Basic Economics, Avatar: the Last Airbender

ByJohn Brown

How to not be duped by political blarney

Karl Marx was not a scientist. Nor was Adam Smith before him. They were philosophers. Theorists. Idea men. That’s what all economists in those days were. They had little tested knowledge, and so which economic system was best was all a matter of opinion.

But things are now much different. Nations and local governments tried the various theories. And we’ve seen the results. We now have a whole century of data. Furthermore, economists now are scientists. They use scientific methods and deal with tested knowledge. Sure, there are still controversies, just as there are in any science, but the basic principles of economics today are NOT matters of opinion.

For example, we know what happens when governments impose price controls in all their many varieties—rent caps, minimum wages, laws against price gouging, and medical care cost limits. These last few years we’ve seen a dramatic demonstration of what happens when they meddle with the prices of home loans. We know what happens when they impose tariffs or give subsidies to special groups like farmers or steel producers. We know what happens when they create barriers to people entering a market to compete, like they’ve done with immigrants. We know what taxes do.

The unfortunate thing is that many of these principles seem to be ignored by our politicians. And by those who vote them in. And so we can have a Congress pass massive health care legislation that will cause health care shortages just as similar laws caused shortages in other countries. This is how we have a president who in a recent speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce suggested, in good Marxist fashion, that it was business owners who kept the American workers down by hoarding all the profits. Has he not looked at the data which shows that huge profits invite more competition, which tries to get ahead of the leader by cutting prices, which allows the American workers to get more for less, thus raising their standard of living?

In the 1980’s and 1990’s India and China began to make fundamental changes to their economic policies, doing the things that have been proven to work. Suddenly, the economies of those nations started to grow. It’s estimated that 20 million people in India rose out of poverty in a decade. In China, more than a million people rose out of poverty EACH MONTH.

But this seems lost on a number of politicians. Don’t let it be lost on you. We have critical elections coming up. One of the best things we can do is educate ourselves about these basic economic principles so we can cut through all the political blarney. I haven’t found a better, more enjoyable book on the subject than Basic Economic Principles: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy by Thomas Sowell. Sowell is an economist and Senior Fellow on Public Policy at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. His book is written for the general public and so foregoes dry charts and theoretical ho-hum for lots of real-life examples and straight-forward explanations. There are times when I wish he would have gone into more detail on a few subjects, but what he lacks in depth in a handful of areas, he makes up with breadth. Furthermore, the way he presents the topic was interesting enough to make me stay up late a number of nights well past my bedtime. 

Great family entertainment

Do you want some fun family entertainment that includes laughs, wonder, and moments of poignancy? Something you can watch and enjoy with the kids? Then let me recommend the animated TV series Avatar: The Last Airbender. This is NOT the movie Avatar by James Cameron with all the big blue people Nor is it the movie The Last Airbender, based on the TV series, which many fans disliked. This is the original. The one that millions love.

Through the miracle of Netflix, I started watching it with my girls a few months ago. And we’ve all been sucked in. It’s unlike any “cartoon” I’ve seen. In fact, you can’t call it a cartoon just as you can’t call The Incredibles or Lion King cartoons. This is great story telling. Furthermore, instead of it being a bunch of unconnected episodes, this series is telling a long story. It ran for three years on Nickelodeon and includes more than sixty 22-minute episodes.

The series follows the adventures of the main protagonist Aang and his friends, who must save the world by ending the destructive war with the Fire Nation. Aang’s world is divided up into four nations—Air, Earth, Water, and Fire. In each nation are “benders” who can powers with the element of that nation. So Air Benders can fly and create huge winds; Fire Benders can generate and throw fire; Water Benders can create ice and waves.

So it’s fantasy, and all of that is cool, but it’s the characters that we enjoy the most. We quote and laugh at some of their lines. And then there are the episodes with true dramatic moments.

Avatar has been nominated for and won many awards, including the Annual Annie Awards, the Genesis Awards, the primetime Emmy awards and a Peabody Award. It’s excellent entertainment.

Share

Similar Posts

  • Blindingly white and female!

    ByJohn Brown

    MaryLeonhardt_KeepingKidsReadingThe Guardian just published a report of a survey taken of 34 American book publishers and found that 79% of staff are white and 78% female. Or as The Guardian put it “blindingly white and female” as if it’s some kind of horror show.  The rest of the article bemoans the lack of diversity in publishing and our society in general and quotes the author of the study suggesting that these percentages should be monitored.

    Is anyone up in arms about appropriate diversity percentages in the NBA or NFL?

    Some might roll their eyes and ask me not to trot out that old chestnut. But it’s not a chestnut. It’s a point–nobody cares, me included. So why care about this? Many industries will be skewed toward one gender or race than another. As long as everyone has free opportunity to compete, who gives a flip?

