Had a knew realization upon waking up this morning and seeing a publication on Facebook. Realized that those with power, even if it is on a limited level, will feel the need to exercise that power in order to hang on to it.
As a kid, I learned, from my intuition, to ignore certain people. My problem this morning is that I did not do that. I “listened” to what they were willing to espouse. In the old face to face world you could read the body language and you could walk away upon realizing that the speaker was stuck in a paradigm that would not hold up to reasoned analysis from the outside.
Those people have exercised power in the past, but not beyond the parameters of their paradigm. The internet, though, allows people to stay within their paradigm. Cognitive dissonance will insure that those in the bell curve of intelligence, awareness, understanding, etc., the ones that know what they have been taught by doing the dance of the particular school in which they found themselves, will always find the paradigm they “know”.
Cross examination would remove the barriers, for those who witness the questioning, but maybe not for the person being questioned. All but 1% of people never cross examine themselves in any honest fashion, such that they never defeat cognitive dissonance. After all, one target on everyone’s spectrum of needs is to look after your own interest. Here, though, is one key question that is rarely asked: How far must you go down a path before you see that it leads to the “wants” of someone else in lieu of your “needs” (and the needs of others)?
Too many people believe that they have a right to get their wants regardless of the impact of the needs of others. That will never change in the absence of an inflection moment and those moments are rare if not initiated by a traumatic event. I don’t see the middle 80%, the Bell Curve Folks (BCF), ever getting “it” until they have no choice but to experience it. (Many analogies apply for this behavior, like Lemmings (who literally are born without depth perception).)
For those at “the top”, they should see that such an event will disrupt their wants greatly and thereby move to adjust accordingly. Oh, wait, there is that cognitive dissonance and those with the most leverage are often well removed from the understanding that allowed them to have leverage, since it was done by someone earlier in their path of origination. Ah, it will get down to a face to face at some point and the light of realization might come just before all lights go out.
Well, there’s a brain fart for you!
Let me tell you a story.
First the background:
I was working for a US corporation that did engineering design work, then fabricated the various components of a very large boiler, ship them around the world and they were installed by third parties not under contract with the company. When I first started working for the company, it was largely owned by a Dutch corporation, which was turned on by a combined German Austrian corporation. Eventually, accompany I work for and three other US entities were sold by the German Austrian parents to a group of venture capitalist (VC) in the United States.
By the time of this incident, I had worked with two prior CEOs and was now about a year into working with a CEO who at one time had been an expert witness for me in a case against a foreign manufacturing company. The CEO and I did not agree on certain things, but I found out that I was sent to a lot of places that nobody else wanted to go because either they didn’t know what to do or they couldn’t just be bothered (By the way, the CEO eventually left the corporation and on the way out used a portable drive to download confidential information.)
We had about $14 million worth of equipment, some produced in Korea and some produced in Thailand that were on a ship, headed to the country of Latvia. Of course, there were liquidated damages associated with us failure to meet the delivery date, since the erection crews in that country had likely submitted a schedule based upon our delivery date. Anyway, the ship got “arrested” in the port of Hambantota, Sri Lanka. LDs were probably when accumulated for all the various equipment going to be in the neighborhood of $80,000 plus per day that we missed the delivery date.
Maritime law is perhaps the first “accepted” documentation of legal steps that was applied to almost any reasonably large port around the world, regardless of the country in which it was located. And, Maritime law muc favored the ship. Of course, the king of the ship was the captain of the ship. That gives the summary of what I knew about Maritime law, even though I had been involved in a number of cases on behalf of the corporation, I relied on outside counsel for the details. In this case, I had not talked to any outside counsel the only person I talked to was our shipping agent, who I knew because of I negotiating his contract and from dealing with other situations relating to shipments around the world.
The CEO had no experience whatsoever with the situation as described, nor did anybody else within the corporation’s structure or the executive suite of the company owned by the CVs. At that time, I had let it be known to each him that I answered to the board of directors, not him, especially when applying analysis or behavioral ethics. He decided that the thing to do was send me to the port in Sri Lanka. He thought he was stressing me out by so exercising the authority that he did have , but it was really like throwing Brer Rabbit into the briar patch. (Hope everybody gets that.)
I flew to Atlanta, then to Dubai, then to Colombo Sri Lanka. That part of the trip took right at 24 hours or so and as I landed in Sri Lanka, it occurred to me to think about what I would do if I didn’t see someone holding a piece of cardboard with my name on it at the airport. As it turns out, my driver was very confident and spoke some English. He got a big kick out of when I open the right side of door to the car, front seat and was about to get in. He took out the keys and faked like he was throwing them to me, and I looked in and saw the steering wheel. Once we sorted that out, he did appreciate that I sat in the front seat instead of the back and off we had, taking six hours to go about 150 miles and he told me that he had saved two hours on the trip by driving more aggressively than he normally did. By the way, his hair looked just like Frankie Valli in the 60s.
