New Moralists

There is a remarkable supposition in the democracy: The belief that some subsets in the culture can, justly, pass judgment on another. This is not universal; blacks cannot pass judgment on Asians, nor the educated on the uneducated. But politicians can pass judgment on economic groups.

For example, it is generally assumed that a group drilling and fracking for Marcellus shale will do so without any regard for the safety of the neighboring community and that the environmental and government groups that volunteer their concerns have both the right and the moral authority to intervene on the community's behalf.

The President can vilify a segment of the population solely on the basis of their tax bracket and that judgment is taken as serious and honest.

Senators can discuss destructive and malicious behavior on Wall Street in the most general terms and their opinions taken as pure as the driven snow.

If you run afoul of the IRS, you are guilty until proven innocent.

When did this disparity of morality develop? When did the dreadful gravity of politics attract virtue?

Sunday Sermon 4/29/12

Today's is the Good Shepherd gospel. It is a strange one that implies that the world of the sheep with the Good Shepherd is one without the sacrifice or the slaughterhouse. The sheep, usually destined for someone else's belly, is immortal.

Many victims of violent crimes or accidents  are taught to create a mental distinction between their body, abused or damaged, and their person, their selves. They often speak with the peculiar distance of "the leg was damaged," or "the man then attacked the body." It is never "me" or "my", but rather the corporeal has been made abstracted from the personal, as if the victim is remembering it in an uninvolved way, from afar.

This, of course, is unreal; it is a learned psychological trick to distance the person from his wounds, to protect him in a sort of set-aside integrity. What Christ says in the gospel today is even stranger and more powerful. He says His life was "put down" and could be "picked up." Like a separate thing. Life is a separate thing, like a tool or a cause to be shouldered or not, to be adopted or not. He is not separating the corporal from the spiritual, He is defining life as an aspect of the many facets of human experience and existence. Amazingly, life is not integral to us.

Anymore than the slaughter is integral to the sheep.

Cab Thoughts 4/28/12

Is it an oxymoron that Pat Summitt would be working on a memoir?

At Bonhams Titanic sale, the unused ticket to the ship's launch proved the top lot, at $56,250. A dinner menu from the ship for the night of 12 April 1912 sold for $31,250.

Ford is about to release an electric vehicle (EV). It is similar to their gas-using Focus. The EV will cost about 40 thousand dollars, less 7.5 thousand taxpayer subsidy. The EV will likely save about 1.2 thousand dollars in gas a year. But the gas-using Focus costs only 16 thousand. So how does that work economically? Or is this one of those uneconomic things like the Buffett Rule or closing coal-fire plants where we get a more spiritual reward?

A British study recently evaluated the length of fractures induced by fracking around the world. The average was 350 meters, the largest was about 500 meters. In the U.S. most fracking is done 3,000 to 10,000 feet below ground water. It will be interesting to see if this new study relieves the fracking opponents. If it does not, one might legitimately wonder if their objection is not to something else. 
http://www.platts.com/RSSFeedDetailedNews/RSSFeed/oil/8221049

The Gene Tunney-Jack Dempsey heavyweight championship fight in Philadelphia in 1926 for the 150 anniversary of the U.S. drew 126,000 fans. The underdog, Tunney outpointed the powerful Dempsey in ten rounds and told his wife "Honey, I forgot to duck", a line Reagan used after he was shot. 

Housing costs are crashing in Spain. The workforce is 14% in housing construction. They can not devalue because the currency, the Euro, is not theirs . Therefore, an "internal" devaluation is needed, where prices of wages and goods fall in nominal terms.  Cash and work starved.

Thus spake a critic on a recent blog:
"Ugh... more and more politics.... 

Whyyyy?

Of all the things to waste one's time on, why sully your mind (and ours) in the dirtiest profession on earth with disingenuous cut throats who don't actually care about anything other than being pro-winning and anti-losing?"

And the answer? Yes, they are "cutthroats", bums and creeps and pirates..but they are boarding your ship.

A recent study comparing pollution from electric vehicles and internal combustion engines concluded "At present, for the vast majority of the country, neither electric vehicles or comparable gasoline-powered vehicles holds a solid advantage over the other in cleanliness." This is not the result of anything inherent to electric vehicles but rather is the result of the source of the vehicle's electricity (coal fire plants). The battery problem in the electric vehicle compounds the difficulty. They are huge, expensive, heavy and catch fire.

Jane Jacobs, in her book "Dark Ages Ahead," evaluates the American "Life Purpose." It is a reasonable question and many have surmised that nations are not organized so much around tribes or language or geography but purpose. Early, she feels, Liberty and Independence were the "Life Purpose" but, as they became realized, the nation floundered temporarily and groped into social areas like child labor and temperance. This is more difficult to believe as ideals are to be distinguished from purpose. Ideals are pursued, purposes achieved. Her current solution to the question is similarly unrewarding: "From the 1950s on, American culture's gloss on the purpose of life became assurance of full employment: jobs. Arguably, this has remained the American purpose of life, in spite of competition from the Cold War with the Soviet Union, and maybe even from the War on Terrorism, in which postwar reconstruction was linked with contracts for American compa­nies and hence jobs for Americans." All of this confuses the immediate with the long term, policies with ideals, social aims with rights, the material with the spiritual. Most importantly, it confuses demands with aspirations; liberty and independence are not life purposes, they are life's aspirations and will never, ever, be "achieved."

A book on Hoffa and Kennedy ( Bobby and J. Edgar by Hersh) gives some account of the resting places of Teamsters' money: "Over the years, Teamster assets went out to underwrite everything from the million dollars Richard Nixon squeezed out of the Central States Fund to defray the costs of the Watergate cover-up to an estimated $300,000,000 [over $2 billion in today's dollars] plowed into Las Vegas by way of the Sunrise Hospital conglomerate and the Paradise Development Company. Having erected the main strip of casinos and hotels with Mormon money, the Mob shrewdly bought up enormous tracts of surrounding land with 6 percent notes from the Teamsters. Clint Murchison tapped Teamster assets to bankroll his more flamboyant wildcatting ventures." It's curious that the public is much more concerned with Hoffa's whereabouts than the location of all this money masquerading as retirement money for hardworking guys.

The Sinister and the Distaff

The Left's recent over-reaching attack on Ann Romney as "never having worked in her life" has been "walked back," as if the sneer were not representative of them.

Simone de Beauvoir, one of the Left's darlings, said, "No woman should be authorized to stay at home and raise her children. Women should not have that choice, precisely because if there is such a choice, too many women will make that one."

These are the words of a well regarded woman, an intellectual and a "thought leader," the mistress and, in some minds, the enabler, of the seducer of damaged young woman, the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, who once said, "I enjoy being with a woman because I’m bored out of my mind when I have to converse in the realm of ideas.”