    Maybe that still doesn’t satisfy. Okay, how about this. According to Humanites Indicators, approximately 70% of degrees in English language and literature in America are awarded to…women. And about 82% are awarded to Whites. I’m assuming these percentages are probably pretty good indicators for the gender and race of folks interested in working at publishing companies.

    If so, the survey results don’t reflect some white woman conspiracy at these publishing houses. They simply reflect the choices people make in college.

    By the way, did you know the United States is still 72% White and European. So it’s not surprising to see roughly that many Whites in these jobs. The numbers might be a little high, but minorities seem to be pursuing other degrees in greater numbers (compare the overall percentages here versus those with ELL degrees).

    This is not to say that we don’t want to welcome authors from all different background. We do. But if you want more men and more minorities, then maybe instead of monitoring publishers, you ought to start by seeing if you can attract more men and minorities to ELL degrees.

    Or even better yet, how about reaching out to more boys and minorities at an earlier age and helping them learn the delights of reading and writing? Maybe if they like it, more of them will go into it as a career.

    The best program I’ve seen for helping kids learn to love reading is the one Mary Leonhardt outlines in Keeping Kids Reading: How to Raise Avid Readers in the Video Age. It’s the culmination of the insights she gained over her thirty-five years teaching high school English and focusing on helping kids learn to LOVE reading. What an excellent book!

    Oh, and one other idea. It might be effective to maybe just skip publishers altogether and help folks go directly to readers as indie writers. Amazon’s algorithms are pretty much race- and gender-blind.

    Share

  • Believe In Me, Cyber War

    ByJohn Brown

    A Man and a Team of Girls

    Back in 1964, Jim Keith took a job at an Oklahoma high school to coach boy’s basketball.  But when he arrived, the administrators changed their minds and gave his job to someone else.  Keith’s contract didn’t specify which gender he’d coach, just that he’d coach.  So they switched him to the girls.  Keith was extremely disappointed.  Who wanted to coach girls when it was the boys who played real ball?  Especially when Keith was supposed to be head coach.  Keith tried to get the promised position back, except the girls he coached had other things in store for him.  Harold Keith, Jim’s brother, wrote a novel based on what happened.  That novel was made into a movie in 2006 called Believe In Me.  

    Now, we all know the plot line of sports movies: a losing underdog of a team rises up to win.  It’s predictable, right?  But we could say that of all crime shows as well—in this episode investigators discover a crime and figure out who did it!  Wow, what a shocker.  We could say it of all romantic comedies as well—in this movie a couple at odds gets together.  No way!  We could say it of lots of stories.  And yet we love these stories anyway.  Why?  

    Because the characters suck us in.  Because the story tellers do such a good job with the particular details we forget we’re watching a movie or reading a book.  We forget to think about the ending.  Furthermore, the stories are often about more than just winning games.  And so we worry about these people who have become real to us and focus on their immediate situation.  At least, that’s what happens when the story tellers do a good job.

    And Robert Collector, who both wrote and directed the film, did a great job with Believe In Me.  Now, I don’t know how accurate the film’s depiction of five-on-five play is; I believe the girl basketball teams of that era played six-on-six.  But that’s a niggling technical detail.  Besides, the movie isn’t about technique anyway.  It’s about a man and a group of country girls who have to face difficult obstacles, not so much on the court, but off it.  If you have girls or like sports at all, I think you’ll love this movie. 

    Cyber War

    I recently reviewed America The Vulnerable which explained how exposed we are as individuals, corporations, and a country to cyber crime, cyber espionage (both state and corporate), and cyber attacks.  Of all the cyber threats we face as individuals and a nation, the least likely is an all out cyber war.  But just because it’s less likely that doesn’t mean the threat isn’t real.  Especially since cyber warfare has been in use since the 1990’s.  We used cyber weapons openly in the gulf war in 2003, knocking out Iraqi air defenses.  Israel used them to own Syria’s air defenses when bombing their clandestine nuclear site in 2007.  Russia used them against Estonia in 2008 and Georgia in 2009 on a variety of targets, bringing many critical systems to a halt.  In 2010, somebody, most likely the US or Israel, developed the Stuxnet worm to sabotage the uranium enrichment facility at Natanz in Iran.  China has already conducted trial runs of cyber attacks on the US and has planted logic bombs and trap doors to activate in the future.

    In Cyber War, Richard Clarke shares his insights into what cyber war is, how cyber weapons work, and how vulnerable we are as a nation.  He discusses the cyber warriors (hackers) we now employ in the US military, and how a cyber war is like and unlike other wars.  In the second half of the book, he discusses the factors that have created our current vulnerability, how to set up a defense, and what we need to think about when conducting a cyber war. 

