Re-Post: A Twain Musing

Originally posted on Mark Twain's 175th birthday.

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2010

A Twain Musing

Was reading an article on Mark Twain in the New Yorker last night. Seems tomorrow, 11/30, will be his 175th birthday and the 100th anniversary of his death.

Was struck by a fact that I had known, but hadn't thought twice about: that the man who in his day was arguably the country's most well-known and beloved public figure, had gotten his start as what we'd now call a stand-up comedian;

and had honed his unique style in California and later the 'Sandwich' Islands (as the Hawaiian islands were then known).

We tend to think of California as a land of cities, freeways, suburbs.... But in the 1860s, the landscape must have been dominated by natural beauty: the wildflower hillsides, perfectly placed oaks, roaring rivers, bountiful birdlife....

So, you take a young mind attuned to subtlety in the natural world (the article emphasized the great skill required to read the Mississippi and so steer a riverboat), and steep it in a place, California, that would become known--as would the Hawaiian islands--for it's 'mellow' vibe, and you have the makings of a prophet, a prophet of good-humor, which is just what the country needed coming off the Civil War.

He was a natural, he practiced a radical freedom and he found humor in just about anything. According to the article, he'd wander out on stage and suddenly act startled that an audience was in the same building. Later in life he told a New York Times correspondent that he'd never worked a day in his life; that his life was all play.

"Cursed is the man who has found some other man's work

and cannot lose it. The fellows who groan and sweat under

the weary load of toil that they bear never can hope to do

anything great. How can they when their souls are in a

ferment of revolt against the employment of their hands and

brains? The product of slavery...can never be great."

And I still remember my own roars of laughter when in my twenties I read the part in "Roughing It" where a prospector is mining bituminous coal, the name of which is somehow transferred over to his donkey and the creature's habit of biting his master in the rear.

Another point made in the article concerns the fact that in the 1850s being a riverboat captain was the equivalent of our 'rock star' status. So, the fact that Twain could have talked himself into being taken on as an apprentice when he was in his early twenties is a testament to his genius.

Then there's the language. Sure, we're used to a mix of 'high' and a 'low'-brow ways of speaking and writing, but it was Twain who began to connect and mix the two. Listen to an announcer's voice from the early 20th century and you'll be struck by the stilted, constrained tone, the adherence to a strict, 'correct' style that

marches at a jaunty pace. That was a high mountain of a climb-down and Twain lead the way.

The big question in my mind is what would he have been like without tobacco. In Ken Burn's treatment of Twain, one sees the man a hundred years ago, in a brief motion picture, in his seventies, and is reminded of his ever-present cigar. Could his blazing star have been even brighter, or did tobacco give him the drive he needed in the age he was born into?

Interestingly, Twain and his wife Olivia had only girls. And towards the end of his life, after several intensely sad losses (a daughter, his wife), he sought the company and writing of women. So much for cigars.

Multi-vitamin Question

To Take Or To Make

The latest Nutrition Action bulletin has a cover story on multi-vitamins that seems to blow the lid off of any claims of benefit from health-wise pill-popping.

Study after study seems to show that there is no increase in life expectancy, decrease in heart disease, and so on down the list of hoped for positive results.

At first blush this is cause for nonplussed surprise. Surely there's a flaw in these studies, we think to ourselves. And yet the data seem overwhelming.

My take? I remember reading about an Indian mystic who claimed that he didn't eat or drink for weeks at a time. Meditation was all it took. And when scientists rigged up a controlled experiment where the fellow was confined to a bed and watched night and day, sure enough, he apparently didn't have anyone sneaking him snacks on the sly; his body just kept on keeping on. Could this then be our default mode? If we barely engage with the outside world; that is, slow breathing, mental discipline, and so forth, perhaps we need very little sustenance.

If so, then it would follow that those who live mainly sedentary lives require relatively little nutrition. And modern humans do live lives of relative comfort.

The question I have, though, is if this is all true, might the inverse also apply? Might those of us who exert ourselves over the course of a typical day, performing manual labor, might we not benefit greatly from a multi-vitamin every day or so? It would be interesting to know the details of the studies in question. When vitamins and placebos were administered, was there a screen for levels of exertion? And if so, was there a pattern?

And finally, what multi-vitamin were being used? Were they organic or synthetic? The article does mention that organic sources (actual fruits and vegetables, as opposed to chemical isolates) don't seem to make a difference. But one would need to know all the details to be sure of that conclusion, because a desk jockey in an office wouldn't likely benefit from either. There might be a difference, however, if manual labor were involved.

...Or, we could all just make our meals out of delicious, freshly-picked produce and that would be that.

Pollution's Wake

"Way Up North Where The Huskies Go...."

One of several 'buddies' at college had a collection of Frank Zappa records that got quite a bit of play, with the most memorable number involving the above title and its rejoinder: "Don't You Eat That Yellow Snow."

Now, I didn't much care for Zappa, and found excuses to be elsewhere, but that line stuck with me to the extent that it seems more than just clever and pleasingly twangy. It speaks the truth.

