Boiling frogs

How do we avoid the fate of the boiled frog?

When do the rules change?

In a football game, it is the two-minute warning. In investing it might be when the closing price of a stock drops below the 40-week-moving-average price or when quarterly revenues drop across a multitude of industries.

This is an intensely personal issue. Everybody will have a different answer. The most important thing is that you indelibly mark the "trigger looks like" into your brain because there will not be balloons and trumpets marking the occasion.

Everybody will have a different profile of "immediate actions" that will be their primary response. The ardent pacifist might purchase a gun. The miser might drain most of his money out of his IRA. The city-slicker might buy property and pick up a shovel and start a garden.

A few scenarios

For one person, the trigger came close when the Canadian media reported hundreds of mass-graves near schools that taught First Nations (Native American) children. The Brownshirt-thugs responded by fire-bombing churches across western Canada. The only thing lacking for that person was that the Brownshirts were not hunting and executing clergy.

A few key points:

• Fire is potentially a weapon of mass destruction and in urban areas or areas where conifers or tall grass grows (like western Canada), can rage uncontrollably.
• Churches/temples/mosques were traditionally neutral areas that were not targeted. They were granted the status of sanctuary.
• The information was twisted by the media. The academic findings were "anomalies in ground penetrating radar returns" which can be rotting roots, marmot dens or a host of other changes in soil density.

A second scenario (that I am totally making up) involves somebody who is attacked but successfully fends off their attacker. He reports it to the police.

Scenario 2.0 has the police being professional. Collecting information. Ensuring that the person who was attacked receives medical care. Providing feedback about the investigation to the victim. Maybe recovering some of the property. Promptly supplying the victim's insurance company with photos/evidence and police reports.

Scenario 2.1 has the police tossing the victim in jail for fighting back and harming the local entrepreneur who was just trying to make a living via small-scale wealth distribution. Medical attention is not provided in the jail. Cooperation with the insurance company is stonewalled.

A third scenario might be some arbitrary rate of inflation over a period of six months. What happens if prices across a broad market-basket of goods goes up by 25% over a period of 6 months? It might be bad for people on fixed incomes. It might be bad for normal people living near folks who depend on entitlements for their Doritos and Mountain Dew and suddenly their EBIT amount doesn't cover their needs.

A fourth scenario might be when random attacks at gas stations in certain areas become a regular occurrence. Maybe thugs demand protection money and bust your windshield if you don't cough it up. That would quickly make the areas where that behavior tolerated a NOGO zone. Incidentally, that has been happening in parts of Chicago for more than 25 years. Dudes start washing your windshield and then demand payment.

 A fifth scenario might be when the thugs declare open-season on first repsonders. 

What Mrs ERJ and I are doing

We are intentionally becoming more local. We stopped donating to "national" and "international" causes. Vacations are closer to home. I am considering a dentist who is more local.

We are battening down the hatches in the house. Last summer we had a contractor renovate a bathroom to make it senior-citizen friendly. This summer we replaced our 1977 oil furnace and air conditioner with more efficient units.

We are ruthlessly culling out plants that are not paying their rent. For example, I will be removing almost all of the grapevines growing on the trellis between the rows of fruit trees. They don't produce enough grapes to justify the complications the create.

We are also culling books. Some books are a waste of paper and a waste of storage space. Like the grapevines, I have an emotional attachment to some of those books but priorities change over time.

A big one for me is to organize my tools and prioritizing putting things away right after I use them. I am getting more absent-minded as I age and I need to invest in tool-box infrastructure. A tool is infinitely more valuable when you spend less than five minutes between thinking "I need my carbide-tipped, metric gonculator" to having it in your hands vs. when you have to hunt two weeks before finding it. 

A parting thought

The best time to plan is any time before the bullets are whistling over your head.

It doesn't have to be a great plan but it does have to be simple to execute. Fine motor skills and the ability to process nuance turn to crap under stress. If-Then-Else sign-posts must be clear.

A quote that has been attributed to Col. Jeff Cooper "We will not rise to the challenge. Rather, we will regress to the highest level of training that we have mastered."

So, decide what skills you need to master. Get the appropriate tools. Make a plan. Work the plan. Tweak the plan as you get boots-on-the-ground experience. 

There will probably be a Part II to this post. 

If we become what we repeatedly do...