    And Clarke knows his stuff.  He worked for the State Department during the presidency of Ronald Reagan.  In 1992, President George H.W. Bush appointed him to chair the Counter-terrorism Security Group and to a seat on the United States National Security Council.  President Bill Clinton retained Clarke and in 1998 promoted him to be the national coordinator for security, infrastructure protection, and counterterrorism, the chief counterterrorism adviser on the National Security Council.  President George W. Bush kept him in the same position and later made him special adviser to the president on cyber security.    

    The thing I liked most about the book is that in addition to describing cool cyber war weapons, threats, and incidents, Clarke examines answers to many critical questions.  For example, how can we set up a defense without the government becoming a 1984 nightmare?  Would arms agreements work in cyber space?  (No.)  How do you prevent a cyber war from turning into a kinetic (guns and troops) war?  How do you attack your enemy when it’s sometimes hard to know who launched the attack in the first place?  He discusses these and many more questions.

    The book does have one fault.  Clarke has an obvious axe to grind with the Bush administration, and can’t help but make snide and irritating comments whenever he brings them up.  The good news is that those spots are few and far between.  If you want an excellent introduction into how cyber weapons are used and will likely be used in the future, you’ll want to read this book.

    Share
  • |

    Wowser sequence in Life season 1 episode 3

    ByJohn Brown

    I just started watching Life, the NBC series. I’ve enjoyed the first four episodes. In fact, episode three has one of the most brilliant sequences I’ve ever seen.

    Here’s the setup. Charlie Crews is a detective who was sent to jail for a murder he didn’t commit. Being a cop in prison made him a target for many many beatings. Eleven years later they found none of the DNA at the murder site was his. So they released him, and, as settlement for damages, gave him a bunch of money, and allowed him to be a cop again. He’s been partnered up with Dani Reese. Nobody really wanted him, but she’s had problems of her own and got stuck with him. Crews had a car in the first episode, geeked out about GPS and handsoff telephone (stuff his missed in prison), but the ex-con lawyer Crews has put up in his mansion ran it over with a tractor. He’s been riding the bus. In this sequence, Crews and Reese are looking for a guy named Manny Umaga who carjacked a man and his wife then shot the wife. In this sequence they go find where he is and then go get him.

    Watch it and then read my comments below. It runs from minute 15:49 to 21:15.

    1. Surprise. You walk into a dangerous car shop. What are you expecting? You know you’re going to meet hard characters. They’re not going to want to talk to you. There’s some danger and so a bit of suspense. So we meet some hard characters. I was still surprised by the particulars of Buscando Maldito–his neck tattoos and hat. Wonderful and new (at least to me). But before we can have a confrontation–surprise–Crews sees the car of his dreams. Then we get that wonderful exchange between him and Maldito and El Repitito. Total humor. Totally unexpected. Then Maldito suggests a posse? Not only is he willing to talk, but he suggests he goes with them? When going to get Umaga, more surprises. Flash bangs? Big honking Samoan running? Busts down the door? Takes Crews by the neck? Crews pulls his own knife? Surprise after surprise after surprise.

    2. Characters. Loads of interest factors (see my post on character). Maldito and Repitito have fabulous eccentricities. Crews displays his own interesting reaction to the car. Surprising, but logical (BTW, in a later scene you see him driving the car!) Then we see his prison background coming up with the knife. Love his backstory. And did you notice how strong Reese is, taking none of Maldito’s crap?

    3. Dialogue. Did you notice how the first few times Reese says anything to Maldito he doesn’t respond to her question? Total avoidance of on-the-nose dialogue, talking cross-purpose.

    4. Soundtrack. The way they bridged the two scenes with that music was fabulous. And the music itself. Wow. BTW, that’s “No Nadie” by Edgard Jaude, Rafael Torres, & Andres Ayrado.

    5. Conflict. Between the Maldito and Crews about the car, between Maldito and Reese, between Umaga and Crews. Then Crews and Reese (with the knife).

    I think I watched this a dozen times. Loved it.

    Share

  • Cinefour theaters & the goodreads.com pricer

    ByJohn Brown

    I think I could write a horror novel about some dollar movie theaters. The unsuspecting movie goers are lured in. They blindly walk into the theater and take a seat, but, no! When they sit down, they find they’re trapped, their feet glued to the sticky soda floor. The doors close behind them. Outside the theater a man walking by thinks he hears screams. He pauses, alarmed. Those sound like REAL screams, people dying? But no, he thinks, it’s just a movie theater, just a scary movie, and he walks away. Moments later blood begins to seep out from underneath the theater’s exit door.

    Too gruesome? Okay, how about this. You go in, swim through a sea of popcorn to your seat only to find that all the seats flop back and leave you staring at the ceiling. This means that while you could listen to the movie, you actually have to crane your neck forward for two hours to see it. By the time the ending credits roll, you can’t walk. Instead, you have to hobble out like a troll. When you finally reach the exit, you swear you can hear the theater owner cackling. A man in a doctor’s coat shows up and slips the owner a manila envelope full of cash. Suddenly, it all becomes clear—it’s not a theater but a medical scam perpetrated by those who sell orthopedic suits and chiropractics. Mwuhahahaha!

