The Crazy Story

I wrote this essay in late 2015.  I refreshed it, and republished today.

This morning, I noted there's this news item out of New York City.  Being from Bama, I have this appreciation of New York City.

The City's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene is going to release a report where they indicate via research and polling efforts.....they've determined that one out of five New York City folks....are mentally "crazy", deranged, having psychological disorders, dippy, batty, moonstruck, or flaky.

So you do the math.....8.4 million folks living there, and you come to a minimum of 1.5 million who've got an issue.

The thing that bothers me about this is that New York is trying it's best to outdo Alabama for "crazies".  Everyone knows.....that Alabama has more crazies than any other state.  My humble guess is that for each three adults.....we maintain a 33-percent average....meaning one in three Alabama folks are plain crazy.

My brother would cite personal evidence from attending college in the state, conversations with co-workers, and noting personal observations from the local region......agreeing that it's pretty near a 33-percent craziness level.

The thing is about Alabama craziness......we have different categories.

We have NCAA-crazy....where 40,000 state residents are willing to break into a fist-fight if you insult their team or their level of play from last weekend's game.

We have satan-crazy....where 16,000 people are charged up on religion and believe satan might be a living character and possible the guy in front of them at the gas station.

We have engineer-crazy.....where a guy has a garage lab set up and spending $20,000 a year to develop a watermelon cannon that would fire rapid shots and up to six miles.

We have Republican-crazy.....where you keep saying Republican moral stuff, but cheat on the wife daily, have a same-sex liaison situation, gamble constantly, drink bourbon throughout the day, use meth, and voted for President Obama twice.

We have Democrat-crazy.....where you talk like a Democrat twenty hours out of the day, but you tend to freak people out by quoting Reagan constantly, and support the NRA.

We have meth-crazy.....where you do enough meth to marry some gal over the weekend but you can't remember who was or what she looked like.

We have people-who-are-touched-crazy.....who claim they worked for the CIA, knew Castro, and flew fighter jets in Vietnam.

We have other-people-who-are-touched-crazy....who say they saw Jesus over the weekend, and he convinced them to have a second wife, and burn down the house.

Generally, we don't say much when in the company of such crazies.....we try to respect them and give them as much freedom as possible.  They might be neighbors, friends, relatives, or fellow-church-members.  They might be psycho.....but friendly-psycho.

So, when you read this news item and get all worried about that many crazy folks in New York City....don't worry, the best they can do is number two, and Bama will forever have a majority of crazies around.  This is not a case where some fraudulent NCAA bowl committee can rearrange things and bypass us as number one.

Are People More Stupid Than They Used to Be?

Typically, this is a question that you'd ask at a Alabama bar-b-q and to be thrown out to several individuals who claim some rural-intellectual status.  Some will admit they attended some state university for six months before they discovered the instructor was actually a third-cousin of Einstein (so they claim).  Some might even say speak up that they know sixty different math equations that relate to some electrical charge but then admit they don't know much about some Chaucer-guy from English literature or how the Sun radiates the Earth.  And a handful through farming will claim enough common sense to make up for four Einstein-guys and their limitations.

There is some basic belief by brilliant people and journalists that we've surged ahead over the past fifty years and have lots of smart people around today.

Generally, ever since the mid 1980s....I've gone with the philosophy that being able to assemble information, determine values from the information, prioritize, and come to a basic summary which explains the best choice.....is the key point where you can grin and admit you are more smart than stupid.

The rest of this book-smart stuff?  Worthless.

I've sat through sixty odd university-related classes via University of Maryland, Louisiana Tech, two community colleges, and the Air Force.  I came to realize after reading a fairly deep summary of Greek tutors from over two thousand years ago....that education alone doesn't really do much.  You need to have some ability take that information and make use of it or rationalize the big picture.

In this way, my answer is that most people probably are more stupid today....than what existed decades ago.  Oh, they may have some certificate and claim to have finished such-and-such university....but beyond that....there's no comprehension.

The brighter crowd?  The engineer brings in the formulas and relates them to his work.  The scientist with an analytical view will be able to gauge what he sees and bring some solution to a problem.  The analyst with some respect for questions will ask enough until there's nothing left in front of him except an answer.

We live in a stimulating age....where kids are hauled off from high school to a university....pay down $10,000 to $30,000 a year and get some status in life of being smarter.  So far, no one much goes to challenge that behavior and we've developed this to a national stage....where kids graduate from such-and-such school....must be offered $80,000 a year for a master's degree but their measurement in wit or brightness would equal some Chinese seventh-grader.  It's bad enough now that we have headhunters, who only specialize in people in this position....helping to find idiots in companies, who will hire new fresh idiots out of graduate school.

