Fine Art Tuesday

 

Józef Brandt born in 1841 in southeastern Poland and died in 1915 in Poland.

Notable for his paintings of cavalry battles and the intricate workings of day-to-day operations of horseback mounted warfare.

 

Return from Vienna.

A Cossack "flirting" with a very young girl. "Cossacks" came from the the areas in and around the country now known as Kazakhstan (go figure)

Lots of war is far from glorious.

Battle standards were the "hand-held radio" of the horse era. It was how command-and-control functioned. Capturing flags cut the head off of the snake.

Are current STI rates a useful metric for sorting potential "bunker locations"?

I don't want to make this seem like I am totally invested in this, so let's characterize what I write in this post as "recreational argument".

Furthermore, let me preface my remarks by stating that it is very common for decision-makers to substitute various proxies for the variables that are really of interest. The variables that are of the most interest are rarely presented in their explicit form.

For example, a timber-buyer might make a bid on a stand of timber based the three most marketable species in a stand and use the median diameter at breast-height, the stem-count-per-acre-per-species and typical number-of-logs to the closest 4-feet as the basis for his bid.

So even if a stand have significant amounts of Red Oak and Black Cherry, he might not consider it in his bid if he only had reliable, high-volume markets for White Oak, Black Walnut and Tulip Poplar.

Is it fair? Maybe. Maybe not. But it is efficient. He makes his bid based on the number of board feet he KNOWS he can mill from the standing timber of the species he KNOWS he can sell. In a glut market, he might only break-even selling "minor" species to people making pallets.

Quantifying culture

Culture is a hard thing to measure but we all know that when push-comes-to-shove culture might be the determining factor in whether the typical resident survives or not.

It begs the question "Are there any reasonable proxies for measuring the parts of culture that are most critical to surviving the apocalypse?"

Pestilence

If one looks at historical data for the body-counts of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, one must be impressed by the death-toll for pestilence (and communicable diseases, dysentery, infections and the like) even though those deaths are largely controllable through simple sanitation.

Sanitation is a "culture" thing. So any proxy that stands-in for culture-impacting-survival must comprehend "sanitation". The proxy must "reward" OCD behaviors and penalize "opportunistic" corner-cutting behaviors.

Impulse-control

One other factor that will be HUGE will be if the members of the community will regularly sabotage your efforts to survive. Will they cut down your orchard for firewood because it is close to their wood-stove? Will they butcher your milk-cow for the back-straps?

Let's look at the extremes. On one hand you have sailors in a submarine or soldiers in a forward-operating-base. It has been drilled into them that if anybody fails, they all fail.

The other end of the spectrum is embodied by the person who throws Molotov Cocktails and burns down his apartment complex, the store where he buys his food and his employer's place of business.

In the first group, it would be difficult to fail. In the second group, it would be almost impossible to survive.

Sexually Transmitted Diseases as a Primary sort criterion

STIs are a mandatory reporting event. It is a fairly solid number reported at relatively high degrees of granularity like the county level.

Chlymidia is the most common STI so if you were going to track a single metric, this would be the one.

STIs are a DIRECT measure of the vulnerability of various communities/cultures to communicable diseases.

STIs are an indirect measure of a community's mores and norms with regard to impulse control and resistance to opportunistic "expedient" actions.

Chlamydia rate data fro selected Michigan counties

The spread is very large. Detroit (city) has 1400 cases per 100k population per year while Lapeer County has only 121 cases per 100k per year.

My county, Eaton, is highlighted in yellow. The three counties marked with red lines are adjacent to each other. Genesee county (604/100k) is home to the intersection of I-69 (stop snickering guys) and I-75 while Lapeer (121/100k) and Shiawassee  county (161/100k) are bisected by only I-69.

If you didn't know a bunch of submariners who would be willing to take you into their fold and you had absolutely no other information, would you rather bunker-up in Lapeer County or Genessee county? Detroit (1400/100k) or Livingston County (129/100k)

I submit that STI rates per 100k are among the best proxies for a community's resilience in the face of "pestilence" and for as a measure of Impulse-control.

Presented without comment

 

A quick "reaction" to Psalm 23

Psalm 23

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.

He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.      King James Version (translation)

My reactions

(1) The metaphor of "shepherd" implies courage and wisdom and self-sacrifice. The mirror image is that as "sheep", we are short-sighted, foolish and fearful.

