I can’t help it, this is awesome.
The premise? A music video featuring Lord Keynes and F. A. Hayek, arguing their philosophies rap style. Yes, the rap isn’t going to win any hip hop awards, but by far this is the most entertaining distillation of modern economic philosophies I’ve seen.
Just Awesome!
In tribute to recent weather events.
Kudos to Vince Pinkerton for another awesome video.
Of course this song is available on our latest CD, “On The Air”. More info at the X-Alt Website.
So, we all got a good yuk out of the local schools closing today (many of them announcing it yesterday afternoon). Being known for my good-natured jokes about Nashville snow-panic, I had a ball this morning when it turned out there was no snow.
The weather made one final charge in mid-day, spitting out a dusting of snow. To me, it just made the joke funnier.
After about an hour of this, my employer, trying to live up to its reputation as a big, evil, ruthless company, announced that they were closing the office, to keep emplyoees safe if conditions worsened.
As much as I enjoyed the time off, it became even more of a joke to me as I drove home on West End. Nothing – just wet streets.
It was all very amusing…
Until I turned onto my street. You see, I live on Mt Crumpet, sometimes known around these parts as Nine Mile Hill. Suddenly, as I drove around curve after curve, the snow was actually sticking to the streets.
But I made it to my driveway. Most of my driveway is straight up, I’d say pretty much a 60-75 degree angle all the way. And it was covered in snow.
What the?
Regardless, I figured my xB could take it. The key words here being “xB’, “steep hill”, and “snow”.
I made it a quarter of the way, then my wheels started spinning. I stopped. I started sliding back down. The car came to a stop after about 10 feet of this, which is a good thing, because I would have ended up in the football field across the street had intertia had its way.
Well, now, this is embarassing. Luckily, I was able to shovel a path in the drive, just to the left of where my tires had already been (already packed down to ice — what an idiot).
I was able (barely) to get my car up the draveway and into the garage.
By the time Lintilla gets home, it will have all refrozen (along with much of the streets of Nashville). She probably will be a little wiser about it than I.
The lesson? Don’t mock the locals till you’ve checked your own driveway.
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I guess I should join the chorus of those saying good riddance to “the worst decade ever”. Lord knows, on the surface it would appear I have good cause, I guess.
But, every setback I have encountered, no matter how heartbreaking, has brought me blessings beyond measure.
I will dwell on the laughs and the joys. There were many.
Happy New Year everyone. Here’s hoping that the coming year will be blessed.
From Cantique de Noël come some of the most beautiful words ever written.
Le monde entier tressaille d’espérance
En cette nuit qui lui donne un Sauveur.
Merry Christmas. I wish you only Peace.
Joyeux Noël. Paix pour vous !
I have very few full sensory memories. You know the kind: a memory so vivid, decades later you can still see, feel, smell, hear and taste everything about it.
Most of the ones I have are related to various traumas, things like fires and death and trucks hauling away possessions because of bankruptcy. There are happy ones, too – it doesn’t matter that we lost the videotapes of when the kids came off their respective planes from Korea…the memory is as fresh in my mind as the day it happened.
But one of my most vivid memories is of a winter Saturday many, many years ago. The situation was neither ecstatic or traumatic. In fact, it was kind of mundane. Yet, the memory has been popping into my head with regularity lately.
I was, I think, around 10. My dad had taken me with him to work. Many times, during the boom times, his work would carry over into the weekend. Looking back with the knowledge of a harried parent, I realize that my folks probably had a “childcare situation” that weekend.
Regardless, I was there at the small machine shop my dad had worked at his entire adult life (in the end, it was almost 40 years). There were a few other men there as well, but the place felt empty. It was, really, a big, open warehouse. It was cold – I remember the place had little heating or air conditioning, if it had anything at all.
I remember the sounds: WSM played in the background, and at the time my dad HATED country music. Mixed in were the loud sounds of lathes and grinders and machines being tested. Every now and then, a curse word would waft around the cavernous building when a machinist made a mistake.