The Left has a lot to answer for. Their belief in the proper use of power, their confidence in their homicidal government pet, their certainty in their assessment of the human heart, their belief in mysterious forces in history--all of this has created shortages of space in the largest graveyards in the largest continents. But their evangelism and arrogance forces them to tell us what they think about the world and us. And we will have to answer for our indifference.

Sandra Herold Syndrome

Travis the chimp was born at a chimpanzee sanctuary in Missouri in 1993 and "adopted" by Sandra and Jerome Herold when he was three days old. He was used in several commercials and made a few television appearances but he was mostly a pet and companion, riding in the Herold's tow truck with a buckled seat-belt on towing calls or when they went shopping. Travis ate at the table with them, drank wine from a wine glass, opened doors using keys, dressed himself, did small chores like watering plants and feeding hay to the Herolds' horses, brushed his teeth with a Water Pik, could log on to the computer to look at pictures and used the remote for the television, especially for baseball. He was very fond of ice cream and learned the schedule of local ice cream trucks. On several occasions the Herolds allowed Travis to drive a car. With the death of her husband from cancer and the family's only child in a car wreck, Mrs. Herold became more close to Travis than ever, sleeping with him and bathing him. "He slept with me every night. Until you've eaten with a chimp and bathed with a chimp, you don't know a chimp."

In 2003 a man threw an object at the Herold's car. It went through an open window and struck Travis. Travis unbuckled his seat-belt, opened the car door and pursued the man but did not catch him. He then tied up traffic for several hours as the police sequentially lured him back into the car only to have him escape from another door and chase the police around the car, to be eventually lured back into the car again.

In February of 2009 Charla Nash arrived at Sandra Herold's house and was attacked by Travis who crushed her hands and ripped off large portions of her scalp, face and jaw. The hospital provided counseling to its staff members who initially treated her because of the horrible nature of Nash's injuries. Travis was subsequently shot dead on the arrival of the police, after trying to attack a police officer.

Mrs. Nash was left with brain injuries, blindness and massive tissue loss. She eventually underwent a face transplant.

After the attack a woman came forward to say that she, in 1996, had been bitten in the hand and Travis had tried to pull her into a car.

In 2010 Mrs. Herold died of a ruptured aortic aneurysm; the press said "of a broken heart."

One of man's afflictions is to see humanity in inhuman things. Another is to be flattered by imitation. A third is our confidence in controlling the uncontrollable.

"Revolt of the Masses" by Ortega y Gasset: a Review

There is a moment in "Revolt of the Masses" (written in 1930) where modern man is described as wandering on to a stage in the middle of a play he does not understand, an image Stoppard later wrote a whole play around in "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead." In the play two minor players are caught up in another man's tragedy, in the book man is living in an age that does not understand its origins or its foundations. 

In the dynamic interplay between modern human life and circumstance two groups have emerged: the creative minority who exert their will in service to values and goals larger than themselves and Mass-man (so named for his inertia, not his volume) who is content, passive, decides on opinion not reason and is no longer a protagonist but a chorus. Importantly, these are not social classes but rather mindsets, ways of thinking that have become rewarding or unrewarding as they have separated from their philosophical origins. Mass-man fares worse.

This new world is the result of liberal democracy and technicism (scientific experimentation and industrialization.) But "the road is always better than the inn." The culture is "superior to all other times but inferior to itself." This abundant life has "overflowed the banks of its direction." Mass-man is lost in the abundance like the regent of Louis XV, "all the talents but the power to use them." He is of appetite, not aspiration; a combination of desire and ingratitude. The Mass-man is concerned only with his well-being yet alien to the cause of that well-being. "Hungry, the mob goes in search of food and wrecks the bakery." The Mass-man has no interest in civilization, only in its product and is indifferent to the principles they come from. He is the spoiled heir of civilization. Surprisingly, the prototype is the scientific man, narrow and focused, specialized and ignorant. His prototypical opposite from the creative minority, Caesar, integrated the past, the present and future by pushing Rome beyond the city-state to empire.

The creative minority is the man of excellence but, unlike Mass-man, he lives in servitude. Life is a discipline; he lives by obligation, not rights. "To live as one likes is plebeian; the noble man lives by law and order." (Goethe)

This is a book of aphorisms. "...wrecking the bakery", 'spoiled heir of civilization", "the existence of a nation is a daily plebiscite" (Renan), "nationalism is in a direction opposed to the creation of a nation". But he has a greater and valid observation: There is a disconnection between modern man and his cultural heritage. We are children of The Enlightenment but somehow are orphaned and demoralized. In the last chapter he says we are left without a moral code but he never goes beyond the observation, the aphorism. The lynchpin is liberal democracy; the Mass-man is adrift because the theory of liberal democracy is adrift. Founded in Enlightenment on a spiritual theory, the loss of a spiritual view has atrophied the basis of liberal democracy. Astonishingly, this writer from Catholic Spain never mentions religion.

But perhaps he was just anticipating Eliot who said that the Western error was the belief that the solution was still in the Enlightenment. By this he meant, I think, that The Enlightenment was a product, not a source, of Western culture; if we are looking for a foundation, we are looking too late in history.

Small Ball: Obama as Clint Hurdle

There is talk that the Democrat convention this year will not include heroic Greek columns. The space shuttle Discovery is being stuffed and mounted. Apparently our vision needs pulled back, scaled down, brought under hand. We will no longer seize the future of debt and entitlements, health care and employment. We will do local shootings, three man solar panel shops and labeling french fries. Such tiny things used to be insincere symbols of a larger vision to be pointed out self-consciously at State of the Union speeches; now they are all we have. Ah, the little things in life. Soon we will stop and smell the roses....and stay.

This is the default position of managers who are outgunned by either their opponents or by life. One would think that an administration with three years of control, two super-majority, would sit on their achievements, the culmination of their electoral promises. But such is not the case. Their achievements are few--they have not passed a budget in three years--and those that are concrete are only whispered of. Obamacare, presented as crucial to our lives, is now discussed as a vague, academic, amorphous thing that is visiting us like the flu. The stimulus plan was done so badly that the administration does not know how to explain it at all, let alone positively. Their toga'd spokesmen are sounding petty or, worse, foolish.

The Pittsburgh Pirates have a similar problem. Their defensive lineup is adequate, if unspectacular, and there's some pitching. Their offense is lacking. They have a real lead-off hitter, one legitimate second hitter, no third, fourth or fifth hitter but six number six and seven hitters. So they play their lead-off hitter at number three, their number two hitter at lead-off and their others scattered though the lineup hoping for the best. They bunt at every position. They hit and run with every position. They steal. It is called "small ball," the effort to score runs with minimal talent. The problem is that their opponents do not have these deficits, do not play with these disadvantages. Their opponents have created a lineup with the intent of taking full advantage of the nature of the game by using talent.The Pirates try to take full advantage of the game despite their talent.

