SUPREME COURT MEETS INFORMATION AGE, PUNTS

Guns were the subject of the most prominent decision issued by the Supreme Court on June 28, the last day of its 2009-2010 term. But another decision issued that day might ultimately have the most far-reaching impact, at least for the nation’s economic life.

The decision was Bilski v. Kappos, and the subject was patents. Yes, patents; for most, a mind-numbing topic.

In Bilski, the Court affirmed a lower court decision that a process involving a form of financial derivative, specifically a hedging transaction in the energy markets, was not patentable. But the Supremes declined to enunciate a hard rule. Essentially, they left the matter to a case-by-case determination.

Hedging? Sound a little familiar, doesn’t it? Yes, hedging, and other financial exotica were central to the financial crisis that descended upon the nation in 2007. And although the U.S. Patent Office had not granted a patent in the Bilski matter, it has granted quite a number of patents for similar processes and products.

The patent system began at a time when inventions were primarily tangible things. But largely as a result of the computer and the Information Age it brought about, the nature of innovation has changed. Both the importance and ease of innovation in various realms that are not quite tangible—concepts, processes, systems, methods, software, and the like—have increased significantly. Distinguishing mundane from meaningful innovation in these realms of the not-quite-tangible poses many difficulties.

The U.S. patent system has struggled with these difficulties. Following a decision by the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in 1998—the State Street decision—the Patent Office, attempting to adhere to the court’s ruling, swung toward the extreme of no limits on what processes and other not-quite-tangibles could be patented. The resulting patents are often referred to as business methods patents.

Many business methods patents issued by the Patent Office in the years after 1998 were controversial. Briefly described processes and other not-quite-tangibles were criticized as attempts to patent the long-standing or obvious. Detailed described processes were subject to the same criticism and in many cases to another criticism: as described, the alleged innovations were simply beyond comprehension, the convoluted wording amounting to little more than gobbledygook.

Prominent among those business methods was the output of a new Information Age profession, financial engineering. Remember Lehman Brothers? Its failure in September 2008 brought the growing financial problems front and center. Like many organizations in contemporary high finance, Lehman Brothers had been assigned patents for financial “inventions.” One of Lehman’s patents, issued in August 2007, was entitled “Methods and Systems for Analyzing and Predicting Market Winners and Losers.” The patent involved massaging, with a computer program, performance and volume data for securities. Perhaps this particular computer program wasn’t quite up to snuff, eh Lehman?

In December 2007, JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., whose parent would rescue Bear Stearns a few months later, received a patent for a computer-implemented financial model involving asset-backed commercial paper. The model produced lower estimates of the liquidity—backup cash—allegedly needed to support a portfolio of assets financed in the commercial paper market. But insufficient liquidity turned out to be a major problem in the early months of the financial crisis. Some patent, huh JP?

Other notable Wall Street denizens that hold patents on alleged computerized improvements to high finance include Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Barclays Bank, Citicorp, Bank of America, and Credit Suisse First Boston. Big name Wall Street firms are not the only players. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, for example, have patents. IBM has a patent for a method to analyze financial derivatives. The Trustees of Columbia University have a patent for providing “Robust” investment portfolios. Indeed, with business methods patents in the financial field as sources, a decent history of the current financial predicament could be attempted.

The point is not to blame the world’s financial difficulties on patents. The patents are just evidence of how the computer and the Information Age have produced a financial system that we mere mortals are having difficulty controlling.

But back to Bilski. The Supreme Court upheld the Patent Office’s denial of the particular hedging process at issue. All of the Justices agreed that no patent should be granted for the described hedging process in the energy markets. But there was no single rationale that could provide much-needed guidance to the Patent Office and the patent and business communities. Four Justices—Kennedy, who wrote the opinion of the Court, Roberts, Thomas, and Alito—said as little as possible. They defined the proposed patent as an abstract concept and rejected it for abstractness. But they did not hold that business methods were unpatentable. Business methods present special Information Age challenges—the opinion specifically recognizes the existence of the Information Age—but the four Justices found no general prohibition on the granting of patents for business methods.

Four other Justices—Stevens, who wrote a concurring opinion, Breyer, who joined in that opinion and also wrote another concurring opinion, Ginsburg, and Sotomayor—took a more expansive view. They would have prohibited business methods patents. Justice Scalia joined a portion of Kennedy’s opinion and a portion of Breyer’s opinion. The portions of Kennedy’s opinion and Breyer’s opinion that Scalia joined were portions that did not question patents for business methods. Interestingly, the portions of Kennedy’s opinion Scalia did not join were also the only portions of the opinion that referred to the Information Age. Perhaps a Constitutional Originalist and the Information Age don’t mix well.

So the outcome is a very messy situation. Business methods patents did not cause the financial crisis and the Great Recession, but they do reflect the thinking that produced those events. And business methods patents are posing significant difficulties for the patent system. The Supreme Court could have provided a little clarity to a very confusing area of the law. By only addressing the factual decision before it and not taking a broader look at an Information Age challenge, however, the Court punted. Now it’s someone else’s problem.

GENERAL McCHRYSTAL'S RELIEF

“The Joint Chiefs have ordered everyone to stay in their homes. Do not leave your homes until permitted to do so.”

It’s been 35 years since Cranky heard those words. They were spoken in jest but Cranky, a young Army Reserve Officer on a two-week active duty tour at a headquarters in Japan, of all places, still found them somewhat chilling. The time was early August 1974, and the Watergate Scandal had reached its climax: Richard Nixon was resigning as President of the United States.

Cranky was with a small group of Army officers, most of them colonels, lieutenant colonels, and majors—and thus senior to him—in a conference room. The group was waiting for a meeting on a long forgotten subject to begin. A television monitor was replaying a stateside news report on Nixon’s resignation, and a few of those watching were providing largely humorous commentary. One such comment was the above implication that martial law had been declared.

The comment elicited no more noticeable reaction than the other comments. The television was soon switched off, the meeting called to order, and those present returned to mundane things.

But the words stuck with Cranky all these years and came quickly to mind when the Rolling Stone article on General Stanley McChrystal appeared. The comments and banter reported in the article are most likely not unfamiliar to those who have spent time in or around the military. The thing difficult to comprehend is their utterance in the presence of an outsider, particularly a member of the media.

Here are two thoughts. First, General McChrystal and at least some members of his staff are of the special operations community. Members of this community are a unique breed. Very well-trained and capable. But also very isolated. Macho to a fault. And for the most part contemptuous of outsiders, including even members of the regular military community.

The special ops community has limited contact with members of the media, and what contact that does occur is usually with very supportive reporters and under very controlled conditions. Then comes a high profile regular assignment such as Commander of all forces in Afghanistan. The media is no longer as dependably friendly and the conditions no longer as controllable. General McChrystal may have recognized the changed environment but at least some of his staff apparently did not. They still felt free to utter politically incorrect things and to bad mouth any outsiders. They didn’t get the change from secret base Zulu One to front and center in Kabul.

Thought number two concerns a compounding of the situation. The United States military, particularly the Army, is no longer a self-supporting outfit. All sorts of administrative and logistical functions once done by soldiers are now done by civilian employees and contractors. This may save some money, but it means less control by the military chain of command.

One field that has seen growth in nonmilitary personnel is public affairs. Part of this is the general outsourcing of military jobs. But part of it has been the result of efforts to ensure that military spokespersons, particularly at a high level, are saying things compatible with the desires of the Administration in power. And still a third part is a feeling that in this media dominated world, an “expert” in all things media is needed.

Ponder the contrast in spokespersons between the Gulf War in 1990-91 and the Iraq War that commenced in 2003. The spokespersons at General Norman Schwarzkoph’s headquarters during the Gulf War were occasionally the General his own self and at most other times a high ranking military officer performing public affairs duties. For the Iraq War, the military spokespersons enjoyed no such solitude. The uncertainties about why the Iraq War was being fought, what it was achieving, and how success was being measured apparently meant that public affairs could not be left to the military. Civilian spokespersons from the Bush Administration were prominent at military briefings and played leading roles in public affairs efforts.

According to media reports, including one in the Washington Post on June 22, civilian media advisors for high ranking military officers have become common. General McChrystal had one such advisor, Duncan Boothby. He resigned when the Rolling Stone interview first came to public attention. In the words of the Washington Post article, “Military officials say civilians are often better suited to provide constructive criticism and unconventional ideas than military public affairs professionals.”

Maybe so, but here’s an assertion from a former military public affairs professional: if a military public affairs professional with explicit responsibility for public affairs had been on General McChrystal’s staff, there’s no way the General and his subordinates would have been blabbing like the stereotype of gossipy, back-biting teenage girls. Outsourcing has its limits.

SOUTH CAROLINA

The next time South Carolinians want to secede from the United States, let ‘em. In fact, maybe we ought to throw them out. Whoever said the state was too small to be a republic but too large to be an insane asylum was certainly on point.

Mark Sanford, his Argentine Honey, and the Appalachian Trail; two alleged Southern Gentlemen publicly claiming sex with a female politician; another alleged Southern Gentleman calling that female politician a “raghead”; Lee Atwater; allegations that John McCain fathered in interracial child out of wedlock; Democratic Senatorial Primary winner Alvin Greene; Senator Jim DeMint. Is it the water, the mosquitoes, or what?

A successful democracy requires a modicum of maturity on the part of the electorate. South Carolina, you don’t make the cut.

