To The Rescue

Yesterday I used some of my VTOP (Volunteer Time Off with Pay) time at the Denver Rescue Mission's warehouse.  I brought a friend, a management consultant from Accenture, and together we packed boxes of canned goods from piles and piles of donated items.

The good:  we put together perhaps a dozen boxes.  I am grateful to my employer.  VTOP is not necessarily common in the corporate world, and if each employee's fully-loaded cost runs $50/hour and each of the 2000+ employees donates the alloted eight hours per year my employer is donating $800,000, a pretty nice chunk of change.

The warehouse acts as a distribution center.  Volunteers sort items into boxes (for example, 48 cans of vegetables) that are loaded onto pallets and then onto trucks and then onto food pantries throughout the Denver metro area.

People donate all kinds of things.  For example, glass jars of pasta sauce, or those cardboard soup containers (just add hot water).  Those items cannot be safely shipped, so they are used in the local kitchens.  Some people donate bottled water.  This is not useful; Denver's water is clean and plentiful and basically free, bottled water can come from anywhere and contain anything; most importantly, water has no nutritional value.

The Rescue Mission uses an automated, though puzzling and isolated, scheduling system.  The web-site presents a customized, Javascript-free form that displays volunteering opportunities and allows folks to register.  The opportunity that interested me showed 18 open slots a month back.  I signed up and indicated a party size of one.  Then a few days before my shift I decided to invite my friend.  I returned to the website and tried to increase my party size to two.  The website rejected my request, informing me the offering was full.  I sent an email to the address on the page asking for special dispensation, which was granted the next day.  When we arrived at the warehouse we were by ourselves.  I wonder what became of the other 17 people?  And, the shift manager had no idea we were coming.

The not-so-good:  I'm not sure how valuable my contribution was.  I helped pack a dozen boxes, perhaps a week's worth of food for a few families.  The warehouse was full of pallets of from-the-factory boxes of food, such as Campbell's soup.  Maybe 10% of the food in the warehouse was from the one-off contributions that folks drop in cans and boxes scattered throughout the metro area.  My friend and I wondered whether our volunteer hours would not be better spent hounding the Campbells and Krafts of the world to donate more food, such food already being uniformly boxed and labeled and ready for distribution.  Or better spent lobbying Congress for larger food stamp benefits, so families can shop for exactly the kind of food they want to eat, when they want to eat it.

And, even if the drop-boxes are worthwhile, my friend and I were eager to apply our professional skills to the problem.  He dabbles in supply-chain management and has colleagues who have been doing nothing but supply-chain fifty hours per week for the last twenty years.  I enjoy wringing efficiencies out of anything.  The packing was complicated.  Vegetables go in this box, but tomatoes go in that box, and tomato _sauce_ goes in a third box, and the 15 ounce cans cannot be mixed with the 25 ounce cans, except for soup, where the 25 ounce cans are loaded on the bottom and are topped by 15 ounce cans.  Beans are separate, and pork and beans are not beans.  Sloppy joe mix is neither.  Could bar-code scanners and gravity-fed chutes streamline the effort?

My Lip

When I was a young man little was known, or at least little was spoken, about the dangers of sun exposure.  We knew that too much exposure meant sunburn and the goal was to stop right before reaching that point.  I remember debating between Coppertone 4 and Coppertone 6 at the CVS.  I do not recall ever seeing sunscreen for ones lips, perhaps it was available.

I mention sun exposure because the sore displayed on my lower lip in the photo above is the result of in-office Mohs surgery I endured three days prior, to remove a squamous-cell carcinoma.  77-year-old Dr. Schleve performed the procedure.  Nice guy.  I have no choice but to trust him and no reason not to.  I mention his age because he offered the information and because he is the oldest practicing doctor I have met.  He could have said "67" and I would have believed that, too.

During the surgery the surgeon removes the tissue that appears cancerous, sends you back to the waiting room, and tests the removed portion.  If those tests show cancer on the edges then you return to the operating chair.  This continues until the tests no longer show cancer; I required the initial and a subsequent sit-down, roughly thirty minutes apart.

I have a low tolerance for pain and blood.  I can and have given blood and that is probably my limit.  I have fainted or nearly fainted three times.  One, when giving blood for the first time.  Two, watching the OB/GYN insert the epidural needle during the birth of my first child.  Three, watching the oral surgeon insert the needle before the removal of my daughter's wisdom teeth.

Recall that Mohs surgery can consist of one or more "sessions" and that I had two.  During each the surgeon used heat to cauterize the blood vessels that were bleeding.  I could hear the sizzle and smell the burning.  Between sessions I sat in the waiting room.  I could hear the office sound system:  a portable boom-box tuned to KOSI 101, which plays only Christmas music (without a DJ) between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  I do not object to Christmas music, but I object to listening to a radio station when the office can subscribe to ad-free internet radio for ten bucks per month.  I think they should be able to manage that expense.

My wife accompanied me because I wanted the company and did not know if I would be feeling well enough to drive (it was borderline).  That I was here at all was her fault.  My lip had been chapping on-and-off for six months, always in that one spot, even during the Summer when the air is moist.  She repeatedly asked me to have a doctor look at it, and I did.

That dermatologist identified the spot on my lip, and two other spots on my face, as possibly basal-cell carcinoma.  Her recommendation, which I accepted, was to freeze them off.  While that diagnosis was ultimately incorrect I find no fault with her.  At the time she said it was not a firm diagnosis, that additional tests would be necessary if the symptoms returned, and there was no risk to the treatment.  So, because of my wife, a stranger was applying liquid nitrogen to my lip.

That took a full week to heal and a few weeks later my lip again started chapping.  I scheduled another appointment, then another with a different office because the original office had a one month wait.  In this second office the dermatologist recommended a biopsy.  That seemed reasonable, so I assented, and he took a chunk out of my lip for that purpose.  So, another week of recovery.  His office called to alert me to the finding of squamous-cell carcinoma and scheduled me with Dr. Schleve.

It is now fifteen days after the surgery.  For pain relief I have been taking ibuprofen:  six, 200mg tablets each day, tapering off but also fluctuating higher.  After three days the pain was reduced to the point that I was able to enjoy Thanksgiving with the first brined turkey I had ever made.  However, a few days later it increased to the point that I was miserable.  It decreased again for a few days, now it is a little worse.  I visisted Dr. Schleve yesterday for a routine follow-up and he said it will be another two weeks, though I recall he originally said a total of three weeks of recovery time.

For most of my adult life I have been pretty diligent about applying sunscreen, though less diligent than my very fair-skinned wife.  I imagine this experience will keep me on the wagon.

Book review: The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty

Authored by Dan Ariely in 2012 (ISBN 978-0-06-218359-0).

The enjoyable short book could have been shorter if presented as a wiki page.  I believe I can summarize it as follows.

The author, a professor with Duke University, asks how we can predict cheating:  what encourages and discourages it.  He and colleagues from various schools set up experiments to find out.

He starts with SMORC, the Simple Model of Rational Crime, which posits that all of us cheat when it is in our rational interest to do so.  The theory is most likely incorrect because it predicts much more cheating and crime than actually exists.  All of us encounter situations where stealing would be easy and nearly risk-free, and yet we do not.  Ariely suggests we do not because we like to think of ourselves as good people and cheating makes that difficult.  He then extends his approach:  we are likely to cheat if we can do so and still think well of ourselves.

His team developed a test, called the matrix test, where participants are asked to perform a mathematical operation upon twenty matrices within a certain amount of time.  The control group completes the test and submits the results to a proctor who tallies the results and pays based on the number of completed matrices.  The average participant completes seven matrices (scores 7) in the given time.

Next, another group takes the same test but tallies the results themselves, puts the test sheets into a shredder, walks to another room, states the number of completed matrices, and receives payment.  If SMORC were an accurate view of the universe then all the subjects in this test should state "20" as the completed number, because that is the number that maximizes return and still has zero risk.  Yet, under these circumstances, these subjects on average answer 9 correctly (score 9):  more than the control group, and so cheating is for sure occurring, but less than predicted by SMORC.

Ariely and his colleagues repeat this test under many conditions, described below.