I ended up getting to the hotel about three in the afternoon third time since we had to go to the little port town first before we got directions to the hotel which was right on the water with the next point south of me being Antarctica. Now, there are at least four more stories about the hotel that I’m gonna set aside and jump to the next day when I got up and was driven to the port at about 10 o’clock in the morning their time. This actual port was different than the port that originally gave rise to the town as it had been recently built by Chinese money, and was for large boat commercial purposes with big long pier on one side, parallel with the edge of the land, but no cranes, yet. (turns out that the Commonwealth games were scheduled to occur in Sri Lanka almost due north of where this port was built about four or five years down the line.) When I got to the port all of us there was a paved area that was probably the size of four football fields, and one ship tied up in the middle of what was otherwise a wide open port and pier
My agent had been on the ship before and had given me a report, but I wanted to go on the ship, not for any real purpose other than to see what it was like there since I had never been on such a ship. He left me on the dock while he went on board to make arrangements. I walked the length of the ship and also a little bit out on the dock while I was waiting, never imagining whether people were watching me or not but now feeling like they certainly must’ve been. Eventually, I see the agent coming down the gangplank from the pilot house way up high to a landing station where the plane leaves the ship, probably 40 feet above the pier. I go up that gang plant and meet the agent and it turns out the captain, right where there is a check-in station run by a guard. I find out that the captain is Russian and he appears to me to be 30 years old or so. At the time, I was probably mid 50s. He conveys to me immediately that the owners of the ship have ordered him not to allow me on board. I look at the agent and get suggestion of how he would treat the situation but I asked the captain, if we could walk down the side of the ship a little bit and I could talk to him. Once we got clear of the guard station and the agent, I told the captain that I appreciated the situation in which he found himself. Then I told him that I was going to send a ship there with cranes on it with the intent to unload all of my equipment off of his ship ASAP. Then I advised him that right now. He had all the leverage, but if I came back, I would have leverage and that might cost the ship money and other things.
I decided that my work was done and had the agent contact my driver who had to drive to where we were in order to give me a ride back to the airport, so I got to the airport about 9 o’clock that night. At that time, I ended up talking to someone back in the office and they told me that the CEO didn’t want me coming home until I had things ironed out there and I told the guy I’m hanging up and I’ll see you Monday since it was now Friday night.
Bottom line, by my negotiations under the terms of the contract, we ended up delivering all of our equipment to Latvia without assessment of any liquidated damages, and I’m pretty sure that we was held payments associated with a due date upon delivery from the ship that was arrested. By the way, there’s a great story about the arresting of the shift that had nothing to do with us, but was a very artful move by the Chinese company who had built the ship and had not been fully paid therefore.
Given the nature of what I have seen, I have to put this blurb out about the worst part of the big bad bill. That is the entrenchment and grand expansion of those individuals that will be carrying out the directives of whoever is running “ICE” as we now go forward.
I believe you can document from past behavior and written out exposes that what is being created in the United States has been recognized by written up analysis as a “Patrimonialist” form of government. There are many writings that explain the nature of this type of governing operation and it truly traces back to the earliest “get together” of humans as they tried to prevail against others, including all kinds of beings and other physical situations. In essence, it is one big family, and everyone genuflects (physically, emotionally, financially, and in any other way) to the father figure. It is easy to see and recognize and, like I say, people that do that stuff have documented how it operates.
That’s what we are working towards the United States now that this law has been passed, and Trump will be able to create a, distinct force of those who will enforce what ICE is and will be doing, will be allowed to expand as a result of the Bill, with any resistance being addressed by the military like set of employees, the cost of which are going to be astronomical as evidenced by the allowance for $$ in this bill. There is an express number set fourth and the bill. This is clearly right in the written “2025 manifesto.
For those that don’t understand this is a formalization of the same steps that were taken in Germany in the 30s. Patrimonialism is how Saudi Arabia is govern and essentially how Putin has governed Russia since he took over. There are many many other illustrations of this type of governing and I’m pretty sure it includes the Persians in the Iran part of the world.
This dance is expressly not permitted under The Constitution, but with the three justices that Trump appointed, I am not sure that the law is, being, and will be, applied in the absence of the Patrimonialism of which I write. heck, they could all be in it either directly or indirectly.
I have hopes that people will be smart enough to recognize this now and that it’s on the books, but I also realize that most people do not have the wherewithal to comprehend all of the factors until they are applied to them, and by that time, the only solution is some exigent circumstance that can upset the exercise of power that is presently being a as readily available by Stephen Miller.
Our collective hope now must rest with the judicial system and the final hook that electing people to overturn this law is a main focus under the mechanisms we have available to us.
As I went through school, I never thought about what I was learning both from the teaching, and otherwise. Now that I am old, it has come to me that a lot of what I learned was not what was being taught. This was emphasized on the playground next to my house once I turned six years old, where the kids interacted without immediate interference by an adult. It turns out, that I began learning about people as soon as I began interacting with kids, and if there were no adults around, I could really learn.
One thing I learned right away is that fast feet will keep you from getting taken advantage of by a bully, perhaps, with the exception of the first interaction since you are not aware of the dance that the bullies do until they do it. Anyway, I now see that as I went through life, the metaphor of physical exchange allowed my brain to make a similar exchange on the, “thinking level” a concept that I appreciate better merely than saying, conscious level.
More to follow, but the appreciation of a vibe, no matter from where the Vibe may come, does not apparently elevate in every individual to the extent it elevated in my brain. I am lucky that my brain could process the interaction and, have me react and rhythm to the extent that I wasn’t violating any of my values in so reacting. Might as well put that “my” in quotes.
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The foregoing did not directly create what is about the follow, but it did come after a dog walk.
