One of the last Communists

Benito Mussolini.  Nicolae Ceausescu.   Saddam Hussein.  Muammar Gaddafi.  All men that died ignominious deaths and the world did not mourn them.   Augusto Pinochet, despite his human rights abuses, escaped execution but was reviled in the press for his brutal rule as dictator of Chile—there were no condolences, no kind words from world leaders upon his passing even though Pinochet capitalism to Chile after his overthrow of Allende in 1973.   None of these blights on humanity received much in the way of recognition upon their deaths, other than described as “brutal dictator,” “tyrant,” or “monster.”

Fidel Castro brutally repressed and impoverished his nation for two generations.  He tried to abolish religion, stole property from its citizens, executed and tortured dissenters, and nearly started WWIII which may have obliterated all of humanity.  He proclaimed himself a man of the people but like his soulmate Hugo Chavez, leaves his heirs with a net worth of $500 billion by some estimates.  It would have been entirely justified for Fidel Castro to meet the same end as his brother-in-arms Nicolae Ceausescu.  Yet almost 60 years after his overthrow of Batista in Cuba, Fidel’s quiet passing was marked in some quarters with reverence and praise, and overlooked or whitewashed his role in undermining U.S. interests during the Cold War.

President Barack Obama offered this tepid message:

"We know that this moment fills Cubans--in Cuba and in the United States-- with powerful emotions, recalling the countless ways in which Fidel Castro altered the course of individual lives, families and of the Cuban Nation.  History will record and judge the enormous impact of this singular figure on the people and the world around him." Of course, Obama offered his usual moral equivalency between liberty loving America and the brutal repressive dictatorship of Cuba:  "For nearly six decades, the relationship between the United States and Cuba was marked by discord and profound disagreements."  In other words, the relationship was no worse that an ongoing marital spat.  No party was better or worse or more or less culpable.

The New York Times downplayed his brutality: “he had complicated record on human rights.”

Not so.  His record was not complicated at all.

Chris Matthews who similarly had a thrill run up his leg when Obama was elected, gushed that Castro was a “folk hero,” and a “romantic figure.”

The most egregious statement came from Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who referred to Castro warmly as a "larger than life leader who served his people for almost half a century," and "both Mr. Castro's supporters and detractors recognizing his tremendous dedication and love for the Cuban people who had a deep and lasting affection for 'el Comandante'."

Most inexcusable of all was the statement from Pope Francis:

"I express my sentiments of sorrow to Your Excellence and other family members of the deceased e, as well as to the people of this beloved nation."

The Cuban exiles and their children in Miami saw his passing differently.  There was dancing in the streets, celebrations that went on for days in Little Havana, and partying all night (and shockingly, no burning cars or smashed store windows as occurred in Portland following the U.S. presidential election).  Fittingly, Colin Kaepernick, sporting a Castro t-shirt and vocalizing his support for Castro just a day before was roundly booed in Miami, the city that also ran off Ozzie Guillen after he made positive comments about Castro the decade before.

Only Donald Trump got it precisely right:

"Today, the world marks the passing of a brutal dictator who oppressed his own people for nearly six decades.  Fidel Castro's legacy is one of firing squads, theft, unimaginable suffering, poverty, and the denial of fundamental human rights."

While the MSM and others on the Left equivocated and even sung hymns of praise, Trump took an important first step toward re-establishing America as a beacon of hope and moral leader of the West. His statement used the words, "liberty," "freedom," and "prosperity," --words we haven't heard often from the leader of the West over eight years.

The lessons of Castro are this: 1.  Tyrannies can last a long, long time and it appears that Cuba will not be giving up its authoritarian regime anytime soon.  Power is rarely forefeited without blood.  Cuba, North Korea, Syria and Iran continue to hold a grip on power and none are close to granting their people freedom and fundamental liberties.  Iraq would have been in the same position as Saddam had already developed a succession plan, which like Hafez al-Assad, would have vested all despotic authority in his sons.  Only the U.S. invasion disrupted his plans.

2   2. Unilateral concessions and recognition do nothing except legitimize tyrants.  “This is what change looks like,” Secretary of State John Kerry foolishly proclaimed when he opened diplomatic relations with Cuba last year.  Raul Castro promptly responded with a statement that amounted to, “We ain’t changin’ nuthin.’”  And earlier this fall there were reports that Russia was considering putting a base in Cuba.