    So you can see why the dollar theater dread fell upon me when I went up to the ticket counter at Logan, Utah’s Cinefour theaters and found out the tickets were only $3 each. Sweat began to bead on my brow. I looked around for signs of monster cockroaches that might carry me and my family away to feed to their young, but, to my surprise, the theater was, well, clean. When we entered, we found no sea of trash. No sticky floor. And the seats didn’t flop back into the dentist chair position (unlike another theater on the other side of the street). They actually supported our backs nicely.

    We sat in the dimly lit theater like the old days when you didn’t watch a steady stream of commercials. We chatted. Then the previews started up, the film ran, and nobody came out to murder us. It was great.

    Cinefour. Cheap movies. Nice little theaters. You can take the whole family out and still have money left over to buy a sink at Angie’s.

    ***

    If you love books as much as I do, you can easily spend your mortgage on them. Which is why libraries are so very nice. But even though libraries are great, there are still some books I want to own. One of the fab things about the internet is that it allows lots of companies and individuals to sell new and previously read (but in great condition) books for cheap. The bad news is that it’s hard to do comparison shopping to find the deals. But no longer–www.goodreads.com has solved that problem by doing the searching for you.

    Simply go to the site and search for a book title. When the search results display, click on the book you’re interested in. When the book’s page comes up, you’ll see a little button below the cover that says “buy for” and lists a price. Click that button, and you’ll see a list of all the main vendors and prices. You can then link to one of the vendors and make your purchase.

    So how much can you save? Sometimes a lot. For example, I looked up my own book. Its hard cover list price is $25.99. However, by using the goodreads.com feature, I found a brand new copy for $4.89. I could get a good used copy for one buck. ONE BUCK! Holy schnitzel, that’s a 96% discount. If you want to buy a book, go to goodreads.com to find the deals.

    Share

  • Navy SEALS Buds Class 234, Crackting the ACT, & Running the Green River

    ByJohn Brown

     Of the 1.4 million people in the armed forces, only 2,800 of them are Navy SEALS (acronym for “sea, air, and land”). That’s 1/5th of one percent. They are one of the most elite fighting forces in the world. However, less than 20% of those who attempt to become a SEAL ever succeed. To even try you must pass a physical screening test which requires you to swim 500 yards in ten minutes or less, perform seventy-nine push-ups in two minutes or less, and eleven pull-ups. You have to be able to run 1.5 miles in at least 10:20 minutes, and that’s while wearing boots and trousers.

    Some may think: well, that’s not too difficult. I could work up to that. However, the reality is that this level of physical fitness will not be enough. Because once you get into the initial training, you’re going to be doing far more than this every day.

    Can you knock out 500 push-ups in a day, along with a four mile run, hours of paddling out in a six-man raft into a ten foot wave that tumbles you again and again into chilling waters, hefting your share of a 160 pound log over your head until you can barely lift your arms, and running an obstacle course with obstacles three-stories high. You’ll do a lot of this while covered with sand, your thighs and armpits chafing. On some days you’ll have to swim a few miles in a cold sea. And then you’ve got to get up and do it all again the next day. No wimpy hour-long workouts on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday with rest days in between. Heck, on the third week, you’ll get only about four hours of sleep over four days.

    Can you do it?

    Maybe you can. But before you try, or assure yourself that you could have if you’d only had the chance, let me suggest you watch Discovery Channel’s Navy SEALS BUDS Class 234 to witness what it takes to become the best of the best. It’s a fascinating three-DVD set, just over five hours of programming, that follows class 234 through the initial six-month SEAL training called BUDS (basic underwater demolition/SEALS). You’ll see 114 men start the six-month course and only 17 finish it. In fact, less than thirty make it past the first three weeks, which include the most grueling and punishing training I’ve ever seen. Those initial weeks are designed specifically to weed out all but the most committed and able.

    The Discovery Channel does a great job with this six-part series. And it’s not just for guys. It only took about three minutes for each of my daughters to get hooked as well. And why wouldn’t they? It’s as fascinating as any American Idol or So You Think You Can Dance. In fact, in many ways it’s far more interesting. Heck, it was so good I think I’m going to watch it again. You can get it on Amazon, rent if from Netflix, or check it out from the Logan library.

    For more info on the SEALS, let me recommend you start with these two sites: http://www.seal.navy.mil/seal/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Navy_SEALs

    *** 

    My high school age daughters took the ACT last year and got good scores. But we wanted to make sure that they had excellent scores. High enough to put them in the upper levels of those applying to their desired universities. But how would we prepare them?

