Jettison the 'meh;' embrace the 'wow.'

The nature of collecting anything is that there are seasons of intense acquisition, and seasons pruning back.

I've been collecting two things most of my life: recorded music and musical instruments.

One of the things that I know about myself is that I am not a "completist." I am happiest when my collection is the right size. For example, when I own too many musical instruments, duplication makes me less happy. I am happiest when each instrument I own has a strong identity and defined purpose. When I can take that instrument down from the wall, I instantly know what I am going to do with it, how it will feel, what specific sounds it will make. It's like catching up with an old friend. So rather than own lots of musical instruments, I try to own the very best example of each instrument that I can find and afford, and forge a lasting personal connection with it.

Late last year, after more than a year of intense acquisition and back filling my music collection with the very best source files I could find (I am a huge fan of 24-bit 192kHz source because they are almost always superbly mixed and mastered by people who really care, and I can appreciate the difference in fidelity), I found that my music collection had grown to more than 15,000 songs. The problem at this point was clutter. So much of the music I really loved was buried in the clutter of music I merely liked. Even worse, some of this music was only stuff that I was supposed to like, or stuff my brain told me I should like, but for any number of reasons never set off that tuning fork in my heart.

I decided that my mission for the coming year would be shift gears from acquisition to pruning. I would ask myself one simple question about the music in my collection:

'Wow' or 'meh?'

I force myself to not think about it too hard. It's a simple question. I'm after my visceral response, not my intellectual rationalization.

I'm about 6 weeks into this mission. I find that I am happier with about 4,000 songs that I really love.

Sometimes more doesn't equate to greater happiness. There is a profound Zen-like peace to having just enough of the right stuff. Abraham Maslow understood this. Thoreau understood this.

It seems to me that there are broader implications here. To what degree would I be happier if I jettisoned the 'meh' and embraced the 'wow' in other areas of my life?

Copyright 2013 by The Peripatetic Papers. Permission to copy and distribute granted as long as this copyright notice appears.

Our military is bleeding us dry - part deux

This is a coda to my last post, Our military is bleeding us dry. This is an important enough issue that I can't promise that there won't be a part trois.

I wanted to juxtapose a couple of ideas here: the insane spending on our military with the actual cost of government, which I discussed over a year ago in the The Billion Dollar Big Mac.

To review, given the current population of the United States (312 billion), every time the Federal Government proposes to spend a billion dollars on anything, every citizen's equal-weighted share of that expense is approximately $3.20.

So every citizen's share of our current defense budget is $2,279. A family of four's equal-weighted share is $9,115.

So the question I would ask is, "Is occupying foreign countries and killing Muslims (both soldiers and civilians) really worth the cost?" Oh sure, it's as morally reprehensible as the crusades were. But as a country, we seem to gloss right over that. My hope would be that attaching a pragmatic cost to indulging our anger, bigotry, and irrational fears, might prompt a meaningful discussion about all of this.

Another thing that occurs to me is that the United States just needs to grow up. Only spoiled brats and bullies think that they can have their way all the time. Folks, that's just how our foreign policy looks to the rest of the world. No wonder most of world loathes us.

Other countries in the top 11 for military expenditures have all had their days in the sun. The United Kingdom (#4), Japan (#6), Germany (#9) and Italy (#11) all at one time had vast and powerful empires that aspired to rule the world.

All have apparently learned their lesson (the hard way) that it's better to keep their imperialist members in their pants, and to work well and play well with others. It's worth noting that all of these countries spend less than 1/10 of what the United States spends on the military. None of them in recent memory have expressed any sort of trepidation about their national security either.

I truly believe that these older and wiser nations just roll their eyes at the United States. And well they should. We are embarrassing and bankrupting ourselves in a very public fashion. And spreading misery and destruction as we do so.

We seriously need to have a national dialogue about what sort of nation we really are (not what sort of nation we imagine we are), and what sort of nation we really want to be.

Copyright 2012 by The Peripatetic Papers. Permission to copy and distribute granted as long as this copyright notice appears.

Our military is bleeding us dry

On January 17, 1961, in his farewell address to the nation, President Dwight Eisenhower famously warned the nation that:

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."

As I write this in December 2012, the USA is currently struggling with immense budget deficits. Much of that due to disastrous and expensive wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It's bad enough that these wars were not paid for by additional taxes (the first time in US history), but simultaneously the Federal government under President George Bush actually cut taxes. That is extremely irrational behavior. Large budgets deficits are the only reasonable outcome that could be expected.

This chart, provided by the non-profit Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (cbpp.org), shows that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the so-called "Bush Tax Cuts" are major contributors to the current United States fiscal woes.



According to the non-profit Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), these are the 2012 military expenditures for the top 11 industrialized nations (in billions of dollars):

1	United States	711
2	China	143
3	Russia	71.9
4	United Kingdom	62.7
5	France	62.5
6	Japan	59.3
7	Saudi Arabia	48.2
8	India	46.8
9	Germany	46.7
10	Brazil	35.4
11	Italy	34.5

As you can see, the USA out spends the next 10 nations combined ($711 billion vs. $611 billion).

Even if I accept for the sake of argument that China and Russia are our enemies (due to geographical proximity, they are actually much more likely to go to war with each other, than with the USA), we could cut our defense spending by $495 billion per year (or approximately 70% from our current level) and still out spend both of those countries combined.

Does anyone reasonably expect that any of these nations is going to conquer us militarily? For if they did so, they would immediately sacrifice the largest consumer market on the planet for their goods. Assuming they could even do so, would China really sacrifice the entire export portion of its economy to show up armed on our doorstep to enslave us? The answer is obviously 'no.' That would immediately plunge their own country into a painful prolonged economic depression.

It's worth noting that the United States actually provides foreign aid to the #3 and #7 nations, Russia and Saudi Arabia, respectively. If at some point they become a military threat, withdrawing our foreign aid would every bit as effective (if not more so) than invading and occupying them.

The United States military is still configured to fight a 20th century conflict. The kind that involved vast numbers of ground troops fighting hand-to-hand with another vast army of ground troops (think WWI and WWII). These kinds of conflicts require lots of soldiers and lots of expensive hardware and logistics. Our aging Generals who talk of "projecting our might around the world" are fighting last century's wars. 

Furthermore, the imperialist idea that one nation can successfully conquer and occupy another has not been borne out since the British Empire faded into the sunset. When was the last time you heard of that happening? The French failed to conquer and occupy Viet Nam. The Russians failed to conquer and occupy Afghanistan. The world as a whole joined together and quickly rebuffed Iraq's attempt to conquer and occupy Kuwait (Gulf War I).

The obvious first step to solve the USA's current fiscal woes is to stop picking fights around the world and to scale back our military to be more in line with what the rest of the developed world spends. This alone could save us nearly $500 billion per year. Money we could use to build our country's infrastructure, to provide basic health care for our citizens (we are the only nation in the previous list that does not do that), to provide a top-notch eduction for our citizens (The United States ranks 17th in the developed world for education).

Let's please stop the madness. The military is bleeding us dry. As a nation, our anger, our bigotry, our irrational paranoid fears of anyone who does not look or sound like us have become luxuries we can no longer afford (if indeed, we ever could). We can no longer afford to wage ideologically driven crusades against any nation we deem to be "evil." Never mind that in our Orwellian double-speak world of microscopically short attention spans, a nation deemed to be evil today can become a close ally down the road.

The only entities that benefit from war are the defense contractors and their stockholders. The "military industrial complex" President Eisenhower warned of.  Let's drive a stake through the heart of this vampire and get on with the business of minding our own business and moving our country forward.

Copyright 2012 by The Peripatetic Papers. Permission to copy and distribute granted as long as this copyright notice appears.

"This machine kills fascists"

Woody Guthrie, the famous folk singer, had "This machine kills fascists" on the front of his guitar.


I've been thinking a lot about fascism lately. I don't for a moment think that Woody had Mussolini in mind when he put that on the front of his guitar. No, I think Woody had in mind a more insidious kind of fascism... a home grown variety.

These days I'm deeply concerned about the kind of fascism that seeks to turn our society into a quasi-theocracy. This is primarily motivated by the mistaken notion that we once were one (we weren't, not even close).

Fascism thrives on ignorance, for ignorant people tend not to be able to process nuance. With its promises of easy answers and absolute conformity, fascism seduces the dimwitted among us.