Shockingly, the MSM and some Western leaders have been lavishing praise on Castro, lauding him for Cuba’s literacy rate, health care and even going so far as to praise him for his contributions to the world of art and sports.  And most disheartening was the sympathy shown by Pope Francis for a man that banned religion and brutalized his people.  

Adult Safe Spaces

The current controversy over so-called “Safe Spaces” on college campuses has taken on a life of its own.  The concept was so foreign to me that I had to look up the definition.  In my mind, every college WAS designed to be a safe space.  Society gives young people four years (maybe more) that are free of the drudgery of a daily commute, sucking up to a boss, worry over layoffs, working 8-10 hours straight at boring tasks they’d rather not do or, alternatively, a stint in the military where a drill instructor is in your face, screaming at you to do 10 more pushups.  Instead,  students are free to loll around the quadrangles, explore their intellectual interests with plenty of time between classes with most of college costs covered by their parents or deferred through loans.   With many of their friends within walking distance of their dorms, their social lives will never be more convenient or accessible.   There are plenty of available parties and a concentration of like minded individuals of the opposite sex (or even same sex, if that is your inclination).   Most professors have office hours where they will patiently explain things to you that you do not understand (unlike the working world where your superior simply dumps things on your desk without explanation and dashes off to the next client cocktail).  Most of the time colleges arrange things so you do not even have to engage in the most quotidian life tasks, like preparing your own food.  Instead, college food services are generally laden with a cornucopia of choices and today accommodate even the most idiosyncratic of tastes---ethnic, vegan, gluten free, you name it.  It all sounds pretty darn safe to me.   So I was puzzled by this demand for a Safe Space within the safest of spaces (fortunately, my alma mater, to its credit, took the lead on rejecting Safe Spaces on its campus).

A cursory  Google search uncovered this definition of a safe space: 

A Safe Space is a place where anyone can relax and be able to fully express, without fear of being made to feel uncomfortable, unwelcome, or unsafe on account of biological sex, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, cultural background, religious affiliation, age, or physical or mental ability.

As an initial matter, work or school by definition cannot ever be a Safe Space because you can and should feel  uncomfortable in either place because of your mental ability or you are simply not working hard enough.

But there are places in which we traditionally experience respite from economic demands and the constant assault of political commentary— and that is in sports, music, plays, and film.  We know, for instance, that the film industry did well during the Great Depression.    People were able to scrape up enough money to spend a couple of hours watching a film and being distracted from their day to day difficulties.  While the hardship our nation is experiencing is economically not as severe as the Great Depression, the Great Recession of ’08 inflicted a great deal of pain on people and the painfully sluggish economy and political upheaval that ensued certainly have caused a great deal of anxiety. Therapists reported an uptick in business due to the election and for the first time, longevity rates among middle aged white men declined—mostly due to suicide and alcohol abuse.

Ironically, while the Left demands Safe Spaces on college campuses, adults are not accorded the same escape.  The places and activities we normally turn to for respite from economic strife and social discord are evidently no longer available to us.

VP elect Mike Pence had to endure a soliloquy from one of the actors when he recently attended a performance of Hamilton.  One of the actors took time out to single out Pence to address his political concerns, subjecting Pence and the audience to his unrequested speech.  Pence appeared to take it in stride and responded with some panache, telling his children, “This is what freedom sounds like.”  The actor’s statement was innocuous enough but after a bruising campaign,  I’m sure he would have preferred not to endure this unwanted political speech and it was a political advertisement that the audience did not need to endure.

Colin Kaepernick of the San Francisco 49ers has similarly subjected NFL fans to his weekly political statement of kneeling during the national anthem.  Sports is another place to which we turn to set aside our differences and engage in another  somewhat fictitious tribalism—expressing loyalty to one’s own city’s franchise.  Football, especially, has a pretty good record of being  mostly colorblind (See Bill Curry’s inspirational short, “The Huddle” on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGuFy2TBIag) that captures this magnificently).  Decades ago, Vince Lombardi refused to board his team at hotels that didn’t want black players (“All of us stay or none of us stay”).  Football has a long tradition of pageantry and patriotism.  Kaepernick makes more money in the USA than he could anywhere else in the world ….and has a much safer and more secure future.  Not surprisingly, a large segment of the NFL’s audience, which tends to be a patriotic bunch, has decided to turn off their TV sets on Sunday and NFL viewership has plummeted after Kaepernick’s antics.  Kaepernick  is to the NFL brand what salmonella is to Chipotle. 

