business people were uninterested in moral philosophy,
economic theory, and ideology. The shortest route
between them and a nice return on investment usually
went through the statehouse or the Capitol.

No knowledgeable champion of free markets will be
surprised by any of this. The problem is that we too
often forget it in the heat of current controversies. By
dropping the historical context we weaken our case and
sound like defenders of the corporate state, the opposite
of laissez faire.

This has been pointed out before.Kevin Carson,who
calls himself a “free market anti-capitalist,” writes in
Studies in Mutualist Political Economy that many libertarians
“use the term ‘free market’ in an equivocal sense:
they seem to have trouble remembering, from one
moment to the next, whether they’re defending actually
existing capitalism or free market principles.”
For example, several months ago opportunistic members
of Congress proposed a windfall-profits tax on the
oil companies because gasoline prices had jumped during
the hurricane season and profits had risen dramatically.
In arguing against the tax, many libertarians (and
conservatives) explained why in a free market, prices and
profits would rise under the current circumstances.Thus
higher prices and profits warranted no government
intervention.

Fine. The economic theory and conclusion were
impeccable. But something was missing, and this gap
gave credibility to the free market’s adversaries. What
was missing? An acknowledgment of the contemporary
effects of the long period of pro-business interventionism,
what Carson calls “the subsidy of history.” For many
years oil companies have benefited from a system of federal
and state favoritism. Much U.S. foreign policy has
the effect of forcing the taxpayers to pick up the huge
tab for stabilizing the companies’ sources of crude oil.
All of this has distorted investment, prices, and, therefore,
consumer behavior, and it’s hard to know what the
oil industry—or indeed the entire economy—would
look like without the distortion. The rippling effects
have been pervasive and substantial.

In sum, the companies are not creations of the free
market. And if we defend them as though they are, we
will sound naïve at best and like apologists for the corporate
state at worst.That diminishes our efforts to win
the public to our position. Let us never be guilty of supporting,
even implicitly, the socialization of costs, for there
is no surer way to undercut the case for the privatization
of profits.

Labor Legislation

Another example: Free-market advocates frequently
criticize unions and their supporting laws. Any
government intervention deserves to be criticized, but
once again the context is often dropped. The context
includes the fact that the business elite historically supported
labor laws, even if in the end they objected to the
precise form of the National Labor Relations Act and
other enactments. Business-backed social-reform organizations,
such as the National Civic Federation and the
American Association for Labor Legislation, long had
proposed labor laws in the belief that they were the path
to labor peace and the end of wildcat strikes.
“Respectable” union leaders would be brought to the
corporate-state table as responsible junior partners who
would discipline their unruly elements. Moreover,
industrywide collective bargaining would have a
cartelizing effect on American industry, reducing the
“cutthroat competition” that was so unsettling and that
worked to the advantage of upstart rivals.

While we should hit at government intervention in
the labor market, as everywhere else, we must hold the
context and never fail to point out that such intervention
was integral to the system enacted largely at the
behest of the dominant business interests. It is reasonable
to believe that workers would have more bargaining
power if all corporate privilege were abolished and
competition were truly unfettered. If talk of the corporate
state and exploitation sounds left-wing, it’s only
because laissez fairists seldom talk about those things.
But we should.They are our issues.

Context-holding is not just of academic interest; it
has strategic implications. If we keep in mind that the
current threat to liberty is the centrist corporate state,
we will see that a top priority is the repeal of all corporate
subsidies, even the most subtle kinds.

25 APRIL 2006

F u l l C o n t e x t

Hey, I'm back.

Went to Mom's for Christmas. Actually, we mostly stayed at my sister's new house. Quite a lovely place. Forgot the camera, so no pictures.

All happy, cozy stuff. Didn't fight about anything, though I did have a medium-length conversation with my mother about my acceptance of the lack of evidence for gods. I don't know which of us was responsible for redirecting the conversation onto how the theory of evolution doesn't contradict the Bible, but the fact that we ended up there could be considered a misdirection ploy on my part.

By the way, we agree on that. That's not why the Bible is wrong. It's wrong because it asserts, without proof, that gods and supernatural beings exist. It's true that people who believed in such things existed and left artifacts, but there's no archeological evidence of anything miraculous.

Hey! Anybody do any boxing today?

I didn't, but I'm sick.

WOD Alert!