(2) The metaphor of "green pastures" and "still waters" is much richer when you realize that King David was still close to the nomadic roots of the Jewish people. The shepherd wintered his flock in the lowlands but spent the late-spring, summer and fall in the highlands (mountains) and/or he chased the ephemeral greenery from chance cloud-bursts across the dry plains. In either case, he had to take his flock through the arid, dangerous, thorny scrub to get to the green pastures.

"...green pastures..." is a deep metaphor for arrival in a safe haven.

(3) The language "...the paths of righteousness for his name's sake..." sounds like God has a big ego but that is because the modern era has a very narrow understanding of the word "name".

In the era that the Psalm was composed, "...name..." would probably be heard as "chosen people" or "family". The meaning of the verse does a 180 flip because it becomes "...God leads me in paths of righteousness for my own darned good."

Sin scars the sinner. Conforming to God's will heals us, it restores our soul.

(4) The metaphor "...thy rod and thy staff they comfort me" has a double meaning. Shepherds defend the sheep from predators with those tools but they also use them to discipline and guide the sheep.

An undisciplined child is not only unruly, but he is fearful. The parent who disciplines his child comforts his child in the sense that the discipline is a barrier between the child and the most dangerous things...like busy streets and broken glass and 3rd degree burns. The undisciplined child has a deep terror as nothing stands between them and the abyss.

(5) "...preparest a table in front of me in the presence of my enemies..." is a statement that if we acknowledge God then He will publicly be our advocate which will intimidate our enemies.

"...thou anointest my head with oil..." A dressings of oil had many purposes. It was the only low-tech way to kill ticks, fleas and lice on one's scalp. It soothed sunburn. The dry of the desert could cause chapped lips. This is a promise that God isn't just concerned with The Big Picture but that He will help us through all of the minor injuries, insults and indignities of life.

(6)  "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever." The benefits of acknowledging our relationship to God pays off now and it pays off throughout eternity.

"Reactions" are a personal thing

Reactions are neither right or wrong. It is not a competition.

This post is a note documenting the space I am in and is left here for my future reference.

Take it for what it is and nothing more.

A little East of Paris: Hank's Drive

Hank rolled out of his driveway at 5:00AM. He had gassed up his Yukon on the way home from King’s Inn. Tony had called Olivia while they were at King's Inn and put her on speaker. Olivia verbally agreed to sign a form making Hank her personal representative. They were to meet at 2:00 in the afternoon up in Paris.

Hank made it very clear to Tony what his rates were and Tony had no issues with paying for three working days. Tony shook hands on the deal.

Hank spent much of the eight-hour drive north talking with Scarlett, his AI assistant. Scarlett wasn’t exactly “dark-web”, but it also wasn’t the kind of thing the casual AI user would find unless he was willing to pay the steep subscription fee.

Scarlett was able to ascertain the number and locations of the security cameras in the Language Arts building. That wasn’t useful, yet. He needed to learn where the attack had occurred. He also learned that the vendor for the system had a default two-week over-write schedule. That gave him a sense of time urgency.

Scarlett was the Platinum Edition. That meant that “she” came with the predictor/corrector module installed and permission to “speculate” along lines of inquiry  Hank was likely to pursue. That paid-off when she volunteered that the Texas A&M, Paris Campus was one of the pilot sites for facial-recognition/biometrics and that the program was active on most of the security cams.

Maybe he would catch a break and get a solid ID on the perpetrator. The case would be dead-on-arrival unless he could prove WHO had attacked Miss Benavidez.

Hank had several delicate tasks to execute over the next couple of days*. One was to ingratiate himself with the detective(s) and the Prosecuting Attorney’s office. Frankly, Hank would be surprised if they had more than one detective and it was a rare detective who would turn down a gift-wrapped package where he didn’t have to burn a lot of shoe leather. Every detective was sensitive to his case closure rate and pushed-back against picking up cases that would make him look bad.

Hank expected the Prosecuting Attorney’s office to be a much tougher nut to crack. Most of the assistant attorneys were VERY prickly. They were usually scraped from the public-defenders who were in the bottom 20% of their graduating classes and they carried a chip on their shoulders.

In Hank’s favor, his client offered good optics: She was a minority and a woman. The key would be to assure the assistant attorney assigned to the case that Hank would be totally invisible and that Olivia would be a reliable stage prop when the PA office was milking the media for publicity.

Hank stopped at the half-way mark to stretch his legs. Hank had put a lot of thought in the vehicle he drove. He chose a truck model that was only made in Texas and he wanted it to project that he was a winner...but not be so gaudy that ordinary folks jumped to the conclusion that he was priced out of their range or that he was greedy. He traded in his truck every three years and always bought a silver truck. White would have better, south Texas sun, dontchya know, but white trucks made people think he was a plumber or worked for a utility. So silver it was.
 

