Ferguson trauma

*   Recent events in Ferguson unfolded inexorably against all hope like a Greek tragedy.  If one accepts scientific determinism, then the entire saga is seen as the inevitable consequence of conditions before the Wilson/Brown encounter.  Nevertheless, I can't help considering several "what ifs" that might have altered the outcomes.  Societies sometimes improve by considering what ifs.

*   What if the racial mix of the Ferguson government and police were more like that of the population?  What if the police wore video cameras?  What if teenagers were more civilized, ie more respectful of people, laws, culture?  What if people were less tribal, specifically less racist?  What if more effective riot-control methods had been deployed?

*   What if citizens better understood the need for law enforcement, the consequences of insufficient law enforcement, the probability that with millions of armed police on duty during any day there will be a tragic action by a police officer--justified or unjustified?

*   What if all witnesses agreed with Wilson as to the sequence of events during the Wilson/Brown encounter?

*   People don't riot to protest cars or hospitals though 35 000 people are killed per year in auto accidents, and 100 000 people are killed per year by medical mistakes.

*   What if Al Sharpton and other civil rights leaders had stayed away or had urged objective examination of the evidence rather than victimhood and protests?

*   What if you were the patrolman encountering Michael Brown on the street that day?  Would the outcome have been better?  What if you were the grand jury, would you have found convincing evidence to indict officer Wilson?  What if you were the teenager encountering Wilson on the street that day?

*   Can riots be prevented by more justice?  What reforms would increase justice enough to prevent riots?  Are needed reforms possible without riots?

Gospel Supplement

Below are links to YouTube presentations of Gospel Supplement songs
1 Amazing grace
2 Angel band
3 Back to the cross
4 Beautiful isle of somewhere
5 A beautiful life
6 Beyond the sunset
7 Bringing in the sheaves
8 Church in the wildwood
9 Come Thou Fount
10 The darkest hour is just before dawn
11 Down by the riverside
12 Drifting too far from the shore
13 Dust on the Bible
14 An empty mansion
15 Farther along
16 From the manger to the cross
17 Gathering home
18 Give me the roses
19 I’m going to make Heaven my home
20 Gone home
21 Great speckled bird
22 Green pastures
23 Have you someone
24 He took your place
25 Hide me rock of ages
26 Hide you in the blood
27 Highway to Heaven
28 His fields are ready for harvest
29 Hold to God’s unchanging hand
30 How beautiful heaven must be
31 How firm a foundation
32 I feel like traveling on
33 I saw the light
34 If I could hear my mother pray again
35 I’ll fly away
36 I’ll meet you in the morning
37 I’ll sing for my Lord
38 In the garden
39 It is well with my soul
40 It won’t be long
41 Jesus hold my hand
42 Jesus Savior pilot me
43 Just a closer walk with Thee
44 Just a little talk with Jesus
45 Just over in the glory land
46 Keep on the sunny side
47 Kneel at the cross
48 Last mile of the way
49 Leaning on the everlasting arms
50 Life’s railway to Heaven
51 Lily of the valley
52 Lord build me a cabin in glory
53 Lord lead me on
54 Lower lights
55 Mansion for me
56 Gathering flowers for the master’s boquet
57 Mother’s Bible
58 My Jesus I love Thee
59 Near the cross
60 Where we’ll never grow old
61 O how I love Jesus
62 Old country church
63 Old crossroad is waiting
64 Old rugged cross
65 Old-time religion
66 One Christmas eve
67 One step more
68 Pass me not
69 Peace in the valley
70 Power in the blood
71 Precious memories
72 Road trip
73 Rock of ages
74 Shake hands with Mother again
75 Shall we gather at the river
76 So happy I’ll be
77 Softly and tenderly
78 Standing by the river
79 Standing on the promises
80 Sweet by and by
81 Swing low
82 Precious Lord take my hand
83 Think of the home over there
84 This world is not my home
85 Though your sins be as scarlet
86 Tramp on the street
87 Trust and obey
88 Unclouded day
89 I’m using my Bible for a roadmap
90 Victory in Jesus
91 Washed in the blood
92 Were you there
93 What a friend
94 When He calls
95 When Heaven comes down
96 When I get to the end of the way
97 When the roll is called up yonder
98 When the saints go marching in
99 Where could I go
100 Where the roses never fade
101 Where the soul never dies
102 Whispering hope
103 Who will sing for me
104 Will the circle be unbroken
105 Wings of a dove
106 When they ring the golden bells