ADULT ENTERTAINMENT TIPPING DEVICE

Want a look at the latest contribution to the national welfare by the U.S. Patent Office? It is patent number 7,716,081, entitled Tipping Device and issued May 11, 2010. Below is the drawing and the patent abstract.



A tipping device for dispensing a tip from a patron to a performer, such as in an adult dance venue, generally comprises a transaction apparatus including a money receiver at a first location for receiving money for the tip from the patron and a tip dispenser at a second location for dispensing the tip into the air so as to create an entertaining effect. The tip dispenser may be suspended by a winch above the performer. Preferably, the tip is dispensed out of reach of the patron at the first location and such that a patron at the first location may see the performer while the tip is being dispensed. The tipping device may include a spotlight or flashing lights for highlighting the patron during dispensing of the tip.

TAXES, THE OLD-FASHION WAY

Tax season is here and that means a host of articles and columns about computerized tax packages, online filing, commercial tax preparers, and the like. What you won’t find is much about the way a sizeable number of taxpayers still prepare tax returns: on their own with pencil, pen, paper forms, and a printed edition of this year’s IRS instruction book. That’s right, in the digital age some folks are still doing taxes the old-fashion, pre-computer way.

What’s wrong with these people? Who are these Neanderthals? Yes, many of them cannot be described as “young.” Their ranks probably contain proportionally fewer facebookers, twitterers, and app addicts than do the ranks of electronic filers. But that does not mean they are computer illiterate. Indeed, some of them are actually pretty good on the keyboard and can click a mean mouse.

Familiarity is one explanation for staying with paper. When you’ve prepared taxes by hand for two, three, four or more decades, the task is not as formidable as it must appear to a newbie. No contesting the fact that the forms and instructions are humongous. But the humongousness didn’t suddenly appear. It’s been a creeping thing, a little more each year. If you were able to get over the hurdle ten or so years ago when the IRS made a major thing of having taxpayers do preliminary calculations on worksheets in the instruction book—for example, the Unrecaptured Section 1250 Gain Worksheet or the (and this one’s a killer) Schedule D Tax Worksheet—you’re probably hooked. You will be doing taxes by hand until the Grim Reaper calls or your children conclude you’ve become too addled for driving a car, feeding yourself, or keeping track of finances.

Another reason for the old-fashion approach is Black Box Fear. What is actually happening inside those computerized tax packages? Why do different packages come up with different, although usually close, bottom lines? Computers certainly have many beneficial aspects. But they have also given us cars that mysteriously accelerate or suddenly lose the ability to stop. And they have given us financial engineers who in turn gave the financial system a brutal knee to the groin. The financial system is still doubled over from that little gift.

So Black Box Fear keeps some taxpayers attached to those tangible forms and instructions. If a calculation produces something odd, at least an individual with a little—or maybe a lot of—patience can work his or her way back through the procedure and the numbers.

There are other reasons for doing taxes oneself. Cheapness—damned if I’m paying money to have my taxes done. Cantankerousness—think you’ve made it too tough for me, eh? Inquisitiveness—how complex has Congress and the IRS made things this year?

Whatever, the reason, a tax underground exists, an underground of cheap masochists fighting a rear-guard action against the advance of the digital age. Form 1040, prepare to meet thy master.

TOYOTA, RUN-AMUCK FINANCE, AND THE COMPUTER

What do Toyota’s difficulties and the financial debacle of 2007-2009 have in common? Each is a negative consequence of the Information Age, more specifically of the computer. And each serves as a warning about what might lie ahead if humankind does not come to grips with the increasing complexity that the computer is foisting on the world.

The modern car has evolved into a very complicated computer system. Sensors, microprocessors, algorithms, as much as 100 million lines of computer code—this isn’t the mechanical machine of thirty or forty years ago, something maintained with just wrenches, pliers, and screwdrivers. No, the modern car is the province of computer and electrical engineers. And just as the case with other computer systems that have become fundamental to life in the 21st Century, a lot of things can go wrong, unexpected things difficult to isolate and identify.

Of course, simple physical problems are one explanation for the difficulties drivers have encountered with Toyota vehicles. Sticky pedals and interfering floor mats do not require an engineering or computer science degree to comprehend. But other explanations have been advanced. An article in The Washington Post on February 20, 2010, (“Suspicions Linger Over Acceleration in Camrys”) noted that one study found the portion of complaints to federal regulators about Toyotas and “speed control” tripled after electronic throttles were introduced in 2002. Electronic throttles are a form of computer system.

The same article highlighted a Camry owner’s manual that cautioned about two-way radio systems affecting the electronic throttle system. And it’s not just Toyota and Camrys. All modern cars are four-wheel mobile computers, some just more buggy than others.

And the connection between the computer and the run-amuck financial system? Can’t the financial difficulties that exploded on the world’s economies in 2007-2009, that in the United States produced the Great Recession, the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s, be explained in traditional economic boom-bust terms? Well, providing mortgages to unqualified borrowers certainly played a role. So did lax supervision, unfocused regulation, greed on Wall Street, greed on Main Street, accounting rules, maybe laissez faire government, maybe over-reaching government, probably some ideological hostility to government oversight in general, and much more.

But at a fundamental level were complex financial assets and strategies that few understood, weird financial insurance products with names like credit default swaps, and a new profession of financial engineering, all made possible by the computer.

Information is both the raw material and the product of the computer—kilobytes, megabytes, gigabytes, terabytes, petabytes and more of information. The ease with which information is now stored, manipulated, and created has been a special benefit to finance, a field that is all about information, information in the form of money. Ultimately, money is nothing more than information: information about supply and demand, information about wants and desires. So a tool—the computer—that produces an endless supply of information was married in the last quarter of the 20th Century to an industry—finance—that uses and, more importantly, creates a particular type of information, that type being money. The result was a money-producing phenomenon for which the world’s economic system, geared toward money as a scarce commodity, was not, and still is not, prepared.

Ponder these statistics. From 1945 to the early 1980s, the relationship between total financial assets in the United States and the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was stable. For those years, financial assets ranged between 4 and 5 times GDP. Beginning in the early 1980s, the relationship changed. As a multiple of GDP, financial assets began to increase, reaching over 10 times GDP in 2007. Similarly, between 1945 and the early 1980s, total debt in the United States was fairly stable at approximately 1.5 times GDP. Over the next twenty-five years the multiple more than doubled. In 2007, total U.S. debt was 3.5 times GDP. Stated another way, since the early 1980s the increases in both financial assets and debt have outpaced the growth in GDP.

And the significance of the early 1980s? That is when the Information Age blossomed, when the computer became ubiquitous, when humankind entered a brave new world.

The computer is a powerful tool, perhaps the most powerful tool that has ever been invented. But it is a morally neutral tool. Just because the computer provides a way to do something—accelerate a car, securitize a mortgage—does not mean the result is wholly beneficial. Humankind’s problem is twofold: realizing that this most powerful tool has a negative side, and learning to control that negative side. The words of Albert Einstein in reaction to the first nuclear weapon come to mind: “Everything has changed, save the way we think.”

SARAH'S CRIB NOTES

The last time Cranky saw someone do such an obvious job of checking the crib notes on her hand was back in high school, many decades ago. Even the teacher—a nun actually; it was a Catholic school to which the young Cranky, who was not a Catholic, had been banished to get straightened out; didn’t work—saw the infraction. The teacher just rolled her eyes. The school year was almost over, the class had been a trying time for both teacher and students, and no amount of unauthorized help was going to improve the abysmal record of the crib-noter.

What was wrong with Sarah’s crib notes? Few are the politicians who don’t need a little help: teleprompters, note cards, written speeches. So help itself wasn’t the problem. It was just the medium by which it was delivered. The palm of the hand in the Information Age? It was a throwback to a simpler time, a bit of nostalgia in a world of blackberries, ipods, and gadgets run amuck.

So here’s to Sarah Barracuda for reminding us of days long ago, of nuns in full habit, of pretty girls bending the rules, of boys wondering what other rules the girls might bend. And as for claiming to see Russia from her house, writing words on your hand is one thing; drawing a map is quite something else. Wonder what she got in geography?

BALTIMORE MOMENT

Did you catch it? It didn’t last long, maybe an hour or so. And it will likely turn out to be an aberration, just a blip in the meandering morass that has been political discourse in the Nation for the last half century.

Still, maybe, just maybe, it could be the beginning of something, . . .just maybe.

On January 29, 2010, the President of the United States appeared before a gathering in Baltimore, Maryland. The gathering was of members of the House of Representatives from the opposition party. That’s right, members of the Congress of the United States, Republican members. He appeared without teleprompter, without a prepared script, without the accouterments that have become barriers between the Nation’s presidents and the Nation.

He was asked hard, contentious questions. He responded not with sound bites but with facts, arguments, and logic. His facts, arguments, and logic were certainly not accepted by all, either in the room or watching on television. But they were an attempt at communication with political opponents, an attempt to find common ground, an attempt to rouse the Nation from the polarized stupor into which it had sunk.

The stupor was a product of the Information Age, or maybe more narrowly, the Television Age. The Television Age had not improved the public discussion of issues as some had predicted in the early years. Rather, by extracting a high penalty for statements indicating uncertainty, for statements not in conformity with one or another group’s accepted wisdom, for statements containing even the smallest of errors, the Television Age had stifled real exchanges of views. Political practitioners had retreated to the safety of broad blandness.

On January 29, 2010, before a hostile audience, the President of the United States admitted error about himself and his supporters, pointed out errors of his opponents, argued policies and programs on a factual rather than an adversarial basis, and acknowledged the uncertainty surrounding many public policy issues. In short, he treated his audience and the people of the Nation as intelligent, thinking, rational individuals. Maybe, just maybe, . . . .