What exactly is the problem with just being tolerant of our neighbor? Isn't tolerance the embodiment of the Golden Rule: "So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets" (Matthew 7:12 NIV).

Can't we all just get along?

Peace, 'Mo Spheric

Copyright 2012 by The Peripatetic Papers. Permission to copy and distribute granted as long as this copyright notice appears.

Emily, David and Economies Of Scale

By now, many folks have read the Letter to Emily White at NPR All Songs Considered blog post by David Lowery.In a nutshell, it's yet another music industry insider attempting to make the case for why music downloading is irreparably harming the music industry.

I'd like to set aside any moralizing about downloading music and concentrate directly on some economic aspects of this situation.

The Problems

• Record companies cling to an outdated uncompetitive pricing model
• The delivery system is badly broken
• For the most part, what's available for download is crap at any price

The music industry needs to wake up and smell the coffee... what the free marketplace is clearly saying is that, "every song ever recorded is not worth $1 in some crappy lossy format."

The current music industry pricing model continues to be based on a brick-and-mortar paradigm, in which music is physically produced, distributed and shipped to a retail store, where it is eventually sold to a consumer. Pricing strata allows each pair of hands to make something on the transaction.

There is absolutely no reason whatsoever that digital music has to be priced using a brick-and-mortar pricing model. Anytime a business cuts out the middle men, the consumers should benefit. That is if the business wishes to remain competitive.

Note that book publishers have already figured this out. Compare the cost of a New York Times bestseller in print (~$30) to a Kindle download of the same content (often less than half that much).

The current delivery system is badly broken. In many many cases, it is not possible to purchase back catalog content in a quality format by doing anything other than purchasing a physical CD from a retailer. In many cases that CD purchase will be a used CD because that's the only way to obtain the content in an acceptable format. While buying used CDs is entirely legal, not a red cent of a used CD sale goes to the artist, songwriters or record label. How can it be that in 2012 artists and record labels cannot figure out a way to capture that income stream? Why is it easier to buy a used physical CD than it is to download a back catalog song in a quality format such as FLAC? Isn't that a problem?

This is a bit of a tangential issue, but many back catalog artists aren't seeing any royalties whatsoever and this is actually a form of exploitation by the music industry. Many of these folks would be grateful for any income at all. The reason their music cannot be bought at any price in a lossless format is that the record companies have deemed it to be unprofitable to "put into print." Note the outdated "print" metaphor. Today, all that is necessary to capture back catalog income is to convert a song into a digital format and make it available for sale. You don't have to "print" anything, or produce a physical CD and packaging. All you have to do is host it on a web server. See how backward the music industry thinking is? They would rather blame "evil downloaders" than actually make music available for download in a quality format at a reasonable price.

The last major problem is that providing downloadable music in a crappy lossy format shows a complete lack of respect for the content by the music industry. Listen guys, music is art. Fidelity matters. You wouldn't put up with viewing a Monet painting as a wireframe. 

Record labels, if you want people to respect and value your content, you have to take the lead. A quality lossless format such as FLAC should be the standard format for a commercial transaction. If you wish to provide songs in a crappier format, do it as a loss leader. Sell it for less or give it away free as a promotion. Why not charge by the megabyte instead of per song? That would automatically pay you more for better quality (and larger files). Crazy talk, I know.

A Case Study
Consider the movie industry. When VCRs were first introduced in the 1980s, the movie industry was certain that it spelled the end of their industry. The Chicken Littles declared that the sky was falling because the ability to "pirate" (record) back catalog movies from broadcast TV feeds would bankrupt them. When new VCR movies became available for home rental, there was even more histrionic handwringing.

Flash forward to today. Not only has this not occurred, but the reality is that many if not most new movies don't really turn a profit in the theaters. It's only when home sales and rentals are factored in that most movies become profitable.

So what did the movie industry do? Well, first they realized that high prices ($60-$80 per movie) were preventing a lot of folks from owning movies. So they slashed prices to less than $30 per movie (much less for back catalog movies, more about that later). The resultant increase in sales more than made up for the decrease in unit price. This is called "economies of scale," and it is a very powerful thing indeed.

Another thing the movie industry has done is embrace newer technologies such as Blu-Ray, which provide an improved user experience. The movie industry is now enjoying that holy grail of intellectual property compensation - people are paying yet again to own the same content in another (improved) format.

The Solution

In a nutshell, I believe that only workable solution for the recorded music industry is to:

• Price content competitively
• Fix the distribution system

Right now music lovers are clearly demonstrating that they are willing to pay something to own the music they love. Even so-called "free downloading" costs something in the form of Internet bandwidth, file sharing accounts, local disk storage, etc.

Even buying used CDs, ripping them to a lossless digital format, then reselling the CD (aka, "rip and flip"), still nets out to $3-$4 per album to own the music, and it comes with a lot of hassle and extra costs.

Music industry, pay attention. There is an observable price point at which music sells (and it's not zero as some would have you believe). My own anecdotal evidence suggests that the tipping point is at about 20-25 cents per back catalog song (10-15 cents would be better) and no more than $4 per complete back catalog album, delivered in a quality lossless format such as FLAC. Note that this pricing is almost exactly what David Lowery asks Emily to pay the artists for the material she has already downloaded.

Fix the distribution system so that consumers can buy what they want, when they want it. There is absolutely no excuse (except for ineptitude and laziness) that back catalog content should be easier to purchase as a used physical CD than it is to download from some web server. Capture that income stream for your artists. It's just good business.

Finally, quit whining about how downloading is killing the music industry. Your stupidity is killing your industry. If you don't believe me, have lunch with some of your friends in the film industry and ask them how their business is doing.

Copyright 2012 by The Peripatetic Papers. Permission to copy and distribute granted as long as this copyright notice appears.

Spraying to all fields...

In honor of baseball, here's my off-the-top-of-my-head thoughts for this week...

Right now, there seems to be two absolutely certain losing investments: Treasuries and Apple.

Treasuries have been hovering near record low yields for years as the Fed (desperately) tries to rescue the American economy from disaster. It looks like they may pulled that one off, but there's just no way interest rates are staying this low as far as the eye can see. At some point, rates will rise from these historic lows and holders of Treasuries will see massive capital losses on these positions. Yes, one can be philosophical and say that all you have to do is hold them to maturity and collect the (meager) coupon, but I'm guessing that retail investors holding these aren't prepared for the shock to the bottom line of their IRA and 401k statements. And shock it will be.

I cannot remember the last time I heard someone say anything negative about Apple. That's a sure sign that a bubble has inflated. It's over-the-top outrageous that the largest company on the planet makes consumer gadgets. They don't grow food, or manufacture anything essential to life on this planet, they make gadgets. Think about that for a moment. Don't get me wrong, I own a bunch of them personally, but at some point the demand will top out, or things will change to the point that folks will decide they can bypass the latest new thing. It's also worthy of noting that companies have life cycles. Remember a few years back when Microsoft and Cisco seemed poised to conquer the world? Nothing ever lasts forever. But as someone once said, "markets have the ability to remain irrational longer than any investor can remain solvent."

What does it mean to be a "fan?"

The current state of the Dodgers and Lakers have had me ruminating on this for some time. Does a "true fan" (whatever that is) swear undying allegiance to a name or symbol, or should fan-hood reflect something deeper? Perhaps a commitment to values (I think Steeler's fans get this one)? Don't get me wrong, I always like to see the Dodgers and Lakers do well, especially when the entire organization seems committed to winning. But in the case of the Dodgers, the McCourt's so showed a lack of respect to the tradition... to the name, that I couldn't really consider myself a fan during their ownership. If any owners stood for the wrong things, it was the McCourts. Good riddance.

Also, petulant spoiled players don't do a whole lot for me. I'm not sure Andrew Bynum is ever going to care enough to be the kind of great player he obviously has the potential to be. He's caught a virulent case of "Lamar Odom" disease. Dwight Howard? Gimme a break.

Finally, something a bit less controversial: politics.

Listen, it works like this... as soon as politicians get elected, they have to start selling their vote (to lobbyists connected to special interests and potentially wealthy campaign contributors) and compromising whatever little integrity they may have once had in order to get re-relected. Furthermore, most politicians (especially members of congress) are judged by the electorate on how much stuff they return to their constituents, and how discounted to fair market value that stuff is. Unfortunately, this is a zero-sum game: every dollar of stuff that appears to be free or drastically discounted to one constituency is taken directly out of the pocket of another, or gets piled upon future generations as national debt. This is why things never ever change.

