Is It Time to Retire George?

With the cost of everything going up, you can be glad that there's still at least one bargain out there: you can read this blog for free! Well, you have to pay for your Internet connection, but you were going to do that anyway, right?

Well, anyhow, the cost of everything is going up. Including the cost of money.

I'm not referring to interest rates designed to protect banks and keep you in interest slavery, but the actual cost of your money - how much it takes to produce those bills that used to crowd your wallet, and the coins you look for under the sofa cushions when you need just a little bit more to pay the Domino's Pizza guy at the door.

According to this article from Mainstreet.com, our cash-strapped government could save an estimated 5.5 billion dollars over the next 30 years by replacing dollar bills (which wear out fairly quickly) with dollar coins (which can last for many years).

Part of the reason for the high cost of money is, oddly enough, the rising cost of cotton. Your paper money is not actually made of paper per se, but of a more durable combination of 25% linen and 75% cotton, and as the cost of cotton goes up, so does the cost of printing money. Each of the 6.4 billion banknotes printed each year costs about 9.6 cents to produce. 6.4 billion multiplied by just under 10 cents is ... well ... quite a bit of money. You don't need to be a mathematical genius to recognize the potential savings involved in moving from paper money to coins.

I don't think anyone has done a study of the effect of electronic funds transfers, credit and debit cards, and other such substitutes on the amount of "hard" currency the government needs to print, but it would probably be an interesting addition to the debate. "E-money" will never replace printed banknotes, of course ... Afghan poppy farmers prefer bricks of hundred dollar bills rather than Visa or Master Card, and poor people without bank accounts can't really use them, anyhow ... but it should be an important part of containing the rising cost of money.

Last September in a post titled "Facelifting George," I wrote about an ongoing project to redesign US currency to make it more secure and more, well, attractive. We all like banknotes, which are a traditional symbol of wealth in a way that coins jingling in pockets are not. But at a time when Congress is looking for every conceivable place to cut costs (whether they make sense or not), it seems like the time has come to cut our fiscal umbilical cord to low-denomination paper money. Replacing the dollar bill ... and perhaps even the five-dollar bill... with coins could save enormous amounts of money that could be applied to more important things. Like not intervening in Libya.

Sounds like a winning plan to me.

Have a good day. Support your local coins. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

For God's Sake Don't Just Do Something, Stand There!

That's not how you usually hear that expression, but sometimes it's just the right approach.

Take Libya, for instance.

As the loyalist forces of President Moammar Qadhafi Kadaffy Khadafi He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Spelled crack down brutally on military and civilian rebels, the calls for the rest of the world ... and particularly the United States ... to do something are getting louder every day. This Slate.com article by Eliot Spitzer (a paragon of sound judgment and international political experience if ever there was one) is typical: "Do Something in Libya and Do It Now." Even a hardcore cut-all-spending-except-aid-to-dependent-corporations conservative gadfly like Newt Gingrich loudly castigates President Obama for not riding to the aid of the beleaguered Libyans by establishing a "no-fly zone," sending in the Marines, or both.

Where I come from, this is called stupid.

If history teaches us nothing else, it is that gratitude has a vanishingly short half-life, particularly in the Arab world. We invariably hear rhetoric about how "only the US can help" and "the US must lead the way," but I contend that US intervention in Libya is a perfect example of a lose-lose situation:

If we intervene on the side of the rebels and they win, the Arab world will be pissed off that we didn't stand aside and let the brave Arabs do the job themselves. Islamic radicals will accuse us of invading a Muslim nation and continuing the "crusade" they don't realize ended in the 13th century. Europe will look down its collective nose at us for interfering in the affairs of a sovereign nation, and China will send in a large number of its surplus personnel to make a fortune rebuilding the Libyan infrastructure.

