Servant or Master

Time for another opinion piece. In this morning's paper George Will laments the return of government "interference" in the economy. In that same morning paper is an article which claims that Charles Dickens characterization of the poor diet of children in workhouses (Oliver Twist) is wrong. Recent studies has shown that the "recommended" diet was significantly more nutritious than that portrayed in Dickens' novel. Less than currently recommended but "adequate". So what do the two have in common? It is a matter of who's holding the reins.

Several years ago Dr David Suzuki, the Canadian scientist/TV host of The Nature of Things, made a TV special called Suzuki Speaks which presented his views on the interaction of the economy and the ecology. In it he makes the case for humans place in and as part of nature and contends that purpose of "the economy" is to serve the needs of people. It is, or should be the medium by which we distribute the goods and services we need to live together as a society. He argues however that "the economy" has become an end in itself, a thing which the people serve through their work and consumerism. An excerpt from his talk is avaliable on YouTube or a slightly longer excerpt at Link TV. A DVD or download of the full talk is available at Avanti Pictures. I believe that this talk is as important to the future of the world as "An Inconvenient Truth".

George Will and other free market capitalists argue that the markets, left to their own devices, are self correcting and that government interference only prolongs the existence of businesses that should go out of business. That's true if, as Dr. Suzuki contends, we are servants of the economy. If the economy is in charge and the role of humans is to feed it through their labor and consumption then market forces should be allowed to run their course unimpeded by government regulation. There are problems with that idea though.

The first problem is like the problem in saying Dickens got the diet of children in workhouses wrong because the recommended diet was actually adequate. Even the authors of the quoted study admit that maybe not all workhouses followed the recommendations. Well, DUH! History is loaded with examples of people not doing things in the recommended way. We've recently been treated to the results of people not following recommendations in the financial markets to the detriment of everyone in society.

The larger problem is, as Dr. Suzuki contends, a matter of putting the cart before the horse. We create the economy to serve us. Free market economists argue that in a free market everyone will prosper, the old "a rising tide floats all boats" idea, but putting the functioning of the economy ahead of the purpose it is meant to serve is backwards. The business world is fond of mission statements as a means of measuring success. We need to find a way to make the economic system serve us, to provide for our needs first and desires after. We need to have the mission of the economy to serve us, not itself. I highly recommend Dr. Susuki's full talk, either the download or the DVD. The download will play only on the computer it is downloaded to (unless they've changed it since I got a copy several years ago).

I will add the caveat that government can be as guilty of putting the bureaucracy or institution ahead of the mission as business. Both are human institutions. Both require some supervision by those they serve to keep them on course. Hopefully the recent election was just such a course correction. I believe it was even if Mr. Will does not. The important thing is to remember that all human institutions exist to serve us, not the reverse. Remember that the next time you are instructed to "go out and buy stuff" or told that preserving the environment will damage the economy. It isn't about the economy, it's about people.

0ºF and Snowing... Again!

No morning paper today. It comes from 80 miles South of us and apparently the weather is so bad down that way the papers couldn't get out of town. That happens 2-3 times each winter. The title of this post is our weather this morning. Forget the White Christmas part. We already have that. I'm dreaming of a super-insulated house with a garage so I don't have to clean off the cars after every storm.

It isn't snowing hard here (yet) but the forecast is for it to continue into tomorrow morning and to total as much as a foot. The mountains South & East of here could see 14" or more.

There's frost on my windows again and I shot another round of frost pattern photos but decided instead to share a shot of Diane's bromeliad which is in full bloom right next to one of those frost covered panes.

Addendum: We watched "Sunday Morning" (recorded so we can skip the ads) and throughout the program there was a banner streaming across the bottom listing the churches that were canceling morning services. I feel sorry for all those who are trying to travel this weekend. This is shaping up to be a good Christmas to stay home.

Visitors

We have several bird feeders and this year a pair of cardinals come around occasionally. They are very skittish and therefore difficult to photograph. The wreath hanging over the window on the kitchen door doesn't make it any easier nor does the fact that they seem to feed at dusk when the light is fading but today I did manage to get passable photos of each of them. Meet Mr. & Mrs. Cardinal.

Christmas Card

As I did last year I am posting my Christmas greeting here on my blog for my e-friends. Here's wishing one and all a happy holiday of whatever sort you choose. In about one week's time the days will be getting longer again and a new cycle of life begins. The photo above has been modified from an original I shot last Dec. of Sullivan's barn on the Hatch Rd.

