Category: Current Events

The Residential Building Formerly Known As Calhoun College

John C. Calhoun was a Yale graduate and the seventh Vice-President of the United States (elected twice).  He served as Secretary of War of the United States, as Secretary of State of the United States, and as a two-term Senator of the United States.  He was also an ardent supporter of slavery in the decades before our Civil War.

Calhoun died in 1850.  Eighty-two years later, when Calhoun College was named for him, there was no controversy.  Calhoun was, after all, an eminent politician, an alumnus of Yale, and long since dead.  But opinions changed in the subsequent 85 years, enough that Yale recently decided to rename Calhoun College.   (“College” is deceiving.  It does not denote a college within Yale University, it is roughly synonymous with “dormitory,” though it connotes a bit more.)

I have never been particularly fond of Calhoun (because of his pro-slavery politics), but neither am I fond of the capriciousness of public sentiment.  I think Calhoun has a distinctly different argument to continue to be honored than, say, Jefferson Davis, who waged war on the United States.  Calhoun died ten years before the Civil War started and he had worked hard (and successfully) to preserve the union of the states.

Davis was honorable man for his time and place, despite being deplorably wrong about slavery.  He was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, a U.S. Senator, and Secretary of War of the United States, before he joined the Confederacy.  Fortunately, he lost the war and, along with it, the ability to preserve slavery.

Winston Churchill, himself both a victor and a writer, noted that history is written by the victors.  But it is also written by many other people and often many years later.  Those people, perhaps understandably, sometimes impose their own moral standards on people who lived generations or even centuries earlier.  We now write the histories about him and Calhoun and many others, including George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.  Both of those former Presidents owned slaves.  They did not defend the institution of slavery quite so vociferously as Calhoun, but they benefitted from the labor of slaves until the day they died.

When Washington and Jefferson owned slaves and when Calhoun supported slavery, slavery was legal.  It was abominable, of course, but it was legal.  (Many people think the same today about abortion and death sentences:  abominable, but legal.)  That our Constitution allowed slavery to continue is an important reason that all 50 current U.S. states belong to just one country.  Without the oblique references to slavery, it is unlikely the southern states would have ratified our Constitution and our bold experiment could have fractured at the outset.

Times change and the way we view former Presidents and Vice Presidents changes, even if their actions were within the range of normalcy for their time.  As a proxy for normalcy, consider that the following countries, among many others, did not abolish slavery or serfdom until after Calhoun died:  Ecuador, Argentina, Peru, Venezuela, Russia, United States, Cuba, Poland, Netherlands (colonies), Portugal (colonies), Egypt, Bulgaria, Ottoman Empire (Turkey), Cambodia, Cuba, Brazil, Korea, Madagascar, Zanzibar, Siam (Thailand), Ethiopia, Morocco, and Afghanistan.     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolition_of_slavery_timeline#1850.E2.80.931899.)

I hope that I am never judged by the standards of the future, it is tough enough being held to contemporaneous standards.  But surely it wouldn’t be fair to judge my current morality and actions, which are steeped in 21st century America, by the mores of another time.  One hundred sixty seven years after he died, that’s what we are doing to John C. Calhoun.  I wonder who is next.

(College Football) Royalty

Five teams have been ranked in every single poll issued by the college football playoff committee.  Name these members of (current) college football royalty.  Recall that this is only the third year of the committee.  Two royal members are obvious, two more will surprise few.  The fifth is tough.  But that’s just here and now.  What about long-term college football royalty?  Which five teams have won the most games all time?  The answers are below.

Depending on the source, there are 193 countries in the world — at least that’s how many member states belong to the United Nations.  Three others have certain attributes of nation-states:  the Holy See (not Vatican City), Palestine, and Taiwan.  Let’s go with 193, it’s (not) a nice round number.  Again, depending on the source, 44 countries have a monarch, 16 of which are subjects of the British monarchy.  That means that 22.8% of the countries in the world have a monarch.  Who knew?

Only a few of the monarchs exercise complete control, including those of Brunei, Swaziland, Saudi Arabia, Vatican City, and Oman.  A few others have predominate control, such as those of Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Bhutan.  Most are in the British mold – constitutional monarchies, where the monarch has a limited role.  Even so, some have considerable power.  For instance, though the King of Jordan isn’t the head of government, he can veto laws.

