Stayin' alive

Photo by La Cabra. I'm not sure it has anything to do with the topics discussed today.

Every so often, it's kind of fun to read a book about survival in extreme situations. One recent book along those lines that I'd recommend is Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why by Laurence Gonzales.

Gonzales came about his interest in the subject honestly. During World War II, his father, a B-17 bomber pilot, miraculously managed to survive a 27,000 foot crash without a parachute, not to mention captivity in a German prisoner of war camp. He's pushed the envelope a time or two on his own as well.

One thing that makes his book a little different from plain narratives is that he attempts to look at the scientific data involved and draw some general conclusions that can be useful in all kinds of situations.

I was pleased, but not surprised, to find his book peppered with mentions of Zen Buddhism, Lao Tzu and the Taoist tradition.

He hit on some of my favorite themes (and pet peeves) in his discussion of the role of planning and how it can sometimes get in the way of dealing with things as they are.

Planning is fine, as long as you don't get stuck in it:

In an environment that has high objective hazards, the longer it takes to dislodge the imagined world in favor of the real one, the greater the risk. In nature, adaptation is important; the plan is not. It's a Zen thing. We must plan. But we must be able to let go of the plan, too.

THE MAIN EVENT. Here's a look at the coming battle over the Employee Free Choice Act.

MORE FUN WITH THE WV SUPREMES. I missed this one Sunday. Here's the NY Times on Massey Energy, Don Blankenship, and the WV Supreme Court, all of which are entwined in a case before the US Supreme Court.

MICROLENDING. In the wake of the recession, interest in this kind of financing is growing.

NEED TO SEE SOME COOL MARINE BIOLOGY VIDEOS? No problem.

ONE OF THE DEADLY SINS is envy.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Planning to be spontaneous

Wu (right) did not plan on getting chased by Diego the turkey.

El Cabrero is kind of a policy wonk by day, with a special interest in how laws and such impact people with low and moderate incomes. Every so often, I have to take part in attempting to do strategic planning.

(Actually, my main plan is to try to have a strategy.)

I don't have anything against real or pretend planning as long as people understand that in real life one has to adapt and adjust on a moment by moment basis.

There are two military sayings that are worth keeping in mind even for peaceful folks. One is "No plan survives contact with the enemy." The other is "The enemy gets a vote." You can substitute the word enemy with any number of other words: future, unforeseen random events, reality, life, etc.

In planning to deal with something as intricate and complicated as public life and policy, it's important to keep two basic things in mind. If the Gentle Reader will forgive me for stating the obvious, here they are:

1. We can't predict the future with any degree of certainty; and

2. We don't control other people.

It's actually even worse than that. Not only can we not predict the future, but we also have an incomplete understanding of the past, even though we often use it to anticipate events.

History is in large measure story--and humans secrete stories the way the liver secretes bile. If you ask just about anybody why just about anything happened, he or she will probably come up with some kind of explanation which may or may not have any basis in fact.

There's an awful lot we don't know about the present, come to think of it. And not only do we not control other people (which is probably a good thing), but we are all imperfect in self control.

The take-home message is that no matter how well we plan, there's no getting away from randomness, unpredicted events, luck, chance or fortune. It's how we respond to such things that often makes the difference between success and failure.

WHAT ABOUT A BAILOUT for the rest of us?

ATLAS MESSED UP. Here's another take on the fallen idol of Ayn Rand. (By the way, anyone really into Greek mythology would have known that Atlas wasn't the brightest crayon in the box.)

WHERE THE RUBBER HITS THE ROAD. The coming winter means more hard times for people in economic difficulties. In nearby Ohio, the equivalent of one in ten households has received a gas or electricity termination notice in the last year.

IN OTHER CHEERY NEWS, the financial meltdown is also making the global food crisis worse.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED