A Model for Our Economic Phoenix

I think the whole world’s run amok, and I don’t have much hope anyone will come up with a solution to save it from the poorhouse. Down the road a ways, after this bailout and that FDIC guarantee, long after the pols and the pundits have done their postmortems on this failed rescue and that useless intervention, we’ll still have to start all over. I think that’s what’s going to happen—we’ll limp along, trying one thing and then another, until we’ve no choice but to start again from the ashes of our financial system.

In the meantime, let’s look at some of the things that have happened so far. The government bailed out AIG, the big insurance company. AIG executives celebrated with a big party at a swanky spa. “Previously scheduled,” they claimed when the “fit hit the shan,” while the homeowner with a mortgage to pay and kids to feed watched in incredulity, pink slip in hand. A large bank was bailed out with federal money, but instead of using that money to make credit available to get the economy moving, it tucked it away and loomed like a vulture, ready to snap up smaller banks in trouble.

The three top wheels from the auto industry, which employs tens of thousands of people, went to Washington to ask for money to get this vital industry back on track. Did they drive? NO. In what would have been the perfect opportunity to showcase their fuel-efficient hybrid vehicles of the future, they chose to fly instead. Not commercial, mind you, but by corporate jet. And, no, they didn’t jet-pool. They flew in three separate jets, arriving in comfort with their satchels open, expecting Uncle Sam to fill them with greenbacks.

Then, some other big guys rode in to the rescue: delegates to the G-20 summit on the world financial crisis met over cheese, crackers and ginger ale to …. NOT! They dined at a luxurious banquet on quail, lamb and five hundred dollar bottles of red wine. About the only thing appropriate in that scenario was the red color of the wine, because that’s the color we’re bleeding.

Executives of failing companies make salaries and perks of multi-millions of dollars, and get golden parachutes that keep them in quail and fancy-shmancy wine for the rest of their lives. I’m sorry, there’s more, much, much more of this idiocy, but I’ve had enough. It’s more than I can take.

And what’s happening on the other side of the fence? People are losing their jobs, their homes, their savings, and their retirement accounts. Students are looking at tuitions beyond their means to pay. Seniors are afraid to check their investment portfolios for fear of bringing on strokes.

But most of all, we’re losing hope. And the pitiful thing is we’d been given a blueprint for avoiding all this. It’s been right there in front of our faces, complete with examples to follow, all dressed up in black and white formal wear, fluttering around our bird feeders. Okay, wait. Don’t toss this aside. Just listen to what I have to say. I want to tell you about chickadees.

First, chickadees usually mate for life. That means no broken homes and two wage earners providing for the present and the future. That means dad’s around to help mom feed the young. When statistics show that sixty percent of children living in poverty do so in a female single-parent home, there is much to be said for mating for life.

Second, chickadees’ wings beat twenty-seven times a second. A second. No couch potatoes in chickadee-land. And no unemployment lines, either. The chickadee either gets its butt out there and works, or it’s no sunflower seeds for it. Sorry, bird feeders don’t take food coupons. Which brings up another point. While tens of thousands of humans set out feeders with peanut butter and sunflower seeds, research indicates that up to eighty percent of a chickadee’s daily winter food supply comes from natural sources such as dormant insects, spiders, and even carrion. They’re not free-loaders, but hard workers, because their survival depends upon it.

Third, chickadees will lay between six and eight eggs, and the young fledge in about twenty-one days. Then, it’s off to work. No laying back and letting mom and dad bring the goodies home, because junior’s too precious to work at washing dishes or at a fast food joint.

Fourth, chickadees don’t necessarily eat all those black oil sunflower seeds at your feeder that day. Instead, they save for hard times. They save and they diversify. They find separate hiding places for each seed, and they remember where they put each one. They don’t tuck away their savings in the same spot where some raiding Stellar’s jay can clean them out with one beakful.

Fifth, chickadees don’t try to keep up with the Joneses. They excavate their own nests in rotten trees or decaying wood. They don’t over-extend, or try to pay the mortgage on an eagle’s nest when a woodpecker’s abandoned nest will do. No sub-prime mortgage problems here.

And sixth and last, the other trait I think humans should adopt, is this: chickadees keep an eye on the food-finding success of their peers. If one is doing especially well, the others emulate that bird’s behavior. They don’t go running to some chickadee appropriations committee, peeping for a bailout. They learn from the birds that are making the right decisions, working the hardest, and having the most success.

