thomas leverett weblog

just pop

posted by tom @ 9:21 AM 0 comments

crypto reserve

Lately I've been watching the stock market very closely, and also the crypto market. In fact it started with the crypto market. I was wondering, what does a market in imaginary money have to do with anything?

Resistance to the national crypto reserve is interesting. My instinct is to say, the reason they want a big pile of crypto is so they can manipulate the market. It's a serious, even gigantic, version of the rug pull. You get everyone excited and buying in, then you get out quietly while it's at its highest, then when it comes down inevitably you're not around to suffer. The government is, but who cares about the taxpayers? Let the government buy all this play money - solano, ether, etc., whatever, and we'll have a big old tea party.

I think the serious crypto traders are beginning to really resent the way events tend to make crypto look like it's just a big techno-bro scam and basically we are widening the pool of victims because the taxpayers can always take the hit and half the time not even know it. But this time taxpayers are saying, hey wait a minute, you're turning our money into play money and doing what, letting it just sit there?

With the oil reserve, there are pretty well-established reasons to have a reserve. We bomb Saudi Arabia, or they bomb us, or Israel bombs both of us, we'd better have some oil sitting around or life as we know it will just stop. I don't think you can say that for crypto. The world is not relying on it to get to work in the morning.

Also, because it's entirely online, it's entirely accessible. That means that somebody with skills can get at it and swipe it at any given moment. This in fact just happened to what, about fifteen billion, in Abu Dhabi or someplace? By the North Koreans? And we never even found it, or tracked it down (?????). Does anyone care? Is there a geographical element at all? Will North Koreans actually get some food, as a result of this little heist?

Once we have a reserve, we have a target. Anyone with skills can get at it. We also need a regulatory agency because hey, certain people are going to be doing rug pulls like, constantly. But we're not into regulation right so now the government is the number one rug-pull, crypto-bro, snake-oil salesman. Anyone want to buy a $Trump coin?

Labels: crypto

posted by tom @ 6:31 AM 0 comments

Teslas and Edsels

These days I stare at the news pages in horror, and in particular at the business section which I had previously almost totally ignored. Why? Things are happening quickly in business. The stock market is plunging. Tesla in particular is plunging.

Mr. Musk doesn't seem to care, or if he does, isn't showing it. He is about to get billions in government contracts and some of this may go to Tesla. But if Tesla cars stop selling in Europe and the USA it doesn't seem to matter or maybe he feels there's nothing he can do about it. They are marked, here in the USA. Tesla owners have said, "It used to be that MAGA people gave us a hard time, now everyone else does." One should not buy a Tesla unless one is willing to put up with this for several years to come.

The thing is, I have heard that they are good cars. I went out in my daughter's Tesla (I don't really know how she feels about the current development) and we tried out some of its little song and dances, the show it put on when you left the car. I don't remember clearly and I'm not sure we even understood all the little features it had even when it was off and we weren't in it. But the whole experience reminded me a little of what I went through when I was growing up in the early sixties. It was really more of a common experience.

My memory has it something like this. Henry Ford wanted Ford to make something to compete with the Cadillac: top of the line, incorporating all the modern technology, also incorporating space-age design and space-vehicle feeling. He employed all the best scientists, technologists, engineers, designers - he put all his money into it. He named it after his wife Edsel and he had a really splashy introduction sometime in the early sixties.

It was a huge flop. For some reason people didn't want the finest, newest, fanciest, most space-age car you could possibly imagine. It didn't sell at all.

There was lots of speculation, all while I was growing up, about what had gone wrong. Maybe the high tech plus the space-age made it just too much. Maybe it was so big and nice that people were intimidated. The thing is, the people who really knew cars and technology admired it. They said it was the pinnacle of "modern" automotive engineering and was one of the finest cars there was. Also, Cadillacs were going through similar changes at the time - getting fins, getting space-age design features, etc., and Cadillacs were selling fine. Edsels were lemons.

In the seventies, in Iowa City, one friend of mine took me to an old Edsel graveyard. Some guy had collected at least a half dozen of them in an old apple orchard out between highway 6 and the interstate, roughly near where the mall is today in Coralville. The guy said that the owner just sold one off whenever he needed money. There they were, all six or seven of them, apples falling on them every fall, looking fine but rusting away like crazy. It's a sight I'll never forget. I'll also never be able to find it again. This was already fifty years ago.

