Author: A.T.

STEVE JOBS IS A GENIUS

How much we all owe him, and the brilliant folks he inspired.  My friend Aaron Scott Kirsten writes:

I misplaced my iPhone this weekend. Misplaced it on the roof of the car and drove away. The music was playing via Bluetooth so I didn’t notice it wasn’t more secure. When the music stopped playing I thought it was just one of the dark spots on eastern Long Island. Later I used someone else’s iPhone and Find My iPhone to see that it was moving at a slow pace through town. I caught up to it and put it into Lost Mode with the phone number of the borrowed phone I was carrying. About 5 seconds later the phone rang and it was my phone calling me and a fellow not 10 feet from me calling me to say he’d found my phone by the side of the road playing music. The case had protected it from its fall at 45 mph. I had my phone back, intact after what should have been a total loss. A perfect storm of excellent software, great product design, social cooperation, decent honest neighbors all saving me from myself. Thanks everybody!

YESTERDAY’S COLUMN

Patrick Johnson:  “Why focus on Senate representation only? California has 55 total senators and congress people to 3 for Wyoming.”

I focus on the Senate, because (a) that’s where the grossest iniquity lies; (b) the Senate has a major say over the composition of the Supreme Court, where the House has none; (c) the Senate alone can block an awful lot of stuff, often with just a single Senator — not as true of the House.  Thanks for asking!

DO THE MATH

Aristides’ Chris Brown:

On average, over each of the last five years, homegrown “Islamic-inspired” killings have resulted in the deaths of about five Americans. There are about 2.7 million Muslims living in the United States. So there was one death partially attributable to Islam for every 540,000 Muslims in the U.S.

Meanwhile, there are about 15,000 homicides as a whole, among about 300 million people. So roughly one homicide death attributable to every 20,000 Americans.

On a per capita basis, just being an American makes you 27 times as likely to kill someone as being a Muslim in America makes you likely to kill someone for religious reasons.

On the whole, American violence kills 3,000-fold more Americans each year than does “Islamic-inspired” American violence.

Do you still want to ban the Koran, keep the mosque out of your town, and shun your neighbors?

Even traveling abroad, says the CDC, it’s car crashes, not terrorism, you need worry about.

(And no, obviously, this does not mean we should in any way fail to do everything we can to keep these numbers low, defeat ISIS, and all the rest. Obviously. But Chris’s point, it seems to me, is an important one.)

Everyone may be created equal, but it’s a peculiarity of our democracy that the citizens of Wyoming have WAY more political power per capita than the citizens of California (fewer than 600,000 Wyomingans control two Senate seats, versus the 37 million or so Californians who have to share the same amount of power) — and more still than the 600,000 residents of the District of Columbia, who have zero votes in the Senate and zero votes in the House (when it matters).  (That latter inequity might be easily solved, short of statehood, by allowing northern DC residents to vote in Maryland and southern DC residents to vote in Virginia.  And by making their Congresswoman’s vote count.)

And then you have Florida, a state that leans Democratic — 4.6 million registered Dems to 4.2 million registered Republicans — but whose state Senate and House lean Republican 26-14 and 81-39, respectively . . . and whose 27-member Congressional delegation leans Republican 17-10.

Think about that for a minute.

(And perhaps think about this: Democracy In Decline: The Collapse of the “Close Race” In State Legislatures.)

It’s a function, of course, of the way Florida districts are drawn.

Enter a woman I’ve known a long-time, Ellen Freidin — no billionaire or superwoman, just a citizen — who in 2007 decided to do something about this.

Which was particularly quixotic, I remember thinking as she was pitching me her plan under the Biltmore Hotel porte-cochere, waiting for our cars (mine, a deeply troubled 1998 aubergine Jeep Grand Cherokee* sure to impress the valet), because the year before, Florida had raised from 50% to 60% the threshold for passing a ballot initiative.

And this threshold would have to be met in the face of what was certain to be fierce, moneyed opposition from folks who liked things just the way they were.  The same folks who work hard to find ways to suppress the Democratric vote, not to count the “overvotes,” and all the rest.

Still . . . admiring her determination and sharing her outrage, I threw caution to the wind and cash to the cause:  Fair Districts Now.  Considerably more cash, over the years, I might say, than I had spent to buy the Jeep Grand Cherokee.  (I am bragging here: the truth is, there are folks who’ve contributed 50 times as much as I have.)

But we won.

First, in 2010, the ballot intitiative; and then, each year since, the endless and wildly expensive legal challenges mounted to thwart the will of the people.  Republican lawmakers spent $8.1 million taxpayer dollars trying to keep the unfair maps.

