"An old method for testing if the alcohol content was correct involved mixing equal amounts of gunpoweder and whiskey, a seemingly volatile concoction. If the powder wouldn't burn when a flame was put to it, the whiskey was too weak. If it burned brightly, it was too strong. A slow even burn with a blue flame signified perfection; it was 100 percent proof.
"In another method to test the strength of this homespun whiskey, the stiller studied the bead. He'd shake the whiskey in a glass, and if the bubbles were about the size of No. 5 shot, the proof was good. If the bubbles were big and loose—known as "rabbit eyes" or "frog eyes"—then it was too weak" (54).
Image from drinkstuff.com
Smaller Means Better Story
In shot sizes, 7 is smaller than 5, which would suggest stronger whiskey according to the bead-size method of proof. Jack Daniel was a master marketer. He probably called his whiskey "No. 7" to differentiate his product from other No. 5-proved whiskeys. "One a scale of 1 to 5, this whiskey's a 7."
Later in his life, Jack gave control of his distillery to a nephew, Lem Motlow, who instituted some changes (not all successful), including introducing a No. 5 line of whiskey, "called that simply because it was a younger whiskey than No. 7" (196).
Truer Than True
Many divergent legends about No. 7 exist, including that it was the seventh trial batch, that Jack had seven girlfriends, that his signature J looked like the number 7, and so on. The distillery loves these storied myths. Maintaining a mystery has been part of Jack's recipe for brand success since 1866.
In “The Illusions of Entrepreneurship,” author and professor Scott A. Shane shows the reality of American entrepreneurship as being decidedly different from the myths that have come to surround it.
An A. Malachi Mixon III Professor of Entrepreneurial Studies at Case Western Reserve University, Shane equates "entrepreneurship" with small business start-ups. He compared data from the past 30 years done by university researchers on business startups and found, first of all, that the United States isn’t very entrepreneurial.
In 2002, the top 10 countries in percent of population that owned new and young businesses were Thailand (27.2%), China, New Zealand, Greece, Brazil, Switzerland, Australia, Jamaica, Venezuela, and Finland (16).
America was at 9.9%. And America hasn’t gotten more entrepreneurial over time. In fact, Shane cites that a higher proportion of people started businesses in 1910 than they do today in the U.S (7).
Shane points out that the more entrepreneurial countries are generally poorer than less entrepreneurial countries. One explanation: capitalism, as equipment increases production, more people quit working for themselves (traditionally, farming) and go work for other people who own the equipment.
Also, as countries get richer, “they change where economic value is created; first from agriculture to manufacturing, then then from manufacturing to services,” which also accounts for a shift from people working for themselves to people working for others (19).
Image from highwoodsbees.com
Farmers and Postmen
In the U.S. from 1983 to 2002, all 100% of horticultural specialty farmers were self-employed, and 98.59% of all farmers were self-employed. Health practitioners, podiatrists, dentists, auctioneers, fishers, and authors all scored as over 70% self-employed, as well (49).
The lowest percentage of self-employed workers during that same time were Federal mail carriers (0.02%) and elementary school teachers (0.03%). Police, high school teachers, bank tellers, miners, technicians, administrative support and assemblers all scored less than 2% self-employed.
7.2% of engineers were self-employed;
12% of car and boat salesmen;
26% of actors and directors;
29% of carpenters;
39% of lawyers;
45% of musicians and dressmakers;
50% of hunters and trappers;
54% of veterinarians;
71% of writers.
Photo from eating colorful.blogspot.com
Wyoming and California
San Francisco has a far lower proportion of small businessmen than the U.S. city with the highest: Laramie, WY. Per capita, there are two and a half "new-business entrepreneurs" in Laramie for every one entrepreneur in San Francisco, which is ranked 121st behind places like Bozeman, MT; Farmington, NM; Rock Springs, WY; Rapid City, SD; Pikesville, KY; Laredo, TX; Brunswick, GA; Newark, NJ; Anchorage, AK; and Enid, Oklahoma (23).
Most of Americans think only of venture-capital backed, high-growth technology businesses as "entrepreneurial," but those firms—Microsoft, Apple, Google, etc.—make up only a tiny fraction of new businesses. Businesses of opportunity rather than necessity, venture-capital backed tech and medical companies generate virtually all value and jobs from start-up businesses.
