Advent, Vermont, 1982.

After long hours of night driving it took a second for Tim’s eyes to wake his brain.   There was a faint light to the left, down in the ravine, and it was gone behind the moving car as soon as he saw it.    He braked to a stop on the wet blacktop.   No cars in either direction on the two-lane in the Vermont woods.   He turned to squint through the rain on the window, but the shoulder of the road was now blocking the view down the bank.    Fifty feet in reverse, then he could gradually see what looked like… headlights under weeds.  Wet gravel under the tires meant he was safely off the road.

“There’s a car down there.  I’m going over the bank.  Call 9-1-1.  ”

The slope was running with mud but the plants were big enough for hand-holds.   He scrambled
and slid to the bottom.  A 15 second slog from the bottom of the slope to the dark metal mass.   Four tires stuck up like the paws of some woodland roadkill that just made it into the ditch.   Smoke came off the warm car and hung, uncertain of whether to leave or stay.
Cold, wet steel at the back of the car, but warmer as he felt toward the engine end.   By now the rain had soaked his hair and he had to rub the water from his eyes to bend over and peer beneath the superstructure.   Between the night and the rain and the shadow from the ravine and the opaquity of shattered auto glass he could see only the dull, dying dash lights.
He got down on his hands and knees.    This must be the driver’s side door, at the rear.   Think:  down is up.   Down.   The window is shattered in the wet weeds.   His heart raced.   He couldn’t even into the car at all and when he called “hello? hello? ” there was no answer.   A voice from the road:   “Are you O.K.?”

“I’m fine — I’m still looking.”

Past the glass, toward the place where the driver’s window had to be, but he couldn’t tell what was roadside trash and what was significant among all the cold, slimy papers and sharp metal.   He slowly and carefully tried to define shapes by feel.   When he put his right hand on the bare, warm flesh he jerked back and caught his breath.   It felt, just for a second, ill-mannered.

Quickly now, with both hands now, he patted his way in both directions: to the right – - a belt, jeans, metal. My God, the car is on him. To the left – - up the body – - the bare skin of his flank, shirt, shoulder, back of head – - both hands feeling short hair, the face is in the mud – - find a pulse. Is he breathing? He’s face down and the car is on him. How am I going to resuscitate him?  There’s the neck, warm but not very warm, and he slowed his fingers down to search with one hand for the carotid artery just inside the front neck muscle. With the other hand he went around the ear and the face was turned that way because there was his nose… no pulse at the neck. He left his hand at the nose and mouth waiting for the cool pass of air.  With the other hand he felt the back for any movement in the rib cage.

He froze, and tried to calm.   Hard to feel breath or pulse when your own is so strong.    He waited for three or four of his own breaths without moving, his own face down in the dark grass as close to the other face as he could get, listening.  A car slowed up above, and then voices, but nothing else but the low rustle of the light rain in the underbrush.   He wiggled his own fingers slowly, gently brushing the tips around the man’s nostrils and lips, as if to convince himself this really was a face.

Nothing.  Quickly again, with both hands again,   he searched all over for every pulse he could think of.   The clothes were wet in spots but still mostly dry.   A shoulder.  Out the arm  it had unnatural twists and turns.   Find the other.   Out to the wrist, to the thumb, and then on that side for a radial pulse,   sliding inside a clammy sleeve.   Adjust the fingertips.   No pulse.

This guy is dead.

The state trooper, like every one he had ever met, was as polite as a zen master.   The cop tired of the details before Tim tired of telling them.  There were a few questions, in tight logical order.   Then he took down Tim’s  name, address, and phone number and, for once, smiled:
“Thanks.  We’ll be in touch if we need you again.  You folks drive carefully, now.”

They never called.    He never heard the dead man’s name.

America’s greatness was that she melted diversities

Somehow, America told herself “diversity” made her great.   Not only is this not true, the people who say it don’t know what it means.

Of course America was “built” by immigrants from many shores.   Many languages, cultures, religions came together and poof!  America.   First diverse cultures, then a “great” nation.

