BLACK SWAN

The black swan theory or theory of black swan events is a metaphor that describes an event that is a surprise (to the observer), has a major effect, and after the fact is often inappropriately rationalized with the benefit of hindsight.

We spent a lot of time at a dinner party Saturday night discussing this theory.

(Menu was butternut squash soup, stuffed chicken breasts with cherry glaze, Israeli couscous, cucumber, leek and pear salad with granny apple dressing, fruit tart)

Is Hurricane Sandy a black swan, an October surprise or just a horrible storm? Of course, global warming comes into play.

What event would you categorize as a black swan? The classic example is 9/11.

SOCIAL SECURITY-A GOVERNMENT PROGRAM

When people say government programs don't work, this is the one I think of first: a program that has worked almost seamlessly for seventy some years. Any shortfall in their accounts has come because money had been borrowed from it to meet other needs.

Millions of people have had decent old ages because of this FDR initiative. My parents, poorish all their lives, felt more security after sixty-five than at any time before it.

A lot of legislators would like to see it go because they aren't so interested in people that need help at the end of life. Or people who need any government programs during their lives. They truly believe if you can't take care of yourself, too bad. Or they think, why not allow private insurers to take this on.

Can you imagine how a program such as Social Security would be run in private hands? Has your insurance agent ever called you up to explain that you were paying too much? I bet not. Has you health care provider ever sent you a note saying you should get that surgery your doctor mentioned?

But a woman called us a few weeks ago and spent twenty minutes explaining that we were not getting the best deal from Social Security the way we set it up. A few months ago, they sent me a check, telling me they had underpaid me (my mistake) for the first nine months I collected. They seem determined we should get the most we have coming. A private insurer would never do this because our money would be coming out of the company pocket. A conflict of interest exists whenever a private company services the public.

There are many people in government who do have your best interests at heart. I can't imagine any corporation that does. Not any private healthcare system, not any agribusiness, not any car company. Anything they do to help you is because your government makes them. Or to compete with a company that does. It's the government who made them install seatbelts, makes them stop polluting water, makes them insure people with pre-existing conditions, makes them stop allowing people to smoke in restaurants, makes them do the right thing.

I don't want to debate this here, I swore I was off of that carousel, but I do want to credit SS with being a well run program that may soon need our help to survive.

THE NIXON LIBRARY

The Nixon Library/Museum is on the grounds of the house where he was born. The museum is a curious mix of past attempts of his daughters to control its presentation of him through a foundation and the new curator's attempt to tell the real story as all documents concerning him move here. While Phil worked away in the basement, I toured the grounds, his helicopter, his childhood home, the museum.

I am always amazed at how uninformed most people are. In the section about Watergate, the exhibit had the audio tape with the twenty minute blank where his secretary erased his words available.

It explained the gap in great detail on the wall above it, but more than one person picked it up and said, "Oh, I guess this one doesn't work; there's nothing on here." These were not school children but middle aged people. Do they not remember? Do they not read the explanatory parts plastered on the wall above the headphones?

When you read about Nixon's family, Quakers, upstanding, humanitarians on the whole, it both confounds and explains his actions. How could he not succeed with ancestors like this and how could he do what he did? The explanation that he lost two brothers was true of many people of that era.

There were things to like about Nixon and he certainly would be considered a moderate within the party today. But why did he do what he did? How much would we cling to power? I'm not sure. A very sad chapter in our history.

Tomorrow's Election

There have never been so many potential senators, reps, governors and members of state houses so ill-prepared, so unfeeling, so ready to dismantle every government program that helps people. These people regard those needing help as not deserving it. They would send our boys to fight a war and then deny them medical treatment to survive it. Survival of the fit.

There has never been so much vicious, lying negative campaigning, supported by the majority of the US Supreme Court. Corporations pouring money into campaigns of people with the platform of ending environmental protection. BP is still stirring the pot despite their near annihilation of the Gulf Coast. The very people on Wall Street who brought us to our knees three years ago depend on Republicans to raise them up again. The fix is in.

I beg you to vote tomorrow and vote for people with the experience, heart and intelligence to run this country. We can't expect the economy to be turned around in two years. Except we can expect the country to be turned around in the next few. By people who would return to the days of 1800. We thought we were living in a post-racist era but instead we are living in a neo-racist era. For a few minutes in time, the world applauded the election of a humane, smart, progressive American President.