“Since 1970, venture capitalists have funded an average of 820 new companies per year. These 820 start-ups—out of the more than 2 million efforts to start a business in this country every year—have enormous economic impact. In 2003, companies that were backed by venture capitalists employed 10 million people, or 9.4% of the private sector labor force in the United States, and generated ... 9.6% of business sales in this country” (162).
That means venture capitalists only fund 0.03% of all new businesses every year, making the odds of getting venture capital for a new business 1 in 4000. The odds of fatally slipping in the bath or shower? 1 in 2232 (91).
So what do most small businesses in the U.S. look like?
Shane says, “The typical entrepreneur [is] a married white man in his forties who started his business because he didn’t want to work for someone else and who is just trying to make a living, not build a high-growth company.
“The characteristics that make people more likely to start businesses aren’t all the desirable ones that our myths associate with entrepreneurship. The data show that the likelihood that a person starts a business increases if he:
is unemployed
works part-time
has changed jobs often
makes less money
“Finally ... the experiences often associated with being an entrepreneur—immigrating, dropping out of school, and networking—don’t actually increase the odds that people will start businesses.
“Instead, going to college, getting a professional degree, and having some experience managing others in a business setting are the experiences that actually increase a person’s odds of starting a company” (63).
According to Shane's research, the typical start-up is home-based, employs one person, and has no intention or prospects of growing. It was started using $25,000 or less of the founder’s savings in a run-of-the-mill industry where there are many firms and profits are slim. The business's lifespan is five years or less, during which time the founder makes less money and has fewer job benefits while working more hours than if he worked for someone else (160 - 161).
Image from Flickr.com
Don't Forget the Death and Taxes
In his NOLO series book "Deduct It! Lower Your Small Business Taxes," accountant Steven Fishman reports that these kinds of sole proprietor start-ups are much more likely to get audited than other business entities—especially middle-income sole proprietors (462).
In 2010, the IRS audited:
0.4% of partnerships
0.4% of S corporations
0.7% of regular C corporations with assets worth less than $250,000
However, in that same year, the IRS audited:
2.5% of sole proprietors earning between $25,000 and $100,000
4.7% of sole proprietors between $100,000 and $200,000, and
3.3% of sole proprietors above $200,000
Fishman advises that incorporating or forming an LLC greatly reduces your audit risk, but comes with added complexity, fees, and, in some states, additional taxes (467).
Don't Believe the Job-Creation Hype
Contrary to popular political arguements, Shane says “start-ups don’t generate as many jobs as most people think, and the jobs they create aren’t as good as jobs in existing companies” (161).
“New companies—those that are one to two years old—employ only 1% of people in this country,” Shane says, “Newly formed firms account for only 6 to 7% of gross or net new jobs created every year. ... For ‘new’ firms to create 50% of net new jobs, we would have to expand the definition of ‘new’ to include all firms that are nine years old and younger” (158).
Add to this, “most businesses are started by people who have a significant amount of experience working in the industry in which they are launching their new companies.” (69).
Photo from heirloom radio.com
Small Business Is Usually Necessity
So why do Americans start small businesses that aren’t innovative, have no intentions to grow, lack a competitive advantage, and generally involve providing the same skill or service provided at the founder’s last place of employment? Because they are forced to.
Should we create policies that make it easier and more attractive for more people to start these small businesses? We should not. America isn’t getting more entrepreneurial. More than anything, we are repackaging entrepreneurship out of surplus unemployment.
Shane says we need to reduce loans, subsidies, regulatory exemptions, and tax benefits for small businesses. “Because the average existing new firm is more productive than the average new firm, we would be better off economically if we eliminated policies that encourage people to start businesses instead of taking jobs working for others”—assuming that jobs working for others exist (163).
Shane dismisses the claim that we don’t know which start-ups will become high-growth businesses. “This view may be politically appealing, but it is naive. It assumes that we can’t identify the things that make new businesses more likely to survive, generate profits, increase sales, and hire people.
“Unless the beliefs of venture capitalists and sophisticated business angels are completely wrong, and the research discussed in this book is completely incorrect, we know what criteria to focus on” (63).
Image from Daily Mail UK
What If You Can't Resist the Myth?
For those who feel they must start a business, Shane’s advice is fairly straightforward:
Recognize that 90% of the fastest growing private companies in this country sell to businesses (118)
Start marketing sooner rather than not at all (119)
Don’t compete on price, but rather on quality or service (119)
“Improve your chances of success as an entrepreneur by starting a company in an industry that is better for start-ups” (116)
D'uh. From 1982 to 2000, the best industry for start-ups was pulp milling. If you started a paper pulp mill during the 1980s or 90s, you had an 18% chance of becoming a big, rich, job creating, Inc. 500 firm. Six mills made it in 18 years!
Computer firms were second with 4.2% of 2,359 firms becoming Inc. 500 firms; Guided missiles and space vehicles were third with 3.3% of 60 (115).
Other notable industries and proportions:
Measuring and controlling devices, 2.0% of 2,482;
Communications equipment, 1.9% of 1,543;
Drugs, 1.8% of 1,092;
Legal services, 0.008% of 129,207;
Eating and drinking places, 0.007% of 494,731;
Used merchandise store, 0.004% of 24,442;
Automotive repair shops, 0.004% of 124,725;
Beauty shops, 0.004% of 79,081;
Residential care, 0.004% of 27,710;
Videotape rental, 0.004%, or 1 of 27,793.
Even with the terrible odds, we cannot help but admire the riverboat gambler mentality of those who give small business a whirl. After all, somebody wins the lottery: an attitude of hopeless optimism perfectly in line with America's Winner Take All economy.
What If It's Not About The Money?
The only other explanation Shane gives for why people would start a small business involves the human perception of satisfaction. “It makes people happier,” he says, as 62.5% of people who work for themselves report being satisfied or very satisfied with their jobs, compared to only 45.9% of others.
Women cite the flexibility to work while caring for small children. Men and women both cite the importance of working in a small organization where they can interact directly with everyone and have more autonomy, flexibility and control over their lives.
“Studies show that to be as satisfied when he is working for others as he is when he is working for himself, the average person needs to earn 2.5 times as much money” (109).
Image from fashionfame.com
Is "Satisfaction" Enough?
At the core, it depends on how much an individual enjoys working hard for less money while enjoying the perception of more freedom. Those feelings of satisfaction are probably not worth the opportunity cost of more gainful employment at established businesses, except for those who are truly satisfied working alone against the odds.
Perhaps this fatalism, mixed with a handful of strike-it-rich stories, is what we really mean by “the American entrepreneur" in our cultural myth.
However, to feed the myth by artificially forcing the rates of entrepreneurship up is bad economic policy. As Shane concludes, “Increasing the number of people founding construction firms and hair salons and taxi services that don’t do anything innovative isn’t going to do us much good. In fact, it might hinder our economic growth because new businesses are, on average, less productive than existing ones” (162).
Any political argument that exalts small business probably plays on voters' minds in the same way that Las Vegas casinos do: by turning losing odds into big gains for the few who get the many to put some skin in the game.
Image from mlive.com
As Paul Krugman stated in an op-ed piece "America Isn't a Corporation," we should not mistake governing a macro-system as conceptually the same as doing what’s best for an individual firm.
Shane’s book suggests that perhaps we should govern in a way that’s actually worse for the majority of individual small businesses and strive to create conditions that supplant their having to start in the first place.
Kill Mom-and-Pop businesses? Pay Mom and Pop better in the job market than the satisfaction they feel "working for themselves"? Our myths suggest we will not make that happen: myths about working hard, myths about creating jobs, myths about freedom.
Source: “The Illusions of Entrepreneurship: The Costly Myths That Entrepreneurs, Investors, and Policy Makers Live By,” Scott A. Shane, Yale University Press, 2008.
Compromise is talk; Collaboration is action. In compromise, everyone represents his own interests and fights to satisfy them in a negotiation of terms. In collaboration, every person works together to build something that changes as it grows and defines itself.
Compromise requires opposing sides and conflict.It makes conflict the central element of problem solving and puts a premium on maintaining an asymmetry of knowledge. Cat and mouse. Cops and robbers. Court-ordered minimums.
Nobody gets his way in a compromise, and everyone must cooperate for a payoff that is less than the sum of the parts. It’s every man for himself.
