The Magicians and TANSTAAFL

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

--Arthur C. Clarke, 1961

It would be funny if the situation weren't so dire. Yesterday, against the advice of many economists, and with nays from the entire opposition party, the House passed the biggest spending package in history of the United States, and quite possibly, in history of the world. This, at a time when the country is in the red to the tune of almost ten trillion dollars, not counting our future unfunded obligations to Medicare and Social Security.

Insanity is too kind of a word.

And as I was trying to figure out what these guys could possibly be thinking, Clarke's Third Law of Prediction popped into my head and stubbornly took up residence.

First published in his essay Hazards of Prophecy: The Failure of Imagination, in the book Profiles of the Future, published when I was just coming out of diapers. Last night, I tossed and turned in sleepless frutration, trying to figure out who it is exactly whose imagination has failed: the Pols or the Founders.

Most certainly it is the Pols, but before I go into that, I think a little background on Clarke's Third Law is in order. In his novella Against the Fall of Night, human civilization stalls out after a billion years of evolution. The remnants of the human race live among the left overs of the now defunct advanced civilization, and use the technology that they cannot understand or replicate. To them, it is magic.

And it occured to me, in the wee hours, that money and economics, is as inexplicable to politicians the world over, as those sidewalks that flowed like rivers were to the savages living on the edge of their ancestors glory in Against the Fall of Night. Economics is a technology. Money, derided by many as some fastastical evil force, is understood by civilized people as a tool for the purpose of trade. For civilized people, economics should then simply be the study of how money and trade work in reality.

But failing to understand the origin and purpose of money, the Pols treat Economics like magic. They believe that if they mumble the right words and make the right gestures, they can change reality to fit their fantasy of what the world ought to be like. They are like the primitive peoples of the South Seas during WW II, who upon seeing that these fantastic men came on airplanes with radios and canned goods, build straw replicas of the airplanes and waited for the Cargo to rain down from heaven.

The Fed, not recognizing that they are running on empty, has anounced cuts in interest rates that have gone almost to zero, and then express surprise that the banks don't lend. Like the Cargo Culters, they print money that has no meaning (our money supply has increased over 70% in the past three months), but because they have said the right words and made the right gestures, they cannot figure out why the economy does not right itself.

Meanwhile, the Pols in Congress have succumbed to the panic of DO SOMETHING and are borrowing against the funny money that is being printed over at Treasury, which is presided over by a tax cheat. And they believe their cause is just, and it MUST WORK because, after all, they are saying the right words and making the right gestures.

None of them has any clue as to what money is or how economies function.

None of them believe that they should know these things before they begin to fiddle with the ticking time bomb of economic collapse.

It HAS to work! They have had all the best intentions in the world as they said the right words and made the right gestures.

Reality does not care one whit about human intentions.

The natural consequence of Clarke's Third Law are upon us.

The technology of money and trade are apparently sufficiently complex to the Pols in Washington, and in the state capitals around the nation, that it is indistinguishable from magic.

It is like giving a thermonuclear weapon to barbarians. We'd be well advised to get out of the way if we can.

Failing that, it might be a good idea to make some preparations.

Because as the characters invented by Robert A. Heinlein in his novel The Moon is a Harsh Mistress used to say, "TANSTAAFL*!"

Honey, should we put our money under your side of the mattress or mine? The magicians are at work.

*There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.

Pictures of Princess Ruby Tuesday and the Old Dowager Zoey

NEARLY WORDLESS WEDNESDAY

Instead of waiting for the Chem Geek Princess to send me pictures--I have yet to receive any from her engagement--I took some of my own on Sunday.

I was going into town for Women's Torah Study, so I took my camera with me, and stopped by the CGP's little house on the way home.

Ruby Tuesday, her official name, is a little gem! She greeted us at the door, as her Grandpa Engineering Geek came just to meet her. So here's the pictures, bracketed by two of our Old Dowager Queen, Zoey. After all, the reason we took a second look at Ruby in the Animal Care Shelter, was that the Chem Geek Princess called me over, saying: "Oh, look, Mom! It's a mini-Zoey.

And here Queen Zoey lounges on her New Zealand
Sheepskin bed, showing off the Boychick's new floor.
(September 2008).

Her spots and ticking, once so black, are going white with age, and she likes to lounge in the sun more of late. She still plays, but less often during the day, and for less time.

And here, Little Princess Ruby lounges on

some of the carpet that was replaced by the

wood flooring at our house.