What do they even mean by “great”, or its synonyms?  Since “great” presumably means something more than just large, it must mean rich, or strong, or both.   So:  the multiplicity of cultures made us economically prosperous?  Militarily strong?   How?   Why would the same result not have happened in a homogenous culture?

“Diversity” also is ambiguous.  Many say “diversity” when they mean something like “suffused with open homosexuality”, or “easy to be an atheist”,  or “a large menu of self-esteem systems”.     If that’s what you mean, fine, but that’s not what “diversity” can possibly mean when we refer to the 19th century.   You just use the same word; you’re not talking about history at all.

But back to the 19th century.    Truth is, there was no particular economic or military value added by German, Irish, English, or African culture.   We’ve forgotten the wisdom of an earlier generation, who always talked of a “melting pot” when they talked of that time in our history.  Have you noticed the phrase “melting pot” has become a little embarrassing, like a quaint idea from an unsophisticated age?  I heard it routinely in elementary school, 40 years ago, but no politically correct pundit would ever be caught on tape saying it now.  The phrase was no peripheral part of America’s understanding of herself.   The important point about that age was not the diversity, but precisely the opposite:  it melted away.   The loss of diversity over time, understandably lamented from within those communities, was the unique historical pattern, and the indirect key to our greatness.

I say “indirect” because loss of cultural identity was simply a result of the focus of life shifting elsewhere.   The distinct cultures were not a bad thing, of course, and even a cultural good,  but the force of economic opportunity overwhelmed any nostalgia.

As I say, there was value in those cultures as cultures.   But they entered a political and economic system that was already built, and fitting into that system overcame their love of their culture over generations.     What was the solvent?   Freedom.   The heady air of political freedom, economic freedom.   Commerce.  The freedom to work hard and stockpile assets — capitalism — is the solvent of cultures.   You need to transcend your ghetto’s language and manners to extend your business.   And the opportunity to extend a business by hard work — as opposed to bribery or warlord allegiance — should not be underestimated.   Few times in history has property been secure enough to stockpile, and our forefathers created that here, and it is a melting pot.   There is tragedy in this, of course, but it is an economic and historical law.

These days, immigration has entered the same logic in the place of “diversity”.   We need immigrants, because diversity makes us great.   Nonsense, nonsense resurrected.

There is no value to the country as a whole to have more Mexican culture.  (Or any other kind.)   We do not need diversity.   We need freedom, and let people choose their own diversity.   Let them be whatever color (culturally speaking) they want.

Where was the tipping point?   Where, in our history, did the State take on the role of protecting or promoting cultural diversity?  (As opposed to protecting private property.)

That tipping point is the apex  of the curve of America’s greatness.

The blabbering of the churches

If we are not exegeting some event that has no plausible natural explanation, we’re just adding to the natural cacophany.    It’s not a “battle of worldviews, or “contending for biblical truth”.   The words and thoughts of the church cannot pierce through the wall of sound that is the ever amplifying soundtrack the world chatters to itself.   Only the death and resurrection of Jesus cuts across the white noise; we can only hope to tell them, in the one instant they are startled silent, what was that crack of stone they heard.

Women at Work

Since I’m generalizing….

I’m the CEO of a company that employs about 150 people, 97% of them are women.   After 15 years as a chief executive, I observe no evidence whatsoever that women get along with each other better than men — and the women are the first to point this out.

I do see talented women managers who bring collaborative skills to the table — more such skills than men.   But they need them more — with each other.

I hope this doesn’t sound like I look down on women.   The best managers I’ve ever known are women, and I learn from them every day.

What Does Medicare Mean?

The health care debate is raging in America.

“Medicare was called socialized medicine back in the day, and it has turned out to be a highly successfully program.”

Duh.   All transfers of wealth are, by definition, successful.   For example, “Cash-for-clunkers” was widely described as a “successful” program.   What that meant was that the government offered to buy cars for more than they were worth, and people lined up.   It was no different than handing out cash on the street.   These programs will always “succeed”.   So the word has no meaning.

By the way, I’m not saying such programs are actually unsuccessful. I’m not disagreeing; I’m saying it has no significance.   It implies nothing.  You set out to transfer money, and you succeeded.  Well done.