One friend/reader has asked that I post more often. I have been somewhat lax I confess. I get preoccupied. It is nice getting responses however as it tells me there are people following my blog. One of the features missing from Blogger is a stats page. Aside from comments there is no way to tell how many readers a blog has. A blog is a bit like doing a radio program. You are talking but you don't know for sure if anyone is listening.

Our son asked if we got hit by the huge ice storm that has been on the news. We did not. All we got was a tiny amount of freezing rain mixed into about 4-5 inches of snow. There is some ice on the trees but that is left from an earlier weather system. It did not warm up enough between the two for that ice to melt and this morning it was about -13°F here so it won't be melting soon. It is up to about 0°F now. For those readers who might not know, "here" is near Potsdam, NY, North and West of the Adirondack Park.

No one asked for photos but y'all are getting one anyway :-) The photo above is the frost on one pane of our front hall window. Be sure to click on it for a larger view. There is no storm window on that one and we don't heat the hall so I got several frost pattern photos this morning. Ian, you get to enjoy looking at frost without being cold. Enjoy.

Christmas Is Coming

As usual Christmas is coming too quickly.

I washed dishes this evening. I had been letting the dishes go until Diane would wash and I'd dry because I had cut my left index finger opening a bag of pellets last week. I guess my Swiss Army knife is sharp enough. My finger is healed up but Diane wants me to open the bags with scissors now.

Our Christmas card list is drawn up. We will likely think of 2-3 more after they are done. We always do. I'll print the cards tomorrow around oil changes for both vehicles. I have at least one other print to make and I have to paint the frame it's going in plus another frame to build. I need to make up some birthday and anniversary calendars with my genealogy program but those don't have to be done until January 1st. No boredom around the holidays. Next Sunday afternoon we go to a performance of Handell's Messiah. Diane likes the idea of Christmas Eve dinner out, so it's a go. I'll have to make a reservation. A quiet Christmas Day will be welcome.

Happy Thanksgiving

My little friend above has his feast. We put out plenty of black oil seed for he and his friends. We will have turkey and dressing with gravy and pie (pecan or pumpkin) for dessert. I hope everyone is enjoying the holiday in the company of family and/or friends.

Mixed Feelings

I know we have to do something to pull the economy out of its nosedive. Diane's retirement investments are going down the tubes as are many people's. On the other hand it gripes me no end that my tax dollars and the tax dollars of my children are bailing out people who have been financially irresponsible. After a lifetime of trying to live within our means we have to 'help' people who are far richer than we are because the way the economy is set up, if the rich and powerful go broke we all do. It is bad enough that that the share of the pie the average Joe or Jane gets is determined by people who often decide to keep most of the profits for themselves but then when they squander and/or gamble with their inflated share and get into financial trouble it's the little guy who gets to bail the fat cats out. Damned if we do and damned if we don't. Greed wins. There's something basically wrong with the system. I don't know what the solution is (I wish I did) but the system we have sucks big time.

My Big Brother

Monday morning my oldest brother passed away. That's him holding me in the photo. I have another brother but he is only 2 years older. Bruce was 18 years older so he was my big brother. He worked as a fireman and a truck driver. He had a private pilot's license and owned his own light plane, several of them actually, one at a time. Bruce did lots of neat things for me when I was growing up. He took me up in his plane. He took me to NYC the first time I went there. We went to the Empire State Building. He was an avid waterskier. He had his own boat on Lake Bonaparte where he rented a camp and I sometimes stayed with him there in the summer. He taught me to waterski there and in the process taught me an important part of his philosophy. When I'd fail and complain that I couldn't do it he always said "There's no such thing as can't". He'd explain what I was doing wrong and get me to try again. His "can do" philosophy has served me well and perhaps fittingly I spent Monday climbing Whiteface Mt. with a good friend who was completing his last climb of the Adirondack 46 High Peaks. My friend had begun the quest based on my encouragement, a quest I completed 15 years ago but might never have finished myself had Bruce not helped me believe I could do whatever I wanted to to do. Although we were not close in later years with many miles between us, I will miss my big brother.

Banking Takeover?

According the news I’m hearing on the radio the president’s bill for bailing out the banking industry contains no provision for Congressional oversight. That is the same kind of hands-off policy that got our economy into this mess. If we hand over the $700B or more to the banks with no oversight, the taxpayers won’t be taking over the banks, rather the banks will be taking over the US Treasury. Congress needs to have oversight authority.

