Again with the worms?

A skeptical reader has challenged my claim that worms under a farm may actually weigh more than the stuff up top.

First, I observe that skepticism is a more powerful tool for honest scientific inquiry than all the microscopes and telescopes ever constructed. God bless and keep you Charles Fort.

Second, the nerve of that guy! Ain't I after all, the never to be challenged owner of all information that isn't worth knowing? Doesn't bode well for our culture, somebody just wandering in and politely asking if something I said is really true. I fear for our country.

Third, it wasn't my claim at all really. I just quoted the Worm Digest. Still? One has a certain ethical responsibility for the accuracy of advocates they quote. (HEY? Fox news, CBS, NY Times? Did ya'll pick up on that?) So sure, I'll go for an independent inquiry of this worm thing. I don't mind digging into it.

Well, seems pretty simple. I need to know how much a worm weighs and how many are in an acre. OK, I'm gonna need tweezers, a bulldozer, and a set of bathroom scales. Wait Dave? Maybe there's an easier way? I'm just saying?

Darwin spent twenty years studying worms on his farm, and concluded fertile land could support 53,767 worms per acre. I so admire precision in the stupid. Not like he was gonna round off or anything, right? People at the Rothamsted Institute think Darwin was wrong. WHAT? Somebody says Mr. Darwin made careful observations but drew flawed conclusions? Who are these upstart blasphemers at this Rothamsted place?

They're privately endowed group of scientists who check each other's math. Been in biz at least 160 years. Their focus is to learn as much as possible about everything pertaining to agriculture.

Well, I guess that's OK. Don't seem to be aligned with some organized religion. So according to them, how incorrect was Darwin the Great, about worms I mean?

Only by 32 really. As in take the number he came up with and multiply it by 32. According to the latest research, a healthy acre of land might have up to 1.75M earthworms. Well, anybody can make a mistake, I guess.

A typical adult earthworm weighs .46 grams, according to National Geographic. That's about 973 worms per pound. So do that math thing David?

OK. Under a 400 acre farm, maybe 720K lbs. of earthworms thrive. That's more than the weight of two Boeing 747's. There's just a lot more going on around us and between us at any given time than any of us are capable of realizing. I sure would like to say more, but I'm seized with an unexplainable hankering for a delicious Colt 45. WORKS EVERY TIME! Why did I just say that?

Correct and dishonest

Went by faster than one of Madonna's boyfriends. "Economists predict this increase in minimum wage will mean an additional $5.5B in consumer spending."

It's good that news anchors don't understand the meaning of what they're reading. It could lead to career ending laugh line wrinkles otherwise.

So where actually is this $5.5 billion dollars right at this moment? Not that I don't trust you or anything, but can I see it?

Are there, all over this country, piles of cash stacked in storerooms at American businesses? Cause that's the only way the statement could be honest.

No Dave, you're over-simplifying again towards your evil Conservative ends. It's that business owners will have to accept a slightly lower profit margin, and the workers will benefit. Just a kinda government mandated profit sharing plan for low wage workers is all.

Well all right, cool. I'm just asking somebody to show me where the $5.5B comes from is all. Like I'm a business owner, and I'll just have to get by with the old yacht for another year. So money comes from my pocket, goes to the workers, I get that. But wasn't I already part of the consumer spending thing? If you take money I was going to spend and give it to somebody else to spend, how is new consumer spending added to our economy?

Now you're over-complicating things! Why don't you just tell me Mr. Smarty Pants, where you think this $5.5B is right now, since you seem to know everything, and don't want McDonald's workers to have decent lives?

OK. That $5.5B is right now in our pockets, and the pockets of McDonald's workers too. It's probably correct to say consumer spending is about to increase by that dollar figure. Also?

Economists say boost in minimum wage will cause $5.5B increase in cost of living. That'd be true too. What's going to happen is every product and service with a significant domestic minimum wage labor component, well prices are going up kids.

Business owners aren't really famous for apathy about slipping profit margins, oddly enough. In some market sectors they'll have to cut cost or close. Most of them will raise prices though.

Probably won't affect airline tickets, or the cost of a flatscreen TV. Likely will impact cost of daycare and groceries though. I'm still trying to figger which of these options are usually the end point for the spending dollar of an unwed mother working a drag job. Hmmm, beats me!

It will be at least a $5.5B increase in consumer spending. But that doesn't mean more camels will be purchased. Only means the price of camels just went up.