Follow-on thought: this is why Republicans have zero credibility with me when they get all hawkish on debt reduction. I've lost track of the number of things that were supposed to impose fiscal restraint and discipline on government (Gramm-Rudman-Hollings, Contract With America, etc., etc.). The last American President to propose a balanced budget was Bill Clinton (a Democrat). George W. Bush (a Republican) spent money like a drunken sailor. I'm a big believer of "walking the talk," and for me the Republicans get a failing grade on this one. What's the likelihood that folks spewing the same old rhetoric are actually going to start behaving differently? Less than zero IMHO.

Copyright 2012 by The Peripatetic Papers. Permission to copy and distribute granted as long as this copyright notice appears.

Born On Third Base

I recently read a New York Times op ed piece by Jonathan Haidt called "How to Get the Rich to Share the Marbles" which has profoundly affected my thinking on fairness. What really impresses me about this piece is that it's not simply someone offering their opinion, but rather basing their opinion on some pretty compelling behavioral studies. It's a fascinating read and I highly recommend it.

Near the end, Mr. Haidt concludes:

If the Democrats really want to get moral psychology working for them, I suggest that they focus less on distributive fairness — which is about whether everyone got what they deserved — and more on procedural fairness—which is about whether honest, open and impartial procedures were used to decide who got what. If there’s a problem with the ultra-rich, it’s not that they have too much wealth, it’s that they bought laws that made it easy for them to gain and keep so much more wealth in recent decades.

I couldn't agree more with this observation.

For example, the aspect of Occupy Wall Street that really resonates with me is their assessment of the problem (the richest 1% enjoy special access and privileges the rest of us don't and this results in an inherently unfair society), not necessarily some of the proposed remedies (make government bigger and tax the wealthy to pay for it).

I am at my core a freedom loving citizen. The idea of big government redistributing wealth from the top down just makes me shudder.

So I find myself squarely in the "procedural fairness" camp and not very much at all in the "distributive fairness" camp.

Now, as an independent centrist sort of person, I am deeply grieved that the prevailing conservative position seems to be, "Problem? What problem? The American dream is alive and well. Absolutely anyone can become a gazillionaire. The real problem is that most people just don't try hard enough." Really? 

Years ago (Oklahoma Football) Coach Barry Switzer observed, "Some people are born on third base and go through life thinking they hit a triple." 

Remind you of anyone?

Copyright 2012 by The Peripatetic Papers. Permission to copy and distribute granted as long as this copyright notice appears.

Label Slapping

I believe that the human brain is fundamentally wired to impose order on the world we perceive. This tendency seems to be hardwired in our DNA. Indeed, the Bible records that Adam's first assignment from God was to name (label) all the animals.

Labels are exceedingly useful. Up to a point.

Unfortunately, there is also a dark side to labels. Labels can also be used to dehumanize and dismiss the ideas of people who don't neatly fit into what we might consider to be an "approved" category.

We see it all the time, don't we? So and so is a (pick one) {liberal | conservative | atheist | Christian | Jew | Muslim | Catholic | Protestant | vegan | environmentalist}. Therefore, I get to dismiss his or her ideas without even properly considering what he or she might have to say.

The fact that I witness this sort of behavior from otherwise intelligent and caring people is all the more disappointing to me. I cannot help but think less of folks who do this. It's as if everything they say from that point forward has to have an asterisk attached to it.

It seems to me that the best path to personal wisdom and peacefully coexisting with one another is to focus less on slapping arbitrary labels on one another (and therefore giving ourselves permission to dehumanize entire groups of people and deride their ideas en masse), but instead focus more on the merit of specific ideas, wherever and from whomever they might originate.

Crazy talk, I know.

Copyright 2012 by The Peripatetic Papers. Permission to copy and distribute granted as long as this copyright notice appears.

Secret Decoder Ring

My previous post Parable Of The Buffet was a nod in the direction of Aesop, Charles Dickens, Jonathan Swift, and yes... Jesus.

Well, even Jesus had to explain his parables to those closest to him. So here goes...

• The rich man represents the super rich and powerful; the other diners represent everyone else. 
• The restaurant represents the current political-financial system in which the rich receive favored treatment and special access. 
• The rich man's speech represents the "American way free market capitalism prosperity" propaganda of the super rich and powerful. While they never acknowledge playing by an entirely different set of rules. 
• The tainted food represents toxic assets and predatory lending practices that caused the 2007-2008 financial meltdown. 

Copyright 2012 by The Peripatetic Papers. Permission to copy and distribute granted as long as this copyright notice appears.

Parable Of The Buffet

There once was a town. In this town was a restaurant famous the world over for its sumptuous buffet, piled high with the finest meats, seafoods, confections and exotic delights... all you can eat for $12.95.

In that town there also lived a rich and powerful man. This man was so rich that his wealth exceeded all the remaining wealth of the town combined.

This rich man was so wealthy and powerful that the restaurant owner feared upsetting the man. To ensure that the restaurant always enjoyed the rich man's favor, the owner agreed to charge the man only $1 for his meal, and to allow him into the restaurant a full hour before any other diners.

This continued for many years. Eventually, the rich man would consume as much food as 50 grown men at each meal. Then, after eating his fill, the rich man would fill many additional plates with food just so he could gaze at all the food he might have eaten.

This arrangement made the rich man so happy that he would often rise out of his chair and exclaim in a loud voice to the whole restaurant of diners, "Of all the restaurants in all the world, this restaurant is truly a marvel. Where else can any man rich or poor feast like a King and eat his fill for only $12.95!" He would say this even though he had himself only paid $1 for his meal and had enjoyed the choicest dishes before other diners were even allowed inside the restaurant.

This continued for many more years until the restaurant would often run out of food. Of course the rich man continued to enjoy the choicest dishes. But eventually the restaurant had to start serving table scraps to the other diners. They cleverly disguised this rancid food with rich sauces, dazzling spreads and exotic sounding names. Eventually, some of the diners got sick and one man even died from eating these tainted leftovers.

So what's the moral to the story? Why there is none. There is nothing moral or just about any of this. How does the story end? Time will tell.

Copyright 2012 by The Peripatetic Papers. Permission to copy and distribute granted as long as this copyright notice appears.

Free Thinker? I Resemble That Remark.

For the next few moments, let's set aside the relative merits of the atheist vs. faith debate. This is not what I want to write about today. Furthermore, I'm not convinced that such issues can be settled by debate.

What concerns me today is the co-opting of the term "free thinker" by a specific group of people.

If one had never heard the term, one might suspect that "free thinker" has something to say about how a person's mind works. That it might describe a class of persons who have the ability to correctly handle facts, discern nuances, ask probing questions, etc. In short, to be a critical thinker unfettered by unquestioned allegiance to anyone or anything.

However, in actual practice "free thinker" only means that the person in question has arrived at an atheistic world view. It has nothing whatsoever to do with how that person arrived at that world view, only that they arrived at it.

For example, someone who had not given the world we know much thought at all, would still be considered a "free thinker" if they merely decided to be a member of the atheist throng.

Conversely, I believe that it's entirely possible for someone to carefully consider the world in which we live and come to an entirely different conclusion: that the purely scientific argument does not sufficiently account for certain nuances in the data, and therefore the presence of a supreme being is a less-flawed working paradigm than the atheistic one.

So my main gripe with the co-opting of "free thinker" is that it is in fact a self-congratulatory social club. Think the way they want you to think, and you can be awarded the title of "free thinker." Disagree at all, and clearly you are not ready to ascend to such lofty heights. It is the ultimate Orwellian oxymoron. "You can't be truly free, until you let us do your thinking for you. Until we are allowed to approve your thoughts."

For me personally... trust me on this... when it comes to thinking for myself, I am no one's slave, nor am I blinded or deluded by anyone or anything. I have merely examined the same set of facts as others and come to a different conclusion. Never at any point was I the slightest bit interested in adopting a world view because I wanted to belong to some club (atheist, Christian, or any other). I have (and still do) seek the truth, to the extent that it can be known, given the inherent limitations of science, theology and our own consciousness at this particular moment in time. This is very much a work in progress.

So I would ask all the so-called "free thinkers" out there: Am I truly "free" to do my own thinking? Would I be more "free" if I let Christopher Hitchens do my thinking for me?