Finally, I experienced this phenomena myself this summer.  Yes, a middle aged  American white guy has an affinity for African culture.  I like African art and food, and have several African dishes among my favorite recipes.  I especially like African music and have been a regular listener of Georges Collinet’s Afropop Worldwide (www.afropop.org).  Ladysmith Black Mambazo,  a South African choral group that I like very much was playing at the Ravinia Festival so I snatched a ticket last summer.  They opened with a political statement about oppression of minorities.   Again, it was innocuous enough, but the group went on and on preaching and lecturing through song for about a half hour (“when will the world value a black life as much as a white one”).  All I wanted was to hear a superb group perform a blend of two genres of music that I like a great deal--choral and African. But in a summer where the news contained nightly segments on racial strife, I got a performance politicizing racial strife.  I finally gathered my chair and blanket and left.

Yes, I am fully committed to free speech.  People have the right to say whatever it is they want to say.  But people don’t want to be lectured, hectored or preached at relentlessly at events they are attending to get away from economic and societal discord.  This is a one way street.  It is always from the Left and it leaves you with only two choices: politely listen to their advertisement or forego the cost of the ticket and leave.  The NFL viewership decline is an indication of what will likely occur if the Left insists  on using the avenues of entertainment to promote grievance mongering.   I, for one, have not watched a single NFL game on TV and won’t this season.  Many of my friends that were former athletes have done the same. Those of us that pay hard earned money to attend these events as relief from day to day stresses will continue to find alternative forms of entertainment.  Besides, a walk in the woods on an autumn Sunday afternoon is healthier than an afternoon on the couch or a barstool watching a pro football game.

My thinking has evolved on Safe Spaces.  It would be better for our entire society if there were at least some places where we can go that are free from the relentless pushing of political agendas. Adults need Safe Spaces too.

Watershed

Back to back wildly improbable events consumed us in the past week.  The Cubs won the World Series after a 108 year drought and a real estate developer and reality TV show host upended an established politician from the incumbent party to win the presidential election. The Cubs victory was so momentous that people were out in cemeteries planting little “ W” flags next to the graves of their parents and grandparents.  I jested that the cemeteries must have been jammed last week with Democrats rushing out to register voters.  It surely has been a momentous and earth-shattering time as the Chicago River was dyed blue and the electoral map turned red.

Much is being written about this tectonic shift and I don’t want to regurgitate and distill what others have written.  I was both right and wrong.  In my January 16 post, back when all the Republican candidates were still in the running I spun out the reasons I thought that Trump could win it all, despite being written off by the MSM.  But even by election day I thought he would lose by 3-4%.   In retrospect, I picked up the right trend and vibes but I did not see that he could overcome Clinton’s overwhelming advantages.   She had a lock on Illinois, New York and California, massive funding, an economy that was growing and at full employment (depending on how you count).  Moreover, she had the luster of being the first female candidate for president and a MSM fully behind her, and, as we learned from Wikileaks, actively collaborated with her campaign.  On paper, she should have demolished him at the ballot.  But election campaigns, like sporting events, are not won on paper.

Trump is a disrupter.  And we are living through an era that desperately needs disrupting.  He is also a businessman that knows how to listen to his customer.  Perhaps the most graphic depiction of the election was the map showing the districts that each party won—mostly covered in red with blue specks on the edges and in the middle with the caption, “Can you hear me now?”

This was also an era of anomalies:

-Trump WAS born with a silver spoon in his mouth---and a brash, rich New Yorker and yet      connected with working class America in a way no other politician has since Ronald Reagan.

-Trump, maligned as a misogynist (in part, supported by the videotape of him making horrendous comments) fired two men that were running his campaign and it took a woman to straighten it out and propel him to victory.

·    -  Despite being the first woman candidate and with Obama running around telling men to get over their sexism, Clinton did not do all that well with women (many professional women I know voted for Trump), especially white women.

·  - Trump, derided as a bigot, performed better than Romney among blacks and Latinos.

  - Trump defeated the most well -oiled and financed candidate in history, the Republican establishment which actively fought him, the MSM, and George Soros.  That’s pretty impressive no matter how you slice it.

He appealed to the common sense of Americans and the complete absence of it by governing Democrats.