Not sure what to tell my daughter about the Tesla. I have a son who recognizes Teslas wherever he sees them, but to me they look like half a dozen other cars, and if you just put a fake insignia on the back you'd fool me. I wouldn't criticize anyone for owning one though. Almost all of them were bought before this happened; very few have been bought since. It's very possible they'll go the way of the Edsel.

posted by tom @ 1:32 PM 0 comments

Don't be Cruel - RIP Peter Yarrow

Once in an Iowa City bar frequented by Writer's Workshop people I was feeling sorry for myself and used a quarter in the box to play "Don't be Cruel." Some drunken guy (presumably a writer) lit into me saying that Elvis was a mean redneck s-o-b and we should never support anything he did for any reason. I totally and heartily disagreed but kept my mouth shut and fortunately came out of that bar alive.

So you can tell that I am in the "separate the art from the artist" crowd, which I freely admit, but the Peter Yarrow story is a little more complex, because he was a leader and important figure in making the Kerville Festival what it is.

The "separate the art from the artist" crowd, including me, argues that an artist's morality is separate from his/her art, so that it is possible to be a good artist and a lousy person, or fallible may be a better word. As a musician there were some songs I wanted to hear and enjoy regardless of the moral culpability of the performer; in other words, the sum total of musical skill should all be available to me just on principle. If you start refusing to support Elvis, or Peter, or anyone, then where does it end? Do you stop listening to all his band's music? Or that from the festival he helped make famous? And what if the crime is questionable (not sure about Peter's), or he was sorry and genuinely repentant (again, not sure; I believe he was)? Does that make it ok to listen to his music now?

Apparently in the history of the Kerrville festival, it was Yarrow who befriended Rod Kennedy, a conservative old Texas rancher, to make it what it was. He opened up Kennedy and convinced him that the folk music culture was a good one to propagate and invest in, and Kerrville became the Woodstock of Texas, a refuge from the very cruel world of south Texas. I experienced it and love the place. But the founders and long-time administrators of the festival all acknowledge the pivotal role Yarrow played in making it what it was. And those who will never forgive him for what he did, will never forgive him, it's that simple. Like maybe he was using his stardom, and his association with the festival, to pick up groupies? That's possible. And he may have done it more than once, with some who were underage.

I never had trouble with Clinton being a sex addict, as his victims seemed to be at least willing and of age, though it's possible I didn't know them all. I had a little more trouble with Trump, who was actually a predator (assaulted the unwilling) and probably did a young 13-year-old knowing full well she wasn't of age. Their morality can be separate from their effect as a leader or at least it could in the case of Clinton, and perhaps JFK. We "separate the..." advocates say simply that they are separate things and it's possible to be a good leader and morally corrupt at the same time (for another example, look into MLK Jr.). But in the art field we would have to refuse to partake in a wide swath of good art if we were to be serious about simply rejecting the morally corrupt. And the odd thing is, they seem to go together, good art and moral corruption, like priests and altar boys. The cross between them is remarkably common, frequent, even ubiquitous.

I have to admit that there is some sense for the other side. If someone is really bad, the less you glorify them, praise them, put them in the spotlight, etc., the better. You can see people wince when other people praise Yarrow for his music or whatever - how does that make his victims feel? How can I say "let's not think about that" or even write paragraphs about his greatness while omitting his crimes? You can't. Much of this will be forgotten and to his victims, the sooner the better.

But Kerrville was historic in that the alliance between Yarrow and Kennedy was apparently similar to the general alliance between Texas longhairs and rednecks (longhair + redneck = longneck?) which produced Willie Nelson and made Austin the music capital of the nation. It wasn't just that they opened Kerrville up to be what it was; it became what it was because Texas needed it. It was a fantastic place in the same way Woodstock was fantastic - historically fantastic. And still is. I tip my hat to it and to Peter Yarrow - not to sweep under the rug all that terrible stuff he did, whatever it was. I'm with the "separate the artist..." crowd.

posted by tom @ 3:10 PM 0 comments

crypto & the hawk tuah

My more conservative friends would all say crypto is pure gambling; my ex-father-in-law says it's "suicide." My reading about it led me to the story about the Hawk Tuah Girl.

