The American Way

 

The Adventures of Superman

Faster than a speeding bullet!
More powerful than a locomotive!
Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound!
Look, up in the sky! 
It's a bird! 
It's a plane! 
It's Superman!
Yes, it's Superman, strange visitor from another planet, 
Who came to Earth with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men.
Superman, who can change the course of mighty rivers,
Bend steel in his bare hands, and
Who, disguised as Clark Kent,
Mild-mannered reporter for a great metropolitan newspaper,
Fights a never-ending battle for
Truth, Justice, and the American way. 

Thank you Representative Robert Garcia.

Rep. Robert Garcia made headlines because he intends to

" be proudly sworn-in to Congress on the U.S. Constitution. Underneath the Constitution will be three items that mean a lot to me personally: A photo of my parents who I lost to COVID, my citizenship certificate & an original Superman #1 from the library of congress"

The creators  of Superman, Jerome Siegel and Joe Shuster, were of course Jewish, as were many of the giants of the comic publishing Industry: Stan Lee ( born Liberman), Jack Kirby (born Jacob Kurtzberg), Bob Kane (born Kahn), etc., But more importantly until the Reagan era, all comic book heroes fought nobly for Truth, Justice, and the AMERICAN Way.  The comic book “heroes” who executed their enemies ( Marvel’s Punisher) or declared them insane because they did not agree with them (Batman’s Arkham Asylum) did not become popular until the 1980s.  Comic book publishing, like Hollywood and banking, was dominated by Jews because WASPs in the beginnings of those industries shunned any involvement.  But the marginalized people who joined those industries made them strong and powerful.  And throughout the early years of Superman, he assisted the People, including its government, in capturing (NOT PUNISHING) evil doers.  Oh, by the way, a strange visitor from another planet is by definition an immigrant to our planet.  Sounds like Rep. Garcia is someone I would want to support.

Adult Children

 

You’ve Got A Friend in Me

You've got a friend in me
You've got a friend in me
You got troubles, I've got 'em too
There isn't anything I wouldn't do for you
We stick together and see it through
'Cause you've got a friend in me
You've got a friend in me

Adult children are our friends

Adult children are full members of a group, whether that group is a family, a clan, a tribe, etc.  They can not be full members if they are the property of any other member of the group ( i.e. their parents).  Looking at the words in the song, there is nothing that I as a parent wouldn’t do for my children.  We will stick together and see it through.  What is mine is theirs.  But that same should be true for any friend.  Yes, I will still treasure the memories and honor of being their parent, but that is looking backward.  Looking forward, I have to accept that as adults they are no different than anyone else in my group and they hopefully will be my friends.  Vive La Fraternite.

Electing a Speaker of the House

 

Burning Down The House

Ah, watch out
You might get what you're after
Cool babies
Strange but not a stranger
I'm an ordinary guy
Burning down the house

But before you burn it down, let’s elect a Speaker

The House of Representatives is one of the two government bodies that makes laws under our constitutional republic  The rINOs, republicans In Name Only, who would actually prefer an authoritarian, not a republican, form of government are prepared to destroy the government and its House.  But first they have to elect a Speaker of the House.  As of January 4th, 2023, that isn’t going so well.  So maybe our government Of The People, By The People, and For the People will not perish from this earth.

Merry Christmas

 

I’ll Be Home For Christmas

Christmas Eve will find me
Where the love light gleams
I'll be home for Christmas
If only in my dreams
If only in my dreams

Whether they are your dreams, or my dreams, Merry Christmas

In World War II, soldiers who were fighting overseas for America had to endure many Christmases without their families. In 1943, those soldiers were honored with the hit song I’ll Be Home For Christmas.

The holidays are remembered as a time to be with loved ones, families. Those soldiers in WWII were not the first, nor will they be the last, who had to experience the holidays without being with their families. Those who immigrated, traveled far from their home, may not be able to return to that home. Not only for the holidays, but forever. My ancestors immigrated from Ireland and Poland without any expectation that they would ever see the home where they grew up and experienced their childhood holidays. But I know that they remembered those days. They made those sacrifices to grow and improve life.