Some kings are incredibly rich.  The King of Thailand is worth $30 billion.  Although many Thai citizens have sought to delegitimize the king, the junta that controls the Thai government recently increased spending to uphold and preserve the monarchy to over $500 million a year.

The Sultan of Brunei is worth $20 billion.  He has been the absolute ruler of his country since it gained independence from the British in 1984.  The Brits have a thing for monarchs, they love their own and they have an obsession with putting others in place.  The Sultan is but latest in a series.

The king of Saudi Arabia is worth $18 billion and is another creature of the Brits.  The Saud family has deeper royal roots, but they date their modern claim to the crown only to the post-WWI era.  At that time, most of the land that comprises modern Saudi Arabia was a British protectorate.  The king isn’t even the richest member of the Saudi royal family, which is 15,000 strong.  One of the princes has invested well and is worth around $30 billion.

There are many ways to think about monarchs – power and wealth, but also length of rule.  The royal dynasty in Thailand has reigned since 1782.  The royal dynasty in Bahrain has reigned since 1793.  The two of them effectively sandwich the ratification of our constitution.

In declaring our independence, we had a few unkind things to say about the British king.  Not surprisingly, we didn’t embrace the concept of kingship, though George Washington was offered a crown.  Thankfully, he declined.  To protect us from ourselves (something we are not always good at), our imperfect founding fathers decided to take nobility and royalty and kings off the table.  They were so concerned about the issue that they addressed it twice in the Constitution of the United States.

Article 1, Section 9, states that “No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States.”

Article 1, Section 10, states that “No State shall * * * grant any Title of Nobility.”

Without these clauses, the Adams family (two presidents), the Rockefeller family (massive wealth, though relatively less now, a VP candidate, a senator), the Roosevelt family (two presidents), the Kennedy family (a president, some senators, and others), the Bush family (a senator and two presidents, among others) and many others would likely have been granted noble titles.  The members of these families have enjoyed many of the perquisites of nobility – wealth, fame, power – but they have had (at some level) to earn it, not had it conferred by birth.  The prescience of our founding fathers was strong in this arena.

Our college football royalty also has to earn it.  The long-time powers certainly have advantages over the football equivalent of nouveau riche, but they have to produce year after year.  Nobody gives them wins just because they won a lot of games in the 1960s, unlike, say, the Kennedys who seem to win elections based on their success in the 1960s.

 

 

 

Answers:

Five teams have been in every college football playoff committee ranking, in no particular order:  Alabama & Ohio State (obvious), Clemson & Florida State (same conference, but still, not surprising), and Utah (tough).

Michigan (934), Yale (890), Nebraska (889), Ohio State (888), and Texas (879) have the most football wins in NCAA history.  If Nebraska wins its bowl game and Ohio State wins the national championship, there will be a three-way tie for second place.  Michigan’s spot on top seems secure for several (likely many) years.

A little of this and a little of that

It’s time to revisit a couple of issues.

(1)  I was listening to ESPN Radio today and a guy named Chip Brown, representing Horns Digest was discussing the likelihood that the Texas Longhorns will soon be in search of a new head coach.  Mr. Brown said that Texas was “on unchartered ground.”  I was going to let it go because speakers should not be held to the same grammatical and linguistic standards as writers.

But then he said it a second time.  Not only is the “unchartered” part wrong (as previously discussed), but he has taken the idiom from its rightful place in the water and brought it to dry land.  I have never heard that usage before.  Stop it!  The term is “uncharted waters.”  You can be in them or on them, but they are “uncharted,” not “unchartered.”  And they most emphatically are wet.

(2)  In an alarmingly distressful development (please assume sarcasm), I have determined that I have had a barely discernible impact on the internet.  I just searched for “uncharted waters” through 38 Google pages (that was all of them), and there was no entry from notesfromnokomis.  Then in a fit of overzealous commitment, I searched for “unchartered waters” through 45 Google pages.  Again, that was all of them, and again, nothing.  Then I searched for “unchartered” and “nokomis,” and came up as the first entry.  With apologies to Descartes, my blog shows up on Google (after a very specific search request), therefore I am.

