The Missing Chapter

I just pulled up this week's post for FRBP (final review before publishing) and discovered it was written in what I at first thought was a foreign language. While trying to make sense of this development, I suddenly went into flashback mode. I mean, I think it was flashback mode, It was my first flashback. It was just like the ones on TV.

There I was, buzzing around the planet in a UFO, I had been abducted by aliens, cool. It all came back to me in a rush of disjointed images. I'll detail my experiences in a future post, but the bottom line, for now, is that the only probing I experienced was an extended interview by an academic from the planet Tralfamidore. We ate warm, homemade, chewy chocolate brownies, swirled with peanut butter, and washed 'em down with ice cold whole milk.

Also, they loaned me a Chromebook, at my request, so I could work on the post you should be reading instead of the one you are. The problem with that idea was that I didn't realize that the empathy beam I'd been exposed to when I went through quarantine would result in my composing in Tralfamidorian without even realizing it.

So now I'm sitting here with a glass of flat Asti Spumante and trying to work with a Tralfamidorian to English translation app that I got for free from Cnet that needs a lot of work. I'm never gonna' get the translation done in time to hit my deadline so I'm posting the third chapter of my novel, it's all I've got on hand.

MEMco, our parent company, mandates a just in time inventory system. 

Update: 11.30.17

As part of an ongoing project that involves rereading, updating and tweaking my accumulated columns it was discovered that the chapter of my novel referenced above had vanished and that the three paragraphs above had turned black, blue, and red. These are the colors of the flag of the planet Tralfamadore.

I've filed a complaint with the various and sundry relevant agencies of the Tralfamadorian government to try and find out if someone from Tralfamadore is responsible for this and why it happened.

Unfortunately, for me at least, Tralfamadore long ago evolved into a world where all wants and needs are effortlessly met via technologies we Earthlings can only dream of.

In short order this utopia became quite boring, rather like I picture Heaven to be. I think this is why our literature, sacred and profane, is chock full of angels. Angels are bored citizens of Heaven looking for something to do.

Anyway, Tralfamadore solved this problem by making everyone on the planet a bureaucrat in good standing of any government agency they please with the right to switch jobs whenever they please so they don't get bored again.

Tralfamadore is a planet of bureauons that deliberately screw with each others lives for something to do. Sounds counterintuitive I know, but who are we to judge never having had to suffer life in a genuine utopia?

Long story short, whether or not I ever get an answer, or if I do that It'll make any sense, is a crapshoot at best.

Have an OK day.


[P.S. Gentlereaders, for 25¢ a week, no, seriously, for 25¢ a week you can become a Patron of this weekly column and help to prevent an old crank from running the streets at night in search of cheap thrills and ill-gotten gains.

If there are some readers out there that think my shtuff is worth a buck or three a month, color me honored, and grateful. Regardless, if you like it, could you please share it? There are buttons at the end of every column.]


©2015/2017 Mark Mehlmauer   (The Flyoverland Crank)

If you're reading this on my website (where there are tons of older columns, a glossary, and other goodies) and if you wish to react (way cooler than liking) -- please scroll down.

I'm an Unrepentant Wild Eyed Free Marketeer

In spite of the fact meteorologists have access to plenty of data and no shortage of hi-tech tools they are regularly wrong. Everyone knows why, variables.

If a butterfly flaps its wings in... well, you know the rest. We're pretty good at predicting the weather one to three days out, but beyond that, the farther out you go the more butterflies you have to keep an eye on. If one of Mothra's smaller relatives flies through even a short-term forecast, you're screwed

Economists have the same problem to deal with, variables. They build computer models designed to predict where the economy is headed. Or, they try and predict what might happen if this or that policy is implemented.

Now, like it or not, you're part of an ever-expanding, ever interconnecting global economy. There are roughly 7.1 billion souls on this planet trying to get the most bang for their Bucks, Euros, Rubles and the like -- 24/7/365. That's an awful lot of folks and potential spending decisions to account for.