If we don't intervene and the Libyan loyalists continue to hammer the rebels, we'll be accused of standing by to allow "genocide" (a word that has taken on a very flexible meaning since the Holocaust). Islamic radicals will accuse us of ignoring the suffering of Muslims. Europe will look down its nose at us and sneer about the decline of American leadership. China will offer reconstruction aid to He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Spelled. And we'll also be blamed for the skyrocketing cost of oil.

One of the few commentators who is calling this mess right is Ian Buruma who, in his article "Obama Gets It Right," said,

"...armchair warriors watching events unfold on their computer and television screens in Washington and New York ... want Obama to handle things more. Instead of taking a cautious approach, and letting the demonstrators in Iran, Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, Yemen, and other places do the shouting, they want him to talk tough, or, better yet, to send in the US Air Force and blast Qaddafi’s jet fighters and helicopter gunships out of the sky. They want Obama to tell those dictators to quit right now, or else … Or else what, exactly?"

Yes ... or else what?

It's time to let the Arab world sort out its own problems. Sometimes, the Hippocratic Oath applies to international affairs, too: First, do no harm.

Intervening in Libya will, in the long run, do far more harm than good.

If you don't believe that, look at what happened in Iraq. The rest of the world is.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

My Fifth Blogoversary, and a Rant

Continuing briefly with the today-in-history theme we've followed the last two days, I note with all the smug self-congratulation of a hardshell Republican that today - March 8th - marks my fifth "Blogoversary."

Yes, it was five years ago today that I wrote my very first blog post. You can read it in all it's initial glory here if you like; however, I like to think that the newer posts are far more interesting and worth your time.

I've had a lot of fun with this blog, and through it I've met some fascinating people, some of whom I've come to know well enough to call friends: Gilahi (although he's not blogging any more), Kathy A, John, Zandria, Mike, Buggie, Captain Picard, Andrea, and Amanda, among many others.

I've written 1,633 posts (more or less), some much better or more entertaining than others, and accrued something over 6,800 comments ... only one of which was utterly negative and insulting.

It's been fun, it's still fun, and I plan to keep going.

Starting now ...

Just when I thought that conservative Republican hubris couldn't get any worse, I found this amazing article: "In States, Parties Clash Over Voting Laws That Call for IDs, Limits on Where College Students Can Cast Ballots." Now, before I get started, let me just say that I have no problem whatsoever with proper registration of voters, and with the requirement that a voter positively identify him- (or her-) self at the polling place. My problem is with what is clearly the underlying issue, as Mr William O'Brien, Speaker of the State House in New Hampshire said just about as plainly as one can. Here's an excerpt from the article:

"They're 'foolish,' [Speaker William] O'Brien said in a recent speech to a tea party group. "Voting as a liberal. That's what kids do," he added, his comments taped by a state Democratic Party staffer and posted on YouTube. Students lack 'life experience,' and 'they just vote their feelings.' ... New Hampshire House Republicans are pushing for new laws that would prohibit many college students from voting in the state - and effectively keep some from voting at all."

Well, I've been a college student, and I would be the first to agree that some college students are foolish. So are some politicians, particularly those who seem to lack familiarity with the Constitution, particularly the 26th Amendment. To them, college students are not citizens with a constitutional right to vote, but "... people with a dearth of experience and a plethora of the easy self-confidence that only ignorance and inexperience can produce."

So...

If Republicans don't think college students of the appropriate age, who meet legal residency and other requirements, should be able to vote, how do you think they feel about the rights of minorities (the 15th Amendment), women (the 19th Amendment), or anyone else who might harbor those ghastly liberal ideas.

If you don't think this is an absolutely appalling example of dangerously unconstitutional - if not downright stupid - thought, you may need to go back and re-take your high-school civics class (except that I don't think those are being taught any more).

How can anybody with a brain listen to these ass clowns*?

I had another topic I was also going to rant about this morning, but it'll have to wait until tomorrow. My spleen has been sufficiently vented for the moment.

Be very wary of those who would chip away at your rights ... those rights are what keep you from living in a paradise like Pakistan (where you can be murdered with impunity by religious bigots for the "crime" of blasphemy) or North Korea (where your primary right is the right to starve on behalf of the regime).

