Musing of One Wondering What the Roman Government in the First Century Did About Sword Control

Rhetorical question: if the people could establish an immutable rule that unless the "fiscal cliff" is definitively solved by January 20th, then the President and all Members of Congress would take an automatic 10% pay cut for the rest of their term, what would happen?

Musing of one watching a Congressman mow his lawn while clad in a three-piece business suit and $400 dress shoes.

While watching on TV the donnybrook regarding the "fiscal cliff," it occurred to me that apparently all parties are missing one significant aspect of the problem, i.e., the recession. (Yes, Virginia, there is a recession -- at least in my opinion, because any time the economy does not grow rapidly enough to absorb new workers, we have a problem known as a recession.) It seems to me the principal reason the various stimulus packages did not work well was that they were primarily associated with non-recurring demand. It seems self-evident that a recession occurs when recurring demand drops off and people are no longer able to sell their products. Therefore, any government effort to alleviate a recession should be associated with recurring demand. I have some ideas, such as a relatively small stimulus package aimed at increasing recurring demand (for example, a package that would increase sales of consumables) and replacement of the current health care law (Obamacare) by a simpler, more pragmatic plan. But then, who is going to listen to a crotchety old curmudgeon.

Musing of one thinking about the country music star who had a cow brought into the recording studio so he could get into the proper mood.

Some months ago I heard President Obama state on a tv news show, "---healthcare is a basic human right."  (I can't remember the prefatory adjective.)  I have been pondering as to the definition of the authority that creates basic human rights.  I do not think that the President or any other individual can do that.  For example, if I state that it is a basic human right to pick fruit off any fruit tree you encounter, that does not make it so.  Such a right can only be exercised against me and my fruit trees if I have any.  In my opinion, the rights which every American has were established by the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, each of which were approved by the 13 colonies (for the Declaration of Independence) and the 13 states (for the Constitution).  Subsequent rights have been established legislatively either in implementation of or under the authority of the Constitution.  Some rights are established by religious organizations but they are enforceable only by the adherents of that religion.  Various religious documents, such as the Bible, also set up rights, which are possessed by the adherents of that religion.  However, religious documents which I have read appear to me to be more concerned with responsibility than rights.  Of course there is a general right to pray. 

This dissertation will no doubt produce controversy and I will be happy to receive any comments. 

Musing of one thinking about the Congressman who dozed off during the session, fell off his chair, bruised his head, and demanded that OSHA penalize the architect of the Capitol for failing to provide a safe work environment...

Thanks to Jim Coyne for his comments.  I do have a great son of whom I am very proud.  He was borne and raised by a terrific mother who was also very proud of him, as she was of our other two children.

I didn't know he was a professional hula dancer.  I'll have to get him to give me a demonstration.

Musing of one watching a 270-pound pro football player land on his derriere while trying to imitate the movements of a professional hula dancer.

Thanks to Bob Bernard for his comment.  That's more food for thought.  Incidentally, I have heard that some people have difficulty making a comment on this blog.  Anyone who has such difficulty can email a comment to me at dsrteilands@earthlink.net and I will transfer it to the blog.  Somewhere down the road I am going to make a posting on rights but don't hold your breath. 

Musing of one wondering what would happen if all the cell phone towers in the world went out of commission simultaneously...

One of the earliest postings I put on this blog was some notes about the nature of government.  With an election coming up, it seemed appropriate to recall those.  As I said then, government is an artificial being, invisible and intangible, and its affairs are handled by a group of fallible human beings who are no smarter than the rest of us.  It seems self evident that the collective judgement of perhaps 5000 people operating in and around Washington DC cannot be superior to the collective judgement of perhaps 200 million people operating in the free market.  I hope that people will think about this when they vote. 

Musing of one thinking about the teenage boy who, trying to impress two girls, took a flying leap at a low hanging branch, missed and landed in a briar patch, got stuck in the purest sense of the word, sent the girls regaling with laughter, and swore off girls forever (forever lasted about a week).

Having listened to some speeches at the two political conventions, an ancient truth raised its head-most statements which claimed to be fact are in reality half-truths.  Apparently the speakers assume that nobody will bother to try to obtain the complete story on any given statement.  Unfortunately, this is generally the case.  And so, I guess this election will be decided primarily as I described in my second posting on this blog.  The voting will be primarily on the basis of political affiliation, emotion, or susceptibility to propaganda.  Maybe by coincidence the winners will prove to be the proper choices.  I think we will survive no matter what. 

And so the crotchety old curmudgeon will cease propagating his own thoughts on this subject. 