(3)  In an unexpected development, Oklahoma State keeps winning.  They are now tenth in both the AP Poll and the Coaches Poll.  They were 11th in last week’s College Football Playoff Rankings, which will be updated tomorrow night.  These rankings are based on their current record of 8-2, which should be 9-1.  Recall that they lost on an untimed play after the game clock had struck zero that by rule should not have been allowed.  At 9-1, they would likely be ranked no lower than 7th and would have a decent chance to make the playoffs.  Instead, Central Michigan continues to cling to a win it does not deserve, severely handicapping Ok State’s championship aspirations.

(4)  I am thrilled that Hillary Clinton will not be our next President.  The only way I could be happier is if Donald Trump was (also) not to be our next President.  Alas, one of them winning was inevitable, and thus it came to pass.  I have had an aversion to Donald Trump since his hucksterism first crossed my consciousness.  Still, I believe we should grant him a blank slate.  I will only judge him based on his actions as President, though some of his appointments are troubling.  Maybe he will rise to the occasion, stranger things have happened.

(5)  Mosquitos may be the most dangerous animal in the world, but bears have always frightened me more.  This despite being assured, as a child growing up in Maine, that bears were likely to be as afraid of me as I was of them.  I begged to differ, but never had good evidence to the contrary.  According to the Bangor Daily News, there have been only six reported attacks of humans by bears in Maine in the last 24 years, and four of those were by wounded bears attacking their hunter.  (Maine has a black bear population of approximately 30,000, roughly one for every 44 Mainers.)  My fears have largely subsided, partly because I now live in suburban Ohio.  Then came news last week that a 60 plus year old woman had been attacked by a black bear in her back yard in Maryland.  The woman survived, as did all of the Mainers who were attacked, but I’m back on high alert.

(6)  Congratulations to the Cubs.  They ended a long drought and they did it in style, winning three elimination games in a row, including game seven in extra-innings.  They are relatively young, the field players are the 5th youngest of the MLB’s 30 teams.  But you might be surprised to learn that their pitchers are not young, they were the 2nd oldest in the league according to baseball-reference.com.  Though I expressed concern that their regular season schedule was a bit soft, their winning percentage in the playoffs (against three good teams) was .647, higher than their regular season winning percentage of .640.  I stand corrected, for neither the first nor the last time.

(7)  Happy Thanksgiving.

It all started with a walk

I like to walk around my neighborhood and the local park at night.  I invariably carry my walking stick, which I purchased at Acadia National Park.  It has a certain Maine feel.

Walking sticks provide many benefits including, balance, less strain on joints, and safety.  Through the years I have run into the occasional raccoon or opossum and feel more at ease with a stick to keep them at bay, especially if they should appear rabid.  My stick is no help at all against the most dangerous animal in the world:  the mosquito.

According to multiple sources, mosquitoes are responsible for the death of over 700,000 humans each year.  Mosquitoes are not intrinsically dangerous to humans.  For instance, there have been no reported deaths from blood loss caused by excessive mosquito bites.  Compare this with dogs, which cause death mainly by transmitting rabies, but which are capable of killing a human by biting and mauling it.

Mosquitoes are dangerous because they transmit diseases.  According to the June 2016 issue of Smithsonian magazine, of the more than 3,500 species of mosquitoes, only 100 or so spread disease to humans.  Three genera are especially dangerous to humans:  anophelese (which spreads malaria), aedes (which spreads yellow fever, dengue, and the Zika virus), and culex (which spreads West Nile virus among other diseases).

The real killers are the various viruses and parasites for which mosquitoes are a vector.  Many mosquito-borne viruses and parasites are so resilient and so mutative that in many instances we have given up trying to eliminate them – it only makes them stronger.  Instead, scientists are currently considering attempting to extirpate the worst mosquito vectors.  For example, malaria can only be contracted from an anophelese mosquito.  Eliminate the anophelese and we just might eliminate malaria.  That sounds like a great idea, though there are likely many unknown, indeed unknowable, unintended consequences waiting to bite us.  (Pun, sadly, intended.)

Eliminating all mosquitoes is likely as impossible as it is undesirable.  After all, mosquitoes are a significant part of the food chain.  But we don’t need to eliminate all mosquitoes, just the worst few dozen species.  The most promising theory at this time is to alter the genetic code of males so they produce only sterile offspring.  This process won’t work quickly, but could in time eradicate an entire species.

Even the world’s greatest champion of biodiversity, E.O. Wilson thinks we should consider eliminating anophelese mosquitoes.  http://www.pri.org/stories/2016-04-04/why-famous-biologist-wants-eradicate-killer-mosquitoes  If we can find the right switch, he is willing to be the executioner.

In an attempt to atone for not taking Wilson’s class when I was in college, I have read several of his books through the years.  I especially recommend:  The Future of Life, Letters to a Young Scientist, Consilience, and Half-Earth.  His wit and wisdom are manifest throughout.  Here are a couple of highlights from The Future of Life:  1.  Losing 90% of an environment means losing 50% of the species contained therein, losing the last 10% eliminates the last 50% of species, and 2.  If a small animal in the wild is especially beautiful, it is likely poisonous, if it is also easy to catch, it is likely deadly.

This post has meandered from walking sticks to dangerous animals to species cleansing to E.O. Wilson.  I wish my nocturnal peregrinations were as wide-ranging.

Vote (Scylla and Charybdis cont.)

I always vote.  I vote in non-presidential years, I vote in primaries, and I vote when there is nothing on the ballot except a levy.  I realize that I am but a single solitary vote, but it is mine and I want to use it.  So, I vote.

This year I will utilize my vote on a quixotic (and largely unknown) protest.  I cannot vote for either major party candidate.  I outlined earlier why I find both of them objectionable.  I don’t believe in voting for the lesser of two evils.  I believe in voting for the candidate that I like best, and that most assuredly is not Mr. Trump or Mrs. Clinton.

I get to vote (as do all of you) for whomever I choose – assuming that person is a registered candidate.  A friend told me last week that he wrote in himself for President and yours truly for Vice-President.  I appreciated the vote of confidence, and I think he would be a better President than either major party candidate, but his vote will not be counted.  Only seven states allow voters to write in candidates who have not registered.  Ohio is not one of them, which means that John Kasich’s vote for John McCain will not be counted either.  Nine states don’t allow write-ins at all.  The other 34 (including Ohio) allow votes only for write-in candidates who have registered.

My fervent wish, every time we hold an election involving federal elective offices is that the President, a majority of the Senate, and a majority of the House of Representatives, will not all be controlled by the same political party.  That yields essentially a parliamentary system, which is prone to dramatic shifts of policy.  Our founding fathers designed a system intended to avoid hasty decisions.  Checks and balances are replete, but they are not always effectively employed.

The system depends on both houses of Congress, the President, and the Supreme Court to act independently, to do what is right and just, and to assert the constitutional prerogatives of their own branch of government to constrain the other branches.  These days, Congress, the President, and the members of the Supreme Court too often act in the best interests of their party.  It is sad, but it will continue until we do something about it.

Congress is the worst offender.  The majority party has tended to be supine, a virtual rubber stamp, when the President represents their party.  The majority party has tended to be obstructionist when the President represents the other party.  Instead, Congress should do its job and legislate in the country’s best interest, without regard to party or who lives in the White House.

Most importantly, Congress needs to rein in the President.  The executive branch has evolved beyond its constitutional bounds largely because same party congressional members have put party above country.  It is an abomination, and ultimately could lead to an authoritarian regime.  Not tomorrow, maybe not in the next hundred years, but history has a way of rewarding those who seek to accumulate power.

The Roman Senate caved in to Caesar.  The French Revolution devolved into Napoleon.  The German people elected and then succumbed to Hitler.  Democratic Russia embraced Putin’s power grab.  It can happen.  Congress needs to arrest the accumulation of power in the presidency before it is too late.

That is a long trail to lead you to my vote.  I will vote for Gary Johnson and Bill Weld.  They were Republicans who were elected (and re-elected) governor of states dominated by the Democratic Party.  They have proven that they can govern efficiently and work across party lines effectively and without rancor.

The party they represent believes in smaller government, unlike the Democratic Party, which enthusiastically supports bigger government, and the Republican Party, which only pretends to want smaller government.  The Libertarian Party well and truly wants less government.  Whether they would be able to pull it off will (no doubt) remain an unanswered question.

The rest of my votes will be largely anti-incumbent, unless I believe the incumbent has done a good job.  None of my votes will be based on the party of the candidate.   Straight-ticket voting is lazy and overly partisan, among the reasons we have a Congress unwilling to assert itself against the runaway executive branch.

Tuesday, you have an opportunity to assert yourself.  Vote for the candidate that you think is best.  Vote for the candidate you think is less bad.  Vote.

