Twin Rocks, Oregon

And now for something completely different …

I stumbled over a singer I’d never heard of
before – named Shawn Mullins (a decent
Irish sounding name -even if his parents
didn’t know how to properly spell his name
as Sean!)

He has a piece – part poem, part song – that
intrigued me.  It starts off with a passing
reference to Richard Brautigan – who wrote
“Trout Fishing In America” back in the 1960’s.
I read it then and had not heard of him since.

Twin Rocks, Oregon

If you get a chance to listen, leave a comment
to let me know how you liked it – especially any of
you Irish, and particularly the Mullin clan!

Obama, the Smart Shopper!

Although various politicians have denigrated the citizens
who actively participated in the April 15th “Tea Party” protests
as fringe elements or an “unhinged mob”, the majority of
Americans supported the protests, while the mainstream media
outlets gave it sparse notice, and were often quite disparaging.

Not surprisingly, President Obama took notice, and in his first
full cabinet meeting, he announced that the government agencies and
departments were going to cut $100 million dollars in government
spending (from the $4 trillion planned for this year!!).

Here’s another way to look at it. If you had 40,000 piles of money,
each with enough hundred and thousand dollar bills to make a
pile of $100 million dollars, you would be looking at $4 trillion dollars
(and you could proudly say to everyone – put it on my tab!!!).

Rotten Eggs: Bad Drywall from China?

WAIT! No – don’t tell me….let me guess. Another basic, garden variety,
low-tech product made in China at an amazing low cost, by using
low wages, shoddy practices, and substandard or illegal materials.

But bad drywall??? What could possibly go wrong with plasterboard?
How about a constant rotten-egg sulfur smell – like hidden Easter eggs
that were not found for a few months.

This story appears similar to to previous stories where Chinese product defects
only came to light when:

• – children started dying (melamine in powdered milk)
• – children got sick (chemically tainted toothpaste, lead paint on toys)
• – people died in car crashes (tread separation on defective tires)

The list goes on and on. Western companies aided their own destruction
by investing hundreds of millions of dollars in new Chinese factories to take
advantage of the wage disparity. Unfortunately, it seems that the Chinese do
not as a whole share our traditions of trying to create the best product at the
lowest cost; the Chinese ethos seems to be “create the lowest cost product
regardless of the consequences.”

Europe Syndrome in America?

Last month Charles Murray gave a speech to the American Enterprise Institute titled:
        “Europe Syndrome”

It’s a good speech, and I would have liked to hear him deliver it in person.

Many of you might remember Randy Pausch – the Carnegie Mellon professor who developed terminal cancer. He gave his last speech “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams” to a packed hall filled with students and friends, and before dying he expanded it into a best-selling book “The Last Lecture.”

Charles Murray’s speech was equally compelling to me, but discusses the “meaning of life” concept from a different perspective.