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

* I threw this in, Chrissy, because I knew you'd like it.

B.

Thoughts on Telephones, Unions, and Poetry

Yesterday, you will recall, was the birthday both of Michelangelo and of poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning. As it happens, there were interesting things that happened in history today, as well.

It was on this date in 1876 that the telephone was invented by Alexander Graham Bell, whose patent submission beat that of rival inventor Elisha Gray by a mere two hours. Over the following years, numerous lawsuits ensued (as you might suspect), but Mr Bell prevailed and his "Bell Company" survived and prospered to be the foundation of the vast telecommunications network of landlines, cell phones, Blackberries, computers, iPads, and other arcane devices we know today. Had things been different by only two hours, we might have spoken of "Ma Gray" and never known the iconic Bell Telephone symbols ...

and,

What on earth logo would we have used for "Gray Telephone?" I'm sure an old telephone hand like Mike can speak more about this.

And at a time when there is such rancor and divisiveness over the role of unions in the ongoing economic crisis, we might remember that it was on March 7, 2003, that Broadway went dark as 325 theater musicians went on strike to protest the planned reduction in size of theater orchestras from 24 members to six or seven. The musicians worried about their welfare, and that concern was reinforced when it became known that the producers of the popular musical Cats were experimenting with a computer-generated orchestra. The strike lasted four days and ended with a ten-year agreement that the standard size of a Broadway theater orchestra would be 18 musicians. See your plays now - the agreement runs out in two years.

On a larger scale, unions are, for better or worse, a fixture of the American workplace. Their role in improving wages and working conditions for American workers is unquestionable, but they've also managed to sour their image over the years by demanding unsustainable benefits and insisting on the maintenance of positions for which there was no longer any need as a result of advancing technology. The benefits of collective bargaining for workers are undeniable, but these are coming under fierce assault at a time of economic crisis. One hopes that union leadership and members, the business community, and loudly-shouting political opportunists will choose not to throw the rights of the labor baby out with the economic bathwater (wow, is that a twist on a cliche or what?)

And finally, today is the anniversary of the day in 1923 that another of the most famous poems in American literary history was published - Robert Frost's "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening" ...

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here

To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

And I have a day of work to go before I sleep. Outside my study window the wind is howling and it's still very cold, although the fierce rains we had last night have stopped. At least I won't have to swim to the bus stop.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow, when we celebrate my fifth "Blogoversary."

Bilbo

The Most Typical Face, and Other Things

We'll do the other things first.

Today is the birthday (in Caprese, Italy, in 1475) of Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect and poet Michelangelo Buonarroti (bet you didn't know his last name, did you?). Michelangelo is justly famous for some of the most towering works of Western art, including the Pieta

and his painting of The Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel (for which he also frescoed the entire ceiling for Pope Julius II)

You can read a wonderful account of Michelangelo's life and his work on the Sistine Chapel in the book Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling, by Ross King.

Today is also the birthday (in 1806) of English poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning, many of whose love poems were sonnets she wrote for or about her husband, poet Robert Browning. Elizabeth and Robert married in 1846, when she was 40, but did so in secret, because her father had forbidden her to marry. The newlywed lovebirds decamped to Florence, Italy, which is a great place for artists (and was the hiding place some years later of Dr Hannibal Lecter, but that's another story). One of Ms Browning's most famous and moving poems was "How Do I Love Thee? (Sonnet 43)":

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

For the ends of being and ideal grace.

I love thee to the level of every day's

Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.

I love thee freely, as men strive for right.

I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.

I love thee with the passion put to use

In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose

With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,

Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,

I shall but love thee better after death.

I think she rather liked him, don't you?

Well, that's enough high culture for now...let's talk about the most typical face on earth.

You may have read this fascinating article by Liz Goodwin the other day: The Most Typical Face on the Planet. It reports on a National Geographic video clip (which you can view at the linked article) which purports to show the "most typical face" of the billions and billions of people now living on planet Earth. The face, a composite of nearly 200,000 individual photos, is that of a male, 28-year-old Han Chinese man ... of which there are, today, about 9 million.