    Back in the olden days when I was preparing to get my Masters of accounting degree, I knew I’d need some help to get a score on the GMAT that would be competitive. I looked at a number of study guides and ended up choosing the Princeton Review guide for the GMAT. I studied hard, got a great score, and became a believer. The guide made everything so easy. More importantly, everything the guide prepared me for was on the test. This is why, when I wanted to get a Masters of fine arts in creative writing, I used the Princeton Review for the GRE. Again, the study guide was easy to follow, and I got an equally good score on that test. Having had two great experiences, it’s no surprise I turned to Princeton Review again to help my two girls with their test. (BTW, some may see an attempt to get more than one graduate degree as smart, others as masochistic, and yet others as simple ivory tower bone-headery—I’ll let you decide which it might be in this case.)

    The Princeton Review guide for the ACT is called Cracking the ACT. A new edition is published every year and includes general ACT test-taking tips, everything you need to know in the specific content areas, and practice tests. It also includes access to the Princeton Review’s online resources which include another practice test. It’s a big guide (this year’s edition was 619 pages), but the size is deceptive. There’s plenty of white space for taking notes, and the text is written so clearly, and everything broken down in such an easy manner to follow, that you’ll start only to suddenly realize you’ve just read thirty pages. Besides, you don’t have to study it all. You can focus on specific content areas, if that’s all you want to do.

    This spring, both daughters worked through the book. We looked at their previous scores, identified areas for improvement, and set up a six-week schedule that required them to study about an hour per day, sometimes with help from Mom or Dad, but mostly on their own. One daughter studied hard, took the test in June, and improved her score by five points. The other daughter studied a little less diligently, took the same test, and improved her score by four points.

    When 36 is the highest possible score, such jumps become significant. However, they’re not the result of special DNA. While I tend to think my girls are everything and a bag of chips (especially when they give me back scratches), the truth is the ACT doesn’t test some mumbo-jumbo innate intelligence. It tests skills. Skills anyone can learn. What my girls supplied was consistent effort. All they needed was expert guidance in how to apply the effort. And Cracking the ACT provides boatloads of that.

    If you’re looking to improve your own score or help your children improve theirs, get this book. I have no doubt that anyone who supplies a bit of effort will be able see some nice results.

    ***

    Imagine emerald pools, steep red canyons, and a gentle breeze. Imagine water so clear you can see the plants and rocks sixteen feet down on the bottom. Imagine trout swimming only feet away. Imagine swimming with those trout and then getting back into your raft to ride some rapids. Imagine picnicking a the water’s edge or atop a flat, shaded rock forty feet up that gives you a grand view of the river. If you’re lucky, maybe you’ll see an osprey dive for a fish or watch a pair of river otters swim by. Imagine doing this with family or friends, all in a short twenty-four hour period.

    This experience is only about three hours away from Laketown, Utah. Well, everything except the swimming with the trout bit. The fish don’t really swim with you. They mostly just flee, but you get the idea. To enjoy it, all you need to do is raft the seven mile stretch of the Green River from the Flaming Gorge dam down to the Little Hole campground.

    My family and I just did this with some friends and had a grand time. Because the river is relatively slow and the rapids are relatively moderate and short, parents don’t have to worry every second that someone is going to fall in and drown in a man-eating surge. In fact, along many of the calm areas we actively helped the children into the sparkling cold water (grin), including one rafter who was only three years old. One of the most enjoyable moments was when we pulled the rafts up into the gentle backwash of a large rock in the middle of the river, climbed the rock, and took turns jumping into the current and letting it carry us downstream.

    The sun was shining, the weather warm. It was a wonderful trip. A total memory-maker. We put in just before noon and hauled the raft out just before 6 PM. But we could have taken much longer to play along the way.

    The experience was fairly cheap. It cost about $70 to rent an eight-man raft. Perfect for six people. But there are other smaller and larger raft sizes. You’ll need to arrange a way to get the raft to the river and back again. We simply tied our raft to the top of our minivan. You can pay the rental people to drive your car to the exit ramp at Little Hole after you put into the river, or bring two cars (or a bike) and drop one at the exit. Or you can pay for a shuttle service where they drive you to the River and pick you up.

    You’ll want to bring a small cooler with drinks, snacks, and sunscreen. You’ll also want to have good footwear. The river bed is rocky, and when you pull into shore, you don’t want to be ouching it the whole way in. I don’t recommend flip flops. They’re no better than bare feet. Old sneakers are fine, but they don’t dry quickly. And they waterlog and get heavy, which makes them less than ideal for swimming. Your best bet is to get real water shoes that are made to be light and drain quickly and yet still have a decent sole–a sandal or mesh covered shoe that uses Velcro to strap up. You can be fancy and spend a lot, or do what I did and get yours at Wal-Mart for less than ten bucks.  

    You could make it a long trip and drive to and from the gorge and run the river all in one day, but why push it? Just find a place to stay overnight. There are some motels in the area, but we elected to camp. The spots at the Firefighters Memorial campground were $27 per night. The campground was beautiful and tidy with restrooms and running water. One of the most surprising things about this particular campground was that I didn’t see one mosquito while I was there.