The scariest words in the English language: President Sarah Palin.

The Game-changing Event in Your Lifetime

In the course of my lifetime (1948-2010) many events have shaped me. If I had to pick one, and this is a difficult task, I would choose Watergate. For the first time I understood what lengths men would go to to hang on to power. I understood that Presidents lie.

I could have chosen a book like Rachel Carson's, or the polio vaccine, or Roe v. Wade, or Brown v. Board of Education, or any one of the many assassinations I lived through. I could have chosen the Vietnam War, the McCarthy Hearings (barely remember them), the execution of the Rosenbergs, the Cuban Missile Crisis. But I will stick with Watergate, which didn't make me hate government--just made me cautious of the mantle of power. What do you choose in your life span? What made you the person that you are?

Shame on voters in Troy, Michigan.

Allow me one rant--first in a long time-- although I promised myself to resist political posting. I just need to get this off my chest. I reserve the right to remove this post should I need to.




The city of Troy, Michigan will close its library, nature center, community center and museum and lay off 47 police officers after voters rejected a tax hike yesterday. This is not an isolated case, of course. Not even in southeastern Michigan.

Shame on the people who led this anti-tax charge. Don't they understand with property values falling, local governments have to raise money somehow? Institutions like those cut in Troy are important to society. We are already stripping the schools of every enhancement activity. And now comes community institutions. Soon those who can afford it will send their children to private schools in greater numbers and our great public school system will be just for the poor and be treated as such. Anti-tax people have wreaked havoc with Michigan over the last thirty years but see themselves as heroic somehow. Our property taxes fell by about $600 this year. I'd much rather pay that $600 than lose a library or park or cops. If someone is unemployed, of course, their situation is different and possibly they need exemptions.

I'd like to believe that a single altruistic or public-minded or progressive intention was involved in the tax revolt in Troy, but I can only see these people as selfish, irresponsible, arrogant and short-sighted. Who will want to live in Troy, Michigan without a library or enough cops? So the housing values in Troy will drop further--their children will suffer for it.

Troy used to be a progressive city. People in Troy, Michigan are not poor by any stretch of the imagination. They can support these institutions by paying what they've been paying in taxes. But they won't. A city without a library is a pretty arid place. Troy is home to 81,000 people--who have no cultural life now--unless they go to some other city who values such things. Troy, the very name Troy connotes culture. But not in Michigan, I guess.

Why Are Vice Presidential Candidates So Lame

Why are veep nominees so lame?

(From the Andrew Gelman at The Monkey Cage)

A few days ago Gelman blogged on the laughability of many vice-presidential nominees (John Edwards, Dan Quayle, Dick Cheney, Sarah Palin, Joe Biden, Aaron Burr, . . .) along with some hypotheses about what was going on. Jonathan Bernstein followed up with some thoughts of his own:

List A: Eagleton, Shriver, Dole, Ferraro, Quayle, Lieberman, Palin

List B: Mondale, (George H.W.) Bush, Bentsen, Gore, Kemp, Edwards, Biden

List B are Vice Presidential nominees who had previously run for president, at least a little; List A are those nominees who had not run for president before their selection for the #2 spot . . . just on quick inspection there sure seems to be an enormous gap between the two lists, no? I think everyone on List B was regarded as a decent pick; there certainly are no wash-outs. List A, on the other hand, is a disaster area . . . If anyone wants to do an empirical study, I’d suggest checking for the word “dump” with the various nominees. I think you would come up positive for most of List A, and negative for everyone on List B.

Bernstein concludes:

If a presidential nominee asked me for advise about Vice, I’d tell him or her to make a short list limited to people who survived a presidential campaign with their reputations intact. Anything else is asking for trouble.

Me: The thing is VPs are so often picked for the purpose of balancing a ticket. Another geographical area, old and young, right and left. Does this often leave us with a weak pool to draw from? Thoughts?

Two-Story Outhouse

Hattip to Andrea DiTomasso. The message might be anti-government but we all need a laugh sometimes. I prefer to think of it as a criticism of those pols who won't pass healthcare reform.

To the Greatest Senator-RIP

He was human and subject to the imperfectability of being so, but he never forgot the people he served and no one served them better. There is an excellent documentary on HBO about him.

