Ernie The Attorney

Iceland, what made you think you were so special?

Michael Lewis' recent article in Vanity Fair is a must read on so many levels.  First, it's fascinating account of how Iceland, a quaint little country that has been isolated from the world of International finance for more than a millennium, suddenly became a careening high roller.  And then promptly became bankrupt. As in: 'the whole country became bankrupt.'

But there's another level (as their always is when Lewis looks at a situation) that I find more Interesting. How did a bunch of people who made their money for hundreds of years by fishing come to believe that they had an aptitude for high finance?  This short blurb, in which Lewis talks with an Icelandic fellow, kind of sums it up:

It took years of training for him to become a captain, and even then it happened only by a stroke of luck. When he was 23 and a first mate, the captain of his fishing boat up and quit. The boat owner went looking for a replacement and found an older fellow, retired, who was something of an Icelandic fishing legend, the wonderfully named Snorri Snorrasson. “I took two trips with this guy,” Stefan says. “I have never in my life slept so little, because I was so eager to learn. I slept two or three hours a night because I was sitting beside him, talking to him. I gave him all the respect in the world—it’s difficult to describe all he taught me. The reach of the trawler. The most efficient angle of the net. How do you act on the sea. If you have a bad day, what do you do? If you’re fishing at this depth, what do you do? If it’s not working, do you move in depth or space? In the end it’s just so much feel. In this time I learned infinitely more than I learned in school. Because how do you learn to fish in school?”

This marvelous training was as fresh in his mind as if he’d received it yesterday, and the thought of it makes his eyes mist.

“You spent seven years learning every little nuance of the fishing trade before you were granted the gift of learning from this great captain?” I ask.

“Yes.”

“And even then you had to sit at the feet of this great master for many months before you felt as if you knew what you were doing?”

“Yes.”

“Then why did you think you could become a banker and speculate in financial markets, without a day of training?”

“That’s a very good question,” he says. He thinks for a minute. “For the first time this evening I lack a word.” As I often think I know exactly what I am doing even when I don’t, I find myself oddly sympathetic.

Funny how easy it is for us to believe that we suddenly understand something that common sense should tell us is not that easily known.  I suggest that this a human (as opposed to an Icelandic) phenomenon by the way.  But of course we already knew that, didn't we?

An observation

To gain greater awareness one must acknowledge the possibility that their current awareness is incomplete.  People who believe they have complete awareness are consigned to live inside a pathetic tautology. These people are interesting to watch. Sadly, all you can do is watch; there is no way to help.

How strange to realize that self-doubt can actually be beneficial. Maybe that's why this sign has been cropping up around New Orleans. Reading it is easy, but understanding it is another thing altogether.

Biblical power

My Uncle George, who made his living as a freelance writer, used to exhort me to read the Bible from cover to cover.  I found this odd because his contempt for organized religion was open and seething.  When I was sixteen I finally thought to ask why I should bother to read the Bible if it wasn't a pathway to salvation.  "Oh right," Uncle George reflected, "well, you should appreciate the quality of writing, because it's truly stunning.  Especially the New Testament."  After a pause he continued. "Did you know that, of all the books ever published, the Bible has the highest percentage of one syllable words?" 

I didn't know that.  I still don't because, other than my uncle's swift pronouncement, I've never heard this factoid again.  I understood his point, though:  the Bible's message was linguistically simple and easily accessible, even though early religious leaders used its message to advance political goals.

One True Sentence - not coming soon

Hemingway's advice to aspiring writers was characteristically brief: "All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know."  I'd like to to follow this advice, but I have a lot of preparation to do first.

I don't know many true things and so I don't have a lot of material to work with.  I know a lot of untrue things, and even more things that I treat as true without really thinking about it.  For example, the other day my brother sneezed and I said "God bless you."  In the silence that followed I had time to reflect on why I said this.  I don't particularly understand what God is, and I don't have any idea why a blessing is so important after one sneezes.  I seem to remember some myth about the soul being briefly in peril after a sneeze, and an offer of God's blessing has some beneficial effect.  Or so it was believed.