Good morning Mr. Phelps

There's a special place in the heart for stuff that's unintentionally funny. So I'll always remember being a little kid watching American Bandstand that Saturday. Teenagers trying to dance to the "Mission Impossible" theme. Dunh dunh dunh dunh dunh dunh dunh dunh, doodle loo, doodle loo... now how on Earth is anybody supposed to dance to that? It was very amusing to watch.

"Mission Impossible" was a quite popular TV show and I really enjoyed it, but even as a child I found unintentional humor in the very implausiblity of the whole thing.

Neglecting the show always started with top-secret guy getting his top-secret info, i.e. photos and the tape recorder that self-destructs in thirty seconds (Wal-Mart now sells many appliances with a comparable service life) in places that didn't look like first place I'd choose to leave top-secret stuff?

"Good morning Mr. Phelps. Your mission, should you choose to accept it"...that always got me laughing. Even then I sensed there couldn't be a job in the world, not even in the US government where, "Naw, what else ya got?" was an acceptable answer. And that's just the first two minutes of the show. It got a LOT funnier after that!

The mission was always some third world guy either already doing the bidding of the evil Ruskies (who were never mentioned by name, but we knew) or about to be. Take the bastard down, in the name of all that's pure & sacred!

Mr. Phelps and his talented co-workers would approach the mission something like this usually? Make the bad guy think his dead grandfather is sending him messages about where is some fabulous buried treasure. He'll discredit himself, look like a total nut, and it's off to the salt mines for you buddy! Then his replacement will do exactly what he was gonna do for the evil Ruskies, I imagine.

I recall thinking as a kid, how odd! Couldn't we just send a lone sniper in, take the guy out from a quarter mile away? Certainly the killing would be blamed on a rival. Instead we get people crawling through ventilation shafts and Martin Landau peeling off plastic faces? Hmmm.

As an adult, I wonder were there missions that didn't go so well, and Mr. Phelps had to report to Nixon on?
"Well Mr. President, our plan was to get Pol Pot to believe extraterrestrials were communicating with him, telling him where was a fabulous buried treasure, but Martin's plastic face fell off and it was all downhill from there really."
"What is it with you freaks and this buried treasure crap? You're against me, you're all against me. Henry, put his name on the list, and I mean right now!"

dunh dunh dunh dunh doodle loo doodle loo...I still say it's an Impossible Mission, trying to dance to that tune.

Ahem?

Why do I have to always be the one to say this stuff? It's because everybody else on both sides is making big bucks for acting like constipated dinosaurs, that's it, isn't it?

Dude, Mr. President? I honestly wish you well and pray for God to guide & protect you. Now let's get to the part about you being a dumbass.

Why do you want to create a massive new Federal health structure, when you already got two? Well, three really. I guess you want to do it so you can say you did it, and I understand this alpha male deal very well. Trust me, it's a double edged sword. Me, I've nearly always tried to instead find the quickest path to clear-cut victory. But yes I too am slowly dying from testosterone poisoning, so I've made a few bad calls along the way.

As I understands it, your plan predicts additional costs of $1.7 TRILLION to all US taxpayers over the next decade, so 45 million Americans can be insured. I'm not even reaching for my calculator. You could probably buy each of those citizens a Porsche cheaper (and I ain't so sure all these Americans you're talking about are citizens) but the focus? Tell me ONE time when the Federal government has under-predicted the cost of a program? Take your time, I have all day. All I have to do is colorize surgical instruments and implants at the moment. The answer is never.

Why don't you get 'em on Medicaid? Yeah, that looks easy to me. Expand the eligibility requirements, charge the working poor some for joining the system. Sure, tax the rich some, since your heart burns with a fire hotter than the sun for income redistribution. And you've got it.

A GOP guy said today, this health care initiative of yours would be your Waterloo.
You said today, it's time to move past the politics of the moment.
Both comments were equally stupid, my opinion.

You want to fix something, fix Medicaid, that's bleeding money like a stuck hog. Add these 45 million pour souls who apparently keep you awake at night to the Medicaid rolls. As a Conservative, I see you as a big government Liberal and I want you to fail. As an American, I support my President, but only when he's right.

So do that dude? Relatively easy and quick.

Hey Mister, Hey Mister!

I won't think I've measured your dreams just by looking at your face.
Thatcher

I'm just saying? Next time you're on the patio and a mosquito lights in your crotch area? Before swatting good & hard, consider; this may be a date with destiny for both of you.

So what is it about Mike you find so endearing? Well, he challenges my assumptions, and his exuberance about his passion.