1) Vary the amount of money paid for each correct answer, ranging from 25 cents to 10 dollars.  One might assume that cheating would increase as the amount to be gained increased, yet it had no effect.  If anything slightly less cheating occurred with the higher reward amounts.

2) Tire the subjects.  Allow both sets of subjects to shred their tests before collecting their pay.  Before the matrix test give both groups a writing test, with the control group not allowed to use the letters X and Z (not so difficult) and the other group not allowed to use the letters E and N (pretty difficult).  Mentally fatigued subjects cheated more.  (Related, though not Ariely's research:  parole boards are more likely to grant parole during early-morning cases and cases presented immediately after lunch, presumably when the board members possess more energy.)

3a) Reduce the role of the proctor.  The proctor gives instructions and answers questions but the money is dispensed by a person in another room.  Under these conditions the non-control group states, on average, 10 solved matrices (score of 10), 3 more than the control group and 1 more than the original non-control group.

3b) Give examples of dishonesty.  For the non-control group have an accomplice stand up at the beginning of the test and ask the proctor, in front of the other subjects, "can we not cheat by mis-stating our results?"  The proctor answers, "yes".  Under these conditions the non-control group scores 12 on average.

3c) Give examples of dishonesty.  For the non-control group have an accomplice stand up one minute after the test has started and say, out loud, "finished with all 20".  Plainly, this is not possible, but suggests to the others that cheating will not be caught AND that other people are cheating.  Under these conditions the average score was 15.  This situation Ariely labels the Madoff condition because the participants are taking social cues from an insider.

3d) Give examples of dishonesty.  These tests took place on the Carnegie Mellon University campus located in Pittsburgh, PA.  Also in the city is University of Pittsburgh, a rival school.  Now, repeat 3c, except the accomplice is wearing a "UPitt" T-shirt.  Under these conditions the average score was 9, even better (less cheating) than under the nominal 3a conditions.

The above results are consistent with Ariely's thesis, which is that all of us cheat to the extent we can justify it to ourselves.  The shenanigans on Wall Street, in Enron, and with doctors accepting perks from pharma representatives, are examples of normal people justifying immoral behavior by deceiving themselves.  The deceit is made easier if those hurt are unknown to the actor and the actor can create reasonable justifications.

"Create" from the previous sentence led Ariely to another set of experiments.  Dots were briefly presented on two sides of monitor and the participant is asked to choose the side with more dots.  More money was paid for answering one side or the other.  Of interest were the circumstances where the number of dots was very close.

All participants, before engaging in this test, took a personality test that measured creativity.  Again, two groups were created, one where cheating was not possible and one where it was.  Again, the group where cheating was possible scored higher than the control group.  Among the non-control, further, those with the highest creativity scored highest (cheated most).

These result are very discouraging.  Cheating is everywhere.  The most creative among us cheat more.  Observing examples of cheating lead to more cheating, a vicious circle.  What can be done?  Four things, according to Ariely, which I join into one:  immediate negative feedback.

Ariely identifies four countermeasures:  pledges, signatures, moral reminders and supervision.  Pledges and signatures should occur or be made before the activity commences.  For example, Ariely recommended to the IRS that the attestation be put at the top of the forms.  By the time the taxpayer has reached the bottom he or she will have already cheated (if at all) and will have justified it to himself or herself (if at all).  Moral reminders administered directly before taking tests seem to lessen cheating.  And, contemporaneous supervision leads to less cheating:  in one version of the matrix test the non-control group was still permitted to shred their results and self-state their payment, but while taking the test they were observed by another participant (who then took the test while the first participant watched).  In these non-control groups no cheating was observed.

Book review: To Kill A Mockingbird

Authored by Harper Lee in 1960 and winner of the Pulitzer prize.

I read this book thirty years ago and this past month.  My eighth-grade daughter received it as an assignment, much as I did.  I did not remember the plot at all, which is surprising, because this is a great book!

Set in fictional Southern Maycomb in the 1930s, Ms. Lee narrates from the point of view of an adolescent girl, Scout.  I recall reading an essay by Richard Rhodes, author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb, who said the writer's first step is to determine the voice with which to tell the story:  first-person, third-person omniscient, etc.  Rhodes authored The Donner Party from the point of view of various journal entries from the doomed travelers.

The author is playful with her language and one can hear the quaint, "backwards" Southern mannerisms and speech patterns, and some of the people of Maycomb county were low-life bigots, but the author plainly respects her characters.  I finished my read with a really warm feeling for the main characters:  so full of goodness.

Book review: Little America

Authored by Rajiv Chandrasekaran in 2012 (ISBN 978-0-307-95714-6).

This work, subtitled "the war within the war for Afghanistan", summarizes the United States' progress in Afghanistan since 2001.  Or, progress in Afghanistan since 1946, when Mohammed Zahir Shah, the then-king of Afghanistan, launched a effort to modernize his country and increase its (and his) influence.  He invited American contracting company Knudsen-Morrison, which had recently completed the Hoover Dam, to build canals (for irrigation) and dams (for irrigation and electricity).  The effort was barely successful because the land identified for irrigation and crops was too shallow to hold enough water for sustained agriculture.  The phrase "Little America" refers to the new city built by Knudsen for its contractors and their families, complete with swimming pools and movie theaters, in the middle of the desert.  Good intentions leading to ...

... a subsequent American effort in the early 2000s, continuing today, to both improve the lot of ordinary Afghanis and prevent the Taliban and Al-Queda from using Afghanistan as a terrorist training camp.  We have seen mixed success on the second item, as our military activities have kept the Taliban on the run, though at tremendous cost in dollars, lives, and soldiers' legs.  On the first, helping Afghanis, we have done little.

First, attempting to encourage Western-style democracy is likely hopeless.  Unlike Iraq, which had a functioning (if despotic) civil administration under Saddam Hussein, Afghanistan has never had anything like that.  Most citizens are farmers possessing only a vague familiarity with hospitals, schools or electricity.  There are few natives who have experience as mayors, hospital administrators, water board officials, public utility commissions or school superintendents.  The government of Hamid Karzai is understood to be corrupt and inefficient and preferred only when the other option presented is the Taliban.  In short, bringing Western-style democracy, even if desired by Afghanis, represents a formidable challenge.

That challenge is made worse by the parties that are implementing it:  the U.S. State Department and the Department of Defense.  In these pages author Chandrasekaran catalogs the ineptitude, waste and senseless conflict between these two organizations.  Private contractors brought in to perform bits and pieces of the task perhaps do slightly better.  The problem is human:  we are fallible, and when lots of us get together to accomplish some task we make lots of mistakes.  The U.S. government is enormous and is just not effective at most tasks because of its size.  Private contractors are smaller and can, under some circumstances, operate more effectively.  But even here, the scale and size necessary to work in an undeveloped country half a world away means bureaucracy no matter whether the actor is public or private.  Add to this the normally short-sighted American voter who (rationally) distrusts his or her government and it is hard to see how any President, including Bush and Obama, could be successful here.

This book could have been shorter.  It would have at least been less depressing.  Kudos to the author, a reporter for the Washington Post, for the hard work necessary to uncover these facts.

Book review: Electrified Sheep

Authored by Alex Boese in 2011 (ISBN 978-1-250-00753-7).

Scientific experiments range from the mundane to the bizarre.  This volume spends all of its time on the bizarre end of the spectrum.

The title refers to one of the earlier experiments in electricity where scientists were determining the voltage and amperage necessary to kill a sheep.  Sounds cruel, and it was, but in most of these experiments runs at least a trace, perhaps even a swath, of legitimacy:  how dangerous is electricity to humans.  After running electricity through mice, birds, rabbits, turkeys, foxes and sheep and measuring survival scientists are able to gauge the threshold for humans.  By trying to revive electrocuted animals we can learn what techniques might revive people, too.  Houses with newly-invented lightning rods, with animals inside, were struck.

In fairness, many of these scientists intentionally ran electricity through themselves for a number of reasons:  curiosity, bravado or a lack of animals (there are presently no mice, birds, rabbits, turkeys, foxes or sheep in my house, for example).