Mostly Bluegrass Standards

Below are links to YouTube presentations of Bluegrass Standards
1. Ashes of love
2. Banks of the OhioBanks of the Ohio
3. Bluebird sings for me
4. Blue eyes crying in the rain
5. Blue moon of Kentucky
6. Blue Ridge cabin home
7. Bury me beneath the willows
8. Cabin in Caroline
9. Columbus stockade blues
10. Crying my heart out over you
11. Do you really love me
12. Down in the valley
13. Faded love
14. Fallen leaves
15. Georgia Rose
16. Golden ring
17. Green green grass of home
18. Homestead on the farm
19. Hot corn cold corn
20. I wonder where you are tonight
21. If teardrops were pennies
22. Jimmy Brown
23. Knoxville girl
24. Little cabin home on the hill
25. Lonesome road blues
26. Long journey home
27. Love come home
28. Love me darling just tonight
29. Mighty dark to travel
30. More to be pitied
31. Mother’s only sleeping
32. Mountain dew
33. Newmade grave on a green hillside
34. Nobody answered me
35. Nobody's darling but mine
36. Nobody’s love is like mine
37. On my way back to the old home
38. Paradise
39. Poison love
40. Prisoner's song
41. Put my little shoes away
42. Ramshacked shack
43. Rank strangers
44. Red River valley
45. Ridin' on that midnight train
46. Roll in my sweet baby's arms
47. Roses in the snow
48. Rough and rocky
49. Salty dog blues
50. Sinking of the Titanic
51. So lonesome I could cry
52. Some day we’ll meet again sweetheart
53. Some old day
54. Sweetest gift
55. Sweetheart you've done me wrong
56. Think of what you've done
57. Thinking tonight of my blue eyes
58. Tramp on the street
59. Wabash Cannonball
60. Wandering boy
61. Wedding bells
62. When you are lonely
63. White dove
64. Wild side of life
65. Will the circle be unbroken
66. Will you be lovin' another man
67. Will you miss me
68. Wreck of old 97
69. Wreck on the highway
70. You are my sunshine

Parlor songs
71. All smiles tonight
72. All through the night
73. Aura Lee
74. Danny Boy
75. Listen to the mocking bird
76. Long long ago
77. Rosewood casket
78. Seeing Nellie home
79. Silver threads among the gold
80. When you and I were young Maggie

