Television drama, insofar as much of it is confined to cop / lawyer shows, has adopted a theme that is familiar to anyone who has knowledge of the events in Salem Village, Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1692.
In a television series, it is the obsession of a given character in a series, although the character in the ensemble who takes this role may or may not change from one episode to the next. It is the obsession of these characters that justify whatever procedures (or failure to follow procedures) lead to the conclusion of the case. This accounts for the myriad episodes where any normal police officer would be fired or face charges themselves, or a lawyer be disbarred and/or charged with a crime. The obsession (although this would be called "commitment") then provides a putative suspension of disbelief where the viewer can then provide justification for acts on the part of the protagonists that are basically unjustified, even where the law is violated
In 1692, it was the obsession and hysteria of several teenage girls that provided sufficient suspension of disbelief in the court to send 19 men and women to the gallows. We have conveniently labeled the acts of those who lived over three centuries ago as stemming from ignorance, hysteria, and a host of vague hypotheses. In our day, however, we have become no less susceptible to the belief that commitment in and of itself can not only move mountains, but should supersede even law if only one feels strongly enough.
"I would give the devil himself the benefit of law, for my own safety's sake."- A Man For All Seasons, Robert Bolt
Friday, March 30, 2012
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Numbers for the New Century Revisited
I'd like to turn in the direction of innovative solutions to the ever-burgeoning numbers of people. How about Birthright Lotteries? This is a concept originated by Larry Niven, in his Known Space universe, and you'll find some discussion of it on the Internet, although the term has been highjacked and turned to unrelated discussions by some.
I'm not going to discuss it at length. Even convicted criminals can't be excluded from the Birthright Lottery. What's the penalty if you circumvent getting your birth control implants? Well, then the ARMs go on a Mother Hunt....and the parents are executed, their child lives, thus maintaining zero growth. Have you a license to breed in the Lottery, and want more than one kid? Put your ticket in the pot and go in the arena and fight for it. The losers do the subtraction for the extra kid you have.
Grim? Not nearly as grim as where we're headed......the figures say world population will top out at 10+ billion. How long does anyone think that can be sustained? No one took Paul Ehrlich (The Population Bomb) very seriously in 1968 when his timeline proved to be far too short, but that book has always stuck with me, and it seems more relevant than ever in 2012. Population control by coercion has always been shunned as politically unacceptable. More acceptable than the inexorable depletion of irreplaceable resourcs and mass starvation?
I'm not going to discuss it at length. Even convicted criminals can't be excluded from the Birthright Lottery. What's the penalty if you circumvent getting your birth control implants? Well, then the ARMs go on a Mother Hunt....and the parents are executed, their child lives, thus maintaining zero growth. Have you a license to breed in the Lottery, and want more than one kid? Put your ticket in the pot and go in the arena and fight for it. The losers do the subtraction for the extra kid you have.
Grim? Not nearly as grim as where we're headed......the figures say world population will top out at 10+ billion. How long does anyone think that can be sustained? No one took Paul Ehrlich (The Population Bomb) very seriously in 1968 when his timeline proved to be far too short, but that book has always stuck with me, and it seems more relevant than ever in 2012. Population control by coercion has always been shunned as politically unacceptable. More acceptable than the inexorable depletion of irreplaceable resourcs and mass starvation?
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Friday, October 21, 2011
Banking for The New Century
As with so many things nowadays, these quotes re: the replacement of the Glass-Steagall Act with deregulation require no comment from me:
''The concerns that we will have a meltdown like 1929 are dramatically overblown.'' - Senator Bob Kerry
''I think we will look back in 10 years' time and say we should not have done this but we did because we forgot the lessons of the past, and that that which is true in the 1930's is true in 2010.'' - Senator Byron L. Dorgan
''If we don't pass this bill, we could find London or Frankfurt or years down the road Shanghai becoming the financial capital of the world.'' - Senator Chuck Schumer
''Today Congress voted to update the rules that have governed financial services since the Great Depression and replace them with a system for the 21st century.'' -Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers
Oh, what the hell, just one comment, one you've heard from about any flight attendant you can think of: "Please keep your seat belts securely fastened."
''The concerns that we will have a meltdown like 1929 are dramatically overblown.'' - Senator Bob Kerry
''I think we will look back in 10 years' time and say we should not have done this but we did because we forgot the lessons of the past, and that that which is true in the 1930's is true in 2010.'' - Senator Byron L. Dorgan
''If we don't pass this bill, we could find London or Frankfurt or years down the road Shanghai becoming the financial capital of the world.'' - Senator Chuck Schumer
''Today Congress voted to update the rules that have governed financial services since the Great Depression and replace them with a system for the 21st century.'' -Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers
Oh, what the hell, just one comment, one you've heard from about any flight attendant you can think of: "Please keep your seat belts securely fastened."
