THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING WRONG OCCASIONALLY

The Author is sometimes wrong. No really, seriously, he is. About both big things and little things. Most everyone is wrong now and then. Some more wrong than right, some more right than wrong.

But the Author has never known anyone who has never been wrong. Even President Bush, who claims he has never made a mistake as president, has sometimes been wrong. Being wrong gives humans an opportunity, although not an opportunity we would seek out. An opportunity to learn from the mistake and do the right thing next time.

Being wrong sometimes allows us to correct a wrong action. Sometimes not. But being wrong gives us the chance to figure out why we were wrong, usually in the light of subsequently discovered facts, and the opportunity to avoid similar mistakes in the future. Mistakes are ways of adversely selecting against future failure.

CAN WHEN YOU ARE WRONG BE AS IMPORTANT AS HOW MUCH YOU ARE WRONG?

People make mistakes in their lives. Young people with less experience in the world and less mature decision-making mechanisms in their adolescent brains, make lots of mistakes. Most recover from early, big mistakes. But some don’t.

And big mistakes early in adulthood may also hobble a person through their life as mistakes may close off avenues to better jobs or better social environments.

But later life mistakes can be equally devastating. A bad business or financial decision can mean bankruptcy. A brush with the law at 40 finds the courts less forgiving than when an immature kid makes the same transgression. But it would appear that the more years of the experience one has, the better their decision- making skills will be.

IF YOU CAN AFFORD YOUR MISTAKES, CAN YOU EVER BE WRONG?

But there are some in this world that continually make mistakes with few if any consequences. Paris Hilton comes promptly to mind[i]. Two such people in one of the cannon of American literature also come to mind. Tom and Daisy Buchanan of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel “The Great Gatsby” are the prototypical scions of the idle rich. Remember what Nick Carraway said near the end of the book and the 1974 movie of the same title of Tom and Daisy?

“Careless people [Tom and Daisy]… they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together…”

But in the end, it was their money that gave them retreat. It paid for their vast carelessness. It was the Faustian bargain they struck. The money was the unspoken “whatever” that kept them together.

This is a rhetorical question, to be sure. Someone usually pays when a mistake is made. Nearly always the one in error and usually a bystander, or two, or two hundred. Or two hundred thousand. But when someone can retreat into their money, their family connections, their networks of sycophants and cronies, can such a person ever make a mistake? Will that lesson never taught produce a pupil never schooled? Probably so.

“ANYONE ELSE, I’D SAY THIS WOULD BE A LESSON”

In the classic film “Citizen Kane”, political boss Jim Gettys threatens to expose Kane’s tryst with his lover unless Kane drops out of the race for New York Governor. Kane refuses and Gettys goes public with the story of Kane’s extramarital affair. Gettys tells Kane “Anyone else, I’d say this would be a lesson”.

Kane goes on to loose the election, divorce his wife and marry his lover. But Charles Foster Kane is not just “anyone else”. Kane kept his vast wealth and control over a financial empire built in the Gilded Age and large enough to ride out the impending Great Depression.

IS THERE EVER A LESSON IF THERE CAN NEVER BE A “MISTAKE”?
MUSINGS AND THOUGHTS UNGUIDED FROM THE DESERT OF THE REAL!

[i] [i] But in her media choreographed life, are they really “mistakes”?

CHINA AND INDIA HOLD KEY TO WORLD'S RICHES OR RUIN – REPORT

IN THE 1980s IT WAS THOUGHT THAT JAPAN WOULD MAKE THE 21ST CENTURY “The Asian Century”.
RIGHT CONTINENT. WRONG COUNTRY.

From an article on Yahoo, 1.12.2006, from OneWorld US[i]:

China and India are poised to shape the world's future and decisions made by the ascendant Asian giants in the next few years will determine whether that will be for better or worse, a prominent environmental think-tank said Wednesday.

The good news, according to the Washington, D.C.-based Worldwatch Institute, is that the average Chinese or Indian person consumes, wastes, and pollutes far less than the average American or European. Additionally, both countries have taken decisive steps to improve environmental performance.

The “bad news” is that there are so many more Asians and Indians. There are about 296 energy and resource swilling Americans. But there are 1.3 billion Chinese and 1.1 billion Indians. Even if they consume far less resources as their nations develop, the pressure on resources will continue and pollution and greenhouse gases will still increase.