I used this one in a conversation with my daughter the other day, she asked me what it meant and I realized that I don't remember ever having looked it up:
co·gent   /ˈkoʊdʒənt/ Show Spelled
[koh-juhnt] Show IPA

–adjective
1. convincing or believable by virtue of forcible, clear, or incisive presentation; telling.
2. to the point; relevant; pertinent.
Use cogent in a Sentence
See images of cogent
Search cogent on the Web

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Origin:
1650–60; < L cōgent- (s. of cōgēns, prp. of cōgere to drive together, collect, compel), equiv. to cōg- ( co- co- + ag-, s. of agere to drive) + -ent- -ent

Well, I don't think it's possible to miss out on that whole White Christmas deal

at this point.

That cone of snow on the left is taller than I am. I was standing in the bed of my stepson's truck to take the picture. It's FWD, so the camera was up about 9 feet.

Here's the snow depth. I'd say that's pretty respectable for down here.

This pic is a companion to my weather report over here. But that was settled snow a week after the storm. Here we've added five inches of fluff. Easy shovelin'.

Why not toss in a picture of the tree.

'Liina and I made that Belle ornament. Or, rather, we painted the ornament made by whoever the Disney licensee was. I thought it looked great with the light shining through it like that.

Solstice!

And an eclipse as well!  A lunar eclipse, though it will begin well after midnight.  But that's when our snowstorm is supposed to end, so maybe some night owls will be able to see it.  Since my soul was apparently born somewhere off the west coast, it's quite possible that I'll be up.

I'm not sure who these people are - the article appears to have been translated from Chinese - but they say:

The NASA has recently reported that this is the first time an eclipse has coincided with a solstice since December 21, 1638. And next occurrence will be until 2094. The most spectacular in the sky does not end there because the Ursids meteor shower will also take place.

The Universe is being very entertaining tonight.

The weatherman said it'd get up to 30 today.

I don't know what the high was, but it's frickin' 9 right now.

At least we won't be shocked by anything we see in January, eh?

I was readin' Germanic Myths and Legends the other day. I'm not now, because I have no idea where I set it down. Oh, here it is! Right behind me. German Myths and Legends, rather, by Donald A MacKenzie.  German mythology is the same as Norse mythology because the only people who wrote it down were the Icelandic saga-ists.  Snorri Sturluson and that other guy...  I guess I shouldn't know his name; the Poetic Edda is anonymous.  Correct me if I'm wrong.

I'm sure I brought that up for a reason...

Oh, yeah, the weather has me thinking about Ragnarök.  Ragnar means 'gods', rök means 'wreck'.  Now you know.  The German name is so much more poetic sounding: Götterdämmerung - Gods Twilight.  Sounds downright lovely, doesn't it?

Completely changing the subject, my daughter did her Christmas program at church today.  I went and filmed that.  I cursed myself the whole time for not bringing the darn tripod.  So the video is all jiggly.  The younger girl and I watched it and then we went back and watched a bunch of others. 

My God, she was the cutest little thing when she was two and three!  It's incredible that I could take that for granted.  And the older girl was just lovely - and smart and funny and energetic.  I'm afraid my taciturnity has infected her of late.  But it seems like the tough period is over.  She's starting to make funny jokes again.

I'm afraid I kinda freaked out when she went quiet on me.  Uh, in my case, I suppose that looked like I made one extra worried-sounding statement a week.  I think it's just that I need to let her know that like her.

Hey, kids! It's Bill of Rights Day!

Prob'ly shoulda said somethin' this mornin'.  (That's closer to how I really talk.  You could take out the 'th's too, actually, but I didn't 'cause I figured the words needed to be somewhat recognizable.)
I did some thinking about the First Amendment today.  It pretty much says that you can think anything you want about anything and say whatever you want by any means you want and the government can't stop you.  The Federal government, anyway.  The Constitution wasn't supposed to stop the states from stopping you, though most, if not all, of the states have adopted the Bill of Rights in their own constitutions.  At the least, it's a good moral principle and a good moral example of how speech and expression should be handled.

Some of us have difficulty understanding where the line is between expressing views on political or conscientious matter and the incitement of mayhem.  Not a big problem for those of us who hold The Non-Aggression Principle as the basic social standard and try to apply it to all of our actions, but most people have never heard of it.

So, anyway...  Hey, if the government is quartering any troops in your home at your expense, tell 'em to knock it off.

And, in regard to Free Speech, think about this: http://www.datacell.com/news.php.

It's the Snowstorm of the First Half of December!

Actually, I think it's the biggest one of the century, so far.

