Grimsvötn takes a smoke

It's not very well known that volcanic plumes disrupt climate locally (as well as globally, as we know
from Eyjafjallajökull last year, or further back Krakatau and Tambora).

This spectacular video demonstrates how Grimsvötn is doing the job
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmoaoOg8MQ8



(Smoking and lighting at the same time, try and say that to Mayor Bloomberg ...)

unraptured

The time has come and gone, and Mother Nature has not served as God's scourge, but instead regaled us with a beautiful Plinian could out of a pronouncable, and more importantly, benign Icelandic volcano.

It was easy to poke fun at the followers of Harold Camping who, the day after, found themselves still subject to mundane gravity. Today, it would be cruel.

The psycho-sociological implications that the question of how such gullibility can arise in the age when science and technology appear in firm control of reality are fodder for many a PhD theses.

However, some observations can be made with little dissertation. This prophecy, like many of its predecessors, was based on biblical numerology. Mankind has been fascinated with numerical codes recondite within the fabric of reality at least since Pythagoras. Perhaps because of their abstract and seemingly atemporal nature numbers, and more generally mathematical structures, appear to encode the fabric of reality. Plato conferred a hyper-real status to mathematical objects well before hypertext ....

For millennia, arcane numerology coexisted in the same minds that argued in terms of Euclid's Elements. However, with few practical exceptions (e.g., accounting) mathematics remained the topic of philosophical thought just as what we call now science was Natural Philosophy. Eventually, the scientific method sanctioned math as the language to analyze and quantify Nature.
Scientific and technological advances likely reinforced the fundamental equivocation that math is the language of reality, if not reality itself rather than a human tool to investigate reality (as well as itself).

Curiously, some of the most formidable advances in technology (computer science's reduction of information to bits) and math (the proof of Gödel's incompleteness theorem) can be considered as going in the opposite directions: transforming language to numbers.

pig risk

Early this year a fellow mathematician and I started collaborating on a research project that aimed at applying the theory of dynamical systems to the present sovereign credit crisis in the Eurozone. I soon dubbed this project PIIGS Risk, after the acronym that encapsulate the countries currently on the black list of bond vigilantes (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, Spain).
Little I knew that he who rescues the PIIGS was to become, allegedly, a pig.
I am of course alluding to Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the now former head of the IMF, who was embroiled in a sexual assault affair just as all international monetary authorities were priming their resources for a second Greek bailout. 
Little I knew that the next chapter in this crisis would spring out of a suite in an almost inconspicuous (boy, the French may take it personally! Sofitel having originated in France and now part of the much larger Accor. But being conspicuous near Times Square is a tall order) hotel I have been walking by for years. Such is the nature of risk, it pops up unforeseen. And yet pig risk was not totally unpredictable, since DSK, as the person of interest has been quickly dubbed, had some troubles containing his sexual exuberance within the confines of ethical and professional standards.
Interesting curio: DSK rhymes with JFK, also a notorious womanizer who, thanks to the ease of cover-up afforded by different mores, was able to continue his momentous career. DSK's, at least for now, appears to have ground to a screeching halt at ... JFK airport.

He's Bin

On Sunday night the fi rst two headlines on Wikipedia front page read

U.S. o cials report that al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is dead. 

Pope John Paul II is beatifi ed at a ceremony in Vatican City.

The two ends of the moral spectrum. While I was reading this, crowds assembled in front of the White House and at Ground Zero chanting USA! in a state of elation similar to stadium cheering.

I belong to the few  whom those chants reminded of the Palestinians who danced and rejoiced on September 12, 2001. To be sure, I am not making a moral equivalence. I am making a socio-political one. Now we understand, or are reminded why one behaves so: revenge.

Revenge is precisely the dynamics of destruction that legal systems of organized nations set out to supplant. From Hammurabi to today's constitutions, the Law charges the State with the responsibility of punishing crimes with appropriate penalties. An eye for an eye belongs to the secular as well as religious Old Testament.

Absent the Law, there rules the Feud. The Greeks understood this archetypal transition best and represented it in the Oresteia.

