Houblog

…is very eloquently smashed by this article. h/t to Instapundit.

ZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

‘Nuff said.

Natonal Hurricane Center update here.

Basically, the wind is beginning to pick up, and the course has changed slightly northwards. Pressure has dropped to 999mb and maximum sustained winds are 60mph; the storm is moving at 8mph. The rainfall predictions for Texas have been increased to 4-6 inches with up to 10 inches locally. The discussion notes that there are several factors against further growth, but there are also convective bursts occurring at times on the south side of the storm. Overall, they’re assigning less than a 10% chance that it will make hurricane status. But if my memory serves me correctly, at this point, Allison was expected to drop only 6-9 inches of rain, with a max of 15 inches locally.

THE INTENSITY FORECAST IS SOMEWHAT PROBLEMATIC. THE SHEAR…
POSSIBLE DRY AIR…AND RELATIVE LACK OF CONVECTIVE ORGANIZATION
ARGUE AGAINST RAPID STRENGTHENING BEFORE LANDFALL. HOWEVER…THE
CONVECTIVE BURSTS HAVE BEEN STRONG ENOUGH TO CAUSE SOME
STRENGTHENING…AND THE SHEAR IS FORECAST TO DIMINISH BEFORE
LANDFALL. NONE OF THE INTENSITY GUIDANCE NOW CALLS FOR EDOUARD TO
BECOME A HURRICANE BEFORE LANDFALL…SO THE INTENSITY FORECAST WILL
CONTINUE TO CALL FOR LANDFALL AS A 55-60 KT TROPICAL STORM.
HOWEVER…THERE IS STILL A CHANCE THE STORM COULD BECOME A
HURRICANE BEFORE LANDFALL. IT’S IMPORTANT TO REMEMBER THAT THERE
IS VERY LITTLE PRACTICAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A VERY STRONG TROPICAL
STORM AND A LOW-END HURRICANE. AFTER LANDFALL…EDOUARD SHOULD
WEAKEN AND EVENTUALLY DISSIPATE OVER CENTRAL TEXAS.

Conventional wisdom always says that the storms will turn north and east. Much of the panic buying is from people who know that conventional wisdom is worth exactly nothing when you’re suffering from a flooded house, 95 degree heat, 70% humidity, and obviously, no power. And hell, all the bought water will keep…but what are we going to do with 30 gallons of gas, if the storm doesn’t hit?

1 AM update: Now the NWS has dropped the max wind prediction to 65 mph, and indicates that a more northward track is likely, although it might not fully take hold until after landfall.

Lookie here: More hype.

Just recieved:

To Employees:

The City of Houston has begun preparations for Tropical Storm Edouard, which is expected to arrive along the Texas Coast during the early morning hours of Tuesday August 5th. Due to the expected intensity and nature of the storm, Mayor Bill White has determined that some non-emergency city services will be suspended.

Mayor Bill White directs that *only* those employees designated as “essential personnel” report for business on Tuesday August 5.

All City of Houston employees should monitor media (local radio and television) and follow departmental communications plans to determine when to report to work.

We will continue to monitor conditions throughout the day and night and expect to have further updates as warranted.

Meanwhile, supervisors are encouraged to review the City’s Administrative Procedures 2-3, pertaining to Severe Weather and other Emergency Conditions.

Employees should check with their supervisors to confirm their designation as “essential personnel” and “non-essential personnel.”

Bill White,
Mayor

So it looks like the Mayor’s decided that discretion is the better part of common sense, and will side with Brendan. Given his (Brendan’s) point about setting the tone for other employers, I suppose it’s the right decision but damn, Wednesday is going to suck, and the public is going to be down on us… especially if they work for employers that insisted they show up.

Can’t win for losing.

Update: Oh, for crying out loud. This is EXACTLY the sort of thing I am talking about when I say hype. Is Monica pulling my leg? Consensus is, yes. Edit: and on second reading, I agree. Nice satire. But show that to 1000 people, and at least one will go, “Well, I better leave too!”

Update: Heh. So much for not in the cards. Can I retroactively change that to “Not in the cards 24 hours before a wobbly tropical storm hits Houston . . . maybe?” But guys, on this blog, I’m part Emperor Darth Misha, and I carried it over to my comments on Brendan’s site. if you really want to see me go off on someone for hyping, look here. And read the message after. (Edit: quoting here:)

This sums it all up to me:
Galveston Not Evacuating

If they are not evacuating Galveston Island how serious can the storm be????
Yes use some “ common sense “ but as I wrote before, people up here in Spring have emptied the store shelves of water and we are at least 60 miles north of Galveston Island, crazy??

