Visual Thinking and Occasional Odds and Ends

Yes, our constitution is a failure.  And no , I don't want to move to Russia. Following the Connecticut shooting, we heard suggestions that the second amendment was no longer relevant – and then came the outrage from those who cannot accept any thought that our constitution may not be perfect.  Well guess what, it isn’t!  The central principal of our founding document is the separation of powers.  While this may make certain forms of tyranny impossible, it also impedes problem solving. In the 20 th century, when it came time for new republics to draft a constitution, they copied the parliamentary model, not our peculiar form of government.  Our founders may have guessed right with the bill of rights and an independent judiciary – but their guesses about the rest were just that, guesses.         Starting with the administration of George Washington, the process of securing  senatorial approval for ap...

The “true meaning of Christmas” is not a contained in a scene of a poor baby lying in a manger with animals talking and shepherds watching.  Nor did the sky erupt with angels and song when Jesus’ was born. Jesus was real, and so was John the Baptist, but what they did and why is far harder to say.  If there is any “real” meaning to Christmas, it is in Christ’s moral teachings.   Here are Dickens’ own words on Christmas: “Remember! — It is Christianity To Do Good always — even to those who do evil to us. It is Christianity to love our neighbor as ourself, and to do to all men as we would have them Do to us. It is Christianity to be gentle, merciful, and forgiving, and to keep those qualities quiet in our own hearts …” I’m with Dickens.   As for the Christmas story itself, the Gospels don’t agree.  And the story that has been cobbled together makes no sense.  The idea that the Romans would ask folks to move ba...

Ok, he didn't say all of this, but the conservative idiocracy has already started up with how we no longer teach the Ten Commandments in school.  By the way, the Texas tower shooter in the 60s grew up with this in his schools, so I'm not all that impressed with the value of the Ten Commandments.   And the thugs who terrorized civil rights workers in the South, they too knew their Bible.  So again, not impressed. And if you think this through, the NRA has turned the guns don't kill people slogan on its head.  So now its not guns, nor the shooters.  Its the video games and lack of armed guards etc etc. Fucked up, really.

I took a picture from a Halloween parade in the mid 1980s and added accessories as suggested by the NRA. The adults are smiling.  And if you could see the kids faces you would see a range of emotions from confusion to expectation.  (Kids are often confused). I don't think the rifles help at all. ........  By the way, with education budgets tight, where do we get the money to pay for new armed guards for every public school.  I wonder what our founding fathers would make of all this.  I suspect they would think we'd gone crazy.

Yes... about guns.   If now is not the time to talks about guns, when can we? As soon as you mention controlling the sale of guns, you get push back by gun advocates who warn that all that gun laws to is stop law abiding citizens from having guns.   The also want you to assume that the commerce in illegal guns is like that for drugs (unstoppable). But guns and drugs are not at all the same.   Drugs can be transported in some really unusual ways (like in the gut of a person).   Drugs can also be made in home labs using fairly crude methods (think of math labs).   Guns are the product of careful machining.   Though crude weapons can be made with the sorts of pipe used by plumbers, and bullets can be cast at home with lead, a gun that can fire lots of bullets without jamming needs to be made in a machine shop, to close tolerances, with low expansion steel. The bullets too must be carefully crafted. And yes, even “modern” armies have relied...

When America Made Things, This Place Was Important

The economists were wrong. Yep, wrong. About everything! Ok not about everything. They are great at gathering data; if you are a manufacturer and want to examine your prices to see just where you become profitable, your should hire an economist to figure it out. They are great at sweating the small stuff. But macroeconomics? It’s for the shit birds (my mothers favorite expression). Let me compare economics to engineering. Both disciplines are essentially applied mathematics. Economics applies higher math to social science, engineering uses mathematics to solve practical problems in physics and chemistry (sometimes even in biology). Both even start with the same broad thinking, what I might call a back of the napkin calculation. But then economists takes what is a simple idea too far. Here is how engineers approach a problem – let’s try global warming. The engineer may dream up several schemes, such as imagining devices placed in the atmosphere to r...

I enjoy reading letters to the editor and even more so reader comments. The writers may think that they are showing off their individualism, but I see them as fitting into categories. There are the local lights (local politicians, college professors, member of the clergy), then there are the gasbag/know-it-alls (these are the folks who write all the time, and get published too - I fit into this goup); there are the ingénues – new at the game and excited to be published. Then we a fairly new category, these are members of the right wing echo chamber. Today’s post will focus on the echo chamber. They are very interested in keeping taxes low, and reducing government spending. They see global warming as a conspiracy and environmentalists as tree huggers and sissies. They believe that the free market will solve all our problems. Oh, they also love guns and hunting. Their letters reflect a modest education and limited intellectual tools. If they have more than a high schoo...

What now for Republicans? Maybe nothing. Certainly our local assemblyman in Morris County will be elected without changing his positions. So too will most Republican Congressmen. House districts are safe by design (so much for representative democracy). Still, following the Romney defeat, Republicans must be asking themselves, is this as good as it gets? After several decades of a joint effort by Fox News and conservative radio to craft a counter narrative to ideas from the mainstream press, the nation remains unimpressed with conservative ideas - don’t worry, the nation is also unimpressed with liberal ideas. The majority of Americans accept that the social safety is a good idea. Most also agree that those who are better off should pay higher taxes. Obama won a second term while campaigning on this very issue. Even freedom means different things to different people. Republicans thought they had made this year a referendum on freedom. But if you are a worker who wou...