Let's go back a little further. My young sons always called my oldest daughter Josie Doge. We called her Doge igifor so many years that we felt like we owned the name. But, not being tuned in to memes and the online culture, the whole Doge culture came and went and I barely even knew about it. Then there was a Dogecoin, competing with Bitcoin as onne of the more stable kinds of crypto. And now crypto bros are working to make DOGE a government agancy. Appropriation! Travesty!

But back to crypto. Bitcoin is a stable one; Dogecoin is up there; but anyone can start one and see what happens. That's what the Hawk Tuah Girl did. She had a lot of fans on Instagram and she got them all to invest in her personal crypto. Thenn the price crashed and they all lost like millions. And needless to say they're mad and they're going to sue her.

It's not the first time this has happenned (it's called a soft rug-pull) - recently a 14-year-old kid started a crypto, got lots of investors, got out of it, made $20,000 in a day, and his parents got flooded with calls and had to disconnect their phone. It was legal what he did; what Hawk Tuah did was legal too. It's just pure gambling. You invest in crypto, it's only worth what someone will pay for it.

What's interesting is that some people blame the bots. Bots apparently can detect its rising value and buy, and then detect when it goes over the top and sell right away, and thus a $200 catastrophe becomes a 200 million catastrophe. The bots are all in there gambling too, and they're better than we are because they've seen it so much more often. They have it programmed into them.

I was interested in crypto - not so much gambling on one coin or another, but starting my own. It would be cool to have your own crypto. But how could you keep the bots at bay? It seems like a dicey situation, having your coin out there on the open market. As far as I can tell, the Hawk Tuah Girl was trusting some agent to run her whole PR thing. Some agent didn't quite know when to take a bat to the bots. And now she's sorry.

There is already no restriction on crypto, no regulation. At the same time anyone can start a coin, any bot can jump in there and buy one, raising the value. The price has been jumping because people think the Trump era will be the crypto era. Well Hallelujiah. But easy come, easy go. I'm not touching it, at least for now.

Labels: crypto

posted by tom @ 9:21 PM 0 comments

Furever Friends Anthology

 

---

Proud to be part of this anthology, a large book of many different stories, all romance, intended to help shelters deal with an influx of pets. Here's the information:

Furever Friends A Collection of Stories

Coming from Wycked Minds Publishing

Releasing November 30th! Get yours now, and let's help our furry, feathered, and scaled friends affected by the hurricanes that tore through the Southeast!

🐶🐱🦎🦜

When disaster strikes, not only humans are affected. Our four-legged companions are as well. Sadly, many get left behind, and rescues and shelters scramble to save them before it's too late.

This anthology is packed full of stories about animals who have been rescued and given a second chance at life! Each story is uniquely different as is each author.

All proceeds for this anthology go to Best Friends, a non-profit animal rescue that has mobilized to help animal shelters in the Southeast that have been affected by Hurricanes Helene and Milton.

https://books2read.com/ForeverFriendsAntho

🐶🐱🦎🦜

#comingsoon #preorder #bookpreorder #charityanthology #charityanthologies #hurricanesheleneandmilton #disasterrelief #recoveryeffort #fundraisers #romanceanthologies #romancecollections #fureverfriends #helpourfurryfeatheredscaledfriends #bestfriendsrescue #operationfureverfriends #helene #milton

posted by tom @ 10:01 AM 0 comments

school reform

Brooks, David. (2024, Nov. 14). How the Ivy League Broke America. The Atlantic. Online: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/12/meritocracy-college-admissions-social-economic-segregation/680392/.

The above article was given to me for free, for some reason; usually Atlantic articles are behind a paywall.

In my opinion school reform is a necessity and this article addresses the problem squarely. It is clear that education has failed and that the system has set up a distrust of the educated people that we were counting on. Need I say more? The article is good in identifying the problem and giving some concrete solutions. It's a start.

This is a topic that is close to my heart, having worked in academia most of my life. I now find that my special-education kids, the remaining ones, are underserved or failed by the modern schools, and it's not really the schools' fault. Teachers are the saints they've always been. Something (besides the pandemic) has gone wrong, very wrong, and we need help.

Labels: school reform

posted by tom @ 11:44 AM 0 comments