The small arrow is Galveston, the large one is Spring. For scale, the I-610 loop is elven miles across, east to west.

Well, slightly stronger, but no faster winds. Still, Edouardo is better organized and primed to strengthen overnight. And I still think that folks should stay home if they can, but if you have to go to work, use caution. Remember that gusts which might move your car a few inches will push a big 54-foot trailer clear across your lane. Give those guys plenty of room. And for crying out loud, DON’T drive through an underpass! What looks like a few inches of water is probably several feet.

And just because the car ahead of you made it doesn’t mean you will, especially when someone in a big pickup blows past you throwing waves a foot higher than the rest of the water. Cars aren’t amphibious and neither are you.

No further word from the Mayor yet.

Me? Well, I’m holding up under the furball I started. Oh, wait, nobody cared. Well, I did start it after all, so I’ll deal with it.

Well I seem to have gotten involved in a three way discussion with Eric Berger (by proxy) and Brenden Loy over whether it’s a good idea to stay home tomorrow, and whether Mayor White should have already declared that the city will be open. The mayor’s comments that I quoted earlier are from an email sent to city employees, which I will quote here in full:

(Edit: Thought I had only quoted part earlier, but I see I had quoted it in full. )

The City of Houston has begun preparations for the possible arrival of Tropical Storm Edouard, expected sometime tomorrow along the upper Texas coast.

It is important to note that the City is open for business as usual both today and tomorrow. All employees are expected to remain at their jobs today and report to work as usual tomorrow.

We will continue to monitor conditions throughout the day and night and expect to have a further update shortly after 4:30 p.m. today.

Meanwhile, supervisors are encouraged to review the City’s Administrative Procedures 2-3, pertaining to Severe Weather and other Emergency Conditions.

Employees should check with their supervisors to confirm their designation as “essential personnel” and “non-essential personnel.”

Bill White,
Mayor

I should also note that my Department, Public Works and Engineering, has an emergency line that employees can dial for information regarding reporting to work or other necessary facts. They even passed stickers out to put on our name badges, so we’ll always have it. Our emergency policies (put into place after Rita) allow for rotating employees off duty a couple of days in advance to make preparations, and we’re placed in Tiers according to how necessary we are to the city. Police, fire, and many essential public works employees are all Tier 1 and must be on the job.

Shutting the city down is no small effort; it is hugely disruptive; if the government stops, so do a lot of services that the public expects to be there. Given that this storm has virtually no chance to develop beyond minimal Cat 1, a decision 24 hours in advance is not unreasonable, and the Mayor’s left himself an out for this afternoon. It’s a good call, just to make sure some folks don’t start planing a holiday. Bill White is far more reasonable that some prior mayors in this regard. Lanier and Brown were die hard “you will come to work if it snows” types. I am not kidding. I had to drive to work on a day that all the freeways were closed due to icing, and HPD lost count of the accident reports around 1500 or so.

I’d be more interested in knowing what the Post Office is doing — if they’re pulling their horns in, then the weather is serious.

As I said in the comments on your blogWeather Nerd, I don’t see using the statements of emergency managers as a hard and fast guideline. They’re going to be conservative because they (rightly) don’t want to risk their people hauling damn fools out of situations they shouldn’t have gotten into. That’s not a rationale for people being stupid however.

I’m arguing against a blanket rule of “everyone stay home, OMG the world’s gonna end if you don’t!” I’m not saying, “go party in the rain!” The wind and rain will be ramping up at the beginning of the morning rush, and dropping off at the beginning of the afternoon rush; both will be a complete mess, and I actually expect 1-3 deaths from this, because someone’s going to exercise poor judgment, like driving into a flooded underpass at 50mph. (Something that doesn’t require even a tropical depression to kill, around here.)

If anyone can stay home tomorrow, they probably should. If they have to go to work, they need to get to work very early. And stay late. If their normal schedule puts them on the road during the mid-day, then hell no, stay home.

But shut the whole city down? Not in the cards. At the most, tell everyone “We plan to be open, but check the morning news and weather.” Just in case Edouard decides to enter the record books by becoming the fastest forming cat 3 in history, or something.

