Our obligations to our country never cease but with our lives.
John Adams
Oklahoma Tornado Redux
Overnight storms (as if Oklahoma really needed more on top of the recent Moore tragedy) reportedly have killed 9 people . My thoughts and prayers for the victims and survivors.
Jean Stapleton: RIP
Remember when CBS Saturday night had the best lineup of all time? "All in the Family"; "M*A*S*H"; "Mary Tyler Moore"; "Bob Newhart Show"; "Carole Burnett Show"? I have to admit I didn't initially get a situation comedy featuring a key ideological conflict between a politically incorrect conservative blue-collar head of household, Archie Bunker, and his free-loading, social liberal, histrionic son-in-law Michael 'Meathead' Stivic It's not so much the fact of conflict, often requiring intervention by Archie and wife Edith's only child Gloria. Even though I was more of a social liberal then, I didn't like how Norman Lear portrayed conservatives, quite different from the urbane, unflappable, highly articulate William F. Buckley, host of 'Firing Line'.. It seemed like dialogues were contrived "gotcha" exercises where Archie offers up ludicrous explanations for his beliefs and eventually lapses into name-calling. The only things more ludicrous than Archie's outbursts were Meathead's judgmental, knee-jerk, exaggerated responses, as if he seriously thought uncivil responses were the way to influence Archie's point of view.
I think the show worked because Archie was a nuanced character, one whom loved his family. Edith, played by Jean Stapleton, was a sweetheart with wonderful quirks, like her delightfully off-key singing, as featured in the opening credits below. Jean had this way of transforming Edith's face from confusion to revelation. She unconditionally loves Archie, and we somehow know the Archie she sees and loves must be a good man, even though he often says or does the wrong thing. She knows how to reach Archie and is a moderating influence on him. I think Edith was a difficult character to portray, but Jean deftly handled the role.
I hate to stereotype the actress Jean Stapleton as Edith; I've only run into her prior work on occasion. Probably from my perspective, she played the colorful Birdie in "You've Got Mail", bookshop owner Kathleen Kelly's wealthy middle-aged assistant. (Birdie at one point implies that she once had a torrid affair with Spanish strongman Franco, which utterly appalls Kelly's hyper-political, snooty progressive boyfriend Frank.) Yes, it's one of my favorite flicks: how can I resist a story where "heartless capitalist" bookstore magnate Joe Fox wins the girl's heart?
Joe Fox: Well, let me ask you something. How can you forgive this guy for standing you up and not forgive me for this tiny little thing of... of putting you out of business?Freaking awesome. [If you haven't seen the movie, Fox and Kelly were unsuspecting email partners. They finally agree to meet at a restaurant; Kelly arrives first. At that point, Kelly has launched a last-stand PR war against Fox Books; Fox, arriving later and peaking through the front window, realizes that Kelly is "Shopgirl" and decides to drop by as himself, not identifying himself as "NY152". In the lead-up to the quote, both have ditched their significant others. Fox has slowly but surely tried to build a friendship with Kathleen, and they are finally going to meet in the big reveal. This dialogue is just before Kelly leaves to get ready for the encounter; Fox is unsure of the timing of the reveal: is it too soon? Is she ready to know that it's been him all along? Will he lose her forever?] Maybe there's hope for me yet...
[Kathleen starts to cry]
Joe Fox: Oh, how I wish you would.
The Making of a Modern BMW
HT Cafe Hayek. Not your Daddy's mind-numbing boring auto assembly factory work. Robotics can even augment surgery (next video). Some worry about the loss of jobs to robotic technology: never mind repetitive mundane tasks are things that technology can handle well. They can operate under difficult conditions (remember plugging the BP broken pipes during the oil spill?), can cut more precisely with full-range motion, reach and operate in tight spaces, don't get tired or bored. We no longer have an agricultural economy; less than 2% of the population not only feeds America but exports to the rest of the world. There were still telephone operators while I was growing up.
I'll give another example. A well-known real estate developer in Houston at one time employed dozens of MBA's with calculators to work on proposal evaluations. My timesharing vendor employer at the time marketed a product called CASHFAST. It not only shrank the critical path and manpower to process a proposal, the technology now allowed the developer to consider deals in shorter time frames. I don't happen to believe having an MBA punching numbers into a calculator was a productive use of the MBA's time; the technology allowed them now to spend their work-time more productively, e.g., doing more value-added, ill-defined tasks. We consumers benefit from increases in productivity; lower prices free our savings and discretionary income.
