Complexity is Simple

According to the New England Complex Systems Institute, high food prices triggered rioting around the world in 2008 and 2011 and we are due for another wave of global social unrest this summer.

The UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) says global food prices are becoming more volatile because...

“Increased vulnerability is being triggered by an apparent increase in extreme weather events and a dependence on new exporting zones, where harvest outcomes are prone to weather vagaries; a greater reliance on international trade to meet food needs at the expense of stock holding; a growing demand for food commodities from other sectors, especially energy; and a faster transmission of macroeconomic factors onto commodity markets, including exchange rate volatility and monetary policy shifts, such as changing interest rate regimes. 

What is more, financial firms are progressively investing in commodity derivatives as a portfolio hedge since returns in the commodity sector seem uncorrelated with returns to other assets. While this ‘financialisation of commodities’ is generally not viewed as the source of price turbulence, evidence suggests that trading in futures markets may have amplified volatility in the short term.”

Plain English translation:

• global warming: climate change from using fossil fuels
• deregulation: special export zones
• globalization: loss of national self-reliance
• peak oil: growing cash crops and biofuel instead of food
• capitalism: using food production as a bank

In other words the hippies are right. Allowing wealthy people and corporations to accumulate and trade control of land, industry and infrastructure gave us a cycle of reinvestment in technology and resource extraction, leading ultimately to a world with many more, healthier, wealthier, better-educated people. But this is also an volatile and expensive world, and at the peak of our prosperity we have decided to stop controlling the volatility and ignore the hidden costs.

Obamanation Day

Conservative megachurch pastor Rick Warren provided the invocation for the inauguration of the 44th president of the United States. In his prayer, Warren testified that the Lord is One, pleaded for forgiveness when we fight each other, and closed the name of "the One who changed my life, Yeshua, Isa, Jesus [prounounced 'hay-sooss' as in Spanish], Jesus [prounounced 'jee-zuss' as in English]"

"Yeshua" is a hebrew name popularly believed to be equivalent to the name Jesus. (Actually the correct hebrew name for Jesus is probably closer to "Yehoshua" which is often translated into English as Joshua.) "Isa" is the Arabic name for Jesus. So with these names Warren specifically addresses Jews and Muslims.

By using the spanish pronunciation of Jesus (though the compound name "jesucristo" is probably more common when referring to Jesus Christ as opposed to other people named Jesus,) Warren is reaching out to latinos, perhaps especially Roman Catholics. About 70% of the US hispanic population identify themselves as Catholic.

John Williams provided a musical composition entitled "Air and Simple Gifts" performed by Yo-Yo Ma (cello), Itzhak Perlman (violin), Gabriela Montero (piano) and Anthony McGill (clarinet). This instrumental peice is based on religious themes: The main theme is easily recognized as Elder Joseph Brackett's Shaker dance song "Simple Gifts", but before this theme was introduced I'm pretty sure I also heard the tune "Old 100th" which is used in several hymns, but which I most associate with the single verse "Praise God, from Whom All Blessings Flow."

Obama, in his address explicitly mentioned the usual trinity of American religions: Christians, Muslims and Jews, adding Hindus and a slightly mumbled recognition of nonbelievers. It would be difficult to properly express the diversity of American religion in a 20 minute speech, but with so much press attention on the problems of Israel and the Muslim world, at least we can remember that people are not defined only by which side they are expected to take in each violent conflict.