Presidential Debates

(Note:  I’ve been on the road the last couple of weeks and have missed posting.  Travel with my cat makes for challenging adventures.)

Since we are on the final run towards the presidential election, I thought it would be interesting to track the history of our presidential debate . . . its origins, the most notable, and any lasting wisdom that might have arisen from any of them.

The general consensus of opinion among the debate pundits is that undecided voters are the main target for the debates; those who usually are not partial to either political ideology or party.  Presidential debates are not considered game changers.  It is believed that they primarily reinforce existing views that voters have of both candidates.

The 1960 Nixon-Kennedy debates were the first general presidential debates.  It is interesting to note that after the 1960 election, presidential debates did not reemerge until 1976, largely because the candidates refused to take part and because the Communications Act of 1934 required that networks give equal air time to every candidate.  In 1975, the FCC changed their equal-time rules to allow the broadcast of debates by major party candidates as long as they are considered “bona-fide news events, sponsored by non-broadcast entities, and carried in their entirety.”

The League of Women Voters sponsored the debates from 1976 (when the debates became a fixture of the presidential campaign) to 1988.  They withdrew from debate sponsorship in protest of the major party candidates attempt to dictate all aspects of how the debates were conducted.  The two major political parties then assumed control through the Commission on Presidential Debates.  The commission has been headed since its inception by former chairs of the Democratic National Committee and Republican National Committee.  The CPD ensures that debates, as a permanent part of every general election, provide the best possible information to viewers and listeners. It sponsors and produces debates for the United States presidential and vice presidential candidates and undertakes research and educational activities relating to the debates.  The organization is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, 501(c)(3) corporation.  The CPD gets both sides to agree on the number of events as well as details about formatting, moderators and venues.

Between 1988 and 2000 the formats had been governed in detail by secret Memoranda of Understanding (MOU) between the two major candidates.  An MOU for 2004 was also negotiated, but, unlike the earlier agreements, it was jointly released by the two opposing candidates.  Despite these MOUs, the CPD publicly issues the decisions; hence, the CPD accepts any ramifications from the public.  However, since it is not answerable to the public, the CPD has nothing to lose.

A coin toss determines who answers the first question and each candidate gets alternate turns.  Once a question is asked, the candidate has two minutes to answer.  After this, the opposing candidate has one minute to respond and rebut her/his arguments.  At the moderator's discretion, the discussion of the question may be extended by thirty seconds per candidate.

Moderators are chosen by a panel, explained CPD executive director Janet H. Brown.  According to Brown, viewers prefer moderators with live television experience, as well as those knowledgeable about current issues.

The CPD traces the birth of the modern debate to the series of debates between future President Abraham Lincoln, then a congressman from Illinois, and Senator Stephen Douglas.  Their series of seven three-hour long exchanges were of an entirely different format to today's debates.  The first candidate spoke for the first hour and the last half hour, and the second candidate spoke during the remaining time in between.  At the time, presidential campaigns were orchestrated primarily behind closed doors, with party elites selecting their nominees and surrogates making the case for a candidate.  Politicians tended not to meet the public to elicit support.

It was not until 1948 that the first debate among presidential candidates took place when New York Governor Thomas Dewey and Minnesota Governor Harold Stassen met on May 17, 1948, to debate on the radio in an effort to boost their respective bids for the Republican nomination the presidency.  Between forty million and eighty million people listened.

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Eight years later, the Democrats followed suit on May 21, 1956, by holding a debate between former Governor Adlai Stevenson and former Senator Estes Kefauver.  This was the first debate that more or less resembled the modern version, with brief opening and closing statements, and questions from a moderator taking up the bulk of the time.

The popular history is that Kennedy won his debate with Nixon.  Nixon had been ill, refused makeup and sweated profusely, and Kennedy had flown in from California sporting a deep tan.  While the differences in appearance made a lasting impression on television viewers, it did not with radio listeners, who thought Nixon won.  However, their debate established the primacy of television as the ultimate political medium and the importance of looking good.

In the debates between President Gerald Ford and Governor Jimmy Carter, it became clear just how much a candidate's performance could impact an election.  With a single line, "There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, and there never will be under a Ford administration,” Ford doomed his chances of reelection.  The 1976 election also marked the first televised debate between the vice presidential candidates, with Senator Bob Dole squaring off against Senator Walter Mondale.

            A few other interesting debate incidents:

During the October 28, 1980, debate between Ronald Reagan and President Jimmy Carter, Reagan asked voters to consider if their lives had improved during the Carter administration.  "Ask yourself, are you better off now than you were four years ago?  Is it easier for you to go and buy things in the stores than it was four years ago?  Is there more or less unemployment in the country than there was four years ago?  Is America as respected throughout the world as it was?”