Scylla and Charybdis (or rock and a hard place)

All three presidential debates and the Alfred E. Smith dinner are behind us and it is time to breathe a collective sigh of relief.  We never have to see these two on the same stage again.

He is a boorish caricature of a carnival huckster.  Everything (and I mean everything) is either the worst (think President Obama or NAFTA) or the best (think his properties or judgment).  His world is not gray, it is exceedingly dark.  Fortunately, the world I live in and the people I know are not quite as downtrodden as he suggests.

She is an uninteresting caricature of a policy wonk.  She has a plan for everything (and I mean everything), whether the economy or climate-change, and they’re all on her website.  Her world could not be more gray, as she seamlessly moves between public and private forums searching for whatever is most politically expedient.  Fortunately, the world I live in and the people I know are not quite so chameleonic.

He is a cad.  He is disrespectful, even disdainful, of vast swathes of the electorate.  He says whatever flows through his brain at the moment without considering whether it might be true.  It’s possible that he is so egocentric that he believes that him saying something makes it true.  How else to explain him declaring that Mexico will pay for a wall, that Buffett takes the same tax breaks he does, or that he is the only person who can fix our problems.  He is an entertainer, not a problem solver.  He is the first presidential nominee in history who is more comfortable cutting Vince McMahon’s hair than having a reasonable rational discussion about any given topic of domestic or foreign policy.  And he is angry.  Why?  Life has been so good to him that when he was on the edge of bankruptcy, his lenders allotted him a $450,000 a month spending allowance.

She is uninspiring.  She is disrespectful, even disdainful of vast swathes of the electorate.  Whether she is an inveterate liar is debatable, because politicians are forced to hedge so often that inevitably something said in one setting will contradict something said in another setting.  She has more baggage than a large Royal Caribbean cruise ship.  Some of it is her own and justly earned (emails, pay to play), some of it is her husband’s and not always fairly attributed to her.  But when you are allowed to cherry pick a senate seat because your husband is a former president, it isn’t outside the pale to be saddled with some of his baggage.  Her penchant for secrecy and defensiveness are not the normal traits of someone seeking to be the most watched and listened to person in the world.

It is almost a cliché at this time to wonder how we ended up with these two particular candidates.  They each have their hard-core followers, people who would support them no matter what they so, no matter what dirt about them is revealed.  This is a shame.  And they have their hard-core detractors, people who would prefer voting for the actual Hitler or Stalin before voting for Trump or Clinton, as the case may be.  This is even more of a shame.

One of them will be POTUS.  I shudder, yet I will vote, as I always do.  Next time, I will explain my vote.

Presidential Statistics

The President of the United States is the most powerful person in the world.  Whether or not it’s fair, when things go well, the President gets the credit and when things go poorly, the President gets the blame.  In any given year or administration, it is possible that the Speaker of the House, the Chair of the Federal Reserve, the CEOs of the energy or auto industries (among others), the various governors, or some other person or group might have more influence on this or that national indicator. Nevertheless, I’m presenting statistics based on the last three presidential administrations.  They each comprise eight years, so comparing them is relatively fair, even though the three presidents faced different internal and external obstacles and problems.  I’m not making any value judgments.  You can do that for yourself, though I’m guessing that these statistics will not change what you already think about Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama.

All statistics are presented in the same order:  number at beginning of the presidency or in the previous year, number at the end of the presidency or in the last year of the presidency, and the percentage change.  I collected information as of 12/31 because most information is available on an yearly basis.  President Clinton was in office (for our purposes) from 12/31/1992 through 12/31/2000 and President Bush from 12/31/2000 through 12/31/2008.  For President Obama, I went with the most recent statistics available; obviously we don’t yet have a full eight years for him.

All categories are presented separately with a citation to the source.