Chopping from the comments on the previous post:

I've been shoveling the driveway since 9:30. Oh, I stopped for half an hour to drive the truck around and let the wind blow the giant drift off it. Can't park in the garage right now; there's a sauna in it...in pieces.

I still have about a third of the driveway to clear. I just came in because my toes were about to go numb.
You can get in and out of it now, but I have to finish the job because ...who can say that this will be the last snowstorm we'll have? I'd be seriously behind the eight ball if I left it like it is.
 

We only got about a foot of snow.  Maybe 13 inches.  They usually get bigger amounts south and west of here.  I think that sucks.

Here's what I look like.  I don't know if Blogger's thingy shows what I titled it, so I'll tell you; I called it "Winter Dorkiness."

I thought this one came out great.  I think those kids down the road are looking to make some money shoveling people out.  They're dragging a big load on a sled.  Could be a body.  I didn't stick around to ask.

Oh, I guess the Metrodome collapsed - it's like a big balloon - so they'll have to play today's Vikings game in Detroit tomorrow.  Somebody's got a good picture of that.

Here're some.  And video!

We're having a snowstorm here today

I stuck my camera out the front door and snapped a couple pictures.  Wanna look?

Salerno's done it: a clear explanation of price theory

It would undoubtedly be helpful to read the examples he describes at the beginning of the article, but this is very clear even without them:

Now despite countless instances like these that we all regularly encounter in our market activities, most people still take for granted the view that costs of production basically determine prices. Furthermore, they believe that if prices greatly exceed costs, it is the result of price gouging, monopoly, or some other nefarious scheme on the part of producers. But as Carl Menger, the founder of the Austrian School of economics, brilliantly explained nearly 140 years ago, past expenses incurred during the production of a good are completely irrelevant to the determination of the current price of a good. For Menger, the market price of a good is determined solely by the relative valuations of goods and money by the buyers and sellers of the good, in conjunction with the number of units of the good currently in existence. The records and memories of how much money was spent to enlist the labor and other resources needed to produce the good have absolutely no effect on how much money people are currently willing to exchange for a unit of the good.

But Menger went even further and demonstrated that the (anticipated) selling prices of goods actually determine the costs of production for a good. Using the example of tobacco, Menger argued that if people completely lost their desire for consuming tobacco, not only would the prices of cigarettes, cigars, and pipes fall to zero, but raw tobacco and the machines specifically designed to produce these items would cease to command a price greater than zero, no matter how much it cost to produce them.

For Menger and modern Austrians, then, the ultimate source of value is the ceaseless efforts of individual human beings to use their scarce resources and money to improve their well-being by interacting with one another on the market to achieve their most cherished goals and desires while renouncing less-important desires and satisfactions. The actual market prices and costs of production we observe are simply the objective manifestation of this war of scarcity in the human soul. It is the current or future goods we have to sacrifice and the opportunities for satisfaction that we have to renounce that are the only relevant "opportunity costs" of the things that we purchase. These subjective and immediate experiences of renunciation and sacrifice — and not some recorded sum of money that one guy paid another guy to perform a production task last month or last year — these are the costs that will influence our decisions about what to buy and what not to buy and, thereby, determine the prices we pay during this Christmas shopping season.

The point in talking about this is that people are constantly demanding that the government pull it's guns out to protect them from high and low prices - depending on whether they're currently the buyers or the sellers - regardless of the availability (the current - usually temporary - state of scarcity) or the desirability (the current - also usually temporary - state of demand) of the good under consideration. Boiled down, they want a guy with a gun to take what they want from someone else and give it to them. Never considering that, if it's not worth the original producer's time and resources to produce it, it will not exist. Or it will not be transported to their location. It will remain rare in that location and become rarer until it ceases to exist.

That is the formula for de-civilization.

It's that time of year again!

Time for another swipe at the old mythology. Here's a bit of Ebenezer Scrooge and Economic Freedom by Russell D. Longcore

Look at the headlines coming out of Washington today. The DC criminals wish to punish the wealthy for accumulating wealth, while it works to lighten the tax burden on the poor and middle class. Belle must have been a closet Socialist, since she had no respect for Scrooge's work ethic. And, in her defense, we might say that Scrooge spent too much time at the office. But wealthy people don't get wealthy acting like wage-earners. They put their time and capital at risk, and reap financial rewards. Belle would not have had a philosophical problem spending Ebenezer's money if she had married him.