During the vice-presidential debate of October 5, 1988, Democratic candidate Lloyd Bentsen suggested that Republican candidate Dan Quayle did not have enough experience to serve as vice president.  Quayle responded with, "I have as much experience in the Congress as Jack Kennedy did when he sought the presidency."  Bentsen responded, "I knew Jack Kennedy; Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy."

In 1992, President George H.W. Bush looked at his watch which left the impression with viewers that he was bored and disengaged.  It reinforced a view that President Bush had better things to do.

During the vice-presidential debate of October 13, 1992, Al Gore mocked President George H.W. Bush for taking credit for playing a major role in ending the Cold War.  Gore commented, “George Bush taking credit for the Berlin Wall coming down is like the rooster taking credit for the sunrise.”

While it is popularly believed that a combination of the Supreme Court and Florida voters lost Al Gore the election, he might have lost it the night he sighed repeatedly while debating George W. Bush.  Or in a later clash, when he strolled over to invade George W. Bush's space.  Both incidents reinforced a view that many voters had of Gore that year: that he was arrogant and condescending.

            It is interesting to note that while those pundits clearly opine that elections are not won or lost by the presidential debates, from the few examples given above, they do obviously have their effect.

            With the current close Obama-Romney campaign combined with the “Information Age” emphasis now placed on the sound byte and physical appearance, I would venture that the debates do in fact have more of an effect than in the past.  We expect such absolute perfection from our candidates. 

God forbid one of them may sneeze during an opponent’s presentation.  Can you just imagine the conspiracy theories and judgments that would arise from that one simple sneeze?

            Until next time, LLAP!

References:

"League Refuses to Help Perpetrate a Fraud" Neuman, Nancy M. (October 2,1988). Press Release. League of Women Voters http://www.lwv.org/press-releases/league-refuses-help-perpetrate-fraud

http://news.discovery.com/history/history-of-us-presidential-debates-121003.html

http://www.debates.org/

http://theweek.com/bullpen/column/234178/what-history-tells-us-about-presidential-debates

http://www.infoplease.com/us/government/memorable-quotes-from-presidential-debates.html

http://www.livescience.com/23666-history-of-us-presidential-debates.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Livesciencecom+%28LiveScience.com+Science+Headline+Feed%29

http://www.ehow.com/facts_6901884_chooses-moderator-presidential-debates_.html

http://people.howstuffworks.com/debate4.htm

The Genesis of Medical Insurance

            Lately we always seem to find ourselves in the middle of various levels of brouhahas about medical insurance, Obamacare, the still-remaining potential for the reversal of Obamacare, the premiums, the pre-existing conditions, the power of the insurance lobby in Washington, to name only a few of the slices of the current controversies.  I wanted to take a look at how it all started.  We know there was no medical insurance during the Dark Ages, the Renaissance, the Revolutionary War, or the Civil War, so how and when did it all begin?

The first form of medical insurance showed its face in this country in1850 when coverage for injuries related to railroad and steamboat travel was offered by the Franklin Health Assurance Com­pany of Massachusetts.  By 1866 the number of organizations offering accident insurance grew to sixty, but that number was reduced through consolidation soon thereafter.

The origins of sickness coverage in the United States effectively date from 1890.  The first employer-sponsored group disability policy was issued in 1911, but that plan's primary purpose was replacing wages lost due to an inability to work, not medical expenses.  The first modern health insurance plans were not formed until 1930.

The late 1800s and early 1900s were bursting with medical advances which transformed the perception of medicine, and people began to place more trust in medical institutions.  In 1904 the Amer­ican Medical Association created the Council on Medical Education, which developed standards for medical licensure.  In 1913 the American College of Surgeons was founded to oversee the accreditation of medical schools.  These new standards ensured the quality of health care and resulted in a smaller but more talented supply of licensed physicians.  With this rise in regulations and quality of care, demand for medical services increased.  This growth in demand, coupled with the limited supply of physicians, brought with it escalated medical costs.

Initially, there was a low demand for health insurance, which was matched by the unwillingness of commercial insurance companies to offer private health insurance policies.  Commercial insurance companies did not believe that health was an insurable commodity because they lacked the information to accurately calculate risks and write premiums accordingly.

The fact that people generally felt actual health insurance (as opposed to sickness insurance) was unnecessary prior to 1920 also helped to defeat proposals for compulsory, nationalized health insurance during that time.  Although many European nations had adopted some form of nationalized health insurance by 1920, proposals to enact compulsory health insurance in several states were never enacted.  They failed for several reasons:  popular support was low because of the low demand for health insurance in general; physicians opposed the legislation because they feared that government intervention would limit their fees; pharmacists opposed the legislation because they feared it would undermine their business.

In 1929 Dr. Justin Ford Kimball, at Baylor University Hospital in Dallas, Texas, realized that many schoolteachers were not paying their medical bills.  In response to this problem, he developed the Baylor Plan in which teachers were to pay fifty cents per month in exchange for the guarantee that they could receive medical services for up to twenty-one days of any one year.

