Richard Thaler won the 2017 Nobel Prize in Economics for his work in Behavioral Economics.  He’s really an interesting guy and I’ve read some interviews he’s given, quite fun!  His thoughts and work on how psychology impacts people and their behavior toward money and how that drives the economy differently than economic models for rationally behaving people is very cool.  He is quoted as saying, “conventional economics assumes that people are highly-rational—super-rational—and unemotional. They can calculate like a computer and have no self–control problems.”  … I guess we know that’s not quite true.  After all we still get duped by sale advertisements, and how many of us will spend $3 on a bottled water when there is a perfectly good free cup of water also available…  well here’s my take on how we behave toward money…

What is That Dollar Worth?

If you see a dollar lying on the ground

Would you be happy about what you found

Would you set that dollar once again free

On something shinny and new that you see

Is it worth less than the one you’ve earned

And if so what have you really learned

The dollar knows no difference from its brother

It’s you that have assigned character to the other

One dollar that is found is fun and furious

The dollar earned and saved seems so serious

What is that dollar worth to you

And do you like its brother equally too?

January, 2017, I wrote a poem, “When you were Eleven”.  In some ways, it’s one of my favorites because of the pre-puberty innocence of that time and thoughts that drive a young boy and how much life changes as we become adults.  However, at eleven I still had more of that “Little Boy in Me” of November 2015, not far removed from the bounce on the knee and the song and rhymes of a little boy.

Last night I dreamt that I was eleven again, and had all the emotions of a little boy wanting to stay in line and do as I was told and yet all the fire and restlessness of eleven, wanting to get out of school, to go play!  I want to run and play like a “Summer’s Day” of April 2016.

Oh, the promise of the future, the awareness of youth, and energy and thrill of life!   Keep always close that fire and passion of youth, and allow your dreams to take you back and remind you of those joys, those possibilities and forever young in heart you’ll be!

The following poem is inspired by a book by the same name, written by Mark T. Sullivan, who tells the incredible but true story of an Italian boy Pino Lella, that grows up during World War II, to become a hero many times over, but in the process tragically loses his true love. If you haven’t read the book, you should… at least see the soon to be released movie…

Beneath a Scarlet Sky

Adventure and life oblivion of youthful insight

Interrupting us on this unforeseeably violent night

That sky with lights, with burning fires

Scarlet, tortured, indecent death pyres

Escape, survive, action for the fleeing loving others

Learn, strengthen, flying with our roman brothers

Bravely in love, bravely in service of right

Fragility of life exposed, of wit, of action into the night

Of secrets, of hidden lives, of scarlet skies

Careful, learn again, keep the secret with vital lies

Of love of culture, country, of love of life of each other

Where can we be, what can we do, dear brother

Death always at the door, life and love short

Nowhere to run, never to find a safe port

Fight with cunning and information and wile

Living in the moment, seeing all, biting back the bile

The evil and the weak die without honor or shame

And still the brave and innocent die ugly all the same

Guilt of survival, heartbreak driven revenge

Keep it together, cannot allow this mind to unhinge

More in a few years than anyone should see

So much more life to live so much more to be

But how to go beyond, how to find your heart

How to forever live for what has fallen apart

Strength is cheerfully raising up the weakest of us…

Time is simultaneously a moment and forever…

I just finished a book by Jon Meacham, “Thomas Jefferson The Art of Power.”  It was a fascinating read, not for the historical facts, but to understand the essence of the man, Jefferson.  A man with faults like all of us, certainly, but a great man that linked the emergence of reason in the age of enlightenment with the need to deliver a new world a new form of government of the people and by the people.

He believed that with reason and with education (he founded the University of Virginia) and with thoughtful pursuit of science and learning (sponsored Lewis and Clark expedition and was consummately engaged in understanding science and discovery) that people would, could, and should throw off the yoke of dictatorial rule and replace it with rule of reason as represented by the democratic process.  As author of the Declaration of Independence he laid out with clarity and brevity: That…

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…”

So too, Jefferson’s view of the Creator, and consequently religion and various religions, for which he studied was based on an application of reason, and a realization that religion was another source of power over people.  His religion, if he were to have one, would be one that would take the best of many religions and throw off the elements that are about the acceptance on basis of faith only, of direction and authority of leaders, as well as unreasoned adherence to such leadership and attendant ceremony.  Jefferson would say religion requires careful thought, not reflective acceptance. Specifically, a quote from Jefferson,  in a letter to his nephew:

“Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because if there be one, he must more approve the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.”

Jefferson failed in many ways.  He failed to find a path toward ending slavery, which he viewed as an abominable institution.  He did not emancipate his own slaves in his lifetime, even though he could well had done so.  He was generous with family and friends, but left his family in deep and unrelenting debt.  He lived in different times and should be judged in the context of those times, but he also lacked the courage to overcome flaws that he knew were wrong in the eyes of any Creator, and future judgement, as he was always looking toward the future in his life.