WOLF HUNT

Cranky's daughter and son-in-law are currently residing in Mongolia. Here is a recent communication from the son-in-law.

To some, hunting is a part of life. To others, it is life. For me, I enjoy taking a week off from work or school every fall for a little jaunt in the woods and mountains. The usual excursion is for Mule Deer in central Idaho where the temperature at that time of year rarely falls below 20º Fahrenheit at night and is about 40º during the day. Every year in early October my hunting buddies and I pack two or three trailers with tents, ATVs, and weapons and head up the mountains to an elevation of about 6700 feet. Our back-up heating system is rum.

So when I joined my wife, who is Cranky’s daughter, in Mongolia last month, I brought along a hobby. One of my priorities was to find a way to participate in that hobby almost six thousand miles from Idaho. And in less than a month I found me a hunting partner. He is a local surgeon whose wife works with my wife. He is Mongolian and an avid hunter. You know he has to be alright when his favorite hunting store is Cabela’s. It did not take long for me to convince him that I was a Great American Hunter. He invited me to go along with him and a few other buddies on a day-long Mongolian wolf hunt.

We set out at 0800 hours on the first Saturday in December. It was my host, me, and two of his buddies. I made sure I had everything I would need in my day pack. Dehydrated bananas and pineapple that my mother-in-law had sent, my shooting sticks, which unfold to stick in the ground and make a bipod to shoot from, binoculars, camera, GPS, hand warmers, water, and most important, a roll of extra soft toilet paper. The thermometer stood at -7º Fahrenheit outside. I was hoping my thick wool socks, 800-gram insulated hunting boots, long johns, hunting pants, under shirt, long johns top, long sleeved shirt with turtle neck, grey hooded sweatshirt, insulated vest, big insulated hunting coat, gloves, stocking cap, and fleece face mask would keep me warm in the sub zero temperatures. If nothing else, I sweated just getting dressed.

On our way out of Ulaanbaatar in my host’s Toyota Land Cruiser, we stopped at a local market for the essentials. We got water, bread, gum, cookies, and vodka, and resumed the journey. We made another short stop to rendezvous with other members of the group. Getting out of UB required a meandering course through a maze of gers, the local dwellings. I was truly confused by the time we got to the open road.

With the temps rising, but not past 15º degrees, and sunny I figured I would be okay warmth-wise. We started up the surrounding mountains and stopped at the top of one, at a pile of rocks with blue fabric tied to sticks jammed in the rocks. This was a prayer spot. All hunters piled out of the vehicles, and I was able to get a count. There were fourteen men: ten Mongolians, three Chinese, and one Idahoan. The first bottle of vodka came out. I was expecting us to pass the bottle around and finish it off before continuing on. But the man with the bottle got a cup and filled it about a fourth full. He passed the cup to one of the others, who dipped in his ring finger, pulled it out, and flicked drops of vodka to his right and left. He then took just a sip and passed the cup back to the gentleman who was pouring. The cup was refilled a fourth of the way and passed to the next hunter, who performed the same ritual. And so it went for all those present, including me. My host talked me through taking a sip and passing the cup back. The purpose of the ceremony was to bring good luck and safety to the hunt.

The prayer meeting over, we drove until we came to the ger of the leader of the Mongolian nomads in a valley. He had arranged with one of the hunters for the group to thin out the wolves that had been killing about one hundred sheep and cows a week.

After collecting a few of the local nomads (calling them local because they were in the valley at this time), we had the complete hunting party. A shot of vodka all around, and we were ready to start. The fourteen hunters were spread out in a line in the open along the base of a mountain. My host’s brother loaded up the five locals and took them to the other side of the mountain. We were all armed. I had one of my host’s rifles, a Czech made .308. Others had Russian made AKs and SKSs. The locals had 12-gauge single shot shotguns, and sticks. Their job was to walk up the far side of the mountain and down our side to flush out the wolves.

I had thus far stayed warm. But an hour and a half of sitting in the snow changed that. I could feel the moisture penetrating my clothes as I waited. I froze my posterior. Then, excitement! As the locals made their way down our side I spotted the first wolf. It came out into the open and bolted. My adrenaline shot up but drastically dropped when I saw I didn’t have a shot because a couple of gers were behind the wild dog. Later, a second wolf ran across the same spot. That was the final wolf of the day. With no shot and me with a wet frozen rear end, we made our way back to meet up with the group and exchanged stories. A total of seven wolves had been seen. Three shots had been fired but all were misses. I felt a little better about not getting a shot off.

We had time for one more chance at a different location. After the required vodka shot, we set out. The hunters set up, the locals flushed. The second spot where I waited was on a hillside opposite where the locals were flushing. I shared the hillside with a number of cows and goats. But no wolves. We soon got the signal to end the hunt.

Now came the part that distinguished this hunt from my Idaho experiences. We met at the ger of the local leader, who provided hot drinks and a huge feast. I had trouble with the milk tea, only downing about a fourth of it. Huge pots of boiled meat appeared. I could tell by looking in the pots that no part of the animal had been wasted. My host informed me that the menu was horse, which was sometimes eaten in the cold months because of its fat content. Although my grandpa had been a butcher and way back when had prepared a few horses for human consumption, I don’t believe I had ever had the pleasure. Even in Idaho, horse is not commonly found on the dinner table.

Knives were set out for us to take turns cutting bite-size pieces to eat. I was cutting off pieces small enough to swallow whole. Now, I am one to try just about anything once, but when I hear in my head “A horse is a horse of course of course…” (Theme song from Mr. Ed) I have problems. My host sensed that I was being bashful and cut a huge chunk of Mongolian sausage. A thing to understand is that the nomads do not process meat as is done in, say, Idaho. In other words, even an exotic weenie party in the States might not be exotic enough to include true Mongolian sausage. But in four bites I did a job on the intestine filled with horse meat, only to have my host give me an even chewier part to try. I was having trouble stomaching the stomach. But I did handle the final rounds of vodka with no difficulty.

I learned three things on my first Mongolian hunt:

1. It takes about 1 hour and 20 minutes to go 20.3 miles from UB (according to my GPS).
2. Mongolia is cold.
3. A horse is a horse of course…unless boiled then a horse is a meal.

HOW THEY HANGIN'?

Are you one of those computer know-it-alls who actually have a handle on shortcuts such as F9 and Control Z? If so, do you keep that knowledge to yourself? Because if you don’t, if you are prone to freely and frequently give gratuitous advice about hitting F something-or-other or Control this-or-that, you are a member of a most obnoxious group. Especially if you do so in a condescending manner, which you probably do.

Yes, the computer has created a stratification of society and culture. There are so many things to know about the blinking, grinding monster. If your approach to the creature is to know only what you need to know to get by, then you are likely in frequent collision with those who view even the simplest word processing effort as a competitive endeavor, as an opportunity to play one-upmanship. “Just hit Control F,” with an unstated but implied “Dummy” hanging in the air.

Cranky is part of the generation that grew up without computers but in adulthood had them become an integral part of home and workplace. A few of Cranky’s generation have had trouble adapting. Many others have taken to the technology—not just basic computers but also all the offspring gadgets—with alacrity. Cranky believes that he has become fairly fluent in computerize, but it’s still a second language.

In fact, second language is a good analogy. Someone who grows up in one language and learns a second as an adult very often remains just a tad off beat with the second. Maybe they think partly in the first language and need to do a little mental translating from time to time. Maybe they are not completely comfortable with slang, with quaint idioms, with unusual juxtapositions of words.

Cranky remembers a co-worker from job long ago in a place outside the continental United Sates. A popular greeting among young American males at the time was, “How they hangin’?” Well, this greeting fascinated the co-worker, whose name was John and for whom English was a second language. John’s English was very good, but it was not his native tongue. As much as he tried, John just could not capture the cadence of this new greeting. “Hey Gene, How...Are...They...Hanging?” he would ask, pronouncing each word slowly, properly, and emphatically. He realized his effort did not sound natural, which only spurred him to new efforts of precision.

Computerize to Cranky is like English was to John. Most of the time, Cranky can get the job done. A member of a younger generation, however, one that has been enveloped in the Information Age since birth, probably can recognize that Cranky’s facility with computerize is sometimes a little off-rhythm. And if something like computer shortcuts are thrown at Cranky—the F9s and the Control Zs—it’s, well, it’s like “Hey Gene, How...Are...They...Hanging?”

UB HELP DESK

Cranky recently had a computer problem that required a consultation with a help desk. While at work one day, Cranky wrote a short paper that he forwarded by email to his home email account for later revision. The problem was that the paper was composed in Microsoft Vista on Word 2007, which made it a .docx thingy. Cranky’s home computer uses the ancient Word 2003, or just the .doc thingy.

So when he tried to open the paper the next day at home, all Cranky got were paragraphs of little squares with occasional round things and other oddities. Having experienced this problem a number of times, Cranky quickly realized what was wrong. But correcting it was no easy matter. Perhaps some computer guru has a better solution, but all Cranky knows is that the original .docx has to be saved as a just plain .doc, and this requires a computer that has Word 2007.

The only immediately accessible computer Cranky knew of that had Word 2007 belonged to Cranky’s daughter. So he forwarded the .docx paper to her by email. And because he was anxious to have the paper right away, he gave his daughter a call.

“Hey, I just sent you a paper in .docx that I need converted to .doc and sent back to me.”

