more before and after math in perspective

no matter the reason/circumstance, lose 99% of something and the remainder must be increased by a multiple of one hundred times (10,000 %) just to return to it’s original condition.

in the immediate aftermath (pardon the pun) of an era in which 20% annual gains were regarded as minimal performance by far too many people, the argument for “slow” is once again being reconsidered.  but this moment’s shadow will vanish with the first rays of light.  and as always, such calculations are not limited to only those things that can be quantified with numbers. (which ironically, adds a whole new dimension to the word “accountability”)

on “judgment” day … too much versus not enough

ingest enough of the daily news in addition to personal experience with one’s fellow man and one begins to wonder if indeed the world’s population is comprised of but two kinds of people:  those who judge too much and those who do not judge enough?

(ironically both kinds are irrevocably destined for hypocrisy to one degree or another)

from my own personal experience i have found it easier to develop a more functional balance in backing away from judging too much than from unlearning the habit of not judging enough.  but i also suspect that is due more to the gods of “proximity”, “timing”, “environment”, and “conditioning” more than my own applied intellect.

and perhaps that somewhat explains the current condition of society, as modern technology in mass communications combined with the number of people per square mile on the planet, makes the entire globe but one small town where everybody knows everybody elses business.

yet for some reason the small town it resembles most seems to be Dodge City before Wyatt Earp arrived.

the antidote ? or prescription, or answer…

to the writings that i do not publish but share with a few for critical evaluations, the almost universal immediate reaction is the question:  “if things are that bad and going to get that much worse, what am i supposed to do?  just give up?”

not in the least, for the human experience is so very short.  it is not to be missed, for even under the worst of conditions, life contains moments of illumination and serenity that transcend so far as to suggest some form of divine providence beyond anyone’s capacity to comprehend.

“balance” is the key.

or “supply and demand” in more prosaic terms.  finding and executing one’s own proper “balance” is the hard part, but it’s rewards are incalculable.

the balance between self and others.  the balance between making the most of what has been given to you and leaving behind a better place than the one with which you were entrusted.  the balance between the proper respect for and knowledge of the past, the future it portends, and the present in which course adjustments must be made.  the balance between forgetting and remembering, between forgiving and penalizing, and between applying the same standards to yourself as you do to others.  between discipline and spontaneity, between emotion and reason, between under and over reaching, the functionality of honesty and deceit, the role of imagination and verifiable proof.

such balances are not standards or norms to be achieved and maintained.  they are ideals to be sought in perpetuity, as a habit.  for if they were to be scored as baseball batting averages, i would assert that no one who has ever lived to adulthood has ever batted more than .100

to continue the baseball analogy, it is up to each of us to make the most of every turn in the batter’s box.  to be patient in waiting for the right pitch, ever wary of the potential of a bean ball, always aware of the responsibility riding on your performance.  swinging for a single or a double when conditions warrant, and avoiding the habit of trying to hit a home run every time.  (it is no accident that baseball’s greatest home-run hitters also accrued the most strike-outs)

it can very well be argued that a Life is best measured, again in baseball terms, by the number of runs batted in and the wins a team accrues, and  that any individual’s statistics are only properly evaluated in the context of the team’s record.

yet seemingly incongruously, every individual’s assessment of themselves is more comprehensive than any other, for only they know the intimate conditions under which they made the decisions.  ultimately the difference between what one thinks of themself and how others assess them is yet another “balance” that each of us must make and adapt to on our own terms.  it is in that exercise/process that the value of Mark Twain’s axiom concerning “intentions” becomes indispensable.

stephenhsmith 28Jun2009

OK Arianna, time to open up the checkbook. Dan Froomkin needs a new home and Huffington Post needs the PR coup

OK Arianna, time to open up the checkbook. Dan Froomkin needs a new home and Huffington Post needs the PR coup

knowing how 100 – 50 + 50 = 75 is the key

knowing how 100 – 50 + 50 = 75 is the key

the key to what ? consistent accumulation

learning that 100 – 10 + 10 = 99 and thus does not get you back to where you once belonged, is fundamentally applicable to social matters as well as financial.

anyone who has worked as a police-beat reporter, or in a hospital’s emergency room, or a city court, or just watched/read the news for a long enough time can tell you there are many kinds of math. and that knowing how, when, and why each kind of math should be properly applied is crucial and requires compartmentalizations and compromises on a massive scale.  they also know that knowing has a hidden cost, often very large.  once you get into debt, ’tis almost impossible to get out.  there is no ‘Jubilee’ or ‘Chapter 11’ that can erase things once seen, done, or heard.

thus, one must take profound care in choosing what to accumulate.

1956 “they” couldn’t have done a better job if they wanted to” or ???

it’s 1956, the US has the largest, wealthiest, most powerful % of workers in the middle class in the history of the world.   in addition to being the world’s/history’s most powerful financial nation, industrial nation, and technologically advanced nation, only 11 years after a decade and a half of devastating depression and costly world war.

so the question for today is:  “If you wanted to destroy what the US was in 1956, how would you go about it?”

systematically undermine the family, organized labor, respect for the rule of law, and the currency.

by exponentially expanding the size and scope of government by deficit spending on arms races, space races, welfare, unnecessary wars, civil rights legislation and enforcement, free trade agreements, drug regulations, rico laws, tax cuts, and covert/secret, foreign and domestic policies centered from one unaccountable executive’s “elected” office.  with an able assistance from rock’n’roll, hollywood, the pill, the transistor, consumerism, and globalization.

simple as pie.

the next question then becomes: why was it done and cui bono ?

(hint: see 1913, 1941, 1945, 1947) … happy Carroll Quigley Day !

i ‘know’ how the bastards think, once upon a time i was one of ’em

i know how the bastards think, once upon a time i was one of ’em …

today’s example, GM

muleboy303 from 21November2008

http://muleboy303-stephenhsmith.blogspot.com/2008/11/gm-intends-to-go-chapter-11.html

redeploy to the desert and shoot ’em from the sky

redeploy to the desert and shoot ’em from the sky… and bring 50k US troops home.. is what i said they should/would do in November of 2006 in “Get Out of Their Way NOW”

two and a half years later… it’s finally being started

i suspect ’tis all for naught, a political feint if you will, for i now anticipate US combat units will be deployed into Pakistan before the end of 2010