Free thinker? I resemble that remark. Proudly.

Note
-----
This post was originally posted many months prior to Mr. Hitchens' death. Unfortunately, on 2/3/12 I edited the label key words, which necessitated re-publishing. I didn't want anyone to think that I was either unaware or unsympathetic to Mr. Hitchens' passing.

Copyright 2012 by The Peripatetic Papers. Permission to copy and distribute granted as long as this copyright notice appears.

God vs. Man-Made Constructs

Last week a video by Jefferson Bethke went (very) viral. In case you haven't seen it yet, here's the link: Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus || Spoken Word.

As with anything this controversial, opinions vary widely. I've noticed that many who disagree with Mr. Bethke do so on the grounds that he misuses the term "religion." Many who disagree with him seem to define "religion" in very broad terms, in fact so broadly that they use the term to encapsulate god himself.

I think there's an important concept here and I believe that it applies universally to any religion. I am therefore going to forge ahead and do my best to avoid any comparative analysis of this religion versus that religion (although, again in the interest of full disclosure, I am a Christian).

Although "religion" seems to be one of those words loaded with many different meanings¹, the definition most folks agree upon is that a religion is a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices (or some reasonable facsimile thereof).

Religion is a system. It is a man-made construct that is analogous to science. For in the same way science seeks to explain the world around us, religion seeks to explain man's relationship to god.

I believe that it is critically important to not confuse the man-made construct with the actual thing. For example, as useful as the law of gravity is for predicting gravity's behavior (and possible adverse consequences), it is not gravity itself.

This brings me to the point of this post (Jeez, I thought you'd never get there):

Did god exist before religion?²

If yes, then god is outside of religion and cannot be contained in that artificial man-made construct called religion (a principle of defining a set of things is that by implication you also define what is not part of that set). This is my answer.

If no, I don't personally see how god can both be fully contained within and also be outside the man-made construct called religion. Therefore, this sort of god seems entirely man-made, completely subservient to the man-made construct that contains it.

So back to the video. I think what Mr. Bethke is really saying is that when folks make the man-made construct (Christian religion) more important than Jesus, some bad things happen. That is also what I believe.

This issue is very deep and nuanced. I've tried my best to stick to a single aspect of it. I've tried my best to be intellectually honest (not engage in gratuitous knocking down of straw men). I am trying to drive toward truth, not win an argument. In fact I generally feel that arguing about theology is pretty fruitless. It's not something that interests me all that much. But consistency and clarity of thought do interest me very much. No doubt some folks will pile in citing theological vagaries. I will post all civil comments, but I may not respond to many. I'm pretty comfortable with what I've said. But who knows... I've been wrong before.

Footnotes

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

1. Merriam-Webster online offers the following definitions for religion:
   
   • The service and worship of God or the supernatural
   • Commitment or devotion to religious faith or observance
   • A personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices
   • A cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith
   Wikipedia also offers these possible derivations:
   
   • A reduplication of le-ligare, an interpretation traced to Cicero connecting lego "read", i.e. re (again) + lego in the sense of "choose", "go over again" or "consider carefully".
   • From ligare "bind, connect", probably from a prefixed re-ligare, i.e. re (again) + ligare or "to reconnect,"
   
   It is interesting to me that a whole group of theology students have apparently been taught that this last derivation (re ligare) is undisputed truth. I'm always disappointed when scientists and teachers don't accurately bound the limits of their knowledge. It would be more correct to teach, "one possible derivation of religion is..." rather than be more definite than the facts warrant.
   In any case, when communicating, clarity demands that as much as possible, one should use words in the same way you expect your audience to understand them. Either that, or define them differently up front.
2. I realize that my atheist friends are dying to jump in and say, "god doesn't exist at all," but that is an entirely different conversation.

Copyright 2012 by The Peripatetic Papers. Permission to copy and distribute granted as long as this copyright notice appears.

Sometimes Wrong is Obvious

Once again, current events derailed my intentions to post something warm and fuzzy this week. Maybe next week.

By now, I doubt that anyone has not heard of the sick and tragic events that occurred at Penn State University. In a nutshell, a man who at one time coached for (Head Football Coach) Joe Paterno, is accused of sexually molesting a number of underage boys in the PSU athletic facilities.

This is disturbing enough. However, apparently the more important issue to some folks is whether or not Joe Paterno should have personally contacted the Police when he was informed about this situation by another person who witnessed the incident. Technically, Mr. Paterno did all that was required of him -- he notified school authorities, who it appears did not do what was required of them, which is to inform authorities. We're not talking jaywalking here; we're talking about the commission of a felony against a minor.

Some well meaning folks have suggested that it would have been irresponsible for Mr. Paterno to personally call the Police, because after all, this was all hear-say from his perspective -- Mr. Paterno did not actually witness any crime being committed. To contact authorities on the basis of hear-say evidence would have been an irresponsible breach of the alleged perpetrator's right to privacy, these folks go on to argue.

Let's get something perfectly clear right now. Calling the Police when you have any knowledge of a serious crime violates no one's civil rights. The reason Police investigate crimes is to collect evidence and otherwise ascertain whether or not a crime was committed. That's how it works in our society.

I am appalled beyond belief that any thinking human being could possibly put an alleged perpetrator's right to privacy ahead of the health and well being of actual human beings, children at that.

I rarely break off relationship with folks over ideas. I fully support the right of anyone to hold absolutely any belief they wish. As Jack Hayford used to say, "This is America. You have the right to be wrong if you wish." I have many many friends who disagree with me about many many things.

However, sadly for me this situation is a bit different. I just cannot imagine what sort of friendship (Facebook or otherwise) I might have with a person who believes that not stepping in to protect children is at all defensible after being advised that an adult is sodomizing children in a facility under their control.

It's not OK. It's appalling. It's wrong. It just is.

Copyright 2011 by The Peripatetic Papers. Permission to copy and distribute granted as long as this copyright notice appears.

I Am the 99%

I'm a bit vexed that the Occupy Wall Street movement is believed the be some sort of socialist movement. It's mostly my conservative-minded friends who seem to believe this. Try as I might, I cannot substantiate that. Their stated purpose is (from their web site):

Occupy Wall Street is leaderless resistance movement... The one thing we all have in common is that We Are The 99% that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1%.

The Occupy Wall Street movement is deliberately decentralized and has has made no demands on anybody. It merely posits that we the people should discussing these issues.

My mom will tell you that I never have been much of a joiner. But there's something about the OWS message that resonates with me. While my own small sampling is admittedly imperfect, I have personally read many "99% stories" that are from plain down-to-earth people who are simply saying, "Enough. This is wrong." Nothing more.

For better or worse, here's my 99% story.

I am the 99%. I'm 55. I've worked hard all my life and (except for the occasional traffic ticket) do my best to play by the rules. I do this because I believe a society without rules isn't a society. It's anarchy.

I'm as politically independent as I can possibly be -- I distrust all politicians more or less equally. I am pro-personal liberty and (very) pro-personal responsibility. I believe those are the values on which this country was founded. I don't care to meddle much in the lives of others. As long as no one holds a gun to my head and makes me do something I don't want to do, I'm perfectly happy letting other folks live their lives as they see fit even if I might disagree with some things they choose to do.

I didn't grow up rich or even graduate college. Whatever success I've experienced has been a convergence of opportunity and hard work.¹ My family and I are doing fine. We haven't lost our home. I still have a job.

I've never envied anyone else's success. It's never once occurred to me to ask that someone else give me part of what they've earned or make whole any losses I might have suffered. 

For the most part, until the 2008 financial meltdown, I believed that extraordinarily successful people were simply the ones willing to take bigger risks and put forth more effort than I, and that they were (and should be) duly rewarded for that.

That is until I (as a taxpayer) was asked to bail out some of the largest corporations on the planet. Furthermore, I was asked to do so in such a lavish manner as to provide bonuses, often tens of millions of dollars, to the very same people who's actions caused their companies to require this massive government aid.

It's worth noting that many of the so-called toxic assets that eventually sunk businesses such as Bear-Stearns and Lehman Brothers were largely left off of corporate balance sheets and therefore did not appear in quarterly SEC filings. This effectively meant that shareholders in these companies had no way of knowing the extent to which these corporations had irresponsibly gambled with their money, then hid those losses. This is the sort thing that I might expect in some third world banana republic, not the USA. Wasn't Sarbanes-Oxley supposed to improve accounting at the corporate level? How is this NOT a crime? Why aren't the CFOs who approved these bogus SEC filings in jail? 