You can’t double the cost of health insurance and look a workingman or woman in the eye and say that the plan is working. You can’t show pictures of our sailors on their knees, held at gunpoint and then thank their captors for being so cooperative.  You can’t ship pallets of cash to hostage takers on the day captives are released and deny that it’s a ransom payment.  You can’t say ISIS is contained and then have a major attack by ISIS occur the very next day.  You can’t release terrorists from prison and claim you’re doing it to make America safer.  You can’t have a spokesperson run around claiming it was a filmmaker that incited a spontaneous riot that overran our embassy when it was known not to be true or claim that the prisoner for whom you are swapping terrorists served with “honor and distinction” and then put him on trial for desertion a few month later.  And you certainly can’t have your attorney general meet privately with a material witness in a criminal investigation and claim they were discussing golf and grandchildren or have her call to meet ruthless, violent, and vicious Islamic terror with “love and empathy.”

All of this flies in the face of good old American common sense—the Ben Franklin kind  that seems to have disappeared from the coasts but apparently is still alive and well in America’s heartland.  The single most important factor in this improbable topsy-turvy election is that a large swath of Americans woke up and said, “Wait a minute.  This makes no sense to me.”  And Donald Trump found those people.

But let me stick with the improbable and take a few contrary positions to come out of all this:

• ·         We may in fact, owe Barack Obama a great deal of gratitude.  Yes, I opposed him in most of his policies, both foreign and domestic.  But I am rethinking my views on the Affordable Care Act.  Yes, it is awful, flawed, unworkable and drowning.  But it is out there and needs to be dealt with. It forces the issue.  Obama paid a terrible political price for pushing it through.  I would argue that it probably cost him the House (65 seats lost), the Senate (12 seats lost),  hundreds of seats at the state level  (12 states to Republican control) and ultimately was in part responsible for losing the White House.  But another way to think about it is that the ACA was an ugly, incomplete, overly written and barely readable first draft.  My prediction is whether the Republicans repair or repeal and replace it, several important features will remain.  Health care is an important issue and a foundering ACA means, oddly, that the President and Congress will need to make it an immediate priority.  Barack Obama sacrificed his party on it.  It is not going away completely and dealing with health care is vital to our people and our long term fiscal health.
  
•  ·         The conventional wisdom has been that Trump has destroyed the Republican Party.  In fact, by executing a brilliant wrestling move and a reversal, he may have saved it and made it relevant again.  The party came along kicking and screaming, but Trump brilliantly stole the common man from the Democrats and made the Democratic party the party of the remote elite.  By running a campaign largely financed on his own, Trump exposed Clinton’s stark hypocrisy for all to see.  She claimed to be a champion for women’s rights, while countenancing her husband’s behavior. She took money from odious regimes that oppress women in the most vile way.  She claimed to be for the poor while being financed heavily by Wall Street moguls and Hollywood.  Clinton’s nadir came when she labelled Trump’s supporters “Deplorables” and he seized on it.  Trump turned the Republican Party into the party for the common man and left Democrats to stew in their elitism.  The Republican establishment was wholly incapable of this kind of coup.
  
•           Finally, Republicans returned to the White House after 2004 only when they finally let go of the ghost of Ronald Reagan.  Reagan was a great and popular president and an icon to conservatives.  Several   candidates---notably Marco Rubio—would invoke his name and urge to return to Reagan principles.  But Republicans needed to figure out that Reagan is gone and, as fondly as we remember him, is not coming back.  The world Reagan managed no longer exists. Trump did not lean on Reagan’s vision in his campaign and I believe that this was intentional and brilliant.  It was only when Republicans were able to let go and move on could they return to the White House this time.

How will this turn out?  I’m not yet ready to hazard a guess but I’m at least going to enjoy the rest of 2016 with one wish fulfilled---that we have neither a Bush or a Clinton in the White House for the next four years.

Playing It Straight

After FBI Director Comey’s remarkable statement today that he is still not going to recommend charges against Hillary Clinton after re-opening his investigation into the Clinton email scandal, I have to ask the question:

Can anyone play it straight?