I remember seeing huge stacks of metal beams against one wall. I remember trying to lift just one side of a single beam, and realizing where my dad’s muscles came from. There was the small office where the same secretary had worked as long as I could remember.
When the lathe was running, it was hard not to get a metallic taste in your mouth.
And I really remember a certain smell. It is fixed in my mind because I have not encountered it since. It was an odd combination of grease and welding smoke, and the particles that drift into the air when a piece of metal is on the lathe or the milling machine, and stale coffee and cigarettes.
It’s so weird. 35 years later, and I can still smell it like I was there.
I remember being fascinated by what my dad did, and how the other men looked to my father with professional respect, even though looking back, I realize he was not quite 30 yet. My dad was a very, very good machinist. Other good machinists could work to tiny tolerances. Dad could get you to somewhere about .10 mm.
But, his hands were callused and had been injured more times than any of us could count. There were many times my dad went to the emergency room because he had run a file or other object through his hand.
He loved it. He hated it.
And there I was, an impressionable young buck, just watching him work. The day passed quickly (I think it was a half day), then, we got some lunch (a treat in the days before drive-thrus) and went home.
I did not know at the time that his trade, machining by hand, was dying off. CNC was already taking over the industry. I don’t know how my dad’s employer hung on as long as they did (they finally folded in 2000). I know they had some good men working for them, though.
Memories of that day often come into my mind when I least expect it.
My own kids are junior high age, an age where things like class and station seem like life and death issues. They are going through many of the things I did at the time. Most of their peers are the children of professionals: doctors, lawyers, leaders of business, with a country star or two thrown in.
I know they look at me and the life I’ve given them, and find it lacking. It is a kind of cosmic justice, because I did the same at that age. I thought my dad was pretty smart for what he did, but real smart people, in my mind, were lawyers and politicians and the kind of people you saw on TV.
Certainly, they didn’t have working class southern accents or wear shirts with their first name stitched onto a badge.
So, I set out to become one of those people I thought were “smart”. I took Latin, and joined the debate team and purged my southern accent.
The latter is one of the few regrets I have in life.
It wasn’t until later, when struggling with a tricky trigonometry problem for well over an hour - my dad overheard my fretting, and immediately did the problem in his head. He had, and still has, genius in him, but I had so limited my definition of “smart”, I couldn’t see it.
It was later, upon reflection of all of this, that I decided that my one of my missions in life was to find the genius in every person I met. Let me tell you, if you get to know a person and cannot find their genius, you haven’t looked hard enough. I have found it in dishwashers and in prisoners. I’ve even found it in a couple of lawyers I know.
I am convinced that our society’s definition of “smart” is far too limited. I see it in snarky blog comments about misspelled protest signs, as if mastery of the English language is the only indicator of intelligence which allows the bearer to be worthy of having a say in the ordering of his own life. I see it in the devaluation of honest work; any job that requires less than a college degree is called a “sh*t job”, and those who work in “trades” or other non-professional jobs are considered victims or unworthy rednecks.
Every time some snotty blogger insults a working class person who dares to ask for a seat at the table and common respect on his own terms, I think of my father, and how my repudiation of him hurt him, and how sorry I am for that time in our relationship.
It’s weird how it all catches up with you, though. I didn’t become a lawyer, as I had planned. I ended up becoming a computer programmer, which is my own generation’s version of a skilled trade. Oftentimes, when complaining about software architects who have given me specifications that I instinctively know will not work, I catch myself saying some of the exact things my dad used to say about engineers.
There is a certain peace in that, knowing your place in the world, and how it fits with where you came from, and being proud of it.
No, I haven’t talked to you much lately – mostly because the nature of blogging requires one to come across in self-assured pomposity (even when proclaiming doubt), and lately I have been feeling anything but self-assured. Having two teens (or teenager-like beings) in the house will do that to you.
However, I thought I’d throw you all a curveball and post something longer than a Twitter post.
