Today is the first anniversary of “Daily Observations”! I’m proud that it’s continued uninterrupted except for a “medical leave” in February.
Thanks for sharing this year with me! In celebration of the first year, here’s a thought about the future:
“Let us plant dates even though those who plant them will never eat them. We must live by the love of what we will never see. This is the secret discipline. It is a refusal to let the creative act be dissolved away in immediate sense experience, and a stubborn commitment to the future of our grandchildren. Such disciplined love is what has given prophets, revolutionaries, and saints the courage to die for the future they envisaged. They make their own bodies the seed of their highest hope.”
--Ruben Alves
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
One Whole Year!
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1 comment:
"Dreaming about a dirty campaign" you say?
Seems to me that a "clean campaign" would be an oxymoron considering the nature of politics.
Politics is about:
i. winning (an election) - i.e., BEATING the other(s)
ii. garnering goodies (for your constituents so you get their votes in the next election) - compromise is a fancy word for negotiation ... getting what you want (or more) at an acceptable cost (or less) to you & yours
iii. Doing "the most good for the most people"*.
Maybe it's like spam email, the greater the distribution (of "goodies"), the more likely you'll get "hits" (enough votes to win-again).
Campaign - n., distinct phase of a war
Don't dream, just watch: all "war" is dirty. Having "rules", like the Geneva Convention, does not make it "clean" - no matter how much Parliament would like to believe it does.
Hijo
* Footnote: I've always wondered which is more important: the "amount of goodness" or the "number of people". Is there nomograph? (probably covered by the Secrets Act)
If you view politics as the redistribution of money (RH metaphor, "steal from the rich and give to the poor"; actually, "tax the rich and give out food stamps to feed the poor"), then the question becomes, "Which is better:
a. Give an amount to 90% of the people, or
b. Give 50% more to 60% of the people?"
Politics, doling out other peoples' monies — tough decisions. Not my cup of tea ...
... then there is a third option [the cunning(ham) approach], give 90% of the amount to 80% of the people, and the residual 10% to a friend who will use 10% of the residual to buy my house (actually worth 30% of the sell price), which then my friend sells 18 months later it at a loss which he recovers as a tax deduction (for the loss) and, since his deduction is compensated for by taxes paid by everyone else, also gets a piece of the original 90%, receipt of which is probably taxable.
I fall back on my scientific and economic education — ground truths:
1. Entropy is decreasing, and
2. There ain't no free lunch.
... but I'll keep searching.
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