Golden Rule Economy

The Golden Rule is common among major religions, yet missed the financial industry. Simply stated, What goes around comes around, and sometimes with a vengence! Jesus put it eloquently, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” and Buddha, “Do not hurt others with that which hurts yourself,” and in Hindu, “Do nothing to others which, if it were done to you, would cause you pain.” Where is it written, Thou shalt pay off large returns in a Ponzi scheme?

Bernard Madoff reminds me of another historic figure who also fudged his numbers, Gregor Mendel. Mendel was not a Wall Street money manager; he was a monk. He cooked his books around pea plants to make trait predictions, which gave rise to Mendelian Genetics. He had the right idea, but not necessarily the numbers to back it up in his observations. Nonetheless, his theory is all kinds of useful.

My hope is something similarly good will come of the Madoff scandal, and not just the discovery of another 20 dozen investors who did the same thing. My hope is that we step forward with caution where we put our faith. Sometimes there’s safety in numbers; sometimes you all go down together.

High Notes - Soprano Mentality

Now’s the season I pretend to remember baking skills I haven’t used all year. I work with one hand tucked in the small of my back, as if waiting for someone to arrest me for what I’m doing in the kitchen. That’s the hand that always wants to help, but I burned the fingers off my childhood, so I keep that hand behind me, a painful memory.

Meanwhile, my mitted hand pulls baked goods from the oven, deftly as if I worked in a patisserie every day of the year. Me and Betty Crocker, we’re like this! (Fingers tight together.)

My other seasonal diversity is hitting the high notes. By this time in the year, I have an exact count of how many E’s and F’s I have before Christmas, notes I haven’t used since Easter, they suddenly emerge at the top of my treble clef.

I sing soprano, not terribly high soprano, but high enough for church choir. It’s not very difficult, you just have to hit notes in the upper range with some modicum of confidence. Success has nothing to do with it. In soprano mentality, success is the same as confidence—confidence is success. It’s like marketing: if you are loud enough, then you are successful, then you are a soprano.

A soprano’s job is easy: bloodhound the melody, lie in wait for a high note. Anyone who can carry a tune can sing soprano, even if you sing it an octave lower. The melody is the soprano part. It’s what children learn to sing. Those who progress into further music mastery become altos, tenors, and basses.

Sopranos only listen to themselves. All other parts are there to make sopranos look good.

The only time a soprano will sing harmony is if you call it a descant.

Don’t ask sopranos to hit a high note, then cut-off after a quarter count. They’ll mutiny a birdseye. A dotted half note becomes a double whole note with ellipses.

A decrescendo in soprano range is more difficult than teaching Clydesdales to moonwalk.

Diction is for the alto section.

How many sopranos does it take to screw in a light bulb? …Can you repeat the question?

The fastest way to compliment a soprano is tell her she’s pretty. You can tell her she has the voice of an angel, but she already knows that. She’s using her voice to draw attention to her looks. If you notice her looks, then she knows you’ve noticed both.

I like to sing, but my voice is not good. I have to play with pronunciation, jump to vowels quickly. Even in speaking, I lack diction. (Perhaps that’s why I type?) I can’t just sing a note without learning the ramp to it and figuring out how I’m going to throw the sound into the back of my throat for roundness. I’ve asked God that if I go to Heaven, I’d like to have a better voice. For now, I try to do the best I can on Earth, to learn what I can about singing, and keep practicing. I pray that God will grant blessings on those who have to hear me, that they may understand I am a work in progress with Him. It’s just so difficult to overcome soprano mentality!

Fun With Numbers

The Book of Numbers is divisible by laws and rules, accounts of wilderness wanderings, and a talking donkey, sort of a precursor to SHREK. Numbers is also a book of counting, containing two censuses of the Hebrew people.

Counting books are good for children. Hebrew people had a lot of children, and a lot of children to put to bed every night. It is my contention that Jewish history laboriously records the begats to encourage slumber in the many descendants of Abraham.

Numbers is the fourth book of the Old Testament in the Bible. It has thirty-six chapters. Thirty-six is divisible by 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 9, 12, and 18. Still awake?

I suggest a Venn diagram as the best graphic representation to illustrate the Hebrew emigration from Egypt to Canaan, the Promised Land. Draw two circles that overlap. One circle is Egypt, the other circle is Canaan, and the overlapping portion is the wilderness.

Moses led the people in the wilderness for forty years, that’s a good, hard number. We can build equations around that. The place where the circles intersect, the wilderness, is forty years. In the Egypt circle, the Hebrew residence could be represented as:

The time of Moses – The time of Joseph = Hebrew residence in Egypt

However, we’re dealing in B.C. years which run backwards to modern thinking; therefore, reverse the equation so you don’t get a negative number, thus:

The time of Joseph B.C. – The time of Moses B.C. = Hebrew residence in Egypt

In the Canaan circle, the Hebrew residence could be represented as:

Forty years + (The time of Joseph B.C. – The time of Moses B.C.) = Hebrew residence in Canaan

Yes, that’s very nice isn’t it? I just love ancient algebra.

We can also represent the demographics in our diagram. In the Egypt circle, obviously we have Egyptians, then right on the line where the circles intersect, we have dead Egyptians when they tried to cross the Red Sea to follow the Hebrews into the wilderness.

Also in the Egypt circle, we have the Hebrews born in Egypt.

In the wilderness overlap, we have

Egypt-born Hebrews + Wilderness-born Hebrews = Hebrew Wilderness population

In the Canaan circle, we have

((Egypt-born Hebrews + 40 years) x rate of mortality) + ((Wilderness-born Hebrews + n number of years wandering < 40) x rate of mortality) + ((Begotten of both or either of the first two variables) x rate of mortality) = Hebrew people living in Canaan

That last equation can be factored further into Hebrew Men and Hebrew Women between parentheses for multiplication.

Thus we have variables built into equations for a census, not only covering general numbers of people, but also breaking down into approximate ages relevant to 40 years. We don’t have to know all of the variables to deduce the populations for any given time period. We can track populations across time and over geographical locations, right up to

One B.C. - (days < 40 weeks) = 0 A.D.

The most important census of Christianity falls in the New Testament. What if Jesus had been born at home in Nazareth instead of Bethlehem? I don’t know what the Hebrew custom for childbirth was at the time, but I’m sure it did not involve the mother being alone without help. And what did Joseph know about birthing babies? He was a carpenter, not a shepherd or a nurse midwife. Not only was Mary in a barn, but she was away from the comfort and aid of her home and family.

The census of Caesar Augustus forced the extremely humble beginnings of Jesus.