The current situation in the United States, and especially how it is relating to an impacting, the rest of the world has captured my brain to some extent. I’m an old guy now, and as I went through life, I didn’t think about it very much except in the instance when a decision had to be made. I’m trying to figure out all of my immediate reactions to circumstances presented to me, and a significant part of my brain seems to be devoted into figuring out, “What is going on with Trump?”.
Somehow or another my brain decided that I should write a story about the first dog I knew. Sam was his name, and I learned that by watching sometime prior to when I was aware of what Sam was relative to what my parents and sister were. Nonetheless, I learned from him and the stories that he wrote as he went through life. Actually, the one I learned most from was Sam II, who came from the same estate that produced Sam and, like Sam, was the runt of his particular litter. I believe that there was decreased cost incurred for the best in the litter on the farm like estate outside of town. (Trump sees himself as an estate kid anyway, and he is like a runt in so many ways.)
It is interesting to me now, that Sams lineage is traced to an estate type piece of property that belong to someone that may well have gotten the property as a grant from William Penn at some point in the past. The town I grew up in had a number of families whose name was decades old in the stories of the town and the neighboring territories going back to the structure that was created by William Penn as I guess the owner of it all at one point. Anyway, it is also fitting that Sam was the runt of the litter and while he had status as a purebred Springer Spaniel, he went nearer to town with us where he lived on a run chain in the backyard of the house in which I lived. Before I turned six, we lived in a house on a street called Horseshoe Drive and we lived at the far curve from the loop start and finish on the main road that went by. Behind us was open field and then a pretty steep slope down to the creek probably 60 feet or so. To my knowledge, Sam was allowed free run of any property he cared to habitat. During that time it was known that he would impregnate other dogs from time to time, which I learned later in life as he practiced that same attitude at our next house, which was in the town, though it was the last house in town next to the woods that led down to the creek and then up a slope to the next town.
For a dog, especially a fully functional male Springer Spaniel. I cannot imagine a much freer environment in which to grow up than the one that Sam II had which was then entirely at that house except for the very end of his life. The thought of Sam II’s, who I am gonna call Sam from here after since I don’t like all that typing, is what caused this story to be written. When Sam was about a year or two old, we moved to another state and Sams environment changed to some degree but he was still granted a lot of freedom and still had the reputation of fathering, unexpected puppies, one of which we ended up taking in as our own. We lived on an island at that point, and he went from the canal down the middle to the shore on the US side on his own, and part of his environment included a nature reserve that also had cultivated red raspberries that were not commercially harvested. So, think of that freedom and the wide openness that he had, since there were neighborhoods in spurs throughout that otherwise wide-open property.
When I was going to school in Ann Arbor Michigan, Sam was getting kind of old and I ended up bringing him up there. I don’t know what was going through my mind, but I even taught him how to do the fire escape from my fraternity room down to the ground so he could use it for the bathroom break and that was a two-story wrought Iron structure. Anyway, he had freedom to walk around the neighborhood, and by that time I think he was pretty cognizant of cars and so on, but he ended up being caught and taken to the doggy jail where I went and found him and picked him up. Literally, he was sitting in the back of the cage, looking at me when I got to the gate.
By that time, it was clear that he shouldn’t be hanging out there and he was getting old anyway so he went back to the house on the island and that is where he died peacefully. But he did have his time in Ann Arbor, which was the biggest city, he ever saw in his life.
That story is the current metaphor that applies to Donald Trump’s behavior and effort at this time. Everybody that knows anything about the world economy sees his behavior now as absolutely flawed, and without hope of being carried out as he intends. His past efforts of business he was able to get by a lot of rules of behavior because of leverage he had because he didn’t even care about the law. He also didn’t care about the balance sheet, and he was always just running ahead of someone that was snapping at his heels. He was, in essence, living in a wide-open neighborhood where he could get away with all kinds of stuff. But until now all he had to deal with was US laws and the people in the US. Now, he hast to answer to the international review of what he’s doing, and they have centuries of history against which to measure him.
In the current instance, he has to find a way now to get loose of what he has created since the court effort that will be necessary to stop him would completely ruin him. That’s why I believe he needs to see a different path than has been presented out to him. He’s like Sam, on the island he could get away with almost anything he wanted to, but in Ann Arbor (international review) he couldn’t. I know it’s a stretch, but that’s exactly where Trump is right now. Everyone around him should try to save his ass and stop what he’s doing as soon as possible, but I’m not sure that people like Stephen Miller could ever shift their paradigm.
It is well accepted that history repeats itself. However, the history that is repeating itself today can be better understood because the general population of the world, including the United States, has access to a much larger book of knowledge, if they choose to pay attention to it
As late as merely a century ago, few people could read at any level that would allow intellectual advancement of the individual. Most of the knowledge came from interaction and face-to-face conversations (excluding what was taught through the churches of the time where all of the priests/ministers could read).
A New York Times columnist, Jonathan Rauch, recently wrote an article about a book written by two professors that discusses the work of a guy named Max Weber in which he describes a behavior he calls “Patromonialism”, which I hearby summarize as a form of governing based upon the idea that the head guy was like the father to everyone over whom he exercised his power. Certainly, there’s a more complex path to that word and you can read about it, but what follows is my take.