In the XXI century we, Westerners, deem ourselves superior to the Palestinian who danced on September 12, and one of the main reasons is that we honor the Rule of Law. However we believe no less in revenge. And alas, I am afraid that while only few chanted for the death of Bin Laden, many demand an eye for an eye

in their daily lives. 

I found the reaction of all survivors of the victims of September 11 most digni fied and exemplary. They pointed out that no additional death could bring back the beloved they had lost. The death of Bin Laden a fforded them some incremental closure, but no satisfaction. Justice had been served. At a high price. And Justice comforts the human spirit.

The Greek Tragedy's maxim that through suff ering you attain wisdom (πάθει µάθος), how true!

Swedish meatballs

A while ago, a friend of mine told me of an anecdote that brought back  memory of the Pomperipossa Effect. In short, back in the 90's my friend had met a Swede who had come to this country to escape income equality, whereby she, a dentist, would be making as much as a bus driver in her native Sweden. My friend inserted this in his argument that there are strong forces that are pushing America toward the Swedish flattening of wealth distribution.

I fi nd this particularly ironic, since it came in the wake of new studies that show how wealth inequality is growing sharper, and we are now being compared to banana republics. On the other hand, this is not surprising at all, given the conservative play to depict any attempt to return to previous taxation as class warfare or income redistribution (as though the current tax policy, which has greatly bene fited the very rich, were not income redistribution ... any tax policy, for that matter, can be regarded as income redistribution).

As it often happens, it boils down to perception, and the "doctors of facts" eventually win the battle of public opinion. Perception of wealth in/equality has been the subject of a recent study of Dan Ariely and Michael Norton The underlying survey demonstrates that Americans deem the current wealth distribution much more equitable than it actually is. Even more surprising are the answers to a second set of questions: the ideal wealth distribution is even flatter than the perceived (let alone the actual) one, and in fact much closer to the wealth distribution of ... Sweden!

The Book of Madisoniah

Today, for the fi rst time, the United States Constitution was read aloud in the House of Representative. This was touted as a return to the origins, to the ethical bedrock on which the Founding Fathers laid the foundation of our republic. What was read was the amended version of the Constitution, namely the document as is in force today.

I love the United States Constitution precisely for its essential interpretive nature, for its intention of being the genotype and not the phenotype of American polity. Alas, this reading of the amended Constitution as the "original" smacks of political gambit. Returning to the origins is a favorite of politicians of all colors and stripes. When I rst visited the Soviet Union in the summer of 1988, our party-sanctioned guide was touting the need to return to Lenin's teaching ... The reading of the amended Constitution as "original" abstracts it from its evolution and seems to imply that Constitutional Law is moot. It parallels the literalist reading of the Bible of so many supporters of the Tea Party!

Compensation Machine

Analysis of the latest earnings reports confi rms what most believed: Wall Street thrives on bubbles, but not otherwise. In fact, it seems that Wall Street engineers bubbles to redistribute wealth the way no one de fines wealth redistribution, for "it's essentially a compensation machine." On the other hand, scratching below the ethical surface, this, once again, reveals a deeply rooted short-term view. Indeed, given that more and more compensation is tied to their company's stock, bankers would be in better shape in the long run if they reallocated part of their compensation to earnings as David Weidner suggests. Robert Reich has recently argued

The rich are better off with a smaller percentage of a fast-growing economy than a larger share of an economy that's barely moving.

Giving up some compensation for their company's bottom line would be the fi nancial sector's version of that argument. But of course I can't fathom what currency Robert Reich has on Wall St., and long-term thinking doesn't fare much better. Indeed, Wall Street seems the epitome of short-termism. Think about High- Frequency Trading, which operates at the scale of microseconds. If we were all fashioned, we would style this as myopia. But perhaps Wall Street has embraced the awareness of impermanence, the past and the future do not exist, only the present does (barely!), live and profi t in the present (from those who live and lose in the past or the future)!