With the election right around the corner, I am holding to my view that this is not about Democrat vs. Republican but rather Insider vs. Outsider, and that is what the Deplorables are mainly rebelling against. The past 8 years have given us a government that imposes rules, regulations and material changes to our society without our consent and in an opaque fashion, and that the independent safeguards of democracy have eroded.   Worse, the Insiders have taken Chicago style politics—that is using  the mechanisms of government to reward friends and punish political foes, scaled it, and have gone international with it.   This is what we mean when we say we want our country back.  We want it in the hands of people that will play it straight, and be straight with us.

In my last post, I decried the imposition of societal changes without any consent of the governed whatsoever.  Gay marriage was opposed by the electorate in California.  No matter.  They are going to have it anyway.  Dozens of governers  rejected the settlement of  unvettable Middle East immigrants in their territories.  No matter.  The federal government is going to make those states take them, regardless of what the people or their elected leaders think.  The majority of the US wants the Keystone Pipeline and the studies showed that it was the most environmentally responsible thing to do.  No matter.  Obama killed it.

In addition to taking away choices of the governed, we have now seen that the watchdogs and pillars of our democracy have been co-opted and tainted.  We have learned that the I.R.S. was used to punish political enemies.  We learned that Donna Brazile, in her role at CNN, was feeding Hillary Clinton debate questions ahead of time.  And we learned that New York Times reporters were sending quotes to the Clinton campaign before publishing them.   We also learned of the highly inappropriate meeting between Attorney General Loretta Lynch and former President Bill Clinton while Hillary Clinton was being investigated.  The Department of Justice, the F.B.I., and the news media should be impartial protectors of the system but they are not.  The Wikileaks releases and the events during this ugly campaign season have left voters distrustful of these institutions.

Much has occurred on the Democratic side, but not exclusively and that is why, in part, Trump’s appeal has been so sustainable.  And this is why Chris Christie needs to be banished from the Republican party.  At first, I liked Christie.  Through his straight talking, blunt style, although a bit boorish, he was able to say things others were not able to say and take on sacred cows like the teachers’ unions.  But he wore thin with me during the Republican debates when he needlessly and gratuitously destroyed Marco Rubio during the debates.  But not we find that Christie’s staff was doing EXACTLY what Insiders do---they used the mechanisms of government to punish political enemies, then covered it up.  This is precisely the kind of behavior people are rebelling against. 

If Trump somehow pulls this out (and I now think his odds are quite slim), he needs to  exile Christie and others of his ilk.  The voters are not supporting Trump just to put another set of corrupt politicians in charge. 

No matter what party affiliation, we desperately need people that will play it straight.

Realignment

There are many reasons for a conservative not to like Donald Trump.  He is brash and impulsive, given to hyperbole.  He has attacked some of the pillars of American stability—NATO, the Federal Reserve Board, free trade.  He has proposed overly broad solutions to both Mexican and Muslim immigration. He is undisciplined and gets unnecessarily distracted by personal slights against him.  His odd admiration for Vladimir Putin is disquieting.  His recently revealed vulgar tape was disgusting.  Ross Douthat has written excellent back to back columns on the dangers of a Clinton presidency and of a Trump presidency, and I largely agree with his assessments.    The harsh fact is that in this time of economic stagnation and a myriad of real dangers abroad, lovers of capitalism and the Constitution have no good choices.

But despite these risks---and they are legion--Trump has said and done some things that resounded with me that no other Republican candidate has had the courage to do.  The Trump phenomena  has led me to believe that the Republican and Democrat alignment may be an obsolete construct.  Insider and Outsider is a more accurate way to think about our politics now with Insiders fiercely trying to pull power and resources away from individuals and the states and concentrate them in Washington.   I’m not entirely convinced that Trump is the best person to push against the Insiders but it’s clear that the Insiders are trying hard (mainly the Deplorables and Bitter Clingers) to heel.   

Trump has uttered two sentences that caught my attention.

The first was said at the Republican convention, “I am your voice.”  The expansion of presidential power and the relentless push of progressives to sculpt a society to their liking through the courts and regulatory bodies have left us nearly voiceless.   Material changes in our society are being jammed down our throats without any say by the body politic whatsoever, whether it is through nonenforcement of immigration laws, gay marriage, putting women in combat roles, forcing local changes in zoning through H.U.D., changing overtime laws, Big Government has been busy reshaping our lives in material ways without our input.  You know it’s bad when even the liberal New York Times is beginning to run articles sounding alarm bells over Obama’s propensity to govern by pen and phone.  