U.S. Population (millions) http://www.multpl.com/united-states-population/table

Bill Clinton                    261              283              8.45%

George W. Bush            283              308              8.72%

Barrack Obama             308              323              4.87%

Nominal Gross Domestic Product ($ trillions)  https://www.thebalance.com/us-gdp-by-year-3305543

Bill Clinton                      6.539        10.285        57.29%

George W. Bush            10.285        14.719        43.11%

Barrack Obama             14.719        18.036        22.54%

Gross Domestic Product per Capita  https://www.thebalance.com/us-gdp-by-year-3305543

Bill Clinton                    $37,171      $44,492      19.70%

George W. Bush            $44,492      $46,951        5.50%

Barrack Obama              $46,951      $51,123        8.91%

Total Federal Debt ($ trillions)  http://www.polidiotic.com/by-the-numbers/us-national-debt-by-year/

Bill Clinton                4.065          5.674                39.58%

George W. Bush        5.674         10.024                76.67%

Barrack Obama        10.024         19.392                93.46%

Annual Federal Deficit ($ billions, change in dollars, not percentage)  http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/spending_chart_1960_2021USb_XXs2li111mcn_G0f

Bill Clinton                      290           -236           -526

George W. Bush             -236            459            695

Barrack Obama               459             616            157

Unemployment Rate  http://www.multpl.com/unemployment/table

Bill Clinton                    7.3%           4.2%           -42.5%

George W. Bush            4.2%           7.9%            88.1%

Barrack Obama             7.9%           4.9%           -38.0%

Divorces (thousands)  http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005044.html  http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/marriage_divorce_tables.htm

Bill Clinton                    1,215          944             -22.3%

George W. Bush               944          844             -10.6%

Barrack Obama                844          814               -3.5%

People in Federal and State Prison (thousands)  http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/p92.pdf  https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/p08.pdf  https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/p00.pdf  https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/p14.pdf

Bill Clinton                     884             1,381          56.2%

George W. Bush          1,381             1,610          16.6%

Barrack Obama           1,610             1,562           -3.0%

Military Spending ($ millions)  https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Historicals

Bill Clinton                    298,356      274,769         -6.9%

George W. Bush            274,769      616,066       224.2%

Barrack Obama             616,066      604,452          -2.4%

Homicides committed with a gun  http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/homicide.htm  http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2014/jun/16/facebook-posts/viral-meme-says-gun-homicides-are-down-49-percent-/

Bill Clinton                    17,488        10,828        -38.1%

George W. Bush            10,828        12,632         16.7%

Barrack Obama            12,632        10,945        -13.6%

High School Graduation Rate  http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d15/tables/dt15_219.10.asp

Bill Clinton                    71.9%         69.8%         -2.9%

George W. Bush            69.8%         74.7%           7.0%

Barrack Obama              74.7%         83.4%         11.6%

Thank you for your suggestions.  Needless to say, I did not conduct any of the underlying research.  Using just the starting and end points is not necessarily the best way to present this information, but it is straightforward.  I could have gone on and on and on, but decided to spare you (and myself) that fate.

Finally, these statistics are not intended to provide a comprehensive picture of the years 1993 to the present.  Rather they provide a mere snapshot of a few things that happened during the presidencies of Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama.  I do not ascribe credit or blame, but you can.

Two updates and three requests

Update 1 — John Stumpf is no longer the CEO of Wells Fargo.  He voluntarily submitted to a preemptive clawback, forgoing $41 million in unvested stock options, in an effort to save his job in the wake of the fake-accounts scandal.  It wasn’t enough.  This week, he retired.  His going-away present was in excess of $130 million.  After assuming responsibility for the scandal, he was ultimately, perhaps belatedly, held accountable.

Update 2 — During the debate last Sunday evening, Donald Trump referred to “the late great Abraham Lincoln.”  This usage of “late” to refer to a recently deceased person occurred over 151 years after Lincoln died.  The Napoleonic 85-year gap that I explained last week remains the largest published gap.

Request 1 — This week, Donn Fendler died.  One of our readers requested a blog post about him, but all I have is this snippet.  Fendler became a celebrity for a short time in 1939 when his 12-year old self vanished while hiking in Maine.  The manhunt to find him was front page news across the nation.  He survived alone for nine days and essentially rescued himself by walking into a hunting camp.  A relieved nation, in the person of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, presented him with a medal as the outstanding youth hero of 1939.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donn_Fendler

He wrote a book about the experience titled “Lost On A Mountain in Maine.”  According to my mother, he was a quiet unassuming man, who enjoyed visiting schools to describe his tale of perseverance to children.

Request 2 —  One of my faithful readers asked whether two Joey Bosas could kill an adult black bear in hand to hand combat.  Very far-fetched, of course, now that the Roman Coliseum has fallen into disuse.  In my opinion, the Bosas would have no chance unless they had a weapon, even a good hunting knife would likely be enough.