Now it provides a soft place in the CGP's

'Little House' for a puppy tired from

playing and performing for her hew family.

Here, Ruby demonstrated her newfound skill: Down. Stay.

Each time the CGP says it, she pushes her firmly down, and then rewards her by stroking her face while telling her what a good puppy she is!

Ruby is a calm, but curious dog who is happy to please her new mistress.

Ruby came home knowing a few skills already.

She can Sit. Stay.

She asks to go outside, being fully

housebroken, and she can shake

hand-to-paw when she asks for a biscuit.

We really don't understand why she was

returned to the Shelter. That lady's loss was our gain.

Ruby already has two toys.

A sheepskin giraffe for inside,

and a big purple squeaky ball for outdoor fun.

Here she demonstrates her play-bow, before she fetches the ball. It takes her a few tries to get it into her mouth, too.
And no matter who throws it, she always brings it back to the CGP. She knows the hand that feeds her!

And another look at our Old Dowager Queen.

You can see the resemblances and the differences

between the two.

Zoey doesn't have black ears, nor the black rings

around her eyes. Ruby does not have the big

black spot on her back.

Zoey is bigger, and her ticking is

fading with oncoming age.

But the two have uncanny similarities in personality.
They are both dainty Princesses, they hold their bodies and tails in the same way, and when Zoey was younger she had the same calm curiosity.

Both are a little on the thin side, too.
Ruby with the leggy thinness of late puppyhood.
Zoey with the stiff thinness of old age.

Ah, dear Zoey. Are you eleven? Twelve maybe. You were certainly at least a two when we rescued you in January 2000. But you were not yet three, according to the vet. Well, old girl, I know exactly how you feel on those cold mornings when the barometers falling and we both get out of bed stiff with arthritis.

But love is wasted on the young, they say.

My Medieval Profession

Thanks to RationalJenn:

You Are a Cartographer

You have a wide range of knowledge and you're very detail oriented. You have a photographic memory, and you remember places very well. Like a middle ages cartographer, you're also very adventurous and curious about the world. In modern times, you would make a good non-fiction writer or scientist.

Fascinating, truly fascinating. Because in modern times I am indeed a scientist.
And I love maps.

Take the Quiz and find out your Medieval Profession.

BO! The Slave Mentality and Freedom

Often, as I study the weekly parashah, the Torah portion, it seems that myth and reality, fact and legend, and past and present become woven together as I struggle with the text on many levels: the plain meaning, hints of something deeper, allergory and myth, and maybe twice a year, transcendance.

This week's portion, Bo! (Go!) is one that I struggle with every year, twice a year.
And, no, there is no exclamation point in the original. The word Bo begins a sentence: "Go to Pharoah." But I see it with an exclamation every time I hear the parashah read.

This portion picks up in the midst of the ten plagues upon Egypt.
And, although the plain meaning of the text is clear, the plagues are a contest between Pharoah and G-d, I still feel the sting of injustice every time I read that "every firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of Pharoah to the firstborn of the slave girl who is behind the millstone." (Shemot 11:4-5). This is myth, of course, and it is the meaning that we draw from myth that teaches something.

But yesterday, as I sat listening to the portion as it was read in Women's Torah Study, I heard a different piece. One that I have heard every year, of course, but one that my mind had not highlighted. (This is the reason that we tell and re-tell the great stories).

First I noted, as I do every year, when I read the Hebrew text, that when Moses and Aaron go before Pharoah, Moses says:

"Thus says YHVH, the G-d of the Hebrews . . . Send my people forth that they may serve me."

This brought my mind to a demonstration of idolatry that I saw on the internet the other day in which various actors and musicians take a pledge to do good in the name of the great and powerful Obama. (One wonders why these people did not until now do good in the name of their own free will.)

The part that I heard again in my head was toward the end of the video, when one of them says: "I pledge to serve Barack Obama . . ." and then they all say together, "I pledge to be a servant of Our President and all Mankind . . ." (you can hear the capital letters in their voices) as their individual likenesses all fade into the Che Guevara kitsch poster of Barack Obama's face.

Then I heard this part of the parashah:

"Pharoah's servants said to him: '. . . Send out the men that they may serve their god, YHVH. Do you not know that Egypt is lost? So Moses and Aaron were brought back to Pharoah and he said to them: ' Go, worship your god, YHVH! Who will go forth?" And Moses said: "We will all go, with our underlings and our elders,, we will go with our sons and daughters, with our flocks and our herds . . ." (Shemot 11: 7-9).