Collaboration requires cooperation, too. But in collaboration, everyone pushes his interests to the center of the table. Knowledge is shared, not hoarded. Expertise is offered, not auctioned. Self-organizing maximums, as long as social anxiety doesn't turn it all to mush.
Collaboration can create something greater than the sum of the parts. It satisfies the separate interests each participant has, while illuminating a bigger, shared interest underneath it all.
Compromisers don't share. They mind turf. In fact, that’s what they were doing the entire time you wondered what the hell they were doing.
It is difficult to collaborate with compromisers, because they cannot contribute to the actual work of a project. Contracts become the main product for compromisers, and those who plan on breaking contracts love nothing more than to draw one up. “It won’t work without us,” is a favorite slogan, because it absolutely could.
The words say it all. “Compromise” means to settle differences with mutual concession or reciprocal modification of demands. “Com + promise” literally means to declare what will be done, together: to promise something together.
“Col + laborate," on the other hand, literally means to engage in productive activity, together: to labor on something together.
Henry Clay of Kentucky, The Great Compromiser
Beware the compromiser. Promises over action, concessions over gain, his incredible devotion to finding a balance between the slave and free state.
The compromiser fears he has nothing to offer in collaboration. He is correct. If not in the beginning, by the end, he will leave the business of enforcing rules to people who, for better or worse, never wanted them.
"This place in the mountains, amid nature’s casualness toward death and birth, is the perfect host for the inspiration of ideas: harsh at times, life-threatening in its winters of destruction, but tender in attention to the details of every petal of every wildflower resurrected in the spring. Nature and creativity obey the same laws to the same end: life."
Let consciousness rise up through your abdomen up through your body up through your neck and finally out the top of your head. Dissolve there into the light around you.
In this way you may enter directly into the pure realm of light. The uncertainties of life will not affect you. Recognition and liberation are simultaneous.
Listen without distraction. You have not recognized your own nature and now you experience painful uncertainties of life and death. Give up anger give up attachment and give up yearning for relatives and friends. Take refuge in the buddha. With your head held high, enter the human realm any distraction dissolving back into the heart.
Anything that has a shape will crumble away. Anything in a flock will disband. We are all like bees alone in the world buzzing and searching with no place to rest.
Delusions are as various as the reflections ofthe moon on a rippling sea. Beings so easily become caught in a net of confused pain. May you develop compassion boundless as the sky so that all may rest in the clear light of their own awareness.
Funeral Shoes, Backstreet Cultural Museum, New Orleans
The Original Lady Buckjumpers Annual Second Line Parade, 2011, New Orleans
I made this family of three video ads for Write Around Portland, a nonprofit organization where I have volunteered for five or six years. Each video features—and was written by—a participant from one of the community writing workshops.
The Brigade produced, directed, and edited the videos. We shot the entire thing on an iPhone 4S using a tripod and this badass Steadicam Smoothee.
According to Cynthia Zayn and Kevin Dibble, authors of Narcissistic Lovers, there are 10 traits psychologists look for when diagnosing a person with Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD).
A person suffering NPD will:
Possess a grandiose sense of self importance.
Exaggerate achievements and expects superior recognition.
Believe himself special and believe only special people can understand him.
Search constantly for "ideal" love.
Fantasize about unlimited success, power or beauty.
Need constant admiration and praise.
Feel entitled to take advantage of others to achieve his goals.
Have no empathy for the needs of others.
Act snobby and arrogant.
Envy others and believe others envious of him.
The Narcissist's constant search for ideal love leads him to make proclamations about his failures (him or her, of course, though narcissists tend to be men by a 3 to 1 ratio).
Statements like, "Oh, I'm the king of bad relationships" usually belie a Narcissist's need for recognition of how bad and numerous his relationships are, even though it is his own narcissism that demands "ideal" love, dooming real relationships with real, unidealized people to failure.
Every time a Narcissist enters a relationship, he believes "this could be the one" in order to fulfill the ideal, "happily-ever-after" fantasy.
When the relationship ultimately fails, the Narcissist must "troll" for "new supply" of narcissistic attention. "Supply" describes the need the Narcissist substitutes for love.
The best mate for a narcissist tends to be another narcissist, though co-dependents will suffice when a narcissist is in search of good supply.