Pollution, whether of the yellow snow variety, or that described in a recent Discover magazine article titled: "Are Toxins In Seafood Causing ALS, Alzheimer's, and Parkinson's?" is so pervasive in our increasingly crowded world that when remedial steps are proposed, the solution is to minimize the effect rather than to remove the pollutant.

The Discover article describes startling research which seems to link algae blooms (scummy water) to a compound that accumulates in some kinds of seafood--notably pink shrimp, largemouth bass and blue crab--to the above three diseases. It seems there is more to the association than a clear causal link, and that genetic predisposition and healthy living may account for the rest of the story. But, our family does have a pond that is commonly overcome with algae during the warmer months due to fertilizer runoff from farm fields. And our friends do like to come over and fish. And we do have bass in our pond. And my step-grandfather had Parkinson's and was an avid fisherman who likely ate quite a few bass from our pond. Hmmm.

But getting back to my original point, the article goes on to say that if the association could be proven, doctors could then test for the compound that's to blame. That's a good stop-gap strategy, but why not see this story pointing in a different direction? Why not address the cause of the darned problem: scummy water? I suppose that's because the scope of the mess is too large and involves human population numbers, for one thing.

And yet there's probably a minority of people who think that an even larger population is a good thing--crowd 'em in, the more the better! A common argument along these lines is that more people mean a greater chance for geniuses. Only trouble is, crowded slums and other economic backwaters have a hard time producing geniuses, no matter how many people are packed in.

Think of it this way, Where does one find fish without the implicated compound derived from scum? In wilder settings. I bet the chances of contracting any of the three scourges mentioned above is zero when eating from a wild, rushing stream teaming with native fish, far from the nearest urban development.

Goofy News Review

What's Up With The Whig -- Part Ummm...?

I don't blame people for misinformed views. There are precious few sources of honest information out there these days. So, what can one expect from the average working stiff?

Today's Herald-Whig has a letter-to-the-editor that suggests Republicans should give in to Democrats regarding the Debt Ceiling debate so as to tie the 'higher taxes' label around President Obama's neck. Interesting and a bit different from the usual Rightist militancy. Let's examine the writer's points:

1. the rich, whose taxes Obama and the Democrats wish to raise, are the job creators.

Except that these 'job creators' were paying the rate Democrat's now suggest during the Clinton years--and even more before that--and yet that decade under Clinton is considered, wistfully, as a 'boom' period.

2. "the massive increase in the national debt during the president's watch...would seem to lend credence to the (view that) ... the problem is spending..."

Except that the deficit under the Bush whitehouse was massaged to look smaller than it was. It was only when Obama began including the costs of our wars that the total went over a trillion a year. The only spending that Obama has added involved Stimulus to get the economy out of recession. The approximate share of responsibility for our annual deficits is 75% / 25%, Bush / Obama. This is because of the wars, the tax cuts (which were supposed to 'goose' the economy, but didn't) and the expansion of Medicare, all under Bush, compared to the Stimulus and automatically triggered recession-related spending (unemployment benefits, etc.) under Obama. In other words, Bush's decisions bore fruit.

3. "the country has one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world."

Except that many corporations pay no taxes. How can this be? Because our tax code is riddled with loopholes and credits. So, the rate may be high, but US corporations actually pay much less than many of their counterparts in say, Europe.

4. "the rich already pay most of the income taxes in this country..."

Except that the rich are the only ones who have increased their income recently. Everyone else is just keeping up or has lost earning power. So, no wonder they're paying so much, it's because they're the ones raking in the money. For example, the difference between a corporate executive's salary and that of an employee's has changed dramatically over the past few decades. It used to be something like 10-to-1. It's now something like 80-to-1.

5. "about half the population in the lower income brackets pays little or no income tax..."

Except they pay all kinds of other taxes (sales, state, property, social security, etc.) The total tax burden is actually favorable to the rich. Plus, who wants to tax a retiree's Social Security benefits or a young family with kids and their minimum wage jobs?

6. "...and yet (the lower income brackets) as a group receive massive government entitlements."

Except the rich receive even more. A rich Senior enjoying Medicare coverage or deducting his employer-provided health care coverage is getting the better deal. And if you compare the tax breaks for things like mortgage deductions on second homes, etc., to a family on Food Stamps, for example....

So, I do hope the Republicans in Congress take the writer's advice and give Obama what he wants. The worm will turn and the Republican party can begin finding its way again.

Postman's Brief

Insider's Recommendation

My day job is perfectly suited to my life as a ponderer (Why do colas remind me of race tracks ?), designer, and all-around dabbler in the garden of earthly delight.

Why? Because I work for the Post Office as a rural carrier, which is one of the few jobs that pays a salary without requiring an employee have a specialist's degree.

And a salary, my friends, means that when one's work is done for the day, one goes home. No 'dogging' the clock or otherwise 'killing time'. Instead, if one is clever, one builds efficiency into one's routine, organizing the mail so that it takes less and less time to deliver.