When Scrooge is with the Ghost of Christmas Present, the Ghost states plainly that if Cratchit's situation does not improve, Tiny Tim will die. But ol' Spooky lays the blame at the feet of Scrooge, not the boy's own father! As we mentioned before, Bob Cratchit had other options to working for Scrooge. Mrs. Cratchit gets mad when Bob raises a glass in toast to Scrooge... like it's his fault they are poor. Then Bob tells about his son Peter, who is trying to get a job that pays five shillings and sixpence a week, and about daughter Martha, who is an apprentice to a hatmaker. These two children are apparently contributing their incomes to the family, as they should. But Scrooge is not to blame for their predicaments... they alone are responsible for their lives.

In another scene, Scrooge's nephew Fred, says: "His wealth is of no use to him. He don't do any good with it. He don't make himself comfortable with it. He hasn't the satisfaction of thinking—ha, ha, ha.—that he is ever going to benefit us with it." Ever hear a more exacting expression of a mentality of entitlement? According to the author, Scrooge has some duty to spread the wealth that HE earned.

When the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come appears, Scrooge sees himself dead lying under a sheet while the Laundress, the Cleaning Lady (Charwoman) and "Old Joe" ransack Scrooge's house and steal what belongings they can carry off. Dickens makes no assertion that this is theft.

Dickens was a marvelous writer, and A Christmas Carol is, doubtless, his greatest product...he even manages to tell a great deal of Scrooge's side of the story. But he never digs very deep into economics. He has a very shallow understanding of it.

To his credit, though, - to his very great credit! - I think his stories about children are the biggest contributor to the improvement of childrearing that has occurred since his time. Having Tiny Tim and Oliver Twist in your head will eat away notions about 'little brats.' I sincerely doubt that anyone who has read those two books was a terrible parent.

We are not born small

Julian Assange is right and the people calling for his execution are wrong

Not to mention, evil.

Apparently they don't really believe in Jesus.

What does Jesus say about how to behave in battle?

People join the military (and police forces) to defend their family and friends from enemies, foreign and domestic. That's a very noble motive, no question about it. But that's not really what our military is up to. Our soldiers (and policemen) are the cutting edge of our government's efforts to f$*& everything up.

Here's some William Anderson:

In the post-World War II era, the "experts" that run our Administrative State not only have bankrupted this country, they have driven out productive people and productive entities, involved our armed forces in intractable wars (none of which have been declared by Congress, as the Constitution requires), put troops all over the world, and created a police state at home. Furthermore, they have managed to get away with it and have convinced Americans that any attempt to do away with this sorry state of affairs is an act of treason.

And what is the response when this folly is exposed? Yes, arrest those who have exposed it and give more power to those people who have been destroying our economy and our future.

There are also some great comments there. Like this:

I don't see much difference between what Assange and Wikileaks are doing from Daniel Elsberg and the Pentagon papers. http://vimeo.com/10540038 And if the Wikileaks data dumps get us out of unconstitutional wars and illicit foreign activities as the Pentagon papers got us out of Vietnam, all the better. Critics can cry and moan and yell treason all they want but firstly, publishing the Pentagon papers was upheld by the Supreme Court as a first amendment right, and secondly how can Assange, a national of Australia be treasonous to the U.S. - as he holds no claim of loyalty to our nation in the first place?

Moreover, if it is believed that Assange should be assassinated for putting people in danger and hurting nation's diplomacy and reputations, then what should become of the actors in our government who's foreign policy, covert actions, and special interests have killed countless people around the world and hurt our national reputation and standing in the world?

Here's a point I don't think I've heard before

From Bryan Caplan's Anarchist Theory FAQ:

If everyone drives on the right side of the road, isolated attempts to switch to the left side will be dangerous and probably unsuccessful. But if everyone drives on the left side of the road, the same danger exists for those who believe that the right side is superior and plan to act on their believe. Similarly, it is quite possible that given that a government exists, the existence of government is a stable equilibrium; but if a system of competitive protection firms existed, that too would be a stable equilibrium. In short, just because one equilibrium exists and is stable doesn't mean that it is the only possible equilibrium. Why then is the state so pervasive if it is just one possible equilibrium? The superiority of this equilibrium is one possible explanation; but it could also be due to ideology, or an inheritance from our barbarous ancestors.

I made this my wallpaper

My daughter found this in the yard. It's dated July, but that's no guarantee that that's when the picture was taken.  She took the picture and that's her hand.