Bears are strong, fast, have fantastic weaponry (teeth and claws), and are protected by thick fur.  Usain Bolt, a good proxy for the fastest human, has been recorded at 27.8 mph.  Black bears, even big ones, reportedly sprint 25-30 mph.   Black bears routinely flip over rock looking for food and have turned over 300 pound rocks with one foreleg.

Still, a small adult female black bear might weigh as little as 90 pounds.  The Bosas might have a chance against her, but I doubt it.  She could kill or incapacitate them with a single blow or bite, they don’t have that capability.   One way to think about this issue is to consider all the stories you have heard about unarmed humans killing a bear.  As far as I know it has never happened.  To think two Bosas would have a chance against a large black bear, say a 500-pounder, is shear lunacy.  They probably couldn’t even kill a small adult.

Request 3 —  This request is from me.  As we approach the end of President Obama’s eight years in office, I plan to put together a spreadsheet of numerical indicators to compare the last three consecutive eight-year presidencies.

Question:  have there been other times in our history when three consecutive presidents served eight years?

Answer:  yes.

Question:  when?

An example of the type of indicator I plan to compile is gross domestic product.  I’d like to get 10-15 broad indicators of life in the U.S., not just indicators that measure the economy.

So – my request is to ask you for suggestions of statistics that I can compile that will give a good indication of how some significant aspect of life in the U.S. has during the past three presidencies.  You don’t have to do the research, I will.  But I would like help coming up with a list of noteworthy items.

Thrice we have had three consecutive presidents serve eight years.  The first time was early:  Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe.  The second time was relatively modern:  Roosevelt, Truman, and Eisenhower.  Truman did not serve two full terms, but I’m giving it to him because he succeeded Roosevelt so early in FDR’s fourth term.  (7.75 years rounds to 8.)  And the third time is now:  Clinton, Bush, Obama.

A few updates

Colin Kaepernick continues to kneel during the national anthem.  He has reported that he has received death threats about his protest.  Meanwhile, more unarmed black people have been shot and killed by police officers.

John Tortorella, the coach who believes he has the right to force players to stand during the national anthem, also believes that anyone critical of him should shut up.  After the US was eliminated from the World Cup of Hockey, he referred to critics as self-serving.  His criticism of them was, of course, perfectly appropriate, and not in the least self-serving.  He’s big on saying what he wants to say, not so big on others having an opinion contrary to his.

The Cubs continue to play well and against bad teams.  In their last 20 games, they are 12-8.  Among those games were ten against the sad sack Brewers and Reds and four against the Giants, who have a winning record despite having the worst record in baseball since the all-star break.

John Stumpf remains on the job and today picked up support from a professor who called for us to stop beating up on poor Wells Fargo and John Stumpf.  http://www.cnbc.com/2016/09/22/stop-beating-up-on-wells-fargo-and-john-stumpf-commentary.html  He stated “This seems to be a rare case where Wells Fargo unintentionally dropped the ball.”  Please Professor, Wells Fargo didn’t drop “the” ball, they dropped over 2,000,000 balls and it was very intentional.  That’s a little worse than the hot potato footballs that players are dropping.

Speaking of which — a couple of you think my “ejected from the game and ball on the 50-yard line” proposal is a bit extreme.  Of course it is, purposely so.  It begets this philosophical question:  can it be appropriate to have a penalty that is so severe, so grossly disproportionate to the infraction that no infractions occur.

One example of this is Singapore, where spitting gum on the street or sidewalk carries a $700 fine.  The fine isn’t designed to discourage gum spitting, it is designed to eliminate it — and it works.  The country does not have the splatters of gum that besmudge so many sidewalks in the US.

My “proposal” (quotes because no person in a position to do anything about it will ever become aware of it) is not designed to discourage dropping the ball before crossing the goal line, it is designed to eliminate it.  If the NCAA or the NFL want to get serious about eliminating helmet to helmet hits or targeting, they should consider a grossly disproportionate penalty.  In the meantime, we continue to see players get pummeled into concussions because the rules are designed to discourage helmet to helmet contact, not eliminate it.