Update: Jury calls have been canceled by Harris County, the gulf oil/gas platforms are shutting down (correction: no they aren’t, the storm was too fast), no more tankers incoming and many area colleges will be closed tomorrow. These are appropriate measures.

Update 2: Everyone lay off Brendan. I’m the one that took the potshot at Eric. Now maybe that was a bit too harsh, but I have never been one to avoid harsh when I think someone’s being dumb. I’ve still got a grudge against the mess the press made of everything ahead of Rita. The TV stations were worse than the Chron, but that’s not to say the newspaper didn’t do a lot to feed the general panic. A few cautions in there to slow down the extra 1.5 million that evacuated might have helped a lot. Yeah, I’m taking it out on Eric, maybe more than he deserves, but he works for what could, at best, be described as a lackluster newspaper that ignores critical local stories while pushing a narrow, leftist political agenda.

And whomever hinted I’m backing the Mayor because I’m a city employee obviously never read this blog. I’ve been known to back Mayor White once or twice. When he was right.

Not that I’ll turn down any bonus points for doing so, you understand….

Well, the National Hurricane Center moved the track back south a bit now, raised the chance of it being a hurricane slightly, and the storm has sped up. Next major update is 10 am CDT.

10 AM Update : It looks very much like the forecast is solidifying around a high-end tropical storm. Maximum winds have actually dropped to 45mph and the pressure has remained steady. High level winds blew the top off overnight, but it is expected to reform and strengthen later today and tonight. The track is moving a bit south again, which means Galveston Bay would take a direct hit from the right front quadrant (the strongest) if Edouard follows a perfect centerline track. Expected rainfall is in the area of eight inches, locally higher. Localized flooding will result from that, but not any city-wide disasters.

1 PM Update: Only a position update, other information remains the same. Outer rain bands hitting Louisiana; 3 to 5 inches of rain expected there. Pressure’s edged down to 1001 mb.

Some links y0u might want:
Chron’s Sci Guy
Weather Nerd
Weather.com for Houston
Weather Underground

However, I beg to differ with SciGuy on one issue:

What does this mean? The winds should cause little structural damage, but they will be strong enough such that only emergency vehicles should be on the road. I would expect most non-emergency businesses in Harris County to be closed on Tuesday.

Bill White obviously disagrees, and I think he’s right:

The City of Houston has begun preparations for the possible arrival of Tropical Storm Edouard, expected sometime tomorrow along the upper Texas coast.

It is important to note that the City is open for business as usual both today and tomorrow. All employees are expected to remain at their jobs today and report to work as usual tomorrow.

We will continue to monitor conditions throughout the day and night and expect to have a further update shortly after 4:30 p.m. today.

Meanwhile, supervisors are encouraged to review the City’s Administrative Procedures 2-3, pertaining to Severe Weather and other Emergency Conditions.

Employees should check with their supervisors to confirm their designation as “essential personnel” and “non-essential personnel.”

Bill White,
Mayor

This is a minimal storm that may not even make hurricane status, and to call for business closures and all non-official traffic to stay off the streets is nothing but over-hype on the part of the press.

We’ve got a tropical storm on the way. No reason to get complacent, just because it isn’t a category 5 hurricane. Just thought I’d post this little blast from the past, courtesy of the National Weather Service:

5 and 2 day rainfall totals:

INSIDE HARRIS COUNTY:

INCREDIBLE AS THESE RAIN TOTALS ARE...THEY STILL PALE IN COMPARISON
TO THE RAINFALL TOTALS PRODUCED BY TROPICAL STORM CLAUDETTE IN 1979.
THE U.S. 24 HOUR RECORD RAINFALL TOTAL OCCURRED IN ALVIN TEXAS ON
JULY 24 1979. 43 INCHES OF RAIN FELL ON ALVIN DURING THAT 24 HOUR
PERIOD. IT IS PLAUSIBLE THAT SOME OF THE VOLUNTEER CO-OP SITES
ACROSS SOUTHEAST TEXAS WILL YIELD SOME EVEN HIGHER RAINFALL TOTALS
THAN WHAT IS LISTED HERE. KHGX-88D RADAR HAS ESTIMATED THAT 30 TO 40
INCHES OF RAIN HAS FALLEN OVER PARTS OF LIBERTY...CHAMBERS AND
HARRIS COUNTIES SINCE JUNE 1ST.