    I’m one of these types that attracts the villains. If there’s only one mosquito within a mile radius, it will smell me, pass up many other suitable victims (including my wife), and risk its life and limbs to sink its #@!* proboscis into my flesh. I think my blood must be some kind of mosquito crack. There’s probably some mosquito black market out there for it, run by some nasty mosquito cartel, which is led by a murderous, malaria-ridden mosquito boss making piles of evil mosquito money and spending it on opulent mosquito yachts and guns!

    Anyway, not one bite. We watched the sun set and then fell to sleep with the stars overhead and the wind gently soughing through the boughs of the pine trees.

    To make campsite reservations, go to www.utah.com to get a good map view of possible camping sites. Then go to www.recreation,gov to make the reservations online. Make sure your specific camping spot has everything you need. Our campground was very rocky and not all of the sites had tent pads. If you want to scope the lay of the land, the recreation.gov site will give you GPS coordinates of the campground. Enter those into Google maps then switch to satellite view and zoom in. You see exactly what you get. This way you can avoid accidently booking the site right next to the bathrooms or road or the one that features no trees.

    Finally, when you’re done, you might want to top it all off by stopping at the The Flaming Gorge Lodge restaurant, just a few miles south of the dam, and enjoying a monster-sized cup of hot chocolate with whipped cream and one of their fabulous desserts. The blackberry cobbler and ice cream was delicious.

    Share

  • The Sing-Off, Sam’s Salmon, The Englishman Who Went Up A Hill

    ByJohn Brown

    One of the best TV programs this fall

    American Idol was good until the judges became irrelevant and annoying. Or maybe I was just tired of the format. I didn’t think I’d watch another singing show. But I tuned into the opener for The Sing-Off on NBC last week, and holy harmonies, Batman–it was wonderful.

    Ten of the best a’capella groups in the country compete for a $100,000 prize and a recording contract with Sony Music. Unlike American Idol, the groups represent a wide range of ages—from kids in high school to older adults—and backgrounds. They don’t use any instruments, just their voices, to sing incredible arrangements of modern songs with percussion, bass, and lovely vocals. This ain’t no choir music. And unlike American Idol, the judges actually have interesting and useful things to say. Also unlike American Idol, the judges eliminate the groups until three are left. Only then do the rest of get to call in and vote.

    We were glued to the TV watching each episode. The programs are all two hours long, but move like lightening. Our favorite groups at this point are Committed and The Backbeats.

    This whole show runs a total of three weeks, one episode each on Monday and Wednesday. It started last week, continues this, and finishes next week. Some of you might be depressed, feeling you’ve already missed it.

    Not so! You can watch all of the full episodes online at www.nbc.com/sing-off/ (with fewer commercials). Then tune in for the grand finale. I can’t wait. 

    Are you kidding? From a can?

    Canned tuna fish is one of those un-meats. It doesn’t taste like fish. It doesn’t taste like chicken. I guess the all-white albacore is okay. But tuna’s not one of those spectacular foods I crave.

    So you’d think, as I strolled the isles of Sam’s Club, that I would have passed up the canned Member’s Mark Atlantic Salmon. But one of my wild culinary urges, the ones that rarely pan out, overtook me.

    I purchased a pack of five, seven-ounce cans for $11.88. I brought the pack home put it on the shelf and didn’t dare open it. What was I thinking?

    Canned salmon? Canned meat?! When was the last time you had a steak out of a can?

    It couldn’t be good.

    Of course, my sensible hesitations only last so long. I broke down one afternoon when the cupboards were bare. I saw the salmon and thought that it might go well with a salad and baked potato.

    I opened the can. It was pink, like the trout I used to catch and immediately fry when I went camping as a boy. I tasted it. And it tasted like .  .  . fish. Real fish. The light delicious taste of those trout I caught so many years ago.

    I enjoyed a wonderful meal that day and have had several repeats since. Boneless, skinless filets in water, packed with omega-3 fats, all grown on fish farms in Chile. 

    Great movie set in Wales

    I enjoy Hugh Grant as an actor. I loved him in Sense & Sensibility with Emma Thompson, one of my most favorite movies ever. And so I was curious about another movie with Grant that received two thumbs up from Siskel and Ebert. It’s called The Englishman Who Went Up A Hill And Came Down A Mountain.

    The setup is unusual. In 1917, with the war still raging in Europe, two English cartographers visit the small South Wales village to measure what is claimed to be the “first mountain inside of Wales.” The villagers are proud of their “mountain,” but become alarmed when the Englishmen measure it and find it’s not a mountain but a hill. The villagers are determined not to lose their status. Especially not to two Englishmen. What follows is good humor, drama, and a bit of romantic comedy. I think you’ll fall in love with the characters. It’s a wonderful tale. And it’s on DVD.