Arab spring

* The Arab spring involved the overthrow of oligarchs and/or tyrants in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya and the civil war in Syria. Citizens had plausible grievances, and revolt was the natural, emotionally satisfying response, but I question whether revolt was objectively justified or optimal. More than that, I believe that Obama's support of oppositions, as voiced by Hillary Clinton, was thoughtless and harmful. Benign neglect would have been preferable to that rhetoric. Ideally, we (the outside world) could have acted to minimize harm in the respective societies. That would have required us to imagine likely consequences of various courses of action in the respective societies. It would have required us to contemplate and discuss a better civilization toward which our species might move.
* Tunisia still suffers from the economic ills that caused the uprising--unemployment and inflation--and some business segments have shrunk. Egypt elected a Muslim Brotherhood administration which proceeded to impose Sharia law and was deposed by the military, essentially a mafia with fingers in every kind of business, still Egypt's only stable and trusted institution. This is essentially a return to Mubarak-like rule with less economic activity. Libya is far worse now than under Gaddafi, in that the militias that he assembled to police his people are running amok with no commitment to civil society. Syria's revolution incubated and nourished ISIS, which endangers civilization far and wide. That should be on the conscience of the Syrian rebels.
* I'm a reluctant fatalist, unhappily recognizing that actual events are inevitable. But, what if there had been other ways to replace leaders of societies lacking experience with and institutions of democracy, consisting of mutually hateful tribes and religions, lacking sufficient opportunities for economic participation? Tunisia's Ben Ali lives now in Saudi Arabia, convicted of theft and murder in absentia. What if it were customary, even guaranteed, for rulers to be given comfortable homes and a generous stipends with which to live out their lives after abdication and return of family holdings to their countrys' treasuries, despite badly flawed rule? Mubarak dealt very gently with the mobs in tahrir square, yet he was imprisoned for deaths of a few of them. Mubarak and Gaddafi might have left with less tumult, socioeconomic disruption and/or carnage. Assad might have come to mutually acceptable accommodation with the opposition leaders before the carnage, emigration and ISIS.
* Even the most self-righteous must recognize the difficulty of governing the countries discussed herein, with mutually hateful sectors competing for insufficient sources of self respect. Before repeating the phrase "brutal dictator who killed his own people", consider Abraham Lincoln our greatest president whose death toll was far greater. Finally, the US is becoming more like the countries we malign, as the wealth-power spiral concentrates evermore wealth and too many citizens can't make it. Who will really care, if hoards of homeless people descend on Greenwich Connecticut with crowbars and stink-ball guns.

Obama's declining approval

* Polls show a decline in Obama's approval. This might be expected, considering the relentless sedition of conservative broadcasters since 2008. In my opinion, his stewardship of the nation and the world has been better than would be expected with any of his opponents.
* ObamaCare is a step in the right direction from where we were, it will evolve for the better, and it would be better now were it not for reactionary governors willing to destroy their own health-care systems for ideological purity.
* Granted, he spoke too soon on the Skip Gates encounter with Cambridge police, and he drew a couple of ill-considered red lines on Iran and Syria, and his administration was too supportive of the Arab spring when benign neglect or objective analysis would have been preferable. He should have better explained his policies and several trumped-up scandals.
* But these pale in comparison to Bush's giving our military the impossible task of modernizing Afghanistan's culture and Bush's sending our military on a criminal mission to change Iraq from a secular dictatorship opposing al-Qaeda to a cauldron of incompatible tribes and sects susceptible to ISIS domination.
* Obama's military reticence is preferable to the Republican doctrine of more muscular presence in the world. His analytical decision making is preferable to the blathering of conservative pundits and politicians.

Country Pathos, Country Soul

Below are links to YouTube presentations of Country Pathos songs
0 Country parables; David M Regen 1995
1 All smiles tonight
2 Amelia Earhart’s last flight
3 Amen corner
4 Angels rejoiced
5 At the first fall of snow
6 BJ the DJ
7 Bathe me in lilac (Love me right to the end)
8 Be careful of stones you throw
9 Beyond the sunset
10 Big bad John
11 The blind child’s prayer
12 The blizzard
13 Blue eyes crying in the rain
14 Blue Ridge cabin home
15 Bluebird sings for me
16 Branded wherever I go
17 Cabin on the hill
18 Calling my children home
19 Coat of many colors
20 Columbus stockade blues
21 Convict and the rose:
22 Cowboy's lament = Laredo
23 Daddy don’t go to the mine
24 Darling little Joe
25 The day they laid Mary away
26 Dear brother
27 Dear Uncle Sam
28 Don't make me go to bed
29 Down in the valley
30 Drowned in the deep blue sea
31 The dying soldier
32 Eastbond train
33 Engine 143
34 Every bush and tree;
35 Fallen leaves
36 Farside banks of Jordan
37 The fields have turned brown
38 Five miles from home
39 Flower blooming in the wildwood
40 Footprints in the snow
41 The funeral
42 The Gambler
43 Girl in the blue velvet band
44 Give me the roses:
45 Golden ring
46 Green green grass of home
47 Hard times come again no more
48 Hard times have been here
49 He stopped loving her today
50 Help me understand
51 Hickory Holler’s tramp
52 Hills of home sweet home
53 His fields are ready for harvest
54 Homestead on the farm
55 I haven’t seen Mary in years
56 I hear a sweet voice calling
57 I heard my mother call my name in prayer
58 I miss Mother since she's gone
59 If I could hear my mother pray again
60 If Jack were only here
61 I’m here to get my baby out of jail
62 In the baggage coach ahead
63 Jimmy Brown
64 Just before the battle mother
65 Kentucky
66 Lamp lighting time in the valley
67 Legend of the robin's red breast
68 Letter edged in black or Letter edged in black
69 Lightening Express
70 Listen to the mockingbird
71 Lonely mound of clay
72 Lonesome river:
73 Lost highway
74 Maple on the hill
75 Mary dear
76 Master's bouquet
77 Men with broken hearts
78 Mighty dark to travel
79 Missing in action
80 Molly;
81 More to be pitied
82 Mother queen of my heart
83 Mother's at rest
84 Mother’s Bible
85 Mother's only sleeping
86 Mountain road; anon
87 Muddy water
88 My brother’s will
89 My native home
90 Newmade grave upon the green hillside: ; Jimmy Martin
91 Ninety-nine years is almost for life
92 No children allowed
93 Nobody answered me
94 Nobody’s child
95 Nobody's darling but mine
96 Old home place
97 Old Shep
98 On my way back to my old home
99 On the evening train
100 One Christmas eve
101 Orphan girl; anon
102 Over the hill to the poorhouse
103 Paradise
104 Passages: David M Regen 1995
105 Pictures from life's other side or Pictures from life's other side
106 Plant some flowers by my graveside
107 Precious jewel
108 Prisoner’s plea; ??Billy Boy Arnold??
109 Prisoner's song
110 Put my little shoes away
111 Ramshackled shack
112 Rank strangers
113 Road trip
114 Roan County (Hills of)
115 Rocking alone
116 Roses in the snow
117 Rosewood casket
118 Rosewood casket rewrite
119 Row us over the tide
120 Ruby don’t take your love to town
121 Safely in the arms
122 Searching for a soldier's grave
123 Shackles and chains
124 Sign on the highway
125 Silent empty chair
126 Sing me back home
127 Sinking of the Titanic
128 Six more miles
129 So lonesome I could cry
130 Soldier’s last letter
131 Some old day
132 Strand of a yellow curl
133 Summer wind
134 Sweeter than the flower
135 Sweetest gift
136 Take this hammer
137 Teardrops falling in the snow
138 Tell me why my daddy don’t come home
139 That little old country church house
140 These hills
141 Thirty pieces of silver
142 Tiny broken heart
143 Too late to cry:
144 Tragic romance
145 Train 1262
146 Tramp on the street
147 Two more years and I’ll be free
148 Unfinished rug: Karl Davis not BMI ; BlSkBs EO-VB-4012-1, Vict 21-0317-B=CMF20035
149 Unloved and unclaimed
150 The vacant chair
151 Vision of Mother
152 Walking my Lord up Calvary hill
153 Wandering boy (Bring back)
154 Weathered gray stone
155 When God comes to gather his jewels
156 When I ride that last mile: ?Don Reno ; Reno & Smiley
157 Where no cabins fall
158 White dove
159 Who will sing for me
160 Will my soul pass through the southland = Dying rebel soldier
161 Will the circle be unbroken
162 Will the roses bloom
163 Will you miss me
164 Wreck of old 97
165 Wreck on the highway
166 You’ll find her name written there

