Where is "ceteris paribus" NOW that we need it?

Every discipline has a couple of key phrases, those secret passwords that practitioners invoke..  In economics there is "ceteris paribus".  It is a way to analyze a situation by looking at one variable and holding all other variables constant.  It is a great way to simplify a complex question.   But increasingly, those kinds of common courtesies are ignored.   Two (related) cases in point come to mind.   

The Attorney General approved a search warrant to obtain classified documents from the estate of our former president.   Whether or not that was an efficacious strategy to reduce the chance that Trump would protect classified documents appropriately, or even whether the former president should have such documents, is not at issue.   I personally thought the raid was a bit overly dramatic.   There is a law which stipulates the treatment of presidential records  (although interestingly it does not seem to have any sanctions for bad behavior) but after the raid Trump released personal information about the agents who executed the warrant.   I think that was bad behavior but there does not seem to be a specific federal statute which prevents someone from publicizing the names. In my mind that really does not matter.  As my dad used to say "just because you can, doesn't mean you should."   

The parallel story comes from a group called Ruth Sent Me, who thought it was their duty,when they did not agree with the recent decision on abortion (Dobbs v Jackson Women's Health) it was their duty to publicize the home addresses of several Supreme Court justices.   In this case, there is a federal statute that prohibits disclosure of the Justice's address and also in picketing in front of their residences.   But the Ruth Sent Me people thought it was ok because they really disagreed with the decision.    

In both cases, Trump's and Ruth Sent Me's, the actions were inappropriate, whether or not there is a specific law against such behavior.   But neither cared about holding other variables constant.   In both cases because they held strong beliefs about the search warrant and the draft decision, they could move everything all in.   Basic standards of decency in society will not work very well with that kind of idiocy.

We clearly live in times when reasonable social restraints are ignored by a significant fraction of society.  Andrew Mir, writing in the Summer Issue of City Journal, argues that as newspapers moved from an advertising model (where adds supported Journalism) to a subscriber model - the propensity to pander to the subscriber's whims increased significantly.   That may be part of the problem we face in the quest to have reasoned discussions - we have created echo chambers.

I had so many conversations over the last couple of weeks with friends who are genuinely grumpy about how strident their friends on the left or right are.   I have the great good fortune to have friends who believe Trump is the devil incarnate and others who believe that Trump had the election stolen from him.  I don't believe either meme; but those polarizations diminish our ability to try to figure out what is happening in a particular area.  And ultimately what is the right thing to do for the largest fraction of our fellow citizens.

UPDATE ON OCITEFACL   This week confirmed two new things.  First, my design editor has come up with a dandy cover for the book.   Victoria Vinton (www.coyotepressgraphics.com) sent me what I think is called a pre-print of the book.   That means all the text has been converted into a file which can be sent to my publisher.   My job this week was to go through the manuscript for the 1100th time and look for things which did not look right.  Yesterday I sent her back the PDF so she could make the edits.   At the same time she sent me proposals for the "wrap" the front cover and the side backing.   Victoria proposed using a brown highlight for the author's name.   Our daughter suggested that when people are asking for the book in a bookstore they could simply ask for the brown one.

Second, I found out yesterday that KDP (Kindle Direct Printing) rejects manuscripts with lots of photos.  From the start I have thought - even though the pictures in this book will be in black and white for the print edition  -  the images were an essential part of the project.   Does that mean my book will not be on Amazon - I think the answer is no, but the book may have to be fulfilled from my publisher (Ingram Spark) which prints books on demand.   In my current thinking the book will also be on Apple Books (and there I think we can have color photos).  During this interim I am exploring options to assure distribution through the channels.

So what happens next?   Two files have to be created for publication - one is in a format called E-PUB which is used for digital editions.   The second one is basically a PDF which goes to be used for the PRINT edition.   When the final edits are done I will then submit both files to my published, get ISBNs for both editions (that is the tracking number for all books) and then we will be off to the races.   That is an exciting prospect for me.