Perhaps the most egregious example has been in the area of the LGBT agenda. Marriage equality and how to deal with transgendered people in certain circumstances (the military, public restrooms) are major social changes that should be argued and decided upon by We the People.  Instead, the democratic process was rejected in the case of marriage equality and by administrative fiat in the case of transgender issues.  In neither case did We the People get heard.  We may have come out in the same place,  but the people needed to be heard and had their views taken into account.  One of the principal reasons that there is so much stress in our country right now is that major decisions are being dictated with the pen and phone, through the courts, or through regulatory agencies without any of us having any say in the matter.  That is dangerous in an open and free society.  So when Trump says, "I am your voice," many citizens know and understand that they have been completely shut out of the decision making process in our country.

The second assertion that Trump made was directed at African Americans.  His direct challenge to the black community was, “What do you have to lose?” [by voting for Trump] later to be followed up by a “new deal  for black Americans.”  Despite the charge from the Left that he is a racist and a bigot, Donald Trump is the first Republican to have the courage to address the black community directly.  Of course, his efforts were summarily dismissed and slapped back as inadequate and vague.  But that doesn’t matter.  There was nothing   he could say or do to make the black community embrace him with open arms.  But what matters is that he reached out.  And Republicans need to keep doing this and making the case for smaller government.   By almost every measure, black America has lost ground under the Obama administration.    Trump is the only Republican in memory to take his case directly to black America. 

Trump is not an ordinary Republican.  But the Republican/Democratic demarcation may no longer be as relevant.  Despite his liabilities, he is saying and doing many things that need to be said and done, even if the things said aren't said in the refined language of the Insiders.  

Catastrophe

Last weekend, I skipped both the N.F.L. games and the presidential debates.  Instead, I opted for two other forms of disaster for my weekend entertainment.   I attended opening night of the film, “Command and Control” at the Siskel Film Center and saw the film “Deepwater Horizon” as well.  It was fascinating to see these two films back to back.

Command and Control is a documentary by Robert Kenner (Food, Inc.)  and recounts the tale of an accident in a 1980 at the height of the Cold War.  The powerful Titan II was the mainstay of the U.S. fleet during the height of the Cold War.  Standing almost nine stories  high, the Titan II packed a wallop and could deliver an explosion greater than all the bombs unleashed in WWII and deliver it in minutes.  The missile experienced what appeared to be a minor malfunction and when repair crews were sent to fix the problem, one of the workers accidentally dropped a ratchet wrench (which was the wrong wrench and picked up accidentally) down the silo, banging into the side and causing a plume of fuel to start filling the silo.  The team failed to control the problem, and the silo ignited, killing 1 crew member, injuring others, and expelling the warhead.  Had the warhead detonated, the results would have been devastating.  The film makes the point that if a warhead ever detonated on U.S. soil, we expected it to be a Soviet one.  Command and Control is a riveting film, showing that we were a hairsbreadth away from massive loss of life arising from this accident.  Of course, someone was blamed for this particular accident for bringing the wrong wrench, but the frequency of these near misses gives one pause.

The second film I saw last weekend was Deepwater Horizon, a Peter Berg film about the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico in 2012 on the oil platform that was the biggest ecological disaster in history.   Berg has become one of my favorite filmmakers. He won several awards with his cable series “Friday Night Lights” and is known for his innovative filming techniques and close ups that capture human emotion so well.   He delivered with this film as well.  In a film that echoes of “Titanic,” Deepwater Horizon shows up once again the potential consequences of pushing technology past its limits.   Like Titanic, Deepwater Horizon also has a villain—the BP supervisor (masterfully played by John Malkovich) that eggs the platform crew on, downplaying warning signs that something may be amiss.  The result is a backup of oil and explosion on the platform and a gripping struggle to survive by the crew and staff.  Mark Wahlberg turns in one of his best performances in Deepwater Horizon as does Kurt Russell and Kate Hudson.  The world was focused on the ecological damage cause by the accident, but 11 people died and several others were injured in a horrific catastrophe at sea.

In both instances, investigators tried to finger a human cause.   It is human nature to try to find a person to blame.  But I have just started to get acquainted with the work of Charles Perrow (Normal Accidents) and have started to look at alternative explanations for these events.  Perrow focuses on system failure, particularly with respect to high technology systems.  Perrow contends that complex systems have parts that interact in unexpected ways, and those systems are most vulnerable where there is “tight coupling,” i.e. where sub-components interact.   Clearly, an offshore oil rig and a missile silo are both complex technology dependent systems and Perrow would say that we would expect failure in a certain number of instances.  In fact, one of the points of Command and Control is that it is almost a miracle that we haven’t had a catastrophic,  mass casualty  failure especially given that we had some 50,000 warheads at the height of the Cold War.