It was on trips like this that Hank appreciated the leg-room and the long wheelbase that ate up the impulses from the expansion strips.

Hank met with Olivia at one of the on-campus coffee shops. She was tiny and seemed timid and mousy! No wonder Tony felt so protective of her. Never-the-less, she was more than willing to sign the forms Hank pushed over the table to her.

Olivia carefully moved her frappé and polished the ring of condensation off of the table-top with her paper napkin before carefully scanning the pages and then meticulously signing and dating the forms in her best hand.

Hank slid a dollar over to her.

Olivia raised her eyebrow. “What is that for?”.

“For you to be my client, it is formality that you to pay me something tangible. I know that most students don’t carry any cash with them, so I thought I would help you out” Hank said with a smile.

Without a smile, Olivia pushed the dollar bill back toward Hank.

“Oh, shit” he thought. “I offended her!”.

Then she reached into her backpack and pulled out a wallet. “I am a Benavidez. I pay my own way.”

She pulled out a five and said “I trust this will be sufficient.”

 

She might look like a mouse, but she had backbone. That was good. She was going to need it.

***

Olivia didn’t expect the meeting to take as long as it did. She thought that she was just going to sign a few forms.

But Hank went through what she could expect from the other side. She could expect them to try to assassinate her character. They would try to paint her as a tramp and a drunk. They would play games like schedule court-dates and then cancel them when she showed up. They would jerk her chain and depose her.

Then Hank verified that Olivia was in agreement with her father. Hank had carefully explained to Tony that the perpetrators could either be milked for the maximum amount of money or they could be hurt. It couldn't be both.

If Hank could put together a strong case (in the background of course) the other side would push for an out-of-court settlement in exchange for Olivia dropping the case. If Olivia pushed for a conviction, then there would be a payday but it would be years down the road and it would likely be much less money than if they took the out-of-court offer.

 

From the standpoint of the perp, part of the pay-off was to keep their name out of the public record. In the public's eye, "False Imprisonment" sounded like human trafficking and being a pimp.

“I will do my very best regardless of what you choose. But I have to be honest. I will make more money, more quickly if you choose the out-of-court settlement” Hank told her.

“Hurt him!” Olivia said. “He is a bully. I could hear it in his voice. The only way to stop a bully is to punch him in the nose.”
 

Hank sighed. He had tried.

“So, you said there was one other witness. Who is he and how can I get a hold of him?” Hank asked.

Hank was still reserving judgement on the case. He didn’t have a name for the perp. He also had not met the other witness. If the other witness was a total goof-ball, his testimony could pollute the case and make it unwinnable.  That was one of the intangibles. Some witnesses elicited visceral reactions in judges and juries, and those reactions were rarely good.

 

(C) 2025 Eaton Rapids Joe, All Rights Reserved

 

*True confessions time: This is fiction. 80% 90% of what I wrote in this installment is stuff I pulled out of my rearmost orifice. If you find yourself in this kind of situation, find competent lawyer, pay them the retainer and get the benefit of their training and experience. It doesn't even have to be a GREAT lawyer. An average lawyer will do just fine.

 

AI and Surviving the Apocalypse

Mrs ERJ and I had brunch with Pelee, our oldest son.

During the course of the conversation he informed us that he had been playing with AI. One of the examples he gave was that he asked one of the AI platforms to tell him which states were optimal for surviving the Apocalypse. It spit out a list that looked something like this:

Low numbers good. Larger numbers bad.

and the worst place was Washington D.C. with a rating of 1230.

Michigan was in the middle of the pack with 430

Of course there is a lack of granularity in "state" sized ratings. There might be some horrible  places to be in Washington or Oregon during the apocalypse and there are probably some great places to be in Louisiana and Mississippi during the apocalypse (especially if you have family there).

Lifting update: 6 reps 135 raw. 6 reps 205 raw. Four more sets of 6 reps 205 with straps for a total of 6960 pounds. Then I "ran" on the treadmill for half an hour.

A change-of-pace for Sunday

 

Ads from 2:55 to 4:15

A day in the life of Old Believers in Russia in late August.

Darn that Patriarch. Just DARN it!

Milking cows, repairing equipment, processing milk, kids playing, picking berries and apples, cutting hay. At 12:00 they go to the woods and pick mushrooms (lots of beautiful, golden Chanterelle mushrooms!) and have a picnic and sing folk-songs. 17:45 the family is riding back home and then taking water out to the livestock.