The ultimate sentence in the book is a quote from Huck Finn - “So there ain’t nothing more to write about, and I am rotten glad of it, because if I’d a knowed what a trouble it was to make a book I wouldn’t a tackled it, and ain’t a-going to no more.”   But that may not be true.   One of the things which this project captured me with was a second story about my namesake (Jonathan Archer - 1823-1850 - who left New York to go to the gold fields in California.   Jonathan was there for less than a year and after a lot of research I am convinced he embarked on that arduous journey around the horn not just to hunt for gold.   His younger brother, Oliver Hazard Perry Archer (1825-1899) stayed in New York, expanded the family business in dry goods and into deliveries and eventually became a very wealthy person.   It turns out OHPA was part of the group that bounced Jay Gould out of the Erie Railroad in 1872.  There is some evidence that JA and OHPA were close.  But one brother chose to leave the homestead and the other did not; both were pursuing "happiness" in the Jeffersonian sense.   When everything is I am toying with the notion of doing a novel about their individual quests.   But first let's get this one out.

 Crystal Radios and Vin Scully

From about age 10 I was intrigued by technology.   One of the first devices I purchased was a Heathkit Crystal Radio.  It was a very simple device that you put together in about 3 minutes.  It used radio waves to get a signal and required no batteries.  It was underpowered and had no amplifier so it used earphones. I built that in Bakersfield and soon found that clear channels (those stations with a lot of wattage) were the only ones that came in.  I found two stations that were almost always available - one in LA and one in San Francisco.   On summer nights I could listen to the Dodgers and Vin Scully in bed.  That reinforced my interest in baseball.  I started to like the team in the 50s when the Dodgers went to the World Series in '52, '53. They finally won in 1955.   They came back in '56  to lose to the Yankees and then in '59 they did it again. That was the first series with a west coast team.   But I learned the phrase "wait until next year"even though the Dodgers won twice in the decade.

That crystal radio also informed me about the Our Lady of the Angels fire in 1958 in Chicago and the death of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Richie Valens in 1959.  But the Dodger games were most important.

Scully was a fan of baseball but never was a "homer" announcer.  His call was always balanced and it often involved tons of baseball history that seemed to well up at the drop of a hat.  His call of Kirk Gibson's home run in the 1988 World Series is one that I have replayed many times.

Come forward several decades and I was offered the opportunity to meet Scully in his broadcast booth.  I had a friend who was doing some consulting for the O'Malley family and he invited me for a game and a chance to meet the voice I had first heard on the crystal radio.

As I entered the booth, I noticed a three ring binder with lots of notes.  As I watched his work, he would flip through what looked like unorganized pages and then come up with a classic story or quote.   When they got to a commercial break, I got to say hello and I told him about listening to him since the 50s but said I was a bit disappointed.   He asked why and I said I had always admired his skilled weaving of baseball facts and history into his game coverage.   He joked back - "Look I am over 70 years old, I can't remember everything!"  He was truly gracious.

Fast forward about another decade and I was at a dinner held by an underwriter at a national conference of University Chief Financial Officers.   I was sitting next to the CFO of one of the institutions I represented who had his 10 year old son with him.  We started talking about famous people we had met and when it came to be my turn I listed a bunch of politicians and other famous people and then I said and I had met Vin Scully.   The kid looked at me, ignoring the Presidents, Governors and other celebs and asked "You met Vin Scully?"  That really put the American fascination with celebrities in its proper place.   The book has a chapter "Fleeting Encounters with Fleeting Fame" which discusses my chances to meet some very famous people.

TWO DEVELOPMENTS ON "OF COURSE ITS TRUE EXCEPT FOR A COUPLE OF LIES.." - Last week I was approached by a representative of Archway Publishing, which is a division of Simon and Schuster.  They offered to help publish and distribute the book.   We had a couple of discussions but in the end I did not choose to use them.  I also had the chance to speak with the authors of a wonderful book - Mitka's Secret which is an inspiring story of a child who was forced into slavery by the Nazis - who are friends. The child emigrated to the US and became a successful person in spite of not being able to read and write.   (Buy the book it is an inspiring read!).  I learned a lot about promoting a book. 

Finally, my ACE Design Editor is about ready to have a draft of the completed and designed manuscript. There are a lot of unappreciated details in preparing a manuscript and I seem to have added complexity but adding asides and lots of pictures.  She commented that she has enjoyed the stories in the book - and that has slowed her down a bit.   As we say in Mexico - "Better right than fast."   The final steps are for me to review the manuscript and then to send it to my publisher. (Ingram Spark - which is a major printer and distributor of books on many platforms.)   I assume that the book will now be available on Amazon and Apple Books and through a couple of other sources in October.