Narcissa Whitman Memorial, South Pass, WY, from www.wyomingtalesandtrails.com
According to Zayn and Dibble, all alcoholics are narcissists, but not all narcissists are alcoholics. The constant need to maintain quality narcissistic supply dominates NPD sufferers in the same way that drugs dominate drug addicts.
Narcissistic supply comes in two varieties: somatic and cerebral. Somatic narcissism is a need for sex and extreme physical desire from a partner. Cerebral narcissism is a need to feel smart and have a supply of intellectual admiration. Both forms of supply require the Narcissist be the focus of sexual or mental attention.
When a Narcissist no longer gets the supply he needs, he usually ends a relationship immediately and walks away on the spot. Often pretending the relationship never happened, the Narcissist will accuse an ex-partner of "stalking" when that person merely seeks normal, healthy closure to a relationship that they had no idea was ending.
The Narcissist rarely needs closure, because he has already lined up another co-dependent to give him narcissistic supply. When a Narcissist returns to an ex- (and many do), the ex- should be aware that their little Nar is in bad need of supply, not an actual relationship and certainly not "love."
Image from Psychologytoday.com
Narcissism has its roots in early childhood relationships with parents or parental figures. The narcissistic child does not receive love or attention based on who he is, but rather based on who a parent wants the child to be. This damages the development of a child's true self, and the child creates a false self as a way to get acceptance, approval and love.
A narcissistic parent may groom a child to be his or her co-dependent narcissistic supplier. The child's activities and accomplishments only matter to the narcissistic parent in so far as they reflect well on the parent's own sense of self. The child's sense of self does not exist to the narcissistic parent.
The child of a narcissist can grow up to become an adult Narcissist himself. The Narcissist is terrified that people will know his true self, so all of his energy focusses on intentional acts and deliberate choices designed to conceal his true self from others. Often these choices will involve elaborate deception of a co-dependent who provides the critical narcissistic supply.
The deception narcissists employ is like a director who demands actors perform exactly as they are told. In fact, many former co-dependents describe relationships with narcissists as performing in a play for which they did not know the script. Confusion and distortion of facts are the Narcissist's best friends in this deceptive stageplay.
The deception has a term: "gaslighting." Gaslighting gets its name from an actual movie in which the male lead flickers lights in a house and denies that its happening for so long that he makes his wife doubt her own sanity.
If you find yourself constantly doubting what happened and you continue to question what you think are objective facts, then you might be under a Narcissist's control. ("There! Didn't you see it? The lights flickered again. I swear they did!")
All relationships are about control to the Narcissist, because a lack of control makes the Narcissist feel vulnerable to exposure of his true self, which he fears is unlovable.
Narcissists tend to hate holidays and gift giving, because holidays take focus away from the Narcissist and give it to the occasion at large. A Narcissist also feels the gifts he receives do not reflect his own magnanimity: Gifts are insults, and show "how little people understand me." Thus, it's not uncommon for the Narcissist to start fights during holiday festivities in order to reclaim control and attention.
The only known successful tactic for dealing with a Narcissist is the "Zero Contact Rule," where a co-dependent does not allow any contact with the Narcissist, or, in unavoidable cases, resists any meaningful contact, keeping everything on a superficial level.
As a last ditch effort at control, a Narcissist who feels exposed by an unwilling co-dependent will usually explode in a narcissistic rage episode, where the only goal is to obliterate the target emotionally or physically. This rage is a defining characteristic of the disorder. Rage can come out of nowhere, and the Narcissist usually returns to his normal behavior soon afterward and pretends that it never happened.
Image from thanasis.com
Narcissism gets its name from the Greek myth of Narcissus (and Echo, but Narcissus would likely want the tale to be his alone.) In the myth, Narcissus could find no partner ideal enough or worthy of his love until he sat by the edge of a pond, where he fell in love with his own reflection and died there, gazing at it.
Flowers of the species Narcissus, common name daffodil, grow in wetlands, often around shores surrounding lakes and ponds. The flowers bend on their long stems to overhang the reflective surface of the water.
All flowers of narcissus species contain the alkaloid poison lycorine.
In game theory, a game called “Hawks & Doves” imagines a showdown between two birds, both of which act on instinct and with a survival tactic to win a resource, say food or a breeding opportunity.
Every bird’s tactic is one of two options: he either fights (hawk) or fakes like he will fight and flees if the other bird doesn’t back down (dove).