Both of these films were riveting depictions of failure of technology (as was the Titanic), and the Arkansas incident very well could have been a mass casualty event.  Charles Perrow has started to get me to think about risk and technology in a different way.  Perrow would not be surprised by these events; rather, he would suggest that they are evidence to support his thinking.

Much has also been written about our power grid and it certainly gives one pause to consider the interaction between the internet and our financial system or our power grid.  Seeing these films together at the same time that I have begun to explore Perrow’s work has opened my mind to a new way of thinking about risk.

Eclectic Week

 It’s been quite a week of events, and I am grappling with a way to tie them all together.  Perhaps it is nothing more than a desire to divert my attention from this hideous election season and cage fights that call themselves debates—in which neither candidate made a case for free markets.   Within the span of one week, I attended a presentation by a transgendered economist (Deirdre McCloskey) , a world  renown theologian and journalist (Martin Marty and Kenneth Woodward) , and an aging rock star (Alice Cooper).  Together, they were a welcome distraction from an economy stuck in neutral, a world in flames, and a country divided and faced with two distasteful choices and a third (Gary Johnson) that gets lost on the way to the men’s room.

Woodward’s and Marty’s presentation was put on by the Lumen Christi Institute at the University of Chicago.  Woodward’s book, Getting Religion:  Faith, Culture & Politics from the Age of Eisenhower to the Era of Obama spans the role and evolution of religion in American life over Woodward’s lifespan.  He puts it forward as a first hand, ringside view of religiosity over the post war period.  And while the role religion has diminished somewhat in America, a large proportion of Americans still count themselves as believers and religion remains an important part of our culture.  Woodward’s book is a “lived history” and covers growth of religion (more churches built in the 1950’s than any other time and in 1960 60% of children were in parochial schools) to the Billy Graham era to the present.   Best line of the evening was Martin Marty, “Methodists take responsibility for all of society because they know what’s good for you.”  Second best line of the evening, “If you don’t believe in God, you believe in everything.”

A few days earlier, I attended a lecture by Deirdre McCloskey (formerly Don), who discussed her new book Bourgeois Equality: How Ideas, not Capital or Institutions Made Us Rich.  McCloskey is a University of Chicago trained economic historian who was THE professor to take as an undergrad at Chicago. She is a most out-of-the mainstream advocate for the free market—a transgendered woman that suffers from occasional stuttering, “I began as a Joan Baez Marxist,” she proclaimed.   I was too insecure about my math background to do so and now regret it.  She is witty, sharp, charming and insightful with a wonderful sense of humor that is simultaneously self- promoting and self-deprecating. Her thesis is that the notion that capital accumulation and natural resources lead to wealth is wrong.  “If it were natural resources, Russia and the Congo would be rich.”  McCloskey believes that it is equality under the law that makes a wealthy society, “We are rich because we are free.  The essence of society is new ideas.  Equality under the law permits ordinary people to become creative.”  McCloskey was captivating, persuasive, and inspiring.  She is a most respected economic scholar, writer and lecturer, despite having to overcome her stuttering and gender identity issues.

Finally, I attended an Alice Cooper concert.  Alice Cooper is nearing 70 and was known in the early 70’s as an outrageous performer (although relatively tame by today’s standards) and boundary stretcher.  played the usual fare—“No More Mister Nice Guy,” “Billion Dollar Babies,” and his signature hit, “School’s Out,” which has been an anthem for school kids in June for two generations.  Alice Cooper has always intrigued me because in addition to his musical and showman talents, he is a scratch golfer and is still touring and playing golf at a high level at an age when many are retired.  Still, crowd was largely geriatric and I am guessing that many tickets were paid for with social security checks.  I actually saw people with walkers and canes and I assumed that any pot smokers had a medical exemption.   The music was a bit loud but most likely that was to accommodate concert goers that had forgotten their hearing aids.

It certainly was an eclectic week, with out-of-the-mainstream but superb talents in three different areas-musical, economic and spiritual, and all three still productive in their later years.  Marvelous.