“Dad! It’s midnight here! I’m asleep and have to go to work at O Dark Thirty!”

“Hey, I’m sorry. I forgot about the time difference. But maybe as long as you’re awake, could you just convert it and send it back?”

“Look, I’ll do it this time, but don’t pull this again. I’m not your own personal Help Desk. I’ve got a job, you know.”

“I’m really sorry. But thanks for doing your ol’ man a favor. How’s my son-in-law Steven doing?”

“He’s asleep too. Now let me do this and get back to bed.”

“Okay. And I’ll try to keep the time difference in mind.”

“Yeah, right.”

So a few minutes later, Cranky got his .docx paper in proper .doc form. Take that, Bill Gates. Modern technology is amazing.

Incidentally, Cranky’s daughter resides in Ulaanbaatar, called UB by the expatriates. UB is the capital of Mongolia, which is somewheres north of China and south of Siberia.

[In the interests of full disclosure, and honestry, Cranky needs to admit that the preceding tale is only partly true. It's true that Cranky sent a .docx paper to the far side of the planet for conversion by his daughter to .doc. But the phone call was a bit of fiction, added for plot development purposes. You can, however, phone UB anytime you want. Small world, eh?]

FACEBOOKING

Recently, Cranky was a member of a small group on a work project. The group had five members. One was old. That was Cranky. The other four were in their late twenties or early to mid thirties. So Cranky was the odd man out in several ways, one of them being that he was the only non-Facebooker in the crowd.

Now, Cranky is not ignorant of technological developments. He knows there is such a thing as Facebook. He has heard about, and actually seen people engage in, twittering. But an occasion blog has been as far as Cranky’s participation in 21st Century stuff has gone.

One day a member of Cranky’s group, a young woman, let out with an “Uh oh.” One of the others asked the problem. The problem was that the boyfriend of a female friend of the young woman had posted an intriguing photo on his Facebook page. In the photo, the young woman’s friend was reclining, and smiling. Her top was pulled up well above her midriff. And the boyfriend’s head was embedded in the location where her torso joined her legs.

On her own Facebook, the young woman’s friend also had a photo of herself and the boyfriend. The two were standing beside each other, chastely holding hands, and looking into the camera.

The situation produced considerable discussion. Was a question of etiquette involved? Or of ethics? Or something else. Not having much experience in Facebooking, Cranky mostly listened.

But something about this Facebooking thing appealed to him. That night at home he broached the subject with the Mrs. “I think I would like to Facebook.”

The Mrs. looked skeptical. Cranky went on. “Yes, Facebook. And I saw this neat picture today that I would like to have on my Facebook. It would be the two of us.”

Not getting a response, Cranky described the picture.

“Are you out of your freakin’ mind!?”

“But Sweatheart, it would be fun. And who knows, it might bring back fond memories.”

“I’ll fond memories you, you idiot!” At which point she whacked Cranky with her cane; she has bad arthritis.

Fortunately, Cranky had not told his young co-workers of his Facebook plan. Consequently, the plan’s demise did not result in any loss of face.

WALL STREET COMPENSATION

In the current controversy over compensation for Wall Streeters and the Obama Administration’s efforts to curtail the greed somewhat, one thing is puzzling. How does Wall Street have what appears to be excess money when Main Street is hurting?

Here’s one possible answer: Wall Street has the ability to create money, not just manipulate it, reroute it, hoard it, but to actually create it. And this is something new, at least to the extent it has been done for the last few years.

How can Wall Street create money? The computer. One consequence of the Information Age, a consequence that is little realized, is that the financial system is no longer just a lubricant for economic activity involving tangible things. The financial system and its intangible products have become ends in themselves, not just means to permit the “real” economy to function.

The Information Age is about the dominance of information, and an important form of information is money. How is money a form of information? Stripped to its essence, money is just information about supply and demand. Money has provided this information since bartering receded as the major way goods exchanged hands.

But the computer and the Information Age have provided those with the capability—the Wall Streeters of the world—to create information, and thus create money. Some might say that creation is too strong a term, that information can’t be created because it was already there, just not recognizable. Okay, but the difference between creating information and recognizing previously unrecognizable information is a minor point. Much more important is that the computer has resulted in a tsunami of information with which those with the training can do extraordinary things.

Wall Street’s creation of money takes two complementary, and often overlapping, forms: securitization and derivatives. In securitization, individual loans such as mortgages are combined, through legal paperwork, into a single financial asset. Some of the interests in the financial asset are sold to investors. But some of the interests may be combined with interests in other financial assets to create what might be called a second layer financial asset. This layering process can be repeated. The effect of the layering process is to expand the total amount of financial assets in existence. Since financial assets are in essence money, the effect of financial asset layering is to create money.

Derivatives are financial instruments whose values depend on the values of other financial instruments. Futures and options are common types of derivatives. Much more exotic derivatives, such as credit default swaps, have appeared in recent years. Just as securitization results in more financial assets and thus more money, the creation of derivatives results in more assets and consequently more money.

What does the computer have to do with securitization and derivatives? The manipulation of data and the mathematical calculations that are required in securitization and the creation of derivatives would be pretty close to impossible without the processing and computational powers of the computer.

The arrival of the Information Age can be dated to the very late 1970s and early 1980s, a period when the computer started its conquest of just about everything. Those years also saw the start of a growth period for financial assets in relation to the rest of the economy. From 1945 to the early 1980s, the relationship between total financial assets in the United States and the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was stable, ranging between 4 and 5 times GDP. Beginning in the early 1980s, the relationship changed. As a multiple of GDP, financial assets began to increase, reaching over 10 times GDP in 2007. (Data is from the Federal Reserve’s Flow of Funds.)

In the same period, a shift also occurred among holders of financial assets. The nation’s financial sector increased its share of financial assets from between 30 and 35 percent to between 40 and 45 percent. In other words, as financial assets were growing faster than GDP, a larger share of the financial assets was falling into the hands of the financial sector.

Okay, so the financial sector of the economy has become proportionately larger and a likely cause of the growth has been the computer. So what? The so what is the volatile nature of finance, a volatility very much evident over the last couple of years. The money created by financial sector is fuzzy money, easily evaporated if conditions turn mildly arid.

The so what is also the quandary about how to get a handle on the economics of the Information Age, to understand this unknown. A few years ago, those trying to explain changes talked about new paradigms. Well, a new paradigm seems called for. Reform proposals for the financial system are being put forth, but most seem to deal with peripheral matters: oversight structure, regulatory authority, and the like. The core issue is the change the computer has brought to the financial, and ultimately the economic, system. Some examination of the fundamentals is called for. Otherwise, the events of the last couple of years might just be a prelude.

MONGOLIAN RUN

In an effort to get as far away from dad as possible, cranky’s daughter has taken a job in Mongolia. After going for her first run in her new home, she filed the following report.

WOW its cold out...made sure to bring an ID, little bit of money, apartment key, and of course the little card that says in Mongolian "Please take me to the US Embassy" just in case I managed to get really lost!!

Sidewalks are not that bad to run on, just watch for the unstable manhole covers—or lack thereof—and random bumps, stakes, and whatall in the sidewalk. Managed to find a great bakery then managed to track back around the area to get an awesome view of the mountains just south of the city. They look fantastic and are now covered in snow. There’s a great flat white stone statute on the mountainside just outside the city. The statute is of Changis Khan (not Genghis as us westerns call him, learned that pretty quick).

Managed to find a food store and Millie's espresso store, where supposedly you can get boneless skinless chicken breast and ground beef. And it has good sandwiches. Then I found the Choijin Lama Temple. Bummer, it was closed. Turns out it is only a block from the house, kind of neat place, will have to check it out later when it is open.

And finally turned to come home, crossing the street to avoid passing close to two locals relieving themselves on the side of the road (reminded me of you, Dad). Fun times, and not too bad. Will have to venture out again. Pretty quiet in the morning; didn't see any other runners.

THE PROFESSOR-COP THING

That thing with the Harvard professor and the local cop certainly got everyone worked up. Some wanted to concentrate on the racial aspects of the matter. Others, on the class aspects. Still others on the way protectors and protectees should address one another.

Cranky likes the class analyses. In fact, Cranky was once, a long, long time ago in a place far, far away, involved in a number of class-like protector-protectee confrontations. Cranky was a protector, a cop, at least a type of cop. He was Lieutenant Cranky, Military Police Corps, United States Army. The place was Saigon, Republic of Vietnam. You older readers might remember it. You youngsters, well it was several wars ago.

Saigon of the 1960s was not like Baghdad of the last six years. Yes, there was a war on, and Saigon had its share of terrorist incidents, including bombings of U.S. facilities (the American Embassy was bombed at least twice, not counting being subject to a ground attack during Tet in 1968). But U.S. military personnel in the Saigon area were not confined to anything like Baghdad’s Green Zone. They lived and worked in buildings and compounds throughout the city. And they played—bars and brothels were ubiquitous. So Saigon MPs--when they weren't off duty and frequenting the local establishments themselves--had both war and police responsibilities. One call over the radio might be to investigate a suspicious package or possible sniper fire. The next might be to get an overly inebriated U.S. soldier under control.