Plants, too, received jolts.  They were generally more resistant than animals, at least to the point immediately prior to igniting.  Some experimenters thought they observed increased growth from electrified plants and these observations led to experiments with animals and, eventually children.  Yes, children, and the first experimental result were promising until it was discovered that "overzealous" nurses were placing the largest babies in the cribs carrying current.

The atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were terrifying for Japan.  They also upset military planners here:  what is someone dropped on of those things on us, or on our battleships?  No one knew, and while physical damage would be easy enough to measure the Navy also wanted to know how its crew would fare.  Pretty well it turned out, at least initially.  Animals at ground zero of course died, but those further out seemed to be fine.  Read more about the bomb here, and about the bathing suit it inspired.) Little was known at that time regarding the long-term nature of radiation poisoning.  The U.S. military was elated, until ...

... Sputnik.  The Russians were now ahead, having beaten us into space, and we needed to counter the negative public relations emanating from that defeat.  We were still ahead in nuclear weaponry, but publicly-announced A-bomb explosions were becoming passé.  However, no one had ever exploded a weapon on the moon!  Now, that would be something.  A young Carl Sagan and other scientists were charged with the planning.  As large as a hydrogen bomb explosion is, the moon is very, very far away.  The portion of the moon that we see is quite bright when compared with the nighttime sky and an explosion would barely be visible.  Exploding a device on the edge of the visible moon would help, but eventually the project was scrapped.  The Russians had considered the effort, too, but wondered about a failed launched that sent a bomb "spiraling" back to earth instead of the moon.  They considered it too politically risky; no word on whether U.S. military officials considered that possibility too risky, or if they considered that possibility at all.

As a consolation prize, if you will, the U.S. military was permitted to explode a nuclear device in the Van Allen belts (which are responsible for Earth's magnetic field and which also shield us from certain harmful solar radiation).  They started planning the day after James Van Allen discovered them and gave his approval which, according to historian James Fleming, represented "a unique instance in which a scientist discovered something and immediately decided to blow it up".  The military did not attempt to keep the effort secret (they wanted the publicity and, in any event, it would be too conspicuous to hide).  Scientists and pacifists around the world howled protests but the military assured that belts would be back to normal within a few days or weeks.  It was a spectacular show:  1/3 of the currently orbiting satellites were crippled, the magnetic field around Hawaii was shifted by 1/3 of a degree for 30 minutes, power lines fused, and the Van Allen belts did not return to normal for over one year.  Because we liked satellites we agreed with the Russians to no longer test nuclear devices above ground.

Speaking of radiation risk, I live in Denver which, based on this analysis (enhanced radiation exposure from the high-altitude sun above the sky and uranium below the ground, perhaps should be evacuated).

Author Boese treads over sociology experiments I have described to a small degree in another post but provides additional details.  Picture the scene:  you arrive promptly at the appointed time for an experiment in visual perception.  Seated next to you are other participants and a guy or gal in a white lab coat.  The lab-coat person explains the experiment:  everyone will be shown two boards, one with three lines, one with one line.  The subjects' task is to identify on the three-line board which line equals the length of the line on the single-line board.  You happen to be last in the circle.  Go.  The first subject looks at the boards and says "B".  Each subject answers the same way until it is your turn and, indeed, line B is the same length (answers "A" and "C" are not even close).  The lab-coat presents the next pair of boards and again everyone provides the same answer.  And again.  On the fourth round the first subject chooses the wrong answer.  You can plainly see that but it is not your turn to speak.  The second subject repeats the answer.  What's happening, you ask yourself?  Everyone in turn answers incorrectly (unknown to you, they are in cahoots with the lab-coat), and now it is your turn.  How do you answer?

If you are like 75% of the subjects in Solomon Asch's study you answer incorrectly, intentionally, in conformance with the group.  We like to please.  In another experiment locals were willing to give to tourists directions to non-existent hotels:  oh, yes, I know where the Hotel Monaco is, that will be three blocks down this street and turn left.  This, even though there is no Hotel Monaco, and these locals were being genuine because, when later asked for directions to a real hotel they gave helpful and correct answers.  In another experiment more than 90% of respondents had an opinion on the merits of the "Federal Metallic Metals Act" (good idea, bad idea, should be left to the individual states, etc.) even though there was no such act.

I started this review with electricity experiments and noted that, in addition to electrifying other living things scientist would also jolt themselves.  I conclude with additional "do-it-yourselfers", as Boese labels them, in three fields:  operation, painful sensation, and digestion.

Today doctors rarely operate on themselves.  However there are reported cases, even in the days before anesthesia, usually men removing gall bladder stones through "holes" created by previous surgeries performed third-person.  After anesthesia the possibilities abounded.  Cocaine was one of the first local anesthetics. Sigmund Freud used it frequently, but not locally (the word today might be addict).  Experimenters would inject cocaine into their colleagues spinal column and then plunge a needle into the leg, up to the bone, to verify its pain-killing effect.  Surgeons undergoing scheduled surgery might become impatient or bored and announce to the assembled:  I will be performing this surgery myself; nurse, hand put some pillows behind my head and hand me a scalpel.  Many an appendix was removed in this manner.  The surgeon might sew up at the end or have another doctor do so, depending on that surgeon's standard practice when operating on someone else.

Painful sensation research covered the gamut:  having a research partner sever nerves in your arm; squeeze your testicles; inject saline at various points throughout the body; bring a vehicle traveling near the speed of sound to a standstill in one second; allow a tarantula (not a big deal) or black widow spider (nearly causing death) bite you; hang you.

Self-digestion research included "all manner" of objects:  edible or not, perhaps toxic.  In the the late 1700s little was known about digestive mechanisms.  How were nutrients absorbed?  Was the food crushed?  Decomposed?  To test crushing experimenters would place food into perforated wooden capsules before swallowing.  When the capsules emerged from the "the other end" the food was gone, meaning the food was not crushed.  Next, food was eaten and then vomited; the vomit was placed to the side, next to the same food dropped in a glass of water.  After three days the food in the vomit was gone whereas the food in the water was not, though it was rotted.  So, stomach juices were therefore responsible for digestion, not decomposition.  Wooden-capsule-enclosed food was sometimes extracted from feces and sent for another trip, to measure digestion time for various edibles.  And, not just food:  metal or glass balls, for example.  Tapeworms (which yielded valuable insights for treatment).  And, vomit, from the victims of yellow fever.  This last experiment, which did not harm the swallower, was a step along the path to identifying the transmission vector:  mosquito bites.

Book review: Polar Star

Authored by Martin Cruz Smith in 1989 (ISBN 0-394-57819-8).

This was a riveting piece of fiction takes place on the frozen seas of the Bering Straight and points further north.  Set just before the dissolution of the Soviet Union, it provides an unflattering vision of that country and Communism's economic quota system.

I heartily recommend it; it will cause me to read Gorky Park, subject of a feature-length movie and the prequel to this volume.

Book review: Unfamiliar Fishes

Authored by Sarah Vowell in 2011 (ISBN 978-1-59448-787-3).

When the United States invaded Iraq in 2003 some U.S. citizens were outraged:  this is not who we are or what we stand for.  On the contrary, persuades Ms. Vowell, invading Iraq was merely the latest in a string of American "interventions" since the late 19th century.

Vowell's unusual style weaves historical fact with present-day fact.  Whereas typical historians leave research notes to page-bottom or end-notes this author presents them in the text, for example:

When I was browsing through a box of papers belonging to Abner Wilcox, a Connecticut-born proselytizer on the island of Kauai, I found a memo he received in 1838 from the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions asking its missionaries scattered around the globe to send back to Boston items for a cabinet of curiosities they were assembling at headquarters, including "warlike weapons" because "these convey a vivid idea of the savageness of heathenism, and impress the beholder with the reality of dark places of the earth, which are full of the habitations of cruelty."

and

I took a guided tour led by Mike Smola, the museum's affable tour coordinator.  After hitting the highlights about the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions and discussing Henry Obookiah ...

Before reading this book I understood only vaguely how Hawaii came to be the 50th United State.  I thought it joined us before Alaska (though I now see it joined a few months after); I knew that white people settled there before settling in Colorado, even though more than 2000 miles of water separates it from California.  I guess I thought that commercial interests drew Hawaii and the mainland closer and closer until joining made sense.  There is a certain truth to that version, but the driving force was Christian missionary work originating from Boston.