With the onset of the Great Depression, many other hospitals followed the model of the Baylor Plan, and medical insurance became more widespread.  Prepaid health plans enabled consumers to be insured and also benefitted hospitals by giving them steady income, despite the economic turmoil.  These single-hospital plans also generated price competition, and to avoid this, community hospitals worked together to create health coverage plans.  In 1939 the American Hospital Association first used the name Blue Cross to designate health care plans that met their standards.  These plans merged to form Blue Cross under the AHA in 1960.  Considered nonprofit organizations, the Blue Cross plans were exempted from paying taxes, enabling them to maintain low premiums.  Prepaid plans covering physician and surgeon services also emerged around this time.  These physician-sponsored plans combined into Blue Shield in 1946, and Blue Cross and Blue Shield merged into one company in 1971.

Meanwhile, private commercial health insurance companies began to develop.  Coverage for serious medical emergencies was originally designed as a supplement to basic health insurance, but has since become an integrated aspect of most plans.  Commercial insurance companies also began to charge premiums according to calculations of relative risk, charging more money for older people and for people with a history of a medical condition. Blue Cross and Blue Shield Plans, which were in the nonprofit sector, were forced to compete with commercial health insurance companies, and they eventually began to charge premiums in the same way, despite having previously maintained equal premiums for all consumers.

The 1940s and 1950s also saw the proliferation of employee benefit plans, and the included health insurance packages became more and more comprehensive.  During World War II, because of both wartime wage controls and the limited labor force, companies began to compete for employees with health insurance packages.  When the War Labor Board declared that fringe benefits, such as sick leave and health insurance, did not count as wages for the purpose of wage controls, employers responded with significantly increased offers of fringe benefits, especially health care coverage, to attract workers.

The existence of successful health insurance plans precluded government intervention until the mid-1950s.  In 1954 Social Security coverage for the first time included disability benefits, and in 1965 Medicare and Medicaid programs were introduced. In the 1970s and 1980s, more expensive medical technology and flaws in the health care system led to higher costs for health insurance companies.  Responding to those higher costs, employee benefit plans changed into managed care plans, and Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) emerged.  Managed care plans involve a particular network of health care providers that have been verified for quality and have agreements with the insurer about price and related issues.  HMOs were originally primarily nonprofit, but they were quickly replaced by commercial interests.  Managed care only succeeded in temporarily slowing the growth of healthcare costs.

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            So this is how it all started, and now we are where we are.  Nothing gets easier.  It only gets more complicated.  Nothing gets cheaper.  It only gets more expensive.  Of course, it is not only the business of medical insurance itself that has grown complicated.  Let us not forget to factor in the major role that tort law plays in our current muddle.  We do not want nationalized insurance because we do not want too much government in our lives.  We also do not want to continue to pay the escalating premiums which can now be so high as to make medical insurance a luxury.  While many put faith in Obamacare, and thus are under the impression that there will be some sort of cap on insurance premiums, the very real economics of the total health care industry does not make this feasible.  To keep those total attendant costs down would require radical changes “in the system.”  Radical changes that, I sadly think it is safe to say, will never happen.

           

            Until the next time, LL&P!

References:

http://www.yalemedlaw.com/2009/11/the-history-of-medical-insurance-in-the-united-states/

http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/thomasson.insurance.health.us

Fundamentals of Health Insurance: Part A, Health Insurance Association of America, 1997, ISBN 1-879143-36-4

Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance and Health Reform at National Bureau of Economic Research

           

The Moody's Blues

More good times might be ahead for us . . . I write rather sarcastically.  News sources again have been harbingers of doom:  the speculation is that Moody’s is preparing to announce a downgrade in the United States credit rating.  We frequently read about Moody’s and how important its credit ratings are.  Moody’s is like the Federal Reserve: the market religiously follows its announcements.  If the Moody’s rating is good; the market reacts positively.  If the Moody’s rating goes down a notch; the market reacts negatively.  And so follows the value of your 401K and any other investment you might have, including your home.

Just as I asked about the Federal Reserve, I ask about Moody’s: who monitors them?  As a corporation Moody’s engages KMPG LLP, a noted tax and advisory firm, as its auditor.  However, I’m not interested in the corporate auditor.  I am not interested in the obviously public financial statements.  I want to know who is watching the executives, the decision makers, to insure that they are not profiting personally from their credit rating designations.  Major corporations are held accountable for their business dealings and holdings; executives of major corporations are not.  Moody’s has too much of an influence for its executives not to be held accountable for personal finances.

A week ago I emailed Moody’s asking what procedures have been put in place to prevent insider trading on the part of its executives, and, no surprise, I have yet to receive a response.