If we become what we repeatedly do, then I will be turning into a freshly dug potato.

In other news

I went to a large high school cross-country meet today. There was a team from Holland, Michigan on the shores of Lake Michigan and a team from Ypsilanti, Michigan and there were teams from many towns in between.

The two local teams were from Charlotte and Olivet, Michigan. The women from Olivet were notable because the top three fastest finishers were all from Olivet. The fastest girl was at least 100 yards ahead of the second fastest who was 100 yards ahead of the third fastest...and then a gap when they started showing up in twos and threes.

I was a passenger in the vehicle that transported our group to the venue. The van hit a rough patch and was bouncing all over the lane.

I eyeballed the rear tires after I got out and they seemed to be properly inflated. Then I bounced the back end up-and-down. As far as I could tell, there was not a drop of fluid in the shocks or perhaps they had ripped out of the rear strut-caps. Boing....boing....boing....boing...boing...

As payment for the ride, I offered to transport replacement parts from the auto parts store in town to where she lives if she paid for them. She thought that was a spiffy idea and her hubby will swap them out some time this weekend.

USD as World's Reserve Currency

I had a thought as I was digging potatoes.

One of the horror scenarios for the United States economy is the US Dollar being unseated as the default, World Reserve Currency.

The way it works now is that the US Dollar is the hydraulic fluid that moves the engines of the world economy. If you want to buy cobalt ore in rebel held territory in the eastern Congo, you pay with $100 bills and the ore gets stacked into the back of your truck. Not Chinese Renminbi. Not Euros. Not Japanese yen. US Dollars, preferably in $100 bills.

Because there is a universal demand for USD, as a nation, we do not need to redeem them by exporting goods and services in order to support their value as a currency. The dollars we use to buy Chinese goods, for instance, are used by the Chinese to buy oil or bauxite or German machine tools. Other countries redeem the value for us.

If/when the universal desire for USD collapses, they will all come rushing back to the US to buy US property or products and we will see massive inflation in prices.

The simple fact is that there are no Chinese ships keeping the Straits of Hormuz open. There are no Japanese aircraft carriers or European fighter-jets or Brazilian or Indian troops carrying the load.

The US is not charging money for the service. But I bet that behind the scenes they are making it clear that we would only guarantee the safety of oil-tankers that are destined to the US IF the malcontents dethrone the dollar as World Reserve Currency.

Yes, those dollars will all come flooding back to the US but it will be to buy the oil that they could not ship out of the Persian Gulf and Red Sea. And that oil will be insanely expensive because it will be taking a much, much longer boat ride to get to Shanghai or Mumbai or Pusan. 

Candidate Talarico's thoughts on Jesus

James Talarico is a candidate for U.S. Senate and he aspires to represent the Great State of Texas.

The media frequently identifies him as a Biblical scholar. That is curious because he makes puzzling claims about what the Bible does and does not say and he backpedals on the importance of Christianity.

His claim (paraphrasing, here) that Christianity is one way to find truth but there are at least a half-dozen ways that are just as good is the statement that gets the most attention. 

The literate Christian is quick to respond with John 14:6 

"Jesus said to him, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.^" 

Another puzzling statement by Talarico got much less attention.  He said "Nowhere in the Bible does Jesus tell us to worship him."

The only way you can get snookered into this argument is if you believe every verse in the Bible must stand alone with no connection to anything else written in the Bible.

There are many times in the Gospels where Jesus announces his divinity (i.e. tells his listeners that he is God). He was using language that was powerful and direct for his listeners (who were pious Jews) but might bounce off of us. One example: "I am the good shepherd..." in John chapter 10 is a direct reference to Psalm 23 which starts out "The Lord is my shepherd..."

When asked by a contemporary, Biblical scholar "Which is the greatest commandment" in Matt chapter 22, Jesus immediately responded "“You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind"

To love "with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind" is an excellent definition of "worship", in my mind.

So, for a person with multiple years of study in a seminary to claim that Jesus never told us to worship him is either totally ADHD or has difficulty telling the truth when it doesn't serve his purposes. 

Given Talarico's current profession, I am more inclined to attribute his mental-lapses to the second cause. 

Was Scouting a victim of increasing, material wealth?

Source of image

I was watching a four-minute video on Youtube where the presenter discussed the reasons why "Backpack Camping" is an endangered species in many Boy Scouting programs and how to "bring it back".