But back to Medicare.

First, human needs that are universal can be socialized, since the opportunity for abuse is minimized.   Said another way, the more certain it is you will have a certain need, the less your behavior matters, since the flaw in socialized costs is moral hazard .   So the human conditions common to all people are the low-hanging fruit in the welfare state.   Children, elderly.   Widows, orphans.

Health care in general is precisely unlike this, because the needs are linked tightly to behavior.   So Medicare implies nothing about health care for the general adult population.   It is superficial to draw such implications.

Second:  if you had to pick one social status to advocate supporting with other people’s money , you’d pick the elderly, since we all intend to be one someday.   You support me today, in 10 years my grandkids support you.  So Medicare and Social Security are the least like a simple wealth transfer of all social programs,   because we all expect to someday get back the wealth we paid in.   Psychologically, then, it is a perfect condition to socialize.   You need it now, I’ll certainly need it later.   I’ll pay for you, someone else will pay for me.   No net transfer of wealth.

So the psychological truth of Medicare and Social Security is:  savings account.  Though their literal, structural truth is:   Ponzi scheme.

Gender in the Workspace

I’m generalizing.

Managers need to understand that women need more physical space than men do.  Especially for jobs that do not anchor the worker to one spot on the floor, but require her to move about.

It’s the invisible bubble of personal space we’re talking about, of course.   I’m not saying the female bubble is bigger — rather, the membrane around the female bubble is much less permeable.   Women don’t tolerate other people in their space as much as men.   I should say, men don’t care as much.

But it isn’t that.   It’s the reflection of that;  women hate to get in other people’s space.   This actually troubles them as much as the converse.   Hence, the constant apologies and kow-towing (sorry, ladies, this is how it looks from the male perspective.)

You men….haven’t you been puzzled by walking down a hall at work, and a female co-worker steps aside with an “I’m sorry” which actually slightly irritated you, because you wouldn’t have been bothered if she had just blown past you?

That’s the difference I’m talking about.  (Women also tend to concede at 4 way stop intersections.)

Whether we oppress this onto them or they come out of the womb like this is not my concern.  It’s just a practical observation:

Male managers who have the responsibility for a floorplan need to check it with females in a mock-up of the actual space before you ok the plan.   Especially if the architect is male.

The Layers of Intelligent Design

1.   Primordial cosmos:  ”without form and void”.   This is not matterless.   It is unorganized matter/energy.   It suggests the existence of random events, without — surprisingly — a moral color  (we are inclined to see randomnity as bad.)  There is no reason to believe the creation week obliterated or exhausted this formless stuff.   I believe we still see this with senses and  scientific instruments.

2.  Creation.   The stuff got organized.    The residuum of this is what we perceive when we look at the night sky, and this is the Design the biblical writers talk about.  But  the biblical writers are not necessarily seeing what we think when we think “design”, which is more like “pattern”.   They are seeing size, scale, and beauty.   The fabrication of the Garden, later, will reveal that this Creation,  whatever it looked like, though it is “very good”,  has no clear human purpose, except as raw material for a further ordering.   Even before the Fall there were at least two strata in the created universe that were not meant to look “designed” to unfallen human perception.    What we see now has no apparent purpose, unless explained by revelation, but we’re not seeing it clearly.

3.  The Garden.   The creation of the Garden in Genesis seems not to mean anything to Christians who argue with the evil evolutionists about design in the natural world.   But it seems crucial.   The distinction between the garden and the wide world is precisely the degree of apparent order.    And, in this context, the word “order” means something like “pleasant to humans”.    It was an island of suitableness within the infinite ocean of the Creation, which was itself on top of, or imposed on, the deep layer of formless stuff.   The idea was probably that the Garden would grow and take over all the Creation, which of course never happened.   So the Garden was the one place visibly designed for humans.    We do not perceive it now.   A flaming sword has been set at its door. So – the created “order” we do perceive now is a level of order that God never thought was particularly suitable for humans.

4.   The Creation, fallen.   Whatever degree of design the original creation displayed — something less than what God had in mind for us — must be broken down now, to some unknown degree.    And our vision is also broken.  So we actually are looking  through 3 or 4 dark glasses.