Pittsburgh citizens have grown accustomed to this. The people of an international economic and military power should expect better.

Cow Wars

People are a source of what the world calls pollution. CO2, methane, and similar byproducts are the normal consequence of mammalian metabolism. But the same is true for animals, particularly farm animals. And there is a surprisingly strong variation in yield of animals across cultures. So food yield from a cow in India is 5% of an American cow, Mexican cows yield 20% of American cows. This means that it takes 20 Indian cows to produce what 1 American cows produces. This also means that the energy requirements to raise cows in India, and the pollution that those cows produce, is vastly higher than in the United States.

So.......if you were a Progressive manager who knows how to improve the world, would you allow the Indians and the Mexicans to raise cattle or should this enterprise be reserved for advanced, efficient Western nations?

Sunday Sermon 4/22/12

In today's gospel, Luke 24: 36-48, Christ appears to the disciples after the brilliant episode on the road to Emmaus. With the Acts reading, it is stunning.

Christ appears and the disciples are not happy or justified, they are terrified. Only after being guided through the process of belief are they relieved, then believing. Initially they believed him a ghost. (The biblical humor never stops, regardless of the circumstances: They thought Him more likely a ghost than risen.) Christ accepts this goofiness. He allows them to examine Him--solidifying the idea of resurrection of the body--and then He asks for food. This wonderful gesture, as He certainly was not hungry, is an effort to humanize this moment, to allow them assimilate the event. He returns what is left of the fish to them!

Now that the disciples have been reconciled to the truth, He explains His life on earth through the filter of the Old Testament. This is a bit sticky as modern Christianity views the old testament as a period of temporary insanity where a hostile and belligerent people are led by an angry god. But Christ is not talking about them, He is talking about Himself. Rejection, suffering, death and resurrection were prophesied and these prophesies came true through Him.

Then, as in Emmaus, He translates the Old Testament for them. This is a very telling moment; somehow God must translate the things of God for us. Even the disciples, who have seen the life of Christ with their own eyes, cannot quite get it without divine help. These great mysteries inspire great skepticism and skepticism's obverse, belief, but not without help.

Then Christ completely turns the discussion on its head and rejects the isolation and xenophobia of the Old Testament and says the gospel is to be taught to all nations. This must have been a bombshell to the disciples but, after what they have seen, they probably were numb.

Peter, in the Act of the Apostles, scolds the Jews for their rejection of Christ. "You...desired a murderer to be granted unto you. But the author of life you killed,.." Then , two paragraphs later, Peter says, ""And now, brethren, I know you did it through ignorance.."

So the terrible rejection and death of Christ is immediately forgiven and the disciples turn to the future.

Cab Thoughts 4/21/12

There are some remarkable ways of looking at the markets but recently a fascinating old/new one emerged: The notion of seven fat years, seven lean ones. The magic number in this analysis is 17. Every seventeen year cycle. Everything but a Pharaoh. 

Two aspects of the American presidential race. First is Santorum. How can one explain his success? His original poll numbers showed 2% of support among Republicans and yet he managed to become a national figure. This, a man who dropped out because he was running low on money but, more, because he had to run next in his own state and knew he would do terribly. How could he have done that? How could a relatively unknown and not terribly attractive guy become a significant competitor against a serious and accomplished guy like Romney? The answer is more a comment on the voter than the candidate. Second is Obama. The Republicans, whatever their merits, tore themselves to pieces in this primary yet the polls are astonishing; Obama and Romney  are virtually tied. How is that possible? A sitting president--admittedly a popular guy--is running neck and neck with a guy limping out of a cruel primary. Obama may be more vulnerable than originally thought.

 Hockey is really exciting, even if I forget the HD.

Thinking of Wendell Berry, he turns a cliche around. It is generally believed that mining any one thing is bad for the miner. He contracts his world, excluding aspects of equal--or greater--importance. So a man devoted to academics might sacrifice his productive life, an entrepreneur might devote his life to his business at the expense of his family. A sports enthusiast might sacrifice his intellectual world.
But Berry suggests something else, as well. He says that focused work might endanger the object of his affections.

According to The Philadelphia Inquire, Delta's fuel costs have jumped from 13% of its total costs in 2000 to 36% in 2011. Huge overhead and not getting lower.

The line about Romney's wife never having worked is curious, not for it content but for the apology. The Left has no regard for women who pursue life as a mother or home maker. Simone de Beauvoir, one of the Left's darlings, said, "No woman should be authorized to stay at home and raise her children. Women should not have that choice, precisely because if there is such a choice, too many women will make that one." The statement is filled with conflict. What, as Freud asked, do women want and should society trump their desires? What work is it in life that men find so rewarding? Is there some sort of androgynous mind or do women just meekly follow men into the workplace? Or is this only another individual surrender to the collectivist good? Regardless, the Left has never cared about the happiness of women individually, only in the greater social context.

A thumbnail sketch of current economic thought:
There are three competing views of how to manage economic decline yet all three views admit to the same cause: Insufficiency of aggregate demand. (spending). The three solutions?
a.) Keynes: the government should borrow money and spend it when the private sector will not.
b.) Freidman: The Fed should stimulate the money supply.
c.) Fisher: The decrease in aggregate demand is the result of indebtedness. Debt buildup must be stopped before the problem occurs.
        There are some corollaries. Minsky said to keep banks small so that their errors can be minimized. Kindelberger said further that the Fed should not interfere with a small problem (like the failure of a small bank) as it encourages speculators who might make the problem larger.
These competing theories imply that we have some options if "a" or "b" are correct but if "c" is correct, the solution has sailed.

DOW now makes a solar shingle; "it's not on the roof, it is the roof."


