Here is a favorite photo of my kittygrrl, Ondine Le Chat. Her first name means "water spirit" in French because she likes to play with water. Once, she fell into the tub with me while I was taking a bath. She's really a shy, hidey cat who can almost literally disappear into the woodwork. She's able to disappear into a closet space and turn herself invisible to the human eye or scrunch herself up under a bedframe so that she looks like a shoe.

This picture of Ondine was taken at our cabin, Baroque Haus, which is located on Lake Burr Oak in Morgan County, Ohio. I love taking Ondine to the cabin with us because she is a serious hunter, and it's interesting to watch this city cat go country on the weekends.

Mostly she likes to curl up in the black ladder back chair located in the dining area of the cabin, and I love to see her looking so peaceful and content. I like to curl up with her, a good book, and a toasty fire in the woodstove.

Nonparametrics Rock

This is Buddha Baby. 


All sort of bizaare topics crossed my mind for a Halloween blog. I thought about doing a quirky meditation on the 14th century Black Death because there was a great show about it on National Geographic channel last night. Instead, I decided post a picture of Buddha Baby. She's my first grandchild, born on October. 9. I call her Buddha Baby because she radiates such blissful contentment from her newborn soul. Although I've not seen lots of newborns on which to base a comparison, I have concluded that this child is truly outstanding. She gives me a reason to think about something on Halloween besides the Black Death or the risk of contracting avian flue this winter. I would like to live long enough to see this child become a young lady.

Western Civilization in the Latter Days


Immanuel Wallerstein directs the Fernand Braudel Center for the Study of Economics, Historical Systems, and Civilizations at Binghamton University in New York. Wallerstein also teaches at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Science Sociales in Paris. Wallerstein holds international stature as a sociologist because he pioneered the theoretical modeling of global social systems. Much of his work is based on the history of capitalist expansion beginning in 16th century western Europe. He’s written books with titles like as The End of the World as We Know It (1999) and The Decline of American Power (2003).

In the aftermath of the 2004 presidential election, it seemed to me that the world as I knew it had come to an end, so naturally I was intrigued by Wallerstein’s use of this phrase in a book title. Because I see the use of U.S. military power in Iraq as a weak response to the threat posed by international Islamic jihadism, I chose to read Decline rather than one of Wallerstein’s other books. I should also add, the financing of massive tax cuts with loans from Chinese bankers is a fool's response to the economic threat posed by “the coming generational storm." That’s actually the title of a book by Laurence Kotlikoff & Scott Burns, and it refers to the enormous economic burden posed by the retirement and physical decline of the Baby Boom generation. This “storm” will affect some industrialized countries more seriously than the U.S., most notably, Japan and EEU countries where birth rates are too low to sustain the state social safety net for elderly citizens.

Wallerstein’s major premise is that the world economic system, which is dominated by capitalist enterprise, is fast reaching the limits at which it can sustain itself. He bases this premise on the analysis of three structural supports in the global capitalist economy. First, economic growth depends on low labor costs. Historically, cheap labor has come from rural areas. The number of rural areas of the planet that can be easily exploited for cheap labor will be exhausted within a generation of the economic development currently taking place in China, India, and the Pacific Rim*. Second, the development of a formerly rural labor force leads to increased pressure for tax-funded benefits such as education, health care, and other types of social insurance. Finally, the capitalist economic system depends on a finite supply of natural resources. Oil is the most obvious of these finite sources, but there are many others of enormous consequence—potable water, for example. Environmental degradation is a byproduct of resource depletion, and the degradation of natural systems is reaching the level of second order change.

Second order change is a concept I learned in family systems therapy. It refers to a fundamental alteration in system equilibrium, such that new rules of functioning come into operation. First order change indicates adjustments to the system that do not radically alter its basic functioning. Getting divorced is a second order change. Melting of the icecaps is a second order change.

Wallerstein argues that the world system is approaching the level of second order change. As evidence of this, he points to extremes in systemic functioning—what’s known as the bifurcation of equilibrium. An example would be the widening gap between the rich and the poor, those who with access to education and those without, those with technological skills and those without. There are places in the world—certain countries in Africa are a good example—where no amount of hard work, education, or skills training will radically alter a person’s lot in life. *Wallerstein has much to say about the EEU & U.S. hegemony over Africa, Latin America & the Middle East affect their potential for economic growth, but I am not familiar enough with his work to say much more than I’ve already written. He also has a lot to say about the collapse of socialist economies and the rise of nationalist and other popular movements.

Wallerstein doesn't try to predict the outcome of the tranformation our global socio-economic system is currently undergoing. He's a scientist, not a seer. One thing seems certain to me: We're in for a wild ride over the next 40+ years.

The beauty of limits


If you closely examine a pattern that makes up the smaller dimensions of a crystal, it is possible to see that same pattern replicated in larger and larger segments of the structure. This observation is the basis of fractal theory. A part of the fractal is identical to the entire fractal itself, except smaller. I've seen this demonstrated by maps that show how the general outline of a coastline can be generated by replicating it in the arrangement of sand grains in a smaller segments of the shore. The processes of sand, sea, and wind might seem to produce random forms, but those forms can be replicated with fractals.

I'm not a math wizard, and I couldn't understand a concept like fractals without visual aids. Hence, the picture of a crystal. The fractal that makes up this crystal may be represented symbolically by a fairly simple formula, but that formula must run through an infinite number of iterations to reach the limits of the fractal. Many, many repetitions of a small sequence finally merges into a coherant, bounded form. If you were to look at the smallest iteration of the crystal's fractal, it would appear to be a random speck of matter. Yet this random speck can achieve magnificent complexity. The benefit of knowing about fractals is that they allow us to study very complex systems and seemingly random processes--like the universe.

Most of what I'm able to say about fractals I found at the website of Eric Green. He did his senior thesis at Wittenberg University on fractals. It's an easy-to-read paper on a complex topic. Green's thesis provides some nice animated figures of twig and tree fractals.