I realize I am speculating here.  The point is not to nail all this down into creedal clarity.   The point is that the concept “design” is used by biblicist culture-warriors as if it means one precise thing.   It is either “evidence of design” or, I guess, “evolved by chance”.    I find this dichotomy laughably simplistic — from a biblically literalist point of view.    In contrast, the biblical concept of design is richly nuanced, and not nearly mined, to date.   We do the biblical picture great trauma by talking about it so superficially.

Those of us who aren’t so certain to argue that we see “design” in the physical universe are often looked down on by our more dogmatic brethren.   As if we don’t really believe the Word.   Not so; we just see more in it than you, and see more that we don’t clearly see.    It’s hard to fight over something you know you aren’t seeing clearly.

Government workers

People who work in government are normal people (you might be one) but their organization hamstrings them — necessarily.    It is not possible for a government institution to compete with a private institution.

Their work takes place in an adversarial arena with legislated transparency. Nobody can do well in this environment.   It’s like practicing your disco moves in a glass bedroom; there is no way to look good.   By “adversary”, we mean “organized, intelligent bands of predators who have a religious zeal to ruin you forever.”   Yes, political Left, this is you.   Yes, political Right, this is you.

In private industry, there are adversaries, but you can keep the walls opaque.   Those who would love to kill you (professionally) can be kept out and kept relatively blind to the details of your team’s work.

No matter who you are, the closer your job is to an elected person, the more vultures there are from the other party whose hot passion is to demonstrate your evil and take your job away from you.   This usually has little to do with factual content.   There are plenty of people, in both parties, down to the local level, who are perfectly willing to falsely imprison people from the other party in order to seize their power.

Though the individual job may not be important to the zealots and party activists as a prize, they  have made “flipping” the little guys  into an art form any mob prosecutor would be proud of.   Find incompetence at some level, and leverage it, to dislodge higher ups.   This is common, and ugly.

The only protection for the little people is formal  procedure.   Government workers would be crazy not to formalize everything down to the paperclip requisition.   Paperwork, jargon, algorithms — all that we mean when we say “bureaucracy” is the inevitable product of normal people acting in an expected level of self-interest.

It’s a commonplace to note the absence of market discipline. I’ve nothing new to say, except that it can’t be rated too important.   Private companies get slovenly and weak very quickly when there is not perceptible threat from competitors.   Like the gallows in the famous quote,   the prospect of having your livelihood ripped away will focus the thoughts wonderfully.     Those of us in private companies who do well will become inefficient if this pressure goes away.   We hate it, but it is the source of whatever excellence companies create.

This pressure is wholly unlike the political pressure that ruins work, because it can be responded to rationally, by people working in teams, who can hide their tactics behind closed doors.   And there is an external check on the final product — the market — in place of the false and malicious evaluation of the political climbers.

There is no substitute for competitive pressure.   Its effect cannot be built into a federal agency by any means whatsoever.    You can fill a government agency with geniuses and the lack of competitive pressure will ruin their work.

Career politicians have never felt this pressure.   They discount it congenitally.

So the government workers have a massive pressure to be inefficient — the protective bureaucracy —  and an utter lack of healthy pressure.   They can’t win even though they are good and talented —  except by a fiat, from those who possess the guns — the legislators.

Numbers, by journalists

I try to conceal my disdain for the average journalist.   They really are educated in nothing in particular.

No value has meaning except in the context of its expected value.

“Today, 15 people died from Swine flu.   Stay tuned to find out what you can do. “

Really?   How many would we expect?   It’s not a peripheral question.

A Change expressed in units has little value; express it in percentage terms.

“Today, the Dow fell by 82 points.   The S & P 500 fell by 35 points. “

This is like saying “Joe lost his thingamabob.   Don lost his widgit.”

 

 

The Presidency

To the Left, the President is the Chief Executive of the country. That makes us his employees.

In the Constitutional vision, he is Chief Executive of the government. That makes us his customers.

You can’t have conversations when your words mean the opposite.