Recreationism

* Among the February 2007 postings to this blog, is one titled "Human condition". In it, I contemplated a humanistic religion, a body of wisdom and practices that would provide as much meaning and satisfaction for adherents as are justified by evidence and reason and that would tilt society towards diminishing harm. I had a vague idea about the body of wisdom and no idea about practices that would attract people to embrace such a religion.
* One could assemble a bible consisting of wisdom scriptures from all established religions, a section from each such religion, avoiding all text encouraging tribalism and all supernatural claims. Their ethics derive from centuries of experience.
* Sunday-morning assembly programs might be discussions of personal ethics and ethical implications of public policy and cultural conventions. They might include stories exemplifying ethical and practical consequences of individual and governmental choices.
* Sunday-school lessons might consist of presentations and discussions of social and economic dynamics as well as recreational explorations of scientific discoveries advancing the understanding of nature (physics, biology, astronomy, sociology, even chemistry). There are plenty of web pages to support such explorations. I have more than 200 germane links. Outside experts and students might welcome opportunities to discuss their interests with curious people.
* Stimulating recreation would be promoted. That would include sports, arts, crafts, literature, instrumental music, writing, theater, dance, songs of dignified genres and invented play. Opportunities for inter-generational sharing and fellowship might unfold.
* Most of the above should be stimulating and enlightening, but may not activate the amygdala enough for internalization of ethical principals. Anyone of any age needs to learn and reinforce noble sentiments through emotional responses to justice, generosity, unexpected nobility, etc. This might be accomplished through the music program. I have collected 130 songs that activate the amygdala, these in a songbook titled "Country Pathos, Country Soul".
* I'm too senile to begin the above implied project, but I'd love to participate in such gatherings. I wouldn't abandon the Christian churches to which I'm indebted for my most thrilling experiences. Perhaps the Humanistic Church could meet on first Sundays rather than weekly.
* It seems likely that numerous academic and professional types would benefit from church participation for the social interaction with serious people of good will and for help in raising children, people who would not join a conventional church requiring frequent rejection of evidence.
* The broad purpose of this additional church is to make progress towards a great civilization, one lacking gratuitous harm, one where people's rights are respected across ethnic and religious boundaries, across time and across town. Existing religions are failing in this long-term human project.

Government needed

* Milt Herring's July-6 letter to the Tennessean news paper said that Americans satisfied with their liberty fell from 91% in 2006 to 79% in 2013. He attributed the decline in satisfaction to government intervention in the form of regulation, taxes, political correctness, church-state separation, etc.
* The decline seems modest, considering that we were at the peak of a speculative bubble in 2006 and have been climbing out of the resulting economic collapse since 2008, and considering that we have been told since 2008 that Obama is an illegitimate leader destroying the economy, nation and constitution (more than 9 hrs/day by that pernicious purveyor of seditious slander, Fox radio).
* I doubt Mr Herring applauds the freedom from government intervention in northern Nigeria. He probably wishes regulators had prevented banks from tempting home buyers into adjustable-rate mortgages up to 125% of appraised value. He probably hopes there are some resources for future Americans. I doubt he misses the pre-PC belittling of disadvantaged people around the water cooler. Surely he doesn't admire religion-permeated governments common outside Europe and the Americas.
* Government intervention is the price of a civilized society, where people respect each others rights, even if begrudgingly. Without it, the primitive drives that enabled our survival and evolution would lead to rampant harm. Government compensates for failures of family, school, church and culture to instill character.
* Government would be better if leaders discussed economics with engineers, mathematicians, biologists and inventors, imaginative people who understand system dynamics.