Like many others, I suffered significant stock market losses in the 2008 financial debacle. It never crossed my mind to ask that I be bailed out. You see, I consider myself a "capitalist." I take personal responsibility for both my gains and my losses. 

From time to time, I accept that bailouts may be necessary. I don't like them, but I accept that from time to time they may happen. I think the world would be a better place if people didn't expect a bail out every time something went wrong. However, I take great exception to the money taken from my own pocket being used to fund outrageous bonuses during such bailouts. It's a double outrage to have suffered investment losses and then be asked to fund someone else's multi-million dollar bonus. Some folks even trivialized these bonuses as "rounding errors." I cannot begin to describe how outrageous I think that is.

Just as Holocaust survivors vow to "never forget," neither will I forget. The obscene wealth and privilege of the super-rich is not "free market capitalism," it's winning at a game that is rigged in their favor. The last time this much wealth was concentrated in the hands of this few people was 1928, immediately prior to the Great Depression. Many economists believe that it was a contributing factor.

I believe this sort of thing is bad for our country. I believe that we should be talking about it. This is why I am the 99%.

-------------------
1. I highly recommend Malcolm Gladwell's "Outliers: The Story of Success" for a great explanation of how circumstances beyond anyone's control contribute to success. It's a larger component than we realize.

Copyright 2011 by The Peripatetic Papers. Permission to copy and distribute granted as long as this copyright notice appears.

Klingon Programmers and French Military History

If that title didn't draw in few more readers, I'm in real trouble ;-)

I'm still treading water this week. I have a few things on my mind, but I haven't quite sorted them out well enough to write about them.

In the mean time, I know that my devoted readership (both people) expect their weakly dose of Atmospheric secret sauce. So here goes...

Top 10 Things Likely to Be Overheard From a Klingon Programmer
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
10. Specifications are for the weak and timid!
9. You question the worthiness of my code? I should kill you where you stand!
8. Indentation?! - I will show you how to indent when I indent your skull!
7. What is this talk of 'release'? Klingons do not make software 'releases'. Our software 'escapes' leaving a bloody trail of designers and quality assurance people in its wake.
6. Klingon function calls do not have 'parameters' - they have 'arguments' - and they ALWAYS WIN THEM.
5. Debugging? Klingons do not debug. Our software does not coddle the weak.
4. A TRUE Klingon Warrior does not comment on his code!
3. Klingon software does NOT have BUGS. It has FEATURES, and those features are too sophisticated for a Romulan pig like you to understand.
2. You cannot truly appreciate Dilbert unless you've read it in the original Klingon.
1. Our users will know fear and cower before our software! Ship it! Ship it and let them flee like the dogs they are!

French Military History in a Nutshell

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

• Gallic Wars: Lost. In a war whose ending foreshadows the next 2000 years of French history, France is conquered by of all things, an Italian.
• Hundred Years War: Mostly lost, saved at last by a female schizophrenic who inadvertently creates The First Rule of French Warfare - "France's armies are victorious only when not led by a French man."
• Italian Wars: Lost. France becomes the first and only country ever to lose two wars when fighting Italians.
• Wars of Religion: France goes 0-5-4 against the Huguenots.
• Thirty Years' War: France is technically not a participant, but manages to get invaded anyway. Claims a tie on the basis that eventually the other participants started ignoring her.
• War of Devolution: Tied; Frenchmen take to wearing red flowerpots as chapeaux.
• The Dutch War: Tied.
• War of the Augsburg League/King William's War/French and Indian War: Lost, but claimed as a tie. Deluded Frogophiles the world over label the period as the height of French Military Power.
• War of the Spanish Succession: Lost. The War also gave the French their first taste of a Marlborough, which they have loved ever since.
• American Revolution: In a move that will become quite familiar to future Americans, France claims a win even though the English colonists saw far more action. This is later known as "De Gaulle Syndrome", and leads to the Second Rule of French Warfare: "France only wins when America does most of the fighting".
• French Revolution: Won, primarily due to the fact that the opponent was also French.
• The Napoleonic Wars: Lost. Temporary victories (remember the First Rule!) due to leadership of a Corsican, who ended up being no match for a British footwear designer.
• The Franco-Prussian War: Lost. Germany first plays the role of drunk Frat boy to France's ugly girl home alone on a Saturday night.
• WWI: Tied and on the way to losing, France is saved by the United States. Thousands of French women find out what it's like not only to sleep with a winner, but one who doesn't call her "Fraulein." 
• WWII: Lost. Conquered French liberated by the United States and Britain just as they finish learning the Horst Wessel Song.
• War in Indochina: Lost. French forces plead sickness, take to bed with Dien Bien Flu.
• Algerian Rebellion: Lost. Loss marks the first defeat of a Western army by a Non-Turkic Muslim force since the Crusades, and produces the First Rule of Muslim Warfare -"We can always beat the French." This rule is identical to the First Rules of the Italians, Russians, Germans, English, Dutch, Spanish, Vietnamese, and Eskimos.
• War on Terrorism: France, keeping in mind its recent history, surrenders to Germans and Muslims just to be safe.

Copyright 2011 by The Peripatetic Papers. Permission to copy and distribute granted as long as this copyright notice appears.

Musician Jokes - Part Deux

C, E-flat and G Go Into a Bar
---------------------------------
C, E-flat and G go into a bar. The bartender says, "I'm sorry, but we don't serve minors." So E-flat leaves, and C and G have an open fifth between them. After a few drinks, the fifth is diminished, and G is out flat. F comes in and tries to augment the situation, but is not sharp enough.

D comes in and heads for the bathroom saying, "Excuse me. I'll just be a second." Then A comes in, but the bartender is not convinced that this relative of C is not a minor. Then the bartender notices B-flat hiding at the end of the bar and says, "Get out! You're the seventh minor I've found in this bar tonight."

E-Flat comes back the next night in a three-piece suit with nicely shined shoes. The bartender says, "You're looking sharp tonight. Come on in, this could be a major development." Sure enough, E-flat soon takes off his suit and everything else, and is au natural.

Eventually, C sobers up and realizes in horror that he's under a rest. C is brought to trial, found guilty of contributing to the diminution of a minor, and is sentenced to 10 years of DS without Coda at an upscale correctional facility. On appeal, however, C is found innocent of any wrongdoing, even accidental. The judge rules that all contrary motions are bassless.


Country-Western Musical Terms
-------------------------------------

• Diminished Fifth - An empty bottle of Jack Daniels
• Perfect Fifth - A full bottle of Jack Daniels
• Ritard - There's one in every family
• Relative Major - An uncle in the Marine Corps
• Relative Minor - A girlfriend
• Big Band - When the bar pays enough to bring two banjo players
• Pianissimo - "Refill this beer bottle"
• Repeat - What you do until they just expel you
• Treble - Women ain't nothin' but
• Bass - The things you run around in softball
• Portamento - A foreign country you've always wanted to see
• Conductor - The man who punches your ticket to Birmingham
• Arpeggio - "Ain't he that storybook kid with the big nose that grows?"
• Tempo - Good choice for a used car
• A 440 - The highway that runs around Nashville
• Transpositions - Men who wear dresses
• Cut Time - Parole
• Order of Sharps - What a wimp gets at the bar
• Passing Tone - Frequently heard near the baked beans at family barbecues
• High C - The only fruit drink you can afford when food stamps are low
• Perfect Pitch - The smooth coating on a freshly paved road
• Tuba - A compound word: "Hey, woman! Fetch me another tuba Bryll Cream!"
• Cadenza - That ugly thing your wife always vacuums dog hair off of when company comes
• Whole Note - What's due after failing to pay the mortgage for a year
• Clef - What you try never to fall off of
• Bass Clef - Where you wind up if you do fall off
• Altos - Not to be confused with "Tom's toes," "Bubba's toes" or "Dori-toes"
• Minor Third - Your approximate age and grade at the completion of formal schooling
• Melodic Minor - Loretta Lynn's singing dad
• 12-Tone Scale - The thing the State Police weigh your tractor trailer truck with
• Quarter Tone - What most standard pickups can haul
• Sonata - What you get from a bad cold or hay fever
• Clarinet - Name used on your second daughter if you've already used Betty Jo
• Cello - The proper way to answer the phone
• Bassoon - Typical response when asked what you hope to catch, and when
• French Horn - Your wife says you smell like a cheap one when you come in at 4 a.m.
• Cymbal - What they use on deer-crossing signs so you know what to sight-in your pistol with
• Bossa Nova - The car your foreman drives
• Time Signature - What you need from your boss if you forget to clock in
• First Inversion - Grandpa's battle group at Normandy
• Staccato - How you did all the ceilings in your mobile home
• Major Scale - What you say after chasing wild game up a mountain: "Darn! That was a major scale!"
• Aeolian Mode - How you like Mama's cherry pie 
• 
Bach Chorale - The place behind the barn where you keep the horses