I truly believe his generation, and the Kennedy family, had a better sense of public service and duty than the men who have come since him.


Family Statement “Edward M. Kennedy—the husband, father, grandfather, brother and uncle we loved so deeply—died late Tuesday night at home in Hyannis Port. We’ve lost the irreplaceable center of our family and joyous light in our lives, but the inspiration of his faith, optimism, and perseverance will live on in our hearts forever. We thank everyone who gave him care and support over this last year, and everyone who stood with him for so many years in his tireless march for progress toward justice, fairness and opportunity for all. He loved this country and devoted his life to serving it. He always believed that our best days were still ahead, but it’s hard to imagine any of them without him.

Political Misperceptions

Birthers and Truthers Compared (From the Monkey Cage)

Brendan Nyhan compares the prevalence of conspiracy theories about Obama’s birthplace and 9/11. Here is the money graph, with responses broken down by party:

He concludes:

…both party’s bases are disturbingly receptive to wild conspiracy theories.

IS THERE ANY CONSPIRACY YOU BELIEVE IN?

Wilkipedia on the Giant Airships of 1896.

THE PRICE OF PROGRESSIVISM

(From the Monkey Cage)

Sometimes you just have to gut it out. Having watched the Teddy Kennedy autobio on HBO and heard his words about the necessity of universal health care thirty years ago, how can we still allow the rich to determine what health care the rest of us get? Forty-million people who can't get mammograms or flu shots or a chest x-ray is a disgrace.

LBJ vs. Obama

LBJ approval in July 1965, on the eve of Medicare: 66%

Obama approval now: 57%.

FROM THE MONKEY CAGE

This comes from the Monkey Cage--I hope you didn't think I could do this kind of fancy footwork. I wonder if all those people who commented on my blog during the election will come out of the woodwork for this.

Department of Argh: Is Obama Approval Under 50%?

An absurd amount of attention has been given today to a new Zogby internet poll…It takes five seconds to put the new poll in perspective. Take that long to look at the chart above. The Zogby poll stands out pretty clearly in the chart, no? To make a lot of the Zogby poll is to deliberately ignore the context in which it appears. Yes, the left is correct that it is an outlier. A huge one. The right looks desperate or ignorant by embracing this result as meaningful.

That is Charles Franklin, doing the Lord’s work over at Pollster. I have talked to pollsters who dislike Pollster because they don’t differentiate among polls (e.g., this Zogby poll goes in their chart) and because they find the precision of their horse-race trendlines (“Obama leads McCain by 3.4 points”) a bit artificial. But in cases like these, the Pollster charts are invaluable for separating signal from noise — naturally occurring sampling fluctuation, house effects, and God knows whatever juju goes into Zogby internet polls.

Not a political comment

Arthur Conan Doyle reading

Whether you like Obama or not, you can't deny that he's the most accessible, ominpresent president in history. My God, how will he last four years at this rate? He's running himself ragged, functioning as our leader, coach, father, minister, cheerleader, counselor, brother, prom date, civics teacher and friend. He's Charles Atlas, holding the world up with his tongue and heart.

I think we've heard more from Obama in two months than from his predecessor in eight years. Could anyone work harder? Now that's a good thing for me. Maybe not for you. What do you think?

My New Hero

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-nLS6FJtSM

I Get My News from TV and Radio

Lou Reed reading.




The statement above was on one of the self-descriptive memes going around. Doesn't matter whose because I think it's a fairly common statement among people under thirty-five. It seems to transcend sex, level of education, area of the country, profession, etc.

My question is why. Newspapers are pretty cheap in the scheme of things. And the sort of investigative journalism that newspapers have traditionally paid for cannot be found on TV and radio unless I'm mistaken. When this blogger says, TV, does he mean The Daily Show or does he mean CNN, FOX, MSNBC or the Evening News.

I think news from all of these venues has more of a slant that news in a newspaper ( excepting the editorial page, where it is clear that it is opinion). Do you trust Chris Mathews or Wolf Blitzer or Katie Couric or Jonathan Stewart to give you unbiased well-researched news. If you don't subscribe to a newspaper as a writer, can you honestly complain that your book was not reviewed?

We complain that newspapers are not as good as they used to be but we made them that way by pulling our support. We say we read them online but how long will they be available there if no one pays for it.