Before the arrival of missionaries there was no written Hawaiian language.  The missionaries created one and endeavored to teach it to all Hawaiian children.  They created a Hawaiian-language version of the Bible.  They preached on Sundays in Hawaiian.  Tolerant though they were of non-English languages, they fought hard against idolatry, scandalous dress (think loincloths), and bigamy.  Over the years their presence and numbers grew.  Because of their education and experience Hawaiian kings would include them in their government.  Their power grew and their focus shifted from saving souls to Sunday-only Christianity and business pursuits.  They became haole.

Power was nominally still in the hands of Hawaiians but the haole were paying the bulk of the taxes.  They observed that more money could be made with a more right-thinking government in charge.  Simultaneously the United States, under President Grover Cleveland, eyed Hawaii as a convenient Naval re-fueling station.  Although he would not move against the native Hawaiian government, his successor William McKinley would, and in the midst of another imperialist exercise in Guam the United States annexed Hawaii "to protect her from subversive elements" (namely, Hawaiians).

The missionaries' and mercantilists' view of Hawaii and Hawaiians was laughably inaccurate and sadly racist.  Yet the author is sympathetic to the missionaries' urge to do good.  They really believed they were saving the Hawaiians from hell; they really did influence the ending of certain practices that were unfair to women and the poor.

It strikes me that these missionaries were the original tax-and-spend liberals, though from a parallel universe, if you will.  Before the missionaries set foot on Hawaiian soil there were problems to be solved there, problems that likely would not be solved for some time.  Similarly in 2012 the United States contains terrible inequalities.  For reasons that can debated there are, within America's own borders, children and adults that do not eat enough nutrition, who are poorly educated and who have less access to medical care.  Even the most conservative among us will admit that.  The argument is really over what should be done.  Tax-and-spend liberals urge government intervention while conservatives favor free-market solutions for on emotional and practical grounds.  Emotionally they feel that they did not cause the problem and they are therefore not obligated to fix it.  Practically, they observe that few government interventions succeed:  the United States spends more than $2 trillion each year attempting to solve the problems described above, yet they remain unsolved.  A liberal will say that current failure is no reason to give up, a conservative will counter ....

That debate need not be resolved here (as if I could).  Rather, I see a familiar pattern:  one group of people urging a government/legal solution to a perceived problem (heathenism).  That group, though, seems to also benefit from the solution and the solution itself comes with a new set of (unintended) problems.

This book will take you less than a full day to read.

Book review: Grand Pursuit

Authored by Sylvia Nasar in 2011 (ISBN 978-0-68487-298-8).  Ms. Nasar also authored "A Beautiful Mind", the movie version of which I quite enjoyed.


Nasar weaves personal histories of famous or influential economists with their economic theories.  These economists are not all that interesting, certainly not as interesting as the movie.  I found the theories mildly interesting and wonder still at humankind's inability to get it right:  poverty is everywhere, found mixed in close quarters with overflowing abundance.  What causes this?  Why, with all of our computer power, were we not able to predict the current economic slowdown?  Why are we not able to devise a plan to bring us out, quickly.  Or, is the problem really politics rather than economics?  In other words, are the solutions well understood by some group of economists but their advice and wisdom is twisted by interest groups?


Economist Paul Samuelson was quoted as saying:  "Wall Street indexes predicted nine out of the last five recessions!"  He was criticizing some economist or economists who were pointing at this indicator or that as being useful.  He knew the correct indicators were and are ....  In my opinion, no one seems to know.  Sure, there are some economists who make predictions that come true, and may even do so a few times in a row, but then?  I think they are just lucky, as the person who predicts a coin will flip to heads five times in a row and it does:  this will happen naturally 3% of the time.  My own joke is as follows:  "economists made five major predictions for the past year, nine of which were incorrect".

Book review: The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test

Authored by Tom Wolfe in 1968 (ISBN 978-0-312-42759-7).

Reading this book made me think that the phrase "drinking the Kool-Aid" originated from San Francisco parties in the late 1960s.  The Urban Dictionary thinks differently.  I wonder if Jim Jones came up with the idea for lacing Kool-Aid with poison on his own or whether he borrowed it from the Merry Pranksters.

This book is about recreational drug use (LSD, psilocybin, IT-290, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mescaline, dexedrine, benzedrine, DMT) in the 1960s and I picked it up mostly because I am a Tom Wolfe fan.  I struggled through the first parts with sequences like:

It was a fantasy world already, this electro-pastel world of Mom&Dad&Baddy&Sis in the suburbs.  There they go, in the family car, a white Pontiac Bonneville sedan -- the family car! -- a huge crasy god-awful-powerful fantasy creature to begin with, 327 horsepower, shaped like twenty-seven night of lubricious luxury brougham seduction -- you're already there, in Fantasyland, so why not move off your smug-harbor quilty-bed dead center and cut loose -- go ahead an say it -- Shazam! -- juice it up to what it's already aching to be:  327,000 horsepower, a whole superhighway long and soaring, screaming on toward ... Edge City, and ultimate fantasies, current and future ... Bill Batson said Shazam! and turned into Captain Marvel.

Being on vacation in the desert Southwest with libraries and bookstores scarce I pushed through to the end.

The source of the drugs was Ken Kesey, author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.  Part of that book was written under the influence of peyote and LSD.  Kesey recognized much of what he wrote under the influence as junk, but some was "true vision, a little of what you could see if you opened the doors of perception".  Kesey's introduction to psychedelic (renamed from "psychodelic" to remove the association with psychosis and mental illness) was accidental:  the Veterans Hospital in Menlo Park was paying $75 to those who would volunteer to receive psychomimetic drugs and undergo observation.  Tom Wolfe's claim-to-fame is bringing the investigative reporter's tenacity to the "non-fiction novel"; much of the material came from interviews with Kesey, who describes those first LSD trips as fantasies where he entered a "moment in his life and kn[ew] exactly what is happening to his senses now, at this moment, and with each new discovery it is as if he has entered into all of it himself, is one with it, the movie white desert of the ceiling becomes something rich, personal, his, beautiful beyond description".  The researchers were laboring with their own fantasies, namely, that they were doing research.  Sure, they were measuring heart rate and body temperature but the subjects were learning that much of our minds are shut and these drugs can open them.  Little children have difficulty separating reality from fantasy as they have meager experience with reality (magic, for example, doesn't work on children less than five; disappearing from one side of the stage and re-appearing on the other seems just as possible as anything else to them).  The researchers' use of terms like "dissociative phenomena" is the layperson's use of the term Higgs Boson particle, which is not a particle but rather a field.  If you do not have the mathematically-inclined mind to understand what a particle field is (and I do not) then a Scientific American article provides little help.  How could these researchers grasp what the "subjects" were experiencing if what they were experiencing amounted to entering a mind that was a combination of toddler and adult?

Kesey was popular, and not just because he was a supplier, and not just because he supplied for free, and not just because he was well-built and handsome.  He comes across as a really nice guy, wanting to open minds and help everyone get along.  He was married with three young children and probably as involved in family life as at least some fathers in the 1960s.  Word of Kesey spread and various young people appeared, wanting to try LSD.  Kesey eventually moved to La Honda, California and invited his new-found friends to join him.  The group named themselves the Pranksters, or Merry Pranksters, for the harmless jokes they enjoyed playing, while high, on sober people.  They occupied themselves, high or sober with two main pursuits.  One was "the bus", a 1939 International Harvester school bus that they painted and re-painted in Day-Glo colors.   The second was music and sound and video systems -- they positioned microphones and amplifiers all over the La Honda property and the bus.  Most played instruments of some kind, few played well, but being high on LSD meant the enjoyment came from the feedback of the sound systems and the enhancement of the hallucinations rather than melodies and harmonies.  Neal Cassady and the Pranksters drove that bus across the country.  Wolfe does not use the word "miracle", but I will, to describe the lack of fatalities or even serious injuries.