The eventuality?  We probably will eventually produce enough stupid people to tell us that we need more smart people, but can't really identify the ways from which you'd produce such people.  That's when you know we've gotten pretty screwed up.

An Unshockable Nation

If you've ever been to a real urban atmosphere....like New York City or Washington....you end up on the subway.  It's a curious place where you tend to notice the weird characters, unusual operating procedures, and the inspiring or freaky advertisements.

This week, the New York subway folks were asked to evaluate and hopefully accept some women's underwear advertisements from Thinx.

Well, the evaluation team looked over the poster and the words....then came back to the company to say that it was 'inappropriate' and 'suggestive'.  In other words.....maybe if you tone it down a notch....we might accept it for putting on the interior of subway cars as hundreds of thousands of New York City gals travel each day.

I looked at the ad myself, and maybe ten years ago.....I would have agreed on the 'inappropriate' nature.  Today, I don't see a big deal.  Some gal in some some cotton underwear leaning back on a handmade Mennonite-made chair?  Nothing much to get sweaty about....if you ask me.

Now, I agree....if this were being displayed in Red Bay, Alabama or Monck's Corner, SC....in some local catfish restaurant or in some local newspaper.....well, it might disturb some folks.  But we are talking about New York City where you just can't shock folks anymore.

It's a curious trend about society today.....we are becoming unshockable.  This Jenner guy flipping over to a lady-status?  After about a week, it wasn't much of a shock anymore.  This basketball player in Nevada who flipped out and almost died on herbal Viagra while paying $75,000 for a three-day hooker episode and asking for lady-guy hooker?  It didn't take more than forty-eight hours for us all to accept the story and say it doesn't freak us out (well, unless you were a die-hard Baptist).  Joe Biden saying he won't run for President?  That took eight minutes for us to accept.

Some people will say that it's a recent trend.  I would disagree.  You can go back to the 1920s and look at what happened to society after WW I and find literally hundreds of revolutions going on within the American society and our shock levels were being tested on a weekly basis.

These underwear guys?  I'm guessing they will go back and use the same picture but some different wording and get some acceptance to run the ad on the subway.  After a week......no one much will say anything because it's just not that much of a shock anymore.  Frankly, if you were paying more attention to the attire or lack of attire of the New York passengers....you'd be entertained to a higher level (my humble opinion).

Every American ought to pack up a bag and go to New York City once in their life.  I'm not talking about a long trip....just five days.  After that, your unshockable values will double and nothing will really bother you much.

End of Mythbusters

I came to have this curious interest in 2010....upon arriving in DC and having cable TV.....of the TV show "Mythbusters".  It appeared on the Discovery Channel and I came to appreciate the way that the two 'mad-scientists' would take some conceived notion of the public or science, and then explain it in garage-like lab.

Today, it's been announced that after being on the air for fourteen years.....Mythbusters is coming to an end.  It'll end in 2016.

The two guys....Savage and Hyneman....impressed me with the way that you could convey a massive amount of science into bit-sized pieces....for a mortal with no real understanding of science....helping us get into the topic and actually enjoy the rich nature of science.

Presently, there are roughly 240-odd episodes and if I were a high-school science teacher....I'd put one of the episodes up each week for entertaining the students.

Around the end of 2011....they did an episode where they discussed the idea of a motorcycle being more environmentally friendly than a car.  It's the kind of topic that four guys at a water cooler would chat about for hours and hours....debating the finer science principals of motors.  The final conclusion of the team?  Car evolution on emissions has progressed faster than motorcycle evolution, and you can't make the motorcycle cleaner, with the present set of mechanical standards.  A shocker to most guys, but it ends the water cooler debate....at least until a new round of motorcycle developments occur.

My humble guess is that we will go through a five-year period without Mythbusters, and then be thrilled to discover that a new show will be fielded and we get more science in a nice tidy package for public consumption.

The VW Thirty

There are dozens of things I learned from my twenty-two years in the Air Force.  One of those things was.....when something really bad or crappy occurs.....the fewer that know about it....means the lesser chance that some punishment or disciplinary action will come out of the event.

If it's just an event with three people who know what happened, then it's almost a zero-percent chance that trouble will come out of the mess.

Once you get to a dozen people who know what happened, it's almost a fifty-fifty shot that trouble will come out of the screw-up or event.