Like today he walks up to me, no "Hi, how ya doin" just straight into it. "You ever seen that movie Valkyrie?"
"No I haven't, have you?"
"Yeah, it reminded me of Battle of the Bulge movie."
"You mean it's got a semi-documentary feel to it, and keeps switching back & forth, showing what the two sides are doing?"
"Naw, there ain't really two sides. It's about trying to kill-"
"Yeah I know, Von Stauffenberg plot. So why's it like Battle of the Bulge to you?"
"Ah, the costumes and sets, realistic feel to it. These modern war movies they usually skimp on details like that. I bought the DVD if you ever wanna borrow it?"

This wouldn't be odd conversation if Mike looked like a Jeapordy contestant...OK I don't know what a Jeapordy contestant looks like, but I know what they DON'T look like; Mike. He looks like a rapper's body guard. Bet when he crosses a street, he hears car doors locking. 6'3" and 320 lbs. of mostly muscle. He could probably without much effort wrench my arm from its socket. But he's a gentle giant who means me no bodily harm, except for talking my ears off of course.

He just started in on me one day, with a stream of concsiousness thing I can only describe as "Jack Kerouac teaches history." Something like...
"WWI was just the dumbest war ever not only didn't it solve nothing but it made stuff worse the way Germany was treated after the war just set up the conditions for Hitler to get power and there wouldn't have been a Bolshevik revolution and the USSR except for WWI and the Czar wasn't really that bad and they even killed the Czar's little children poor little kids they hadn't hurt anybody that was just cruel nothing but cruel all of WWI was just stupid and cruel you know they even used poison gas in that war?"

I said, "Yeah, first time was Battle of the Somme." And he smiled, realizing he'd just accidentally found the only other person in a five mile radius who knows as much history as he does.

But I wonder why he started on WWI with me in the first place? Sure, people know I'm intelligent. This because I had business cards printed saying, "Dave's REALLY REALLY smart." And right under that in parentheses, "except about swatting mosquitos." Still, even without the cards, language is a way we form impressions of people, and I've got a large vocabulary. So maybe Mike figured a smart guy like me would enjoy learning about WWI?

Or maybe he's sensitive to the stereotype that big, strong guys are dumb. A fellow smart guy enters his range, and he wants to let me know he's got something under the hood too.

Perhaps he just goes around telling everybody he meets about WWI, the Great Depression, and how Patton got a raw deal, Patton was the best general we had (Mike really likes General Patton).

You'll never know which Dave, so you get to make up your own narrative! What's it gonna be dude?

Well I'd like to think I radiate inclusiveness, and people sense I'm a safe place to bring the trinkets of their secret joy, that they won't be made to feel foolish for their effort. Gosh Dave, soaring prose there buddy! What's that somewhat more compact term for this vibe you radiate, the one April uses? Oh Yeah! "Weirdo Magnet."

But I find something achingly beautiful in imagining Mike going around telling everybody he meets, all about historical stuff. Throwing his joy against so many human walls, hoping it'll stick eventually. It bespeaks a passion so great its bearer senses the weight is too much for one to carry.

The thing where I'm a welcoming spirit, some hollow tree where all the Boo Radleys crossing my path can safely hide their what-nots? That's ego food of course, but your ego could do with a couple weeks in Somalia, if ya know what I mean?

I prefer the prettier image. A big man going through the world trying to let all know, "I'm not what I appear, I'm what I am." Exercising the sacred right of self-definition that's denied to all of us by all of us. Because we're petty and mean, or just too busy with our problems to stop & listen. Labels are cheap, listening is expensive.

Really I don't know which it is: Either I'm a hollow tree, or Mike's out there throwing his passion at every human wall that comes along. I know one thing for sure though? In the near future I expect to hear a LOT about General Patton.

The Weakest Branch

Howdy Sonia! Now we're just one appointment away from discovering a Constitutional right for same sex marriage. Turns out that's the whole reason they wrote the dang thing actually.

And it's American to the core that the people who interpret our Constitution do so with any Constitutional authority. Article III has nothing in it granting the Supremes right of nullification over Exec and Legislative branches. Marshall grabbed that in Marbury v. Madison, and we never looked back.

One of the snags in weilding extra-Constitutional power is there's nothing written down about how exactly you're supposed to enforce your stuff. That makes you the weakest branch of the Federal Government. Yet the Supremes have wrought sweeping cultural change over the past fifty years. How DO they do it? Oh same as many other functionally impotent political entities have managed, since the dawn of recorded history. Shrewd alliances, exploiting fear of the unknown, and being a useful excuse at times.