The Post Office, meanwhile, is facing a major financial crunch. An article in Business Week (May 26th, '11) lays out a worst-case analysis under the sub-heading:

Facing insolvency, can the USPS reinvent itself like European services have--or will it implode?

Herein I lay out the case for why said article is likely off-base. I also provide the persevering reader with my own take on what need be done to fix USPS finances.

First off, let's keep in mind that the USPS delivers a full 40% of the world's mail. In other words, we send and receive more mail than most other countries, so a gradual decline in mail volume will still leave the USPS with much to deliver.

Secondly, salaries and benefits make up a surprising 80% of all USPS costs. That sounds depressing, until you realize that as mail volume declines, a reduced number of employees is almost all that's needed to make ends meet.

Take the route that I deliver. As mail volume has fallen off over the past few years, I've added new boxes as new houses are built. The upshot is that I'm carrying about the same amount of mail, traveling a bit further each day, but my salary hasn't changed.

That takes care of routes in areas with growth; but what about locations with declining population? Simple: retiring carriers are not replaced. Instead, their routes are split up among other nearby routes.

The same thing is true for clerks. Less mail can mean a gradual lowering of employee numbers.

And currently, for both carriers and clerks, automation is ongoing. For example, the USPS is involved in an on-going transformation that will see carriers receive their flat mail (newspapers, magazines, large envelopes) pre-sorted by machine. This automation follows a similar transformation for letter mail. The up-shot is that fewer clerks or carriers are needed. This is obvious for clerks; machines sort mail many times faster than do humans. And for carriers, we'll be paid much less to deliver sorted flat mail, meaning route consolidation when carriers retire.

What I'm suggesting, then, is that declining mail volume, if it isn't too precipitous, can be managed, without resorting to overly dramatic changes in the status quo (a 5-day work week, for example).

Two questions remain, however. What about the $15 billion or so in debt that the USPS has accumulated over the past 4-5 years? And what would I do, if I were able to tweak the system?

In addition to the automation referenced above, management is looking at closing hundreds of small, inefficient post offices around the country. There is also talk of five-day delivery each week, instead of six. Plus, there is the huge amount that the USPS must pay each year--for the next half dozen or so years--to pre-fund retiree's health benefits; if that mandate were waived, the PO would currently be in the black. Some combination of these things would seem likely in the near future.

And what would I recommend?

* The salary-based work I do has taught me to look for efficiencies in all things

* I wish others had the ability to control their work, treating it as if one were a farmer doing chores.

This is something I will expand on in the months and years to come.

Leaving Behind A Word

March of History

The joy of a native language is hard to match.

Take the word 'scram'. One can look up the definition and determine what it means (in this case, "go away from, quickly"), but being a native speaker, one also knows in the back of one's mind the context in which one has heard or read the word; in this case, there's a hard-edged, abrasive quality that is ever so shocking.

'Scram', according to H. L. Mencken's The American Language, was coined by a Jack Conway, who is also said to have come up with "belly-laugh", "pushover", and the verb "to click" (meaning to succeed).

Will 'scram' still be with us fifty and a hundred years from now? It's fun to speculate. Jack Conway, who died in 1928, by the way, might have been on to something. At least he'd likely appreciate "LOL", "noobie" and the ubiquitous "click" of the computer age.

Environmental Isolate

Two Views Of One

In reading the news of the past week

I came upon a fundamentally surprising

article suggesting the Bible's organizers,

over the years, edited out mention of

Asherah, whom the Book of Kings and

other sources suggest was worshiped

alongside Yahweh, in his temple, as his

wife.

The comments following on the article

were heated beyond the usual urgency

that drives people to contribute. As one

can imagine, there were those eager to

discredit (God is neither he nor she; it

is our language that uses pronouns), as

well as those eager to see vindication

(at last, we're finally appreciating our

Queen).

Let's just say I think both perspectives

are right. And here's an example of why:

As I read on, I came upon an article about

a well-intentioned group called the

Archangel Ancient Tree Archive whose love

for ancient trees has led them to clone the

mightiest specimens still living on earth

(think towering redwoods and sequoias)

and to plant these clones hither and yon,

hoping they will succeed in growing to the

size of their clone-sakes.

The AATA is probably going about their

work with a minimum of smarts; they probably

aren't planting their clones in unsuitable climes.

But they are ignoring Ashera; essentially,

they're growing environmental isolates. One

has only to look at secondary forests growing

on land that once saw wilderness in all it's glory.

After the old growth is cut down, decades of

rain leach the soil of nutrients; the complex

web of life, involving animals, fungi, microbes

and temperature modulation are swept away

and often a monoculture is then planted instead.

Such second-generation trees are guaranteed

to be compromised in stature.

This is why wilderness is so valuable. It is not

just isolated champions standing tall, proving

themselves superior and able to pass on genetic

success; it is the nurturing entirety of the dead

and the living, creating the fertile soil and

enveloping circumstance that enable greatness.