Watching the watchers

The world we live in has rules. And the citizens are expected to obey those rules. Without order we get chaos. Fighting entropy is hard. Very hard.

There was an entire TV series based on this notion called Law & Order. Recently though there have been a spate of incidents where the watchers failed us. From the near collapse of the capitalist economic system back in 2008 where the rating agencies failed at doing their job to the recent Boeing disasters where the FAA did not do theirs and 400 people paid with their lives, we are facing a scenario where the watchers need watching. 'Collusion' is a word making headlines these days.

Coincidentally (I have started listening to podcasts on the way to work) a new podcast by one of my favorite authors, Michael Lewis has a show about umpires. Or referees. It is titled 'Against the Rules'. It covers the topic of 'referees losing their authority'.

Fairness and how humans enforce it.

One episode narrates the story of wise king Solomon of the Israelites with a reference to Yul Brenner in the role of the king in the movie Solomon and Sheba. The idea that this king decrees a baby to be cut in half to each mother claiming it was hers is the bet he makes. Whereupon the (supposedly) true mother recoiling with horror urges the king to let the other woman have it instead results in a resolution is dramatically illustrated in a Seinfeld episode involving the incomparable Newman character who decides to cut Elaine's bike in half. The judge, jury and executioner has to be an impartial entity with no emotion is the common theme in both stories.

I enjoy the way he narrates various scenarios from refereeing a game of basketball and the umpires getting booed; to wall street and its desire to make money no matter what the cost to the very people it calls its customers.

By the sound of it greed and more of it will be the end of humanity.

Comments

New England is gleaming in the fall

This autumn the weather gods cooperated as we took a family trip in the northeast to see six states that qualify or makeup what is known colloquially in America as New England. Mass, Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut and Rhode Island (tiniest state in the union). The outing helped tally up the states we either lived in, visited or have worked in to 47. Guess which three have eluded this intrepid traveling family. Any rate the drive was all in about 1,800 miles and included some memorable geographic wonders or points of interest. Easternmost part of state of Massachusetts being one. Furthest drivable road east in Mass being another. Visit to all Ivy League schools (term harkens to a collegiate athletics conference and generally regarded as elite academic institutes of some repute worldwide) is another random bucket list item of which this trip afforded the chance to knock two more of the list. Dartmouth in Hanover, NH and Brown (and its sister institute the RISD - school f

Searching for a lavish 'fill in the blank with other adjectives and gender' in bed

Many of the readers of this blog have experienced this. Strange sounding messages popping up in your text or WA or emails all day long from some exotic sounding locale with an out of this world individual looking for love, sex, money or other paraphernalia to get a high. I mean granted that electronic spamming is a low cost enterprise and all but the sheer volumes and the variety in these exhortations is beyond imagination. Having a desire to engage you in some sort of sexual payola or invest in some arcane crypto scheme must be a profound algorithm that someone from Oklahoma to Odessa is cranking on through the night and watching one in a few million fall for. Otherwise this nonsense would not exist I suspect. It would be funny to watch the lifecycle of some such persona that creates said content and that of a prospect for this invite becoming an unwilling or willing participant. Then that whole thing could go on some social channel and earn likes and subscriptions for someone else a

Lakeside frivolities

We moved to the Charlotte area not knowing where exactly our new home would be. Turns out it was by a popular lake formed by the damming of the Catawba river which flows north to south in the Carolinas. Local electricity generation utility built a series of dams along the waterway for hydro and couple nuclear plants as well to supply the state grid. The lake our house butts into is Lake Wylie. While tract home build has picked up in the Carolinas the developer often carves out parcels that they can get their hands on leaving behind privately owned lots that the individual owner may not want to sell. Our house is part of a subdivision but backs into actual lake front yardage that has always been part of legacy family owned properties who chose to build a cabin or getaway and did not sell to a corporation wanting to build in the hundreds. As such we can see the water through the year but it does not afford actual water access. That privilege is to our neighbors who still maintain thei

Brown Motion

Search This Blog