The kids and I just got back from watching "Megamind"

All the adjectives in the trailer here are dead on. Foremost, it's a hilarious movie. I'd go see it if I were you.

The Onion's got a pretty butt-kickin' article:

Mom, Jeremy Won't Let Me Create An Atmosphere Of Sustained Menace By Daniel Gellman.

Read it all the way to the bottom.

Somethin' else y'all should read:

Kenneth E. Hartman, "The Trouble With Prison":

Most prisoners are uneducated, riddled with unresolved traumas and ill-treated mental health problems, drug and alcohol addictions, and self-esteem issues that are beyond profound, bordering on the pathological far too often. The vast majority has never received competent health care, mental health care, drug treatment, education or even an opportunity to look at themselves as human. Were any of these far less draconian interventions even tried, before the descent into this wretched cave, no doubt many of my peers would be leading productive lives. Nothing else works is not a statement of fact; it is the declaration of an ideology. This ideology holds that punishment, for the sake of the infliction of pain, is the logical response to all misbehavior. It is also a convenient cover story behind which powerful special interest groups hide.

Prison employees benefit by our failure. This startling fact contains within it a monstrous truth. These well-organized government workers created the victims’ rights movement, a sad shill for the prison-industrial complex. Using the handful of politically active victims of crime to obscure their actual agenda, propositions are passed, laws are changed, and policies that could prevent victimization in the first place are suppressed. Both of these groups, working in tandem with the corporations that supply and construct prisons, pour millions of dollars into the political process to achieve a system guaranteed to fail. But this failure by any other measure – high rates of recidivism, high rates of internal disorder, growing prison populations serving longer sentences – results in greater profits to the corporations, increased membership in the unions, and ever growing piles of dollars to buy still more influence.

Raimondo

from AntiWar.com:

The TSA can conduct a full-body search, prison-style, on everyone who gets near an airport: we can lock down the country, and treat everyone like a potential criminal, conducting random searches on the streets like they’re already doing in New York City. We can turn the country into one big prison yard, and still the terrorists will get through, eventually.

They’ll get through because we’re creating new enemies every day, many thousands of them, as we extend our perpetual "war on terrorism" to new regions, and claim more blood sacrifices on the altar of our new god, Revenge. The conduct of our foreign policy for the past decade or so ensures that the supply of terrorists will be endless, as the relatives and loved ones of our victims come gunning for us. By hook or by crook they will get us – unless the cycle of revenge is stopped.

I guess, perhaps, I haven't come right out and said it, though I think it: The Probligo's analysis of American foreign policy is, and has been, correct.

Here's my dog

Our dog.

Here's something you may not know

I found this thanks to Arther Silber's article, "All You Know Are Lies":

The US rate of unemployment, if measured according to the methodology used in 1980, is 22.5%. Even the government’s broader measure of unemployment stands at 17%. The 9.6% reported rate is a concocted measure that does not include discouraged workers who have been unable to find a job after 6 months and workers who want full time jobs but can only find part-time work.

Silber's quoting Paul Craig Roberts.

I feel what Silber says about it deeply:

In our world today, if you are minimally conscious and honest, profound anger and bitterness are major indicators of psychological health. Given the suffocating cocoon of lies in which we live, it requires an almost unfathomable amount of sheer willpower to try to pierce the noxious air of our culture.

I look forward to his next article.

The Drama of the Gifted Child

is available as a free download here. Get it and read it.

There is nothing more important that I could say right now.

Acrobat Reader will even read it to you if you prefer.

There's something important

here that I need to deal with later.

Nope. I was mistaken. I figured some Homer Price fan must have a more singable version of "42 pounds of edible fungus" than I do. I get the impression that they do, but they're not singing it on YouTube.

This gal's got the lyrics.

For anyone who wants to know how Presuppositional Apologetics works

Against somebody who's too smart for it, check out the discussion to this post.

Hm. This sounds familiar.

From Stef's new book, Against the Gods:

Historically, the word “God” has never meant, “things that may exist in other dimensions of the multiverse, as described by modern physics.” “God” has never referred to some unknowable X factor, Schrödinger's cat, the unified field theory, the cosmic craps player so derided by Einstein, or any of the other trappings of modern science.

No, let's not empty the word “God” of its true and original meaning, which was a cosmic and spiritual father who created the universe, breathed life into mankind, burns the wicked and saves the innocent, and so on. This meaty and monstrous superman, this thunderbolt-hurling patriarch of our dim and brutal histories, this frustrated and enraged slaughterer of rebels and sceptics – this fearful and omnipotent beast should not be reduced to some pale and conceptual ghost hiding out in the dim theoretical alleys between the atoms.