Analogies between The United States and Rome have become so cliched as to be meaningless. More, Rome and America are not much alike aside from level of success. But here is an interesting selection from the Durants' "The Lessons of History". It is the Diocletian section often quoted because of the effect, even then, of wage and price controls. But there is a lot more, even in these two paragraphs, especially the "serfdom" line, the "war economy", and the notion of "collective liberty."
"Rome had its socialist interlude under Diocletian. Faced with increasing poverty and restlessness among the masses, and with the imminent danger of barbarian invasion, he issued in A.D. 301 an edictum de pretiis, which denounced monopolists for keeping goods from the market to raise prices, and set maximum prices and wages for all important articles and services. Extensive public works were undertaken to put the unemployed to work, and food was distributed gratis, or at reduced prices, to the poor. The government – which already owned most mines, quarries, and salt deposits – brought nearly all major industries and guilds under detailed control. 'In every large town,' we are told, 'the state became a powerful employer, standing head and shoulders above the private industrialists, who were in any case crushed by taxation.' When businessmen predicted ruin, Diocletian explained that the barbarians were at the gate, and that individual liberty had to be shelved until collective liberty could be made secure. The socialism of Diocletian was a war economy, made possible by fear of foreign attack. Other factors equal, internal liberty varies inversely with external danger.
"The task of controlling men in economic detail proved too much for Diocletian's expanding, expensive, and corrupt bureaucracy. To support this officialdom – the army, the courts, public works, and the dole – taxation rose to such heights that people lost the incentive to work or earn, and an erosive contest began between lawyers finding devices to evade taxes and lawyers formulating laws to prevent evasion. Thousands of Romans, to escape the tax gatherer, fled over the frontiers to seek refuge among the barbarians. Seeking to check this elusive mobility and to facilitate regulation and taxation, the government issued decrees binding the peasant to his field and the worker to his shop until all their debts and taxes had been paid. In this and other ways medieval serfdom began."

The Economy and the Well Poisoners

Employment rates for the over 55 year old cohort are rising. Rising. As the older generation continues to find they can not afford to retire, there will be fewer jobs for the younger generation to fill.

Why the difficulty in retiring? One thousand dollars in 1980 is now worth somewhere between 378 dollars and 192 dollars.
There are a number of accounting differences here but essentially what people have saved is being degraded in value by the government's expansion of the money supply. Degraded a lot. So a dollar in 1980 lost 63% of its value over 20 years but had it been in the stock market it would have been worth 15 dollars. That is an annualized return of 14.4; that looks good. But, inflation corrected, it is only 5.8%.

These are bad numbers.

But in the last 12 years, it is worse...
An investment of 1000 dollars in --the Dow -- the S&P500 --NASDAQ
has changed in value 2000-2012 --- +13.1% -- -7.1% -- -38.2%
but when inflation is factored---- -15.4% -- -30.5% -- -53.8%

That is a terrible record for someone hoping to grow his savings and retire. It's a terrible record for almost anything. And one can see the erosion, the gradual increase in the household workforce as wives, then children, get jobs; as households turn more and more to leverage to make up the shortfall in their buying power. This is not a poorly understood event like earthquakes or global warming; this is the result of policy, policy developed and implemented by politicians and bureaucrats who either do not know the consequences of their actions or do not care.

But when the inevitable happens they do sympathize with us and they do rush about looking for someone to blame.

You Say Malvinas, I Say Maldives

Following the introductory chapter of "How to Manage the Populous During Economic Crisis", Argentina has diverted attention from her horrific economic problems--and her equally horrific sham solution--by hectoring the British over their territory in the South Atlantic, The Falkland Islands.

In a Colombian news conference on The Falkland Islands, President Obama, seeking to use the Spanish term "Malvinas" for the islands (as Argentina prefers--and Great Britain does not), said "Maldives", which are islands off India. People were understandably confused. He then stated that the United States would be neutral in the dispute between Argentina and Great Britain. “This is not something that we typically intervene in.” Since the U.S. famously supported Britain the last time this happened under Reagan--support that led directly to a serious naval defeat for Argentina, people were understandably confused.

Whispering with Russian president Dmitri Medvedev about implied surreptitious defense deals, the Fast and Furious scandal involving the United States selling guns to Mexican drug runners, the attack on the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court as if he never heard of Marbury v Madison and 209 years of judicial review, making an ugly local shooting international news--what is going on here? This is not just the possible rhetorical goofiness that can occur like the "Austrian language" or traveling to "all the 57 states." There is something much more basic that implies some very loose thinking in this administration.

There may well be a belief here that you deserve some slack when your intentions are good. But there is, at this level, at least some demand for competence.

Natural Gas Leadership Test

Natural gas is plentiful and cheap. We are now able to recover gas from areas previously unapproachable. The availability has suppressed prices and, recently, has discouraged new drilling.

This circumstance is a surprise. Four years ago the biggest find was Haynesville, Louisiana which was sizable but is now dwarfed by Marcellus, Utica and Bakkan. It is slowly replacing coal fire plants and has application to transportation, our biggest demand problem. Gas is very clean and manageable but requires some special handling. Its storage requirements makes it a better candidate for big units like trucks than smaller cars. But a build-out of service facilities is the obvious next step.
The nation's ability to retire coal fire plants economically is directly a result of the rise in the availability of gas. Not to say the looney ideologues in Washington needed natural gas; they were going to do it anyway even if "electricity prices would necessarily skyrocket." Gas accidentally came to the rescue.


A chart on pollutants:
Fossil Fuel Emission Levels- Pounds per Billion Btu of Energy Input

Pollutant: Natural Gas -- Oil -- Coal

Carbon Dioxide: 117,000 -- 164,000 -- 208,000
Carbon Monoxide: 40 -- 33 -- 208
Nitrogen Oxides: 92 -- 448 -- 457
Sulfur Dioxide: 1 -- 1,122 -- 2,591
Particulates: 7 -- 84 -- 2,744
Mercury: 0.000 -- 0.007 -- 0.016
Source: EIA - Natural Gas Issues and Trends 1998

Now the test. Substitution of this fuel would clearly be a boon to the United States. It is domestic, free of Middle East political and religious conflict, vastly cheaper, much cleaner, available for the next century at least and maybe two, and would allow a job creating boom the likes of the steel industry in the 1900's as we drilled and outfitted the country for it. More, it would take the pressure off the alternative market which is being induced into premature labor to provide a solution. In short it is economical, a great advance, a job creator and ours. OURS. So one would think it would be embraced. A national effort to exploit and use natural gas, especially in the transportation industry, would mobilize a workforce with "shovel-ready jobs" and make us energy independent at the same time--like Eisenhower's interstate road system project. So far, silence from our leaders and opinion-makers, except for an almost anti-scientific position from the NYT. Because it is a surprise, perhaps our mandarin leaders need some time to digest it.

There is , of course, another scenario. The same political purity that is willing to allow "the price of electricity..( to).. necessarily skyrocket," that would raise the taxes on capital gains even if it resulted in less taxes, that purity might see the abundance of natural gas as an impediment to their unstated aims. Then arguments against the use of natural gas will emerge. And our mandarins will have revealed themselves again.

Social Eugenics

"Social Darwinism" is an imaginative extension of Darwin's evolution from a genetic and reproductive field to the social field. It drowns the subtlety of the theory in a competitive savagery where certain unfortunates are destroyed by mindless social competition, usually by people with undeserved inherited wealth. The thesis, sort of a right makes right thesis, actually preceded Darwin in the writings of Herbert Spencer who felt that successful cultures, communities (and races) were successful because they were more fit and, by extension, superior. This, of course, could be the poster child for "the naturalistic fallacy." Spencer added Darwin on to his thesis as Darwin developed it.