Having walked the path that I have in life, I recognized and questioned the behavior, which existed all around me as I have grown up and aged. Basically, let’s say when we were back in caves, one person was the best at either getting food or protecting those in the community in so doing, they had to exercise their judgment, right or wrong, and everyone pretty much lived with it because it turned out OK at the time. As the group of people impacted got bigger, the head guy needed people working with him/for him to take care of the everyday things, specially, say, when he had others out on the hunt or some other activity away from the cave.
I’m sure the book goes into much more of the particulars but basically that is the type of government that had developed in Europe prior to the drafting and creation of the Constitution of the United States (which was the second attempt after the Articles of Confederation). Is clear one purpose of the Constitution was to create a national government that was illustrated by a separation of powers, including a court that had the “final word” in most instances. I suggest to you that it is clear that part of the purpose of the Constitution was to eliminate possibility of a patrimonial system since that was the express thing that was being overridden by what the United States was doing.
I could go on and on about all of that stuff, but let’s move to today. Trump grew up in the world of prep schools, Ivy League colleges, the country club and the real estate business. If we look back at those places objectively we will see that there has always been a group of people that have affectionately been framed as the good old boys on each of those dance floors.
In those worlds, there is a certain dance that is expected, and there has been certain levels of looking aside when someone doing that dance was misbehaving. Could be a minor thing that was permitted or it could be a major thing that was hidden. Any reasonable researcher/reporter, could list a dozen such incidences that have made the place, and there are dozens in my head. Here’s the thing, when I participated in any of those given environments, say in business, the country club, organized sports, etc., you could see when some people were granted allowances when they shouldn’t have been, and others were granted authority when they shouldn’t have had it.
It wasn’t until late in my litigation career that I realized how much local influence was applied when I went to a remote jurisdiction to try a matter. I’m not gonna bother you with all those stories, but I had to overcome the relationship that existed in the courtroom between the judge and the lawyers that practice their regularly, especially if litigation involved a taxpayer in the jurisdiction, which it usually did. I will mention one case in which my client was subject to breach of contract by the school district, and the judge ruled against my client on motion, but immediately thereafter, I filed an Appeal and the school district settled with my client for the amount claimed. I always presume it was because the judge whispered in the ear of the Superintendent that his ruling would not hold up on appeal. He made that ruling for the taxpayers where he lived and worked, and that is a great example of Patrimonialism applied and accepted, but which would not hold up under the law.
Such behavior is clear with what Trump is doing, currently and a list applies to a number of different focuses. Now that he was reelected after being curtailed his first term. Here’s the funniest thing for me, though, Elon Musk is playing his son in the current dance and even went so far as to bring his young son to a meeting at the White House, which further illustrates the fact that: “hey we’re part of the family and we’re not subject to any rules that might apply to everybody else.” it’s really amazing at the illustration of the concept by the behavior of the participants. Further, if you look at all of the elected personnel who are playing along with Trump, even though they have openly disagreed with his behavior in the past, you see the same dance: we will do what you say because we will get something for ourselves and those who we consider our family as well. (See J. D. Vance)
Stay with me on this, please. The castles of old all had a first wall and then many walls inside usually with elevation going with it until you got to the very top of the castle where the king hung out. The people that lived outside the first wall might be permitted inside the wall if a danger came to the vicinity. But even the people living behind the first wall were not granted access to the further inner walls, except upon stampede by them I would guess. Those people who believe that they are part of the beneficiary group that will grow from Trump’s behavior are the ones who consider themselves different and better off than those who cannot get within the walls even to begin with. Those are the masses that voted for him. It won’t be until those people realize that the real wall is behind them and not in front of them and cognitive dissonance keep them from recognizing that until the wall has been overrun.
Well, there’s a lot more on this, but I know people get tired of reading so there’s a thought for now. The courts have begun restricting the behavior of the 2025 concepts and have expressly suggested that there is no authority for Trump or his “adoptive sons” (again, look at the money people that stood with Trump at the inauguration, and you will see a whole bunch more that consider themselves to be in the family, or at least want to be.) to exercise unilateral activities contrary to laws past and procedures adopted under regulations under those laws. The real need, though, is for the general population to realize that they will not be included in the good old boy network when the shit really hits the fan, and it was one of the intents of the Constitution to eliminate such a separation, even by those who at one time practiced it on their properties.
So, I went to the workout place this morning and was doing a stationary bicycle kind of thing with YouTube on my phone playing into earbuds in my head. Just trying to get some muscle recovery from the stroke I had, specially on the left side. Ate a CBD gummy and had a cup of coffee to staert the day.
Fortuitously, the mix that came up on my YouTube, based upon my past experiences, started with “Stuck In Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again”, then “Ripple”. The last song I heard was “Eminence Front”, by The Who and then I was done.
Anyway, I’m going to look up the words of those first two songs since they were fundamental in my youth. The first car I ever had my name on the title of was a 1967 Mustang fastback with a high-performance engine (289 four barrel), straight headers ending under the two front seats. I had a eight track unit bolted beneath the glove box on the passenger side, and I had two homemade tapes, the dead and Dylan.
I don’t recall specifically listening to the words of those songs for the story that was being told, but I do remember the rhythm and the overall, philosophy of the two songs: being someplace, you didn’t wanna be, then, having disturbances around you that you did not cause. That may will not be the message that was intended by either of those songs, but that’s all that came into my head as life has played out and I just thought I’d share that with you. Gonna go look up the words of both of those songs and read through them, but I will still listen to them the way I used to.