If two birds in conflict both be Hawks, they fight to the point of injury, and ceteris paribus each has a 50% chance of winning and a 50% chance of losing. It’s a probability coin toss.
Being nearly fatally injured is worse for the loser than winning is beneficial for the winner. You may win the fight and eat or breed, which is good, but that guy almost died, which is really bad.
We might score the fight +50 for the winner and –80 for the loser. Because all fights according to the conditions of the game are always 50/50 odds, the average payout for the fight is (50 minus 80) divided by 2 = –15, which means over the long run and after enough fights, all hawks average a loss.
If two birds in conflict both be Doves, then they both pretend to want to fight until one or the other eventually backs down. This could take a second, or it could last for days, but neither of them ever intend to fight, only display as though they will.
As with two hawk fights, the winner in a dove standoff gets a resource, which we valued at +50. The losing dove gets no resources, but he also doesn’t get injured, so that’s a zero payoff rather than a big negative.
However, both doves spend energy pretending they are going to fight, so that must count for something negative. Say they both spend the same energy posing like fighters and expend –10 of energy each, which means the winning dove nets +40 and the losing dove, –10.
Unlike with the hawks, the average payout for a two-dove showdown is a gain, (40 – 10)/2 which equals +15, which means over the long run and after enough chest-bump standoffs, every dove averages a win.
So why isn’t everyone a non-fighter for a positive average gain? Because when you’re a hawk, the payoff is risk-free when you encounter a dove. You take it all, +50, and, at the first little peck in the head the dove backs down and gets a zero.
In the game, the dove doesn’t even waste standoff energy when he sees he’s against a hawk. Hawks beat doves. Every time. In the game. It’s a more complex version of the game "Chicken."
Music break:
In "Hawks & Doves," there are NOT two kinds of birds. There is one species of bird with different tendencies to express either hawk or dove behavior. The species expresses hawk and dove behavior in proportion to how the payoffs for survival condition that behavior.
If most everyone expresses dove behavior, then a hawk can make a killing with little risk.
If most everyone expresses hawk behavior, then it’s going to get bloody with a lot of injured losers. And though he wins against doves, every hawk’s going to lose half the time when he fights another hawk.
If you crunch the numbers for payouts of +50 for winning, –80 for losing fights, and –10 for bluffing, then the average payouts for hawks and doves look like this:
where p is the proportion of the population playing hawk, and (1 – p), the proportion playing dove.
In stable populations, the average payoffs between hawks and doves are equal, which makes p = 0.7 in the example: a world with 70% hawks and 30% doves.
If that world started far from stability, say with 1 hawk and 99 doves, it would many generations later have 70% hawks and 30% doves (The world would “approach” that proportion).
If that world started with 99 hawks and 1 dove, it would also generations later have 70% hawks and 30% doves.
If that world started with 50 hawks and 50 doves, it would still, generations later, have 70% hawks and 30% doves.
This all assumes the average payoffs stay the same through the generations. This also assumes the behavior stays the same: a species of bird exhibiting hawk and dove behavior, stuck in a timeless struggle against one another for an evolutionary stable strategy.
But that’s not what happens.Mutation happens. New behaviors begin to show hawk and dove behavior blended in the same strategy. Perhaps there's a new kind of bird that beats up on doves, but won’t fight any hawks. Bully!
Perhaps it's a bird that will sometimes fight hawks and win, but knows when to be a dove and take a dive rather than lose. Perhaps it's a hawk all its life and then, one day, switches, out of the blue.
In game theory, the hawk and dove behavior isn't choosen. The birds play out probabilities of possible phenotypes and successful mutations arise to either live or not live. They are automatons.
In the human world, we’d like to think we can choose. Suppose the birds choose, too?
Cooperation is the best choice for maximizing resources. Guaranteed. It's been proven mathematically and morally. If the Hawks & Doves and the crafty Mutations amongst them would all share, then we wouldn't have so much conflict. Perhaps that's true, depending upon how much of the resource was available and for how long.
What usually develops during cooperation is the simple game theory game, Prisoner's Dilemma, where the hawk may agree not to fight, but he's afraid the other bird is a hawk, too, and won't live up to his promise not to fight. So the cooperative hawk feels like he's going to get taken. He's afraid violence will disturb the peace.
In the 1950s, a contest was held to solve the problem of the Prisoner's Dilemma. What's the best strategy for hawks willing to be cooperative but distrustful of other bird's commitment to peace? Computer scientists, philosophers, mathematicians: answers came from all around. Organizers pitted strategies against one another. Some strategies involved extremely complicated math and decision matrices.
The winningest strategy was simple: Tit-for-Tat, "do unto others" until they do you wrong, then do to them as they did to you. Over enough games played, Tit-for-Tat won.
In contrast to righteous melodrama, a decidedly non-Christian approach to the medicine-show game was favored by Southern pitchmen who specialized in the sale of tobies. These lucky charms, also known as mojo bags, mojo hands, or conjure bags, are in use even today. Tobies are integral to hoodoo, a body of folk magic that combines African, European and Native American lore.
Like many folk-magic traditions, hoodoo places a great deal of confidence in the mystical properties of certain roots, herbs and minerals. Mojo hands typically contain a root called “High John the Conqueror,” prized for its magical power. ...
Mojo hands containing High John the Conqueror root are believed to improve one’s love life, break jinxes, attract money, bestow luck, stop evil conditions, keep a lover at home, compel another to do one’s will, find and keep steady work, put an end to fearful thoughts, heal the guilty heart, break bad habits, win a court case, master dangerous situations, bless a new baby, and much more.
J.C. Julian worked in the oil fields near Seminole, Oklahoma, during the Great Depression. To supplement his income, he pitched tobies on the side. He appeared to be sincere about the value of his product:
“A toby helps people to be lucky. If you want something real bad, you don’t get what you want without some help. That’s where my tobies come in. I guarantee my tobies. But don’t never let nobody else touch your toby. If you do, the toby will lose its charm. ... The last time I got careless and left my toby home, I damn near got myself killed. I ought to have had better sense than to go to a dance sober and without my toby. If I hadn’t have been sober, I couldn’t of got drunk. And if I had had my toby with me, I wouldn’t of got in that fight. And even if I couldn’t of kept out of the fight, I wouldn’t of been the one to get all cut up.”
A typical sing-song, hypnotic toby sales pitch was street theater:
“Put up and built by the Seven Sisters at the Crackerjack Drug Store at New Orleans, Louisiana. My toby will bring you Honor, Riches and Happiness. It will help you Win in All Games. It will bring you Health and Wealth. It will Protect you against Evil Spirits and Witchcraft. Thieves nor Enemies cannot bother you. Now listen, everything you turn your hand to Prospers you and makes you Money. You succeed in your Trade, Job or Business. You got Seven Wishes to make with each Lucky Bag. Hold the Bag in your Left hand, blow your hot breath on it three times, and Make your Wish, and see if it don’t come to Pass before the Seventh day is gone. To hold your True Loved one. To get anyone you love. To Protect yourself against all Law. To Kill all Voodoo and Witchcraft. Buy a toby. Just one dollar. But it’s worth fifty.”
Tobies were outlawed in many states (including Oklahoma), but with an irresistible offer like that, business continued apace. Julian sold his bags to all kinds of people, but his best customers were poor folks.
“Let me tell you right now it’s the dumb folks who don’t buy tobies to help them. Understand that right off! Poor folks need more luck than rich folks. That’s the reason they buy more tobies.”
The Cambio Man makes change in the street. He stands on the corner across from the bank ATM where big bills spit out in denominations too large for the local street vendors and merchants to break. The Cambio Man breaks bills.
He breaks bread with bankers, too, and keeps his cut, though he still lives in the old neighborhood. He walks past the old stores. He runs the bases with the children on the old ball field north of the harbor. When he works, he holds his Cordobas behind his back in a thick folded stack consisting mostly tens and twenties, with the 500 Cord notes and U.S. $20s on the inside of the wad. The Cambio Man dresses nicer than everyone else and stands in the shade. He doesn't sweat. He wears a pair of khakis, white-soled shoes and a crisp plaid shirt.
"Cambio?" he asks. "Cambio?" he asks. "Cambio?" all day. "Cambio?" every day.
Wednesday, January 18, 2012 at 12:11AM ;)
Image from drinkstuff.com;)
Image from theselvedgeyard.wordpress.com
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