Around the same time (former) Harvard professor Timothy Leary was experimenting with LSD, too.  He would retreat to his house in the Hudson River valley, hand out LSD to students and consume some himself, and record the results.  He received harsh criticism and hunkered down; when the "bus" rolled up his driveway he refused to visit with the Pranksters:  the Day-Glo bus with the Day-Glo dressed people and reverberating sound-system brought attention he certainly did not need.

There was also marijuana, which was illegal in California.  LSD was not, having only been recently invented and only a two or three dozen people knew of its existence.  Kesey was busted for possession and sentenced to six months on a work farm, plus probation.  He was caught again; a second conviction for possession earned the offender a five-year sentence, plus he violated his probation.  Rather than face trial he fled to Mexico.

Around this time the Pranksters (and others) started organizing "Trips Festivals":  renting a large hall in San Francisco or Los Angeles, inviting the public, collecting entrance fees, hooking up sound systems and strobe lights, and offering LSD, sometimes in the form of Kool-Aid in a punch bowl.

Kesey returns to the United States, grants an interview, says he will remain in the U.S. as salt-in-the-wound for Mr. Hoover (J. Edgar).  The FBI nabs him and now he is up for three felonies:  two marijuana possession charges and one for flight.  Kesey still had funds from his Cuckoo novel, movie and play and continued to retain top-flight representation.  Plus, he publicly forswore the continued use of drugs, stating during his time in Mexico the "enlightenment" movement had gone nowhere, proof that the drugs are not a sufficient and probably not a necessary condition.  His lawyers (remarkably) obtained bail on the unlawful flight charge, secured by Kesey's friend's properties, even though he is a proven flight risk.  The government seemingly calculated that either or both were true:  1) Kesey's new stance on drugs was genuine, 2) he would be discredited if he skipped bail and caused his friends to lose their homes.  The FBI drops the flight charge and a local California judge grants bails on the marijuana charges, stating that the matter is an ordinary drug case and of no great importance.

Kesey lived up to his promise and publicly encouraged the discontinuation of LSD, earning many Haight-Ashbury enemies in the process.  The last two public events Kesey participated in were LSD-free ... the Pranksters played their instruments (poorly) ... Kesey sang (poorly) ... and no one enjoyed it.

Book review: The Art of Deception

Authored by Kevin Mitnick in 2002 (ISBN 0-471-23712-4).

Mitnick served time:  68 months for various computer crimes, such as breaking into corporate computer networks.  It was never alleged that the benefited monetarily from theses actions, the exception being his obtaining free rides on the Los Angeles bus system by using a ticket punch.

The focus of this work is social engineering:  obtaining information from insiders that can be used in furtherance of crimes.  The bus system attack was an example.  He did not use any force; he merely asked a bus driver how the system worked, purchased a ticket punch, and extracted discarded slips from bus depot trash cans.

The thrust of his book is this:  much useful information is easily available for the taking and this information can be used to gain entrance to businesses and their computer systems.  Most businesses are not prepared and do not train their staff counter social engineering efforts.  The social engineer uses various methods, described below, to extract information and encourage actions that by themselves seem harmless but combined form an exploit.


Robert Cialdini has spoken of the six tactics one uses to persuade another:

1. reciprocation
2. liking
3. authority
4. scarcity
5. commitment/consistency
6. social proof

The first three figure prominently in the social engineer's arsenal.  Reciprocation refers to the human tendency to keep "accounts" of favors.  Most strong friendships are formed by high-activity, nearly balanced accounts of favors.  Similarly, few people enjoy owing favors to others; also, few people enjoy frequently performing favors for others with little expectation of being "repaid".  Many people enjoy being helpful and trusting because it results in credits to one's "account" and makes one seem competent.  Social engineers frequently get needed information merely by asking because most people are wanting to help.  It helps if the engineer presents as "likable".

"Authority" comes into play because people are naturally respectful and fearful of people in authority or apparent authority.

Engineering attack 1.

The engineer calls a local video store, says he is really pleased with the service, and wants to send a note of thanks.  What is the store manager's name?  And, the customer may want to send a note to headquarters as well, what is the this location's store number?

Over the next couple of weeks the engineer calls a different store location, impersonating the manager from the first store, asking innocent questions like "Do you have any copies of movie X?  If yes, I'll send this customer over, we are out of movie X."  Doing so establishes a rapport with the staff at that second location.

Then, the engineer calls that second store, again impersonating the manager from the first store, and claims that his computer system is down.  He has a customer wanting to rent a movie, he knows the customer's name and address.  Could they relay the customer's credit card number and expiration date they have on their computer system?

Analysis.  The con works because our natural inclination to trust is further enhanced by the fact that the caller appears to be an insider.  The fact that this "inside information" was in fact obtained from the outside is unknown to the victim.

Engineering attack 2.

It is 11am and a front-desk secretary is approached by a handsome, well-dressed gentleman who introduces himself as Rick Daggot and says he is here for his meeting with Larry.  The secretary is puzzled:  "Larry is out this week".  Mr. Daggot looks at his calendar, slaps his forehead and says "My mistake, wrong week.  I was supposed to speak with him about the C2Alpha project."  He books a return flight for later in the day and says "I have time before my flight, may I take you and other key people out for lunch?  Who should we invite?  Perhaps staff from I.T., Marketing and Accounting?"

They pile into cars and drive to the restaurant.  The table is not ready so they enjoy drinks at the bar.  Rick Daggot is paying.  At lunch he seems to know about the project and pumps the attendees for additional details:  the I.T. person about how the system is architected; the marketing person about PR strategies and roll-out dates; the accountant about costs and pricing.

The next day Rick calls the I.T. person.  Rick has just spoken with Larry and Larry wants Rick to send some materials via email.  Larry cannot reach his normal email address, please send the materials to this address instead ....

"Rick" then sells the information obtained to a competitor (or is himself a competitor).

Analysis.  Rick placed phone calls earlier to various staffers in the organization to find out when Larry would be on vacation.  He also used those phone calls to learn a little bit about the product.  He placed his reservations at the restaurant for the wrong time, ensuring "casual" discussion at the bar.

Book review: Eisenhower

Authored by Jim Newton (ISBN 978-0-385-52353-0).

I discovered a curious personal bias when I cracked open the book at home.  I had grabbed this volume from the new releases shelf at the local library.  Being a history buff my selection of this title was predictable.  "Jim Newton" I read.  Who is he?  His name appeared at the top of every-other-page, with "Eisenhower" printed on the other face.  No "Ph.D"?  No "Professor"?  Is this guy qualified to write a book?  What had I gotten myself into?

I endeavored to suspend judgment and found a book that I enjoyed to the level that I did not want to read it too fast, so as to prolong the enjoyment.  After finishing I glanced at the inside back cover and discovered that Mr. Newton is a reporter.  Normally I view reporters as masters of investigation and the one-sentence paragraph, but Mr. Newton, Mark Twain and Tom Wolfe are among the exceptions.

Eisenhower, I learned, has two commonly-understood legacies.  One, he alerted us to the military-industrial complex.  He coined this phrase and prescient warning in his farewell speech.  Two, he played President in between bridge games and rounds of golf.

The better view, according to this author, is that Eisenhower spent considerable effort to ensure that little happened.  On foreign relations, the economy and civil rights he was a devoted conservative at a time when that term meant caution and fair-mindedness rather than extremist as it does today.  He stuck to the middle ground on key issues such as Eugene McCarthy; the economy; Brown v. Board of Education; and communist expansion into Cuba, Iran, Korea and Laos.

Eugene McCarthy, U.S. Senator from Wisconsin, was a bully and anti-communist zealot.  Through a combination of thorough preparation, intensity and meanness he wielded terrible power from  to .  Some of Eisenhower's advisers urged him to speak out against McCarthy.  Eisenhower thought poorly of McCarthy.  Yet, he feared tangling with him on the belief that doing so might not be decisive and would instead allow McCarthy to draw even more attention and power.  The President worked behind the scenes, befriending those whom McCarthy attempted to smear and instructed his staff to not testify at the hearings, stating a never-before-used claim of executive privilege, namely that no one can be compelled to testify to advice given to the President, much like an attorney-client privilege.  No court ruled on that assertion because before the matter could be brought before a court McCarthy finally overstepped his bounds by badgering a clearly innocent witness.