King Size

Hearing of Glen Beck & Co.'s march on Washington reminded me of one of the loftiest ad in recent memory "I work for JP Morgan" (check an extant specimen at http://wn.com/I_work_for_JP_Morgan). Glen needed to put a politically correct face on his attacks to the current administration. We shall see whether he will walk all that lofty talk. For now, I still follow the money and think that Frida Powers from Philadelphia, who participated in the countervailing rally, said it all: "They wanna take back what we have gained"

silver lining in an ash cloud

Striving to find a silver lining in Eyjafjallajökull's ash cloud, The New York Times editorialized how the consequent grounding of European air traffic forcefully reminds us "of our interconnected world" and how "our lives are still at the su erance of nature." Let me go one small step further (this borderline platitude) and remark that Eyjafjallajökull is arguably the first volcano that took it upon itself, suitably aided by unusual wind patterns, to directly curtail human-driven climate change. Unable to hold the candle to cataclysmic predecessors of yore, such as Krakatoa (1883), Tambora (1815), or the nearby Laki (1783), thereby cooling global climes with colossal emissions of sulfur, this subglacial volcano is halting a preeminent human factor in climate change: air traffic. If the 3-day closing of US airspace in the aftermath of 9/11 gave climate a break, the current shutdown of European aviation should outdo that. How 'bout this for a silver lining, o stranded traveler? Go Eywa Go!

+/-Nemesis

For those who believe in historical Nemesis, the past week has been a bag as mixed as it gets.

First polish President Lech Kaczynski accompanied by a delegation of 95 preeminent Polish notables dies in a plane crash on his way to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre. This is the antithesis of Nemesis: the smiting of the survivors, grief on grief.
And the sudden glory of Mr. Kaczynski can be regarded as a reaction to this baffling event as well as the latest anifestation of the Polish urge to memorialize Katyn
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/16/opinion/16osiatynski.html

A few days later, the theretofore nearly unknown Eyjafjallajökull (I myself hiked to the nearby Skogafoss last July, blissfully ignorant of the threat
to be ...), a minor volcano, re-erupts, this time spewing millions of tons of micro-silica in the lower stratosphere. Such ashes would not have resulted had the eruption not been sub-glacial. Unusually south-easterly winds blow the cloud primarily toward the UK, the Netherlands and Denmark.
Now, you may recall these are the countries that browbeat Iceland for the excesses of the three infamous banks Glitnir, Landsbanki and Kaupthing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008%E2%80%932010_Icelandic_financial_crisis.
The plaintiffs' main demand was that holders of Icesave accounts be made whole regardless of the consequences for the future of the population of Iceland, an international case of making losses public.

Now, mother nature was taking it upon herself to exact revenge of behalf of Icelanders by grounding Northern European air traffic (unfortunately third parties are suffering too).

As it happens, the latter event affected the former when many world leaders canceled their plans to attend Mr. Kaczynski's funeral because of the dangers volcanic ashes are posing to air transportation.

Sometimes I wonder how "stranger than fiction" is a cliché.
On the other hand, would I be even noticing this if I did not have a propensity to see and search meaning in the otherwise ruthless absurdity of Becoming?
Such propensity to make sense, I am quite convinced, is a firm fiber of human nature, and meaning itself is often seen as moral, while the absence of it is the source of grief. (Note my "ruthless absurdity".)
But if you manage to abstract yourself from the unfolding of history ....

Life, where art thou?

Marina Abramovic, profiled in "The New Yorker of March 8, 2010"
(http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/03/08/100308fa_fact_thurman)
emerges as the turn-of-the-21st century incarnation of the turn of the 20th
century ultimate aesthete, Oscar Wilde, and unlike him, she's made it into
the new century.
Contrary to the distinction she makes, it appears her life progressively
blurs into her performances to climax with exquisite trick of her demise
into a magic of cups and balls, or better, corpse and palls!

I'll be gone, you'll be home?

IBGYBG
(Sounds Chinese to you?) if you have not yet gotten your fix of Wall St.
bashing epithets try googling it.

Are you back? Ok, now that you know that IBGYBG stands for "I'll be gone
you'll be gone" and that probably best captures that subspecies of greed
that spurred much of the risk-taking during the inflation of the credit
bubble, you also understand the animosity it arouses. The anxious memory of
the bubble's burst is still vivid and the pain of its consequences is
haunting us, yet this pain is not sharp enough to push our political system
to enact effective regulatory reforms of the US financial industry.
Many blame the morass on the partisan stalemate that has seized Washington.

