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Yearly Archives: 2011

Better Off?

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Are you better off now than you were however-many years ago?  It’s a classic political slogan, first used by Ronald Reagan in 1980.  The answer then was a pretty solid “No”.  Take it out of the cycle of elections and into the business cycle that we find ourselves in, however, and the course of action is not as clear as a political strategist might like.

One quarter into 2011 it’s time for a check-in on the economic front.  The news we’re likely to hear in coming months is likely to shift focus once again, moving from joblessness to the quality of jobs that people have right now and their ability to make ends meet.  It’s not likely to be pretty.

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Civil War, 150 Years On

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On April 12th, 1861, the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina lit up as the bombardment of Fort Sumter began.  Years of speeches and seething hatred dissolved into a blur of cannon balls and bloodshed.  The Civil War was on.  Exactly 150 years later the echoes of this horrible conflict run through our culture as we continue to digest exactly how we came to intense destruction and what it meant.

Studying history is not important for the purpose of blaming those who took part in it, but to avoid the mistakes made.  A straight line from where we were to where we are today is the only reasonable extrapolation into our future and progress.  It is imperfect, but it is what we have.

The anniversary of the start of the Civil War is a great time to look back and see how far we have come – and yet see the same destructive arguments that play out to this day.

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April Fools’ Day!

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The wake-up call came at 6:30AM, just as light was sneaking into my bedroom.  It didn’t come as a glowing ball over the Mississippi valley but as an orange blur on little cat feet.

Galumpgalumpgalumplop! A leap onto my feet and Brrrow! As a small caliber tiger licensed for home use Tony always means what he says, too.  It’s Spring.  There’s no time to spend lazily in bed.  Happy April Fools’ Day!

April means a lot to both people and cats.  The weather is turning and it’s time to shake off the glum of a drippy lingering Winter.  A few pranks and jokes are just part of the fun – and they’re part of an ancient and natural celebration  we can all get into.

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Fault Tolerance

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You pay the insurance bills every month.  Car, home, life – they’re all about the same, a bet against yourself that you actually hope is money wasted.  But when things go wrong, like a drunk driver smacking into you one sunny day, it’ll be there when you need it.  If you listen to the commercials, what you get for your money is peace of mind.  It should help you sleep at night without anxiety.

Insurance is just the ultimate form of taking care of when things go bad.  Building fault tolerance into a system so that it never gets that far is a far more complicated and thoughtful process.  Anyone who designs a system of some kind – a physical thing or a process that involves checks and balances – is probably going to be proud enough of their achievement to not want to think about when things go horrible wrong and the whole thing breaks.  But that’s exactly what needs to happen for it to be truly robust.  It’s also something that a culture or society has to think about ultimately, painful as it may be.

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Obama Doctrine

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The term echoes through the chattering classes as if it has meaning.  “What is the Obama Doctrine?”  It’s a question being asked by any analyst who wants (desperately) to be taken seriously as we wait for the Presidential address on our latest not-war in Libya.  The question seems reasonable on the surface if you are left wondering why we intervene in some places and not others, like this excellent Daily Show routine with John Oliver.  But the framework of an “Obama Doctrine” reveals that the asker doesn’t care as much about the situation as their own ability to talk about it – by putting it back into terms a US audience might have a chance of paying attention to.

An “Obama Doctrine” is popular largely because the idea helps people who want to keep their cushy jobs.

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