Many times Eisenhower faced Communist aggression, or perceived aggression:  Cuba, Iran, Korea, Laos.  In each case nuclear weaponry was an option as the United States held a clear firepower advantage over the Soviets.  In each case he declined and instead met the threat with methods that have since been discredited:  military and financial aid and subterfuge, supporting regimes that, while not communist, could hardly be called benevolent.

I was only vaguely aware before this reading that Richard Nixon was Eisenhower's Vice-President.  The relationship was not warm.  Nixon was a controversial choice for Eisenhower's first presidential campaign and for his second.  When asked during his second race whether Nixon would remain on the ticket Eisenhower relayed his "admiration, respect and deep affection" for him.  Eisenhower, in fact, offered Nixon a way out, advising Nixon that if he desired to be President some way that his best course was to take a cabinet position, such as Secretary of Defense.  Vice-President are viewed as doing nothing, Eisenhower explained.  Eisenhower also noted that, should he die during his second term, Nixon would immediately rise to his chosen position.  What a bind for Nixon!

Even though Eisenhower was conservative his Supreme Court appointments were hardly so, with the bare exceptions of John Harlan II in 1954 and Potter Stewart in 1958.  Earl Warren (1953) and William Brennan (1956), on the other hand, were leading liberals.  And even though Eisenhower was conservative one of his lasting legacies is our interstate highway system.  He tapped General Lucius Clay from his wars years to lead the effort; Clay marveled at how the Germans used their autobahn to quickly moved war materiel.  Wanting to avoid a budget deficit he proposed gasoline taxes to pay for the 41,000 miles of roads (repeating California's approach for building its highway system).  Eisenhower:  tax-and-spend liberal.


Eisenhower's health was poor, or at least poorer than your typical American President.  (This chart shows the ages at death for all presidents.  Going back to Nixon presidents have died at ages 81, 93 and 93.  Still alive are presidents at ages 87 (Carter) and 88 (Bush I).)  Although Eisenhower lived 78 years he suffered two strokes while in office along with various other maladies that caused his Vice-President, Richard Nixon, to act in his stead on occasion.

Book review: Game Theory

Authored by Laszló Mérő in 1998 (ISBN 0-387-98418-4).

Let's play the dollar auction.  It's like any other, with the winning bid handing over the bid and collecting the thing to be auctioned.  But there is this difference:  the runner-up also hands over its bid, but gets nothing in return.  I am auctioning a dollar.  Go!

The reader might think this is a simple game and that I, as the auctioneer, will be losing some money shortly.  According to author Mérő the average winning bid is $3.40!  I intend to try it at my first large gathering (one needs a critical mass of potential bidders for it to be effective).


This was such a fun book, but also a difficult read, requiring two passes for me to write intelligently about it.

There are four basic games, which I list below in order of my familiarity with them.

Chicken.  One variation has two cars speeding towards a cliff, the first car to turn away loses.  Another variation has two cars speeding towards each other, again the first car to turn away loses.  Here, close cooperation yields the best result, if both players agree to turn off at the same time.  Strong competition yields the worst result.  The best strategy, given the assumption that the players are not allowed to scheme together, is to appear as irrational and suicidal as possible.

Prisoner's dilemma.  Two players together commit and crime and speed away in separate cars.  Both are stopped for speeding and subsequently arrested for the crime.  Neither has positive or negative feelings for the other, the partnership designed to last only for the length of the crime.  The prosecutor approaches each, separately, the following proposition.
I do not have a strong case for the crime unless one or both of you confesses, though I have an easy case on the speeding.  If you confess to the crime and implicate your partner I will set you free and he will receive a ten year jail sentence.  If he confesses and you do not you will be sentenced to ten years and he will walk free.  If you confess and he does also then your testimony will be less valuable to me and I will not set either of you free and will instead seek (and receive) a five year sentence.  If neither of you confesses then I have no evidence on the crime and each of you will receive a one-year sentence for the speeding.
The possible outcomes are:

1. The players cooperate with each other by confessing, each spends five years in jail.
2. The players compete with each other by refusing to confess, each spends one year in jail.
3. One player cooperates and the other competes; the cooperating player spends 10 years in the jail and the other walks free.

In this game mutual competition yields the best result.

Gift of the Magi.  A couple is planning their evening.  They lay out their preferences but then need to leave for work.  They did not reach agreement, will have no opportunity to talk during the day, and must leave immediately after work to reach either option in time.  The options are these.  The husband prefers a sporting event, the wife a concert.  Both prefer most, however, spending the time together in either activity.  If each acts competitively and pursues their preferred activity they will not achieve the optimal outcome, spending time together; they will, however, somewhat enjoy the evening.  If each acts cooperatively and pursues the other's preferred activity they will again not achieve the optimal outcome and both will attend events neither enjoys.  The best outcome is achieved if one party acts competitively and the other cooperatively.

Holding the door.  Two people approach door.  They both most value passing through and they both also value holding the door for the other, allowing the other to pass first.  If each acts competitively by refusing to pass through the door before the other they achieve the worst outcome.  If each acts cooperatively then they achieve the best outcome.  If one acts competitively and one cooperatively then the competitor gets the best outcome and the cooperator gets an outcome with some positive value.

Returning to the dollar auction, a few months after writing the above I had a chance to play that game and another, the lowest-number game.  The lowest-number game is played as follows:  everyone writes on a piece of paper their name and a positive integer.  The player writing the lowest integer wins, with the exception that if two or more players select the same number then all such players are disqualified.

In the dollar auction the best I could do, with an audience of over 100, was to get bids of $1.01 and $1.00.  Perhaps my audience was especially intelligent.  I also played the lowest-number game with this audience.  The winning answer was 5.  Several players chose 1.  Sevens, and numbers ending in 7, were popular (7, 17, 27, 37, 1337, 11337, for example).  One player wrote 1.3 billion.

I really enjoy the lowest-number game because it can be played by anyone old enough to write his or her name.  Wisdom and experience do not seem to provide an edge, based on my observations of my children and their friends.  And, interesting patterns emerge when repeating play amongst the same players.  One eight-year-old consistently wrote "1" on her paper.  If you are competing against her, what is the best strategy?  Also write "1" preventing her from winning but also eliminating your own chances?  Never write "1", risking the situation where the other players follow suit?  Or, as the author states, employing a mixed strategy.  I suppose a mixed strategy in this case is writing "1" sometimes but not others and thus encouraging this player to select a different number

Book review: Alaska

Authored by Stephen Haycox in 2002 (ISBN 0-295-09249-7).  The subtitle is "An American Colony".

I knew from grade-school history that the United States purchased Alaska from Russia and that we got a good deal on the purchase (7 million dollars for more than 650,000 square miles).  I did not think about why we would purchase it or how it came to be owned by Russia in the first place.  America had not fully entered the industrial revolution at the time of the purchase in 1868 (or 1867, depending on whether one dates the purchase based on the agreement date or the settlement date).  Most people farmed and agriculture formed the backbone of economic activity.  Where enough people congregated into a small enough area, such as a city, one could make a living providing services.  This mass of people, however, was predicated on pre-existing agriculture.

In the Western states lack of water made agriculture difficult.  Frontiersmen sought gold and other natural resources.  Others followed to provide services.  After a location was played out the frontiersmen and the  population the supported them would move out.  Colorado today has 607 active cities or towns and 70 ghost towns, or more than one in nine.

Russia, and later the United States, viewed Alaska as a frontier, a place whose wealth could be exploited. The Natives (commonly referred to as Indians; both Alaska and the Western United States presented dozens of different groups) were a cheap source of labor and a pesky irritant unwilling to assimilate into the "superior" culture.  The Russians experienced the same cycle of aggression, trehostilities with Japan, the USSR emerged as a cold-war threat, aty, betrayal and back-and-force violence with the Natives that the United States experienced with the native populations in its West.  The Russians sold because the territory was more trouble than it was worth.  They never had more than a few hundred citizens or soldiers on the ground at any one time.  They constantly vied with the United States, Spain and Britain over control; they found it impossible to exert themselves over so much distance and over treacherous waters when the competing nations could crawl up-and-down the West coast.  While the Eastern-most point of Russia is only sixty miles across the Bering Straight to the Western-most point of Alaska, that point in Alaska is very far North and not so useful.  To trek from Russia to Alaska at a more temperate latitude is a 4,000-mile ocean voyage.