Meanwhile, money managers look Eastward for a "solution" (at least as far as
your portfolio is concerned). China, thanks to its authoritarian brand of
capitalism has none of the US legislative and executive snags.
In a recent piece in the "Financial Times,"
(http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9cc4c144-1f52-11df-9584-00144feab49a.html), Geoff
Dyer juxtaposes the enthusiasm that this viewpoint sparks to the whistle
blowing of another bubble. Anthony Bolton epitomizes the first camp with his
faith in "the effectiveness of the centrally run economy."

A centrally run economy was at the core of the Soviet Union. Fifty years
ago, in his irascible and Donbas-uncouth voice, Khrushchev famously boasted:
"догоним, обгоним, и вперед пойдем !" ("we will catch up with you [America],
pass you, and go forth" --- hear him at
http://download.sovmusic.ru/m/khrushev.mp3).
In the ensuing years, as the texture of American society frayed in the
turbulent Sixties and the economy followed suit with the Seventies'
doldrums, many in the West started questioning the viability of the
democratic capitalistic system that afforded the questioning in the first
place.
The fact that these days you hardly hear "Soviet Union" and USSR is even
more abstruse than IBGYBG to most tells you that that questioning was a bit
too premature.

Maybe, just maybe the same could apply to the optimism and praise of the
Chinese Way?
No doubt the economic progress realized in China in the last twenty years
has been formidable. But in many ways so it was the Soviet Union "progress"
in the Sixties and Seventies. The main question is how long in the future
can we extrapolate this trend in the future? Will China really catch up with
America as most pundits say in 20 years or so? Can you assume its GDP growth
rate stay constant as far as the eye can see?

Obviously, the very fact that I am posing these questions implies doubts on
my part. On the other hand, in one respect China has already caught up with
the US. The article quoted above features prof. Yu Yongding maintaining that
"the system encourages local governments to invest in trophy projects" and
the lack of accountability of the apparatchiks who make these decision for
"if the project is barely used in five years' time as they will by then have
moved to a different job."
It appears that IBGYBG, or at least IBG is already an achievement in China.
I am not sure how proud of that is the Chinese government, or how much of a
selling point this is to Mr. Bolton.

The Amazon in search of an Avatar

Most critics and the public praised "Avatar" for its beauty.
But what about its many fabular messages?
What of the narrative that makes it like an edifying Disney cartoons for
grown-ups?
There were perhaps too many too remember, mostly barbs at the
bankrupt status quo in DC and especially the lost years of W,
from a healthcare system that still fails veterans in 2154 to preemptive
war.

The trappings of Hollywood tropes were easily forgotten before the vivid
landscapes
that would make even the most prolific dreamer purple with envy.
But as Jake Sully became his own avatar and after 162 minutes the title
exploded
on the screen in bright green one lead message dawned on me:
Save the Forest!

I could not help wondering how much of this message will stay with the
dazzled crowds.
James Cameron should have supplemented it with a website, a fund raiser,
some kind
of walk after the Toruk!

uShine!

I keep being disappointed at the lack of imagination of the Apple marketing
team. Awkwardness and legal issues aside
(http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/29/technology/29name.html?th&emc=th), "iPad"
fits the pattern: "i" + short syllable denoting the product. The good old
days of "iMac" are long gone. Consumers are no longer required to leap with
their imagination. Virtually, i-product has become synonymous of Apple.
Where it not for the all-cap, I'd reach for IMAX screen to switch movie or
browse the internet when the show sucks ...
How about daring to change the pattern with "i" + long syllable referring
to the user, one that makes a complete sentence and makes you smile when you
say it?
Say we make pronoun a little less self-centered, something like You, or
better, the tried and texted "u?"
Then make the obvious reference to the product a little less obvious, a
little less passive, something that makes you smile.
Steal that exclamation mark from Yahoo! and, voila, you got uShine!
Just a thought, just and apple seed ...