The Federal Reserve System of the United States of America, where they pull the levers and adjust the dials, never issued a bulletin prior to the Great Recession warning that the economy was about to crash. Turns out that selling houses to millions of people that can't afford them can get ugly, and fast.

Who Knew?

It gets worse. The study of economics is the study of macroeconomics and microeconomics; the big picture as opposed to the local, independently owned, car repair facility that recently ripped me off...

Well Duh! exclaims a gentlereader, everyone knows that!

Settle down, I'm working here! No, everyone doesn't know that, they're busy leading busy/crazy/hectic lives and hoping that whose ever job it is to figure out the best way to keep the economy on track has a clue, but that's not my point.

What I was going to say was that since these divisions are two sides of the same coin, this introduces another layer of complexity. Also, if you happened to stumble into the bar where your local economists like to hang out after work, the arguments that are most likely to lead to a brawl are about macroeconomic issues.

The study of microeconomics has generated a good deal of consensus. Macroeconomics, on the other hand, has not -- and probably never will.

There are two reasons for this: Economists with radically different ways of viewing how the world works, proposing theories from radically different starting points, that's the first one.

The other is that a theoretically objective, unbiased professional can't set up an experimental economy in a laboratory and start tinkering to see what happens. Like meteorologists, they must rely on computer modeling and, well...please refer to paragraph two.

So...

Though major paradigm shifts in hard science can turn a given field of study on its head, these are, to put it mildly, few and far between. A chemistry major may show up for class on some random day and be startled to find that her favorite (married) professor has turned his back on academia and accepted a lucrative job offer from DuPont because his grad student girlfriend is pregnant and now there are doctors and lawyers to be paid.

However, she's highly unlikely to discover that the professor's replacement wants her to forget about all this atoms and molecules drivel and instead begin studying the basic principles of magic and alchemy.

On the other hand...

The next time she shows up for what's turned out to be her least favorite elective, macroeconomics, which was being taught by the newly impregnated grad student who's on leave due to medical and legal problems -- it wouldn't be particularly shocking if the new professor announced that although she will gracefully continue to teach university approved mainstream Macroeconomics 101, she's a communist and frankly thinks it's a bunch of bonkercockie.

But you can trust her professionalism and objectivity.


Meanwhile, off campus...

The market -- free, sorta free, heavily regulated, and/or all of the above -- continues to (seemingly) perform miracles on a daily basis This is true in spite of the obvious fact it's not perfect, it will never lead to utopia -- and no one's actually in charge.

How? 7.1 billion souls doing what needs to be done to survive, and when possible, with a little style.

Adam Smith explained the who/what/when/where/why (coincidentally) the same year America was born, but all he did (besides inventing modern economics) was formally codify what had been going on since Og (master spear maker, lousy hunter) made a deal with Ug (master hunter, lousy spear maker).


Og and Ug accidentally invented free trade. By specializing in what they were good at instead of trying to do everything themselves, both improved their lives exponentially. The market they created was self-regulating -- as long as they both played it straight.

If Og's Spears and Stuff dealt in sharp, durable spears and Ug's Meats and Things fulfilled their pledge to trade in only fresh, healthy meat it was a win-win. Og was an idealistic socialist and thought Ug was a mean-spirited, selfish libertarian. Ug was a rugged individualist who thought Og was a hopelessly naive dork. So what?

It gets better.

Both Og and Ug started trading with other specialists and free trade went viral. Since many people were good at the same things, businesses had to find a way to lure customers into their cave instead of the other guys. Competition was born and it also went viral.

Only the specialists that provided the best service or products survived, the rest were driven out of business and had to find another specialty. The customer wins and the failed specialists drive innovation by specializing in something else, occasionally something that nobody else had thought of.

The innovators occasionally made a cave full of money, occasionally changed the world. A few of the winners retired, moved to a larger cave with a great view and doted on their grandkids. The rest prepared to fight off the inevitable competition.

Wait a sec', Self-regulating?

Yup. Think about it. Two grocery stores at opposite ends of a small town are locked in competition. Both seek to offer consumers the ideal mix of price and service, the customers will unsentimentally decide on the winner, the loser will go out of business.

