Monday, November 19, 2007

Where goes the dollar?

I found interesting the following commentary on the weakening US dollar by Harold Maass, a columnist for the magazine The Week. (Adam Smith is the 18th Century Scotch author of The Wealth of Nations, in which he wrote of the "Invisible hand" of economic systems. Jim Cramer is the blustery TV commentator on the economy and the stock market.)

The dollar can decline along the Adam Smith path or the Jim Cramer path, says David Ignatius in The Washington Post. In the "Adam Smith version," natural market mechanisms help the dollar make its necessary downward slide gradually. China starts saving in other currencies, the declining greenback shrinks our deficit, and then "the dollar eventually will begin to rise again." But in the "Jim Cramer version," the dollar's "gradual adjustment" turns into a "stampede," fueled by "emotional, volatile traders." The Fed raises rates, we stop consuming, and the U.S. sinks into a recession. The sinking dollar can be "part of the cure," but Smith makes the medicine go down easier.

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Bad guys who can't get it right

There seems to be no end of stupid criminal stories--real ones. We've heard about the burglar-to-be who got stuck in an air vent at his intended target and had to be extricated by firemen, or the carjacker who found he didn't know how to shift the gears of the car he intended to make off with.

Another to be added to these misadventures appeared in the Baltimore Sun today. A guy went to a Baltimore bank, gave a handwritten note to a teller announcing a holdup, and took off with his loot ($526). However, there was one little flaw in his plan: he wrote the note on the back of a blank check from a checkbook he had gotten from that bank when he had an account there, but which had been closed six years ago. You guessed it: he left the note behind at the bank. At least, he showed customer loyalty by going back to his old bank.

He will have plenty of time to think about a better plan for his next heist--a judge gave him twelve years in prison for his little caper.

The giant-killers in the western North Carolina mountains

There must be something in that mountain air (or maybe the bootleg moonshine which is said to be made in those hills) that makes giant-killers out of the sports teams at small colleges in western North Carolina.

First, Appalachian State University (a contender in the small-school football division of the NCAA) beat mighty University of Michigan 34-32 on September 1st this year (at Michigan's home field), when Michigan was rated no. 5 in the nation. This was certainly one of the greatest upsets in U.S. college football history--as dozens of sports columnists and TV commentators breathlessly told the world. To make it even more of a David and Goliath story, Appalachian came from behind 31-32 with 1 minute, 11 seconds left in the game (with no more times-out available) to score a field goal and then block a last-minute field goal attempt by Michigan, to win by 34-32.

Then, on November 7th, another David hit another Goliath between the eyes. Gardner-Webb, a tiny Baptist school, thrashed the University of Kentucky, long a powerhouse in college basketball, by an 84-68 score (also on Kentucky's home turf). I have heard that Gardner-Webb was never behind in the score throughout the game.

The initial response by the sports media to both upsets was, "Who is Appalachian State/Gardner-Webb?" and "Where in the country are they?" The answers: Appalachian State, with about 15,000 students is located in Boone, North Carolina (population about 15,000); Gardner-Webb, with about 4,000 students, is in Boiling Springs, North Carolina (population about 4,000). I obtained that info from the schools' websites; I found it interesting that the student population and the town's population were about the same in each case.

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "The giant-killers in the western North Carolina mountains.": And your Tar Heels just barely escaped tiny Davidson last night on the hardwood!

Hey, Anonymous,
Davidson isn't up in the mountains, and Carolina did win.
Mycroft

Monday, November 12, 2007

Google can goof

Believe it or not, Google can screw up. When I keyed in "richard milhaus nixon" to make sure I had his middle name right in my immediately foregoing posting, Google asked me "did you mean richard milhous nixon" (no question mark at the end). Then it went on to list numerous citations for "Richard Milhaus Nixon."

Another Richard Nixon

Yes, there was another Richard Nixon (his middle name was Williams, not Milhaus). A native of New Hanover County, North Carolina, he graduated from the University of North Carolina on June 2, 1859. He and my paternal grandfather were classmates. All of this I stumbled upon on the Internet, which provides a photocopy of the original program of the commencement exercises from the university library.

The use of Latin at prestigious universities was cool at that time--the state of North Carolina was referred to as Carolinae Borealis, the officials of the university as Gubernatori, and the graduating students as Juvenes hodie primi gradus in Artibus honorem petentes. The students' names were put into Latin where possible: Nixon's first name was listed as Ricardus, my grandfather's middle name (which was Henry) as Henricus; others were listed as Gulielmus (for William), Georgius (for George), Robertus (for Robert), and so on.

Young Nixon was one of the eleven graduating seniors who was a commencement speaker during the morning ceremonies (there were four more in the afternoon). His topic was "The Imagination; to be Cultivated." The other speakers were North Carolinians except those noted below. Their topics were:

"Latin Salutatory"
"The Hamiltonian System"
"Objections to an Elective Judiciary"
"The Persecution of the Jews" (New York)
"The Man of Letters"
"The Common Sense Man" (Alabama)
"The Independent Thinker" (Virginia)
"The American Student"
"To be great is to be misunderstood"
"Comparative merits of Curriculum Colleges"

There was "Music" (otherwise unidentified) between each speech.

The commencement ceremonies included a Christian hymn, a prayer, reading of "Psalm CXVII", and a benediction.

My grandfather's 1859 diploma (all in Latin) hangs in my house alongside mine, also from the University of North Carolina, presented to me 90 years later in the class of 1949 (all in English). There were no hymns or psalms at my commencement, but my diploma does say "...this sixth day of June in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and forty-nine..." I guess that no such religious phrasing is included in the university's diplomas today.
Name:
Location: United States

Mycroft Watson is the nom de plume of a man who has seen many winters. He is moderate to an extreme. When he comes to a fork in the road, he always takes it. His favorite philosopher is Yogi Berra. He has come out of the closet and identified himself. Anyone interested can get his real name, biography, and e-mail address by going to "Google Search" and keying in "User:Marshall H. Pinnix" (case sensitive).

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