And then, finally, came last week’s game-changing decision from the Florida Supreme Court that basically said, enough.  And which is likely to result in fairly redrawn maps.  Which in turn is likely to result, over time, in a Florida Congressional delegation, and a Florida legislature, roughly half Democrat, half Republican, as are the voters of the state.

What a concept.

Ellen Freidin is my hero.

*My theory being that a gas-guzzler should be owned by someone like me who drove about 400 miles a year (fewer now that I own no car); freeing up a fuel-efficient vehicle for someone who drives 30 or 50 times as far.  I only had to fill the tank twice a year, so even at 16 mpg I was not burning a lot of fossil fuel.  And since the car would rarely start . . . and was the color of an eggplant . . .

But I digress. Ellen Freidin is my hero.

Want a six-minute tear-jerker?  It’s here: Love Won.  A long journey, but the United States Supreme Court ordered it so, 5-4.

And for those who rightly worry that you can be married Sunday but fired Monday — once your employer sees it in the paper and realizes you’re gay — the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission last week fixed that, too.  It ruled, 3-2, that an employer can’t fire you just because it doesn’t like gay people, any more than it can fire you — or refuse to hire you — just because it doesn’t like black people or white people, Jewish people, Irish people, or the disabled.

(Not, of course, that it won’t still happen.  But now there is legal recourse if you can prove that it has.)

I recognize this is still strange and icky to a lot of people, especially older people . . . including four of the nine sitting Justices and two of the five EEOC commissioners.  I don’t relish making them feel uncomfortable.  But I have hope.  When I told my mother I was gay, it made her deeply uncomfortable.  But with time, especially once she saw the stigma begin to lift (and once she met Charles), she became a true believer in equality and — almost — entirely comfortable.

When she introduced us to her friends she would unfailingly look just a little panicked at how to explain Charles.  You might think that after the second or third time she would have worked this out, and maybe if we had come round to her gatherings more regularly she would have.  But each time she would wind up saying something like, “You know my son, Andy.  And this is Charles, Andy’s . . . [slight awkward panicked pause] . . . very special friend.”

Who knows?  If they had lived, maybe she’d now have been inviting her friends to our wedding.

Yesterday I urged you to find time to watch the President’s news conference.  (And offered this relatively short take from Zbigniew Brzezinski, characterizing Israel’s Mr. Netanyahu as “not a serious person.”)

Jerry:  “I rarely watch these things but once I started, couldn’t help but take in the entire hour’s press conference with great pride and admiration.  We are indeed fortunate to have such a leader.”

Sara:  “I so appreciated the link to the analysis by Zbigniew Brzezinski on the Iran deal.”

Really: there could be thunderstorms this weekend!  If not, you could get sun poisoning!  Or stung by something.  Come inside for an hour and become a little bit expert in what the President’s team have worked more than a year, in cooperation with five other nations, to achieve.

Here‘s the British ambassador: the deal “makes the world a safer place.”

Here‘s Roger Cohen in the New York Times: “a remarkable American diplomatic achievement.”

It’s okay to be relieved.  It’s okay to be enthusiastic.  It’s okay to be proud.

I am.

IRAN

I hope you somehow found time to watch the President’s news conference yesterday.  This is really consequential stuff, so if you have doubts about the deal, you should watch.  And perhaps this relatively short take from Zbigniew Brzezinski (“I am impressed, encouraged  by the deal“) who has a choice word or two about Mr. Netanyahu.

But really: as important as this is to our country and the world, take an hour to watch the President and underdstand it.  I think you will be encouraged.

ETRM

Yikes.  Down to 35 cents from its brief spike to $2 in January, as reported here.  This, despite FDA approval of its therapy for the morbidly obese.  I bought more yesterday, but only with (yet more) money I can truly afford to lose.  I’ll wait 31 days and sell the earlier shares for a nice fat tax loss . . . hoping that a year or two from now the shares might — might — be back over a buck.

“If you want justice, it’s two hundred dollars an hour.  Obstruction of justice runs a bit more.” — another New Yorker cartoon by Leo Collum.

Okay.

So:

Yesterday, the history of military and civilian deaths from war throughout our history.

Today, as we celebrate the deal to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power and avert another war — as I believe we should celebrate it (Leslie Gelb’s thoughtful analysis here) — a site that purports to show the world’s cyber-attacks in real time.

One more thing to be scared about!

(And sharks!  Don’t forget sharks!  Have you already seen this woman’s heartfelt advice?)

