dailygimpei.blogspot.com

See Bonobos are very close genetically to humans and are virtually identical to chimpanzees. However, whereas chimpanzee society has an alpha male and thus constant battles for dominance, Bonobos society is remarkably pieceful. Instead of fighting, the bonobos prefer bonin’. For example, if two males have a disagreement over some food, they prefer to resolve the dispute like gentlemen, with some good old fashion penis fencing.

Unlike chimps, the bonobos don’t have to compete with gorillas for food, so they have a lot more free time. Since they can’t read and they don’t have television, there isn’t much else to do but have sex. And sex it up they do: male on male, female on female, baby on male on female, male on self both with hand and (gasp) mouth.

I think we have a lot to learn from Bonobos society. Bring back the gay bomb (as made famous on 30 Rock).

Reminds me of an apocryphal tale about a scorpion who wants to cross a river and asks a frog for help. The frog initially declines, “how do I know you wont sting me” he says.

“Because otherwise I wouldn’t get to the other side of the river.”

“How do I know you won’t sting me once I get to the other side?”

“Because I’ll be so grateful that I couldn’t imagine stinging you.”

So the frog takes the scorpion on his back and starts to swim across the river. Midway through the scorpion stings the frog on the back. In his last dying breath the frog cries out “Why did you sting me? You too will die?”

“I couldn’t help it. It’s in my nature,” said the scorpion before drowning to death.

See neoclassical economists are a lot like the scorpion, they can’t help optimizing and calculating the welfare implications for everything: it’s in their nature. They may not be able to tell you much of any use, but goddamit if they can’t find a maximum over a convex set.

You put the clocks back and that costs me an hour. Under the old system i get that hour repaid at the end of the winter. Under your system, I’m missing an hour for the rest of my life. You’d better pay me that hour before you fuck with my clocks, Gimpei.

I am nothing if not sympathetic to the plight of the hourly worker. Also, I see economic populist rhetoric making a big comeback in the next few years, so I offer the following modest proposal:

Hourly Worker–let’s call you Steve. Is it okay if I call you that? Good. The way I see it, hourly worker Steve, is this:

Think about the average hour of the high paid corporate executive: bossing people around, having sex with unqualified but ridiculously attractive secretaries, golfing at pebble beach, taking vacations in St. Barths and planning trips on Learjets to remote conferences where they have sex with the ridiculously attractive secretaries from remote branches. Let’s face the facts, hourly worker Steve, those corporate fat cats are getting way more value out of their hours than us regular folk.

Remember, too, hourly worker Steve, that there are those even less fortunate than yourself: the poor and destitute. Think of the average hour of Jagged-Face Jimmy, the crack addict. He has to steal piping from someone who is slightly less poor so that he can sell it for some crack. Then just as he scrapes together enough money, he gets beaten up by a slightly larger crack addict and so has to go and beg his 16 year old son, who’s dealing on the corner, for some crack. He tries to get on his son’s good side first by playing a game of basketball, but this kind of thing has happened so often that the son knows exactly what’s going on. Also Jagged Face Jimmy’s fingernails are falling out so his jump shot is a mere shadow of its former self. Jimmy’s son racks up yet another oedipal victory that is as easy as it is dispiriting.

So on behalf of Jagged-Face Jimmy–and the rest of us regular folks–we need a bold plan to redistribute hours. We need to take some of the hours of the coddled top 1% and give them to the rest of us hard working regular Americans. The only way I can think to do this is as follows:

Give every hardworking American the right to change places with a member of the elite for an allotted period of time. Imagine laying for thirty seconds on a beach in St. Barths, or slicing a shot off the fairway on hole nine in gleneagles. You could even have fun with it: play chicken with the golf carts; the possibilities are endless.

Of course this would have to be a progressive system of hour taxation with the ultra poor getting fractionally more time. So once a year Jagged-Faced Jimmy would be able to move up from crack for 5 minutes and join the hollywood set as they freebase pure cocaine, while you, hourly worker Steve, would probably only get 30 seconds to smoke pot in Seth Rogan’s apartment. There’s always the risk that the far more volatile cocaine will explode lighting Jimmy’s head on fire like it did to Richard Prior. But I’m sure that’s a risk Jagged Face Jimmy is willing to take.

But is he now a liberal?

P.S. Does this mean that the New York Times needs two new columnists so that it continue to give voice to the “real America”. Obviously Kristol has to go; but who to replace him? Douthat, Manzini, Kmiec?

P.P.S. Now that we’re talking about replacing people. How about Dowd, Herbert, and Friedman? Dowd’s writing style is too annoying for me to even read her; Herbert seems like a nice guy but when I read his column I feel like it’s still 1992; Friedman, well, I think the Iraq war pretty much did him in and now all he does is write about energy independence… boring!

P.P.P.S. I know I’m aping Kaus here, but it’s really fun. I think he really has something with this P.S. thing. All I need now is an editor to insert wry comments and I’ll be gold!

If anything we should be making it permanent. Nothing is more depressing than a day that ends at 3:30 in the afternoon. The crypto-anti-daylights will tell you that Nixon tried this in the 70s and that it led to more crashes in the mornings, especially for school buses. This is a bald faced lie! Trust me: I’ve looked at the statistics and there’s definitely some bias in there from measurement error, ommitted variables, and er… reverse causation.

So I’d like to formally announce a petition to make daylight savings permanent. Owls of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but darkness!

P.S. Post to show your suppor.

P.P.S. Post if you disagree.

P.P.P.S Either way I’ll count your post as a vote of agreement.