Moody's was founded by John Moody in 1909 to produce manuals of statistics related to stocks, bonds and bond ratings.  Following several decades of ownership by Dun & Bradstreet, Moody's became a separate company in 2000, and Moody's Corporation was established as a holding company.

Moody's Corporation is the parent company of Moody's Investors Service, which provides credit ratings and research covering debt instruments and securities, and Moody's Analytics, which offers software, advisory services and research for credit and economic analysis and financial risk management.  In 2011 they had revenue of $2.3 billion.

Moody’s ranks the credit worthiness of borrowers using a standardized ratings scale which measures expected investor loss in the event of default.  Moody's rates debt securities in several market segments related to public and commercial securities in the bond market.  These include government, municipal and corporate bonds; managed investments such as money market funds, fixed-income funds and hedge funds; financial institutions including banks and non-bank finance companies; and asset classes in structured finance. Securities are assigned a rating from AAA to C, with AAA being the highest quality and C the lowest quality.

There are basically two ratings business models:  unsolicited (where Moody’s issues a rating unsolicited by that company) and issuer paid (where a company has paid for a Moody’s rating.

In the mid-1990s, the Justice Department investigated to determine whether Moody’s “unsolicited” ratings amounted to an illegal exercise of market power. However, the investigation was closed with no charges filed.  Moody's pointed out that it has assigned unsolicited ratings since its beginning in 1909, and that such ratings are the market's "best defense against rating shopping" by issuers.  In 1999, it announced it would identify which ratings were unsolicited as part of a general move toward greater transparency.  In 2005, unsolicited ratings were at the center of a subpoena by the New York Attorney General's office, but again no charges were filed.  Following the 2008 financial crisis, the SEC adopted new rules for the rating agency industry overall, including one to encourage unsolicited ratings to counteract potential conflicts of interest by ensuring a "broader range of views on the creditworthiness" of a security or instrument.

The "issuer pays" business model (paying for a credit rating) adopted in the 1970s has been criticized for creating a possible conflict of interest, supposing that rating agencies may artificially boost the rating of a given security in order to please the issuer.  Other alleged conflicts of interest, also the subject of a Department of Justice investigation the mid-1990s, raised the question of whether Moody's pressured issuers to use its consulting services upon threat of a lower bond rating.  Moody's has maintained that its reputation in the market is the balancing factor.  Thomas McGuire, a former executive vice president, said in 1995 that: "[W]hat’s driving us is primarily the issue of preserving our track record.  That’s our bread and butter.”

The following three are Moody’s leading executives, the presidents of its companies.

Raymond W. McDaniel, Jr. is President and Chief Executive Officer of Moody's Corporation.  He holds a J.D. from Emory University School of Law and a B.A. in political science from Colgate University.  He was admitted to the New York State Bar in 1984.  From his corporate bio page it would appear that Mr. McDaniel has only worked for Moody’s.

Michel Madelain is President and Chief Operating Officer of Moody's Investors Service.  He is a graduate of the Ecole Superieure de Commerce de Rouen, Rouen, France, and holds an MBA in management from Northwestern University.  He is qualified as a Chartered Accountant in France.  Prior to joining Moody's in 1994, Madelain was a partner of Ernst & Young.

Mark E. Almeida is the President of Moody’s Analytics.  He holds a BA from St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia, and an MBA from the Leonard N. Stern School of Business at New York University.  Prior to joining Moody's, he worked in marketing and in regional economics for Chase Econometrics, a consulting subsidiary of The Chase Manhattan Bank.

Let’s review other information about the above three that is not echoic regurgitation from the Moody’s website.

Raymond W. McDaniel, Jr. has been the subject of scrutiny for the timing of his stock sales. "If you look at his major sales in 2007, 2009, 2010, they are all around price peaks and followed by large declines. The likelihood that this is just 'lucky' is very low — it appears he is using inside information to time his trades,” said Jesse Fried, a Harvard University law professor who studies stock trading by CEOs.  In one instance, McDaniel executed a trade for some 100,000 shares of stock on the day the firm received notice from the Securities and Exchange Commission that the company was the subject of probes by the regulatory agency.  The day the announcement of the SEC "Wells Notice" was made public (and following McDaniel's transactions), Moody's stock dropped by 6.807.

In 2010, Business Insider named McDaniel one of the fifteen worst CEOs in American history.  Business Insider reported that, since he became CEO in 2005, Moody’s had gone from being one of the most respected credit agencies to being the target of public criticism, law suits and investigations . . .  that outdated models were used, they were influenced by their clients, and they waited too long to downgrade investments as the collapse in the housing market intensified.  The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission issued a subpoena to Moody’s complaining that they had not complied with its request for documents and e-mails to aid in its investigation.  The Business Insider wrote that during McDaniel’s watch, Moody’s century-long sterling reputation for integrity vanished and it is almost certain that the value of its brand can never be regained.