Using the word “God” to refer to some theoretical possibility of mind-bending modern physics is to take a word steeped in the superstitious blood of our earliest collective histories, and attempt to propel it like some time-bending slingshot forward into the future – an exercise in futility, since this old and very brittle word cracks and collapses in the face of such insane velocity.

Considerably more poetic than I put it a year and a half ago. I'm saying that I agree and appreciate the further development, not that I'm accusing him of stealing my idea. Development will grind to a halt if people don't stop abusing notions of intellectual property.

Stef's redone the audio here.

I just did a search of my blog

[That's my blog, spammer.  There's no committee or team here.  Although, for a while, invadesoda was posting here.]  for what I've said about the Bill of Rights.  You should too.  Here's a link to the full listing.

Feels like I got some exercise out of that deal.

I ran a 4 mile race today. I've never raced that distance before, so whatever my time was was a PR [personal record]. I did it in 34:53. I think, let's see if I can double check that.

Not yet, at least. It was the PACER 1st Annual Run/Walk/Roll Against Bullying. I was looking for a 5K, but the cause and the location - supremely beautiful Normandale Lake in Bloomington (MN, for those wandering by) - cried out to me.

There were tons of kids there. It was good to see all the kids, some in wheel chairs, all happy and well-behaved, with no one yelling at them. It looked to me like they took their cause seriously. They were living it.

Kids are good when you understand what they're trying to achieve and try help them.

That park is just awesome in the fall. Most of their trees still have their leaves and they're just twenty miles south of here. They and we are both past our peak for fall colors, but they've got a lot more than we do right now.

I got that picture from these guys.

The maples around the parking lot are all grown up. They'd just been planted the first time I walked around there. When I was delivering paper and copy supplies for Beckwith (who were based in south Edina) I used to walk around the lake on my lunch hour. When I became a floater, I sometimes worked in the building across the street, so I got to do that in all seasons for the next seven years. I don't think I've been back there since about '98. I feel regret when I'm going near there and can't stop by.

I wonder what people would have thought if I'd walked up to one of those maples, put my hand on its trunk and said, "You've grown so big!" I'm pretty sure they were all liberals, so their edging away would only have meant that they were giving me a private moment with my tree.

I wish I had done that.

I saw a bald eagle in a tree there while I was walking around before the race warming up. He (or she - what do I know?) stayed there while we ran past him twice. I saw that he did turn around and face the trail the first time past. The second time I was pushing harder, so I just checked that he was still there.

Walking back to the car, I saw another one flying way up above the parking lot. I checked to see if my guy was still in his tree and he was. I could see him from a spot about thirty yards from the truck.

Last weekend we went up to the in-laws place on Lake Vermilion, 200 miles north, and the only trees that had any leaves were the willows down by the water, but they glowed a beautiful golden from dawn 'til after sundown. We were stowing the docks for the winter and it was hard to take my eyes off them. The tamaracks are gold up there now, too. Highways 169 and 53 go by and through a lot of boggy land, so it was like driving through the leprechaun's cache at the end of the rainbow on the way home.

It's been a gorgeous autumn.

Kevin Carson's back and better than ever

Well, I'm quoting him again here, anyway. He hasn't really gone away. His last couple of articles have really kicked butt. Oh, I guess I've only read two of the last four - the second and the fourth of these:

If You’re Not an Extremist, You’re Not Paying Attention
Posted by Kevin Carson in Commentary • No comments
Kevin Carson says America’s real owners need a population just smart enough to keep doing their jobs — but too stupid to look at the man behind the curtain.

Oct 12, 2010
Is the South Fulton Fire Department Really an Indictment of Libertarianism?
Posted by Kevin Carson in Commentary, Feature Articles • 17 comments
Kevin Carson on the Cranick fire incident.

Oct 8, 2010
Only the Guilty Need Fear? Tell It to Anne Frank
Posted by Kevin Carson in Commentary • 6 comments
Kevin Carson on gullibility and a long history of criminal government.

Oct 6, 2010
Why Self-Organized Networks Will Destroy Hierarchies — A Credo
Posted by Kevin Carson in Commentary • 11 comments
Kevin Carson explains why we’re going to win the struggle for humanity’s future.