But Pharoah says no, that he would be a fool to let them all leave, when if this is just about a religious observance, then only the princes and elders should go. And he sends Moses and Aaron away.

And I began to think about the slave mentality. It is a way of thinking in which the slave's self is divided; someone else stands between a human being and her ultimate purpose. Someone else takes responsibility for the slave's will and being, making him less than a person.

Torah does not say, "Let my people go!" It says, "Send my people forth that they may serve me!"
Why?
Because in Egypt the people are servants to a man. They must worship his every whim. And by accepting their service, Pharoah commits the idolatry of seeing himself as above them in the eyes of heaven. He sees himself as a god. Thus the servant and the master both sacrifice to idols by the act of placing something lesser in front of their freedom.

And what is the sense of the "we will go . . ." piece? If the people are divided, so that some may leave to perform a religious duty permitted by Pharoah, they will retain the slave mentality. They will return to serve Pharoah. There is no half-slave and half-free. Freedom is all or nothing. People cannot choose the nice things about slavery, and refuse the hard choices that make up freedom and expect to remain free.

But if they all go forth, after seeing the signs and wonders, then in the wilderness, they will no longer be servants of Pharoah. And at Sinai, they can choose to make a covenant and accept Torah, placing themselves as servants of the Law of the Eternal.

And what of those signs? They are the plagues.
The plagues are a metaphor in this story for what happens to a land when people accept the slave mentality and must worship at the feet of a king, a master, an idol.
Then, even the innocent son of the slave girl behind the millstone will suffer. As will the mothers of Mitzrayim (the straits), who will mourn the destruction of the future generation in the name of the power of Pharoah and his priests and courtiers.

Free people do not place a person between themselves and the Eternal Law.
They choose to do what is right out of a whole self, not out of the half-being of servitude to others, be those others presidents or "all humankind."
A free human being may not worship at the altar of any man.

Thus I cannot, I must not, pledge to be a servant to Barack Obama or to all humankind.
To do so would be idolatry.
I serve a different covenant.
As an American, I pledge to uphold the Constitution.
As a Jew, I serve only the great I AM.*

*YHVH, the unprouncible Tetragrammaton, is a symbol for the root that conveys the meaning of being. It is a combination of three verb forms: I was, I am, I will be. The Name is unpronouncible because it is both infinite and incomplete. It comes from Moses question: "Who are you?" To which the Eternal replies something like: "Wait and see what I will do. Then you will know who I was, who I am, and what I will be."

Princess Ruby

I ask for congratulations. I have become a grandmother by adoption.
Today the Chem Geek Princess hauled me and the Boychick off the Albuquerque's East Side Animal Care Shelter to "look" at the dogs. "Now, we're just going to look today," she cautioned the Boychick as we went into the building.

We got three quarters of the way through the kennels in Building A. I was talking to a very pretty Shepherd mix on the female side when the the CGP, who had gone ahead a kennel said: "Oh, Mom, look! It's a mini-Zoey."

Sure enough, there in the next dog run was a small Zoey! She was looking at the CGP and tilting her head toward the outdoor part of the run. Then she sat down and looked positively fetching. We were cataloguing the similarities and differences:

• look, she's half of Zoey's size
• she has the same gestures and look in her eye
• she holds her paw in the same way
• her ears are bigger and they are all black intead of spotted

As we were talking, with many oh's and ah's, a kennel worker--I think they are trained to know when humans are falling in love with a canine--stepped forward and asked:

KW: "Can I help you?"

CGP: "Can I take her out?"

KW: "Before I do, do you have cats?"

CGP: "No, I don't."

KW: "What about birds?"

We must have looked puzzled, because the Kennel Worker then said: "This dog was adopted yesterday, and the lady was waiting here with her when I got to work this morning. She said the dog barked at her birds and chased her cat. She came in originally as an owner surrender because they were moving and couldn't take the dog. Now she's been adopted and returned. I don't think this lady tried very hard."

CGP: "If I take a dog today, I will make it work. Besides, dogs do chase cats sometimes. They're dogs. Anyway, I don't have any cats. I don't have any animals at all. But I have a house with a fenced yard and a dog run."

