BMW: Not Born From Planes

I have a hard time throwing away old papers when I find myself stumbling across articles like "Nope, Not Born From Planes" by Stephen Williams in the January 10, 2011 NY Times. 

The BMW (Bayerische Motoren Werke) roundel widely assumed to represent a propeller is actually derived from the flag of the Bavarian Free State.  The article was also cited by a blog which had this image:

In true insouciant fashion one response to that blog was: Yeah. Uh huh. And "Puff the Magic Dragon" had nothing to do with drugs, and neither did "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.

I suspect the real value of the article will be in the money which will be won in bar bets.

(As a side note, the headline of the online version is "BMW Roundel: Not Born From Planes".)

John Haggerty Guilty!! But of What?

John Haggerty, a former aide to Mayor Michael Bloomberg was accused of stealing $1.1 million during the last election by promising to use the money to organize "ballot security" through the Independence Party.  On the face of it things looked simple:  Bloomberg provided Haggerty with funds for arranging for poll watchers based on a budget submitted by Haggerty.   Haggerty used $600K to buy a house.

On the second day of deliberation, the jury asked for clarification: who was the victim?  Huh?

The defense argued that once Haggerty got the money Bloomberg had no say over how the money could be used.  I don't know nearly enough about the law to understand how charges are assigned, but promising to do something for money and then not doing it violates something otherwise there are some great career options to those of us who can lie with a straight face.

The devil, of course, was lurking in the details:  the victim might have been the Independence Party which should have receive the money for watching the polls or the trust fund from which the money came.  The defense was arguing that the prosecution's charges were wrong.  Unsaid was that their client was guilty; the prosecutors had erred by selecting the wrong victim.  It would only be a matter of time, then,  until the prosecution, recognizing the error of its ways, came up with the correct indictment and Haggerty would find himself a guest of the state.

The defense tried to make the source of the funds an issue.  Because Bloomberg used personal funds, not campaign funds the defense kept implying that Bloomberg was trying to avoid scrutiny because what was being done was a violation of campaign laws.  The prosecution kept responding that there were no campaign violations.  I'd have to see a transcript to see whether one of the prosecutors replied that if there were a campaign violation, Haggerty would have been charged for that also.

The real fascination of the trial was a glimpse into how casually a billionaire can spend money.  Trusted associates got over $400K to help manage the election.  No formal contracts.  If more of us were aware of how much money could be siphoned off during elections economists might consider working election expenditures into an economic stimulous package.

In the end Haggerty was found not guilty of first degree grand larceny and guilty of second-degree grand larceny and second-degree money laundering this morning.  Maximum sentence 15 years.

Grand larceny it seems requires the amount involved to be over $1 million.  The amount in question seemed to be the amount Haggerty used to buy the house.

I'll Believe a Corporation is a Person ...

"I'll Believe a Corporation is a Person When Texas Executes One"  I first saw the slogan in a cardboard sign carried by an Occupy Wall Street poster.  When looking for it on the web I chanced across this decal:

The odd thing is that when I saw the sticker I thought it read:

SOFTWARE ENGINEER BY DAY WORLD'S WORST DAD BY NIGHT

Isn't that odd?

I Love Gail Collins

I'd give a kidney and part of my liver (you bring the fava beans and the fine Chianti) to be able to write like Gail Collins. In her "The Gift of Glib" op-ed piece for Wednesday's NY Times (October 12, 2011) she had a field day with the Republican candidate's 999 debate in New Hampshire. 

It slights the original to pick a few quotes, but here are some to whet your appetite:

It turns out that Governor Perry has a big energy plan, known as “The Plan I’m Going to Be Laying Out.” When he does, it’s going to be the answer to almost everything

Michele Bachmann gave the fact-checkers another great night of error-correcting. 

Among the elite cadre of Americans who have been thinking about 9-9-9, a good number have determined that it won’t raise enough revenue. “The problem with that analysis is that it is incorrect,” announced Cain firmly. I do admire the way he does this. If I could convey that tone, I would win every argument in my family just by saying “The problem with that analysis is that it is incorrect.”

First They Came for the Anthropologists ...

A clever headline I thought, appropriating its structure from Martin Niemöller's statement (1892–1984) about the lack of opposition from German intellectuals to the Nazis.

The headline which I cribbed from an article in The Atlantic magazine was prompted by statements from Florida's Governor Rick Scott on Monday of this week that he hoped to shift more higher education funding to STEM programs (science, technology, engineering and math).  Specifically, he said:

"If I’m going to take money from a citizen to put into education then I’m going to take that money to create jobs. So I want that money to go to degrees where people can get jobs in this state. Is it a vital interest of the state to have more anthropologists? I don’t think so." ~ Inside Higher Ed

It isn't an unusual political statement and I suspect it isn't much different from the feeling of the population at large.  Successful businessman appointed to boards of trustees have made similar comments.  They're often surprised then to find that their school gets the most bang for the buck from liberal arts courses which require little in resources than a room, chairs, and someone with credentials to blither on compared with a hard science course with labs, equipment, supplies, special reporting regulations in addition to the credentialed blitherer.

In writing this I learned from Wikipedia that there was no definitive version of Niemöller statement, but Niemöller's preference would be something like this:

First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

I'm sure that there are parodies in every liberal arts departments across the world ("First they came for the Structuralist, then the Deconstructionists, then the Formalists, and when finally they came for the Hermeneuticists..")

Beguine/Dijkstra

Back in June I stumbled across a reference to a short film "Beguine" by Douwe Dijkstra. I searched library databases and IMDB to no avail. I should have just done a web search because there it was on the first page.

In addition, there was a link to some great black and white images for someone with the same name: Dijkstra's photos 

The windmill image really impressed me: just lengthening the exposure made the sails look like a propeller. A friend titled it "Windmill by Boeing".

 The video is a hallucinogenic exercise as a dance floor tips sending a man sliding down a long hill into a red ocean at the bottom he finds himself in an office.  He walks over to the copier which sucks him in (see image below).

Trapped in the copier he's ignored as his image appeared in the copies.  Eventually he's shaving as he plummets down the side of building coming to a gentle landing.  What?


You've got to see it to believe it:   Dijkstra's Beguine video

Remembering Steve Jobs

Among the tributes and recollections of Steve Jobs I was most affected by David Gewirtz's DIY-IT blog on ZDnet:

"Steve Jobs didn’t just bring Apple computers, music players, and phones to the world. What Steve Jobs brought was elegance, discipline, crisp design, and a forceful sense of right and wrong.

"Steve knew. He just knew what he wanted. He knew what would be right and what would have been right for any other technology executive, but wouldn’t meet his standards."

There were many businesses which were frustrated by his company's secrecy.  By not revealing its hand Apple made it extremely difficult for businesses to plan.  In my only encounter with Apple bureaucracy my university couldn't get an iOS developer license because Apple's licensing procedure required talking to the school's chief legal officer.  It was a Kafkaesque experience.

Bert Jansch RIP

Listening to NPR I caught the name "Jansch" and expected an interview as part of a new tour of America.  Not to be.  The the man who wrote "Needle of Death", a founder of Pentangle, the guitarist who inspired so many is gone.  Here's a link to the story, "Guitarist Bert Jansch Is Dead At 67".  If you've got a moment, search for him on youtube or follow the link in the NPR story.

Later in the evening the death of a different cultural icon, Steve Jobs, was announced.  The news of Job's death will probably obscure Jansch's.  There will be those who will treat Jansch's music as a gift that becomes more valuable when shared.