Musing-none this time

This one is about my wife of 73 years, Mary Kay, who passed away on July 2, 2012. For all those years she was a model wife, a model mother, and a loving partner. And her passing leaves a big hole in my life. I will carry on the projects she had in mind hoping to complete all of them. So as I have said to her, "thank you Mary Kay for more than 73 years of a great marriage."

Musing of one thinking about the teenage boy who, swimming in a small river, swam up to a protruding dead tree, put out his hand to take hold of...

... a dead branch, realized the branch held a poisonous water moccasin, and promptly gave a demonstration of running on water, leaving his younger brother in the middle of the river, trying to figure out how to get back to the bank without disturbing the moccasin.

Interesting to note the development of formal procedures in academics over the years. We have a friend who is on the faculty at a certain high school (I will not name the city or the school). One of her duties is to discipline recalcitrant students. Several weeks ago a 17 year old girl was sent to her. Apparently every other word that came from the girl's mouth was a profanity. Our friend called the parents who came to school and proceeded to berate our friend (they did call the next day and apologize). Eventually, our friend called security and had them escorted off campus. I understand that the girl finally received a one week suspension. In going through all this, our friend had to follow a very detailed set of instructions and procedures and record all the actions. That's the modern way of doing things.

Back about 80 years ago, I also ran into trouble. I was the sophomore equipment manager for the athletic teams at our high school. One day a player came in and asked for a piece of equipment that I knew I had already given him. We had an argument which grew more and more heated until I finally lost my temper and yelled "Peewee, you're crazier than hell!" Unfortunately, the principal happened to be standing at the head of the stairs that led up from the basement, where we were, to the first floor. He came running down stairs and demanded who said that. Of course, I had to admit it. He said, "boy, you are suspended. Leave the school grounds right now."

That night at dinner, I told my parents what had happened. I got no sympathy whatever. Their reaction was you broke a rule and now you have to live with the consequences. Eventually, however, they thought about the fact that if I wasn't reinstated, I would have to go to reform school. It had no euphemistic name; it was simply known as reform school. And it was for kids who messed up. It was also a disgrace for a kid to have to go there. So my dad said he would see what he could do.

The next morning he called the principal who had absolute authority over the school. The principal decided that if my dad would take me to the office of the superintendent of the schools, and plead my case, the principal would abide by any decision that came down.

So away we went. We got into the office and actually were seen by the superintendent himself. Both of us apologized and the two adults discussed my case. Since I had no blemishes on my record up til then, the superintendent finally decided that I could go back to high school. So he called the principal and I was reinstated. In my memory, school principals were given absolute authority (in this case, the principal delegated it to the superintendent of schools). That's an illustration of the rule that I expressed in the first posting of this blog -if you delegate responsibility you should delegate commensurate authority. That's the way it was here and I think it was the best way. The whole thing was settled in 24 hours with no participation of anyone else besides my dad who acted the part of an advocate for me-no parents, no lawyers, no other personnel, and no recourse.

Musing of one wondering-if New Haven is in Connecticut, where is Haven (or Old Haven)?

Apropos of my remark of the requirement that the president be a natural born citizen, my son offered an obvious approach-why not call an attorney and find out? So I called an attorney friend of ours. He didn't know either but volunteered to do some research. It turns out that the requirement originated in a letter from John Jay to George Washington, expressing a fear that without some kind of restriction a member of some foreign peerage might come to the United States, get himself elected, and turn us back into a kingdom. Washington turned it over to the committee that was drafting the Constitution. Apparently, it was adopted without much, if any, debate, because our friend could find no record of discussions of it. Jay's letter could be the origin of the 14 year residents requirement but we didn't look into this. That's our history lesson for the day. Unfortunately, Mr. Jay could not anticipate the creeping socialism which has plagued the United States for the last 70 or 80 years.

Musing of one watching a bull elephant who stumbled across an empty chile powder box, accidentally inhaled some residue, emitted the loudest and...

...most violent sneeze known to mankind, blew a troop of monkeys out of a nearby tree, and stripped the tree of all its foliage.

It seems that the governor of Wisconsin attempted to restrict the power of public labor unions, and for his pains became the subject of a recall election that is yet to be held.

I'm not familiar with the details but it appears that some groups in Wisconsin are eager to go down the same path that Greece has gone down. They are apparently not aware that Greece got to the end of the path and fell into a quagmire, losing all their perks and other benefits which sank to the bottom of the quagmire.