My son Knute is off to Duke

My son, Knute, is one of those kids that people dream about having.  He's 6' 1'' now and casts a long shadow, but I remember when he was pulling himself to an upright position in his playpen.  I also remember that shortly after that he pulled himself over the rail and started crawling around the house.  He didn't understand the whole 'barrier' concept.  And he never will.

When he was about three he was diagnosed with a hearing impairment.  It was mild at first but in the next few years it got worse until finally he was completely deaf.  He had a lot of speech therapy and he learned to read lips.  He was really smart and he could figure things out in unusual ways.  So he stayed in regular school, even though a lot of people thought that maybe he should go to a school for deaf kids.  He made lots of friends in school and did well.  He loved sports and was good at pretty much everything.  He never got angry, except for one time in fifth grade when his mother was called in to see the principal.  She was told by the stern administrator that Knute had jumped on one of the kids and punched him in the face.  The principal said that he wasn't going to punish him, though.   His mom asked why not?  "Because the other kid was hitting him and taunting him and deserved to get hit back," he said. That may be one of the few times that he ever got angry.  Even when he played sports, where he was very competitive, he was never overly aggressive.

Knute loved to follow sports, especially the Saints.  When he was about seven years old we were eating at a pizza restaurant and talking about great moments in Saints history.  I told him that my dad took me to every Saints home game and I had been at the game where Tom Dempsey kicked the record 63 yard field goal.  He asked me a lot of questions about the field goal, and, as my mind drifted  to the past, my eyes wandered over to the large hearing aids behind his ears.  I realized at that moment that Knute and Tom Dempsey had something in common: they were both handicapped.  Dempsey had been born with a club foot and wore a special shoe on his kicking foot.

I told my son that Dempsey's feat had been even more special because "he was handicapped."  Knute looked up at me with his trademark look of focused curiosity and asked "what's a handicap?" 

I didn't really know how to answer that question, and as I thought about what I could say I kept staring at his hearing aids.  Finally, I said: "Well a handicap is something that makes it harder for you to do something that's easier for other people to do."  I added, "if you can't see that's called blindness and that's one kind of handicap."  He looked at me knowing I had more to say so I continued: "And if you can't hear that's called deafness and that's another kind of handicap."

His eyes brightened and it seemed like something registered with him.  "My friend Shelby thinks I'm deaf," he said.  "Oh really," I said with a rising tone in my voice.  "Yeah," he said matter-of-factly, "but that's just because I say 'what' a lot."

I realized at that moment that my son had no idea what a handicap was.  And it turns out he never would.  How foolish of me to try to explain it to him.

Return from Panama - Flashback

When I was a teenager the Miami airport was like that place near the Berlin wall where the prisoner exchanges took place.  You know the image: a bedraggled figure walks alone in the moonlight across an imaginary line that represents the transition from one legal jurisdiction to another.  Depending on which direction the prisoner is walking the line can also represent freedom or oppression.  But either way, the prisoner walks alone. As a kid, that’s what I liked most about Miami. 

I'd heard that a lot of drugs were smuggled through Miami, so whenever I was in the Customs area I’d try to find the likely suspects.   I never could because, of course, the whole point of being a smuggler is to be inconspicuous. Except for the fact that I was too young I'd have been a great smuggler, mostly because I had great rapport with airport officials.  Invariably, as I approached the U.S. Customs agent, with his crisp white shirt, he'd look me straight in the eye and say “welcome back to the United States, son.”  His voice was filled with pride, and it made me feel proud too.

A lot of times he would ask why I’d been in Panama for so long. Then I’d have to explain that I lived there with my mother.  Right away he’d understand that meant that my parents were divorced. The Customs guys were sharp; you didn't have to explain things to them in laborious detail. “Okay son, just give the card to that man over there and you can be on your way,” and our eyes would linger for a sparkle of time. As I walked away I was glad for that human connection, even if it was with someone that had only met for about 30 seconds.  It was moments like those that made me wish I could live in the Miami airport forever.