Here's the conclusion of the fire department article:

By the way, there’s one thing we should never lose sight of in all this: what the actual statist alternative is. Lots of people point to the harshness of letting the house burn down for nonpayment. But keep in mind that having one’s house auctioned off for nonpayment of taxes is more common than house fires, and that it entails just as much of an effective loss of your house as having it burn down. The modal statist alternative, as practiced in most places, is to fund fire services with mandatory taxes — and unless taxation is backed in the last resort by punitive measures almost as harsh as having your house burn down, it’s prone to exactly the same moral hazard problems as a voluntary payment system.

That’s a favorite tactic of critics of libertarianism: to compare the actual performance of voluntary institutions to the good intentions of the state. But any social system can be expected to work optimally if it’s staffed by angels.

Hey! Looks like the Swedish Academy has done some good!

They do, now and then.

http://www.independent.org/blog/index.php?p=8062

I've never read anything of Mario Vargas Llosa's.  I think I'll have to, now.  This War at the End of the World looks pretty good.

Did the TCM today.

Pretty close to 4:30.  I'd guess 4:32 something, but I forgot to stop my stopwatch at the finish, so I don't know for sure.  I caught it at 4:34, after I'd picked up my medal, spaceblanket and a banana. 

Once again this year, it was cool out, but sunny.  It went from about 34° (F - approximately 1° C) to maybe 55° while I was running. Didn't even need to hunt shade.  Very little wind.  Perfect day for a marathon.  You gotta wear a couple layers at the start and shed them as you go, but it gives you something to do down the road.  Besides hunt the hottest babes to run behind.*

*No, I didn't - but a couple did pass me and run in front of me for a couple miles.

Edit: HOLY CRAP!!!  I was aiming for 4:30 and LOOK AT THIS!!!

Watch out what you tell your subconscious, eh?  [Don't call me a "sub-" conscious.]

Where and Why I run

Actually, these are all in Brooklyn Center, MN.  In fact, they're all taken within a couple hundred yards of each other, and the Bridge, the Duck and the Puddle were within 50 yards.  The Bridge is one mile exactly from my house.  West southwest, if you care that much.

I took some pix at another park I like to run in, but none of those were as good as these.

Happy Birthday, Jim Henson!

Kent McManigal writes some pretty awesome stuff

I highly recommend him. Here's a 'graph from his article A problem with authority:

This man [who taught McManigal how to start fires with a bow drill] was an authority and he had authority. He didn't need to force anyone to behave as though he were an authority. There was no coercion and no implied threat. You knew he had authority by his actions and his expertise and his results. If he told you that you were doing it wrong, you would be wise to listen, yet he would have let you try your own way if you refused to follow his suggestions. Your success or failure was no threat to his authority. I have now started hundreds (or thousands) of fires in this way, and taught the skill to others, all thanks to one true authority.

I like the point he's making with that example and the brevity with which he makes it. This kind of authority makes the world go around. The other kind stops it.

Here are his article archives.

Equinox Wednesday

Get your robes ready.

I didn't know that

Robinson Crusoe Island

Robinson Crusoe Island (Isla Róbinson Crusoe), is the largest island of the Chilean Juan Fernández archipelago, situated 674 km west of South America in the South Pacific Ocean. The archipelago is made up of three islands, Robinson Crusoe, Alejandro Selkirk (not shown) and the much smaller Santa Clara.

Robinson Crusoe is mountainous, with a rolling, rugged terrain, formed by ancient lava flows from volcanic eruptions.

This mountainous island has a population of nearly 600, with all of them living in the coastal village of San Juan Bautista. To reach the island, the flying time from Santiago, Chile is about three hours.

The island was first named Juan Fernandez Island after the Spanish captain who first landed there in 1574. However, it was a sailor named Alexander Selkirk that made the island famous as he was marooned here for over four years from 1704 to 1709, and became the inspiration for Daniel Defoe's classic novel, Robinson Crusoe.

We visited the island in late January, 2010, and we have a series of Photos!

I sure I'm just displaying the deficiency of my education.  I wonder if he's related to the Selkirk who stranded a bunch of Scottish farmers (crofters) near Winnepeg.

Hey, I just happened to run across this article...  But before I mention that, I need to say something about the Tsunami that destroyed the village (of 600 people - all the inhabitants of the island -- Wikipedia has links to articles about it) back in February.  I don't know what to say, other than 'that's terrible!'  Only five people were killed, fortunately, but they've had a lot of work to do.

