O Canada

Canadian Commission on climate change

O Canada.

It seems that you are badly in need of some of our leaders. Leaders with a "can do" attitude who don't let a few facts and figures get in the way of progress. The bright side for you good folks is that many of us would be happy to send them north of the border. I can see by that confused look on your face you will need a bit of background on this.

Apparently your National Roundtable (commission consisting of business leaders, academics and researchers) recently issued a report claiming that climate change is going to cost Canada billions per year in the coming decades. These costs will incur from diseased forests and the resulting loss of timber, flooding as the sea rises, and on and on.

Luckily we in America are blessed with a plethora of leaders who do not recognize climate change as a real problem. For those Canadians not accustomed to edgy innovative American-style problem solving, let me spell it out. We will give you our climate non-believers who can set your energy policy and bingo presto- you are ahead of the game to the tune of tens of billions of dollars! Or for those of you who still think in Brit-speak, tens of thousands of millions.

I would like to caution you that the contract will call for you to keep them. Please see the no-take-backs clause. Also there is no warranty stated or implied. What you see is what you get.

So how about it. Think of it as a gift. Rather like when the French gave us the statue of Liberty. I can assure you, though the politicians will age and wither, the effects of their good ideas and sound policies will last for many generations. Come on, be a good neighbor. 

BBC news anchors gobsmacked.http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-09-27/wall_street/30203224_1_hoax-trader-bbc-news

After viewing the short video at the above link and upon brief consideration, we can see that capitalism is a conscienceless activity. Is this not the very definition of sociopath? Without conscience. Thus, the system that occupies much of the human and non-human resources of this planet is sociopathic. There are two tricky bits here. The first is, when we use the term sociopath, as applied to a human, we assume (and rightly so) an almost one-to-one correlation with sociopathy and, what we will briefly refer to as, evil. The other problem is our difficulty seeing the otherwise obvious fact that the game can be without conscience while many or most of the participants in the game are not sociopaths. For my money, (excuse that little tehehehe moment) this is a clear demonstration of both emergent properties and unintended consequences. That is to say, the finished product (capitalism) adds up to more than the value of the individual components- but not necessarily in an optimal way. Also the behavior and outcomes of the system do not reliably result in net enhancements for all the parties concerned.

Now, are there variations of capitalism where constraints are placed on certain behaviors and it is, to some degree, regulated? Sure. Can such constraints and regulations blunt the negative effects of the conscienceless system? Often. Can humans apply policies that take advantage of the system's positive traits and apply the results for the benefit of societies? Arguably. There are places in the world where this is done with varying degrees of success. One could argue that a thoughtful observer might learn from the more successful examples and bring some of this knowledge to bear in places that are currently experiencing difficulty. 

Elizabeth Warren is great. I would only argue that her list is too short. How about this, you were healthy enough to pursue your wealth, in part, because of the government involvement in health care and disease prevention. The CDC comes to mind. Not enough? Your efforts were not hindered by unnecessary tragedy and disease afflicting your spouse and children. Again think CDC along with others that do things like provide safety standards for everything from the stove in your home to the luxurious and outsized SUV that takes your offspring to school and soccer practice. What about the bridges and tunnels travelled by that same SUV?  Who employs the engineers and other personnel that set standards for and inspect those bits of infrastructure? The list goes on and on.

The problem is that Ms. Warren's message will fall on two kinds of ears. The ears of certain types of successful  people and the ears of everyone else. In the ears of the former group, everything in their personal reality whispers to them, "you are wonderful and deserve every dime you acquire". (Think of a luxury SUV commercial and you'll hear some of the whispers.) Even rational words spoken by a calm qualified person are unlikely to penetrate such invisible but formidable armor. This argument, though important to realize, leads those of us endowed with the 'other ears' to infer that we could simply out vote such people with our superior numbers. The sticky bit of the problem is that many of our neighbors who share the more common ears quietly strive to hear the siren-whispers of those same voices.