Most of those transgressing soldiers were the military’s version of lower and middle classes: Enlisted Men (this was before women were allowed to go to war) and junior Officers, such as LT Cranky was. But every now and then, a member of the upper class—senior Officers—played a bit too hard and needed corralling. And truth be told, young LT Cranky liked nothing better than puttin’ it to a Major, a Colonel, even a General. Colonel Blimp might be a tough, demanding, overbearing tyrant by day, filled to the brim with his own importance. But if he stepped out of line when LT Cranky was the Saigon Duty Officer patrolling the streets, no leeway was granted. Get a little too mouthy and LT Cranky would have him in the slammer, or would file an official report that could have a negative career impact, maybe even be a career-ender.

Some of Cranky’s fellow MP Lieutenants took a more lenient view of transgressing senior Officers. But LT Cranky just loved busting the chops of his betters.

So even though the cop at Harvard might have taken a less confrontational approach, Cranky doesn’t fault his actions. To Cranky, a Harvard professor is like a General. He may be hot stuff, but if he gets too mouthy a reminder that his s**t stinks just like that of us lesser mortals could be just the thing.

APPALACHIAN TRAIL

The Appalachian Trail should be closed. It is a threat to the moral fiber of the nation. It presents the nation's youth with temptations most of them are not prepared to resist. Their time is better spent watching reality shows, playing video games, twittering, and becoming obese. If a respected Republican governor can fall prey to the temptations of the Trail, what chance do lesser mortals have?

But, you say, I must seek my soul mate. Soul mate, rat bait, my friend. Yes, there are soul mates to be found on the Trail. But soul mates are the path to eternal damnation. Does the Pope have a soul mate? Not hardly. What's good enough for the leader of Roman Catholicism is good enough for you.

Soul mates are the product of the effete liberal elite. Do Bill O'Reilly, Shawn Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, or Glenn Beck have soul mates? No way. And why not? Because they stay off the Appalachian Trail

So let's remove this threat to our country. How? If each of you sends me $50, I will ensure that the mission is accomplished.

JUNE 6, 1944

Found in a scrapbook, a column entitled "Montross, Down Westmoreland Way," in The Potomac Interest, a newspaper published long ago in Colonial Beach, Virginia:

As I write this column on Tuesday, June 6, our ears are filled with the latest news of the invasion coming in on the radio. We have long waited for the news. Now D-Day is here, and our men are engaged in the greatest struggle of all times. Here in Westmoreland County the sun is shining, a soft breeze is blowing, and only the sound of birds and fowls disturbs the peace of a beautiful summer day. Over there, they are fighting fiercely for liberation, so that all men everywhere may enjoy this peace and beauty. Their way will be hard and costly--here our hardship is sit and wait, hope and pray that it will soon be over, and they, our men, will be back again. Our prayers are with them, and we know they will not fail.

Ada Fairfax Stuart

GITMO DETAINEES ARE A THREAT?

Some voices of doom contend that if the 200 or so detainees at Guantanamo are brought to the United States, none of us will be safe. Apparently this handful of rabble have superhuman powers that would not be contained by even the most Supermax of the United States' Supermax prisons.

Wow! Difficult to understand how the nation was able to survive having on its soil over 400,000 POWS from the Axis Powers during World War II. Let's see, 400,000 divided by 200 is 2,000. So each Gitmo detainee is more dangerous than were 2,000 soldiers of the Wehrmacht? Hard to believe.

THE TICKING BOMB SCENARIO

The ticking bomb scenario is the ultimate ends-justifies-means argument. In its purest form, the ticking bomb scenario has two certainties: first, loss of life or horrific tragedy if something is not done to prevent an event that is well defined and imminent, and second, a hostile individual who knows how the event can be prevented. The challenge then is simple: make the hostile individual spill the beans.

In the real world, however, uncertainty is the norm. Pure ticking bomb situations are few and far between, maybe almost nonexistent.

Take the current controversy over the torturing of Al Qaeda prisoners captured by the United States in the War on Terror after 9/11. A rationale being advanced is that the torturing was necessary to prevent further attacks on the United States. But the certainties were lacking. Although many types of events were hypothesized, at least some of them possible, no U.S. official knew of a specific plan or imminent event. Similarly, although several Al Qaeda higher ups were captured, whether they had knowledge of specific plans for future attacks, or an imminent attack, on the United States was unknown.

So the justification for torture, the end justifying the means, was simply possibilities: it was possible that a particular individual had knowledge of some possible evil that was possibly about to be rained down upon the United States. Such a standard becomes very subjective very quickly, and in the hands of some individuals can degenerate into little more than fishing expeditions for elusive tidbits of information.

Some contend that the torture revealed intelligence about actual plots that were then prevented, and that documents exist proving this. It’s a safe bet that if the documents are made public, not everyone will discern such clarity. Moreover, this line of argument ignores the exponential increases in security measures, and the offensive military and police operations, that occurred after 9/11. The reason the actual plots did not go forward may well have been the heightened security environment rather than information produced by torture.

But let’s return to the pure ticking bomb situation. If there were certainty about the looming threat and certainty about some hostile individual having the knowledge to prevent it, would the end automatically justify the means, would torture be permissible to extract that knowledge? For some, maybe even for a sizeable majority, the answer is, “of course.” But for others, another simplistic formula rules: two wrongs don’t make a right. For these individuals, torturing someone for information no matter how imperative the information is not permissible.

Let’s up the anti. What if the ticking bomb is a weapon of mass destruction capable of killing millions? What if we are a few centuries, or maybe just a few decades, down the road, and the ticking bomb is powerful enough to end civilization, to obliterate the planet? What say you then?

Here’s a religious answer, but it’s certainly not an answer with which all religious people would agree. The ultimate goal of humankind is not to perpetuate an earthly kingdom. The ultimate goal is the hereafter. So evil means are not justification to ensure an earthly kingdom. If the choice is between an evil act or the end of civilization, then perhaps the time has come for the Apocalypse.

But let’s return to today’s reality. Most would agree that torture is immoral and illegal. But many might argue for the caveat of “exceptional circumstances.” Okay, but if that is the case, let’s not try to define those exceptional circumstances beforehand, as suggested by some. The many possible exceptional circumstances are just too varied. And what legal standard would be applied? Preponderance of the evidence, beyond a reasonable doubt? No, the judgment should be an after the fact determination. If the direct, undeniable result of the torture were the saving of a life or lives, then that fact goes to the mitigation of a crime.

Does this put a tremendous burden on the potential torturer? Damn right. And that’s where the burden should be. If a Dick Cheney or a Donald Rumsfeld thinks torture is necessary, then they should not be separated from the unpleasantness by layers of bureaucracy and a banal codification of evil. They should be in the room, ideally pouring the water or slapping the head themselves, but at least providing onsite supervision to a willing underling, who also is risking legal jeopardy. And at the subsequent inquiry, the Cheney, the Rumsfeld, and their underlings can argue for mitigation based upon lives saved or tragedy averted. After the fact mitigation is not automatic. The torturers have to convince the judge or jury.

If such an approach effectively removes the torture option, fine. Because ultimately, the torture issue comes to this: we’re the United States of America, and we’re better than that.

DEAD SEA MARATHON

One of Cranky's daughters, with the aid of her husband, recently completed the Dead Sea Marathon in Jordan (That's right, the Middle East. Here is her account).

My last marathon was a year and a half ago, the Marine Corp Marathon in Washington, DC. On April 10, 2009, I went for my thirteenth marathon, which would also be my first outside the United States. I completed all of my prior marathons attempts and four out of six ultra-marathon attempts. On one attempt at a 62-miler, I got lost on the race course in the mountains of Utah and missed a time cut. On a 100-miler attempt, once again in Utah, I ended up with altitude sickness and in the ER after mile 52. Obviously, Utah and I have problems. I have also completed various 20-milers, half-marathons, 10-milers, 10ks, and 5ks.

Let me set the record straight: I am not a fast marathoner. I fall somewhere in the middle of the pack. So why do I keep coming back to the start line? Maybe it’s an addiction to bodily torture, or maybe it’s just the t-shirt. I don’t have a good answer.

Several months ago I signed up for the Dead Sea Marathon in Jordan. My husband Stephen and I currently live in Kuwait, and we figured the marathon would be a good excuse to visit Jordan to see the sites. The marathon itself was point-to-point: the city of Amman to the Dead Sea. Several other distances were also being run: an ultra-marathon, a half-marathon, and a 10k.

The beginning of the trip was great. We were in a hotel adjacent to the Dead Sea, near the finish line. We enjoyed two days of hiking in Petra. We spent another day exploring around the Dead Sea. On day four, our tour driver took us into Amman for a pre-race evening pasta party. Stephen and I spent the evening looking at the other runners and guessing which distance they were running. The ride back to the Dead Sea from the Amman hotel was down a long steep hill. We passed the zero sea level marker and got out to take photos in the dark. As we got closer to the hotel, we began to wonder if this was the actual road I was going to run down for the race itself. I had read on the race website that the course was a downhill steep course, but I never imagined it was that steep.

I was to be picked up at the hotel at 4:00 a.m. and taken to the race’s start in Amman. A few other folks I knew from Kuwait, including a co-worker’s husband, were running other distances. So I figured I would just look for them in the hotel lobby, and we would make sure we all got on the proper bus. My wonderful husband made sure I was up at 3:15 a.m. He was even kind enough to accompany me downstairs to the lobby; however, at approximately 3:50 a.m. we walked into an empty lobby. Where were all the frigging runners? My already nervous stomach started doing extra flip-flops.

Stephen finally spotted a man in running clothes headed downstairs. He followed the man, reappearing moments later to report that a large group of runners was downstairs enjoying breakfast treats. We found some of our friends from Kuwait. Stephen earned some points by being the only family member of all our friends there to escort a runner to the hotel lobby at 0-dark-thirty.