There are a multitude of reasons.

One of them was the hollowing-out of mid-range adventures. Most camping, while still in tents, involves one of the leaders bringing a trailer that was a warehouse for back-up gear. On the more challenging end, the short jaunts from the troop's home-base to a place where they could camp evaporated. That results in a large jump from camping that was only slightly more challenging than staying in a Holiday Inn to a four-hour ride in a car or even having to fly in a plane. That is a pretty intimidating introduction to carrying you home on your back.

Another reason is that no scout shall ever be left alone with an adult leader, ever. That automatically doubled the number of leaders required to do any activity. A shortage of adult volunteers had always been a limiting factor. Trying to line up enough adults whose work and family schedules allowed them to sally-forth into the wilderness with a bunch of young hooligans at the same time squared the difficulty of that challenge.

The scheduling challenge is compounded by the 24/7 nature of our economy. "Professionals" and "Trades" now have to work shifts that can be any day of the week and any block of times within that week. Often, those work hours are dynamic, meaning that the employer can CHANGE them to meet their business needs. I worked one job where I worked 11 hour shifts, day shift Friday and Saturday, night shift Sunday and Monday. I had a one-hour commute on each end of those shifts.

A third major reason is that the United States is vastly richer today than it was in the 1960s. Back then, most 6th grade kids in Michigan had never been outside the state. Now, many 6th graders have been to the east coast or California. Many of them have been outside of the country. Scouting is now just one activity among scores of competing activities for that age-slot.

That richness in material goods also absorbs more potential volunteers. The father who might have pitch-hit as an assistant scout master on a camp-out is now flying to Myrtle Beach to play golf or has a 24' fishing boat on Lake Michigan.

It is probably worth noting that in 1972 nobody was comparing the standard mishaps of young campers to the highly edited perfection of the internet influencers. Back then, you could comfort young campers by telling them that everybody ate scrambled pancakes, that bacon tastes better with wood-ash on it and, while it had its disadvantages, soaping the inside of the pan with dish detergent did make them easier to clean. The goal in camping was not to score a Netfix contract but simply to do slightly better than the last effort. 

One factor that the presenter does not discuss is the fragmentation of the family. Suppose you are not married to the mother of your two, shared children and she has custody. On your weekends, you are responsible for both of them. Who is going to watch the other child if you go hiking with the one who is a scout?

A factor that was brought up in the comments is how expensive the backpacking gear is. I am skeptical about that claim. Boots and apparel are MUCH cheaper, after inflation, than they were in the 1960s and 1970s. Backpacks might be about the same but the quality and features outstrip anything that was available back then. Tents might be slightly more expensive but now but they roll-up into a package smaller than a folded US flag and have mosquito netting, integral floors and functional rain-flies. Three times the functionality and one-third the weight.

I am curious to see what the presenter's next video tells us. 

Fake News Friday

 

October .EQ. Potatoes, Persimmons, Raspberries and Apples

 

In Russia, they have folk-songs about raspberries.

Alternating bites. Persimmon in Quicksilver's right hand. Bunch of ripe raspberries in her left.

Life is very, very good. Especially if you are blessed to be a grandparent.

I got another 100 feet of potato row dug. I really need to start writing things down. The north half of the potato patch was Lehigh and the southwest 1/4 was Kennebec. My memory was that the west end was Lehigh and the northeast quarter was Kennebec.

I really want to be sure to keep at least 40 pounds of Lehigh to plant next season. I can get Kennebec seed potatoes locally, so I don't need to save seed potatoes from them. 

Today's plan is to take Quicksilver apple picking and to dig another 100' of potatoes.

 

Commies gonna be communists

 

Mrs ERJ watched one of the political debates. The debate was hosted by the local public TV station. The moderators didn't moderate. They joined the communist by cross-examining the conservative and letting the communist use much of the conservative's time to interrupt and launch verbal harpoons.

Obviously, the entire "PBS" and "NPR" universe hates Trump with the heat of a million, white-hot suns. He stopped their gravy-train and commies gonna commy.

The 40k ft fly-over is that the debate was a draw. The communist kept talking like he was running against Donald Trump (who is not running for Michigan's 7th Congressional seat) and the conservative could not get the communist to own the fact that, by his own posts on social media and video footage, he wants to dismantle the police and prison system and outlaw fossil fuels.