Early Check-Out
Back when I used to think about doing myself in, I called it "Early Check-Out". As in, maybe I'll just go for early check-out.
I haven't thought about it in a long time (probably a good thing). But I recalled it while biking this morning. Not sure why. I'd rather be dead than exercising? If I swing left about a centimeter I will impale myself on that street sign?
Whatever the origin, it bothered me that, at age 60, I probably could no longer call it "early." So what other flip expression can I use to confront something monstrous like suicide?
Friday, July 30, 2010
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Stingers
Here at the confluence of the Mississippi, Missouri, and Illinois rivers, the intersection of the continent's biggest watershed, it's hot. Steamy hot. I was worried that while off on vacation the garden would dry up, but nuh-uh. It's the Amazon. While trying to do a little pruning at 6 a.m. I was stung on the hand. I wondered what kind of tropical bug had invaded - maybe something big and green, with a curly tail? - but it turned out to be a plain Midwestern wasp. Waited for the rush of whatever these stings are supposed to bring to your head, but it was just a sting.
"Wasp" is the handle for Lizbeth Salander, currently the coolest woman in the world. It's funny to those of us who remember the old secondary meaning for "wasp" - an acronym for White Anglo Saxon Protestant, and kind of an emblem for the male power structure in America. Lizbeth's the polar opposite. Since it's in translation, I wonder if it's coincidence.
But there are no coincidences, right?
Here at the confluence of the Mississippi, Missouri, and Illinois rivers, the intersection of the continent's biggest watershed, it's hot. Steamy hot. I was worried that while off on vacation the garden would dry up, but nuh-uh. It's the Amazon. While trying to do a little pruning at 6 a.m. I was stung on the hand. I wondered what kind of tropical bug had invaded - maybe something big and green, with a curly tail? - but it turned out to be a plain Midwestern wasp. Waited for the rush of whatever these stings are supposed to bring to your head, but it was just a sting.
"Wasp" is the handle for Lizbeth Salander, currently the coolest woman in the world. It's funny to those of us who remember the old secondary meaning for "wasp" - an acronym for White Anglo Saxon Protestant, and kind of an emblem for the male power structure in America. Lizbeth's the polar opposite. Since it's in translation, I wonder if it's coincidence.
But there are no coincidences, right?
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Where are the Grown-Ups?
Once again, current American politics is facing a serious problem: financiers in global firms that have way too little market or risk discipline. And once again the politicians answer by delivering us a piece of crap, the 2010 financial "reform" legislation. It didn't need to be; there were some interesting ideas floating around. (My own personal favorites are to breathe life back into the Clayton Act, and to pass a 21st century version of Glass-Steagall.) But the lawmakers in this sorry excuse for a legislative branch just want to make their political points and move on.
I think the Republicans deserve particular opprobrium from those of us who believe that the best solutions are free markets with goods and services that are properly priced. They did it before with Obamacare; they are doing it now with financial services legislation. These so-called conservatives think it is better for the country to let the Democrats pass massive legislation that is 80 percent crap than to fight and work to produce legislation that is 30 percent crap. Their calculus must be - let Obama and the Democratic hoist themselves with this stuff and we will pick up seats in Congress, and (oh joy of joys!) maybe beat the guy in his next election.
In the meantime, we get junk legislation that will never be repealed and the real problems in the country go unresolved.
What a waste. There are intelligent ways to address things like, say, over $30 trillion in unfunded Medicare liability. (That amount, by the way, is just about inconceivable.) Representative Ryan from Wisconsin, who is one of maybe ten grown-ups in the Congress, has such a plan, and it will probably lose him his job.
In the private world, a serious-sounding intelligent person with good arguments can usually hold the floor, change minds, and even inspire some measure of long-term perspective. Beats me why can't this be in the public world, but obviously it can't.