The agreement with Russia is perhaps not properly called a purchase.  Native Alaskans were living in Alaska well before the few hundred Russians arrived.  The late-arriving Russians could not properly be called owners.  Rather, the agreement was for the Russians to essentially quit and not resist.  William Seward, a former rival of Abraham Lincoln before becoming his Secretary of State, persuaded Congress on the investment.  While some in the press ridiculed the action as "Seward's Folly" most American supported the move, based on the wealth and resources available and the general sentiment that it was part of America's destiny to occupy North America.  After the purchase a military government was established.  What about statehood?

Statehood presented a chicken-and-egg problem.  The nation was not eager to extend statehood and the sharing that comes with it until the region was economically self-sufficient.  But the region had never been self-sufficient after the Russians disturbed the peace of the natives who had been living there.  Statehood and outside investment was needed, but who would make such investment given the uncertain contour of the rules that would apply?  Alaska made its way to statehood in two steps.

First, the discovery of gold in the late 1800s substantially increased the population.  As with other mineral rushes others joined the prospectors to provide services.  Salmon fishing and forestry provided employment, too.  The army built a telegraph line that connected Alaska with the mainland.  With the increased population, and inter-connection, Congress was willing to withdraw some national control in favor of local control:  towns could for the first time create some types of local government and appoint judges to handle local disputes.

Pearl Harbor accelerated the second step.  The United States was gripped with fear over Japanese intentions and capabilities.  Alaska, not far from the Japanese mainland, was unprepared, and the U.S. government started construction of military facilities there.  Indeed, Japan launched successful raids against two far-east Aleutian islands.  Ignominiously, Alaska was included with Western states in the roundup of citizens of Japanese descent and subsequent deportation to internment camps.  After World War II cooled and the cold-war heated, Alaska's location at the Eastern doorstep of the USSR further increased is military significance.  National dollars continued to flow in, resources continued to be extracted and settlers desired the self-governance and other amenities they had left at home.  Statehood passed the U.S. Congress in 1958 and Alaska officially entered the union in 1959.

The key decision upon statehood were the division of land and resources between Alaska, the United States and the native populations.  Most people recognized that the natives were here first and they were entitled to the land their houses sat on and that they farmed.  But, what of the mineral wealth underneath?  What of lands used by migrating animals that the natives used for subsistence?  What about lease payments that the state would be collecting on behalf of all Alaskans?  What about oil pipelines that would cross native lands?  Could native peoples refuse passage and, if not, what was a fair price for easements?

Prudhoe Bay, site of the United States' largest oil field, started producing oil in the late 1970s after completion of the Aleyska pipeline.  Alaska's share in this field yielded about 85 percent of its general revenue and in 1976 voters established the Alaska Permanent Fund as a place to store the excess.  Half of the earnings from this fund are distributed directly to citizens each year.  State government grew along with the state; oil prices and yield declined, but state spending did not.  Without a state income tax Alaska was soon in the red to the tune of one-half a billion dollars annually while, ironically, holding $27 billion in its permanent fund.  However, Alaska tends conservative and Republican and the population has little appetite for using the fund to fill the shortfall.  "Cut government" was the preferred,  and adopted, approach.

Alaska, like many Western states, is largely owned by the federal government.  Many Western residents resent that ownership; they conveniently forget that 100% of "their" land formerly belonged to the natives.  After the natives were pushed out 100% belonged to the federal government.  The fact that federal government granted ownership and use of some portion of that 100% should not cause one to complain about the remainder, as none has any right to any of it.

Few of the states are self-sufficient.  California is an exception, with agriculture and business interests that span human activity.  New York provides its own services but not its own food.  Midwestern states provide food but not services; they rely on coastal states for food markets.  Alaska is also not self-sufficient.  While food can be grown there the economies-of-scale enjoyed by Midwestern states causes food to be produced there and shipped; even the cost of shipping two thousand miles by rail and four thousand by ship does not enable Alaskans to compete for that market.  Statehood has given Alaska more, but not complete, control over absentee agricultural and energy investors.

Book review: Clarence Darrow

Authored by John A. Farrell (ISBN 978-0-385-52258-0).

Chicago is corrupt. Or, at least it was, I suppose at this moment it may not be. The last two governors of Illinois, of which Chicago is the capital, are in prison.  Born in 1867 and living until 1938, Darrow lived through Chicago's explosion into a major city and the awful conditions that spurred books such as The Jungle.  He was one of the greatest orators of his time, and this was a time of great orators.  Closing arguments in some cases ran for days.

The subtitle for the book is "Attorney for the damned".  Darrow did represent the dregs of society:  murderers, bombers, union activists.  He lost very few cases.  He prepared carefully; he used a folksy manner to disarm the witnesses he cross-examined; he was a brilliant speaker.  He stated his tactics:

You try to throw around the case a feeling of pity, of love, if possible, for the fellow who is on trial.  If the jurors can be made to identify with the defendant and his pain and position they will act to satisfy themselves.  As this point, the case is won.  Juries will furnish their own rationalization.

Although Farrell does not use the phrase confirmation bias, that is what Darrow is explaining, I expect.  We like to believe that we gather all the facts and make our decision.  More accurate is we gather some of the facts, make our decision, and then accept subsequent observations that bolster our decision and ignore and discount those observations at odds with our decision.

While many who recognize Darrow's name associate him with representing poor defendants, he made his money representing the rich and powerful, for example, corporations angling for exclusive franchises with the City of Chicago.  Farrell opens his story with Darrow as general counsel for a railroad.  One type of client he would not accept, however, were those seeking to maintain legal rulings outlawing unionization.  He forcefully advocated for the working man (and woman and child) throughout his life.  He belonged to the NAACP; he was an atheist; he believed in free love, thought marriage was confining to both men and women.  He was a liberal fifty years ahead of his time.

It was during one such advocacy that he may have conspired to bribe two jurors.  He was prosecuted for both, one after the other, with the dual prosecution intended to maximize the harassment.  He served as co-counsel for both cases and both times was acquitted.  However, it was the opinion of his friends, and of the author, that Darrow was guilty, or if not guilty of these particular charges he was guilty of bribery on other instances.  During the time, when the West was still somewhat wild and Chicago was providing its standard level of corruption, it was common for both sides to engage in extra-courtroom activities.

I did not realize that Darrow was defense attorney during the Scopes trial, and my understanding of the case was only superficial.  I learned from this book that the defendant was not so much selected by the State of Tennessee for prosecution as he volunteered as an ACLU recruit.  Tennessee engaged William Jennings Bryan, an eloquent speaker in his own right, former Secretary of State for President Wilson, and well-known critic of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, to assist the prosecution.  Darrow learned of Bryan's involvement and contacted John Scopes, offering his services, and Scopes accepted, to the dismay of the ACLU, who wanted to showcase religious and academic freedom, where as Darrow had a history of showcasing himself.

The Butler Act, of which Scopes was accused of violating, prohibited the teaching in public school any theory of human origin that contradicted the Biblical description.  The prosecution's strategy was not to prove the accuracy of the Bible; rather, merely to show that a State has the right to prescribe what instruction the taxpayers will finance and that Scopes did not so instruct.  Darrow's strategy was to place Bryan on the stand (questioning the opponent's attorney is unusual indeed) and to cause Bryan to admit that the Bible is not literally true in every aspect.  This questioning occurred out-of-doors, in the summertime, both to provide relief from the heat and because, in any event, far more local and non-locals wanted to attend than could fit in the courthouse.  Entrepreneurs took the opportunity to put up refreshment stands, trained monkeys and live music.

Bryan, who was aging and less mentally agile than his former self, admitted that the six days mentioned in Genesis may not have been the twenty-four hour days to which we are accustomed.  This being so, the evolutionary process that Darwin proposed did not necessarily contradict the Bible, because it could be the case that all of evolution occurred during these six very, very long days.  This may have even been a winning argument, if not for the fact that the prosecution and defense stipulated to a guilty verdict and a $100 fine so that the case could be appealed to a higher court.