In 2011, Huffington Post carried a Reuter’s report in which Michel Madelain said that a European Union plan to impose tougher rules on credit rating agencies is "dangerous" as it is bound to limit the "quality and independence" of the rating process.  "I see it as reflecting an obsession to challenge the rating process itself, and to hold rating agencies responsible for the European debt crisis," Madelain is reported to have said in an interview.  "These proposals cannot make investors confident again nor facilitate the access of companies and European states to credit markets.”

Madelain has been fighting the European Union’s efforts to deny investors access to informed, independent credit views.  He closed a 2011 speech at a Euro Finance Week event by saying “Neither the interests of investors nor the long-term growth prospects of European economies are well served by such policies.”

In an April 2012 letter to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, Mark E. Almeida recommended that market signals should not serve as automatic triggers for heightened early remediation, that peer comparisons are essential for effective early warning, and that credit default swap implied default probabilities should be considered in the set of market-based triggers.  His full letter can be read at: http://www.federalreserve.gov/SECRS/2012/May/20120510R-1438/R-1438_043012_107224_613995658948_1.pdf.

Almeida is on the Board of Trustees of the Battery Conservancy which is dedicated to the preservation of the Battery Park in New York.  (I wanted to mention this because it makes at least one of these three guys seem a little bit more human.)

There we have it.  Yet another major financial influence is not held fully accountable.  Together with the Federal Reserve, they make a truly unholy alliance.  Until individuals are called upon to be accountable for their personal financial dealings, you and I will never know exactly upon what they are basing their decisions, decisions that affect you and I, our todays and our tomorrows.  Even if you have no savings, no investments, no mutual funds, you are affected through your cost of living, what you pay for groceries, what you pay at the pump, the price tag on your clothes, and the cost of your health care.

I say, let the revolution begin.

Until the next time, LLAP!

References:

Watching the Watchers: Justice Department Launches Probe of Moody's Ratings". Tulsa World. 28 March 1996

http://www.brookings.edu/press/Books/2006/financialgatekeepers.aspx

Moody's denies threatening firms with lower ratings". Miami Herald. 29 June 1996.

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2009-02-09/pdf/E9-2514.pdf

http://www.kpmg.com/US/en/Pages/default.aspx

http://www.moodys.com/

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/07/28/98282/timing-of-stock-sales-by-moodys.html

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-worst-ceos-in-american-history-2010-5?op=1

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/16/michel-madelain-moodys-president_n_1096843.html

http://www.malekigroup.com/images/2011_EFW/Speech_Madelain.pdf

http://www.thebattery.org/the-conservancy/board-of-trustees/

http://www.federalreserve.gov/SECRS/2012/May/20120510/R-1438/R-1438_043012_107224_613995658948_1.pdf

In the beginning . . .

We tend to live in our own microcosms of beliefs, histories and mythologies, so much so that we frequently give little thought or consideration to mythologies of other cultures.  Yes, most of us are familiar with the Greeks, Romans and Egyptians, but I thought it might be interesting to take a look at a handful of cultures, those unfortunately not customarily referred to or studied by most of us, to see what their creation mythologies are.  To be sure, for the cultures that I have selected, only a very brief summary of those creation mythologies is presented, barely touching upon the individual richness that each possess.  However, they are so fascinating, with such deep meaning, that I must share them with you, even if in a sadly truncated form.

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Africa

Zulu – Unkulunkulu, the highest God and creator of humanity, was created in Uhlanga, a huge swamp of reeds.  From the reeds, he brought forth people and cattle. He created everything that is: mountains, streams, snakes, etc.  He taught the Zulu how to hunt, how to make fire, and how to grow food.

Zimbabwe – Modimo was the creator.  When he distributed good things, he appeared in the east and belonged to the element water.  When he brought drought, hail, cyclones and earthquakes, he appeared in the west and was part of the element fire.  Modimo was also sky and light, earth and root.  He had no past or future.  His name was taboo and could be spoken only by priests and seers.

Ethiopia – Wak was the benefactor creator God who lived in the clouds and covered the vault of the heavens with stars.  When the earth was flat, Wak asked man to make his own coffin, and Wak shut man up in it and pushed the coffin into the ground.  For seven years he rained down fire, and the mountains were formed.  Then Wak unearthed the coffin and man sprang forth alive.  Man tired of living alone, so Wak took some of his blood and, after four days, the blood became a woman whom the man married.  They had thirty children but, because man was ashamed of having so many, he hid fifteen of them.  Wak turned those hidden children into animals and demons.

