Whatta Fiasco

A fairly intense little lesson focussed on change of direction. Some frustrating, almost but not quite there type bouting. Also discussed that there’s a tournament in Des Moines this weekend. Looks like there will be four of us from the club going.

Tim Burton and Danny Elfman do it again. I don’t think it’s quite the film that Nightmare Before Christmas was, although that might have to do with how long it’s been. Still, a lovely little movie with plenty of insider jokes and homages and a sweet, romantic story. And I absolutely love the fact that the voice talent was so well done that I never had the sense of listening to industry names. All I heard were the characters. (Ha! I just noticed that Deep Roy was one of the voices. Hee.)

decent night of fencing. Some good. Some bad. When I’m thinking straight, I can do some of what I should be doing.

Two of our new students showed up again. One of then got started on target. The other will be doing target on Wednesday. I’m looking forward to getting weapons in their hands so they can bout instead of just horsing around when they get tired of footwork.

We had both an epee strip and a foil strip going all evening. Hooray. Having two electrical strips is very nice indeed, and I no have a system for taking up and putting down the bungee floor cords that tends to keep things from getting tangled.

And it’s no time to be thinking about tournament schedules. Past time, in fact. I’ve already missed the deadline for the first NAC so I won’t be going to that one. (Not worth paying triple fees, sorry!) October is a youth foil tournament in Salina (and maybe some other events too, not sure.) The Sioux City Challenge will be in early November. The KCFC Holiday tournament is in early December, comflicting with a small veteran’s tournament in St. Louis that I would really like to go to. But St. Louis has at least one more vet tournament during the first quarter of next year. And that’s not to overlook the Turkey Meet in Wisconsin at the end of November and the Remenyik (?) in Chicago, which I believe is in October. I need to double check that one because Mark was interested in going to it this year.

Yep, it’s time to get my USFA membership renewed.

I’ve started reading Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science by Charles Wheelan. It’s a well recommended introduction to economics that promises not to use any scary charts or math. Fine enough. Wheelan achieves a clear and concise writing style. He hasn’t come up with anything I haven’t already heard, but I’m only fifty pages into the book. And then, in a chapter introducing government’s role in managing the economy, I find this:

“Is it appropriate to allow some drivers to pay for the privilege of driving a vehicle so bulky that it might run over a Hyundai without even spilling the sixty-four-ounce drink in the monster cup holder? Yes, for the same reason that most of us eat ice cream even though it causes heart disease. We weigh the health costs of Starbucks Almond Fudge against that divine, creamy taste and decide to have a pint every once in a while. We don’t quit ice cream entirely, nor do we have it with every meal. Economics tells us that the environment requires the same kinds of trade-offs as everything else in life. We should raise the cost of driving an SUV (or any vehicle) to reflect its true social cost and then let individual drivers decide if it still makes sense to commute forty-five miles in a Chevy Tahoe.”

Now let’s flip back to the very first paragraph of this chapter:

“Why did I decide to sell my Honda Civic in 1998? Two reasons: (1) It didn’t have a cup holder; and (2) my wife was pregnant, and I had become fearful that our whole family would get flattened by a Chevy Suburban. I could have gotten beyond the cup holder problem. But putting a car seat in a vehicle that weighed a quarter as much as the average SUV was not an option. So we bought a Ford Explorer and became a part of the problem for all of those people still driving Honda Civics.”

So, the social cost incurred by eating ice cream and potentially increasing your personal chances of heart disease is economically equivalent to that of potentially killing an entire family because you decided to drive an overly large vehicle. And if we raise the taxes on said overly large vehicles to a sufficient level to offset the environmental impact of the emissions of the gas guzzlers, then people will rationally decide that saving money on taxes is more important than protecting the lives of their families. Right.

Ack! And on the very next page he trots out the odious spandex line: “Any thoughtful policy analyst knows that some individuals who wear spandex in public should be taxed, if not jailed.” I know he’s just trying to inject a little levity into a topic most people believe to be dull and boring, but he’s just implied that it’s more important for the government to prevent a person’s esthetic sense from being offended than it is to protect that same person’s health and safety.
This is exactly the sort of thing that gives economists, particularly conservative economists, a bad name. When you strip his thesis down to the bare bones, I don’t disagree with him at all. Taxation can be a valid and useful tool for balancing external costs.