still more on Hamburg, Germany

You may have hear of Tex-Mex cuisine but I bet you don't know Ham-Mex. That is unless you've been to Jim Burritos Cantina in the Sternschanze (a section of Hamburg locally known as the schanze). The atmosphere is quirky with Mexican wrestling posters adorning the walls. The only down side, it was distractingly noisy when busy, which would basically cover the time between opening and closing. The burritos are large and tasty. Mine was chorizo to which I added liberal doses of my favorite among the numerous hot sauces available.

http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Restaurant_Review-g187331-d1340953-Reviews-Jim_Burrito_s_cantina-Hamburg.html

Got a nasty shock the other day when I checked my bank account to see if the ATM withdrawal (of Euros) had shown up. It had. All I can say is, the percentage that it cost me to convert dollars to Euros was enough to piss off the pope and I have the lowest available rate through my credit union. So, on top of the fact that the exchange rate is piss-poor going from dollars to Euros, I had fork over quite a few bucks for the privilege. Note to travelers, check with your financial institution regarding the cost of withdrawing money before coming to Europe. You will really have no choice but it could avert a nasty shock. Many institutions charge a fee on top of a percentage for every transaction. Also, many establishments here do not accept credit cards. I don't mean that they, for instance, don't accept American Express. I am saying they don't take credit cards at all. Oh, and by the by, when you find a place that does accept your card, each of those transactions will cost you something over and above the lousy exchange rate.

I have much more to tell, but it's late. I will quit here and upload to the blog and make a link from Facebook to the blog- because I can't trust Facebook to do it automatically.

more on Hamburg

More on Hamburg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elbe_Tunnel_(1911)

There are many parks and green spaces in the city. Also the place is very clean overall. With that said, they really do have a graffiti/tagging problem in some areas here. It really stands out because of the otherwise clean orderliness of the city. I found it a bit shocking and sad. Surprisingly, I did not find the occasional squatter building to be as discouraging as the graffiti. They were ill kept but somehow it seemed like they belonged in a weird way to this subculture/counter-culture/anti-war/no-nukes/anti-capitalistic folks that at some level I root for. Still it is evident that many of these squatters also have drug and/or alcohol problems. Some things are the same everywhere.

As in most of Europe, they are very connected to their history here. The good, the bad, and the ugly. It is commemorated on placards and with statues everywhere.

In Jade and Martin's neighborhood there is a much higher percentage of babies an children than most neighborhoods. It seems very kinder and family friendly. Half the people you pass have a stroller or a baby in a sling of some type. This is unusual in that Germany has a low birth rate and they currently offer incentives to German citizens to become parents. In short, this will be a nice family type neighborhood in which my granddaughter can grow and thrive.

The Comfort townhouse is quite spacious and attractive with wood floors, high ceilings, and a little garden area out the back door. Given the average size of German homes in the cities, this is like a little palace. They did well.

Impressions of Germany

Impressions of Germany

After a week in Hamburg, my daughter asked me what I thought of Germany.
The bullet point version is, it is quite pleasant here overall. Most people have been helpful and courteous. Many speak English, which is very convenient. I have picked up some German, but frankly, most Germans have better skill with English than I do with German so there is no point in my unintentionally butchering their language.

What follows is the extended version of my impressions.

Coming from the point of view of an American, Germany is not an exotic place. Sure, it's different, but in terms of day to day interactions with people and systems, the differences are often minimal though quirky.

The stores work largely the same way except they charge the customer for a sack.  Also apparently one does not purchase baby related items at the grocery. Baby food, diapers, baby wipes, etc are obtained at another store that is roughly analogous to an American drugstore. The major difference about this store is, one does not buy drugs there. Most drugs and medical related products are sold at an apoteka (think of the old time name for the druggist, apothecary). Also Germans don't care for big stores even when they have the space. Walmart, Costco, even an American grocery would be unimaginable to most Germans. One thing this old liberal, pro-worker, semi-socialist appreciated was that many cashiers are seated at their stations. In general, non-professional workers seem happier and better treated.

