Objective Observer

0601 - Tolerance →

A long-serving member of the OO Staff, not often mentioned here, is His Worship, the Unite States Consular Warden for Anguilla. This is an unpaid post, mostly involving handing out forms and answering questions. Once or twice a year, though, the Objective Observatory has a visit from Consular headquarters in Barbados. A Consul or Vice Consul arrives for two days, and this worthy interviews 50 or so families claiming U.S. citizenship for a child born in the Virgin Islands or in the U.S. Cookies and over-sugary sodas are served, while skilled Deputy Wardens assist in form completions. While that’s the basic job description, bizarre additions exist. This week, the Warden once more presided over a non-sectarian silver anniversary re-pledging of the vows of an American couple moving to Anguilla. The Warden is pretty smooth at such ceremonies, and always wears a large floppy white hat.

0600 - Landmark →

A Landmark day, for several reasons. First, this is OO column number six hundred. Second, a visit from the OO’s engineering son has resulted in the discovery of the long suspected but never before discovered basic Anguilla Time Unit, or ATU. The OO had pointed out to son that before investing in The Objective Observatory the then and current Minister of Roads and such had assured him the road from Shoal Bay to the Sea Rocks would be paved at once. Now, it is 13 years or so later, and by golly, the road is half paved, and after the Water Department is finished digging up the other half that was fully prepared so the Water Dep’t could dig it up again, well, that road will be fully paved. Then, there was discussion of the enormous house always being built but never finished next to the Observatory. The engineering son then had a flash of insight: things happen in Anguilla in Anguilla Time Units, or ATU.

0599 - Size →

As many of the more astute Readers will have realized by now, Anguilla is not a large island, nor is it extra-populous. There are things you cannot buy here, and things you cannot do. If you yearn for such consumption of goods and services, you will be unhappy here. If, however, you wish good food and wine, you are lucky, because that we have, as well as an almost perfect freedom to do and think as we wish. One politician here doesn’t like a lot of people, but he is so over-verbose as to be unintelligible. Most other people are agreeable and unassuming, except when exercising their positions in the bureaucracy. And as for freedom, Anguilla provides it in plenty. Commerce, not so much, but freedom all the time.

0598 - Congress →

While we admit that research is not complete, we have paid careful daily attention to CNN and PBS, and have read the weekly news magazines (those in English), and it appears that the people in all parts of the world are quite unhappy with their elected officials. In the U.S., of course, the polls come out regularly, and the members of the Congress are found disrespected at the same level as used car salesmen. Elsewhere, in England Tony Blair has fallen in esteem, and in Germany, India, and the broad globe, whoever is running things is not getting good reviews. Today, we do not disagree with the popular wisdom, we inquire once more why anyone in a democracy should put up with, say, Tom DeLay. To ask it crisply: Why?

0597 - Plutocracy →

Please read this next quite carefully. A thoughtful Reader sent the OO a "Forgotten English" calendar, each day presenting a weird and obscure word. The word that follows is one such, and our Staff Proofreader has checked it carefully on the Web. We need this word badly for today's ruminations, and it is "Fucated". Don't get upset! It means:

Fucated Painted; disguised with paint, or with false show. [L. fucatus, p. p. of fucare to color, paint]

Well, that is what is being sold to the innocent American voter: Fucated, phony programs.

0596 - Hollywood →

With considerable difficulty, the OO and vital Staff return to tranquil Anguilla. What we learned from a trip to Hollywood and Atlanta is: (1) the airlines hate their passengers; (2) the airports are badly overloaded and designed wrong for all the inspections; (3) don't wear a sling when going through inspection or you will be strip-searched and beaten; and (4) bring food – you can't survive on a 3 cent bag of stale pretzels. The OO read an important book called Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. The clearest of prose, and fascinating insight into our snap judgments. After being forced by American Eagle to take a boat in order to connect to any flights, and subjected to varied indignities, Gladwell's teaching explained all: it is just so simple -- the airlines (all going broke) hate us passengers.

0595 - Crotchety →

First, three announcements. (1) A new Staff member has been appointed, with the title of Politico-Economic Truthteller, or the P.E.T. This is a consequence of the drivel emitted by the Governments of the world overwhelming the R.I.G., who is plenty busy in the markets. Also, (2) last week a grave error was committed here, and instantly corrected by our numerous Latinist Readers. The phrase is "Habemus Papam", not "Papa". Disgrace. Finally, (3) The OO is off to Hollywood, thence Atlanta, and there will be a short hiatus in your weekly supply of OO columns. Be brave; exercise, eat lightly. We shall return.