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Guest Post: Bunner's 2 cents
The following doesn't vary much from the way I feel about our slide into national insolvency. So rather than write a post myself, here y'go, y'all:
Money started out as a convenient form of exchange. It's become an adversarial construct, a tin deity and the scoreboard for our existence. We can pretend it's still working for us, but it's become a lever that - as the length and stiffness of that lever expands for the haves - is used to pry us from what little hard wealth we have. 14,000,000,000,000.00 in debt notes is a stupid thing to trade anything for.
You can harrumph and wave your made in China flag and wait for Michelle Bachmann to lead you to the promised land of loonies and pray to Bill O'Reilly and keep crushing those aluminum cans but the pooch has been hosed and we're holding the bag for these junk notes.
We need a concise game plan that includes a lot of hard and fast changes to how we allow businesses to function, who gets to do what and to whom and for how long or the hard and fast change will come via a molotov cocktail when there's no more malarkey to sell and the curtain is pulled back from the man in the booth. This - shit - isn't - working - anymore. Pretending it is has put us in this sack.
This is cut point for America, y'all. With or without me or you and recess is over. So if anybody has some useful ideas that don't include guillotines or mathematically gymnastic bar graphs that add up to "shut up and don't pester the wealthy", I'm all ears. Cause I don't want to see riots in the streets, either. But this shit is way past band aids and if we don't waylay the getaway car, we're gonna be left with ashes and whatever we can grow in that corner lot where those small shops used to be. I got nothing against wealth. How you got it and what you do with it matters, not the wealth itself. I got a huge problem with pirates and thugs. Don't you? .02 USD.
- by that Internet entity known as "Bunner."
Money started out as a convenient form of exchange. It's become an adversarial construct, a tin deity and the scoreboard for our existence. We can pretend it's still working for us, but it's become a lever that - as the length and stiffness of that lever expands for the haves - is used to pry us from what little hard wealth we have. 14,000,000,000,000.00 in debt notes is a stupid thing to trade anything for.
You can harrumph and wave your made in China flag and wait for Michelle Bachmann to lead you to the promised land of loonies and pray to Bill O'Reilly and keep crushing those aluminum cans but the pooch has been hosed and we're holding the bag for these junk notes.
We need a concise game plan that includes a lot of hard and fast changes to how we allow businesses to function, who gets to do what and to whom and for how long or the hard and fast change will come via a molotov cocktail when there's no more malarkey to sell and the curtain is pulled back from the man in the booth. This - shit - isn't - working - anymore. Pretending it is has put us in this sack.
This is cut point for America, y'all. With or without me or you and recess is over. So if anybody has some useful ideas that don't include guillotines or mathematically gymnastic bar graphs that add up to "shut up and don't pester the wealthy", I'm all ears. Cause I don't want to see riots in the streets, either. But this shit is way past band aids and if we don't waylay the getaway car, we're gonna be left with ashes and whatever we can grow in that corner lot where those small shops used to be. I got nothing against wealth. How you got it and what you do with it matters, not the wealth itself. I got a huge problem with pirates and thugs. Don't you? .02 USD.
- by that Internet entity known as "Bunner."
Labels:
All That Is Solid....,
Comeuppances,
Gummint,
Hyper-Reality,
Quo Vadis?
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Incentives, who needs 'em?
As the self-destructive spiral masterminded by our elected representatives continues, now the Pentagon, in a masterful display of military intelligence, wants to move the military pension system to a defined-contribution plan.
Like certain other professions, such as teaching, one of the major incentives has always been a good, secure defined-benefit pension system. Now it is proposed to sweep the military pension system into the great dustbin of history to save $250 billion over 20 years. And in 20 years, what will our military look like in consequence? I suspect that the only thing that is holding up enlistment rates at this point is the recession that our leadership doesn't even like to mention.....and it may be that only if our economic malaise continues will sufficient numbers of high-quality recruits enter our Armed Forces.
And- are we to wait 20 years to see what the impact of all those savings have been on our national defense? I'd rather not.
Like certain other professions, such as teaching, one of the major incentives has always been a good, secure defined-benefit pension system. Now it is proposed to sweep the military pension system into the great dustbin of history to save $250 billion over 20 years. And in 20 years, what will our military look like in consequence? I suspect that the only thing that is holding up enlistment rates at this point is the recession that our leadership doesn't even like to mention.....and it may be that only if our economic malaise continues will sufficient numbers of high-quality recruits enter our Armed Forces.
And- are we to wait 20 years to see what the impact of all those savings have been on our national defense? I'd rather not.
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Signs of the times....
The House of Representatives applauding themselves for their tardy actions in dealing with the growing economic mare's nest, a situation that they themselves are as responsible as any for helping to worsen. I would wish that they reap the full consequences of their corruption, stupidity and incompetence, except for the fact that those consequences will be visited on the rest of us with at least as much force.
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