Once you get past twenty people....well, you might as well prepare yourself for some long campaign where some investigation episode will occur.....statements will be taken.....some base legal guy will be in the mix.....and some idiot will lose a stripe or owe the government for setting some bunk mattress on fire, or getting stupid drunk at the NCO club, or expanding a fire extinguisher in the barracks hallway.

Today, here in Germany, via the news folks.....we kinda learned that thirty-odd managers at Volkswagen were inside of the diesel engine 'fix'.

Thirty guys knew and helped in some fashion to make the software 'fix' work as it did.

No one sat there and asked stupid questions about how this would relate to destroying the company if ever found out.  No one suggested ethical boundaries.  No one could find any way to do the right thing.

Jail-time for the thirty?  No, I have my doubts that they can find any law that works for this case.

If I were a stock-holder.....I'd be demanding all thirty be fired immediately.  If they aren't fired within seven days.....I'd go ahead and suggest the CEO himself needs to be let go.

No one says the age mix, or educational background of the thirty.  It might be interesting to know if they are all engineers, or a mix of computer geeks and management guys.  Women in the group?  Unknown.

Under the Air Force umbrella....the sad thing is that as some event was unfolded.....other people usually got dragged in who had almost no knowledge of the event and given twenty-odd questions over their participation or lack of participation.  All of this leads to people being frustrated with the guilty parties and makes a four-star event into a five-star event.  It's probably the same that will occur with the VW people.

Playboy Change

It was rather shocking news to come out yesterday.....Playboy will end the centerfold and 'natural' displays in the near future.

It's hard to say who still reads Playboy.  The last time I looked.....you could get a year's subscription for roughly twenty bucks.

Throughout my Air Force barracks period (78-84), probably five-percent of the guys bought monthly copies of it.  What most would say is that they had interesting articles and gave a fair amount of advice on men's fashion and stereo equipment.  It was a different crowd of readers when compared to the Hustler folks.

My humble guess is that they finally interviewed some guys and discovered that almost no one said anything much about the centerfold ladies or the pictures in the magazine.  These are the guys who wanted to just resemble a playboy himself and dress or act that way.

Oddly, by taking this route.....they might actually attract more attention and become some type of magazine that teenage guys would pick up and read.

Did the centerfold attraction ever attract anyone?  I have my doubts.  All of the gals who appeared in Playboy were the type that were beyond ninety-percent of the guys out there.  They'd always list their hobbies as swimming, walks on the beach, star-gazing, and resort travel.  You never had realistic women who noted their hobbies of building fishing lures, mowing lawns, demolition derby, flea market sales, or making homemade jam.  If you asked most guys, they always thought the wordy talk in Playboy by each model was all fraudulent in nature.

What does this change really say?  Maybe Playboy never needed the models or the centerfolds to sell their magazine.  And that would be a real shocker.

Why US Businesses Can't Deal With Iran

Back around 2012....while the President still had some leverage with Congress (a Democratic Senate)....they pursued the Iran Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights Act.

It's not something that people generally remember or read....but the significance of the congressionally passed act is that Iran can only removed from the State Department’s list of terror sponsors, if the President certifies they've permanently ceased the pursuit of weapons of mass destruction.

Oddly, in public....Iran has said that it just won't stop supporting terror operations and they won't really stop their effort to build nuclear weapons.  You can't certify much without looking awful stupid.

Naturally, you'd stand there and ask.....how exactly does this President's recent treaty with Iran now work?  The answer?  It won't work.

If the President had done what was a true-treaty and the Senate voted upon it the normal way to approve it.....then no one would say much.  But it was not developed as a treaty, and since they didn't approve it.....it's not a treaty.

How things move ahead?

Unless the House and Senate go and undo this law passed in 2012....it stands.  No American business can do business with Iran because of the 2012 law.  Now that the President has done everything to take down the US and EU-supported episode.....businesses could start up trade and make money off Iran.  Well....all businesses other than US businesses.

I'm guessing that the French, the Germans, and the British all knew about the 2012 law and were grinning as the President hyped up his great treaty.  They can walk in and sign business agreements and make billions.  The US?  If a single company signs a contract....any idiot could drag them into court....even a state court, and sue them for violation of the 2012 law.

Fixing this?  Well....you could executive-action this by Presidential authority but Congress made the law and typically a President can't toss such a law out.  He might pretend the law doesn't exist and order the Attorney General not to prosecute anyone, but that won't work in a civil court if someone chose to punish a company for violation of the 2012 law.

So in some ways....as much as the President and his team thought they were really on top of things.....they really screwed up badly.  Other than getting Congress to dump the 2012 law....there's no way out.  And that won't happen with this President, this House, and this Senate.