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Apache

In the beginning there was only darkness.  Out of nowhere a thin disk appeared with a man, the creator, seated inside who seemed to awaken from a deep sleep.  He looked up and light appeared; looking down he created a sea of light; to the east he created the streaks of dawn, and to the west the colorful streaks of dusk.  He rubbed his hands together and thrust them in a downward motion, and a girl on a cloud appeared.  He asked her where she was going, but she did not answer.  She asked him where he was from and he said from the east.  She asked where the earth was, and he asked where the sky was.  He sang four times, which is a magic number.  He flung his hands wide open and then appeared the sun God.  The creator then dropped his hands, and a small boy appeared.  All four Gods were now present and they all shook hands, mixing their sweat together.  The creator then sang, again four times, about making the Earth.  After rubbing his hands together, a brown ball appeared.  He kicked it and it expanded; the girl kicked it and it did the same; the sun God and the boy both took turns; and the ball continued to expand.  He then told the wind to go inside and blow it up.  The creator created more Gods to look over things on Earth.  He had created workers to help with the building of Earth. Once he saw that the work was done, he disappeared, leaving the workers to create the world’s population.

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Australian Aborigine

In the beginning, the land was barren with no light, life or death.  The sun, moon, stars and eternal ancestors all slept beneath the Earth.  Baiame brought the Dreamtime ancestors from under the ground and over the seas.  When the ancestors arose, life came to the barren plain.  They walked the earth in human form, animal form, plant form or a combination of the forms. There were two people that formed out of nothing and, upon their walks across the Earth’s surface, they came upon some half finished plants, animals and humans.  They would then carve heads, bodies and limbs from bundles of plants.  This is how people were formed amongst the Earth’s surface.  Everything that is was made in the Dreamtime, how animals and humans should look and behave, was fixed for ever.  After the work of human creation was finished, the ancestors went back to sleep.  They either went back under the Earth or they stayed here in the form of plants and animals.  They left sacred trails, which can be seen in the forms watering holes, rocks and trees.  Dreamtime is not yet over.  Through the power of the Dreamtime, the very environment is sacred and alive.

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Babylonia

Marduk was created to defend the Gods from an attack plotted by the ocean Goddess, Tiamat.  Marduk will save the Gods only if he is appointed their supreme leader.  The Gods agree to his terms.  Marduk challenges Tiamat to combat and destroys her.  He rips her corpse into two halves with which he fashions the earth and the skies.  Marduk organizes the planets, stars and regulates the moon, sun, and weather.  The Gods pledge their allegiance to Marduk, and he creates Babylon as the terrestrial counterpart to the realm of the Gods.  Marduk then destroys Tiamat's husband and uses his blood to create humankind so that they can do the work of the Gods.

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Chinese

The universe was a big black egg that carried a God, Pan-Gu, inside itself.  Pan-Gu awoke from an eighteen thousand year nap and took his broadax and smashed through to escape from the egg.  The light became the heavens and the heavier parts became the Earth.  Pan-Gu stood in between with his head touching the heavens and his feet firmly planted on the Earth.  All would grow at a rate of ten feet per day for yet another eighteen thousand years.  His breath became the wind and the clouds, his voice the thunder, and his eyes became the sun and moon.  The mountains were formed from his body and limbs, and the rivers and oceans were made from his blood.  The fertile soil came from his muscles, and the roads are his veins. The flowers and trees are from his skin and body hair, where the stars are come from his beard and hair.  Pearls and jade are made from his marrow and his sweat is the rain and dew.

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Korea

The myth of Tangun begins with an already existing earth.  A Heavenly Prince, Hwangun looked down at earth and desired to possess it and rule over mankind.  His father, the Ruler of Heaven, Hwanin, knew that his son would bring happiness to human beings and, looking at the earth, chose Mount Taebak as a suitable place for his son to go to earth.  Hwangun arrived beneath a sandalwood tree where he created a holy city.  He brought with him three heavenly seals, somewhat mysterious in nature, and three thousand loyal subjects from heaven.  Hwangun also brought three ministers, the Earl of Wind, the Master of Rain, and the Master of Clouds.  Hwangun either taught or took charge of 360 areas of responsibility such as agriculture and medicine.  The story moves now to a bear and a tiger both of which desire to become human beings.  Shunning sunlight and eating only the food given by Hwangun, the bear succeeds in earning Hwangun’s approval, while the tiger fails to fast, fleeing into the forest. The bear becomes a beautiful woman, Ungyo, and become Hwangun’s wife. Their son is Tangun, the King of Sandalwood.  Tangun becomes the first king of Korea, calling his country Choson and ruling for 1500 years.  After this 1500 years, he retreated to Taebak-san to become a mountain God.

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Mayan

Two creation Gods, Tepeu and Gucumatz , learn to talk, think and speak.  As they thought of things, those things would be created.  As soon as they thought of lands, skies, mountains, the animals, those things would come into existence.  They first created human beings of clay, but the clay people would fall apart when they would get wet and could not praise their creators.  They then created people out of wood, but these wood people had no hearts and minds, so God wiped them out.  After this, God let them start over and this is how today’s Earth was finally created.