0594 - Moritz&Thomas →

This deals with a most serious subject. As you may have forgotten, Moritz Kaposi is the Hungarian dermatologist who in 1872 described the hideous condition of Kaposi’s Sarcoma. Thomas Robert Malthus you of course know as the author of an Essay on the Principles of Population. Our Staff Ethicist, who tends to be overworked these days, was pondering the legacy of that remarkable, charismatic, and much-loved Pope John Paul II. We have no Staff Theologian, but our Ethicist feels quite competent to discuss right and wrong, and to distinguish the two. Our subject is Condoms and Birth Control.

0593 - Nomenclature →

Because Anguilla is in the Caribbean, where quite a bit of Spanish is spoken (as it is along the U.S. border), some of the Cable TV broadcasts are Spanish broadcasts with English voice-over. This makes for a slightly offbeat baseball opener, but one can learn. Did you know that the Spanish word for “Pitcher” is “El Lanzadore”? Quite a fine word. And the Spanish for “Bullpen”? That is “El Bullpen”. You can’t win them all. This week, Readers, we shall relax from the heavy lifting and report some weird names from our always-growing collection. Next week, deep moral thinking is scheduled. We can’t do the deep stuff this week because the Staff is laughing at the hats the ladies are wearing at the Royal Wedding ceremony.

0592 - Ideas →

Usually unknown to you Faithful Readers, there is a constant flow of e-mails to the Objective Observatory, responding to, applauding, or quarreling with, our sometimes pointed messages. One theme heard recently is that these columns criticize the failures of so-called "Leaders", but do not suggest remedies. Today, we supply ideas for improvement. We point out though, that while often accused of "Liberal" thoughts [the dirty word of certain bad politicians], in fact we are, and always have been, economically and politically conservative in thought and deed. On to ideas. [And we have more in reserve.]

0591 - Change →

Change [OO #591]

This is to be a calm column about the pace of change (or no change) on Anguilla. And we shall deliver. If you want some angry overruns from last week's column, please see the Addendum at the end. Now, about change and Anguilla. The OO is in a second decade of living in Anguilla, and finds the air pure, the Expats eccentric and flavorful, and the local Anguillians friendly and highly resistant to change. Examples abound.

0590 - Angry →

The entire Staff here is so angry that we must once more postpone a promised column. Perhaps the angriest is our Staff Logician, ordinarily calm and measured. But, this week, our Logician is in a fury over the repellent behavior of the Congress and the extra-repellent Tom DeLay. The cause is the phony fight over the body of one Terri Schiavo. The body of this poor remnant has been kept functioning for 15 years, although courts have over and over accepted medical testimony that the body is in a “Persistent Vegetative State” (PVS). The Logician points out that what you have here is a body, NOT a person. The person is gone, not there, any more than if you had a liver preserved for transplant. Yet, the media and the Pols talk about “Saving Terri”. The point is, she isn’t there anymore. As one George Felos, a courageous lawyer, said yesterday, the attempt of the House of Representatives, led by DeLay, to suddenly subpoena this dead body was “odious, shocking, disgusting”. He’s right.

0589 - Vulgar →

The weekly Staff meeting here did not run smoothly. Our Revered Investment Guru (the R.I.G.) was in a snit, partly due to the yield on U.S. Treasury bonds rising, and partly because of the brisk dismissal of the CEO of Boeing, a randy gent. The bond irritant was that the rise in rates was some three years late, according to the R.I.G., who had been duly punished by betting too soon. Our Ethicist, more given to meditation, fell into a dispute about the firing of CEO Stonecipher [good name] for fooling around with a female exec. The R.I.G. thought that CEOs ought to be judged by the money they made for stockholders, not their moral purity. The Ethicist thought that CEOs, like baseball players, ought to be pillars of virtue. The Senior Counsel, called in to arbitrate, pointed out that no one knew what really went on, and besides, he ruled, the error was not in the hanky-panky, but in committing the liaison to the firm’s e-mails. Hence, said Counsel, if an exec doesn’t know better than to footle about by e-mail, where Attorneys General excavate daily, the exec is stupid and should begone. The OO said we should stand for virtue coupled with silence, and thanks to Barron’s, was able to quote Cardinal Richelieu: “Never write a letter and never destroy one.” Does that apply to columns?