Also according to reports the banks say that if oversight and limits on executive compensation then they won't sign up for a bail out. How dire an emergency is it if they can walk away from the deal? The way this situation has been presented to the public is that we either bail them out or they go broke and take all our retirement plans down with them. The executives should not be given seven figure (or any) parachutes as a reward for running their institutions into the ditch. The average citizen is not rewarded for screwing up on the job. Why should they be rewarded? Fire them and let them apply for unemployment benefits. Let them try living on that for a while and maybe they’ll learn the value of a dollar.

Broadband Beavers

We went to the annual watercolor show in Old Forge yesterday at the Art Center. The show was good, as usual, with watercolors from all over the country. I had a hard time which to vote for as "viewer's choice". I ended up voting for "Backwoods Highway", an Adirondack scene but there were two others I really liked as well. One, "View from the Courthouse" was a whimsical village scene looking down on a street corner with bright colors and distorted perspective that gave it the look of an illustration for a children's book. The other was "Winter of '07", a view of two houses with a man walking by in the snow. Actually there were others that were equally good. It was hard to choose.

We bought the catalog. An older man ahead of us complained about the $12 price of the catalog comparing it unfavorably to a subscription to American Artist. Evidently he does not understand that the magazine has the advantage of scale. When printing editions that run to 6 figures in size and are supported by advertising the cost per copy is much less. I did not point that out to him but later thought perhaps I should have.

Going and returning from Old Forge we passed through Racquette Lake where some prankster has planted a satellite dish atop a beaver house that is in a marsh along the road. The idea of beavers passing the winter watching TV and surfing the Internet amused me so I took a photo, one of only 3 I shot yesterday. There wasn't much fall color and the light wasn't good for photography but it was a very nice day for just living and enjoying the day.

There Should Be Outrage

I hear this morning that the Associated Press has objected to the McCain campaign's distortion of things they reported about the Obama campaign. What the McCain campaign did was to cut & paste words and phrases from articles in the same manner an extortionist clips words from a newspaper and glues them in a different order and then plugged them into TV ads to give the impression that AP was saying something about Obama that it did not. A search of the headlines on-line this morning however reveals that AP's protest was apparently low key as there is virtually no mention of it. There should be outrage. In distorting their words to discredit Obama McCain has also discredited the veracity of the AP.

For a candidate who pledged at the start of the campaign to stay positive and deal with issues, the recent ads run by McCain are shameful. If a candidate will lie and cheat to get into office, how can we trust that person to be honest and trustworthy in office?

Different?

Tonight on the news Charles Gibson interviewed Sarah Palin. She continues to present herself as a change candidate, a Washington outsider, but when asked questions with a request for a yes or no answer she repeatedly answered in 273 word sentences that avoided answering either yes or no. Even when the question was repeated and the request for a yes or no response was repeated she continued to evade giving a direct answer. Different? She sounds exactly like the current president and VP to me.

Art is Art

In this morning's paper there was an article about a robotic chair that autonomously falls to pieces and then reassembles itself. It is being exhibited around the country in galleries and after the tour will be sold to a collector.

This is an example of what bothers me about the state of the art world today. "Art" is a broad term that covers many areas of creative endeavor but it seems me that its meaning is being broadened too far. Communication through language depends on words having meaning. They tell the listener or reader what something is and, by default, all else that it is not. In recent years I have heard almost everything including politics, sports and cooking described as "art". There are books on the Art of War and the Art of The {business} Deal. An Amazon search for books on "The Art of..." returns 1,293,083 matches.

Then there are those galleries, museums & grant foundations that exhibit and/or present awards to "installations" such as a folding table with overflowing ash trays and empty beer cans. Think Damien Hirst in a London Gallery. If a thing contains any one element, even peripherally, of the definition of art then it is deemed "Art". Worse, the distinctions between the various forms of art are being demolished. The dark scribblings of a drug addict trying to work through his/her addiction via art therapy are held on a par with the work of a trained professional painter, indeed in some venues they are valued higher because they are untrained and the "Art" they produce is therefore not derivative, a bad thing to be in the art world but inevitable to some degree for those artists who made the error of actually studying art.

With the robotic chair we have an engineering project hailed and exhibited as a work of Fine Art, worthy of exhibit in galleries and collection by an art collector. It is novel, creative in a mechanical sense and probably fascinating to watch it do its thing, but is it really "Art"? It seems to me that when the meaning of the word art stretches to include anything and everything we choose to apply it to, it no longer has any meaning. If it can be applied to anything, it describes nothing. A word that describes nothing is useless for communicating what something is. OTOH using the same rational by which the article concludes that the robotic chair is art, "It has no utilitarian value," D'Andrea said. "It is an art piece", one could argue that the word "art" itself is art. The ultimate self-referential work.