Of course, the bus didn’t leave until 4:15 a.m., but we all managed to find a seat and settle in. About a third of the way into the ride, which was up the same steep road Stephen and I had descended the evening before, I saw in the dim light a disturbing sight across the aisle. A woman had both hands in her running pants and was moving them rapidly. I know about running and chaffing, so I assume she was applying some sort of body glide to her lower regions. Last time I checked, however, this activity only took a few seconds, not half of a 45-minute bus ride!

We arrived at the check-in location a little after 5:00 a.m. A large group of runners appeared to be wandering aimlessly around an elementary school. It was freezing outside, so our group went into the school lobby for warmth and bathrooms. Time started ticking by with no official race personnel in sight. Finally, we begin to notice a group was gathering outside and boarding buses. None of the race officials herding people onto the buses knew anything about checking in. They were just working to quickly place folks onto buses to get them to various starting points. I latched on to a group of runners with a similar bib color as my own, a color that identified us as marathoners. I figured if I boarded a bus with folks wearing blue bibs, then my chances of ended up in the wrong place were slim.

We finally got on a bus. The driver started off, only to turn the corner and stop near a group of runners and cops about two blocks from the school. Fortunately, before we stepped off the bus, one of us realized that we were at the ultra-marathoners’ start. The individual started yelling at the bus driver in both Arabic and English for driving us to the wrong start line. The bus driver shook his head to indicate that if this wasn’t the place we were supposed to be, he had no idea where to take us. Great, so basically after not checking in at the supposed check-in location, we were now lost in Amman, and the clock was ticking to start time! The individual yelling at the bus driver managed to stop his ranting for a moment to jump off the bus and ask for directions. After driving around Amman for another fifteen minutes, the bus driver managed to find the marathon start line. Turns out we were the first marathoner bus to arrive.

Runners quickly took up positions in front of the two port-a-potties to get in that last bathroom break. The port-a-potties were locked. Of course the male runners immediately headed behind a nearby building to empty their bladders. We women tried to figure out what to do. Finally the individual who had yelled at the lost bus driver earlier came to our rescue when he managed to pick the locks of the port-a-potties.

I didn’t have a watch on, but I did know that we had been hanging out at the start line for quite a while and that more buses were still arriving. One bus even tried to pull underneath the start line banner and got stuck, almost managing to pull down the start line! We thought the race started at 6:30 a.m., but the time was approaching 7:00 a.m.. Finally, an official showed up and told us that the start would be in fifteen minutes. In the meantime she wanted us lined up under the start line banner for a group photo. Great, just what I needed to get me psyched for the race!

At this point, those of us experienced with chip-timed races noticed that the start line had no chip mat. So why the heck had we been issued chips to attach to our shoes? If the race wasn’t going to be chip-timed from start to finish, what was the point? One runner commented that the race directors could have cared less if we cheated in starting the race; they just wanted to make sure we didn’t cheat at the finish!

Finally, a little past 7:00 a.m., the race official moved the start banner to the middle of the road. The cops north of the start line seem finally to have stopped car traffic from heading down the supposedly closed road that was the course. At least we thought we wouldn’t have to dodge those crazy drivers! We all ambled over to the start line. I was several feet back and still nervously looking around, waiting for the start. All of a sudden people several places in front of me began running. To avoid getting trampled, I did the same. Where were the 5 minute and 1 minute warnings, or even a “ready-set-go”?!

I started out following my father’s motto: start slow, ease off. About 2 km into the race, I began struggling with kilometer-to-mile conversions. Most of us Americans think in miles. It’s one reason the rest of the world finds us so lovable. I figured out quickly that at least one advantage to a kilometer race is that the markers go by quicker! Wonder why that is? Anyway, at about 2.5 km I realized I was beginning to go down that long steep winding road that we had climbed that morning in the bus. My body was already protesting and I still had over 20 or 30 downhill kilometers to go. I started noticing signs on the road warning drivers about a steep grade and advising trucks to use low gears. Great. A little downhill is one thing, but this was not what I had in mind.

At about this point, a male several paces in front of me took off his shoes. Now I know there are some Kenyans that run barefoot, but this guy was no Kenyan. I stopped thinking about his possible pain; however, when at about 10 km into the race, I felt my right big toe strike the tip of my shoe with such force that I knew the toenail was a goner! Now I have lost toenails before in ultra-races, but never in a marathon. And yes, Dad, I tried to remember heal-toe-heal-toe going downhill, but gosh darn it, that hill was just becoming longer by the minute and my feet weren’t listening to the rest of my body!

At about 12 km the front ultra-runners starting bearing down on me. The front runner flew past in his downhill momentum mode. Yeah, I was a little jealous, but hey, at least I was out there running! Then I just happen to look to my right and saw a white female butt glimmering in the sun. Yes, it is a common site in marathons and ultra-marathons in the United States to see the back of a man or the butt of a squatting woman as they answer a call of nature just off the course. But this was a more conservative area of the world. There were quite a few cars honking and people yelling at that poor woman, who was just trying to empty her downhill-jarred bladder!

Near this point I took off my running jacket and shoved it into my hip pocket. The temperature was rising as we began to drop into the Dead Sea Valley. Small groups of people were gathered every few kilometers. I noticed that one person in a group would yell out something as each runner passed and another person would write something down. It finally dawned on me that they were recording my race number, the running chips apparently being for decoration. And my number in Arabic was something like “phlegm hamza hamza.”

Before the halfway point was the zero sea level marker. But the course would not be leveling out any time soon. The Dead Sea is below sea level, not just a little bit, but a lot, 1,385 feet (422 meters if you’re addicted to the metric system). So there was a lot of downhill left. After the halfway point, I decided I would try to walk at the next water station. I had not yet taken a break, and a short walk would permit me to really drink the water instead of aiming it at my mouth while running, hoping some would go in. As soon as I started walking, however, I encountered jelly legs for the first time in my life. I had never before had the jelly feeling some folks describe in their legs after running long races. So yes, running down a steep grade for 25 km can make your legs feel like jelly. I immediately starting running again, slowly, for fear my jelly legs might collapse if I kept walking.

The course finally started to level out, and the northern edge of the Dead Sea was clearly visible. Signs appeared for Bethany, the Baptismal site where Biblical historians conclude John the Baptist baptized Jesus in the Jordan River. I looked across into the horizon, to the spot where our tour guide had pointed out Jerusalem and Jericho to Stephen and I just the day before. I was thinking how amazing it was for little ol’ me to be looking over some of the most historical and controversial places in human history. And then suddenly my right foot hit something, jarring the already damaged nail on my big toe. So maybe a Higher Power was telling me, yeah, it’s nice to realize where you are, but right now you have to focus on the race and watch where you are going! I looked down to see what my foot had hit and managed to dodge the next metal block just in time. Instead of rubble strips, the Jordanian transportation folks cement these metal blocks in several long rows to get folks to slow down. I spent the next few kilometers watching out for random metal blocks.

After I turned the corner at Bethany and started heading down to the Dead Sea for the last 12 km, a group of mountain bikers appeared on the race course. Now, remember, the road was supposedly closed to all traffic. There were soldiers and cops all long the course to keep cars off the road. Yeah, a few cars made it past, and I heard stories later of runners having to dodge them. But dodging cars was nothing compared to those bikers. They began to ride in and out of the runners, chasing runners down and cutting runners off. The cops and soldiers just stood by and watched. One British runner even complained to a cop that a biker hit him from behind and that he was then attacked by the biker’s group. I couldn’t believe the brush-off attitude the cop had. The British runner kept slowly moving on, mumbling about filling a complaint with the race officials.

As I dodged bikers for those last 10 km, I passed a few of the slow half marathon and 10k walkers. The pain in my quads and feet had become intense. I started watching for Stephen. The race course ran right by our hotel. I had told him that he had to come out of the hotel and walk up the course at least a little way. In other words, he couldn’t just wait in front of the hotel for me to pass. I am proud to say he actually walked up the course about 1 km which was actually about 3 km from the finish. I threw my hip pack to him, happy to be rid of that weight, and we walked together a short distance. He told me the time, and I realized I was actually moving pretty good considering the difficulty of the course.

The last 3 km to the finish was a nice break from the long downhill. Rolling hills made the leg muscles turn over a bit and feel less like jelly. Unfortunately, there was one last steep 10 meters downhill about 200 meters before the finish line. I said not nice things.

I finished in 4 hours, 45 minutes, and can wear my t-shirt proudly. But I don’t think I need to run the Dead Sea Marathon again. The story, however, is not over yet. When Stephen and I got back to Kuwait, we called my folks back home to tell them tales of the race. But my father had one better. While Stephen and I enjoyed Jordan, the old man managed to trip on a sidewalk during his daily shuffle. He landed directly on his jaw, breaking it in three places. Thus, it’s eating through a straw for a bunch of weeks for the guy who got me addicted to these dumb races to begin with. So two lessons of recent events are (1) never sign up for an all downhill marathon and (2) always pick up your feet when running! Oh, and another lesson: never go swimming in the Dead Sea, probably the saltiest body of water on the planet, after extensively chaffing your lower regions by running a marathon.

ENDS JUSTIFY THE MEANS?

The ends justified the means. That is the rationale being advanced by former Vice President Dick Cheney and others for the use of what was in essence torture in those first years of the War on Terror. The nation was vulnerable. Little was known about the identity, intentions, and capabilities of the enemy. Speed in closing the knowledge gap was imperative, so imperative that extraordinary, unpleasant means were necessary. The ends justified the means.

