I’m King of This Blogging Conglomorate!

The title’s a joke, you see. Rex meaning “king” in Latin. And, well, James Cameron. And then there’s the fact I’ve been thinking about businesses lately. And, you know what? Forget it. Overexplaining again, I know, I know. Just, let me say that I almost went with "And now for the Bi-Partisan Outreach trick".

People often say that when the Titanic struck the iceberg afterward everything else was rearranging the deckchairs. I’ve always taken that to mean that once you pass the crisis point then there’s really no point in making pointless gestures. And that’s pretty good advice when you consider the sunk cost fallacy states that logically, your previous investments cannot factor into your current risk analysis.

But I have another metaphor about the Titanic. And bear with me because it’s a bit less refined and tested by time. But, that’s okay, that just means it’s cheaper, somehow. I say this. I say when the Titanic was steaming straight into the iceberg and the bridge crew came to the horrific realization that doom lay in their path and there was nothing they could do to prevent it, what do you think happened? Do you think the helmsman spent his time pointing to the navigator and screaming at him while the navigator screamed at the Captain and the Captain at the helmsmen, all seeking to escape the blame by shifting it onto just one of the many other people who shared responsibility for the course that had been lain. Or, do you think the helmsmen gripped the steering wheel with all his might and, straining mightily in the crisp, Atlantic air, his sweat mixing with the condensation of his breath and he heaved and heaved, trying to shift the rudder in one frantic, last ditch attempt to alter course just that last, little degree and slide past the looming iceberg on a sheet of nearly frozen water? I guess it depends on what kind of helmsmen you have, doesn’t it? After all, it’s the Captain (O Captain! My captain!, you know?) who has to go down with the ship, not the helmsman. He might have to turn off the lights on his way out but he still gets to slip out the door and not have to learn how to grow gills real, real fast.

My point is thus: While there is most certainly a time for finger-pointing and accountability. And rest assured that this time is no doubt looming on the horizon for anyone who lives in fear of it – their gods will judge them at the end of things, if no one else will, after all, meaning they only have so long to make amends before it becomes to late so they’ve got that going against them. However, while there is still the remote chance that the ship of state can be spared from floundering on the rocks everyone needs to grab the rubber and pull as hard as they can. Because close only counts with horseshoes and nukes all we need to do is juuuust slip by and survive to float another day. That might be all we can do at this point, but those costs are gone and irretrivable, it’s what we’re going to lose or gain from this point that matters. It’s how and why and where and which direction to shift that rudder that has to be the priority. Because if we’re on the wrong course we just can’t take the chance that today is the day we hit the iceberg, can we? Our metaphor’s getting stretched thin. It’s either too late already in which case this doesn’t matter. Or it isn’t judgment[1] day yet so we’ve got some breathing room. Our response has to be measured and based in our current reality. We, as a country, have seen and survived worse scrapes than this and we have to get beyond our collective bias that the ever fleeting now is the super most important moment ever in the history of all time. Not that icebergs aren’t looming on the horizon but they’re always going to be there and have always been there if you take a long view – the danger is real and potential. Both particle and wave and we won’t know until the probability matrix collapses on top of our heads which one we’re dealing with. But if there’s one thing that can cut across partisan lines it’s that the United States needs to survive. The rest is just quibbling over the details.

[1] – I hate English sometimes. Spell-checker informs me this is the correct spelling. Yes, sometimes I do bother with that little reference tool, thank you very much, just not always. Yet, logic tells me I should just slap a “ment” on a “judge” for “judgement”. That's a couple moments scrambling for a hardcopy dictionary that I won't see back anytime soon. Puts me in the mind of Dewey and his attempts to simplify English spelling. He was the guy who came up with the Dewey decimal system, after all, and he was all about efficiency. Ah, another time, though.