So the Kennel Worker slipped a leash on 'Dakota' and the CGP took her out of the kennel building. We walked her around a bit, then we took her into one of the enclosed bonding areas where we could take her off the leash and play. At first the dog made a circuit of the small space, sniffing at the toy ball. We settled on the floor to get at doggie level. Then the dog sat down in front of the CGP and put her paw up, just like Zoey. I think that was it, but we spent some more time with her there, throwing the ball, talking to the dog, who had somehow become 'Ruby.' We found that she had good manners, she let the CGP lift up her feet, and she seemed very anxious to please. So we slipped the leash back on and went out to find our friend the KW. It turns out that she was waiting just outside.

CGP: "I want to adopt this dog."

KW: "I think it was meant to be! We'll just put her back in her run, and then I'll write down her number and you can go into adoption couseling to fill out the paperwork."

But when we got back to the entrance to Building A, poor Ruby heard the barking inside, and shied away from the door. "Oh," the CGP said, "She doesn't want to go back in there. She's afraid we'll leave her again." So the KW let the Boychick and me sit outside with Ruby while the CGP went inside to fill out the paperwork and pay the fees. As we played with her, and let her sniff around, she got comfortable enough to climb right up on the concrete bench with us. As other kennel workers passed by, they kept saying "Hi, Dakota! I sure hope it works out for you." She apparently had made herself known and loved.

As she was filling out the paperwork, the Adoption Counselor said to the CGP: "I have to inform you that this dog chased a lady's cat . . . because, you know, she's a dog!" (I think they were rather disgusted with this lady's lack of any attempt to orient the dog at all). But it all the better for the CGP, because, as she told the Adoption Counselor, "She's so much like the dog I grew up with!"

So we took Ruby home to the CGP's house. She had a snack and played with the Boychick in the backyard while the CGP and I went to the pet store to get a few things. When we got back, decked out in her new collar and leash, Ruby accompanied us on a walk to the park. There, she ran around the park (on leash of course!) with the CGP and the Boychick. My knees are in the grandma stage and I prefer a brisk walk. After that, it was time for a bath--the dogs come home pretty dirty from the pound, er, I mean the Animal Care Shelter. So the Boychick and I left the new dog owner to her work.

I had forgotten to take my phone to town with me today, so I don't have a picture of Ruby. When the CGP sends me one, I will post it.

Now I have a granddog! Zoey and Lily have a niece.

This was not what I expected when I took the CGP's desk to her house this morning.

Life is full of those little surprises that make us smile. Princess Ruby has joined the extended family. What a happy day for us and for her.

The Problem with Geithner

The problem is his integrity.

He did not pay taxes that the IMF clearly informed him that he owed, and when he was audited, he still did not make good on all of the back taxes. He also continued to play fast and loose with the system.

And his name has just been sent to the full Senate for confirmation.
The committee passed him, despite all of this, because he's the genius that will fix our economy. Even though he couldn't understand Turbo Tax. (It's pretty simple, really. You hit the prompt that says "self-employed"). Not to mention the fact that the IMF not only apprised him of his tax obligation each quarter, but also wrote him a check intended to cover his tax obligation. So he kept the money from the IMF and did not pay the taxes.

Now many of us ordinary citizens have trouble with our taxes, but if we made this mistake we would pay fines, back taxes, and interest on what we owed. We might be terrorized by the IRS for years to come. Geithner has not experienced that. Apparently, there is not one law for the citizen and the politician in the United States.

What concerns me the most, though, is not Geithner's lack of integrity, although that is a big concern. What concerns me, is that our Senators and Representatives do not think it matters. After all, Geithner is the genius that came up with TARP, which was such an innovative solution that it was not used. So the congress critters have persuaded themselves that he is the only person who can save our economy from certain crash. And this bothers me quite a lot more.

First, the assumption that any one person can save an economy, any economy, by spending money we don't have defies common sense. It is what F.A. Hayek called The Fatal Conceit. Secondly, is it really possible that among a population of more than 303 million people this one, clearly flawed man is the only person who is qualified to be Secretary of the Treasury? This man who can't get his taxes right is the only person to put in charge of the IRS, the bailouts, and the printing presses at the US Treasury?

This kind of desire for a magic solution to all our problems is the same idolatry that made the Obamaniacs so nauseating. Our founders did not set up our system of government to depend on one man. As Thomas Jefferson wrote:

"It would be a dangerous delusion were a confidence in the men of our choice to silence our fears for the safety of our rights... Confidence is everywhere the parent of despotism. Free government is founded in jealousy, and not in confidence. It is jealousy and not confidence which prescribes limited constitutions, to bind down those whom we are obliged to trust with power... Our Constitution has accordingly fixed the limits to which, and no further, our confidence may go... In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution."
--Thomas Jefferson: Draft Kentucky Resolutions, 1798. ME 17:388

Ours is a government of law, not of men.
Should we then give the power over our money, which was unconstitutionally given to the Secretary of the Treasury by our venal politicians last October, over to a man who violates that law? Who, at best, is a genius who cannot understand the portions of the law that he will be charged with enforcing by virtue of his position over the IRS? Should this man have the power to deprive citizens who violate the same code he did of their rights to liberty and property?