It is interesting that Social Darwinism inspires animosity while, for example, a notion as crazy as dialectic materialism does not. The likely reason is that Social Darwinism does not allow for unifying principles and has racial translations while Dialectic Materialism's enemies are a smaller, successful, and a more enviable group.

There is a competing philosophy that also has surprising support: Social Eugenics. This philosophy believes that a beneficial, disinterested hand of power--i.e. government--can weed out social errors and reestablish the movement of society along the proper social path. This means the government should prune the social tree, encouraging some areas and discouraging others, as they try sometimes with companies and technology. They used to try this forced advance by literal eugenics, a great hope of early Progressives. Now they pursue their aims through legislation aimed at social lives. They can do this because they know the truth of life, the nature of man, the value and essence of groups, the evil in men's hearts. They are Conrad and Melville, Gregory the Great and Hume, Jefferson and Edward the Third, The Alpha and the Omega. Apparently they are cleverly disguised to look like Barney Frank, Biden, Obama, and a number of other nondescript political hacks who have never done anything in life other than advance in a small nitch for which they write the rules.

The Hubris of Fairness

One of the wonders of the current administration is their willingness to take on the responsibilities of ""fairness." This huge idea, about which volumes have been written, is apparently all wrapped up by a couple of guys in Washington. We will just mete fairness out now and things will be fine.

It is difficult to figure which description is most apt here, arrogance, madness or foolishness. Imagine declaring you are going to be the arbitrator of fairness. Imagine the view of the world you must have. Worse, imagine an inflexible, favoritism-ridden bureaucracy saying this. Chutzpa? Insanity? Where would you start? Defrauded elderly? Mishandled students? Companies excluded from contracts because they do not pay bribes? The high paid athlete who has a bad year? The farmer's disproportionate contribution to society versus his reward? The low paid athlete who has a good year? People who have saved all their lives only to have their savings destroyed by inflation? Good people who get sick young? The crushed hopes of great expectations?

These politicians have no shame. None. They will say anything, the more noble the better. But it may be a hard sell to convince people that the government bureaucracy has figured out a problem that every parent struggles with daily.

Sunday Sermon 4/15/12

Today's gospel is "Doubting Thomas." It also contains the command from Christ to evangelize the world and to forgive--and not to forgive--sins.

This is a huge gospel, filled with important concepts. Christ seems to be delegating authority, creating a structure and a hierarchy for his mission. But first He is appearing to His fearful disciples to confirm His resurrection. His instructions to his followers are buried within this revelation. The group, of course, believes but Thomas, absent from the first visitation, does not.

Thomas is a guy of some consequence in the gospel. He not seen often (he is seen only in John) but when he is seen, he is seen big. When Christ learns of the death of Lazarus--which He clearly manipulates to show His power over death-- the apostles are fearful to return to Judea where Christ was so recently threatened with stoning. But Thomas says to the apostles, "Let us also go, that we may die with Him." After the Last Supper Christ muses about the next days, about preparing "a place for you" in His father's house. And then He says, "And whither I go you know, and the way you know" and Thomas immediately replies "Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way?" Christ responds "I am the way, the truth and the life. No man cometh to the Father, but by me."

Thomas is a a bit over his head here--as they all seem to be--but is a fulcrum balancing faith and disbelief. He is brave, he has seen Lazarus raised from the dead, he has great loyalty to Christ. But this step, His resurrection, is too much for even him, even when verified by his fellows.

Christ clarifies it by returning and showing Thomas His wounds. The philosophy of Christ, the two great commandments, the new testament, the new covenant--all of these revolutionary thoughts--do not work unless Christ rises from the dead. Otherwise He is just another brilliant philosopher. (Nikos Kazantzakis, in "The Last Temptation of Christ," has James running through town to his father Zebedee to announce that Christ, a great prophet, has come out of the desert after forty days and forty nights and Zebedee exclaims, "Not another one!")

But He is not just "another one." The apostles, disbelieving and shaken at His death, are not just convinced, they are changed. They are not the same people as before. They are transformed and able to shoulder their burden to evangelize the world.

Like Paul on the road to Damascus, they are revolutionized in a moment. A thunderclap.

In a singularity because belief and skepticism are, like Thomas, twins.

Cab Thoughts 4/14/12

Social Darwinism? Really? I love the logical extension, which is social eugenics.

Game of Thrones has been signed up for a third year. Including repeats and On Demand ratings, last season’s Game Of Thrones episodes averaged more than 8 million viewers apiece – and that’s in the US alone.

Nails from crucifixion victims were popularly worn as charms, around the neck, by both Jews and gentiles to ward off illness, so the later Christian fetish for crucifix relics was actually part of a long tradition.

One of the problems with appointing yourself as a "fairness czar" is that it becomes your filter. So you better be fair everywhere. This, of course, is an impossible demand to make on government.

"Fairness" has been translated divergently by the Left and the Right. Justice On The Basis of Needs, from the Left implies people in the economic system who have basic needs they can not meet should have those needs met by others; Justice On The Basis of Contribution, from the Right implies people who contribute more to the economic system should gain more independent of the demands of others. The problem is, of course, how does one bell the cat?

Speaking of cats, "pet therapy" has emerged as a regular in-hospital option. Perhaps it will be mandated in the outpatient setting. Then prophylacticly. "You look a bit depressed. Here's a script for a chimpanzee."

MedPAC recommends that the Congress repeal the SGR system and replace it with a 10-year schedule of specified updates for the physician fee schedule.” In the first 3 years, “Medicare fees for non-primary care services would be reduced by 5.9 percent each year.” Since medicare leads the pay schedule nationally this would result in across the board decline in physician fees by about 6% of gross income a year. Since net income to physicians is usually about 55% of gross and if the overhead stays stable (unlikely), then that 6% results in about an 11% net income loss a year for physicians. Repeated for three years that is about 33%. Name another industry that would tolerate a 33% decline in earnings.

the Sunlight Foundation recently found that since July 2009, at least 377 former House of Representative staffers have left the Hill to become registered lobbyists. 377.

LUX released a report titled "Grid Storage under the Microscope: Using Local Knowledge to Forecast Global Demand" and predicts that annual global demand for grid-scale energy storage will reach an astounding 185.4 gigawatt-hours (GWh) by 2017 and represent a $113.5 billion incremental revenue opportunity for an industry that currently generates sales of $50 to $60 billion a year. But they say that it will be "supply constrained" i.e. shortages will emerge. This means that battery supply will be bid for and someone will lose.