The article:

On my last day I climbed up from San Juan Bautista into the one area of pristine rainforest. Here, in the crater formed by the island's highest point, El Yunque, an anvil-shaped peak, lives this island's true treasure, a creature five inches long: the Juan Fernandez firecrown, Sephanoides fernandensis. It's a hummingbird.

The man who took me into the forest was Federico Pirol, a conservationist who had come to the island to count the nesting firecrowns. He believes there are fewer than 400; of these, perhaps only a dozen will be breeding.
Breeding has become increasingly difficult because the vegetation in the crater is being consumed by fast-growing, all-conquering maquis, colonies of brambles and shrubs. Pirola must weed them out, and it is a Sisyphean task.

"We need volunteers to come and help us," he told me. "The Yunque crater is the last original patch of rainforest left on the island, maybe 13 hectares or so, and if it dies, then so do these birds. Maybe English people would come here and spend some weeks in the crater. It will be a hard task for them. But they will be helping to save a most precious and spectacular creature."

So there are a couple of calls to action from Isla Robinson Crusoe.

Happy Constitution Day

Personal Liberty.com has an excellent test of your Constitutional knowledge.  I recommend it.

My favorite trivia question about the Constitution is: who wrote the 27th Amendment.  It was ratified in 1992.

Cool September days ROCK!

I just ran 7.5 miles in 67 minutes and I feel fantastic! 

It was about 60° F when I started and it headed down from there - and cloudy too, so I didn't have to deal with that nasty overheating that we big, fat guys are prone to.

After all this running, my legs look skinny to me and my extremities are fairly ripped, but my core is still quite well padded.  My clothes are pretty loose, but I swear to god I look just as fat as ever.

Today's workout was quite an extraordinary contrast to Monday's run, when I basically gave up after two and a half miles and ended up doing a hair over 5 miles in an hour - even stopping to walk for a couple hundred yards, but there were probably a number of factors at work there.  First and foremost is that I think I doubled up on my blood pressure pill that morning.  The main evidence for that is that, when I started walking my pulse was only 90 bpm.  That ain't right.  I checked several times.  Also, I was flippin' starving when I got home from work.  I had a bowl of cereal and headed out for my run at about a quarter to six.  I ran the first two miles pretty fast, though not as fast as today - and it was about 65° out, so that shouldn't have been a major factor - and - oh yeah! - it was only two days after a 20 mile run.

Even with all that, I felt much better after that run than before it.  I was tired for a while, but not bone tired like I had been since the run and all day Sunday, continuing into Monday.  I might have had a bit of an insulin dump into my system after ingesting the carbs.  I don't guarantee that claim. 

I felt weird while I was running fast, like I wasn't completely in contact with the ground.  That's another thing that makes me think it was an OD of the BP drug.  I remember taking one after starting to eat breakfast, but it's my habit to take one immediately upon entering the kitchen. 

I know I wasn't all that brilliant at work that day, but I don't think I actually effed anything up.  But, sometimes it's hard to say right away.  You find that out months later when somebody hands you the thing you made and you see dumb errors that you normally apply five fail-safes to avoid.  And, of course, then it's too late and you have to work with the thing they gave you.

Holy crap!  It's one AM!

I wonder if I would be the first to recommend to Tea Party

Conservatives and libertarians that they read the Annals of Congress
Debates and Proceedings. The First Congress is the most interesting and it ends with the passage of the excise tax on Whiskey which caused the Whiskey Rebellion.

Here are the heroes and villains:

I have to wonder if the recorder of the speeches is responsible for their beautiful clarity, or if the speech makers themselves were that brilliant. I'm inclined to think that political pressure was applied toward that end. As it is today.

I've added Mike P's The Emptiness to my blogroll

I can't say as the guy's got a post that I consider a favorite. They all kick butt. Just start at his latest and work back from there. Actually, because of his brilliant use of the comic book images, that could easily be my favorite. (What were those guys on when they came up with Bizarro World?)

I deleted a couple more statists while I was messing with the blogroll, but I meant to add in Strike the Root and Antiwar.com. They'll probably be there when you read this, depending on how quick you are.

214# this morning.

Cause for celebration. The oldies station is playing Three Dog Nights' "Celebrate!" right now. Coincidence?

I ran 8.35 miles last night in 81 minutes, running the last mile faster than the first. I wish I'd been in that kind of shape when I ran the 15K. It helped a lot that it was 75 and dry.