Tax-table formula

* We calculate our income tax by use of a Tax Table, employing one of four columns depending on filing status. Out of curiosity, I plotted this year's "filing-jointly" column to see its implications and to see whether an equation could generate the tax-vs-income relation.
* The plot consists of about seven end-on-end straight-line segments. Their slopes are called marginal tax rates.
* Surprisingly, the plot of tax (Y) vs income (X) could be generated faithfully by the formula:
Y = Yao + Sa*X - Yao*e^(-X*ln2/H)
which makes me suspect that the line segments were positioned to mimic the smooth curve generated by this formula. The first two terms express the y intercept (Yao = -52.354k) and slope (Sa = 0.396) of the highest-income segment (Income > 450k) extrapolated to zero income, this being treated as the asymptote of the curve. The exponential term adds to the asymptote diminishingly as income rises above zero. The exponential term falls to half its intercept value at an income (H) of 120k. The natural-log of 2 is 0.693.
* The red lines in the chart illustrate the dependence of the equation's terms and their sum (calculated tax) on income in thousands. The calculated tax is almost superimposed on Tax-Table values (black diamonds and dashes).
* If every taxpayer had a calculator with the e^x function (inverse natural-log or exp function) and knew how to use it, then the tax tables could be replaced by four such formulae (one for each filing status) differing only in the constants.
* Though it is unrealistic to expect every taxpayer to calculate tax by use of the above equation, it would be rational to generate the tax tables by use of that equation rather than by a string of straight-line segments. Then the taxpayer would have the option of using the equation or the table. The result would be consistent with the purpose of today's tax table and would obviate concern with tax brackets, which often confuse people.
* The applicable marginal rate for a given income is the first derivative of the above formula:
dY/dX = Sa + Yao*(ln2/H)*e^(-X*ln2/H)
For example, at 120k income the marginal rate is 0.245, but there's no need to know it.

Less harmful coercion

The police and military are tasked with coercing some people on behalf of others. Often, the coercion is unnecessarily harmful and/or dangerous. Some inventive engineering might be valuable:
* 1) The mortality of helicopter crashes is too high. It is possible to build in safety devices that would greatly reduce the mortality.
* 2) It seems that the technology for locating the source(s) of enemy fire could be improved greatly, so as to return fire much more quickly and accurately.
* 3) From reports of civil unrest, it is clear that methods of mob control are ineffective and unnecessarily harmful/lethal and could benefit from new technology.
* 4) In attempting to persuade a foreign government, there are too few options between economic sanctions and bombing. It is worth examining untried in-between options.
* 5) From the success of road-side bombs placed by terrorists, it is clear that aerial surveillance needs some new thinking and technology. Likewise, from the growing crime near the Mexican border.
* 6) A few years ago, a Russian submarine sank in deep water and all perished over the course of days. One can imagine numerous emergency measures that could have saved everyone on board had the relevant equipment been built into the vessel originally. Do our submarines have such equipment?
* 7) Car chases endanger uninvolved citizens. It should be possible to tag a fleeing car so a to apprehend it leisurely.  (This is now done)

Snow driving

* Much of the late-January 2014 chaos in Atlanta GA could have been prevented, had the authorities passed on a bit of snow-driving wisdom that I learned 65 years ago. To drive through snow up to about 3 inches deep, it helps to let some air out of the tires, enough to lower the axle about an inch.
* This improves traction substantially, probably because more tread touches the surface at any time, broadening the tire-road interaction and diminishing pressure-induced melting over the tire-road contact.

Obama Scandals

* In a Jan 18 letter, Craig Thomas complained that the main-stream media under-reported Obama scandals: IRS, Fast and Furious, Benghazi, NSA, ACA. In fact, these were not unqualified scandals.
* Since Tea Party, Patriot and Progressive organizations were created for politics and propaganda, IRS agents would be derelict not to make those 501.c4 applicants prove that less than half of their expenses would go to politics and propaganda.
* Fast and Furious was part of a poorly designed program initiated by the Bush administration in 2006 to track weapons from southwest gun dealers to Mexican gangs. Under congressional questioning, Eric Holder forgot when he first knew of the program. That's something I could have done.
* While the State Department and CIA can be faulted for inadequate protection of the Benghazi outpost, Susan Rice's talking points reflected early communications from the scene during and after the attack, and the most damning criticism of the American response during the attack was flawed, as there was no stand-down order to assets that could have prevented the deaths.
* After 9/11/01, it is rational for NSA to store communication data so as to identify networks associated with suspected terrorists.
* Given that health-care is 1/6 of GDP, implementing ACA without bugs should not have been expected. Much of the complexity was to accommodate existing stakeholders instead of making Medicaid buyable. Republican governors added to the difficulty.
* Even if all these scandal claims were justified, their total pales beside fabricating reasons to invade Iraq, a secular nation that didn't threaten us and which opposed al Qaeda.