In honor of those sacrifices, I appreciate the cost my son and his POSSLQ paid in traveling from Los Angeles to our home for the holidays, and I know that he has not been able to make this trip as often as he would like due to COVID, etc. But if he keeps us in his dreams, he should know, no matter what, we will keep him in ours.

Free Transit

 

I’m Free

I'm free-I'm free
And freedom tastes of reality
I'm free-I'm free
And I'm waiting for you to follow me

There is a big difference between free and unpriced.

The issue of “free” public transit has been in the news. The problem is TANSTAFL, There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch. What is "free" to the individual rider, is not "free" to the transit operator, in this case the government that subsidies transit.

The issue is that economists define goods as exclusive and nonexclusive. (If someone uses a good, no one else can use the good, which makes it exclusive to the consumer of the good); AND rival and nonrival. (the good has a price, in which case it is rival.)

• Private property is exclusive and rival. (For example, your meals).
  
• Public goods are non-exclusive and non-rival (For example, sunshine)

But

• Intellectual Property is non-exclusive but rival (For example, movies)
  
• Common Goods are exclusive but non-rival. (For example, fishing stocks).

People get confused by the vastness of a Common Good, but if it is limited then someone probably should regulate it (such as fishing quotas), or otherwise allocate it.

People are also confused by Intellectual Property. Music might be non-exclusive in that my listening to a song doesn’t prevent you from listening to that same song, but unless it is priced or regulated (e.g. copyrights, patents, etc.) then there is no incentive for someone to produce that music, so there better be a price.

Just because transit is without fares does not make it free. The riders might not pay a fare, but someone (society) is paying for those transit subsidies. Prices or regulation are used to ALLOCATE the  good, not merely to pay for that good.

The absence of price means that something is priceless, not that it is free. Transit might appear free to the riders, but they should treat it as if it were priceless, not free. Do not squander trips on transit. Just because you can, doesn't mean you should. Transit might be without fares, but that does not mean that it is free.

Winning IV

 

Step to the Rear 

Will everyone here kindly step to the rear
and let a winner lead the way.
Here's where we separate
the notes from the noise,
the men from the boys,
the rose from the poison ivy.

Is  winning that important? 

“The central cause of Jan. 6 was one man, former President Donald Trump, who many others followed".

 “None of the events of Jan. 6 would have happened without him.” 

Final Report of the Special House Committee on January 6, 2021. 

Not to let Donald Trump off, but the problem was not one man.  The problem was the belief that "Winning isn't everything; it's the only thing". And that "Second place is first loser."  If you believe those and similar thoughts, and can not accept defeat then anything you can do to prevent a loss might seem acceptable. 

If the President had been anyone but Donald Trump, but who also subscribed to a winning at all costs mentality, then the result might have been the same.  There is a difference between not liking to lose and never losing.  The first position is admirable.  The second position is impossible. 

The problem was not Donald Trump.  It was not believing that "It doesn’t matter if you win or lose, it's how you play the game." Or not believing that "For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?"

Chance

 

Schrodinger's Cat

Last train to Norwich
Summer days that blind your face will soon be dead and gone
Better get it on
Tuned to a day the babe against the world
You took the best seat rather risk it when the chips were down
Better make it long.
Schrodinger's cat is dead to the world.

And that cat is 100% dead.

Poor Schrodinger’s cat in the famous Quantum Mechanics example.  It is not 50% alive and 50% dead.  It is either 100% dead or 100% alive,  but no one has checked. 

Say you are faced with an ordinary deck of playing cards, and one is selected.  It is either red or black.  But if it is face down, then you don’t know which it is.  The average card is said to be 50%  a black suit and 50% a red suit.  No one is surprised when the card is turned over it is either 100% red or 100% black.  Why then is it to hard to imagine that just like the card has not been turned over, no one has checked inside the box for Schrodinger’s cat.  Saying that on average the cat is 50% dead and 50% alive describes the average GROUP behavior.  But the cat itself is an INDIVIDUAL member of that group and is either dead or alive.  It is not the measurement that determines its fate.  The act of measurement merely confirms what luck has already determined. Just as turning the card face up did not change the color of the card.

Unless we are playing with marked cards, a fair game of chance is always random.  Quantum Mechanics is also a fair random game.  We may not like that it is random, but that doesn’t change the fact that it is random.  Play hand that you are dealt.