The Zimmermqn-Martin murder shows a very bad perspective in the nation, the idea that horrible things can be weighted. So a brutal, stupid murder can be shaded as "hate crime" and presumably made more brutal and stupid. Some may not be "hate" based and, presumably, less bad. This is a typical legal parsing, teasing the subjective into more and less. It is also insane. The crime is against the life of the victim, his loss of life. The perpetrator may be more or less guilty by his intent--accident, careless accident, accident while committing a felony, and so on but not one's affiliation with a meme. Murder One should not be manipulated to be Murder One-and-a half because it devalues Murder One. It won't be long before we get Murder One-minus-half: Maybe honor killings.

David Anthony

One of the less noticed problems in the huge political battles waged among the elephants is the small individual casualties. Several days ago David Anthony committed suicide. He was a very nice man and the founder of 21Ventures, an innovative venture capital fund that emphasized clean energy. His fund has not done well.

There is no suggestion that his business motivated his death; he had personal health and family problems sufficient for despair.

David Gelbaum, another venture capitalist and an associate of Anthony, responded to an assumption in Anthony's obituary that their investments were politically motivated:"I invested in cleantech to make money, not because of my political ideology. Needless to say, I didn't make any money. On the contrary, I wiped out my family's liquidity."

It's is exciting to watch the government tweak an investment here, suppress an investment there. But, of course, it's not their money. There are real consequences to actions in real life. And real economics can be especially cruel.

Several "Game of Thrones"

A problem has arisen in Game of Thrones, the HBO series that somehow has reached cult status against the current of previous such fantastic stories. Generally it has survived the transition from book to screen; the characters and drama remain complex and true to the book but the subtlety of the written word is beginning to show.

Many of the characters in the book exhibit that unlikely thought process of thinking in the moment, without any hint of previous events or responsibilities, future plans or aspirations. So schemers do explain themselves in the present but never indict themselves in the past or for the future. That time isolation can give a very good insight into character without revealing plot too much. So we know what characters are doing but are never sure why, never sure of their loyalties or their ambitions.

This is difficult in cinema without soliloquies. The series has chosen to add some scenes to demonstrate personality that otherwise would have been revealed in written interior dialogue. So Littlefinger's opaque character becomes more transparent in a truly ugly brothel scene. Greyjoy's fragile adolescent character gradually comes apart in a newly created mistaken identity scene with his sister that explodes with his father. Cersei has a visual moment of maternal terror when Joffry threatens her after being slapped.

The danger in the rewrite is in trying to keep up with the book's considerable drama. The audience could understand the Littlefinger scene, perhaps even sympathize with the motives of its creation but... it was too much. The Greyjoy horseback scene was worse because it was unnecessary; the two do fine in the chance encounter in the book where the sister reveals herself to be a confident, cynical, dangerous woman. I must admit the Cersei scene was spot on.

But one gets the feeling that the screenwriters are not just gilding the lily, they are repeating it. If the incest of the Lannisters works, duplicate it in the Greyjoys. If egocentric, cold, dispassionate sex is the norm--the only young people in love are Daenerys and her savage--then do it in spades with Littlefinger. What's been added on looks like a hybrid of what has worked before and this story is so good it doesn't need it. Worse, it looks like an effort to stick to a formula.

As everyone learns in chess, it's hard to play another's game.

"Micro" by Michael Crichton, a Book Review

The physician faces an interesting modern problem: How to combine the objective world of science with the subjective world of patients. In the early days of medicine there was little science--just eye of newt, hair of toad. Now the science is overwhelming and the physician must struggle to find a place for the human in the medical arena overcrowded by the science. Sometimes that balance is difficult. The author Michael Crichton is a virtual metaphor for the problem.

Crichton is a physician who has never practiced medicine but transferred his refined scientific thinking into fiction. His works have been extremely successful commercially but have always been criticized artistically. The main target has been his characters that tend to be wooden, cliched, and slaves to the topic. That is true of Crichton's writing, as it is of most physicians. The science is the thing and the players are subservient to it.

Crichton died while undergoing lymphoma therapy and, subsequently, two novels were found unfinished. (Having two posthumous novels is a little spooky.) "Micro" was apparently one-third finished at his death and Robert Preston, the author of the fine non-fiction "The Hot Zone", finished the last two-thirds. Like "Jurassic Park", "Shrinking Man," and "Fantastic Voyage" it is a science fiction drama of size disparity. In this instance micro-technology has been developed to allow for the creation of tiny machines--and people made tiny--to explore, discover and develop the small world of plant and insect life to uncover new biochemistry for pharmaceutical use. Seven graduate students in related fields are invited to see the process, a company founder is apparently murdered, suspicions fall within the company, the possibility of micro-weapons is raised and eventually the grad students end up in miniature, fighting for their lives against homicidal insects, plants and miniaturized henchmen.

As usual, Crichton's characters are generalizations--thinker, jerk, superficial, and action hero--and, when motives are obscure, the character becomes a psychopath. Crichton seems mildly aware of these drawbacks and sometimes switches cliches, for example the action hero becomes a woman. But this is lip service. He is truly interested in the idea of the scientific and technical problems; the human condition he leaves to Conrad.

None the less the book is enjoyable and sometimes thrilling. The students come across poisonous plants, are hunted by bigheaded soldier ants and vicious centipedes, and bats are everywhere. One is stung and paralyzed by a queen wasp for her offspring in a hair-raising sequence.

As always with Crichton, there are interesting ideas, fascinating science pushed to the provocative speculative level and the read is exciting. No minimalist reviewer will like it--or admit it if he does--but it's a fun airplane book for us lesser mortals.

Philadelphia's Insight into the Pirates

The Pittsburgh Pirates had an interesting weekend. They won two of three from the World Champion Phillies.

The third game was curious and worrisome. After being down 4-1, the Pirates worked their way back and, in the bottom of the ninth, were tied 4-4. Their closer, Hanrahan, who throws in the upper nineties easily and who has an excellent slider, finished the top of the ninth. McGehee, who had a pinch-hit double earlier, doubled again. Presley sacrificed his pinch-runner, Harrison, to third. One out and Tabata up next followed by McCutchon and Walker. What is Phillie to do? They have their closer in the bullpen and first and second base open. The next three batters are possibly the only real hitters on the Pirate team.

They do not bring in their closer. The Phillies pitch to Tabata and he strikes out. McCuchon is next. He has two hits on the day and is one of the team's two fastest players so an infield grounder is a potential game-winner. Next up would be Walker, a switch-hitter but slow. Walk McCuchon, right? No. They pitch to him, he goes 3-2 and then lines the ball off the center-field wall. The Pirates win.

The talk shows are thrilled; the Phillies have been out-managed! Baloney. The Phillies played as if the Pirates could not have beaten them with Buicks. They played as if they did not need strategy, as if the Pirates were so bad it would take an act of God for them to win.