But also today: Stephen Pinker’s The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined, Bill Gates’ “favorite book of the last decade — a long but profound look at the reduction in violence and discrimination over time.”

C’mon, humans!  It’s a long shot, but if we all put our minds to it, we might not hurtle off the rails.

But first a joke (well, a New Yorker cartoon by Leo Collum).  Lawyer across the desk from a prospective client: “My fees are quite high and yet you say you have little money.  I think I’m seeing a conflict of interest here.”

Now:

Have you got 18 minutes to watch a timeline summary of all the military and civilian deaths in history?  Most especially the 70 million of World War II?  Not in any way to minimize the world’s current nightmares and threats — but seeing it this way does provide perspective.

This TED talk strikes me as really important . . . whether you or a loved one has a drug problem, is addicted to Words With Friends, or simply wants to be a better informed voter as we seek ways to reduce suffering, crime, and costs.

Let me know your thoughts.

Yesterday: China, Puerto Rico, and the land of Borealis.  Today:

HOW WE’LL LIVE ON MARS

The author says little more than 20 years.  But even if it winds up being 50 — or 100! — that’s basically tomorrow.  Can’t wait to read the book.

IS IT TIME FOR THE JEWS TO LEAVE FRANCE?

My great friend Marie Brenner wrote this just-published — riveting — piece for Vanity Fair.  Is it beginning all over?  Again?  I like to think the good people of France will not allow it — just as the good people of South Carolina have decided to lower the flag.

THAT FLAG

When you read in Vanity Fair about Amedy Coulibaly, who killed four at a Jewish supermarket in Paris . . . and then here, in an impassioned post by Douglas A. Blackmon, about Dylann Roof, who killed nine in a church in Charleston . . . you realize how much they have in common.  A black Muslim murderer from Mali; a white Lutheran murderer from South Carolina.  Both certain they were doing something good.

In a world where such things are possible, we cannot have a backup world soon enough.  Just in case the good people of Earth are somehow unable to prevent catastrophe.

If only Mars were a little warmer.  (But forget Venus!)  And, under the cirucmstances, should we change its name from Mars to Pax?

*CORRECTION*

Mike Martin:  “I believe yesterday’s Hunan fireworks video is fake: notice that YouTube describes it as ‘FWSim’ which is software for simulating fireworks displays on your computer.”  Oops.

But have a great weekend anyway.

CHINA / CISG

The Chinese stock market has dropped 30% in a month — but before you go out running for bargains, note that it is still 80% higher than it was last summer.  The bubble may have further to deflate.   Here’s a quick clip from yesterday with the tale.

One Chinese stock that may not have been overvalued, as argued here before, and whose sudden sharp drop may be a case of a perfectly good baby having been thrown out with the bathwater, is CISG.  I bought more yesterday at $5.76.  I’m told it has $8 or $9 of cash per share, so in effect, at $5.76 [update: $6.83], you’re getting its profitable automobile insurance business for free.  Indeed, you’re being paid handsomely to take it.  Just as you were a year and a half ago, if you bought shares at $5.40 when first suggested, before they doubled.  (“This would be an obvious time to sell half and, with house money, see what happens with the rest,” I suggested a few weeks ago, with the stock at $11.  In case you did sell half, it might make sense now to buy them back.)  Note that someone just paid $11.80 a share for $37 million worth, which gives me further comfort there may be value for us here at $6 or $7 a share.

CHINA /FIREWORKS

It’s not just in their infratsructure that China is leap-frogging.  Get a load of this two-minute 2013 New Year’s Eve fireworks display from a town in Hunan province.  (Thanks, Glenn.)  Of course, the Chinese invented fireworks.  [OOPS. Mike Martin:  “I believe the Hunan fireworks video is fake: notice that YouTube describes it as ‘FWSim’ which is software for simulating fireworks displays on your computer.”]

PUERTO RICO

Mentioned here and here, this may be a cliffhanger.  If you were smart enough not to buy the zero coupon bonds at $92 each, when I did, you may now be able to get them for more like $65.  Only with money you can truly afford to lose.

BOREF

Some lucky — or unlucky — bastard bought a few shares Tuesday at $6.70.  That values the whole company at less than half what Demi Moore is asking for her apartment.  One day, we’ll all look back and laugh.  Either at how I actually could have believed any of this (like Isaac Newton buying shares in the South Sea Bubble?) . . . or else “all the way to the bank.”  No Isaac Newton, my strong assumption, nonetheless, is that the stock dropped not — likie an apple from a tree — because anything has come unhinged, but because a shareholder got bored and sold.