Why are we governed badly................?

 

....................Arnold Kling weighs in:

But I want to articulate two reasons for government failure. One is that without the profit incentive, government selects for the wrong behavior in managers. The second reason is that government tries to do too much. As a sprawling enterprise, government is bound to be clumsy.

One of my aphorisms is that an organization gets what it selects for. Successful firms select for people who can manage the business so that it meets customer needs.

Government and non-profits do not select for managers with the ability to deliver results. They select for people who are good at playing the game of status and power within an organization.

life its ownself.......................

 

. . . man's main concern is not to gain pleasure or to avoid pain but rather to see a meaning in his life.

-Viktor Frankl

Sundown..............................

 

.........................................at Torch Lake:

Thanks Kyle

every day.........................

 

The hard part isn't knowing what to do; it's doing it daily, whether you feel like it or not.

-from the Farnum Street blog

Me thinks he is being too provincial...........

 The dimensions of what we have fucked up in this country are beyond any coherent explanation.

- Hunter S. Thompson, as culled from Chris's quotes for today

enduring........................

 

Your body reflects what you eat. Your mind reflects what you consume.

For a healthy body, choose whole foods. For a sharp mind, choose lasting knowledge.

What’s lasting knowledge?

It’s wisdom that endures: Timeless principles, foundational ideas, and insights that remain relevant for years, not hours.

Before diving into the news or scrolling through feeds, ask: “Will this still matter next year?” If not, it’s probably mental junk food. The sugar high will leave you craving even more.

Avoid mental junk food. Feed your mind substance. Your future self will thank you.

-as cut-and-pasted from the Farnam Street blog

recurrences......................

 

As Professor Arnold J. Toynbee indicates in his six-volume study of the laws of the rise and disintegration of civilizations, schism in the soul, schism in the body social, will not be resolved by any scheme of return to the good old days (archaism), or by programs guaranteed to render an ideal  projected future (futurism), or even by the most realistic, hardheaded work to weld together again the deteriorating elements.  Only birth can conquer death—the birth, not of the old thing again, but of something new.  Within the soul, within the body social, there must be—if we are to experience long survival—a continuous "recurrence of birth" (palingenesia) to nullify they unremitting recurrence of death.

-Joseph Campbell, The Hero With A Thousand Faces

Fifty years ago.........................

Leo Sayer................................Long Tall Glasses

 

Aging like a fine wine.............

Eddie Holman.........................Hey There Lonely Girl

 

On taking care of your assets............

 

Your greatest assets are your time and mind. Don’t waste time reading stuff from the prophets of doom, who are always wrong. 

-Tony Isola, from here

a fair question........................

 

   more fun here

kids of all ages......................

 

Instead of being stuck interacting with electronics, children benefit greatly from interacting with the natural world.  The lack of time that children now spend outdoors immersed in the restorative benefits of nature was coined "nature-deficit disorder" by bestselling author Richard Louv.

-Gad Saad, The Saad Truth About Happiness

shifting..........................

 

     Do we live in a profane world, or do we say, "Yes, indeed, sacred space is right here"? Where are we?  Awakening the mind that seeks the way to learn, to grow, to study, to investigate, already we are shifting into sacred space.  Something could come through us.

     Instead of aiming to go somewhere else, where everything is so much better, the Zen imperative is to recognize that the sacred is here by practicing, living, cooking in the way of sacred space.

-Edward Espe Brown, No Recipe:  Cooking as s Spiritual Practice

about those expectations...........

 

In both cases it was a question of getting them to realize that life was still expecting something from them; something in the future was expected of them. . . .

    This uniqueness and singleness which distinguishes each individual and gives a meaning to his existence has a bearing on creative work as much as it does on human love.  When the impossibility of replacing a person is realized, it allows the responsibility which a man has for his existence and its continuance to appear in all its magnitude.  A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life.  He knows the "why" for his existence, and will be able to bear almost any "how."

-Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

Wonder if they'd write this today...................

 

     The power in Washington is not monolithic power in a few hands, as it is in totalitarian countries . . . It is fragmented into many bits and pieces.  Every special interest group around the country tries to get its hands on whatever bits and pieces it can.  The result is that there is hardly an issue on which government is not on both sides.

-Milton & Rose Friedman, Free To Choose, 1979

When your legacy is obscurity.........

 

     The final factor, of course, is that Cleveland's conception of the role of the federal government—and, for that matter, the presidency—now seems so antiquated as to be unrecognizable to the average American.  Indeed, there have been few presidents in American history so preoccupied with the notion that the government should show no special favor to any one group over another.

-Troy Senik, A Man of Iron: The Turbulent Life and Improbable Presidency of Grover Cleveland

wild, nourishing nature..................

 

     If a plant is left too long in its grow-bag, its roots reaching the plastic will turn round and round and round, and finding no outlet into wild, nourishing nature, will, having nowhere else to go, re-enter the exhausted sour soil and, thriving till now, the plane, root and branch will begin to sicken.

     It would be foolish to suggest that Hebrew prophecy, Greek philosophy and science, Roman engineering and law are an exhausted sour soil, but it mightn't be at all foolish to suggest that they lack certain kinds of cultural nourishment that we now need.

-John Moriarty, Dreamtime

Successfully competed...........................

 

...........................my civic duty this morning:

Ah, science.......................

 The lesson, therefore, of the Covid pandemic is that the risk of a natural outbreak going global is probably much smaller than the risk of a lab-leak outbreak going global. And here is the greatest irony of all. If Covid began with a lab leak, it was not just caused by virology research: it was caused by virology research that was specifically intended to predict and prevent pandemics. Even if this time it was just a horrible coincidence, they were looking for a gas leak with a lighted match, as one scientist put it.

-Matt Ridley, from here

Remember.................

 

We’re not stuck in traffic, we are traffic. 

-Seth Godin, from this post

principles.................

 

In a democracy it is idle to praise the virtues of a statesman who can't persuade the public.  But we should not judge him entirely by that failure, either.  The voters turned against him, after all, for standing firm on the same beliefs he held when they elected him—sound money, freer trade, and limited government interference in the economy.  In some sense it was a testimony to his integrity: even at a moment of maximum political peril, Grover Cleveland's principles were not open for bidding.

-Troy Senik, A Man of Iron: The Turbulent Life and Improbable Presidency of Grover Cleveland.