Newspapers have traditionally been the most reliable sources of unbiased news yet for a few bucks a week, we're giving it up. I just don't get it. Please explain.

Bush's Parting Shots

George Bush reading (sort of).

Bush's final actions as President seem entirely in keeping with his eight years, favoring the interests of big business or his personal agenda (or Cheney's) over average citizens in areas such as environmental quality, poverty, health care, various freedoms, the conduct of the war. His executive orders, hard to change, reflect this. Oh, you want to spill oil. Why not?

When high military personnel ask the new President to ban the torture tactics Bush's administration promoted in the Middle East because such activity is making torturers out of soldier, we are in pretty dire straits.

The idea that a President leaving office in a month should be able to issue such pardons and issue executive orders just floors me. I think the outgoing President should not be able to do such things after 2/3rds of his final term has passed. Or at least such orders should have to have some sort of Senate approval.

Isn't ironic that a man who has done such much harm is still getting in his parting shots?

From a Former Schoolteacher in Detroit

Student Reading in Detroit

This is from an email from a recently retired school teacher friend:

Most of you know that for 32 years I taught History and Government in the Detroit Public Schools.
My students would often ask me why they had to learn all this stuff, and why I constantly pushed them to read and write more, and why my grading standards were so much tougher than some of the other Social Studies
instructors.

My answer was usually, "I don't know what job you will have someday, I don't
know what knowledge you will need to succeed in life, you might end up
flipping burgers at McDonald's, or you might be President of the United
States. I don't know what you might need to learn or what you will do for a
living, but I'm not going to take any chances, I'll just assume I'm training
you all for the top job."
The next question was always this, in every class, every semester, every
year I taught: "Mr. C****, do you really think an African-American is ever
going to be elected President?"
I always answered, "Maybe not in my lifetime, but certainly in yours."
WELL, I AM F****** ALIVE TODAY!

The Poll Workers Tango

Reading on a kindle at the Portland Airport.



You know you're a Democrat when you're already worrying about the 2010 elections.



My husband and I pulled a two-hour shift at a poll yesterday, standing with the sign of a colleague running for State Rep (not us in the pic and he did win).
It's an unusual situation-- when you and "rival" party workers are suddenly forced to stand shoulder to shoulder for a lengthy time without getting into a shouting match or acting uncivilly.

Instead, you try to find common ground, agree that the economy stinks and those mortgage companies and banks are evil. That our house values have plummeted, that the car industry is in big trouble, that the school system may have to lay off teachers.
What neither of us says aloud is that "our guy" would improve the situation.

We each let the conversation trail off at that point.

Because, after all, this campaign worker lives just a few blocks away from me; we'll see each other in Traders Joes or at the library.

We even offer to hold each other signs as we go to the bathroom, or get a drink. She offers me a chair; I offer her my cellphone.

We're neighbors in the end. We share more than we think. We want to get along. We all want to get along. It's been so long since we did.

Michigan Voting Rights

Don't Vote? Check this out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olpCyDA4kYA


For Michigan voters:

When In Doubt - VOTE

Voting Myths in Michigan Debunked
 From the ACLU

Fact: You have the right to vote without a photo ID in Michigan.
Fact: You have the right to vote in Michigan if you are an ex-felon.
Fact: You have the right to vote if your home is in foreclosure.
Fact: You have the right to vote if you wear campaign gear to the  
           polls (but for the sake of inconvenience you should take it off first).
Fact: You have the right to be free of intimidation or harassment at
the polls.

The important thing is to VOTE!

SOMEONE STOLE OUR OBAMA SIGN LAST NIGHT

I heard them pull up around eleven, a door opened, then shut a second later, and then they took off. Ten seconds tops.

The cops, when we called them, seemed quite uninterested although it's against the law to steal signs. Of course they were uninterested when someone stole the mirrors from our car last year too. And uninterested when we told them someone was using our credit card to buy computers and have them delivered a few miles away. They did show some interest when we asked them to install our baby car seat. I guess safety is still important to them.

I know when we take our midday walk, all the signs will be gone. I can't get another one. We already tried.

I wish I could make a semi-professional sign that said "You can steal my sign, but not my vote" although we found out even that wasn't true in 2000. And maybe 2004.

Any signs being stolen in your neighborhood?