Texas Rangers May 4 2012

It looks as though the Rangers have hit a rough patch. Hamilton and Beltre have been in and out of the lineup with stiffness. and now they've lost three games in a row. Next weekend they play the Angels. I hope they get their mojo back.

Institutions

Douglas W. Allen. The Institutional Revolution: Measurement and the Economic Emergence of the Modern World. 267 pp. University of Chicago. (2012).
Throughout this book the hypothesis speaks with one voice: a logical, economic connection exists between a wide range of bizarre pre-modern rules and customs, and the evolution of these institutions into the modern world. What on the surface seem to be archaic, inefficient institutions created by people who just did not know better, turn out to be ingenious solutions to the measurement problems of the day." (227)

American Airlines: The Saga Continues

We won't know until at least Monday but it appears that American Airlines is going the way of Eastern and Pan Am. US Air has gotten the unions on board for a buyout plan. Let me say right now, I do not like US Air. It is trying to make a right out of two wrongs, the merger of Allegheny and Piedmont. If the buyout takes place, it will have a major economic impact on this region. US Air has promised the moon, that there will be little dislocation, but do we trust them?
American has always had a problem with its unions and it now looks as though that problem will be fatal. When we view the comments and activities of the unions, we can begin to understand managements viewpoint a little better.
There remain some unanswered questions, such as what are the pension benefits that are at stake? Are they in the GM, City of San Diego range? What is the take home pay for a machinist or a pilot or a flight attendant? How do they compare with the competition? 'Just some thoughts...

Texas Department of Motor Vehicles

Yesterday I had to go to the DMV to get the title changed on my car. We all know the horror stories, the low comedy (Patty and Selma from The Simpsons come immediately to mind). But I must say, this time it was fast, efficient, and friendly. There were twenty one people ahead of me and I was out of there in less than thirty minutes. CHEERS.

Rangers April 18

The Rangers just finished a quick two-game series in Boston with a sweep, 18-3, 6-3. We definitely need someone new to kick extra points. Seriously, Josh Hamilton is hitting everything and Mike Napoli is getting hot. Derek Holland and Colby Lewis are looking good. A little worried about Joe Nathan, but maybe it's just rust.
The weekend series against the Tigers is shaping up to be big. The top two records in the American League. Both teams are among the leaders in hitting and pitching. Of course, we won't hear that much about it in the national press because Boston and New York are playing. What a shame.

More Nisbet

The merit of Tocqueville's analysis [in Democracy in America] is that it points directly to the heart of totalitarianism- the masses; the vast aggregates who are never tortured, flogged or imprisoned, or humiliated; who instead are cajoled, flattered, stimulated by the rulers; but who nonetheless are relentlessly destroyed as human beings, ground down into mere shells of humanity. And the genius of his analysis lies in the view of totalitarianism as something not historically "abnormal" but as closely related to the very trends hailed as progressive in the nineteenth century.
-The Quest for Community. (171)

Robert Nisbet

The liberal values of autonomy and freedom of personal choice are indispensable to a genuinely free society, but we shall achieve and maintain these only by vesting them in the conditions in which liberal democracy will thrive- diversity of culture, plurality of association and division of authority.
The Quest for Community. (247)