Let me first say that I give thanks to God for all things. I don’t deserve a bit of it, and I spend a good amount of time in wonder that I have been bestowed with such bounty – in material things, in love, family and friendship, in purpose. In a truly just world, I would have none of it.
God is good, all the time.
However, in the deep breath before the yearly holiday craziness, I’d like to address the controversial issue most pressing in my mind:
Dressing or stuffing?
Now, I try to address issues of food from a utilitarian point of view, because, according to my faith, I have been freed from having to ponder the morality of every food decision I make. Being programmed otherwise, I still struggle with seeing certain foods as ‘good’ or ‘bad’.
(As an aside, the only good thing that comes out of the fact that many people view food choices from a moral point of view is that often we get to see naked or near-naked skinny women protesting the eating of this or that animal. Being a fan of the female form, who am I to argue with that? Although I would prefer meat-eating naked protesters, because meat eating produces, for me, the ideal female form, beggars can’t be choosers)
Anyway…even our doctors seem to approach our food choices from a point of view that sure sounds like morality to me. But, I digress.
Yet, this is one food issue in which I am willing to take a moral stand.
Let me be clear: stuffing is an abomination.
It dries out the turkey, it introduces harmful bacteria, and it’s a serious misuse of breadcrumbs. And I’d really rather not stick my arm up the inner cavity of a bird any more than I have to.
Dressing, more specifically cornbread dressing, is one of the greatest foods ever created. Done right, it is moist but not soggy, flavorful but not pungent, and compliments the turkey perfectly. It’s good as a leftover, and I even like it cold, right out of the refrigerator.
It is by far the best use for the spice sage. In fact, besides fried chicken breading, I can think of no other decent use for the strong green spice.
Anyway, since I wish you and yours the happiest of Thanksgivings, of course I hope you have a day filled with cornbread dressing and sweet tea.
I will be having turkey tomorrow, so if any of you lovely vegan ladies would like to come to my house to protest in the buff, my 13-year-old son would really appreciate it. I’ll even make a batch of green beans without animal fat for you (even though that, too, is an abomination. Crunchy cooked vegetables? Weird.)
Seriously, I hope all of you have a wonderful Thanksgiving.
I have a message for the Mayor.
It’s no secret that I am a political conservative, and I’ve never been afraid to speak my mind, even living in a moderate city and council district. I am slightly to the right of my neighbors, although you know as well as I that West Meade is not exactly a breeding ground for firebrands either way.
And yes, I voted for your main opponent, but you were slowly growing on me, until lately.
That being said, if you are actively recruiting an opponent for my Metro councilman, Emily Evans, even a conservative one, you are going to have a fight on your hands.
And you will lose.
Oh, you might get Belle Meade, and no one knows what will happen in the other neighborhoods in the 23rd council district, but you will find that West Meade, especially West Meade Park, is pretty darned pleased with Emily.
For her handling of the development of the Etherly property alone, she deserves high praise. She succeeded where so many others before her had failed, even though one of the negotiating partners in the Memorandum of Understanding had openly supported her opponent in the previous election. And the other party, the WMPNA, was shell shocked and suspicious after so many attempts to develop the property into something not good for the neighborhood.
I do not agree with Emily Evans on everything, but even on those issues of disagreement, she makes a compelling argument for her side. I wasn’t too mad about the storm water fee, for instance, because Evans convinced me of the need. (This is why it’s good to have a blogging councilman)
In all other things, she has proven to be the a very competent, responsive and compassionate representative. Even though Evans is called a progressive, she governs as one who understands the district she represents.
You have no idea how refreshing it is to hear an elected official explain the situation at Hillwood High without demagoging it either way.
Let me be clear…
If we in the 23rd district wish to kick Evans out of office, we’ll do it ourselves. (See: Eric Crafton)
Heck, one day I might even run for the seat. But, I would NEVER do so against the best councilman I’ve ever had.
Butt out, Mr Mayor.