Ironically, it was not so long ago that the United States was on the other side of an ends justified the means rationale. That previous time also involved a war with an odd name. War on Terror, meet the Cold War.

For more than four decades in the Twentieth Century, the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics were the leading antagonists in a struggle for the future of mankind. The United States was the champion of individual freedoms and private sector capitalism. The USSR was the champion of Communism, an ideology based on the supremacy of the group—the state—in social, cultural, and economic arenas.

In the early decades of this struggle, the advantage seemed to many observes to lie with the USSR. In the economic field, the field that provides the populace with food, clothing, and shelter, the idea of a centrally planned economy impressed those observers as much more efficient than messy, unorganized capitalism. Early Soviet successes in the space race—the first satellite, Sputnik, in orbit in 1957 and the first man in orbit in 1961—were cited as evidence of the superiority of the economic component of the Communist system.

But even many who thought central planning superior to free market capitalism did not jump onboard the Communist bandwagon. A major reason was embodied in a common belief in the anti-Communist world: the ends did not justify the means. If a more efficient economic system required that the freedoms of the individual be curtailed, then a more efficient economic system was not worth the price.

Of course, in the later years of the Cold War, most notably during the Presidency of Ronald Reagan, the efficiency of Communism’s economic component was exposed as a chimera. Central economic planning as attempted in the USSR turned out to be downright inefficient, indeed a failure.

Nevertheless, the belief that the ends do not justify the means was a major rallying concept for those opposed to Communism, particularly in the early years of the Cold War. For some, the belief was probably rooted in religion. For others, the concept was likely an expression of a moral code that ranked individual freedoms high and resisted their curtailment. For still others, the origin might have been no more than a gut reaction, a product of genetic heritage in a nation founded in rebellion against tyranny.

Perhaps the depth of the ends-do-not-justify-means belief in the nation’s soul explains the anguish many citizens feel about an explanation for torture that the ends did indeed justify the means. Or maybe it is the ease, and indeed alacrity, with which the justification was apparently embraced by the Bush Administration. The legal opinions and memoranda released in the last few days give little evidence of a struggle over broad issues of morality, of right and wrong. Instead, the papers are dominated by dry discussions of details, procedures, and alleged safeguards. One reads the material and wonders, did the authors not have any doubts about the end justifying the means?

Put another way, the released material does little more than assume that the end justified the means. Making the subjects of interrogations physically and mentally uncomfortable, even fearful, was the accepted intermediate objective on the path to the next objective, which was meaningful intelligence. The challenge was interpreting treaties, statutes, and precedents in such a way as to reach that intermediate objective of a terrorist willing to talk.

Former Vice President Cheney and his supporters cite yet-to-be released documents describing plots foiled as proof that the ends justified the means. It’s a safe bet that if these documents are released, not everyone will find such clarity. And the troublesome question will remain: did anyone at any point attempt a meaningful examination of whether the ends justified the means, or was that just assumed from the start by all involved, from the Decider on down?

CRANKY NEEDS HIS AU PAIR

Last week, while running, jogging, shuffling, or whatever it is he does at his advanced age, Cranky took a spill. Cranky has been pounding the pavement for forty years, and spills have not been uncommon, maybe three or four a year. In the past, the result was no more than skinned knees and bruised hands. But this time was different. Maybe his reactions are slower, maybe he was just overdue, but this time Cranky’s first point of contact with the ground was his chin.

The event occurred in a neighborhood populated mostly by folks from nations to the south. Perhaps uncertainty about customs in their new home explains why no one rushed to aid an old Gringo in shorts crumpled on the sidewalk. In any case, Cranky eventually pulled himself up and staggered home.

A four-hour visit to the ER determined that Cranky had cracked his jaw in three places. An oral surgeon pronounced that the jaw needed to be wired shut.

So the next day, after blood had stopped flowing and things had stabilized a bit, Cranky was back at the oral surgeon’s. The last thing he remembers is a needle going into his arm.

Well, the procedure was done but Cranky was still out cold. His wife and a nurse got him into the car for the trip home. There, his wife and two neighbors maneuvered him from the car into the house.

At this point, Cranky began to regain consciousness. His first memory is standing in his living room trying to make a desire known to his wife and the two neighbors: “AUF PUFF, AUF PUFF!”

The onlookers were perplexed.

“Upstairs, do you want to go upstairs?”

“Do you want something to drink?”

“I think he wants to lay down.”

But they weren’t comprehending Cranky’s need: “AUF PUFF, AUF PUFF!”

Finally, Cranky attempted graphics. With his hands, he traced an hourglass shape in the air in front of him: “AUF PUFF, AUF PUFF!”

Someone understood: “He wants an au pair!”

Yes, Cranky wanted an au pair to help in his recovery, preferably young and Scandinavian, but really, any nationality would do. Having made his need known, Cranky returned to unconsciousness.

WHAT THE GRAPH IS TELLING US

Specifically, the graph in the previous post shows that since sometime in the 1980s financial assets in the U.S. economy have grown faster than U.S. Gross Domestic Product. The beginning of this faster growth by financial assets coincided with the proliferation of computers. The Information Age is a term often applied to our computer-dependent society, and a variety of sources suggest the 1970-90 time frame as the beginning of the Information Age.

Thus one might conclude that the acceleration in the growth of financial assets over the last 20 years has been due to computers and is a byproduct of the Information Age. How have computers accelerated the growth of financial assets? First, computers facilitated the construction of complex, multi-layered financial products. Where there had once been a one-to-one ratio between a tangible asset--such as a house--and an intangible asset--in the case of the house, the mortgage held by a financial institution--there now could be a one-to-many ratio. The financial institution holding the mortgage could combine it with other mortgages to produce another financial asset, which could be sold to investors or other financial institutions, who could repeat the process. The total amount of financial assets grew faster than the amount of tangible assets supporting them.

The second way computers might have accelerated the growth of financial assets is similar but does not involve such an obvious pyramiding effect. Computers exponentially increased both the ability to create new financial assets and to process existing financial assets. The sheer increase in speed may have resulted in an increase in quantity.

But the graph suggests not just that the accelerated growth of financial assets to 2007 was a byproduct of the Information Age. What has transpired since? A financial debacle. So the graph suggests this causation trail: computers, accelerated growth of financial assets, financial debacle.

In other words, it's all the fault of computers.

WHAT STORY IS THIS GRAPH TELLING?

APOSTLES AND TROJANS

A long, long time ago, many decades before he qualified for Medicare, Cranky attended elementary, junior high, and high school, in that order. The school he attended was a small Catholic school. Cranky wasn’t a Catholic. In fact, his mother was a staunch Episcopalian, meaning she attended church regularly but mostly out of habit and because at that time and place it was expected. But she was staunch.

Why Cranky (incidentally, he wasn’t called Cranky at the time) ended up at a Catholic school was never clear, but Cranky pretty much liked it. His relationships with the good nuns who ran the place were mostly positive. He has none of those memories of a ruler across the knuckles or over the skull that many others apparently have. And the school’s small size enabled Cranky to participate in sports to a much greater degree than if he had been at the substantially larger public school, which had bona fide jocks. Actually, “sports” is a misnomer because there was only one sport, basketball. But it was enough for Cranky, who in his high school years lived, slept, and ate b-ball. Well, maybe not ate, but you get the picture.

There was only one downside to the situation: the team’s name. The team was called the Apostles. It was bad enough playing at other Catholic schools, none of which saw the need to be so blatant in calling attention to their religious connections. Playing at a public school Cranky found downright embarrassing. Fortunately, the name was not on the basketball uniforms. Unfortunately, the Apostles’ cheerleaders saw to it that no one was ignorant of who the team looked to for inspiration:

Everywhere we go
People want to know
Who we are
So we tell them
We are the Apostles
Mighty, mighty Apostles

Cranky eventually graduated, moving on to a life involving some things of which the good nuns would approve, and some things otherwise. His ties with the locale of his youth were not cut completely, but they were intermittent and tenuous. So it was only in the last few years that Cranky learned the Apostles were no more. Sometime in the intervening years, the name had been changed. The Apostles are now the Trojans.

That’s right, the Trojans.

Certainly, Trojans is a name found in the sports world, the Trojans of the University of Southern California, for example. But if you were picking a name for your team in this day and age, would you really pick Trojans?

Cranky wishes he had the story on how the Apostles became the Trojans. Perhaps someday he will do a little research. In the meantime, the questions hang in the air. Were the good nuns so clueless as to not be aware of all the implications of the new name? Was the PTA too embarrassed to tell them? Or were the girls and particularly boys on the teams given a little too much freedom and input, leading them to one of those jokes that youngsters have been known to play on their elders?

WELCOME TO THE INFORMATION AGE

The current financial mess just might be the first large-scale disaster of the Information Age. Why? Because the fundamental cause of the crisis—setting aside, of course, human greed—is the tool that ushered in and is synonymous with the Information Age, the computer. The computer has given us great analytical power, increasing exponentially our computational capabilities. But it has also increased exponentially our ability to create mischief, much of it inadvertent, but mischief nevertheless.

What has been the computer’s role in the financial meltdown? At the center of finance are the concepts of return, risk, and leverage. Participants in the financial marketplace want a return on their money. They want to understand the risk involved. And they often use leverage, or debt, to increase the return, but at the expense of an increase in risk.