How fast will new jobs develop? Here's what I know: labor regulations have exacerbated unemployment problems in Europe and to a lesser extent the US (but Democrats continue to want to push the same type policies) The government only defers the day of reckoning and increases uncertainty: for example, when will the Fed stop its insane ZIRP policy and various QE programs? The Fed should be very concerned about the dollar losing world reserve status. It's now down to about 60% globally and continuing to shrink. What this means is the Fed will find it is losing its ability to print itself out of trouble. It can't monetize the debt as a long-term strategy.
Why All the Pandering for the Middle Class Vote
Sowell on Obama
State Sen. Guillory (La) Leaves Democratic Party
Sen. Guillory is now the first state senator of color to serve in Louisiana as a Republican since Reconstruction. I don't think, as the senator himself noted, this is unexpected, because Guillory has had one of the more conservative Democrats, including pension reform. The final straw was partisan ObamaCare remarks by a Democratic chair. I don't think this is the start of a trend; Guillory switched parties in 2007 before running for the Louisiana legislature. But I think the message of failed social policies will become a bigger issue in future years as more black voters question how fruitful their captive support for the Dems has been, even under a black President:
On Friday, Guillory said he had come to disagree with the direction of the Louisiana Democratic Party, which he referred to as "the party of disappointment." He expressed his opposition with the party's stances on abortion, the Second Amendment, education and immigration.
"Today, the party of disappointment has moved away from the majority of Louisiana. They have moved away from the traditional values of most Americans," he said. "Their policies have encouraged the high teen birth rates, high school [drop] out rates, high incarceration rates and very high unemployment rates."I find the older I get, the less impressed I am with politics and politicians (although Bobby Jindal is high on my list of governors; he's done some impressive things with education and pension reform). Leviathan is rotting internally with gangrene spreading; we need leaders whom have the courage to amputate excess government.
Restrictions on Transactions Involving Bone Marrow
Some body parts or fluids can be regenerated (e.g., blood and bone marrow) and others can't (i.e., most body organs like kidneys). You can do a transaction for blood, excluded by a 1984 act, but marrow was irrationally defined as an organ with transactions prohibited. Now this case was resolved almost a year ago, but it's instructive to review the process. Providing an economic incentive will likely increase the supply available (simple supply-and-demand). From the Institute for Justice:
The Institute for Justice today announced a major legal victory for cancer patients and their families from across the nation when U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder declined to seek Supreme Court review of a March 2012 decision of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that compensating most bone- marrow donors is not a crime. This decision will give doctors and their patients a powerful tool in the fight against deadly blood diseases.
This landmark case began in October 2009 when the Institute for Justice filed suit against the U.S. Attorney General on behalf of cancer patients, the parents of children with deadly diseases, a renowned bone-marrow doctor, and a nonprofit group to challenge the prohibition on compensating bone-marrow donors set forth in the National Organ Transplant Act (NOTA) of 1984. NOTA made it a serious crime, punishable by up to five years in prison, to compensate someone for a human organ for transplantation. The Act defines bone marrow as an organ. A key fact in the case is that most bone-marrow transplants now occur using a technique that extracts marrow cells from the bloodstream (rather than through the hip, as was the traditional means of procuring bone marrow) and the process is very similar to donating blood.What kind of incentive? Here's what one organization planned, initially obstructed by NOTA:
MoreMarrowDonors.org wants to begin a pilot project to attract new members to a national bone marrow registry by offering up to $3,000 in scholarships, housing payments or charitable donations to volunteers whose bone marrow is a promising match for one of the thousands waiting for transplants.
Political Cartoon
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| Courtesy of Jerry Holbert and Townhall |
Simon & Garfunkel,"Scarborough Fair/Canticle". I watched "The Graduate"on a classic movies channel recently, and this is a key soundtrack tune. "Scarborough Fair" is a traditional British ballad including competing impossible demands of young lovers, e.g.
"Tell her to make me a cambric shirt,
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme;
Without a seam or needlework,
Then she shall be a true lover of mine."
"Tell him to buy me an acre of land,
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme;
Betwixt the salt water and the sea sand,
Then he shall be a true lover of mine."
In their version, Simon does a mix of male/female verses (tweaking the female verses for gender and minor rewording), while Garfunkel deftly interleaves verses of a reworked anti-war version of an earlier Simon tune, now called "Canticle", e.g.:
"War bellows blazing in scarlet battalions
Generals order their soldiers to kill
And to fight for a cause they have long ago forgotten."
The result is a timeless gorgeous but haunting arrangement (juxtaposing innocent young love with the ugliness of war), exquisite harmonies..