No prophet's welcome in his homeland

Among the universal surprise and the sense that the decision of the Nobel PeaceCommittee was not meant to recognize achievement but, in the words of the recipient, "to give momentum to a set of causes," most have already forgotten that exactly a month earlier the denigration of the current president of the USA reached a new low, one that did not even stop before the respect for the Office that the same partybrandished in defense in GW: Joe Wilson's infamous "You lie!"

But while his country is busy casting doubts on his competence, accomplishments, good faith, and even birth place, the rest of the world cannot help taking a huge breath of relief at the realization that Barack Obama is making good on his campaign promises, and has already brought the United States back into the consortium of a multilateral world. And this sense of relief is likely to have played a role in the Nobel Committee's choice, a reaction that seems proportional to the sense of despair that the previous administration had disseminated, a relief rally of hope as powerful as what we are witnessing in financial markets ...

I cannot help noticing how this dichotomy is yet another example of the saying that was first applied to Jesus Christ, that

A prophet is not without honor except in his homeland and in his own house (Matthew 13:57)

Declaration of Independence

For once, the highlight of my Independence Day was not pyrotechnics, but a small civic pilgrimage, and one most appropriate for the day. This afternoon I visited an exhibition at the central branch of the New York Public Library, where in the Sue and Edgar Wachenheim III Gallery, several early copies of the Declaration of Independence were on display. The intimate room homed copies of the original broadsides that were affixed or heralded on the streets of Philadelphia and New York immediately following the ratification of the document on July 4, 1776, apparently, a Thursday. The size of the Gallery created an atmosphere of civic religion, of respect for both the documents and the other visitors. A mother shared her marvel at the political vehemence of the Declaration's language stressing that if someone wrote that today he would be imprisoned. I was thinking to myself, not so fast, there is the first amendment, but then she added that that would be tantamount to igniting a revolution. Point taken, we are quire far from revolutions or even dissent. Indeed, last Wednesday night I happened on a quite singular form of fledgling dissent: a few dozen people penned on the side of Broadway near the intersection with 42nd, a demonstration. The sight was bizarre. The demonstrators were holding and seldom bobbing handwritten placards before a speaker. The fact that he was haranguing against the bill capping carbon emissions that recently (miraculously!) cleared the House of Representatives is besides the point. The size of the gathering contrasted with its volume, for the speech was amplified by woofers worth a metallica stadium performance. The echo boomed through the midtown canyons also known as avenues. The booms aroused one's curiosity and once you detected their source the anticlimax was disorienting. This could be a pattern, for I've seen other demonstrations similarly organized, and one in particular, in front of the MTA headquarters on Madison Ave., looked and sounded almost identical.

Is this how dissent is voiced in America today? If so, no wonder the real dissenters are invisible. Created by Ralph Ellison as a powerful racial metaphor, the figure of the invisible man briefly resurfaced in Hillary Clinton's campaign to denote the silent minorities who are under- and unrepresented. The invisible people today are the thousands of casualties from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the millions of under- and unemployed who make the statistics but seldom make our acquaintance. In the middle of the Sue and Edgar Wachenheim III Gallery two glass cases displayed the autographs of Thomas Jefferson original Declaration of Independence. This first version had been later heavily edited to expunge passages in which Jefferson condemned slavery. Jefferson had underlined the passages that had been deleted from the final version of the document. The handwriting was neatly calligraphic, but hardly legible both because of the diminutive size and the fading of the ink. On the fourth page though, one could easily make out "MEN," yes, in all capitals. Despite its frailty the document was alive through the force of its language. It whispered that I and all the other visitors, and all the other citizens of this city and this country were here because of this document. ``... Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness ...''

Two Samurais with Lots of Bonds

Just a few weeks ago the posturing of some the the new kids around the BRIC amplified the latest wave of rumors of demise of the greenback. Then, Masaharu Nakagawa, the shadow finance minister of Japan, added its own insult to injury envisioning his country demanding that the US issue samurai (yen-denominated) bonds! Who would have expected that the last of a long sequence of blows to the USD was to come from one of America's closest allies? (Upon closer inspection, one may surmise this was blow-back for the US continual support of the ruling LDP ...)