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New Zealand Maori

Io was the Supreme Being and creator of the universe. He created Rangi, Sky Father, and Papa, Earth Mother.  Rangi and Papa produce numerous offspring while they are physically, “cleaved together in a procreative embrace.”  Since their parents block all the rays from the sun, the children are forced to live in darkness.  They become restless and question whether to separate their parents or to kill them for more room and light.  Tuma voices his opinion for death, while Tane wishes to just separate the mother and father so that the earth will “remain close as our nursing mother.”  Most finally agree with the plan for separation with a major dissenting vote from only one sibling, Tawhirimatea.  As the guardian of winds and storms, he fears that his kingdom will be overthrown if the parents are torn apart.  After many attempts to separate the parents, Tane finally succeeds as he places his shoulders against the earth and his feet against the sky.  He pushes slowly with both his upper and lower body. “Soon, and yet not soon, for the time was vast, the Sky and Earth began to yield.”  The Earth Mother and Sky Father bleed and this gives rise to ochre (red clay), the sacred color of the Maoris.  When the separation is complete, there is a clearly defined sky and earth.  One of the offspring states that there is one element still missing, and he urges his siblings to find the female element, ira tangata, to enable the creation of woman.  The search spans both land and sea, and Tane finally consults his mother, Papa, for her advice and knowledge.  She takes pity on Tane and tells him to search an area named Kura-waka.  The children find the element in the Earth and dig it out to contribute in the creation of woman.  Tane then breathes life into it, and creates Hine-ahu-one, the earth formed maiden.

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 Scandinavia

The first world to exist was Muspell, a fiery realm.  Beyond Muspell was the icy realm of Niflhiem.  With the combination of the ice and fire, the air grew mild and once the ice started to melt, the ogre Ymir was created.  While Ymir slept, he sweated and brought to life two males and a female frost giant.  As more ice melted and time passed, a cow was created, who would nourish herself by licking ice blocks.  As the cow licked the ice, she revealed a man who had a son. The son married one of the frost giant’s daughters and they had three sons, who killed Ymir.  Ymir’s blood drowned all the frost giants except for Berglimir and his wife, who created the Earth with Ymir’s flesh and bones.  Odin, one of the sons of the frost giant, spotted two logs on Earth and gave them life, while one of the other brothers gave them brains and feelings, and the other gave them hearing and sight.  Thus man and woman were created.

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Until the next time, LLAP!

References (among many):

http://kestrana.hubpages.com/hub/The-Popol-Vuh-The-Mayan-Story-of-Creation

http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/creation.html

http://revelations-2012.com/creation_myths_main/china_creation/pangu.html

http://www.innovationslearning.co.uk/subjects/re/information/creation/australian_aborigines.htm

http://www.indians.org/welker/creation.htm

http://www.reformationmedia.org/schadestudy09/session1/BabylonianCreationStory.pdf

http://www.laits.utexas.edu/doherty/plan2/colbergcreation.html

http://www.laits.utexas.edu/doherty/plan2/liangcreation.html

http://www.realalternativesite.com/zulu-creator-myth-belief-unkulunkulu-a-1329.html

http://www.mythome.org/creatafr.html

The Road and I

Have you noticed lately that when you get into your car you need to first have a private little chat with yourself before putting that engine in gear?  More and more lately it seems that one needs to both steel and calm oneself in anticipation of the species on the road I refer to as “The Stupids.”

I often wonder why we bothered to enact laws against driving while holding a phone up to your ear.  Forests died putting through the paperwork for those laws.  (Where were the greenies when that was happening?)  I don’t blame the police for this; I blame legislators who enact laws without the manpower to enforce them.  Worse than the phone, is the text.  You know when a driver is texting.  His head is pointed downward too long as he taps his message on his keyboard; or he holds his phone up to the steering wheel, maneuvering his two-ton weight piece of machinery while placing more importance to the “LOL” he’s texting than to controlling his vehicle.

There seem to be an awful lot of open-bed trucks on the road, or trucks missing their rear gates.  Please, Mr. Truck Driver, watch what you put back there and realize that your tools, toys and trifles can fly up and out if you hit a bump.  Several years ago, driving down Winchester Boulevard in San Jose, a tire iron bounced off the back of the truck in front of me and not only imbedded itself in my tire, but destroyed the bumper as well.  I considered myself fortunate that it hadn’t flown into my windshield.

The number of drivers concerned about wearing out their turn signal fuses is awesome.  Aren’t they the ultimate environmentalists?  Why else would you not signal a lane change, especially when that change is made with less than a car length to spare.  Could it be the cost of the fuse?  Maybe we need to start a “Fuse Foundation” so these poor souls will not worry about being poised on the brink of financial ruin should a fuse replacement be necessary.