So, if you're a 28-year old Han Chinese man, and you're one in a million, there are at least nine more people out there just like you.

The article goes on to note that this will not be the most typical face for long ... given current population trends, within 20 years, the face of the most typical person on the planet will be Indian.

That's enough for now. It's time to eat some breakfast, read the Sunday paper (half of which is now delivered on Saturday, go figure), wear myself out on the new elliptical trainer, and put the oarlocks on the car so we can row down to visit the local grandchildren this afternoon (yes, it's raining cats and dogs).

Have a good day. Stay dry. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

Cartoon Saturday

The Boston Massacre, one of the precipitating actions of the Revolutionary War, in which five persons were killed and three injured by British soldiers, took place on this date in 1770; after a huge manhunt, police in Connecticut believe they have caught the so-called "East Coast Rapist," responsible for assaulting 17 women in four states between 1997 and 2009; violence and chaos continue in Libya as rebels seek to oust bizarre strongman Moammar (insert preferred spelling here); two children found dead in a canal in Florida may be related to a woman found dead in a Florida landfill seven months ago; and political campaigns are making increasingly frequent and creative use of the Internet to play innovative dirty campaign tricks once limited to television, print, and radio.

In a crazy world, the one thing you can always depend on is Cartoon Saturday.

Last week's post about Sisyphus and its accompanying cartoon were very popular, so I've decided to lead off this week by reinforcing success with a few cartoons on mythological themes. An update of the Sisyphus myth seems a good place to start ...

... along with two takes on the legend of Pandora ...

and,

What did directionally challenged people like yours truly do before GPS ... other than have one fewer thing to write cartoons about? Here are two new GPS-related cartoons ...

and,

Children of the high-tech era sometimes see things a little differently than their grandparents (or even, sometimes, their parents) ...

One of the things we men have to learn early in life (not always with notable success) is how to read the subtle signals women send us instead of just saying what they mean. Some women make it easier, though ...

If you've ever been the father of a teenage girl, you can relate to this one ...

Remember our discussions about disagreement on what facts are? Remember when we used to have a phrase that said numbers don't lie? Welcome to the wacky world of Generally Accepted Accounting Principles ...

And finally, speaking of numbers, thanks to the Supreme Court's decision last year in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the people who buy political campaigns can do so not only with impunity, but with anonymity as well. This is how it will probably end ...

It looks as if it's going to be a cold and rainy weekend, perfect for Agnes to badger me into spending more time on our new elliptical training machine, the latest in a series of devices we've purchased over the years to help us get into shape and hang freshly-ironed shirts on. We'll see how it goes.

I hope all of you have a good and relaxing weekend. Rest up for this coming Tuesday, so you can help celebrate my 5th "blogoversary" in style.

Have a good day and a great weekend. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

Friday Odds and Ends

This is one of those mornings when my neurons just aren't sparking with one another, and so I'll just offer a few random comments on things in the news. It's not like there isn't a lot out there to discuss...

Hugo Chavez, the Official Hot-Air Balloon of Venezuela,

has inserted himself into the crisis in Libya, offering the opinion that Libyan not-quite-so-strongman-any-more Moammar Qadhafi Khadaffy Kadaffy That Weird Guy in the Bizarre Costumes

would welcome an international commission coming to Libya. Well, it seems to me that the international commission may visit regardless of what Moammar and Hugo want ... they'll just be driving tanks.

Twenty years after his videotaped beating by Los Angeles police led to days of deadly riots in which 55 people were killed, 2,000 injured, and more than a billion dollars of property damage done, Rodney King was peacefully ticketed by a police officer for running a red light and driving without a license. You'd think he'd want to drive a bit more carefully.