Jazz Math
------------

• If x is the number of chord changes in a tune, and y is the tempo at which it is played, then xy = factor by which a guitarist will turn down his amp. 
• # (notes/measure played by a saxophonist on a ballad) is proportional to # (drinks he has consumed). 
• 4 + 4.125 + 4 + 3.875 + 4 + (4 + or - .667) + 4 + (x, where x is unknown) = 1 chorus trading with drummer. 
• (2 + 5 + 1) (# of freshman college jazz students, internationally) = annual income of Jamie Aebersold, in dollars. 
• Infinity = (3 + 6 + 2 + 5) + (3 + 6 + 2 + 5) + (3 + 6 + 2 + 5) Ö 
• If (# of drinks consumed, per musician) > (# of drinks comped by club), then unrest will prevail unless (cost per drink) < 1/20 (pay for gig). 
• 5/4 + 7/4 + 11/4 = drummer's gig 
• 1 uptempo tune +1 rushing drummer + x (double lattes) = x (fights among horn players to solo first) 
• 1 ballad + 1 dragging drummer + x (Percocets) = 1 cleared house, where x is proportional to the speed at which the room empties 
• 2 (diddles) = paradiddle 
• Jam session + eighth-note rest = missed opportunity.
• Jam session + (quarter-note rest or greater) = band on break. 
• {(New + York) squared - (NewNew + Yorkyork + Yorknew) + New York + 2 (Ride + Sally) - Sally} divided by (less than five seconds) = medley from hell 
• If x = piano's deviance from being in tune, y = volume level of drummer, z = length of gig, and d = number of drinks consumed by pianist on break, then (d) (xyz/pay of the gig, in dollars), predicts the probability of pianist urinating in his instrument. 
• Vow of Poverty theorem: If # people in audience < # of musicians on bandstand, then pay per musician < one individual cover charge. 
• Bass theorem: A musician's IQ is inversely proportional to the size of his/her instrument, and directly related to the register of the instrument. 
• Rule of One theorem: Universe of jazz vocalists/# of jazz vocalists who sing "Summertime"= 1 = rank of "Summertime" among tunes most despised by instrumentalists 
• "Devil's Music" theorem: Smooth Jazz = square root of all evil. 
• "Two Americas" Buffet theorem: Fresh salmon/flaccid spanakopita + prime rib/limp eggrolls + jumbo shrimp/soggy chicken fingers = high society gig/Elks Club gig 
• How much should a gig pay, based on the following conditions: 
• Drive 90 miles outside of town through pouring rain; set up two hours in advance; load in through slimy kitchen, accessed by treacherous outdoor staircase; then play four hours of continuous crappy dance favorites for drunk rich people? 
• Would you take it for 1/2 that much? 
• (If yes): Desperation/pride > 1 
• After you bid on the above gig for 1/3 your worth, a college student offers to play the same gig for 1/2 as much. You are 12 times as good as him, but 1/2 as good-looking. The client has a tin ear. Who will get the job? Why do you bother practicing? 
• If a trumpet player counts off a tune in 4/4 at mm = 180, and the drummer slows it down at a constant rate of deceleration over 8 measures to mm = 150, does the pianist still suck? 
• If a bassist plays a root, a pianist superimposes a major seventh chord built on the fifth, and a saxophonist plays the 13th, will attractive women notice? Will the drummer? 
• If a successful attorney earns 3x as much as a successful musician, but the musician believes his work is 4x as fulfilling, who actually has larger genitalia? 
• Your trio is set up in a perfect equilateral triangle. A singer sets up exactly in the middle. Will the three of you be divided against the singer, or against one another? 
• If (% of Americans who like jazz) < (% of Americans who like chainsaw sculptures), what is America's most important indigenous art form? 

Copyright 2011 by The Peripatetic Papers. Permission to copy and distribute granted as long as this copyright notice appears.

Musician Jokes

OK, things have been a bit too serious around here lately. Here's a little levity to break things up.

Accordionists
---------------
Q: How is a murder investigation like an accordion recital?
A: There's a sigh of relief when the case is closed.

Q: What's the definition of a gentleman?

A: One who knows how to play the accordion, but doesn't.

Banjo Players
----------------
Q: What's the difference between an onion and a banjo?
A : Nobody ever cries when you cut up a banjo.

Q: What's the least often heard question in the English language?
A: Is that the banjo player's Porsche in the loading zone?

Bassists
---------
Q: What's the range of a 5-string bass?
A: About 20 yards if you have a good arm.

Q: If you were lost in the woods, who would you trust for directions: an in-tune bass player, an out-of-tune bass player or Santa Claus?
A: The out-of-tune bass player. The other two indicate you are hallucinating.

Q: How many bass guitarists does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: None. The keyboard player can do it with his left hand.

A couple goes on vacation to a beautiful Caribbean island. As soon as they get off the plane, they hear drums. At first, it just seems like nice ambiance, but after three days and nights of constant drumming, they just can't take it any more. The man calls the hotel manager and asks, "Do the drums ever stop?" The manager replies, "No. Drums must never stop. Very, very bad if drums stop." "Why?" The man asks. "If drums stop, bass solo begins!"

Did you hear about the bass player who was so depressed about his bad timing that he threw himself behind a train?

Drummers
------------
Q: What do a drummer and a Philosopher have in common?
A: They both view time as an abstract concept.

Bass player says to the drummer: "Can't you play with some more dynamics?"
Drummer yells back: "I'm already playing as loud as I can!"

Guitarists
-----------
"Mommy! Mommy! I want to be a guitarist when I grow up!"
"Now Johnny, you know you can't do both."

Q: How do you get a guitar player to turn down?
A: Put sheet music in front of him.

Q: How do you get him to stop?
A: Put notes on it.

Q: How many electric guitar players do you need to replace a fluorescent light?
A: Five. One to actually do it, and four to reminisce about how much better the old tubes were.

Q: How many folk guitarists does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: One to change the bulb and 10 to complain that it's electric.

Q: What's the difference between a guitar player and a pizza?
A: A pizza can feed a family of four.

Q: What do you call a guitar player after he breaks up with his girlfriend?
A: Homeless.

Q: Why did the blues/rock guitarist wait outside the club door all night?
A: It was jazz night and he had no idea when to come in.

Q: How long does it take to tune a 12 string guitar?
A: No one knows.

Q: What's the difference between a rock guitarist and a jazz guitarist?
A: A rock guitarist plays four chords to thousands of people…

Q: What's the definition of counterpoint?
A: Two guitar players reading the same chart.

Q: What do you call a successful guitarist?
A: A guy whose wife has two jobs.

Q: How do you make a guitar player’s car more aerodynamic?
A: Take the pizza delivery sign off the roof.

Band/Choir/Orchestra
--------------------------
Q: If a frog and a trombone player meet at an intersection, who has the right of way?
A: The frog because he's likely on his way to a gig.

Q: What's the difference between a flautist and a seamstress?
A: The seamstress is always tucking up frills…

Q: What do you call a trombone player wearing a pager?
A: An optimist.

Q: How do you make a chain saw sound like a baritone sax?

A: Add vibrato.

Q: What kind of calendar does a trombonist use for his gigs?

A: Year-at-a-glance.

Q: What does a timpanist say when he gets to work?


A: "Would you like fries with that, sir?"

Q: Why are a violinist fingers like lightning?


A: They rarely strike the same spot twice.

Q: If you drop a conductor and a watermelon off a tall building, which will hit the ground first?

A: Who cares?

Q: What's the definition of an optimist?


A: A choral director with a mortgage.

Q: Why are conductor's hearts so coveted for transplants?

A: They've had so little use.

Q: Why are harps like elderly parents? 


A: Both are unforgiving and hard to get into and out of cars.

Q: Why can't a gorilla play trumpet? 

A: He's too sensitive.

Q: How can you tell which kid on a playground is the child of a trombonist? 

A: He doesn't know how to use the slide, and he can't swing.

Q: What is the difference between a french horn section and a '57 Chevy? 

A: You can tune a '57 Chevy.

Q: What is the difference between a high school choral director and a chimpanzee? 

A: It's scientifically proven that chimpanzees are able to communicate with humans.

Q: What's the difference between God and a conductor? 

A: God knows He's not a conductor.

The reason why so many weird noises comes out of the business end of saxophones is that Mr. Sax never issued any instructions on how to use them. Contrary to popular belief, saxophones are actually percussion instruments and meant to be beaten by hammers. Large hammers.

Singers
---------
Q: How many lead singers does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: Just one. He stands still, holds the bulb and the world revolves around him.

Q: How do you know there's a singer at the front door?
A: She can't find the right key and doesn't know when to come in.

Q: What's the difference between a female vocalist and a terrorist?
A: You can negotiate with a terrorist.

Q: What's the difference between a Wagnerian soprano and the average All-Pro offensive lineman?
A: Stage makeup.

General
---------
Q: What's the difference between an R&B band and a buffalo?
A: A buffalo has the horns up front and the asshole in back...

Q: What do you get when you play New Age music backwards? 

A: New Age music.

Q: What's the difference between a puppy and a singer-songwriter? 

A: Eventually the puppy stops whining.

Q: How many jazz musicians does it take to change a light bulb? 

A: "Don't worry about the changes. We'll fake it!"

Copyright 2011 by The Peripatetic Papers. Permission to copy and distribute granted as long as this copyright notice appears.

"Nice" Guys Finish Last

I detest the word "nice." I dislike using it or hearing it, especially if it's applied to me.

"Nice" has a varied and somewhat checkered past. The English word "nice" has its roots in the 14th century Latin word "nescius," which means, "ignorant, from a deliberate desire not to know." This word eventually became the Middle English and Anglo-French word "niscere," which then meant, foolish, wanton, silly or simple. 

So what does “nice” really look like? Think of (if you are old enough) Sergeant Schultz from the 60’s sitcom “Hogan’s Heroes.” Sergeant Schultz, when he became aware of the prisoner’s antics, would invariably exclaim, “I see nothing. I hear nothing. Nothing. NOTHING!”  

Furthermore, in our modern age that celebrates form over substance, "nice" has become the de facto last refuge of scoundrels, underachievers and miscreants everywhere—a thin veneer of respectability that some folks apply like makeup rather than become a person of true and proven character. How many times have we heard it said of the serial killer or child molester living next door, "Who knew? He was the nicest guy." 

So while I can say that I unequivocally aspire to be (in no particular order) honest, caring, sincere, dependable, compassionate, thrifty, brave, clean and (even at times, appropriately) reverent...

Nice???? Fahgeddaboudit! We all know that nice guys finish last. I think I just explained why.

Copyright 2011 by The Peripatetic Papers. Permission to copy and distribute granted as long as this copyright notice appears.

The Big Short

One of the problems with blogging, as opposed to writing real books (my day job), is that it's all too easy to take a "ready, fire, aim" approach to writing. That's what happened when I wrote, "Bet With The House." I put the cart before the horse. So just consider this a prequel (Hey, If George Lucas can do it, I can do it).

In 2008, a group of financially privileged companies and individuals strip mined the US financial system. Companies that had stood for decades, fell like so many dominoes in a matter of days. For the most part, Uncle Sam decided who won and who lost. Lehman, Bear Stearns - you lose; AIG (too big to fail) - you win. Bank Of America, Citigroup - you win; Washington Mutual - you lose.

As a small investor, the most disturbing aspect of this (among many disturbing aspects) was that the bad bets that did these companies in (highly leveraged positions in Collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) and credit default swaps) were almost universally "off balance sheet." In other words, a potential investor (assuming that an investor even knew what those things were) had no way of knowing how heavily exposed these companies were to such poisonous assets. THIS is the kind of thing that I might expect to happen in some third world banana republic, but not in the supposedly secure and regulated US financial markets. But happen it did.

So bottom line, 2008 completely shook my confidence in the US financial markets. From that point forward, I had to consider the game rigged. This led me to consider how I might "bet with the house."

I decided that I could bet the bias toward a small amount of inflation by investing in very broad indices. Picking individual stocks had to be considered too risky only because 2008 had shown that any company at any time could go under due to things that were completely unknowable.

I also decided that I could do math. This led me to implement a plan that rested solely on asset allocation and dollar cost averaging.

Asset allocation has been described as the only "true free lunch" in investing. Basically, you decide your risk tolerance and allocate assets into various categories to ensure that you take just enough (but not too much) risk. One popular formula is to should subtract your age from a number between 100 and 120. That result will tell you the percentage of your assets you should have invested in equities (the riskiest asset category). There are various other formulas, but the important thing is to come up with a number that suits your temperament and tolerance for risk and stick to it.

In late 2008 I found myself almost completely in cash. I had largely (but not completely) avoided the worst of the meltdown. But what to do now? Burying cash in a mattress is for fools. Bonds were (and still are) at such absurdly low yields that not only don't you make anything on your investment, but yields are sure to rise, turning any bonds I might buy into sure losing bets (bond prices move inversely to yield even though you will get paid your interest in most cases, their capital value can drop dramatically).

Well, I finally decided that I could implement my asset allocation strategy using dollar cost averaging. Basically, instead of going "all in" on some random day, you make smaller buys of equal dollar amounts. If the market happens to be up, you buy fewer shares. If it happens to be down, you buy more shares, always buying the same dollar amount each time. It took me the better part of 18 months to do get back into the market at a level that met my asset allocation goals.

Go to "Bet With The House" to read the rest of the story.

Anyone interested in reading further about the 2008 financial meltdown, should read Michael Lewis' book "The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine." I wish every American would read this book. We should resolve as a people to never let this happen again.

Copyright 2011 by The Peripatetic Papers. Permission to copy and distribute granted as long as this copyright notice appears.

Life Lessons Backgammon Taught Me

I'm getting a bit behind in researching some of my other topics, so let's go with a somewhat frivolous placeholder this week... drum roll please...

Backgammon is an absolutely addictive and maddening board game that dates back many many centuries. It involves moving checkers around a board according to numbers rolled on a pair of dice. You move this way, alternating dice rolls with your opponent, until you remove ("bear off") all your checkers. First player to bear off all his checkers, wins. At this level, it's basically a children's game. It was played this way for centuries.

Sometime around the turn of the last century, someone devised the doubling cube, in which players can double and redouble the stakes during a game. OK, so now the ability to assess relative strength and probability of victory is a completely different skill set that takes the game to a whole other level. A very elite level.

Matches are typically 5-7 points, with a simple win being worth 1 point, winning before your opponent bears off a single checker (gammon) being worth 2 points, and bearing off before you opponent gets his or her checkers out of your inner board (backgammon) being worth 3 points. Backgammons are exceedingly rare.

These point values are multiplied by whatever number is active on the doubling cube. Sometimes 1, sometimes 2, sometimes 4 or more. Elite players rarely play with more than 4 on the doubling cube, but it can happen. It's pretty easy to see that things can get out of hand very quickly if you don't keep your wits about you.

Backgammon is one of those things in life that is simple to learn but devilish to master. It's a game in which skill is measured by a few slim percentage points. Even elite players lose a lot, and often in very dramatic fashion. One author called it "the cruelest game." The cruelty part is the element of luck. Any time dice are involved, things go can very well or very badly... sometimes both in a matter of seconds.

Anywho... here are a few things the game has taught me over the years, which I've been able to apply to broader contexts:

1. Everyone looks like a genius when the dice go their way.
2. Less capable opponents will win some of the time. They will flaunt the odds, make all the wrong moves and still win. Just accept it.
3. Never EVER give up until the outcome is absolutely positively (mathematically) certain.
4. Don't try to win every point. Sometimes refusing an unwise double or averting a gammon proves to be -THE- crucial point in the match.
5. Play each point on its own merit. Resist the temptation to double or otherwise play desperately just because you are behind in the match.
6. Don't cube someone with nothing to lose. Next thing you know, you're playing with the match on the line and some fool gets hot with the dice.