Some suffer from select hazard discernment; if they don’t see a hazard, to them it doesn’t exist.  For those reason-deprived individuals, I have two words:  black ice.  You don’t see the black ice, but it’s there, and unless you want to shorten your life span dramatically, and take someone else with you, be aware that you might be driving on it.

Let us review one of those forgotten words in the new vocabulary of the year 2012, “hydroplaning,” which is what happens when driving too fast on a wet day.  A fun way to fly; not a fun way to land.

Okay, just because you drive a truck, it does not automatically mean that your tires and brakes are magically endowed with the power to grip a snowy or icy road.  In the DC area (and this happens just about every other place where snow kisses the road), I saw more trucks swerve 90 degrees, slide into the side walk, the median strip, down gullies.  I know you’re riding high up in that truck and it makes you feel that you truly are above us all, but your truck is not Santa’s sleigh.

Where is the person’s brain who drives 70mph in pea soup thick fog?  Is his brain fogged up too?  Oh, I know.  That brain is being sat upon.  If you kill yourself, that’s one thing, that’s Darwin’s Law doing its job.  Just don’t kill anyone else.

Okay, let’s have a kumbayah hands-holding moment and speak the unspeakable.  If you are a cyclist, please please please please realize that the rules of the road apply to you too.  I will respect you if you respect me.  Actually, I’ll respect you anyway because I refuse to be responsible for a two-ton object under my control knocking down a forty pound bike and its rider.  At least go through the motions of respecting me.

I currently live in Sunnyvale, California, and the main road in this microcosm of the universe is El Camino Real.  The posted speed limit is 35mph; a reasonable rate you would think.  However, there seems to be a shared delusion here that 15mph is the fastest that should be driven whether in the right, middle, or left lane, and it doesn’t matter if its rush hour or the middle of the day.  If you are a new driver and are unsure of yourself, if you have a fragile load in your car, if you don’t know where you are going, drive in the far right lane.  The next time you drive that 15mph take a look in your rear view mirror (cars still come with that accessory, don’t they?) because while there might be no traffic in front of you, it sure as heck is piled up behind you.

Another regularly exciting occurrence along the El Camino Real (although friends and family in other parts of the world have assured me that they too have shared in this experience) relates to the above-mentioned 15mph driver.  Only this particular 15mph driver is quite politely driving in the far right lane, so definitely no complaints from my end.  Then, like The Most Holy touched their heads in inspiration, they ram the gas pedal and fly across two lanes of traffic.  If you are not watching with that extra pair of eyes you got for Christmas last year, you could be doomed.

            Driving down a highway in Florida a few months ago, a driver stopped dead right smack dab in the middle of the road, leaving the cars behind him screeching their brakes, including yours truly.  He sat there for a second, looked around, pointed off to some mysterious location off to the left, and nodded his head as if to say “Oh, yes, that’s where I want to go.”  A profoundly speechless moment.

Don’t you just love it when no one will let you merge onto the expressway?  Yes, we all know that the merging lane is to cede right of way, but when traffic is bumper to bumper and no one is really getting anywhere any faster than anyone else, would it kill you to be courteous?  Ooops.  I just remembered that courtesy is obsolete in 2012.  My bad.

We must not forget those who tailgate.  Does your vehicle truly need to engage in some sort of exotic dance of coitus with my bumper?  Is that extra five miles per hour that vital to your well being?  If your objective is to force me to move into another lane so that you can go on your merry way, unless the next lane is clear, why on earth should I put myself at risk while driving 60mph on the expressway.  When the lane is clear enough, I’ll move.  Until then, cool your jets.

Last week I was merrily driving along.  Hardly any traffic at all.  I saw a car ahead of me on the right waiting to turn into my lane.  In my rear view mirror, I could see there was no one behind me.  As any normal thinking person would, I figured she was waiting for me to drive by so that she could proceed onto the road behind me.  Nope.  She waited until I was almost right there, almost right in front of her, and she pulled out in front of me.  What is the name of this maneuver?  Does it fall within the “I want you to hit me so I can make a bundle from a huge insurance settlement?” category?

Now for my ultimate traffic pet peeve.  To me, it doesn’t get much worse than this:  the driver who will not pull to the side of the road to let an emergency vehicle pass.  God forbid that you or someone you care about should either need that vehicle or be in that vehicle.  Frequently a matter of seconds determines whether a person will live or die, whether they will be healthy or an invalid.  Wherever you are going, wherever you need to be . . . it isn’t as important as that emergency vehicle getting to where it needs to be ASAP.

Every now and then I want to lower my window and shout out that line from Network “'I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore.”  . . . but, of course, I do continue to take it, because to do otherwise would be insane and I choose to steer my own personal insanity along other pathways.  Besides, road rage is the end result of letting "The Stupids" win.

Until next time, LLAP!