    As a little bonus, here are the opening lines, given to us by two narrators.

    “Narrator: For some odd reason, lost in the mists of time, there’s an extraordinary shortage of last names in Wales. Almost everyone seems to be a Williams, a Jones, or an Evans. To avoid widespread confusion, Welsh people often add an occupation to a name. For example, there was Williams the Petroleum, and Williams the Death. There was Jones the Bottle, and Jones the Prize Cabbage… which described his hobby and his personality. Evans the Bacon, and Evans the End of the World. But one man’s name was a puzzle, and it wasn’t until I was 10 years old that I asked my grandfather about the man with the longest and most enigmatic name of all.

    “Grandfather: The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill but Came Down a Mountain? Now there’s a long name for you. And a long story. You are not going to fidget, are you? For this is a story… an epic story. Yes, epic.”

    Share

12 Comments

  1. First off, Love the work in progress bar you have on your site! Even though it doesn’t really give me any specific details I still feel completely up to date. And its leagues above a Meandering guesstimation date.

    Economics and Politics; not the best combination for keeping people listening unless they already agree.

    As for Avater: the last airbender I totally agree. It won all of the awards for a reason. To bad for the horrible movie though.

    -Rehcra

  2. The aftermath of the subprime lenders debacle or BP’s mismanagement have been felt worldwide. The problem isn’t that these companies are putting profits ahead of everything else, it’s that they’re being dishonest to themselves and in their reporting to shareholders by cutting corners for short term benefit. Ultimately, that works well for the current management who can hope to walk away before the proverbial hits the fan; it works badly for everyone else left to pick up the pieces. Business needs unbiased oversight as much as nuclear weapons – they both stand to ruin lives.

    As an American who lives abroad I am often infuriated by the right wing rhetoric back home that obstinately refuses to allow progress. Labelling anyone who disagrees with the status quo as a communist may get one side of politics all fired up, but to the rest of the world we just end up looking churlish. Stepping beyond the propoganda and rhetoric is easy – but it takes stepping outside the US with our eyes open, living in other progressive countries, and seeing for ourselves.

    But then, it’s easier to buy the party line and believe the rest of the world has fallen behind us, that change is bad, or that the American way of life is the best in the world. After all, if we didn’t, what would it make us?

  3. Thanks for the recommendations! I always look forward to these posts. What age group is Avatar: The Last Airbender aimed at? My oldest is 5, and he’s easily scared. But I’d love to have a fantasy themed show I can watch with him.

  4. He’ll be fine. It’s not scary. It’s aimed at middle-grade. I have an 8 year old watching it and she loves it.

  7. If folks are turned off by my thoughts on politics then I suppose they’ll have to be turned off. If they have information to share, I’m happy to hear it.

  8. Not sure how to respond to this or what specific thing your post is taking issue with. I lived in a progressive European country for a few years. Does that mean my views suddenly have clout? The review of the book highlights that economics is not about philosophy anymore. If you have economic studies to share that shed light on something in the post you take issue with, then please share them. If your issue is that I said the President made a statement in good Marxist fashion, please show me how he’s not suggesting that the government allocate goods and services instead of letting prices take care of that coordinating.

  9. I don’t think any of your remarks are inappropriate, John. But they will offend plenty of people. Plan on it. Any time you venture a personal opinion, there is bound to be somebody who gets annoyed. At this point, the kind of people who get offended at the idea of fiscal responsibility deserve to be offended.

  10. Firstly John, I’d like to say I’m a fan. Servant of a Dark God is on the same shelf as my books by Brandon Sanderson, Kate Forsyth and Raymond E. Feist.

    Secondly, I’d like to apologise for the length of this post. This is the shortened version, honest.

    My science major taught me that even in empirical studies, interpretation plays a major role.
    At a recent lecture I heard ~2% of climate scientists say the jury is out on climate change (although if you think about it, if 2% or even 4% of a jury said ‘not guilty’, that jury would be telling the judge ‘throw the book at him/her/them’).
    Unless these scientists are researching on different planets, the difference must be how they interpret their data, and which data they choose to analyse. [Yes, analyse with an ‘s’. I’m Australian. No promises about the rest of my spelling 😉 ]
    Let me put it this way. I think of economics as applied sociology: http://xkcd.com/435/
    Before anyone points out the obvious, I am of course at least as guilty as anyone else.

    I have not read Thomas Sowell’s book, only drawn on some undergraduate classes and some quick research. I note Sowell considers welfare as promoting poverty. For an example of alternate economic views, Wikipedia links to academic studies which contradict this position (for example http://www.u.arizona.edu/~lkenwor/sf1999%28poverty%29.pdf). But as you did not make note of this in your summary, it may not be relevant.