The Phillies are a very fine team with serious management. This game looked as if their assessment of Pittsburgh was incredibly negative; in a tight game they could rest their closer and pitch to anyone.

They lost but it doesn't mean they are wrong. If they are right, this could be a long year for Pittsburgh.

Socializing Outrage

When did the ingenious notion of equality of opportunity and equality before the law become the banal equality of income? When did the national vision of shared basic human rights become shared income of others? And how has this insinuated itself so easily into the national debate?

This seismic shift in our thinking--or some thinking--carries some innuendo, that disparity of income is inherently dangerous to a culture, that it is destabilizing.

Now it is likely that studies will show that abusive, rapacious leaders are eventually overthrown by the people they are abusing and raping but it is a particularly cynical view of man to think that these outrages will be made whole by sharing the booty.

Sunday Sermon 4/8/12

Happy Easter!

Easter is the essential Christian event. Every aspect of the Christian church hinges on Christ's resurrection.

Today's gospel is extremely well written, filled with little particulars (the woman hesitant to enter the tomb, Peter being outrun to the tomb, the meticulous arrangement of the burial cloths, the assumption that the body was stolen--after the assumption by the Pharisees that the apostles would steal it)--all giving misdirection and specificity to what becomes the philosophical earthquake of all time.

Yet how does this all hinge? Hearsay? The interpretation of a sacred book? Amulets and magic rites? No. Amazingly it hinges on us.

By the time Christ rises, we know all the players. We even have some insights about them. They are not revolutionaries, not mystics and, while seemingly sincere, they are not special. They are relatively normal working folks with responsibilities and, probably, annoyed families. As seen by their behavior during the Passion, they are not fully aware of what is happening. Nor are they particularly brave. Yet after this crisis where their leader is tortured and killed they somehow emerge as philosopher and martyrs. They all, to a man, experience a mind-changing, lifechanging event. Scattered and leaderless they raise a religious movement that challenges everything in its time and, eventually, forces mighty Rome to adapt.

Christ performed the great, unarguable miracle. It was the behavior of men, people, who confirmed and developed it. No leap of faith was necessary. They were convinced and changed. Then they convinced and changed the world.

Cab Thoughts 4/7/12

When did the ingenious notion of equality of opportunity and equality before the law become the banal equality of income?

In 1970 the US produced 9.6 million barrels of oil per day. The country's production declined steadily from 1970 to 2008, when just 4.95 million barrels per day were produced. 38 years; an almost 50% decline in production of something crucial to us. But, because of the Bakkan and other unconventional sites, production has started to creep up.

The one-year survival rate for someone receiving a heart who is over 65 is 84%. Cheney is 71. The odds are favorable for him to have a life expectancy of 10 years.

A new Van Gogh is discovered under a painting hanging in a museum, a new sub species of Homo is discovered in a Chinese museum basement, a play by Eugene O'Neill was found at an estate sale, an early Mozart was found last year in an attic, ditto a copy of the "Confederacy of Dunces" manuscript. It seems to me the most rewarding research we could do is to review what we have.

Obama's open mic line to the Russians about having more flexibility after the election because it is his last one and presumably makes him less responsible to the American people is telling. The nature of the American constitution is quite different than most as it fears power primarily; its inefficiencies are beside the point. Here is a special case: The need for power to "do good' whether the people want it or not. There was a great editorial line from IBD: "It is sad and more than a bit alarming that the Russians know something more about Obama's second term than the American people he asks to re-elect him."

126 former football players are suing the NFL over head injuries. The question is not "Who is?" The question should be "Who isn't?" While this is like a rodeo bull-rider suing over orthopedic injuries, it could be seen as a legitimate point and, if it become clear that dementia is the logical result of the game, the game as it is known, will die. Similar arguments could be made for hockey. That would return baseball to its deserved place of honor as the American sport--in this instance its only sport. (Basketball not being a sport but more of an entertainment, like juggling sharp things.)

What's wrong with the idea of mic'ing every politician? Maybe ankle bracelets too.

The yield on 5-year Portuguese bonds is now up to an all-time record 19.8 percent. A year ago, the yield on those bonds was only about 6 percent. A year ago, the yield on 5-year Greek bonds was about 12 percent. Now the yield on those bonds is more than 50 percent. Anyone worried?

Liberal Fundamentalism

The EPA has just dropped its sanctions against Range Resources in a case alleging water contamination with methane from drilling in Parker County. It is now alleged that a homeowner, a Steve Lipsky, together with his environmental consultant, had created a "deceptive video" of a methane-spewing water well for the purpose of collecting damages against the driller.

One wonders what the "environmental consultant" hoped to gain.

There is a peculiar deficit in the political debate/conversation, the belief that the opponent is motivated by no principle. This was particularly evident in the response by the Democrats to the terrible presentation of Obamacare to the Supreme Court. The Court only wanted constitutional justification for a considerable change in the relationship between the state and its citizens. The administration acted as if such a question was a huge surprise. More, the question could not be honest, could not be a question of principle but rather a political trick. Pelosi was shocked; Obama was strange.

This is the thinking of people who, in the progress from A to B, accept B as a given and the opponents, of either the end or the process, unscrupulous. This is the mindset of the religious enthusiast.

The Middle Ground Between Frick and Frack

For several years there has been a peculiar debate over Marcellus Shale drilling. So many opinions, intense opinions. Then, at an Allegheny College seminar April 2, 2012, a reporter recorded this exchange after one of the panelists lamented the lack of a "middle ground" in the discussion: "Lustgarten ..(a reporter)..agreed, noting that concern about the environmental impacts of Marcellus drilling has escalated into hyperbole and almost-hysteria — and he’s not sure why. “Any middle ground has been lost,” he said. “It’s dissolved into a false choice between frack and not frack, while attempts to educate the public has turned into panic.” "(Mary Spicer Meadville Tribune on Allegheny College conference)

The solution lies in the characterization of the conflict: This is not a "discussion." Indeed, how could one explain the press' reporting of the Dunkard Creek fish-kill, the radionuclide scare from Rolling Stone, the movie Gasland? It certainly is not a "discussion." The obvious answer is bias, a deep-seated judgment delivered before the evidence is in. Another is more pernicious: a visionary distortion, the belief that a certain outcome is desirable even if it is contradicted by facts or reality--a solution that exists only in the arrogant mind of its superior creator. As John Hanger wonderfully said, "Gas is compared implicitly to a mythical perfect alternative that none of us use." So the cure for cancer is likely in alternative medicine, education could be improved using the techniques of the Vulcans in "Star Trek," potency is improved by the powder made from a unicorn horn. A third is worse, these people do not have a good grasp on these topics and are unteachable--not because they are obdurate or enthusiastic but because they have no scientific or technical ability. They are out of their depth.