One of the things that made Allison so bad was that it rained heavily for three days prior to the main storm, which mean that the ground was already saturated. Bear in mind that the normal rainfall total for Houston in a year is only 46 inches….

I’ll be getting ready now, thank you.

Update: All three vehicles topped off, some extra gas in cans for the generator, a few gallons of water bought and set aside (plus several more empty jugs ready to be filled). We’d just bought groceries so we’re set there. Might pick up some extra batteries tomorrow; we’d gotten some ten days ago, just in case. But here’s why this storm worries me a bit, per the Weather Nerd:

. . . the National Hurricane Center designated Tropical Depression Five at 5:00 PM EDT, and then at 6:00 PM, upgraded it to Tropical Storm Edouard in a special advisory, noting in the discussion:

WHEN THE RECONNAISSANCE AIRCRAFT PASSED THROUGH THE CONVECTION TO THE SOUTHEAST OF THE CENTER A SHORT TIME AGO…IT FOUND MAXIMUM FLIGHT LEVEL WINDS OF 54 KT AND A SURFACE PRESSURE OF 1002 MB…A DROP OF 5 MB IN AN HOUR AND A HALF. THESE DATA INDICATE THAT THE DEPRESSION HAS STRENGTHENED INTO THE FIFTH TROPICAL STORM OF THE SEASON. … EDOUARD IS NOW EXPECTED TO BE NEAR HURRICANE INTENSITY AT LANDFALL.

If this rate of intensification continues, Edouard could be stronger than that. But for now, the official forecast falls for the storm’s intensity to max out at 70 mph. Tropical Storm Watches and Warnings are up for much of the Louisiana and Texas coasts.

The pressure drops strengthen the wind speed and total power of the storm. Last measurement had it at 1002mb. Below about 990 it’s getting close to hurricane status — pressure at the nominal hurricane point is around 980mb. In other words, if it kept intensifying at the same rate (not at all likely, I admit) it’s becoming a hurricane right now as I type this. And it’s already raining. Not part of Edouard, but it’s part of the same conditions that spawned the storm. That suggests a wet storm…

10pm update: It has not grown any stronger, and the track has been shifted slightly north. Both are promising signs… for me. One of those is less so for folks to the east.

Steven den Beste notes:

I started thinking about that when I saw this question someone posted today at ask.metafilter.com:

“As an American, can I hand out flyers detailing the Tiananmen Square Massacre during the Beijing Olympics?”

I’m really glad to see that the many answers were virtually unanimous that this would be an utterly boneheaded thing to attempt.

I was going, “huh?” until I realized the idealistic (and idiotic) questioner didn’t mean during the Beijing Olympics, he meant at the Beijing Olympics. At which point, I became highly amused.

I wondered if someone asked him if he planned to participate in the Tank-Stopping event, and I thought it would make a great snarky comment for this post. So I went to Metafilter for the link, even though I didn’ t have to Lo and behold, the title of his post? “Tank man is Everyman.”

Suddenly, it wasn’t funny any more. I can only believe the guy was trolling.

The Chron was nice enough to print my name and 2007 earnings on their website. Sorry, I am not a public official, and I don’t think my info should be up there. How would you like it if the IRS posted that information about you? Hey, you pay taxes, right? I’ve got a right to know if you’re paying your fair share, right?

A fireman said it best:

As for the idea we somehow have less of a right to privacy simply because we earn our living working for the citizens of Houston, the I vote that any entity, person, company, or vendor, that sells, contracts, or does business with the city post all of thier employees, contracts, and amount of money earned from business with the city each year. It will certainly dwarf the little bit I EARNED.JMHO

I’d cancel my subscription, but I did that long ago.

But they might pass an administrative rule. As usual, the Demorats are up to no good. blogHOUSTON gives us a heads up from Rep. Culberson’s website:

Basically, the Democratic-controlled Committee on House Administration is drafting rules that would prohibit House members from posting content on any but “approved” websites. One can only imagine what kind of list the Dems would draw up.

According to the statement, the Democrats are looking at restricting Member content on websites outside the house.gov domain. Congressman Culberson is quickly becoming a “real time representative” by posting on Twitter.com, where he sends regular updates from the House floor and the halls of Congress, and on Qik.com, where he films and posts video updates on the Internet. This new technology allows him to bypass the mainstream media and shine sunlight into the darkest corners of Congress. If the Democrats strong-arm this rule, he would no longer be able to use these websites and our fundamental right to free speech will be taken away.”