It didn't take long for the Japanese government to renege on the opposition's innuendos and reiterate their unshakable trust in US Treasuries. A day or two later, the communique of the G8 finance ministers from the sleepy city that lies on the tip of the Italian heel refurbishes a picture of unity in the face of the credit crisis and recession.

Surprise, surprise, this was not the end of it. In a grotesque turn of events, two Japanese men traveling with spotty documents are nabbed at the Italian-Swiss border with what looked like the steepest contraband booty of all time: US Treasuries with face value of 134+ billion USD! The US soon confirmed that the bonds were forgeries, thereby demolishing the pipe dream of Italian authorities to reap a fine that would amount to half the country's foreign currency reserves! But speculations are rife. How can it possibly be coincidence that just as the chatter of divesting from Treasuries churns up what looks like a surreptitious maneuver to do precisely that is botched?

Once again, it looks like rumors of the US dollar demise were greatly exaggerated---and this time the rescuers were a couple of Italian border guards....

Trekonomics

Last Saturday night unusual hurdles met my attempt to see a mere movie at the local AMC theater. A staff member was mounting guard at the escalator, which seemed to work in good order. After some puzzlement, I understood that showing my ticket was necessary to obtain passage. Having reached the floor where my ordinary movie was being shown I startled at another first: the line to the IMAX theater was stretching all the way to this lower floor. I then realized such a line must be trekking. Has the economy really turned around if so many people can afford an IMAX ticket, not to mention put up with the crowd affliction? Or is this the climax of the "green shoots" view of the state of the economy?

Perhaps the answer is ... Trekonomics!?

Skill and Meta-skills for the Unemployed

In an interview with Michel Martin of NPR's Tell me More, Barbara Ehrenreich entertained questions on her recent op-ed in the LA Times Trying to find a job is not a job I found her opinions refreshingly nonconventional. However, her answer to the concluding question, one that by that time sounded like the pre-revolutionary What is to be Done, seemed a bit disingenuous. Ms. Ehrenreich lamented that most laid offworkers have well-developed skills and that those skills are going to waste in haphazardly selected retraining programs. Besides the fact that this sounded more like a (valid!) complaint than an answer, the grievance ignores its likely cause, namely, that is precisely the plummeting demand for those skills that has spurred layoffs in the first place. And in many cases this is the continuation of a trend, largely driven by the globalization of our economy, that our current recession has all but exacerbated. This is particularly true formanufacturing jobs. Ms. Ehrenreich mentioned the skills of a welder. Most cost-cutting manufacturers would offshore a welding job to some workshop in developing countries where it can lead to a product whose final cost is a fraction of the cost of employing a local welder. What to do then so as not to waste Mr. Welder's experience? Perhaps the answer is to smartly select retraining. In other words, orient our local manufacturing workers toward retraining courses that build on existing experience rather than in a completely different and unrelated area. At the same time, it is probably advisable that the training lay out some general foundation that could serve as the springboard for further training down the road. A few years ago, advising Mr. Welder to become an expert in the maintenance of welding robots would have seemed surefire. The current slump in car manufacturing makes it likely the demand for such new expertise is going to collapse if it has not already done so. This suggests paradigm shift in the workplace: from the expectation of a job in which a given skill set would be employable for life to life-long learning a re-qualification that gradually builds on prior experience. The most valuable skill of today's worker is effective stewardship and development of her/is skills.

A specter is haunting the US Senate--the Specter of communism!

Arlen Specter switched party and immediately and his choice was spinned as political gamesmanship by his former colleagues. But I cannot wonder what were they thinking? One would think the party that not so long ago was on the verge of obliterating filibuster, and now, the table turned, was very much inclined to use the very same tool should have been striving to keep it within reach. Instead, they kept taking Specter (and other moderates) for granted and unleashed Patrick J. Toomey to undermine him in the primaries. It seems the GOP functions with an efficiency similar to the goverment it so much vilifies. Perhaps, they are applying the same philosophy of laissez-faire they think appropriate for the automakers to themselves, a stronger and smaller party, or perhaps no party at all, subject to political market forces. But in the short term I seem to already hear the Rush Limbaughs of the world screaming "Specter of communism!"