Thursday, September 11, 2008

Plan Ahead


After Legg Mason Opportunity fund tumbled 20%--two times more than the benchmark index, Bill Miller wrote about the Nobel-Prize winner Ken Arrow, who was enlisted to make long-range weather forecasts for the military during WW II. He said his forecasts were worse than useless. The general said that he knew the forecasts were of no use, but needed them anyway for planning purposes.

Shrek


Shrek in the movie strikes a chord in all of us, the part that wants to be left alone, to be ourselves, uncurtailed by social norms. He resists pressure to try to get along with others, to brush his teeth. The ogre is the ego with an “r.” as in Ogrrre.
“Ogres are like onions,” Shrek says.
“They stink?” Donkey asks.
“Yes. No,” Shrek says.
“Oh, they make you cry.”
“No. Onions have layers. Ogres have layers.”
“You know, not everybody likes onions.”
Ogre comes from the ancient Latin word for Hades.
Shrek comes from the Yiddish word for fear.
Donkey is the id, the animal self. He says,
“Remember when you said that ogres have layers?”
“Aye?”
“Donkeys don’t have layers.”
Maybe we love both characters so much, because we’re pressured to suppress both ego and id in daily life, in favor of the superego.