Free The Animal

My case rests. Just take in the first 10. That’s all I did, and honestly, I could have fallen for a couple or a few (at least less than 10). My point? We are all susceptible to being fooled. April 1st is a rare gift: you get to know you’re a “fool” pretty quick. It’s a good exercise in humility, but more precisely: fallibility. It’s the rest of the year that’s the problem and it happens in myriad ways. Hey: These people vote. Political implications? My guess? Randomness to the rescue. Thank god for randomness and some bit of foolish “diversity.” The process of making us less foolish generally, is evolutionary, and thus very, very, very long term. But any individual already has the tools available to mitigate the carnage all by himself. This goes to being among the elite. It’s a decision and commitment; not a birth sentence.

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I dunno, perhaps you’re one who thinks it’s silly — a person I can be on any given day. On the other hand, if you’ve followed along you know my affinity for randomness and being fooled. Being fooled is the most important aspect, because we really can’t do anything about randomness. And why would we want to? What’s life without surprises? April Fools is a decent, once per year exercise in demonstrating just how susceptible we all are. Just this afternoon I caught a blurb on the radio as I was shutting down the car before stepping into the 4th Street Bowl Coffee Shop for their Monday $10.95 ribeye steak lunch special (It’s fucking good). I like simple, straightforward, unpretentious cafes; and I’ll have to blog about that, one day. The blurb was in reference to some new “government plan” (what else to keep the populace alarmed and yet confident all at once?) to oversee financial markets. The quote went something like this: “And oversee hedge funds so they don’t take too much risk.” Let’s set aside the fact that a hedge fund is prohibited, by law, from even talking to you or showing the public their returns unless you’re…

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