After a period of demanding without success that someone come and dry up the quagmire, Greece has faced reality and is now seeking, albeit very reluctantly, to be rescued by a former oppressor. How have the mighty fallen.

I herewith offer some of our impressions about governmental labor relations.

When a public employee union negotiates a labor agreement with representatives of a governmental body, neither side bears any financial risk or burden which may result (theoretically the government side does bear the risk, but as a practical matter it does not). So, upon whom does the burden fall? Why it falls upon the hapless taxpayer of course who has no input whatever to the process. This is not sensible.

Accordingly, in my opinion, no labor agreement negotiated between a public employee union and a governmental body should be allowed to take effect unless and until it is approved by a vote of the citizens of the jurisdiction covered by the agreement. Each state should have this in its Constitution, and it should extend all the way to Congress and its staff. I subscribe wholeheartedly to the Warren Buffett solution but since it has little if any chance of being implemented I offer this as a partial alternative.

Musing of one thinking about a man trying to find his way home in the middle of the night who fell into a hot spring and lost his cool...

Caveat. I am not a lawyer but I can read (at least I could until my vision deteriorated to the point where I have to have someone else read to me) and I also have a reasonable amount of horse sense acquired through many trips around the block.

The Constitution has a number of references to voting. All but one of them refers only to US citizens. That being the case, it seems to me that the current loose practices of registering voters violates the Constitution and those who installed laws and regulations such as motor-voter, "show a utility bill," and similar rules are derelict in their duty to faithfully uphold the Constitution.

The proper way to establish voter roles is to require every person registering to vote to present a valid, verifiable birth certificate. It also seems to me that if any such birth certificate does not show that at least one parent is a citizen of the United States then, under the 14Th Amendment, the subject of that birth certificate is not eligible to vote.

Congress should provide funds for each state to arrange for everyone who first registered on or after January 1st, 2000 to re-register by presenting a valid verifiable birth certificate. States should be required to verify a birth certificate where there is reasonable suspicion that the person registering has not met all citizenship requirements.

U.S. citizens are supposed to know how to read, write, and speak English. Therefore, ballots for federal elections should be printed only in English. (Think of the money that would save.)

Voting in US elections is a right accorded to US citizens. It is not a privilege to be exercised willy-nilly by anyone who happens to be residing in the United States. If it were, think of all the people who could register to vote (and who probably already have) under the loose procedures we have in many jurisdictions: illegal immigrants, foreign students, foreign nationals working in US offices of their companies,
foreign embassy personnel who dwell outside the embassy compound, foreign athletes and theatrical personnel who spend much time in the United States pursuing their vocations, people here on tourist visas, and so on.

I am aware that many states require voter ID. That's fine except that if the original registration was illegitimate then the idea is useless. I don't know how many states require birth certificates or naturalization papers but it seems to me that every state should do so. I hope that some day some individual or group will start a snowball by bugging local authorities who set the rules until they require birth certificates. (I would love to do it myself but I no longer have the stamina to do such things.)

I guess that's enough rambling for now. On the other hand, I hope somebody else will start rambling.

Musing of one thinking about the pro football player who scored a touchdown and spiked the ball so hard that it flew into the stands, caromed off...

...the back of a hotdog vendor, and flew back through the goalpost; whereupon the referee declared a reverse field goal and penalized his team 3 points.

The term "corporate greed" has been much in the news for some months, used mostly in a pejorative sense. In addition to newscasters and talk show participants, people on the street quote it with abandon. So we thought it would be good to analyze the term.

Here are some definitions quoted from various authorities:

Greed: a selfish and excessive desire for more of something (as money) than is needed.

Corporate: of, or relating to a corporation; having qualities (as commercialism or lack of originality) associated with large corporations or attributed to their influence or control.

Corporation: a corporation is an artificial being, invisible, intangible, and existing only in contemplation of law. -Chief Justice John Marshall in 1819

(It might be noted here that various bodies operate as corporations-eg. hospitals, churches, schools, some governmental organizations, charitable institutions, and some individuals, etc.)

Since a corporation is invisible and intangible, it follows that it can have no emotions. Therefore, is the term corporate greed an oxymoron?

Perhaps we should be more specific in our accusations. We could refer to things like board of directors greed, CEO greed, stockholder greed, union greed, Wall Street employee greed, and so on.

It seems to us that if we are disposed to be honest, most of us must admit to being greedy to one degree or other. There are exceptions such as clerics who have taken a vow of poverty, people who are more interested in the welfare of other people and animals than their own progress, etc.

So it seems to us that we should be very careful of accusing others of greed.