Darrow took the appeal to the Tennessee Supreme Court, again irking the ACLU.  He won there, technically, but in a sense lost.  The justices upheld the law but also decided that the trial judge setting the amount of the fine, rather than the jury, was impermissible error.  The justices also, strangely, instructed the prosecutor not to re-try the case.  The law remained on the book, theoretically enforceable, until the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a similar law.

Farrell is an excellent read.

Book review: The Quest

Authored by Daniel Yergin in 2011 (ISBN 978-1-59420-283-4).

I was attracted to this book because I so enjoyed Mr. Yergin's previous work, The Prize, which was awarded the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for Non-fiction. I did not enjoy this work as much as I did the previous one, probably because of my bias for history. So many people have lived on this earth, doing so many different things, that when an author bothers to pick out the more interesting bits those bits cannot help but fascinate me. This book is firmly grounded in the present, with the first few chapters providing some historical background.

The world is running out of oil. Except, it is not. People have been predicting the end of oil since shortly after its discovery in Western Pennsylvania. There are two sets of risks, below-ground and above-ground. The above-ground risks often control: what are the economic, political and military impediments to extracting the oil below the ground. Under what terms is the controlling government likely to grant access? How can the enterprise physically protect its plant and people? The "peak oil" theory has been proven wrong, at least to date, because the original theory failed to account for changes in price and technology. Higher oil prices make formerly unpromising finds lucrative and advances in technology reduce the cost of acquiring oil that was previously expensive.

In the last few years we have seen the emergence of new sources of oil, what Yergin refers to as tight oil. Large amounts of oil exist in North and South Dakota and Northern Canada, in what is commonly referred to as shale oil and oil sands, respectively. The Dakota oil, in the Bakken field, the same fraccing (his spelling) technique used to release natural gas is used to release oil. In Canada, excavators burn natural gas to heat tar sands sufficiently to cause them to flow to the surface. It is an expensive method of extracting oil, but it takes place in a politically and militarily stable environment with a very, very long time before depletion.

But what about the price spike of a few years ago, is not that a result of diminished supply? Oil prices rose steadily from the $22-$28 per barrel band established by OPEC in 2004. Attendees to an OPEC meeting in February of that year fretted about a supply glut and announced a substantial production cut. Prices rose, not unexpectedly, but continued to rise, which was unexpected. China's economy was growing (and is still growing) at approximately 10% per year, and China has few domestic supplies. Political upheaval in Irag, Nigeria and Venezuela disrupted supplies.

Large oil companies such as Exxon (as Yergin calls them, the "majors") remembered well the price collapse (to $10 per barrel) during the mid 1990s and were hesitant to invest in new capacity. Exploring a new field can cost upwards of $10 billion, especially with increased demand for raw materials occasioned by China's growth. Exploration also requires substantial lead times. Months and years would elapse between the time the majors recognized the demand and their ability to meet it.

At the same time interest in oil futures, which were first traded on Nymex in 1983, increased. Participants in these markets fall into roughly two categories: hedgers and speculators. Airlines would be hedgers: their business model relies on predictable costs for fuel, and they benefit by buying the right to purchase fuel at a particular price on a particular future date. In short, a market participant with an actual need for oil would be a hedger. All the other participants are speculators, those hoping to make money by buying low and selling high, or by borrowing now and buying when the price goes down. Essentially, speculators trade risk. Risk has a cost; for example, an airline may not be able to fly profitably if the price of fuel is too high. Airlines call out to the market: "is there anyone around here willing to take this risk off my hands?" The speculators step up and say: "sure, for money." The speculators manage their risk by buying and selling many different contracts at many different prices and execution dates, not unlike a life insurer that insures the lives of many people of varying age, health, lifestyle and location.

The price of oil to be delivered in the future, like the price of any financial instrument, should reflect the average, rational expectations of market participants. Rational expectations are based on projections from past experience, and when the current conditions are unlike anything seen in the past, those expectations may be (very) incorrect. Look at the recent price for gold as an example. As a speculator observing a rise from $90 per barrel to $100 over a period of weeks it was be natural to bet on a price of $110 a few weeks later. There was no historical precedent. Humans tend to confirmation biases; sure there have been bubbles in the past, but "this time is different".

Some people say that prices skyrocketed because of supply; others demand; others expectations of future supplies and demand; others amplification by the financial markets. Yergin says: all of the above.

When oil prices increase oil exporting countries benefit. Or do they? Yergin explains that petro-states, such a Venezuela and Saudi Arabia, whose oil exports generate a large fraction of government intake suffer widespread rent-seeking behavior. That is, the country's elites ignore entrepreneurship and invention and focus on diverting the oil revenue stream to their own special projects or own pockets. It is politically difficult in these countries to put this wealth aside for a rainy day. In good times the populace becomes accustomed to a high level of spending that is not sustainable when the market dips. Political suppression results from the need to control this disappointment.

What holds for the future? There will be a new energy mix for certain, but oil will continue to dominate because of the existing infrastructure (more than 100,000 filling stations in the United States and more than 100,000,000 gasoline vehicles) and because of oil's high energy density: oil, per unit of liquid volume, has twice the energy of its nearest competitor, natural gas.

No modern discussion of future energy supplies and policy would be complete without mentioning global warming. Yergin is convinced that carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are increasing and the increase will lead to warming. He grounds his conclusion on the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change which has been issuing "cautious" and "careful" reports relying on data collected by others (such as the data Charles David Keeling collected at Mauna Loa in Hawaii from 1959 to 1970). By way of illustrating "cautious", Yergin notes that even the most recent reports do not say that global warming is a fact. Rather, it is so likely to be true, and the consequences so far-reaching, that humankind ought to act.

Energy sources that produce less CO2, therefore, will have a certain political and perhaps economic advantage. Coal produces the most CO2 per unit of energy, followed by natural gas and oil. Geothermal, wind, solar and nuclear power produce nearly none, excepting the building of the infrastructure itself. For all alternatives he examines present cost and eventual scalability. Technologies that will not scale are unlikely to succeed, and he dismisses geothermal power on this basis. Of nuclear power he sees great technical promise but middling political promise. The best hydropower sources are already being exploited.

Yergin sees wind and solar as having high potential. Wind, in some ways one of the oldest energy technologies, is having the most success now. Photo-voltaic power is limitless and clean, but efficiencies too date are low even after twenty years of research. Solar power focused to boil water and produce steam is more efficient, but requires water, which is often in short supply where the sun shines the hardest.

No alternative source today can match the price point of coal, so how will these technologies succeed? He points to arrangements in Europe, where the utilities are required to purchase a certain amount of alternative-sourced electricity and "mix" it will conventionally-derived electricity. The higher cost is then "averaged-out" and results in only moderate consumer bill increases. Operators can be promised a certain price for electricity produced in this manner, creating incentives for these operators to reduce costs and pocket the improvements. Unlike some commodities, there is no risk of a supplier delivering a substandard product.

Yergin also admire the efficiency of carbon caps and trading markets. Some object to giving utilities the right to pollute, which is a starting point for any such scheme. That may be true, but moot, in my opinion: they are already exercising that right, even if they do not possess it. By taxing the production of carbon government gets out of the way of industrial progress. But, taxes are politically difficult, where as pollution-control legislation does not appear to raise anyone's taxes, even though it effectively increases costs that are then handed to ratepayers.

Some years ago, when my local utility was offering sizable rates for the installation of a passive solar or PV (photo-voltaic) system, I hosted a couple of contractors for bids. The PV contractor did not even give a bid; the passive solar (hot water) contractor bid so that that I would never, even under the most optimistic assumptions, make my money back. (Not that saving money was a requirement, but I did not want to effectively double my utility bill.) Part of the problem was my roof: it undulates rather than presenting a flat, South-facing surface. I had never considered that issue when I purchased the house in 2004. The other problem is that installing things on a roof is expensive. Much better to require installation on new buildings, when there are already workers scrambling on one's roof.