Infrastructure 20081129

From the 2002 documentary, "Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy" (Copyright 2003 Heights Productions, Inc., and based on the book by Daniel Yergin and Joseph Stanislaw), this quote by Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto speaks to the social infrastructure that underlies much of our lives.

HERNANDO DE SOTO: "I have found out as we've been called to work in different parts of the world that every place brings something new. I was very interested, for example, when we were contracted to start helping redesign Egyptian legislation regarding property rights for the poor. I always thought that traveling to a different culture would make a great difference. It makes a difference, but not a great difference, and that's also interesting. What's interesting is to find out that we Third Worlders have much more in common than we have in differences. The cultural differences that would make for an interesting program on the Discovery Channel or an article in National Geographic Magazine are cute, are interesting, but that's not where the basics are. The basics are that all of us Third Worlders have in common a very underdeveloped property rights system, a very underdeveloped legal apparatus, and that's what keeps you ahead of us. That's the part I look at. The fact that I'm able to find it in different cultures is first of all important to us because it indicates that there are basic principles that account for development, that there are general theories that one can bring together and that, therefore, there are solutions that one can devise on the basis of this information. But it's not the differences that make it interesting for me to go into any particular part of the Third World; it's the fact that we're so similar in spite of the fact that this might be manifested in different cultural forms.
"What we think is that the reason it isn't working in the developing world and the reason it isn't working in former communist nations is not because people are anticapitalist or people are antientrepreneurial, but that the infrastructure of laws that make the carrying of capital possible are simply not in place."

de Soto is president of the non-profit think-tank Instituto Libertad y Democracia based in Lima, Peru. Read more of de Soto's thoughts at the PBS' Commanding Heights website or in his books, The Mystery of Capital and The Other Path.

Infrastructure 20081109

Infrastructure 20081030

On Painting 20081026

Is painting with oils, acrylics and sprays healthy? In this time of environmental concern, drawing seems overwhelmingly more civil than painting. Drawing has fewer negative effects on the environment (and on one's health) than do acrylic, oil or spray paints. Look to the master draughtsmen like Titan, Turner and Tytla -- drawing is primal. It is as direct and as powerful magic as standing in front of a crowd and telling a good story. Few bells and whistles, just a straight-forward punch at the viewer. Drawing is king.

Infrastructure 20081019

At the local transfer station yesterday dropping off some waste. Is infrastructure just an extension of our bodily needs and functions?

Creative Encouragement 20081007

Before I get to sketching, I must acknowledge the encouragement both my Mom and my high school art teacher, Gary "Woody" Woodward, offered in my early years and my Mom continues to offer. I can only hope my creative efforts meet their expectations at my end.

Infrastructure 20081006

The toilet has been slow to flush lately, which concerns me because our pipe to the municipal sewer could be clogging up. Every fall it seems to for whatever reason. Life doesn't get much more exciting than racing to plunge the toilet's bowl before the water rises beyond the rim, believe me. However, once the toilet drains, it gives me cause to reflect on just what's beneath things making them work, like my toilet, or my house's foundation or driveway, or my cul-de-sac's road. Sometimes, too, I wonder beyond simply what's under these things to consider instead why these things are even there.

Consider what lies beneath the things we use on a daily basis, things that could almost be considered below the threshold of our conscious perception because we don't give them much thought, like the toilet, or the telephone, or -- for that matter -- language and communication. These things are evidence of deeper structures that lie beneath our daily lives. These structures bolster us and our societies up. We have built them all ourselves, and we wrap ourselves in these "infra-structures" like we do a warm blanket against the cold. These infrastructures are our protection against elements and forces more hostile than we care to admit. Throughout this blog, I hope to -- like a geologist -- dig down through the strata of these infrastructures we have created for ourselves to sketch out, along the way, a view of what lies beneath all we believe we are.