As a result of the computer, the tradeoffs and relationships among return, risk, and leverage have become increasingly difficult to understand. Megabytes, gigabytes, terabytes, bytes almost without end, can be fed into the computer and massaged in an infinite number of ways. Data and assumptions can produce models, which in turn can produce predictions. The data, assumptions, models, and predictions can be pyramided upon one another to produce still more models and predictions. The process has few meaningful constraints.

The complexity enabled by the computer has made financial instruments and the strategies for trading them opaque in the extreme. The assets represented by a security might be a bundle of other securities, each of which might in turn be backed by its own bundle. At the bottom of this multilayered concoction might finally be assets representing ownership of something “real,” such as mortgage loans. In constructing a bundle, Wall Street’s financial engineers often sliced and diced the component assets into groups, called tranches by the professionals, of allegedly different degrees of risk. One result of all the bundling, layering, slicing, and dicing is that the determination of an accurate value for the resulting security has proven to be little more than guesswork.

Another result is that as financial assets were created and pyramided upon one another, the fundamental economic structure of the nation, and the world, changed. Financial assets, which include the whole range of financial products from the basic savings account, to stocks, to the most complex asset-backed security, came to comprise a much greater proportion of the economy. For example, in 1980 financial assets in the U.S. economy amounted to $13.9 trillion, or five times the gross domestic product. At the end of 2007, financial assets totaled $141.9 trillion, which was over ten times GDP. Considered another way, the annual average growth of GDP from 1981 to 2007 was 6.1 percent; the annual average growth of financial assets was 9.1 percent.

A more common group of statistics used to show the shift in the structure of the economy concerns debt. Debt, of course, is also a financial asset, a financial asset to the lending party. For the period 1981 to 2007 when GDP was growing at an annual average of 6.1 percent, total domestic debt was growing an annual average of 9.2 percent.

ROLE OF PATENTS

Evidence that the computer has increased the gap between the financial world and our understanding of it can be found at a place that at first glance seems odd: the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The USPTO issues patents not only for tangible things but also for a variety of intangibles, many of which fall under the rubric of “business methods.” How these controversial business methods patents came about is a story in itself, a story that is ongoing but that is well beyond subject at hand. Suffice it to say that some patents issued for business methods support the assertion that the computer, the foundation of the Information Age, is not a totally benign instrument.

Remember Lehman Brothers? Its failure last September brought the growing financial problems front and center. Like many organizations in contemporary high finance, Lehman Brothers had been assigned patents for financial “inventions.” Presumably, Lehman Brothers and its fellow patentees were proud of their “inventions.” One of Lehman’s patents, issued in August 2007, was entitled “Methods and Systems for Analyzing and Predicting Market Winners and Losers.” The patent involved massaging, with a computer program, performance and volume data for securities. Perhaps this particular computer program wasn’t quite up to snuff, eh Lehman?

In December 2007, JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., whose parent would rescue Bear Stearns a few months later, received a patent for a computer-implemented financial model involving asset-backed commercial paper. The model produced lower estimates of the liquidity—backup cash—allegedly needed to support a portfolio of assets financed in the commercial paper market. But insufficient liquidity has proven to be central to the current economic troubles. Some patent, huh JP?

Other notable Wall Street denizens that hold patents on alleged computerized improvements to high finance include Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Barclays Bank, and Credit Suisse First Boston. Big name Wall Street firms are not the only players. For example, IBM has a patent for a method to analyze financial derivatives. The Trustees of Columbia University have a patent for providing “Robust” investment portfolios. Indeed, with business methods patents in the financial field as sources, a decent history of the current financial predicament could be attempted.

The problem would be comprehending those sources. The patents are rife with dense mathematical and statistical jargon. For example, IBM’s patent for analyzing financial instruments describes a process involving the calculation of first and second density functions, calculus integration, and “a convex superposition of mutually-translated delta functions.”

Incidentally, IBM does not really like business methods patents, having railed against them on a number of occasions. But for defensive reasons Big Blue plays the game, and does so quite well.

The point is not to blame the world’s current financial difficulties on patents. The patents are just evidence of how the enormous computational power of the computer has been used to construct a financial system that we mere mortals do not understand and that is now crumbling.

Welcome to the Information Age. What’s next on the agenda?

VIRGINIANS AND GIBBERISH

Virginians used to have an extraordinary facility with the English language. There was Thomas Jefferson, who wrote, among other things, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

And there was Patrick Henry, who succinctly stated “Give me Liberty or give me Death.”

And there was even Henry Howell, who castigated the monied powers with “Keep the Big Boys honest.”

Do any Virginians today have a comparable grasp of language? If any do, they are not to be found in the state legislature or Department of Taxation. For several years, Virginia taxpayers have had to deal with something called Special Fixed Date Conformity adjustments. A simple description of exactly what those are, or of the concept behind them, has not been provided, at least in any place that is readily evident.

Then there is the AFAGI, or adjusted federal adjusted gross income. This is defined on page 9 of the 2008 Virginia 760 Resident Individual Income Tax Booklet as “the taxpayer’s federal adjusted gross income, modified for any fixed date conformity adjustments, and reduced by any taxable Social Security and Tier 1 Railroad Benefits.”

Virginia, how far she has fallen.

HE KEPT US SAFE

Defenders of W, the outgoing President, 43, Bush 2, Cheney’s mouthpiece, say that whatever his mistakes, at least he kept us safe.

This is ludicrous. Whoever happened to be President on September 11, 2001, would have “kept us safe.” Al Gore, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Bill Clinton, Elmer Fudd (wait, he was President), any semi-competent individual would have “kept us safe.” The world changed on that day. Domestic security didn’t just step up a notch, it expanded exponentially. And it would have done so no matter who was in charge.

You think George was the only guy or gal under whom you would be taking off your shoes in order to board a plane? You think only George perceived the need to increase border security, to better monitor potential domestic terrorists, to make the CIA talk to the FBI?

Who was the enemy on September 11? A bunch of guys with box cutters who took over airplanes and crashed them into buildings. This tactic didn’t even survive until noon on that awful day, and it wasn’t George who led the way in countering it. A handful of citizens on the fourth hijacked plane gave their lives, but they prevented their plane from being used as a missile. The box cutter-airplane-building tactic worked for a few hours one morning, but a repeat is unlikely.

Would another President’s expanded domestic security program have taken a different shape? At the margins, certainly. And with more concern about Constitutional niceties, hopefully. But anyone who thinks things would have returned to pre-9/11 conditions has a screw loose. Whoever the President, a massive expansion of domestic security programs would have occurred, and their short-term success would have been very probable.

The world remains an unsafe place. The real dangers are not guys with box cutters but guys with nukes or germs. Preventing the bad guys from getting their hands on these types of weapons is the challenge for the years and decades ahead.

In the domestic security field, W deserves credit for doing his job, for doing what any competent individual in that position would have done. But implying that he did something extraordinary is nonsense

SO WHERE HAS CRANKY BEEN?

So where has Cranky been? Well, he’s been on Sabbatical. He observed that election we just came through. And he watched his modest investments become his pathetic investments. And he attempted to offset his financial decline through a new profession: document reviewer. And he contemplated the meaning of it all.

As for the election, wasn't it great how the party of self-righteousness, narrow-mindedness, incompetence, and anti-intellectualism got its comeuppance? I mean really, the Republican party of today is not the broad tent of Cranky's youth, which was back in the 1950s. Maybe the defeat will help it find itself and reconnect with the center of American society, culture, and economics.

Concerning the financial turmoil, the important question is, have we reached the bottom? That is also the unanswerable question. How did we get here? Well how about greed, ideological rigidity on the part of a sizeable portion of the nation's leadership, and stupidity? Wait, weren't similar characteristics in the preceding paragraph?

And document review? This is the unpleasant underbelly of the legal profession. It is a product of the computer age. Computers may have eliminated a tiny bit of paperwork, but their electronic records have made up the difference and added exponentially more garbage to the world. So big legal cases require worker bees to wade through hundreds of thousands—even millions—of assorted computer detritus: emails, memoranda, spreadsheets, whatall. The worker bees are an eclectic group of recent law school graduates, part-timers, between-jobbers, trying-to-find-themselves’ers, retirees, and other assorted riff-raff. They sit at computer terminals on long tables, supervised by young lawyers talented enough to get hired by a big time law firm but inexperienced enough to barely have a clue. But the pay ain’t bad, the jobs are temporary, and you get to see how the upper crust lives.

As for the meaning of it all, maybe another Sabbatical is in order.

THINGS THE CANDIDATES SHOULD STOP SAYING

McCain:

“My friends.” I ain’t your friend, John. I’m just a cranky old man like you.

“Maverick.” James Garner was Maverick. Tom Cruise was Maverick (in Top Gun). You just have trouble getting along with your peers.

Obama:

“I’ll go through the federal budget line-by-line.” No you won’t. You have a whole bureaucracy for that, the Office of Management and Budget. Stop making the federal government sound simple. It ain’t and never will be.

“Deregulation caused our problems.” No it didn’t. The sectors of the financial industry that caused our problems—investment banks, hedge funds, private equity funds, mortgage brokers—weren’t deregulated. They couldn’t have been because they were never subject to much regulation in the first place.

Biden:

“I’m from the heartland of America, Scranton, Pennsylvania.” With all due respect to Scranton, we’ve gotta have a better heartland than that.

Palin:

Everything. The voice, the inflections, the dropped gs, remind us of (1) the movie Fargo and (2) the current droppin' gs President, and ya betcha ya know where he has taken us.