I cannot believe that this is practically a done deal.
We have been told today that although his tax code violations would have been a problem in more ordinary times, these extraordinary times make his lack of integrity unimportant.
What? Does this mean that since these times are so extraordinary, the law does not now apply? Isn't it precisely in extraordinary times that character and integrity become extraordinaryly important? In The Crisis, Thomas Paine wrote:

"THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value." (December, 1776).

Will a man who, when times were good, did not pay his taxes, and kept the money given to him by the IMF for that purpose, have the integrity to make lawful decisions about our money in these extraordinary times? I think his soul has been tried and found wanting.

We the People of the United States, deserve and should demand accountable leaders who have the courage of their convictions, and the integrity to uphold the Constitution. No one man is the solution to all of our problems. We make the solutions. And as for our leaders, we must "bind [them] down from mischief with the chains of the Constitution."

And we lack wisdom if we do not protest the placement of a man who has already done mischief with his own money in charge of the national purse.

Catching the Rhythm of Spring 2009

Oy.

Ragamuffin Studies has missed two Nearly Wordless Wednesdays in a row!!
It may return next week, or another type of weekly photo post will be substituted.

It has to do with scheduling nightmares.
And with catching my rhythm as the new semester begins.

Last week, I returned to my tutoring job at the COE Graduate Writing Studio. I changed my GA from .5 (20 hours per week) to 0.25 (10 hours per week) because I found that I needed much more time for managing the Boychick's education, working on my dissertation proposal and studying for my classes. I set up my 10 hours over two days, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. These were also class days for me, so that I have three week days that I donn't have to drive into town.

The courses I had signed up for were Functional Neuroimaging (For Behavioral Neuropsychology), and Doctoral Seminar (for Special Education). Alas, when I signed on to my account last Tuesday, I had a message: the Doctoral Seminar class was cancelled. That would have been fine with me, except that I need six hours to keep my GA. Sigh.
So it was back to Loboweb, where the course catalogue turned up nothing in Special Education that I wanted/needed to take. So I arranged with my Special Education major professor to take a course in directed readings that would follow the plan, more or less, that I had been developing for the Doctoral Seminar. It took some effort to get a hold of Dr. N to get this all done, as she was traveling to Washington D.C. to attend the Inauguration. By Thursday, however, the necessary waiver had been made, and I was able to register.

Classes began yesterday, and so I came in to work and then was planning to attend the first meeting of Functional Neuroimaging. It was scheduled for 2-4 PM in the afternoon. However, when I signed in to my account, I had a new message. The course had been rescheduled, the students had been dropped, and we all had to sign up again. The new time, 3-5 PM could not have been more incovenient. But I really need this class. So just for yesterday, I had to leave work early in order to go up to the Boychick's school and drop off his Taekwondo bag, then swing by home to let the dogs out. Then it was back to campus for class. The Engineering Geek was persuaded to leave work early to pick up the Boychick and take him to Taekwondo. It worked out, but I had 10 minutes to inhale my lunch on my roundtrip to the East Mountains and then back to campus. We're going to have to figure something else out for the rest of the semester.

Did I mention that I really, really need this class?

When I went to the class, I found out that all of this was done at the behest of the Department Chair in order to accomodate undergraduates. This course is a 650 level course. I hope it doesn't get watered down like the course I took last spring. It was similar in that it was orginally a graduate level class, but then changed to accomodate undergraduates. And it meant much less depth for those of us taking the graduate version.

I am skeptical. But did I say I really, really, really need this class.

Of course, life outside the Ivory Tower continues. The Boychick needed a root canal and now the general dentist cannot finish it because the site is still draining. So tomorrow, it is off the consult with an endodontist. I have been at a dentist's office twice last week (once for the Boychick and once for me), and with tomorrow's appointment, it will be twice this week. We have been working on the Boychick's IEP. And getting him settled into a routine for school and scouts and Taekwondo.

I hope next week we'll catch the rhythm. And I'll figure out when to do the Nearly Wordless Wednesday post!

The good news: the days are getting perceptively longer!