I don’t anticipate that anyone else would have a reaction to the songs in line with what I did, but I felt compelled to lay it out there since we all have to have various reactions as we go through life and the circumstances that are presented to us. Riding the bus that we rode when we were young with today’s perspective is fascinating to me since when I was on the bus was only paying attention to the moment.
And closing consider this: as I listen to Eminence Front, I couldn’t help but think of Trump. He fits that song perfectly as far as I can tell. That’s it!?
First the background:
I was working for a US corporation that did engineering design work, then fabricated the various components of a very large boiler, ship them around the world and they were installed by third parties not under contract with the company. When I first started working for the company, it was largely owned by a Dutch corporation, which was in turn owned by a combined German/Austrian corporation. Eventually, the company I worked for and three other US entities were sold by the German/Austrian parents to a group of venture capitalist (VC) in the United States.
By the time of this incident, I had worked with two prior CEOs and was now about a year into working with a CEO who at one time had been an expert witness for me in a case against a foreign manufacturing subcontractor for the company. The CEO and I did not agree on certain things, but I found out that I was sent to a lot of places that nobody else wanted to go because either they didn’t know what to do or they couldn’t just be bothered (By the way, the CEO eventually left the corporation and on the way out used a portable drive to download confidential information. There was a lawsuit that did not involve me either as a witness or as counsel. All of that happened after this incident below, but kind of gives some flavor to it.)
We had about $14 million worth of equipment, some produced in Korea and some produced in Thailand, that were on a ship, headed to the country of Latvia. Of course, there were liquidated damages associated with our failure to meet the delivery date, since the erection crews in that country had likely submitted a schedule based upon our delivery date. Anyway, the ship got “Arrested” in the port of Hambantota, Sri Lanka. LDs were probably, when accumulated for all the various equipment going to be in the neighborhood of $80,000 plus per day that we missed the delivery date.
Maritime law is perhaps the first “accepted” documentation of legal steps that was applied to almost any reasonably large port around the world, regardless of the country in which it was located. And, Maritime law, much favored the ship. Of course, the king of the ship was the captain of the ship. That gives the summary of what I knew about Maritime law, even though I had been involved in a number of cases on behalf of the corporation. I relied on outside counsel for the details. In this case, I had not talked to any outside counsel, the only person I talked to was our shipping agent, who I knew because of I negotiating his contract and from dealing with him on other situations relating to shipments around the world.
The CEO had no experience whatsoever with the situation as described, nor did anybody else within the corporation’s structure or the executive suite of the company owned by the CVs. At that time, the CEO and I had let it be known to each other that I answered to the board of directors, not him, especially when applying analysis or behavioral ethics. He decided that the thing to do was send me to the port in Sri Lanka. He thought he was stressing me out by so exercising the authority that he did have , but it was really like throwing Brer Rabbit into the briar patch. (Hope everybody gets that.)
I flew to Atlanta, then to Dubai, then to Colombo Sri Lanka. That part of the trip took right at 24 hours or so and as I landed in Sri Lanka, it occurred to me to think about what I would do if I didn’t see someone holding a piece of cardboard with my name on it at the airport. As it turns out, my driver was very confident and spoke some English. He got a big kick out of when I open the right side of door to the car, front seat and was about to get in. He took out the keys and faked like he was throwing them to me, and I looked in and saw the steering wheel. Once we sorted that out, he did appreciate that I sat in the front seat instead of the back and off we had, taking six hours to go about 150 miles and he told me that he had saved two hours on the trip by driving more aggressively than he normally did. By the way, his hair looked just like Frankie Valli in the 60s.
I ended up getting to the hotel about three in the afternoon their time since we had to go to the little port town first before we got directions to the hotel which was right on the water with the next point south of me being Antarctica. Now, there are at least four more stories about the hotel that I’m gonna set aside and jump to the next day when I got up and was driven to the port at about 10 o’clock in the morning their time. This actual port was different than the port that originally gave rise to the town as it had been recently built by Chinese money, and was for large boat commercial purposes with big long pier on one side, parallel with the edge of the land, but no cranes, yet. (Turns out that the Commonwealth games were scheduled to occur in Sri Lanka almost due north of where this port was built, about four or five years down the line.) When I got to the port all of us there was a paved area that was probably the size of four football fields, and one ship tied up in the middle of what was otherwise a wide open port and pier
My agent had been on the ship before and had given me a report, but I wanted to go on the ship, not for any real purpose other than to see what it was like there since I had never been on such a ship. He left me on the dock while he went on board to make arrangements. I walked the length of the ship and also a little bit out on the dock while I was waiting, never imagining whether people were watching me or not but now feeling like they certainly must’ve been.
Eventually, I see the agent and another guy coming down the gangplank from the pilot house way up high to a landing station where the gang plank leaves the ship, probably 40 feet above the pier. I go up that gang plank and meet the agent and it turns out the Captain, right where there is a check-in station run by a guard. I find out that the Captain is Russian and he appears to me to be 30 years old or so. At the time, I was probably mid 50s.