So, there it is—the blueprint for when our economic Phoenix struggles to rise from the ashes of the current meltdown. Come to think of it, it isn’t such a bad plan for social progress either.

Nov. 29, 2008
Gullible

keepin' an eye on the world....

I subbed for Erin doing the mail route today--a hundred and thirty-some miles on ice, snow and slop. The drive into Moose Pass was tricky, and I wasn't looking forward to this day at all, even with studded tires all the way around. While I was in the post office taking care of business there, the sand truck want by, and my drive to and from Hope and Cooper Landing now invoved sand on those wet, icy roads. Much better.

Down at Tern Lake, rain was falling, adding slop to an already messy highway. And, keeping an eye on it all were these four bald eagles in a cottonwood tree. There's another in the small spruce to the left. Two more were across the highway, not visible in this picture.

There's something a bit unsettling about this picture. A driver rounds a sharp curve on a wet, icy highway and sees these birds of prey lurking above. They are not only hunting birds-- they also eat carrion...

proof in living color.....

A few days ago I was speaking on the phone with a friend who lives in Florida. Eventually she asked me what the temperature was in Moose Pass.

"Oh, it's warm," I answered. "Twenty above."

A long pause, and then, "That's cold."

"No, I said. "Cold is when it's below zero." All things are relative, I suppose. So when teenaged boys in Moose Pass need to burn off excess energy, they do some of the things teenaged boys all over the country do. They play basketball out in the yard. Here are the pictures, also from a few days ago:

Yes, that's a snow bank. Yes, he's wearing a tee shirt. See the bare arms?

No hat, no long sleeves, no gloves. Jeans, tee shirt, sneakers. Temperature? Around 25.

Sorry for the blurred images. The shutter speed on this camera isn't what it could be for nighttime photography.

Thanksgiving Day

Happy tryptophan day everyone.

more than you ever wanted to know about Gullible...

How did we get from all this promise:

to this, in 67 years? and for all the in between years: http://picasaweb.google.com/gullible0/200608Aug#

Happy birthday to me....

lest we forget...

Forty-five years ago today, President John. F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. The following is an excerpt from his inaugural speech, a speech that summoned a new generation, a speech that will last forever.



"....... In your hands, my fellow citizens, more than in mine, will rest the final success or failure of our course. Since this country was founded, each generation of Americans has been summoned to give testimony to its national loyalty. The graves of young Americans who answered the call to service surround the globe.

" Now the trumpet summons us again—not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need; not as a call to battle, though embattled we are—but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle, year in and year out, "rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation"—a struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself.

" Can we forge against these enemies a grand and global alliance, North and South, East and West, that can assure a more fruitful life for all mankind? Will you join in that historic effort?

" In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility—I welcome it. I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it—and the glow from that fire can truly light the world.

"And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.

" My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.

" Finally, whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world, ask of us the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you. With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God's work must truly be our own.:

believe it or not...

Not more than an hour ago, Pablo was ready and willing to tear my head off because I’d the audacity to don a gray sweatshirt in his presence. He is, as you might know already, a strict enforcer of the dress code in this house. He is the only one who knows the rules and nuances of that code, because he is the one who wrote it in the first place.

Lately he has been enforcing that code to the breaking point. Due to the high cost of heating fuel, I have been using the woodstove every day. Most times the fire has gone out by morning, and there’s a chill in the house. Am I allowed to wear a sweater or long sleeves until I get a fire going? No way. Not if I want peace and quiet, instead of a screeching ticked off parrot lunging at the bars of his cage, doing his best to get at me.

I’ve noticed, as this winter drags on, that he has further limited the approved wearing apparel to five tee shirts, all in subtle and subdued shades of gray and blue and green. He even seems to be deciding which pair of jeans I am allowed to wear—the pair he identifies with me staying home as opposed to
me going away for a few hours.

Now, offending garment hidden from sight, he sits on his perch in the loft as I work at the computer. He’s been making little happy noises for a while as I checked e-mail and a couple online sites I visit daily. At one, I laughed out loud. So did Pablo. Then I laughed some more to make I was hearing correctly.

He giggled right along with me. What an unusual sound, coming from this little green and yellow dynamo who scares every one of my friends who visit this house. They’ve never heard him like this—jovial, content, and oh, so pleasant to be around. I doubt they believe me when I speak of these moments. Or, of how he will lie on his back in my lap
while we play. No, they’d never believe that.