During a difficult and nascent period in our country and government, he was singular in ensuring the survivability of a democratic republic at a time when it’s survivability was so immensely in doubt.  Furthermore, he envisioned and ensured that our country could grow to occupy the continent with the Louisiana Purchase.  He helped President Monroe with the declaration of the Monroe Doctrine, ensuring a sovereign message of preeminence of the USA in the Western Hemisphere to discourage adventurous behavior of European nations.  So much service to our country and our growth and future across the continent  throughout a 40-year history of public service.

Despite personal failures, he deserves our praise for advancing the cause of freedom of peoples over dictatorship and hereditary-based rule, through the design and survival of the grand experiment in democracy!  So too, he deserves our approbation for ensuring that education, continuous learning, and unrelenting reasoning are important elements of country!

A book well worth reading, and reasoning about!

In the Smallness of Time

Pushed, turned, blown to there

Leaves and flotsam everywhere

Dreams and ambitions cast aside

Small in schemes of our minds ride

Small moments of consequence

Of importance and preeminence

Magnifies the smallness of a time

Of a moment, of even this rhyme

Yet, small of many makes us complete

Beyond turbulence and troubles we meet

In smallness of time, a blink of a star

Be blessed in knowing…

In this moment, just who we are!

Irma Go Away!

Blowing, blustering, storming

Ugly middle eye painfully forming

Irma go away from here

Your menacing intent is clear

We build, prosper and grow

Then you come to wreck the show

Paradise of water and sun

Visitors come here for fun

You come here with evil and pain

You come with wind, surge and rain

You are not welcome here

We don’t want you anywhere near

Irma just go away from here

Let westerly winds tame you with shear

Let high pressure push you away

Whatever you do just stay away!

Football season has started… Ringing it in with a bang!  Dallas – FT. Worth AT&T Stadium is a marvel to the spectacle of sports!  What a venue!  What a fun game, University of Michigan (Go Blue!) beat University of Florida 33-17.   To all my Gator friends… sorry!

We had a great time admiring the venue, the game, and had loads of fun with family and friends!

Falls Coming!

Summer is tired and worn

Hot and humidity forlorn

Boring, little relief, rerun groans

Thankful for summer Game of Thrones

Our team’s boringly out of the race

Since All-star game, they’ve been off the pace

Football excitement coming soon

Weekends busy all thru an afternoon

Tired of wet and summer’s evergreen

Color our fall memories we have seen

Coolness and hopeful dry

With beautiful and clear sky

Come-on fall, drive away summer’s swoon

I’m sure we’ll call on spring sometime soon!

I fear history will think of us as an aberration, as we lost opportunity to advance enlightenment ideals of our patriot fathers, of the republic that so many generations built, of the battle for civil rights, of the generations that fought to raise our country up to be the shining example on the hill, including the prior generation that fought and beat the fascist and racist ideals of Nazi Germany. Yet we have allowed as a generation to see a degradation of political and democratic ideals of compromise and progress. We have allowed through ignorance of history and poor judgement the election of a president that degrades our nation and ideals. What will history think of us? Sure, not all of us have voted for this president. Not all of us own the results of an unproductive congress for the last decade… or do we? We fail to communicate. We fail in our values, and we fail to counter in our communities, schools, and our society the uneducated, unenlightened and ignorant expressions and votes of our fellow citizens. How will history judge us?

Will we continue to rationalize, continue to apologize for hate and say its not us, when evidently it keeps rising to challenge the peace of our cities, and our society?  We cannot look to our president for moral authority, he doesn’t have it, so why do we look?   I submit we look for what he’ll say because it’s like watching a wreck on the highway.  We cannot help but look.  We allow those that express amoral and unenlightened views more air time than those that offer solutions. We need to change how we educate, how we speak to each other and we need to call out racism and hate with reason.   Think about this, no person is born as a racist or bigot, it must be a learned trait, and therefore it can be unlearned through education and reason.   Andrew Young, Civil rights leader, reminded us today that the civil rights movement did show that by addressing the priorities of war, racism and poverty in a peaceful, reasoned way could be successful, but it must be continued and not lost in message by all the noise that is Donald Trump, and his alignment with the Alt-Right!

How will history judge this generation, for what we have done, or what we have failed to do?

To be judged as we really wish to be judged,  we must change.  Its up to us to change the trajectory of our country and generation, we are responsible for knowing and learning the lessons of history, we are responsible for listening and believing when someone tells us who they are.  When a politician tells us with clarity that he is a racist and misogynist, we should accept him at his word and not expect his behavior will improve in power.  We need to stop making excuses for our generation, our fellow citizens, and our representatives in government.  We need to hold our leaders to the standard of enlightenment and reason, including: … “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.”