Ugh. This happens very seldom, but I don’t think I’m going to be able to make it through the rest of this book.

Essentially, this is an examination of why central planning tends to fail. And the biggest reason it fails is because it tends to oversimplify very complex systems. It starts out very well, but by the fourth chapter it’s bogging down a bit in what felt like excessive case studies. (German forestry, Brasilia, Russian agricultural reforms, and a Tanzanian viligization program.) I can highly recommend the first three chapters, but don’t feel as though you’re missing too much if you skip the rest of the book. (Although the rest isn’t bad, just a little drawn out.)

Quite by accident I ended up reading Triple Helix and How Buildings Learn at the same time as I was reading this book, and all three turned out to be lectures on the importance of respecting process in their respective areas. It’s always fun when the books you’re reading end up talking to each other.

[amazon]

Yes, that movie. The one about the vile joke. Except that it’s as much a movie about comics as it is about a joke, and the roster of faces parading across the screen is impressive. The biggest surprise to me? The whole point of the joke is to string together the most incredible taboo-breaking filth you can possibly imagine. But the range of filthy ideas presented by some very good comics was surprisingly limited and obvious. But a thoroughly enjoyable film.

No fencing for me on Monday because it was an opera night, so last night was a first night back since last Friday. It felt like a long time and I decided to go into the evening without high expectations. It was as rough around the edges as I had expected, but there was also some good stuff in there. Did an extended bit of bouting with A. followed by a five touch bout once I was good and tired. The best part was that even when I was tired, I was still fully engaged mentally in the game. A good night.

Ariadne is back, and fencing right handed again for the first time in a few months. The new job is keeping her extremely busy so we were glad to see her. And we have a brand new foilist, fruit of our book signing demo, who is having a blast. He’s had three sessions of footwork lessons and is itching to get a weapon in his hands. His mom had to practically drag him out of the gym last night. A good start.

I’ve always liked Carmen and have seen several versions of it on the small screen, so I was looking forward to this one. Eh. It wasn’t bad. I think the overture would have been better done at a tiny bit slower tempo. There was a tenor who got swallowed up by the low brass and a soprano with a slight but distressing tendency to drift sharp in the middle of duets. But I didn’t notice any microphone problems this time. And there were two actual, honest to goodness dancers.

Fun opera. Annoying audience. Sadly, I’m seeing an unhappy trend here. Big name productions draw in crowds of people who have never, or seldom ever, gone to an opera. No wrapper rustlers and no perfume offenders were near me this time. Instead we had a crowd of people who had paid money to see people sing. If someone wasn’t visible on stage and singing, then it was clearly a perfect time to chatter with the three other people who came with you. Through the entire overture and every other orchestral part, chatter chatter chatter. And that was on top of the standard ask a question, make a comment types, the ones who just can’t manage to save it until intermission. I wanted to deliver smackage far and wide. One of these days I’m just going to be too grumpy to bother renewing my season tickets, and it’s going to be the annoyance factor of the audience that tips the balance.

If you’re looking for a less intimidating introduction to China Mieville, this is the place to go. What happens when you find out that your real father is the king of the rats, and he’s looked you up after all these years to help defeat his old enemy. The Pied Piper battles the rats (and spiders and birds) in London on the ground of Drum and Bass. Lots of violence and plenty of gross out material, and crazy insane thumping whirling music. You can see the roots of his later work being built here, but for this book it’s still quite approachable as straight fantasy.

And if you like this one you’ll almost certainly enjoy Emma Bull’s War for the Oaks, and vice versa.

[amazon]

A bizzare, surreal Georgian film by Tenghiz Abuladze. When a local dignitary dies, a respectable local woman insists upon digging his body back up. Repeatedly. The film walks us through why she persists. About half way through I wasn’t sure I was going to make it to the end, but then it grabbed me and didn’t let go. Unfortunately, this is the final film of a trilogy, but finding the other two films (The Plea and The Wishing Tree) is going to take more effort. I’ll be keeping my eye out. This was a pleasant surprise.

[greencine]