There is no "middle ground" for the bigot, the enthusiast or the stupid.

One cringes on hearing a politician use phrases like "Darwinism." The jury is in; these politicians, lawyers and other humanities graduates should accept that they are not qualified for any such topic. Most science students do not expect to understand quantum mechanics; these soft course students should abstain from commenting on science entirely.

"What are People For?", Wendell Berry Book Review

Wendell Berry graduated from the University of Kentucky with both a BA and MA and then joined the Stanford creative writing program under Wallace Stegner. He taught creative writing in several universities before retiring to run his farm in Kentucky. He has been a prolific writer of fiction and nonfiction with an emphasis on farming, the environment and culture. His writing has a Christian tint and is preoccupied with work, the family farm and industrialization. He has become a proponent of "subsistence farming," a notion that declares practical limits on acreage production and opposes "industrial farming" as short term productive but long term destructive. Farming becomes an interesting parallel to life as it demands hard work, planning, commitment, community and an underlying interstitial framework--a belief--to base it all on.

It is difficult to review him without reducing his work to aphorism as short, compact summaries are, to a degree, the way he thinks and writes. "What Are People For?" is a collection of essays that contain a good introduction to his thinking.

Edward Abbey has written about he United States, "The country is being destroyed not by bad politics but by a bad way of life." Berry thinks this problem is magnified because of our conviction that "we cannot change because we are dependent on what is wrong." These frightening and challenging concepts run through Berry's writing, from farms, to culture, to work, to marriage. Man must have a continuity in his life, an infrastructure that forms the underpinning of all our world. We are a moral people; there is--or should be--a moral basis to the economy as well. Restraint--the art of the barber (in another work)--should stay our hand. Competition can be destructive, indeed tries to be. In a community which strives for stability, competition is against its very nature. The rat lives by supply and demand; humans must show restraint and live by justice and mercy. Production must not be an isolated goal.

Productive work is an inherent good but must be done as the logical extension of solid, general beliefs. It can not be isolated. "Any man with a machine and an inadequate culture is a pestilence." Often our eagerness to produce blinds us to self-destructive risk: "You provide the risk to the community or the environment, I will provide the fool or the drunk to make the small mistake." Worse, work is being devalued; the culture now sees achievement of decreased work as a national ambition. Marriage, a shared economic unit, has become a "negotiation for separate responsibilities."

He has an interesting--if grim--view of art: "Art now stands by itself. It can be taught but it cannot teach." The student learns only "about," never "from" art. As he says elsewhere "'Objectivity' is teaching without regard for the truth." Consequently, the humanities education becomes a technical evaluation of creative events, not an evaluation of to how to live.

This collection also contains an elegant essay on why "Huck Finn" fails as a novel. It fails because Huck's community fails. There is pain and horror for Huck but no escape, no redemption. The community is only another source of oppression. When Tom Sawyer, the flim-flam man, arrives, the die is cast. Grownup concerns recede, children come to the fore. Real escapes become bogus ones. A man without an adult community context, fails.

So do farms. So do cultures.

The Real Gender Politics

A recent Gallop Poll on public support of nuclear power showed some interesting things. General American public support for nuclear power stood at 57% in 1994; 57% in 2011 before Fukushima ( March 11, 2011, the largest nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986) and is 57% in 2012. But there was a fascinating gender difference: Men overwhelmingly support the use of nuclear power 72% to 27% while women oppose using nuclear power, 51% to 42%.

One can assume the cross sections are similar, the education and backgrounds equal, the information available the same. How could there be such a huge difference? Is it a question of how one assesses risk? Or maybe risk tolerance? Is it a confidence in or a technical understanding of science or its application?

Here are two subsets in species homo sapien with wide variation in the assessment of a very important question.

Certainly there is no "right answer" here, only how people balance and weigh. The most we can expect is objectivity and honesty. But it does make one wonder about the implications of the hope for "consensus."

Healthcare and Misdirection

The angst over the Obamacare debate before the Supreme Court is simply weird.

The entire concern by government officials, as echoed through the criticism of the American system by the Europeans, is that no nation can afford to spend 16% to 18% of its GNP on health care. When Hillary was constructing her plan fifteen years ago its architect, Uwe Reinhardt, said that medical costs should make up no more than 10 to 11 percent GDP. So? So....the point is cost, not coverage; expense, not health care. This entire debate is being held as if the point was somehow to deliver more health care to more people; the actual debate is how to cut the expense of health care. That sounds like decreasing medical care, regardless of the size of the population the system is supposed to serve.

Now it is true that people without plans and living on the charity of others use emergency rooms as local practitioners and putting them in a plan may, or may not, change their behavior. And people have bad habits that drive up the cost of care. But certainly no one would suggest that decreased emergency room visits by the indigent or taking salt off McDonald's fries would decrease medical expenses from 18% of GDP to 11%. That is a 38% reduction.

That 38% is not coming out of efficiencies or fraud. That is coming out of services.

Sunday Sermon 4/1/12

The Bible has moved through very difficult readings to Palm Sunday. There is no break today in the description of Christ's triumphant entrance into Jerusalem, His betrayal and death. In Mark, the events are described with Christ as a presence but not as a personality. He is fulfilling the prophesies that He himself has made. There are no surprises for Him, so much so that He includes a specific reference to Psalm 21/22 (‘Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?’ which is translated, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’” (Mark 15:34; Matthew 27:46) is a direct quotation from Psalm 22:1.) It is the only phrase Christ says in the Passion that appears in more than one Evangelist. (There is an interesting--and presumably heretical--different translation by a Aramaic scholar named Lamsa that says "My God, my God, for this [purpose] I was spared!"--or "This is my destiny.")

Nor is there drama. The conflict is over.

Why would Christ quote the Psalms at His death? To pull the Old and New Testament together? To emphasize His humanity with Old Testament sanction?

The terrible events occur against a terrible tableau. The gospels are filled with people searching, questioning, trying to find the truth. Even the Jewish hierarchy wants the truth. Now everything has changed. Now wicked people dominate the scene, aided and abetted by good people acting badly. The behavior of the apostles is crucial here. They run for their lives. The shepherd is struck, the presumed purpose of their group is being destroyed and they run. And it gets worse; Christ is killed. The apostles run because they are afraid but also they run for a much better reason: They misunderstand what Christ is doing. Their faith was limited to Him; they did not see the big picture, the huge event they were a part of. The death of Christ seemed to be the end.

Their disillusion and terror only emphasizes the miraculous change they experience in three days which allows them to coolly follow Christ's directions and go to their deaths later. A change that must have been a miracle.