Click on the title to this post and you will read a diverting article on - I guess you would call it a hobby - pumpkin shooting in America. People in Delaware are building weapons of mass destruction to shoot 10 pound pumpkins into the air.
Econo-Girl has always believed that every country has something ridiculous about it. In Saudi Arabia, people 'picnic' in the parking lot of a grocery store. In an alley. On the sidewalk. Scenery and nature are not part of the equation. In Germany, on Walk-To-Work Day, the people walk in the street to work, but still obey all the traffic lights. I can't even begin to imagine that happening here, or anywhere else for that matter. In South Africa, drunk driving ads say "Be Careful When You Cross the Street" rather than "Don't Drink and Drive."
Every country lies to itself about something. In continental Europe it is the Holocaust and their role in it. In the United States it is how we treat the American Indian and African American. To get a better idea, read "Black Like Me." Classic book where a white Southerner disguises himself as a black man and walks around the segregationist South. A very dangerous thing to do. In Brazil, it is common for 10-year-old girls to have sex with adult boyfriends. At 12, they move in with them. The Greeks don't want to talk about the slaughter of the Armenians. The Austrians don't want to talk about cooperating with Hitler. And let's not forget the Japanese and their 'comfort' women, which they at least admit to now.
Econo-Girl mentions all this as a way of saying we are all ridiculous and have the potential for evil. Just as we point to the follies of others, we also have follies. Too many economists do not take the follies of humanity into account in predicting rational economic behaviour. Econo-Girl aims to set the matter straight.
2 comments:
So you are saying it is stupid to build a massive device whose sole purpose is to lob a pumpkin a mile through the air?
OK, now that I put it like that - it does seem pointless. but I look at it this way.
It keeps a bunch of people OFF the street.
And I do not think that lobbing a pumpkin is evil, in and of itself. It is actually an engineering challenge to build something that large and powerful that does not blow itself up.
Iggy,
Of course! You are so right! Otherwise these people might be walking around malls somewhere buying another Britney Spears CD.
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