    As for whether it is good economics to let money pool in the hands of the rich, we must consider marginal propensity to consume (MPC) (1). MPC is the portion of new income that an individual will spend when their disposable income increases. People with low income tend to have a higher MPC than those with a high income (2). If you have lots of money, you are less inclined to spend any extra you receive. So if you want lots of cashflow in your economy, you want to give it to those with little money.
    Therefore, in an economic sense, President Obama would be correct in stating that allowing the rich to hoard profits is harmful.
    This isn’t about government allocation of goods, this is about the government regulating anti-competitive practices and helping people lead happy lives.

    I agreed wholeheartedly with your summary when you pointed out that governments seem not to do their research when trying to make their policies a reality. I wonder if my government, also struggling with the health care system, is working to emulate France (3), or whoever has the best system now…

    What is all this telling us? Well, I am with your recommendation 100%. We need to educate ourselves and use the limited information we possess to make the best decisions we can.

    As for economics having no room for philosophy, whatever happened to ethics?

    Thank you for providing a forum to express this. I hope I have not bruised anyone’s psyche too deeply. I also hope no one is planning to bruise (or puncture, maim, poison, etc.) me too deeply. An opinion was invited and mine was given,
    Like you stated earlier, if someone can’t sit with my political views, they are free to stand up and find a chair they like better. Unfortunately, I doubt I have time to discuss this further myself. I guess it’s a good thing I’m posting where I am. This discussion can continue without any contribution from or to me. The same cannot be said for my next essay.

    Respectful Regards

    (1) Bernanke, Olekalns and Frank, Principles of Economics (2006) [textbook]

    (2) Cervantes-Godoy, D. and J. Dewbre (2010), “Economic
    Importance of Agriculture for Poverty Reduction” in OECD
    Food, Agriculture and Fisheries Working Papers no. 23 [journal]

    (3) http://www.who.int/whr/2000/media_centre/press_release/en/

  11. Heath,

    These are precisely the kinds of comments I love. Thanks for taking the time to post.

    I think your comments on MPC makes a lot of sense. However, forcing those that make profits to share all those profits with others eliminates the incentive to make the profit in the first place. Which then removes some or all of those profits. Which then dries up the cash stream or keeps it artificially low. People want that service, which is why they were willing to pay the prices stated to begin with. But now they can’t get it because it’s not worth the time of producers to provide it. Furthermore, because the opportunity attracts fewer entitites, prices stay higher.

    If instead, you let the companies keep the cash they’ve earned, what happens? If they get to keep the cash, then they usually do not distribute it all to their owners. Most of it is kept in the company. Because there’s even more profit to be made they will try to increase production which requires them to purchase more equipment and/or increase labor. It also attracts other companies to move or expand operations to get some of the profits. Jobs are preserved and created. So the cash still flows through the system, but in this case it creates jobs. Futhermore, it creates incentives to continue generating the profit. As more companies compete, prices usually drop. This makes the product or service cheaper for the consumer. Finally, it gives incentives to allocate resources to delivering this product or service that people want.

    The intent of helping those poorer than ourselves I think is a good one. But using a method that removes the incentives of production seem to actually work against that. I think it’s stunning how many people rose out of poverty when India and China made the reforms they did.

    I think a better approach in many cases is for the individual to seek out ways to help and places to send money and time. And the help will be sent to the causes people place the most value on because each individual will be prioritizing their causes.

    This is not to say that I think that a government can never do a better job, given all the pros and cons. For example, I think it’s probably best for the government to maintain a military and fire department etc.

    But the thread of Obama’s comments on this matter from his campaign until now haven’t been about weighing each case. He talks about forcing an allocation of wealth from those who have more to those who has less as a general principle. And it is this general principle that has been shown in the last century to not allocate resources as effectively and raise the standards of living of a nation as an economy that uses prices and individual choice to allocate the resources.

    Also, I know some people think the rich just sit on piles of money. But actually they put that money into investments. Some of those savings or investments are in the banking system, which lends money to small and large businesses and individuals wanting homes etc. Some of those investments are in companies. Some in bonds (so the US government, companies, and local municipalities can get the cash they need to do things for the public good). The cash doesn’t sit in a pile somewhere. And even if it is in a bank account, it’s being lent out.

    So the cash flows through the system either way. It flows through when government does the spending. But when individuals and individual companies are allowed to make the decisions on where it goes, and let prices self-regulate so they can provide accurate information to consumers and producers, the funds are allocated more efficiently, although not perfectly, to the products and services valued most. The incentives to produce remain, increasing the overall cash flow and getting the resources to where they’re wanted.

  12. Dannyboy, true. Civil disagreement is always welcome on my site. I don’t expect everyone to agree with me. Therefore I see no reason not to post something just because someone may disagree. If someone gets torqued about something, then they can be torqued as well on my site. Just as long as they keep it within bounds. 🙂

Comments are closed.