He conveys to me immediately that the owners of the ship have ordered him not to allow me on board. I look at the agent and get no suggestion of how he would treat the situation, but I asked the Captain, if we could walk down the side of the ship a little bit and I could talk to him. Once we got clear of the guard station and the agent, I told the captain that I appreciated the situation in which he found himself. Then I told him that I was going to send a ship there with cranes on it with the intent to unload all of my equipment off of his ship ASAP. I then conveyed to him that right now he had all the leverage, but if I came back, I would have leverage.
I decided that my work was done and had the agent contact my driver who had to drive to where we were in order to give me a ride back to the airport, so I got to the airport about 9 o’clock that night. At that time, I ended up talking to someone back in the office and they told me that the CEO didn’t want me coming home until I had things ironed out there and I told the guy I’m hanging up and I’ll see you Monday since it was now Friday night.
Bottom line, by my negotiations with our customer under the terms of the contract, we ended up delivering all of our equipment to Latvia without assessment of any liquidated damages, and I’m pretty sure that we witheld payments associated with a due date upon delivery from the ship that was Arrested. By the way, there’s a great story about the Arresting of the ship that had nothing to do with us, but was a very artful move by the Chinese company who had built the ship and had not been fully paid therefore.
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Now, the reason that story popped into my head was because of Trump’s behavior with Zelensky and his negotiation with Putin, in the absence of Zelensky, since I have negotiated many places around the world, but that was the only time I ever went face-to-face with a Russian. Believe me, I have negotiated with a lot of different nationalities, and there is a vibe in every country that is noticeable if you pay attention. By the time I got back home, I had been gone for a toll of 96 hours and traveling for all but 24 of them. So that’s the story. I have another story associated with the meeting between Zelensky, Trump and Vance, based upon my negotiation experience. Maybe I’ll put it out.
My thoughts in anticipation of the two NFL games this weekend. Apparently, what I’m about to set out here may be surprising to a lot of people that read it, but I have been in this room for my entire life so it seems obvious to me.
Everybody marvels at what Patrick Mahomes does in an urgent moment on the football field. He is aided by the fact that his tight end has been with him long enough to accept the same vibe that he has such that they, together, participate in what Mahomes’ instinct does in exigent circumstances. (sorry, practiced law for 43 years).
Everything I set out here is based upon my own awareness of life and not any research or scientific inquiry. Nonetheless, I think it proves out, and I wanted to set it out for the public to see if anybody else even got a feel for the path I upon which I find myself.
I believe that Mahomes has never learned not to trust his instinct. Read carefully, because a lot of people may learn to trust their instinct at some point in life, but the distinction of trusting your instinct from the start and never not trusting it is a significant on the path of life. I believe that Mahomes was allowed to trust his instinct because his dad was a professional player, and he was permitted to do stuff on the sidelines of his dad’s life that we’re not questioned by coaches since his dad’s success allowed Patrick into the room of acceptance of good physical consequences to his behavior.
That is why when he does things on the football field, where he doesn’t follow what most coaches teach, people are amazed, and cannot understand how he does that. The fact that Kelsey gets it shows that Kelsey trusts him and allows, Mahomes to read him accordingly such that they can both trust each other in decisions made in the moment. OK, here is my anticipation for this weekend based upon what I’ve heard on TV.
Mahomes and his teammates will prevail over Buffalo if they get a chance at the end of the game simply because any instinct the reaction that Mahomes has is a step ahead of what his brain could figure out timing wise. If you have to think about something, processing must take place. However, if you’re instinct makes the decision, then makes any correction that results from reaction to that decision, it will always be a step ahead, which is illustrated by people not understanding what he does, or perhaps how he does it. Again, Kelsey accepts it and that’s a whole ‘nother subject.
Here’s a bonus observance that I will see if it comes true or not. The quarterback for Washington, a rookie, is amazing people as well, watching the same manner as Mahomes has been amazing to people. I have not observed him for any length of time and know nothing about his background. I would guess that Washington will win the game with Philadelphia this week if he has an opportunity to set free his behavior at the end of the game, since playing defense will be a step behind in their reaction to what he does. If that happens, the Super Bowl will be most interesting.
Well, I made a mistake today by turning on one of the news shows and listening to the parsing out of what number 47 did yesterday signing documents that were clearly intended to motivate those who voted for him, but as “executive orders” will be subject to a great degree of litigation as things go on.
It’s clear to me that Trump wants to be an oligarch, which is the current term that’s acceptable for ruling a country according to your individual benefit that will result from what you do.
Trump has never been an alpha dog in any group that he was in as he was growing up. He was never athletically inclined to any great degree and he was never incredibly smart relative to those around him to any great degree. His family did have financial wherewithal that permitted him to learn the dance of the country club, but he was never good at that dance. (And he openly cheats on the club’s course.)
Now he’s in charge of most powerful country in the world, and he is indicating that he will run it in the same manner as he runs the country clubs and businesses he owns. As many people have pointed out, there will be a lot of lawyers involved on both sides as these matters go forward. As a retired litigation lawyer, I am familiar with the waste of time and effort seeking to have a judge act in a certain way.
Now that the litigation cost are paid by the government instead of him individually, there are no checks and the balances on how silly his positions may appear as we go forward.
We, the United States and the entire planet, are looking at hard times as he goes forward with his plan for the US. Because he was never an alpha dog he did not learn that the alpha dog has responsibilities for the entire pack, not just the benefits that might flow to him individually. (If you want to see a good example of appropriate behavior of an alpha dog check out a show that I think is titled “Wolf 21”, which is a historical account of wolves that were re-introduced into one of our country’s large parks and can probably be found on public TV maybe generated by the Smithsonian Institute.)
Anyway, when you’re the boss of the pack responsibilities extend past merely propagating with the female dogs and this accounting for the behavior of wolf 21, especially relative to the dominant females in the pack and the remaining members of the pack, illustrates that the alpha needs to be happy with getting his needs and not concerned with getting his wants.
All Trump has ever sought was getting as many of his wants as he can. That is how he measure success. And, all of his new wealthy friends, who contributed a lot of money to the inaugural ceremony and hanging right there with him, seeking out their own personal wants.
I recognize that there’s not a single thing I can do to change the rhythm of the nation as it goes forward, since I am an old man. My hope is that the children I have raised, and the grandchildren that I am helping to raise now, will be able to navigate how they behave in the pack as it moves forward in a manner that the United States has never seen, but which has been shown by history to be short-lived relative to expectations. Greece, Rome, and Germany, all provide a very clear example of what cannot work, but as every smart person has ever commented, history repeats itself. My only hope is that the Internet allows for a greater understanding than normally appears after the shit has hit the fan. My hope is that someone can stop the shit on the way towards the fan.
“I was so much older then, I am younger than that now”, or something like that from Dylan, but then I drift to Bob Dylan’s Dream and understand again that whatever I knew at any point in my life was going to be “exceeded” in some way so long as I paid attention to the path I was discovering in every moment of awareness. As I have age, it appears to me that I took my almost constant awareness for granted, but I have discovered that it does not apply such to most people.
That is an entire side bar, so let’s just set that aside.
As I have aged, I have more and more realizations about what makes me different that everybody else. We are all such, different that is, but we, perhaps, find solace, comfort, peace, etc. by aligning with others around us, at least on some level such that the difference may not stand out with others. My instinct, however, caused me to accept that I was measurably distinct from those around me. Further, my instinct made me extremely different as “it” was always looking for a better path if one seemed to be needed or merely appeared. Thus, I was always writing a new story instead of just following along.
Anyway, I now see that adhering to what is promoted around me was never my thing, even from my first remembrance of consciousness, say age 4 or so. I had the measles really intensely with a fever over 104 for several days. In those days, you just stayed in a bed in your home and sweated it out. I was visited daily by my uncle, who became a doc as the result of the GI Bill, and my parents, and they would talk in my presence not realizing that I could hear it all. I couldn’t move or open my eyes, but I could hear acutely and my brain had nothing else to do. So, it made an honest evaluation of what it heard and put that data in its hard drive. After they left, I would drift off to a dream land, playing two distinct scenarios over and over, much like the book where the character is first small, then large, or vice versa in order. I had those dreams repeatedly during the bed time and I had never been exposed to the story prior to my mind doing it on its own on some level.
So back to Bob. I now realize that all my friends along the way largely put up with me being very much one of a kind. I didn’t realize that at all during my life. I didn’t realize how easy things were for me, even in a brand new situation at moments of decision making. Plus, in physical settings of all kinds including organized sports and stuff just happening when in the woods or walking an alley, both in the day time and at night. I just took all that stuff for granted to the extent that I was surprised to hear, late in life, that I had always been despised by classmates and teachers because it was so easy for me.
I had to leave go of a long time friend some time ago, and he is a guy who had ridden the train going west with me for a number of switches on the track, like in Dylan’s Dream. That departure was noted by both of us and others around us. Many other departures just seem have happened in a natural course of the fact that my instinct is always choosing a new path if the moment suggests or demands such.
I have seen many photos and videos of friends and acquaintances who have taken the vacation trip involving a ship in all parts of Europe in the past half year, some including Asia in that adventure. The views are great and the experience looks great, but I find my instinct placing me more in the moment of where I am, not what can I do with my time. I am actually glad that I don’t travel by plane much any more, though I was once a Diamond member at Delta and had that platinum credit card that gets you in any airport lounge. The people I met on the streets of all the places I visited are not unlike the people I run into every day here (since my paradigm is not the country, tennis, boat or gun club).
So listen to these old Dylan songs and wonder, why don’t the majority of people hear his other song that told us then, “The answer is blowing in the wind.”
Anyone else riding on this bus?
I just had something revealed to me, at age 70. I saw the trip by the Duke player named Filipowski on TV replay today. If you recall, he was the guy that was “hurt” by fans rushing the court a couple of weeks ago. Seemed then like it was going to be a big injury, but not so much?
Now to yesterday against North Carolina, at the Duke gym. He and a NC guy ended up on the floor, largely because “Filipo” actually knocked them down. Then, when they were getting up Filipo kicked his foot up, like a backhand, and tripped the other guy who got up quicker. Afterward he went on camera and gave a big line of BS.
Take that for what it is, but it illustrated to me an accepted mechanism that a coach tried to teach me when I went out for BBall in 9th grade (1968). The coach actually instructed us to step on another player’s foot when waiting for a rebound, and that we could punch a guy in the ribs with one had while reaching up with the other hand to look like we were blocking a shot. He specifically mentioned that the refs could not see everything. (By the way that guy was eventually removed decades later because of sexually interplay with at least one student, just to show his true depth.)
Get that last none parenthesis line. That is the way that a whole lot of “businessmen” feel about those what might referee life behavior in the business world, especially including government “regulators” but also in house rules and enforcers.
OK, so that is the overview, now I will give you some specifics I experienced in sports and business.
I learned about MY basketball game in the Intramural Building at the University of Michigan beginning in 1971. There were 4 marvelous full sized wooden floor courts next to each other and the level of the game rose from the court furthest from the administrative part of the building constructed for that purpose (with squash and racket ball/hand ball courts under the basketball courts and king sized locker room on the other side of the administrative offices).
I learned there because it was the first time since 6th grade that I did not have a coach who was insisting that I did things his way. Shit, that coach did not have my physicality or mentality as I was both fast and smart. Anyway, I made it to the first court before the start of the second semester and never fell below that in my 4 years.
I then started learning street ball on courts all around Detroit, throughout the 70s. When I left Ann Arbor I ended up being a Melter Foreman making 250 tons of molten steel out of molten pig iron and scrap that my crew and I “cooked” in two adjacent furnaces at the expected rate of one heat every 50 minutes. I was 23 and the shortest guy on the furnace crew has 26 years in the mill, since that was the heart of the mill and the highest paying union position. I was responsible for adding alloys into the furnace and the cooking techniques I employed in order to hit the target grade of steel desired on the daily list.
Here’s the thing, there was a parallel between the Mill and the Basketball that was played on the courts in southwest Detroit, which I discovered by doing the dance in both places without anyone telling me anything, just learning by doing.
In the Mill, you were not allowed to lie, as people were maimed and killed there when honesty was practiced such that a lie would almost insure danger to someone. Turned out the courts in Detroit were largely the same, but I had to learn that it did not stop those who would do things like Filio did in the Duke game yesterday.
I got stiches over my left eye at least 4 times from blind side punches that I never saw coming. I also had a contact broken in the left eye in Detroit and in Chicago from the same kind of, literally, blind sided hit out of nowhere.
The first time that happened was in Detroit, on a court just off Jefferson and actually in River Rouge which was just south of the Detroit border (which was the Rouge River that ran downstream from the original Ford plant.) After I recognized that I couldn’t see very well, I found a piece of the lens on my chest and asked a guy near me if the other piece was on my face. When he found none, I walked back over to the hoop and he asked what I was doing and I told him I could play him with one eye.
There was a life lesson that I renewed to myself in basketball. Turns out later in life I would apply that lesson in various business situations. If you get a blind side hit and don’t go down, everyone who is aware of it changes how they see you.
On that basketball court, I became greatly accepted, and I was the only Euro American guy even in the vicinity of the neighborhood, except cars driving by on Jefferson. One time, after I had been coming there for a couple of weeks, a guy who had not seen me before came down the middle and I got the ball clean and knocked him to the ground when our bodies met. He popped up and squared off facing me and I asked him what his problem was. “You knocked me down!” he said and that is when I told him, “That’s the way we play here.” All the other players jumped right on that and verbally agreed with me such that the guy have up his position. (By the way, in the Mill, as the college boy foreman, I was like a first Lieutenant in Viet Nam, but got accepted there as well by being honest, especially when I made a mistake.)
I ended up leaving the steel mill and going to law school in Detroit. I continued to play basketball, and kept shoes and a ball in my car (which was then a black on black ’76 Firebird Formula). In the worlds in which I practiced law I was then able to also practice the ethics that I learned as a kid, then refined in the steel mill, then really tested in three different “practices” as an Attorney and Counselor. In the end, though, I was merely a Lawyer: Tax Lawyer, Commercial Litigator, International General Counsel.
I will tell you this, the only time I really enjoyed shared honesty in my practice of law was in the middle adventure. That was because the guy that took me on was honest. Neither he nor I ever focused on that, but we ended up sharing the trait for 18 years before I moved on to the General Counsel position.
I understand that this came out because of what I saw on TV. I am not sure that the behavior of the coach way back then, and what I have witnessed on sports and business can ever be changed. In my last position I was still behaving as a lawyer, doing what I knew was right ethically and still preserving all contractual rights of the company in order to limit financial impact from anomaly events.
I got great results, but overrode decisions made ancillary to the solution of the problem. Those whose decisions were ignored finally ended up firing me. In private practice the lawyer fires the client, in house, the lawyer gets fired for the decisions he/she makes. In my tax practice I was let go after I advised a partner that the solicitation of a bonus following a better than expected result with the criminal side of the IRS was expressly precluded by the ethics rules applying in Michigan. The in house goodbye was predicated on a set of decisions about equipment going into a nuclear power plant in Slovakia, and I saved a lot of time and money by acknowledging that our side had the problem, not accusing them of a problem like the guy above wanted to do. Got loose of the problem for less than half of the amount on the Contingency Line item of the books.
Like I said, my boss, then partner, in private practice, exercised honesty at the same rate of application as did I – always. On more than one occasion, once leaving a courtroom and once leaving a judge’s chambers, he asked me, “What did you just do?” I asked him to describe what he saw, then I sorted it all out with him since on both occasions, my instinct had taken over. He quit asking after our first year together.
Well, that’s what came out today. As a guy named Forest once told me, “It’s no good unless you share it.”
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