One of my intrepid friends forwarded my post about Central Michigan forfeiting their win over Oklahoma State to the President of Central Michigan University.  He has not responded.  But a couple of you did, asking about the rule that should have ended the game.  I thought it too complicated to include in the earlier post, but have a little room here, so:

The rules state that when a penalty occurs on the last play of a quarter, an additional untimed down will be played.  Oklahoma State had the ball as the clock wound to zero and threw the ball out of bounds.  The officials called intentional grounding.  Whether that was a good call is irrelevant for our purposes.  Because the last play of the quarter included a penalty, the officials allowed an untimed down.  They forgot about another rule, which states that the previous rule does not apply if the penalty results in loss of down, which intentional grounding does.  The bottom line is that the second rule canceled out the first rule, the game had concluded, and the additional untimed down should not have been allowed.

The President of Central Michigan can still score a public relations coup by forfeiting the game.  It would generate so much positive press about the university’s integrity and sportsmanship that CMU would benefit more than it will from the win.  The head football coach might beg to differ.

Last – Jerry Rice scored the most touchdowns in NFL history, 208.  He also attempted 11 passes and completed three, including one touchdown.

Assuming Responsibility

When I assume responsibility, I am usually on the hook for something.  The doctor’s office always asks me to sign a form indicating that I am responsible for whatever the insurance company doesn’t pay.  I am responsible for having automobile insurance.  If I don’t, I can be penalized.  I am responsible for renewing my driver’s license, for taking out the garbage.  The list goes on.

Virtually every time I purchase a ticket to watch a game or concert or attend an event, the organizer of the game, concert, or event includes a disclaimer indicating that they are not responsible for anything that happens to me related to the game, concert, or event.  So if a ball, drumstick, or horse, hits or kicks me, the organizer isn’t responsible for the harm, I am.  I’m ok with that; if I assume a risk, I should be responsible.

It’s different for bigwigs.  John Stumpf is the CEO of Wells Fargo, a bank that apparently opened somewhere around 2 million accounts that were bogus.  That’s a lot of accounts.  You’d think someone would have noticed, and eventually, the LA Times did.  Stumpf has accepted “full responsibility” for the scandal, which interestingly enough did not enhance the bank’s earnings, only its costs.  http://www.reuters.com/article/us-wells-fargo-accounts-ceo-idUSKCN11Q08U

In this instance, however, accepting full responsibility doesn’t appear to mean much.  Stumpf still has his job.  He hasn’t been fined or penalized.  As far as I can tell, nothing has happened to Stumpf except that he has been yelled at by a few senators.  (Wells Fargo paid $185 million to settle the case with federal regulators without, of course, admiting wrongdoing. http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-wells-lawsuits-20160909-snap-story.html)

I heard Stumpf being interviewed by Jim Cramer, who asked whether there would be a clawback, a procedure whereby a company seeks to recover ill-gotten gains from an employee.  In this case, stock options increased in value at least in part because of the existence of all those putative new accounts, which were viewed as evidence of the bank’s excellence in cross-selling.  Stumpf told Cramer that clawbacks would be sought to the extent possible.  That seemingly responsive answer means that Wells Fargo might seek to claw back anywhere between 0% and 100% of the stock options’ increase in value.

Over 5,000 employees, who were part of the bogus account-opening scandal, have been fired, some as long ago as 2011. http://money.cnn.com/2016/09/14/investing/warren-buffett-berkshire-hathaway-wells-fargo-fake-account-scandal/   They have rightly paid a price for their role in establishing the bogus accounts.  But the manager who oversaw the fired employees was not fired, she is being allowed to retire.  http://www.cnbc.com/2016/09/20/its-would-not-be-easy-for-wells-fargo-to-claw-back-banker-pay.html  And she has not accepted responsibility, only Stumpf has.  Not that it matters.

This situation reminds me of when Donald Rumsfeld assumed full responsibility for the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. soldiers.   http://www.voanews.com/a/a-13-a-2004-05-07-24-1-67497562/282715.html  Like Stumpf, Rumsfeld did not lose his job, he did not pay a fine, and he did not, as far as can be determined, suffer any personal consequences.

Stumpf and  Rumsfeld both apologized.  More importantly, neither of them was directly involved in the scandal or abuse.  Although each was in charge of the organization that committed the scandal or abuse, each was far removed from the events.  Still, they accepted responsibility without suffering consequences.  I wish I could do that.  So does every five-year old who hits a sibling.

Most of us live in the real world, where responsibility does not come without costs.  But just as some banks are too big to fail, some people (Rumsfeld and Stumpf [so far] among them) are too big to suffer direct consequences.  The unquantifiable damage to their reputations is something else entirely.