WILL CHINA AND INDIA, AND THE REST OF THE DEVELOPING WORLD, PUSH PAST THE WEST IN SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT?
THEY MUST.

Natural resources, oil supplies, and the environment, cannot support nor withstand another “American Century”. The energy and resource consumption patterns of the US cannot be sustained. Many Americans haven’t figured this out, but most of Europe has and Asian planners know that the American model of development, based upon abundant and cheap resources, will not be repeated.[ii] But can Asia avoid the energy and resource crunch?

SOME OF THE STEPS IN CHINA AND INDIA CONTAINED IN THE WORLD WATCH REPORT:

· In 2005, both nations committed to accelerating the development of new energy sources. India will seek to increase renewable energy's share of its power from 5 percent to 20-25 percent, while China's ambitious renewable energy law stands a good chance of jumpstarting wind power, biofuels, and other new energy options.
· Seeking to provide mass mobility to over a billion people without diverting resources required to meet other human needs, the Chinese Ministry of Construction recently declared public transport a national priority and is promoting Bus Rapid Transit (BRT).
· In India, where 43 percent of the annual rain and snowfall fails to reach rivers and aquifers, NGOs have championed water harvesting, using simple technologies that capture and store water before it can flow away. In Chennai, the country's fourth largest city, some 70,000 buildings harvest rainwater.
· In 2004, China implemented automobile fuel economy standards that are based on European standards and tougher than those in the United States. China's commitment to energy efficiency is also reflected in its status as the world leader in producing and installing compact fluorescent light bulbs.
· Indian officials recently replicated successful small-scalebiodiesel programs in 100 additional villages in the hopes of bringing revenue to depressed rural communities while powering local electrical grids and irrigation pumps.
· New laws in 2004 gave Chinese non-governmental organizations (NGOs) stronger legal standing to participate in policy decision-making. There are now more than 2,000 environmental NGOs in China—a sector that barely existed as recently as the early 1990s.

Emphasis in the original article, cited directly from World Watch Institute.[iii]

REMEMBER WHAT THIS HOOSIER SAID?

Last summer, when gas prices topped $3 per gallon, media outlets across the nation featured the obligatory indignant “man/woman on the street” interviews. The Kendallville News-Sun (the daily newspaper in the rural Indiana county where the Author was born) paper quoted an interview with a union heavy equipment operator. The man bemoaned the effect of the increased prices and stated that he drives 75 to 100 miles per day to higher-paying union construction sites. He also drove a fuel-swilling pickup. He stated that he could save money driving a “cracker box”, but did not wish to “drive a crackerbox”. He went on to say that fuel prices should be lower because “we (US) spend all this money keeping the ‘world free”.

This quote was from a post from November 2005. The Author frequently recalls what this man said. The statement about “spending all the money to keep the world free” seems savagely and and painfully comical. Recent estimates put the cost of the Iraq invasion and occupation at a minimum of one TRILLION dollars. That is 2,857 times the 70 billion dollar cost of the war originally estimated by the Bush administration.

What would a one TRILLION dollar investment in alternative fuels, alternative energy, pollution controls, deficit reduction, just about any freakin’ thing done to keep the world “free”? A Fark of a lot more. A whole gosh darn Fark of a lot more than the forcible seizure of Iraq by American military power.

ANOTHER HARD LESSON

How does one conclude this post? Americans must recognize the world that is now encroaching on their “exceptional life”. And this world recognizes no exceptions. No exceptions.

TWO ROAD DIVERGED IN THE DESERT OF THE REAL. TAKE THE ONE LESS TRAVELED BY. IT WILL MAKE ALL THE DIFFERENCE!

[i] http://www.yahoo.com/. OneWorld’s website is: http://www.oneworld.net/
[ii] In fairness to the American model, oil and metals were abundant in America in a time in its development, and the world’s development, when the environmental cost of their wanton use was not fully understood. The world now knows the environmental costs of wanton consumption. But many Americans seem ambivalent at best to the environmental costs of their lifestyle. And American political leadership is hostile to environmental stewardship, placing its short-term political power above national and international comity and necessity.
[iii] http://www.oneworld.net/external/?url=http%3A%2F%2F
www.worldwatch.org%2Fpress%2Fnews%2F2006%2F01%2F11%2F