The only Christian minister in the Pakistani government has been murdered by Islamic extremists because of his opposition to Pakistan's draconian anti-blasphemy laws. Note to those who are upset by the Supreme Court ruling in the Westboro Baptist Church case: this is what happens when governments limit freedom of speech and independent thought.

Charlie Sheen. Who cares?

That's enough for this morning. It's Friday, the weekend beckons, and I'm ready to enjoy it. I didn't get to go dancing last week, so I've got twice as much to do tonight. Yee, hah!

Have a good day. Be here tomorrow for Cartoon Saturday ... more thoughts then.

Bilbo

Good News! The Supreme Court Has Upheld Your Right to Be a Dumbass!

Well, that's not exactly how they said it, but it sounds better my way.

In an 8 to 1 decision handed down yesterday (Justice Alito dissenting), the Supreme Court upheld the right of the members of the Westboro Baptist Church to protest at military funerals against rights for (or acceptance of) homosexuals. This photo shows a typical selection of the types of protest signs for which the intellectual and moral giants of the WBC are famous:

As with most things, reasonable people can agree to disagree on both the message and the medium by which it is delivered. My personal opinion is that these people are utterly repugnant ass clowns who deserve the condemnation and disgust of decent people everywhere.

But the Supreme Court doesn't agree, and it's correct.

The First Amendment to the Constitution - the very first paragraph of The Bill of Rights - is pretty clear on the subject:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Let's see how it applies in this case:

1. Free exercise of religion - check.

2. Freedom of speech - check.

3. Right to peaceably assemble - check.

Yep, it looks as if these people - however detestable their beliefs and their choice of venue for expressing them may be - are enjoying the same Constitutional protection that allows me to publish (and you to read) this blog.

Mike wrote about this topic this morning as well, noting that "...depending on who you talk to it was a good/bad decision. I have a tendency to go with the good right now." I agree.

Nobody needs to defend speech that's popular. If I stand on a street corner and declaim loudly about how gorgeous Scarlett Johansson is, no one is likely to object (unless on the basis of perceived acting talent). But deeply held, yet unpopular beliefs deserve protection, too. There are reasonable limits, of course - the law does, after all, prohibit you from inciting to riot, or starting a panic by shouting "fire!" in a crowded club - but the simple exercise of expressing an opinion must be protected.

If you disagree, you might enjoy living in a civil rights wonderland like Pakistan, where "blasphemy" will earn you a death sentence ... and the streets will fill with otherwise educated and knowledgeable lawyers who will gladly throw the first stone.

I have always believed that everyone should be permitted to express his (or her) views freely. There's a reason we expose dirty laundry to fresh air and sunshine. The unrestricted ability to hear, evaluate, and reject repugnant ideas ensures a vibrant and educated democracy. Of course, there will always be those who will uncritically accept the most bizarre religious and political ideas (a lot of Republicans got elected last November by people who accepted their simplistic economic theories) ... but the ability to hear and debate ideas leads (theoretically, at least) to a better world for all.

Yes, I think the members of the WBC are stupid bigots. But their right to be stupid bigots is guaranteed by the same laws that allow us to protest the things that really matter.

As I'm fond of pointing out, the Constitution guarantees us freedom of speech. Freedom of smart is, sadly, another thing entirely.

Have a good day. Celebrate the fact that you live in a nation where the highest court of the land protects your right to be a dumbass.

More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

Of Wine, Green Eggs, and Ham

Two topics today which could only be linked in my fevered mind: Doctor Seuss and overblown wine descriptions.

Today is the anniversary of the birth in 1904 of author Theodor Geisel, better known to generations of children and their parents as Doctor Seuss. What parent hasn't read classic Dr Seuss tales like The Cat in the Hat...

and Green Eggs and Ham

to their children and grandchildren? If I had one thin dime for every time I've intoned the words "I do not like green eggs and ham/I do not like them, Sam I Am!" to a giggling child, I could retire in comfort on some warm and distant tropical beach, sipping drinks with little umbrellas in them.

What does this have to do with wine descriptions, you ask?

The other day I read this marvelous article by Coco Krumme on Slate.com - Velvety Chocolate With a Silky Ruby Finish. Pair With Shellfish. Ridiculous Wine Descriptors May Reveal More About a Bottle's Price Than Its Flavor. This article contains a link to an even more marvelous (marvelouser?) article by Richard E. Quant titled, On Wine Bullshit.

How many overblown and ridiculous descriptions of a bottle of wine have you read over the years? If you enjoy wine as much as Agnes and I do, you've no doubt read your share of silly and unhelpful wine reviews that are long on bizarre adjectives and comparisons and short on useful information. Consider this possible description of a bottle of wine, extracted from Ms Krumme's article:

"A velvety chocolate texture and enticingly layered, yet creamy, nose, this wine abounds with focused cassis and a silky ruby finish. Lush, elegant, and nuanced. Pair with pork and shellfish."

Armed with a description like that, a restaurant could easily charge, say, $150 for a bottle of common rotgut that you could buy for about six bucks at Costco.

I remember the good old days, before Agnes instructed me in the culture of wine. Life was easier then. I selected my wines by a careful analysis of the information on the label ... if said label contained key elements of information such as images of bare-breasted ladies and scenic castles on hilltops, accompanied with incomprehensible French words and a vintage date earlier than last week, it was probably okay to purchase and serve to my guests with an appropriate flourish.

All of which has absolutely nothing to do with Dr Seuss, except to cause me to wonder what sort of wine I'd serve with green eggs and ham. I assume it would be something like

"A rich and full-bodied blending of savory bacon and egg with hints of green yolk. Serve in a boat, with a goat, here or there, or anywhere."

Think about this rule of thumb the next time you shell out big bucks for a bottle of wine: the longer and more overblown the description, the higher the price.

Who wants to drink graphite, slate, tobacco, or silky rubies, anyhow?

Have a good day. Salut! More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo.

My Place on the Timeline

I've always been fascinated by history, as you know if you're one of my long-time readers. The world we live in today has been shaped by the people and events that came before, and it's always fascinating to me to look back at those people and events and think about what actually happened at that time. The two-dimensional figures we read about in the pages of history books were at one time real, living, breathing people who did all the mundane things you and I do every day ... but which we never think about. We all have a mental picture of George Washington heroically crossing the Delaware ...

... but we never think about George Washington going to the bathroom or trying to remember where the #$@! he left his glasses.

Historical figures were real people, once. Or, as my mother once said in this context, even Hitler had a mommy.

I got to thinking about this whole topic of places in history when I read this article yesterday: Last US World War I Veteran Frank W. Buckles Dies At 110.

Mr Buckles was the last known survivor of the estimated five million men who served in the US Army during the First World War in 1917-18, and was known not only for his longevity, but for his self-effacing good humor. He said not long ago, "I knew there'd be only one [survivor of WWI] someday, (but) I didn't think it would be me." One of his friends said that Mr Buckles "was a history book in and of himself, the kind you can't get at the library.

I think it's fascinating to reflect that I was born just six years after the end of World War II, and less than 100 years after the end of the Civil War. I had an uncle who was a genuine frontier cowboy, a father who survived World War II as a crewman on a B-24 bomber, and a grandmother who told stories of washing the family's sheep by driving them into a Hungarian river. In 1979, I was rescued by two burly Air Force security policemen from a drunken engineer who was choking me because I couldn't tell him who would reimburse him for all the expensive tools that Iranian revolutionaries had stolen from him before his evacuation from that turbulent land.

We all have stories to tell, even if we don't think of them at the time as being particularly interesting or historical.

One of my long-term projects is an attempt to document the history of our family, and the stories we all have to tell...the stories that will remind our children and grandchildren that they come from generations who represent an unbroken line of history stretching back into the dim mists of time.

Document your own history, and your own stories. Someday, wide-eyed grandchildren will sit on your lap and realize that that old geezer really is an interesting fellow, after all.

Have a good day. Write it all down.

More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo