If this article is correct and if I understand what it is saying then more than a half-century after the blast, that detonation has left Earth’s atmosphere a radiological ringing bell and every ounce of iron forged on that bell picks up the tune. That blows my mind.

It terms of blowing my mind with the smallness and interconnectedness of our planet it’s right up there with the fact that every glass of water on Earth contains molecules from George Washington’s body.

As policy-makers navigate the financial crisis, the leadership styles on display are interesting. The predominant style is a single-solution approach. One idea (TARP or the Bad-Bank) is selected at a time and incremental changes are made as new information and ideas emerge. Contrast this with a more multi-solution approach where several possible solutions are put forward, strengths and weaknesses are discussed, adjustments are made and finally, one solution is chosen from among many. For example, suggestions could include TARP-style cash infusions, creation of a Bad-Bank, creation of a Good-Bank, do nothing, etc.

The single solution model has the advantages of speed and inspiring confidence in leadership. It is faster to push through a single policy measure than to discuss many and cull the best elements from each. It also gives an appearance of strength and inspires confidence when a single strategy is put forward with an air of certainty and authority. The weaknesses of this approach are that it hinders the emergence of other potential solutions, it creates an incentive for decision-makers to ignore potential weaknesses of the strategy, it is difficult to adapt if this approach fails, and the damage to confidence in leadership is more severe if the strategy proves unsuccessful.

On the other hand, if leaders adopt a more conversational multi-solution approach where many ideas are discussed and one is settled upon, the process itself lays a foundation for adaptation in response to failure. The process fosters the emergence of alternative ideas that may not emerge in a more authoritarian single-solution environment. The discourse involved in this sort of leadership model creates an incentive for the weaknesses of each possible solution to be examined. The weaknesses of this approach are that it is slower and it may not inspire the same sort of confidence as a strong leader authoritatively announcing a single solution with affirmations of certainty and assurance. On the other hand it does not lead to a failure of confidence in leadership when such affirmations are shown to be hollow.

Since a major part of the response to the financial crisis was aimed at inspiring confidence and allaying fear, it’s understandable why the confidently presented single-solution approach has predominated. At the same time, I’m not sure it is the best way to actually resolve the economic and ethical problems that face us as a nation.

One of the most refreshing parts of my summer was a little book called “A Simple Way to Pray” by Martin Luther. He wrote it for his barber of many years when he asked Luther how he ought to pray. I learned from this book the (obvious?) lesson that I can’t pray well from a cold start. I need to prepare my heart to pray well. Luther would begin by turning to the Gospels and reading a saying of our Lord or some other such passage to warm his heart to pray. When his heart was warmed to pray he would begin. I’ve found that preparing my heart before praying helps me pray much better.

Read Luther’s book. It’s only a letter actually, just a few pages long.

This one reads well online.

This one prints to a booklet if you print it doublesided.

This one is fullsize if the others are hard to read and you don’t mind waiting a moment for the download.

He played a good game. He eventually blundered a bishop as he tried to win a pawn and a rook for a rook. I then forced the trade of both queens and he chose to trade the remaining rooks to lead us into the endgame with me a bishop and pawn ahead. I think the position was essentially won at that point. It dragged on for another 20 moves before he resigned. I came close to blundering it myself by moving to centralize my king in the endgame when I should have gone straight for his passed pawn. I caught the error in time to capture the passed pawn before it was too late.

I just had a thought. Foreclosures are at the highest level our nation has seen since the Depression. Estimates are that barring Federal intervention (and perhaps in spite of it) a couple million more ARM’s will reset before the smoke clears and a solid chunk of these resets will result in foreclosures. Already in some areas it is not uncommon to see families in front yards full of furniture after a forcible eviction has been served. This amounts to a comparable, perhaps larger, refugee crisis than Katrina, just one that is not focused in such a narrow region as a single city.

The thought is just that a lot of folks need our prayers during this time. Many of them will be discovering that they have little else.

Me and a couple buddies were in an aquatics class during my Junior year. We thought it would be a pretty easy A because we were swimmers and polo players. We lived in the water already. How hard could it be? We were right, except for one unit of the class, synchronized swimming. How could we maintain our adolescent sense of masculinity and compose a synchronized swimming routine? Here’s the result.

I think we took at least one of the shirts out of the lost & found in the locker rooms. If I remember we composed the whole routine the night before and it was nothing but each of the required movements one after the other. We added in a Hungarian drill from polo and then we did a throw to show off the treading water skills. The fellas threw me completely out of the water without touching bottom. The camerawork really falters at that point, but it was a pretty sweet little maneuver. Click on the image to see the full video.