And my personal favorite:
7. Do not make a move until you have identified at least one or two viable alternatives. The worst mistakes are not made by choosing the second or third best choice from the three available moves. They are made by not even noticing the best move.

Ciao.

PS: Look me up at www.fibs.com; username Mo_Trouble.

Copyright 2011 by The Peripatetic Papers. Permission to copy and distribute granted as long as this copyright notice appears.

Put On Your Own Mask First...

We've all heard it a gazillion times. You're on an airplane, the flight attendant warns you that, in the event of a depressurized cabin, oxygen masks are going to drop down, and that before rendering assistance to someone else, you should put your own mask on FIRST. Obviously, the principle is that if you attempt to help someone else before you are squared away, BOTH of you might perish. This would be a double tragedy.

As a concerned citizen, I find myself in a similar quandary. How do I balance good solid common sense fiscal management principles with compassion for those of us less well off? Conservative-minded folks generally beat the drum for the former; liberal-minded folks for the latter. 

As a country with a $14 trillion debt, we have not only bankrupted this generation's spending power, but likely several future generations as well. I get why we've done this (in support of compassion), but doesn't this violate the oxygen mask principle?

Furthermore, it's not like there are really any socialist democracy role models out there that are actually pulling this whole "have the government give everybody everything" deal off. Does the United States really want to end up like, Ireland, Greece, or Portugal? Even France, who arguably does as good a job as anyone pulling this off, recently experienced riots over proposed pension reforms.

On the other hand, Jesus said (Mark 14:7), "The poor you will have with you always." Americans have clearly demonstrated during the current financial debacle that we don't have the stomach to watch people thrown out of their houses and on to the street, even if they might have done quite a lot to cause their own miseries. It is a very good thing, that when push comes to shove, most of my fellow citizens don't want our society to look like some Darwinian survival-of-the-fittest cage match.

How do we as a people reconcile these seemingly irreconcilable principles: be good stewards of our country -AND- show compassion for those who might need a bit of help.

Look, I will be the first to admit that I have more questions than answers at this point. I am registered independent (and wouldn't even do THAT much if it weren't required). I am truly beholden to no political ideology. For the first time in my life, it seems as if neither liberals nor conservatives (nor anyone else for that matter) has any workable answers... Only the drum beat to join one (extreme) side or the other.

Copyright 2011 by The Peripatetic Papers. Permission to copy and distribute granted as long as this copyright notice appears.

My Antipathy Toward Apathy

For the life of me, I will just never understand why someone would be involved with something that requires a healthy does of apathy to stomach. Yet, I experience this all the time.

My informal straw poll is that fully 2/3 of my co-workers have at one time or another expressed one or more of the following sentiment: "I don't care," Whatever," "I'm just here for the paycheck."

And it's not limited to work. Church (which ought to be the ONE place that encourages passionate authentic dedicated involvement), the music business ("Ah, this is just a <insert-genre-here> gig. Now if this were a jazz gig, I'd be interested.") are all places where, in my experience, apathy finds root.

I guess that it's the hopelessly naive idealistic part of me that wants to grab these folks by the shoulders, shake them back to life, and shout:

"Really? Life is short. Shouldn't you spend your time on stuff you care about? Apathy isn't a virtue!"

Maybe if we all found stuff to do we felt passionate about the world might be a better place. Crazy talk, I know.

I'll leave you with this excerpt from Steve Jobs' commencement address to Stanford in 2005:

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.

Copyright 2011 by The Peripatetic Papers. Permission to copy and distribute granted as long as this copyright notice appears.

Bet With The House

Well, the market events of the past two weeks have conspired to hand me something to write about.

First off, I am NOT an investment expert. In fact, I despise the term "expert." In my experience, anyone with the chutzpa to call themselves one usually isn't. But I have been managing my own investments since 1993. So at the very least, I have some experience and hopefully have learned a few things.

The market meltdown of 2008 not only outraged me, but caused me to entirely rethink several of my investment assumptions.

First, I believe the game is rigged. I don't mean rigged in the sense that shadowy characters meet in dark back rooms and decide who wins and who loses. I mean that clearly some people and businesses have the opportunity to do things that the average small investor cannot. Just look at the winners and losers in the 2008 meltdown. Hint: it wasn't the small investor.

So I got to thinking (always dangerous)... if the game is rigged, what does a house bet look like?

For one thing, it's clear to me that the overall bias to most things financial (including the stock market) is for there to be a small bit of inflation, which (given enough time) leads to higher prices over time. This is entirely intentional on the part of governments. Inflation causes debt obligations to automatically decrease in value, while wages rise and investments gain in value. This all helps people feel richer and more content.

This leads me to conclude that trying to pick individual stocks and/or timing the market are decidedly not betting with the house. What is betting with the house is betting on the likelihood that the overall market will rise over time. And this is very important... the broader the bet and the longer you keep it working, the more likely you are to win. The idea here is to come out ahead over the long haul , not make a killing on one bet.

My vehicles of choice for laying house bets are no-cost Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs). Charles Schwab offers a number of these. There are no commissions to either buy or sell. You only pay a small exchange fee (pennies) when you sell. Management fees are microscopic, the correlation to the indices they track is good, and you can buy and sell any time the market is open, as opposed to mutual funds that can only be bought or sold after trading has ended for the day.

Copyright 2011 by The Peripatetic Papers. Permission to copy and distribute granted as long as this copyright notice appears.

The Shot Heard 'Round The World

Baseball aficionados will know that this was the headline that described Bobby Thompson's game winning home run against the Brooklyn Dodgers to win the 1951 National League pennant (Yes folks, there was a time when baseball did not have playoffs, only the World Series).

But yesterday a different shot was heard... Warren Buffet dared to suggest that he and his super-rich friends should pay more taxes.

It didn't take long for the talking heads at CNBC to trot out that old chestnut, "If Mr, Buffet wants to pay more taxes, he can write the Treasury a check any time he likes."

It reminded me of the culture that once surrounded cigarette smoking. Non-smokers who wanted to do nothing more than enjoy a restaurant meal without it smelling like an ashtray were repeatedly admonished, "you can always eat in any non-smoking restaurant you like." Well, the problem with that was that few restaurant owners would willingly offend potential patrons by even so much as designating a non-smoking area (and when they did, it was woefully inadequate). So the upshot was that non-smokers suffered in silence until legislation was enacted that protected their health.

I think a similar situation exists with taxation. No one pays the real cost of running the government (see The Billion Dollar Big Mac). While taxing the super-rich at a higher rate would not solve our fiscal woes, it certainly wouldn't hurt. None other than George Soros has admitted, "The rich are hurting their own long term interests by their opposition to paying more taxes."

Feel free to share your comments.

Copyright 2011 by The Peripatetic Papers. Permission to copy and distribute granted as long as this copyright notice appears.

Truth, Wisdom and Humility

It is my deeply held personal belief that all transcendent Truth (capital 'T' intentional) eventually converges.

Any failure to do so means one or more of the following:

• One or more allegedly true things, isn't true.
• Our current understanding of one or more allegedly true things is insufficient or faulty (we see through a glass darkly).
• Our current understanding of the big picture (gestalt) at this particular moment is insufficient to perceive or fully understand the convergence (our window of perception and understanding is limited to our actual lifetime and what we can learn about the lives of those who proceeded us via the written word).

OK, so what's my point?

I believe that on occasion the wisest thing a person can say is "I don't know." 

I love the way Alan Watts put it, "There is wisdom in insecurity."

I've always interpreted that to mean that allowing for the possibility that one might be entirely wrong about something is a key component of pragmatic wisdom.

I happen to believe that the scariest people on this planet are the ones who believe they have arrived, that their beliefs and opinions are not only completely accurate, but that everyone should hold the same ones and live by them.

I'm told by friends who understand such things that even an acknowledged genius such as Albert Einstein was entirely wrong about some things.

Being able to walk this earth being at all times less than completely sure about everything is a humbling experience.

When I see an endless parade of talking heads on the news, each one absolutely sure that they know how to solve some mind boggling problem, each arguing with some counterpart who holds a completely opposite worldview and opinion, but who is also equally certain that they have the real solution... well it makes me wish that humility was a bit more in vogue. I personally would respect some of these folks more if they could occasionally admit, "I don't know."

Your thoughts? Please share in comments.

Copyright 2011 by The Peripatetic Papers. Permission to copy and distribute granted as long as this copyright notice appears.