Once again, current American politics is facing a serious problem: financiers in global firms that have way too little market or risk discipline. And once again the politicians answer by delivering us a piece of crap, the 2010 financial "reform" legislation. It didn't need to be; there were some interesting ideas floating around. (My own personal favorites are to breathe life back into the Clayton Act, and to pass a 21st century version of Glass-Steagall.) But the lawmakers in this sorry excuse for a legislative branch just want to make their political points and move on.
I think the Republicans deserve particular opprobrium from those of us who believe that the best solutions are free markets with goods and services that are properly priced. They did it before with Obamacare; they are doing it now with financial services legislation. These so-called conservatives think it is better for the country to let the Democrats pass massive legislation that is 80 percent crap than to fight and work to produce legislation that is 30 percent crap. Their calculus must be - let Obama and the Democratic hoist themselves with this stuff and we will pick up seats in Congress, and (oh joy of joys!) maybe beat the guy in his next election.
In the meantime, we get junk legislation that will never be repealed and the real problems in the country go unresolved.
What a waste. There are intelligent ways to address things like, say, over $30 trillion in unfunded Medicare liability. (That amount, by the way, is just about inconceivable.) Representative Ryan from Wisconsin, who is one of maybe ten grown-ups in the Congress, has such a plan, and it will probably lose him his job.
In the private world, a serious-sounding intelligent person with good arguments can usually hold the floor, change minds, and even inspire some measure of long-term perspective. Beats me why can't this be in the public world, but obviously it can't.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Back to the Republic of Equity
Where I was when things derailed.
For centuries there was a huge societal bias against debt. Good Christians were not allowed to be moneylenders. Debtors went to prison, not Chapter 7. The attitude seems punitive, archaic, vaguely antisemitic.
But maybe there was some ancient truth at play, one we could rediscover and reapply.
Debt means you use property you don't own. You borrow land, or a lawnmower, or most frequently - money. And you take this property you don't own and you use it now, because otherwise you'd have to wait and use it later (if you acquire it at all). Otherwise, and in the meantime, you have to go without.
The alternative, the going without, interests me. Many times I've found not having things meant finding substitutes that turned out just fine. When you go somewhere where's no Internet, no power, no telephone: you go to candles, and reading by lamplight, and talking.
What would happen if all the non-emergency debt were liquidated? Would we go to candles and conversation around campfires? I don't think so. But we might go to no 3-D TV, no 5000 square-foot houses, no $200 lunches.
That may be nothing to fear. But it also could be more painful than that, much more, what we really do fear, and so we kick the can down the road.
Where I was when things derailed.
For centuries there was a huge societal bias against debt. Good Christians were not allowed to be moneylenders. Debtors went to prison, not Chapter 7. The attitude seems punitive, archaic, vaguely antisemitic.
But maybe there was some ancient truth at play, one we could rediscover and reapply.
Debt means you use property you don't own. You borrow land, or a lawnmower, or most frequently - money. And you take this property you don't own and you use it now, because otherwise you'd have to wait and use it later (if you acquire it at all). Otherwise, and in the meantime, you have to go without.
The alternative, the going without, interests me. Many times I've found not having things meant finding substitutes that turned out just fine. When you go somewhere where's no Internet, no power, no telephone: you go to candles, and reading by lamplight, and talking.
What would happen if all the non-emergency debt were liquidated? Would we go to candles and conversation around campfires? I don't think so. But we might go to no 3-D TV, no 5000 square-foot houses, no $200 lunches.
That may be nothing to fear. But it also could be more painful than that, much more, what we really do fear, and so we kick the can down the road.
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Coincidence
For some reason, today I am settling for a client the biggest insurance claim of my career, on Monday we close one of the biggest divestitures of my career, and on Tuesday Valerie the Westie and I drive East, starting the longest vacation I have taken in 30 years.
What else can I say but
God is great.
For some reason, today I am settling for a client the biggest insurance claim of my career, on Monday we close one of the biggest divestitures of my career, and on Tuesday Valerie the Westie and I drive East, starting the longest vacation I have taken in 30 years.
What else can I say but
God is great.
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