And so we have probably antagonized many people and that's the end.

Musing of one thinking about the extraordinarily beautiful Iowa girl who, on a visit to Southern California, started across the street at Hollywood

and Vine, created a monstrous traffic jam and got a ticket for obstructing traffic...

The following is just a story. It has no particular moral or point. It is simply a bit of history provided for the edification of young people who may not be knowledgeable about the 1930s and the Great Depression.

One night in the mid-1930s, when our family lived in Alta Dena, California, my brother and I decided to drive over to Hollywood. So we borrowed the family car (at that time, very few families owned 2 cars and many families didn't own a car at all) and set out for TinselTown. A little while later, we were driving through the Los Feliz district when we came to a four-way stop.

At this point I should describe the milieu in which drivers operated in those days. There were no left turn lanes, and automobiles did not have any directional signals. A driver signified his intention by sticking his left arm out the window and pointing it in a certain direction. Straight up meant right turn, straight out (horizontal) meant left turn, straight down meant stop. If the arm pointed at 45 degrees, everybody had to guess. Left turns were made from the regular lanes. In this case all 4 streets comprising the intersection were all 4 lanes, so left turns were to be made from the inside lane.

Traffic was fairly heavy and when we arrived at the stop sign, a number of other cars arrived at the same time from the other streets. For some reason, nobody noticed the forest of arms sticking straight out the windows. By coincidence, all the cars in the left hand lanes started at once to make their left turns, and all arrived smack in the middle of the intersection and got stuck there.

At this point, I should note that Los Angeles drivers always had a propensity for following as close as possible on the bumper of the car in front and not yielding to anything unless it had a red light and siren (there were no flashing red lights, the emergency lights were simply bigger).

Anyhow, of course all lanes in the intersection became blocked and there we sat. Some people got out of their cars and looked around and I imagine the atmosphere was permeated with various expletives. I also imagine people walking on the sidewalk were doubled over with laughter. Eventually the police came and untangled us and we all proceeded on our merry (?) ways.

In view of the vastly greater number of vehicles on the road today, it is a good thing that traffic control has kept up fairly well. We have left-turn lanes, directional signals on cars, computerized traffic signals, GPS, etc. So that's a good thing.

However, in spite of all this, we haven't solved the problem of traffic jams.

And so one of the frustrations of driving is still with us.

Musing of one thinking about the guy hiking through the backwoods of the Pacific Northwest who encountered Bigfoot, challenged him to a game of...

...hopscotch and lost.

A Fable
One bright Saturday, when Congress had adjourned for the weekend, two Congressmen were sitting in a bar trying to decide what to do for the day. One of them said, "let's go down to the river and rent a boat and paddle down a ways and back." The other guy said, "good idea." So they went to the river, found a boat rental place, and rented a canoe. Since they were both big city boys, neither one of them knew how to paddle a canoe. So the owner gave them a rudimentary lesson, then shoved the canoe out into the current. They were paddling away when a piece of floating debris hit the paddle of the one in the bow, knocking it from his grasp. It floated away and the one in the stern paddled furiously trying to keep up with it. However, as a novice, he kept paddling on one side of the canoe, with the result that it went in circles. Shortly afterwards, his hands got so sweaty that his paddle slipped from his grasp to go find the other one. They drifted helplessly down the river until it disgorged them in a small branch of the river that went off to somewhere. They drifted down the branch until the canoe struck a sunken log and lodged there. One of them said, "Here we are...up a creek without a paddle. What do we do now?" The other one happened to glance towards the shore and saw an elderly man standing there. "Hey Pops," he yelled, "could you help us figure out how to get to shore?" The elderly man said, "Well, if I were you, I'd wade because it's only 2 feet deep. But I would take off my shoes and trousers first." So they removed all their clothing below the waist, rolled it into a ball, and managed to fall out of the canoe and wade to land. The elderly man led them to a clearing where the sun was shining brightly so they could dry off. After they dressed, he took them to his car, which was only a couple hundred yards away, and drove them back to the boat place. He refused any kind of payment, and drove off after giving them a parting admonition, "when you don't know what you're doing, sometimes it's wise not to do it." They paid the boat owner for the lost paddles plus the cost of retrieving the canoe and headed back to the city.

The next week when Congress was in session again, they introduced a bill requiring every rental boat to be equipped with an extra set of oars or paddles plus a battery-driven flashing red light as an emergency signal.

The bill passed 433-2. The 2 nay votes were from 2 Congressmen who happen to own interest in boat rental businesses.

The moral of this fable is in the mind of the reader.