If a Pres ever said, "They've no authority really, I'm gonna do it anyway" Impeachment proceedings would soon follow. If a Congress ever responded to SCOTUS nullification of some legislation by directing they be ignored? Well no Federal Law can be administered without cooperation from some Fed body that answers to the Pres. He/She would laugh at Congress, and side with the Supremes. The SCOTUS relies on the envy between the two strong branches. Shrewd alliances serve a weak political entity.

If it ever came to where the Nine handed down something so loony, both the strong branches combined forces against SCOTUS? It's the end of the game as we know it. Powerful people in Washington like a set of basic ground rules. Without rules, how on Earth can you cheat? Break the power of the Supremes, there's no third player anymore you can hope to leverage for extra juice at times. It's just a two player game now with rules nobody knows yet. Exploit the fear of the unknown.

The Nine, by virtue of not having to stand for election, have often done work the strong branches found too radioactive to even mess with. They're like treaties were in 18th century Europe at times. Gives you excuse to do what you wanted to do anyway. Other times they're deciding something that's been bleeding your main agenda, so you can focus on your stuff, claiming it's out of your hands. Then later, maybe you can even turn the SCOTUS decision in the face of your indecision to political advantage. Be a useful excuse at times.

That's how the weakest branch keeps power. Because in the odd way things work in this crazy first ever experiment with semi-self governance, nine old people with nothing more than black robes and a pretty office building can rule the strong with the implicit threat of their absence.

One more appointment and I'm hearing wedding bells for Siegfried and Roy.

Now that's funny!

Way to go NPR! A good story took a hairpin turn onto Greatness Avenue.

"Help...incarcerated 13 years...miscarriage of justice." Well of course the journalist was gonna visit the guy. He found an intelligent, articulate, charming man with a true story.

Street punk teen, sorta Johnny Rotten type, awaiting trial on Assault charge. Older cellmates urge him to beat the rap by playing crazy. They'll send you to a comfy hospital for a few months. So he did, but "they" didn't. They sent him to Broadmoor, and now 17's turning 31 (thanks Jackson Browne!) and nobody listens when he tells them he was only playing crazy.

Broadmoor is the maximum security insane asylum in England. They got people so crazy, Stephen King wishes he could write that scary. Sounds juicy, huh? Forgotten little cog lost inside the big faceless Gulag/Labryinth thingy. Not to be confused with Labryinthitis which is a disease of the ear, and the inmates at Broadmoor, trouble is a bit past the inner ear. But I digress.

So the journalist is intrigued. He gets to see head Psychiatrist, after forms granting Johnny Rotten's permission for third party discussion of the case, and waiting months because hey, he's a busy Psychiatrist OK? There's a LOT of crazy people on this planet all right?

He finally sits down and gets to parrot Johnny's tale of woe to the head man. Instead of giving the journalist a cracker and calling him "pretty bird" the Doctor nods throughout the narrative. Then he blows the doors off the whole thing.

Something like, "None of us were ever fooled by the patient's antics. We don't send people to Broadmoor for doing Jack Nicholson impressions." The Doctor went on to explain that Johnny is a psychopath. Nobody ever thought his clumsy faking of abnormality was interesting. It's what he thinks is normal that got him to Broadmoor. That Assault charge? He kicked a homeless man nearly to death, pretty much for the fun of it. Quite likely he'd been doing stuff like that all through childhood, working his sadism up the food chain until he arrived at humans. Johnny pretended to be a person confused about reality, when in fact he has an iron grip on reality. It's just that in his reality, he sees other humans as prey. He's functionally unable to feel empathy for any other human.

Was the Psychiatrist right? I don't know, he might be crazy too! But every detail doesn't have to be nailed down for a thing to be cosmic, y'know Dave?

You're walking around thinking yourself an X guy. You want to game the system by portraying a Y guy. You're about to dance out on stage in a theatre filled with folk who will say, "That's the biggest Z that I ever saw!" You're about to go to Broadmoor for the rest of your life. Via a series of random, impulsive choices you've delivered yourself to those who'll see in your antics neither Jack Nicholson, nor Johnny Rotten but a madness hotter than the sun & deeper than the ocean.

I don't know if they're right. Psychiatry is a very soft science. But you are screwed Dude, and you've no one but you to blame. In a larger sense, I wonder how many of us are walking around selling ourselves as one thing, while being bought as something else and we don't even know it.