0588 - Gadgets →

The more things change, the more they stay the same, as they say in French (translation on request). This last week, there were more questions than answers. Just for an example, here at the Objective Observatory, there is a fine spam filter on the e-mail. Every day or so, it is necessary to go look at the porn and puerile that is waiting in e-mail purgatory, and trash it. So, for two weeks we have been bombarded with announcements for “College Girls Going Wild”. Now, the question is, why “College Girls”? At the OO’s college, the female crowd looked quite scruffy, with the stringy hair and the scuffed shoes [NB: the male equivalents looked like the waiting line at the Salvation Army]. So, who wanted to see them going wild? If what you get is a nude shot of a girl, what do you care about her education?

0587 - Mediscare →

The report from Anguilla is mixed: On the Tourist front the island is boiling with pale people, all happily following the U.S. weather reports on TV, with those computer generated dots of snow falling, and the price of oil rising. On the health front, somebody has brought varied strains of ‘flu to the happy isle, and many are laid low, including the OO, wheezing and oozing fluids. Meanwhile, the OO’s visitors include three kids. Have you noticed that kids these days have large vocabularies? The visitors do, with the 8-year old learning that the Anguilla elections can’t be more than 5 years apart, and asking sagely “That’s the maximum, what’s the minimum?” And, as in the States, the real estate market here is red hot, with construction everywhere.

0586 - 'Roids →

It’s the high, high, season on Anguilla, with all the expensive hotels and restaurants doing just fine, thank you. When – and sometimes if – they get here, our Visitors are more than pleased to emerge safe from their planes after the perils of flight (or non-flight). Recent arrivals were roundly condemning San Juan Airport and smiled happily when told that it is known as the Airport from Hell. Those coming in over St. Martin find that airport far overcrowded, and, unhappily, the staff rude (new this year). Today’s Visitors to the Objective Observatory’s luxurious quarters are marooned in New York, since their plane backed into another on take-off. The airlines are well on the way to being nationalized for incompetence (let alone insolvency). And, if you find today’s wisdom more than usually confused, the Observatory itself has just survived an interior re-arrangement, thanks to our famed designer, who arrived and spent a week (and a decent bit of the OO’s money) on upgrading the place.

0585 - Spukhafte →

Deep thanks, to all Readers who (1) e-mailed that they liked the poetic Challenge (OO #584) and (2) kindly did not inform our Proofreading Staff that Karl Rove is a Karl, not a Carl. The Staff mumbles that Google listed pages of “Carl Rove” cites – true, but then Google is simply a giant dust bin, collecting the true with the false. [Note: Is this a metaphor for modern education?] The error may be due to our missing the Feast day of St. John Bosco, claimed to be the patron saint of Editors. [More Note: We, having no Staff member expert in Sainthood, had thought he might be the Patron of chocolate milk.]

0584 - Challenge →

The interruption to the smooth flow of our product is due to Loyal and Attentive Reader Ed, who e-mailed us:

“Congratulations! I know of no one else who could (or who would want to) write a column dealing, in the compass of maybe 600 words, with Social Security, Mickey Rooney's butt, Brillat Savarin, Caligula, Cheating Housewives, alchemy and the value of the Euro. OK, now give us one with fruit flies, the Rape of the Sabines, Jenna Bush, global warming, Brittany [sic] Spears' chances of winning the GOP Presidential nomination in 2012 and the Diet of Worms. I await with bated breath.”

0583 - WittyBanter →

Our title comes from a teaser on the ABC Family Channel, advertising a coming sitcom filled with “Witty banter”. That’s our aim, that’s our new motto [except in election campaigns]. Before proceeding to some of the moral crises facing us all, we have to thank the many Attentive Readers who responded to last week’s SocSec [OO # 582], mostly with applause, but also noting the strange assertion that the [imaginary] Social Security Trust Fund would run out in “1980 or so.” This is the fault of the Proofreading Staff, not the R.I.G., and we apologize deeply – the intended date was the year 2080. We are not usually a century off (though our ideas may be). That confessed, we note that in The New Yorker of 24 January, the expiration date on the thoroughly phony fund is given as only 2052 (Congressional Budget Office), and we have seen later dates elsewhere, also. The same article says more cash will be coming in than out until 2028. So, no instant crisis. Now, on to the Witty B.

0582 - SocSec →

For all Northern Readers thirsting for some Witty Banter [our new motto] from the sunny shores of Anguilla, you must wait for next week. Meanwhile, enjoy the snow. This week, we shall explore the big issue of Social Security. There is much confusion, much generated by the Pols with an agenda, and even more by the confused and fuzzy failure to analyze and distinguish at least four different issues. We turn the keyboard over to our Revered Investment Guru (the R.I.G.).