Other differences? Bicycles are ubiquitous. Cafes also. Bars? You bet, and perhaps only second in number to cafes, but they are rarely large. Think neighborhood corner bar.

Here is an observation. Germans get nervous if they are more than fifty paces from bread. This, one reasonably infers from the number of bakeries. Oddly, they feel the same way about ice cream. My million euro idea is (shhh, don't let this get out) a chain of bakery slash ice cream shops. My theory is that I merely need to mention bread and ice cream in the same name and I will control their hearts and minds. I scream, you scream, we all scream for bread & ice cream.

What other helpful/interesting information can I offer? The toilets and faucets all work similarly to ours, which is convenient.

in the do's and don'ts category let me address ones duties as a pedestrian. Cross at the green and not in between. Far from being a cute children's rhyme, they really mean it! Wait for the little green walk signal. Seriously. Wait for it. I'm not kidding. Unless you are trying to incur the glaring disapproving stares of your fellow pedestrians, not to mention panic stricken drivers, just wait. I know you will feel tempted. Perhaps you've carefully checked in every direction and seen no approaching traffic within a kilometer (a skosh over a half mile) and you are thinking- surely they can't possibly mean wait even now. Save any rebellious I-go-my-own-way thoughts for some other outlet because I can assure you that, yes, they do.

There is more to come in the next installment. I need a bread and/or ice cream break.

You big bully

 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marlo-thomas/marlo-thomas-bullying_b_866313.html?ref=fb&src=sp

It is horrifying, no doubt.

I read the article and I noted that not much was said about solutions. The common wisdom that we have now come to expect on stories of this type was included. We should "look for signs" of bullying (or drug use, or any number of other things) and we should have a conversation about it. Obviously I am not coming out against keeping an eye on your child and his/her well-being and nor would I advocate against discussing issues. My point is, why is this best advice offered? In my opinion, it is because solutions are the tricky bit. I was reminded of the old Mark Twain quote: "Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it." It is easy to say bullying is bad and hurts people. It is really quite another thing to talk about fixing that as a society.

Maybe we will start by employing the tactics and policies we've employed on other issues. We will declare war on bullying. I personally appreciate this as we don't get to declare war on a verb all that often. This is entirely unlike the 'ism' category. We are especially fond of declaring war on those. I think it is mainly because most of your 'isms' involve a system of ideas (communism, terrorism, etc.) and we are naturally well disposed to find a set of ideas with which we disagree. Then it is a short hop to declaring war on them. This makes us feel better immediately irrespective of any results out on the battlefield. The mere act of declaring the war is like a national salve for Americans.

Once we've declared war on bullying, we are going to need an army to fight that war. We won't call it an army because that word makes us uncomfortable. As it turns out, we are a very warlike people but we don't much care to see ourselves that way. This leads us to couch things in less direct terms. Maybe we could use Anti Bullying Protection Force. They could be a branch of the TSA which is part of Homeland Security. Given that so much of what we are about is declaring war on things, I think it might be great to run most of our government under that umbrella. It would be great for jobs. All those ABPF officers will use their paychecks to go out and purchase goods made in Malaysia, Korea, China and Japan. A total win-win.

 As far as kids getting bullied, don't expect much change in that situation. We can't even accept the fact that most kids are bullied by (insert drum roll here) other kids! This makes us very uncomfortable. Why? A number of reasons come to mind. One is that half the time we are idealizing children as little angels send directly from God. This flies in the face of the fact that children are selling dangerous drugs to other children, bullying other children, abusing other children, and on and on.

I know what you are thinking. He only accounted for half the time. Very perceptive. The other half of the time we are demonizing children. (Hey, no way!) Yes, I'm afraid so. As soon as children don't act like the little angels we've idealized them to be, we arrest them and try them as adults. Ooops. Didn't we engineer separate categories into our legal system in order to reflect what we instinctively know about them? Children are different from adults in their understanding of the rules and their ability to predict and comprehend the consequences. Well, yes, that's true. However, as soon as that became uncomfortable, we just bent the categories to fit our rage. So who's the bully now?