The Math Myth
The eminent mythologist Bulfinch said that the Greeks believed numbers to be the most romantic language because they were so precise. And numbers certainly can tell the story, romantic or not. For instance, Ford is recalling 876,000 Explorers and Mercury Mountaineers to fix something to do with the suspension; problems, they say, are unrelated to the tire recall. That’s a lot of vehicles, even if most don’t come in for the necessary repairs, the cost is going to be enormous. And it recalls a time years ago when Ford decided to get back on it’s automotive feet again, announcing that at Ford, "quality was job one." Seems like recalls is job one.
Ice cream is no longer job one for Ben Cohen, the co-founder of Ben and Jerry’s. They had a good thing going for a while, but quickly outgrew their talent. They tried to find someone to run the company, but it seems they couldn’t get along with anyone they hired. So they wound up selling out to Unilever. Ben got $39,000,000 plus $200,000 a year salary, and he’s still not happy. Time for him to look for job two.
Maybe the Pentagon will hire him as a caterer. They seem to be in a very munificent mood, having just sprung for a $350,000 dinner for Jack Valenti. Valenti is the prime shill for the Motion Picture Association of America. The Five-Sided Funny Farm was honoring Valenti for all the film industry has done to celebrate their work, that is, war. Kinda pricey party, considering it was with taxpayer funds, but they look at it as an investment. The more people think that guns and missiles will resolve problems, the less likely they are to question the Pentagon’s budget, which now reaches past $30,000,000 an hour, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. So in the grand scheme of things, the cost of the Valenti dinner was what the military spends every 42 seconds.
Delta Airlines wishes they could order their pilots to accept overtime, but the two parties are still arguing over a lack of a contract twixt the two, since September. The pilots refusal to accept the extra hours forced the airline to cancel 300 flights this weekend. Their normal cancellation rate for want of a flight crew would have been a six. Shows how much Delta counts on the pilots flying overtime. Now ya gotta figure that at least 100 would-be passengers were at least inconvenienced by the job action, and will probably try to fly another carrier if they can the next time. Since we presume that at some point the company will offer to the pilots a contract they will sign, ya gotta wonder why they would allow it to get to this stage where everyone loses first.
Finally in the nature of numbers, there was the story of a woman in Florida claiming that the stress of the erstwhile vote count had sent her to the emergency room not once but twice. Considering that there was less than nothing — null, zero, nada, zip — that this woman could have done about the situation, ya gotta think that one trip to the hospital should have been enough.
And that’s SetonnoteS...I’m Tony Seton.