Or, the loser (necessity is a mother) will come up with a new angle and like the fake wrestler in a fake wrestling match, who clearly should be dead, will rise from the canvas and secure victory. Or maybe just become a laundromat with a bar where you can get loaded and meet chicks/dudes.

Ah ha! But then the survivor will have stumbled into a monopoly and that's why we need the gubmint or even The Gubmint to step in, The Gubmint has tons of economists on the payroll, The Gubmint...

...Needs to manage the safety net, make sure no one's getting cheated, enforce contracts and property rights, and lock up or kill the bad guys. (PERIOD)

Have an OK day.


[P.S. Gentlereaders, for 25¢ a week, no, seriously, for 25¢ a week you can become a Patron of this weekly column and help to prevent an old crank from running the streets at night in search of cheap thrills and ill-gotten gains.

If there are some readers out there that think my shtuff is worth a buck or three a month, color me honored, and grateful. Regardless, if you like it, could you please share it? There are buttons at the end of every column.]


©2015 Mark Mehlmauer   (The Flyoverland Crank)

If you're reading this on my website (where there are tons of older columns, a glossary, and other goodies) and if you wish to react (way cooler than liking) -- please scroll down.

Sunday

Hey...I like hey, when it's used as a social convention I mean. It's particularly handy at work. First pass: Howyadooin? Get that over with as best you can. Howyadooin requires a thousand words, no, a short book, but I'm in a hurry.

Next, and subsequent passes: Hey. Verbally punctuate and shape it any way you please. Hey. Hey! Heeey.... A very handy word. One syllable social lubrication. But I am in a hurry, as I said. I just began with hey, for no particular reason... and well..., well anyway, I'm back now.

The reason I'm in a hurry is that I've just decided that the post that I had prepared will not be available until Sunday. There's a whole bunch of mostly boring reasons for this, as well as what follows.

Starting this Sunday, Sunday is my official day to post. In addition to the boring reasons referenced above, it's been suggested to me by someone I trust, that the sort of stuff I write about and the way I write it goes well with Sunday morning, coffee and bagels, the Sunday paper... I know you can feel it., smell it.

Well, I do anyway and that's why I'm cranking this out (relatively speaking) and I'm going to post it in just a second (I'm a relatively slow writer) to meet a self-imposed deadline that's important to me.

And...

I'll write something every day between now and Sunday just to see what happens and as a peace offering if you get into this before I have a chance to beef it up, and you're disappointed.



Wednesday afternoon: Define (some of) Your Terms, Sir

Bonkercockie -- I stumbled on this word while wandering around the web and it was love at first sight. I didn't care what the definition might turn out to be. As it turns out the creator was easily located via googling, and the definition is a flexible one. I like to use it in place of B.S. because that feels obvious and natural to me, but the inventor uses it in other ways as well.

Hooplehead -- Often credited to the creator of the best TV show ever made, Deadwood, it looks as though the word was abroad in the world long before David Milch (sort of) popularized it. While my research indicates the definition is noncontroversial (fool, dope, hick etc. -- as seems obvious) the etymology is somewhat vague.

Gentlereader --  A somewhat archaic term that is actually two words I like to combine into one. It dates to Victorian times and is a device an author uses to directly address a reader. I combine the words just because I like the look and feel of the result.

I think we should all strive to be gentlepersons, and this will the subject of an eventual post. I always write with an imaginary gentlereader looking over one shoulder and my muse over the other. From my perspective, it's a way of saying thanks for taking a few minutes from your life to bother reading what I have to say.


Thursday Morning -- Nuns

When I was a kid my worldview was shaped by nuns. I'm an old dude so this means that I'm talking about an era when nuns still had hair on their chests and were proud of it.

I didn't care much for nuns at the time, and even though my feelings have changed somewhat, I have no doubt that one or two of the good sisters I spent nine months out of the year with, for eight years running, were at least mildly psychotic.

Fortunately, one or two were probably saints. Most would probably be less than pleased that I grew up to be agnostic. I say most because I'll betcha a bottle-a-pop that at least one of those bizarrely dressed women was secretly agnostic.

The reason my feelings have changed is that from my current perspective, that of an adult (more or less), I can now appreciate that as a group, they were an invaluable part of my life, even the nuttier ones.

They were part of a culture that believed (as I still believe) that kids were adorable little infidels in need of civilizing. Some handed out corporal punishment, as did some parents, too frequently. Some, like some parents, not enough. But you knew where you stood and you knew what the rules were.

They had the temerity to believe that a few thousand years of Western Civilization, warts and all, had come up with a system of morality, ethics, politics -- even common courtesy -- that worked and was one of the many reasons we callowutes were damn lucky to be able to take the USA for granted.

Finally, though they were members in good standing of an often hidebound institution, they, the ones that taught me at least (from '59 to '67), had no fear of discussing the "real" world and how it worked -- I believe they called it Social Studies. They also were strong supporters of the civil rights struggle and made it clear that I better be as well.

But for the record, by the time I reached ninth grade and switched to the public school system because my parents couldn't afford to send me to a Catholic high school, I no longer believed there was a place called Limbo.


Friday Morning -- Billary

This is the last installment of this transitional post, the transition from publishing on Wednesdays to publishing on Sundays. I can write publishing with a straight face because the button that you click on to post your post via Blogger is labeled Publish.

And no, I didn't stay home from work and life yesterday to watch Billary testifying, nor did I stay up all night to watch a recording of it of some sort. I checked in yesterday from time to time.

I began my day today in the usual fashion -- with a large cup of coffee and the perusal of multiple websites, a carefully crafted collection of key (Aw geez, there he goes again) websites designed to provide me with a snapshot of what's going on. I do this every morning, seven days a week, and it takes about an hour and a half.

Some folks might find this appalling, perhaps even mildly disturbing. I could easily justify the practice by claiming that I do it because I'm a columnist and it's part of the job considering the nature of my writing, and that would be partially true.

However, I would be doing this even if I were incapable of generating a single intelligible sentence. In my defense, the process includes comic strips. Also, an hour and a half is the absolute limit because my brain starts melting at that point so it's time to push away from the desk and return the coffee I've been renting back to mother nature. But that's not what I want to talk about.

Billary's Benghazi bonkercockie is what I want to talk about, but barely briefly. Turns out that Billary sent an email to Chelsea (estimated net worth, $15,000,000. I wonder how she's managed that?) -- 45 minutes after issuing a statement blaming mobs that went nuts over the famous YouTube video for the murder of some of her fellow Americans -- clearly stating that an "Al Qaeda-like group" was responsible for the murders. There are other emails and records that name the specific group, Ansar al-Sharia, and state that the attack was a carefully planned terrorist operation.

Billary and the Obama administration, the folks that assured us they had taken care of this Al Qaeda thing, spent the next couple of weeks sticking to the video story, and then when they couldn't anymore, blamed, and continue to blame, the attempted coverup mistake on the chaos and confusion surrounding the incident.

Mr. O. was re-elected a few months later. Billary, confronted with the facts stated above, stuck with the chaos and confusion defense. The New York Times website's story about the hearing this morning was headlined Four People Died, Clinton lied Benghazi Engages Clinton in Tense Session.

"I did not have sexual relations with that woman..."
"Yup, yup, yup, it was a vast right-wing conspiracy!"

Have an OK day.


[P.S. Gentlereaders, for 25¢ a week, no, seriously, for 25¢ a week you can become a Patron of this weekly column and help to prevent an old crank from running the streets at night in search of cheap thrills and ill-gotten gains.

If there are some readers out there that think my shtuff is worth a buck or three a month, color me honored, and grateful. Regardless, if you like it, could you please share it? There are buttons at the end of every column.]


©2015 Mark Mehlmauer   (The Flyoverland Crank)

If you're reading this on my website (where there are tons of older columns, a glossary, and other goodies) and if you wish to react (way cooler than liking) -- please scroll