Now bear in mind that this is the same Congress that gets to send mail for free (the “franking” privilege); meant for business but often abused during campaign season to send “informative updates” that are not “campaign materials” to everyone in the congressman’s district. Yet the Dems are trying to stifle taxpayer-free or low-cost alternatives used by its own members.

Why am I not surprised? It’s become clear since the 2004 campaign that the real name of the Democratic party is the “Socialist Worker’s Party.” Hail democracy, comrade!

And the breakdown of city infrastructure continues.

Please be advised that two 2-inch water lines at the intersection of Dallas and Bagby downtown were ruptured during the night. This affects the water and chilled water systems for City Hall, City Hall Annex, the Central Library and the Juila Ideson building facilities. Currently, we have no water or air conditioning at those facilities and repairs are expected to take most of the day.

These four buildings are being closed for today while repairs are made. Employees who work in these buildings are being temporarily re-assigned for the day to an alternate work site - their homes. Employees should be available to their supervisors throughout the day.

This does not affect all City employees. It applies ONLY to those employees working in these four buildings - City Hall, City Hall Annex, the Central Library and the Julia Ideson Building.

Bill White,
Mayor

Bill Steigerwald of Townhall takes a look a mass transit with Wendell Cox. It isn’t pretty.

When you talk about transit in the United States, you have to be talking about best prisoner awards. These systems are a scourge on taxpayers. There are some that do some wonderful things, but nobody does it all right.

I keep arguing in my own mind, who is more responsible for the abject failure of transit in the United States? And mind you — transit expenditures have gone up more than 300 percent adjusted for inflation since 1970 and ridership has gone up less than 20 percent. There is no other sector of the economy, including health care, where I can find escalation even close to that. Transit holds the record. It is a damned outrage how bad transit has been.

Wendell doesn’t pull his punches either.

…the first reason why there is no hope for transit is that it can not be designed to be competitive with the automobile, except for very specific locations — that really only being a downtown area. It has to be a good concentrated downtown area, and they don’t come much better in my view than Pittsburgh. The other reason why there is no hope for transit is that whatever you give them will be frittered away without any impact whatsoever.

Frittered? Why?

The whole point of transit is to maximize costs. The management-labor arrangements maximize costs and so do the vendor arrangements with respect to capital expenditures. … In Europe what they discovered about 15 years ago is that centralized funding creates all sorts of incentives for locals to waste money. So just about everywhere in Europe they have stopped their national transit programs and forced it down to the local level. They’ve said, “If you want to spend all that money on transit, you go right ahead.” In a sense, they de-nationalized funding and they de-nationalized responsibility.

Head over there and read the article to see whose transit system he likes the most, and which American system he says “sucks least.” It’s an interesting read; pity Houston didn’t get a mention. Although it was interesting to see what market share the “less sucky” transit agencies have….

There’s been some confusion over a request by Ed Wulfe to swap some land and a public road in the Galleria area for his Boulevard Place project. After looking at the maps and reading the proposed ordinance carefully, I wanted to post to set the record straight. This is not S. Post Oak BLVD that’s being handed over to Ed, it’s S. Post Oak LANE. I’ve always been annoyed at the confusion engendered by the developers who want to make money by giving everyone a “Post Oak” address, and this is part and land-parcel of the effect. Although, the actual deal is almost as bad as if it were Post Oak Blvd.

Post Oak Lane is about one block to the west, and dead ends into Ed Wulfe’s Boulevard Place development. It doesn’t go anywhere. Skylark is a half-block further west, and also dead ends. Ambassador Way runs east-west, about a half-block west from S. Post Oak Blvd, and either dead ends or meets McCue’s northern end (maps differ).

The net effect of the land swaps is to either extend Ambassador Way, and/or move it a bit southward, to meet up with an extended SPO Lane. The latter will be itself curved west into line with Skylark, and Skylark’s southern end will be chopped off and twisted to meet SPO Lane from the west. The combined streets will apparently connect to the northern end of McCue, thus relieving congestion on S. Post Oak Blvd, which is only one block east, and providing customers of Mr. Wulfe’s development a less-trafficed access from the rear. Note that spillover traffic coming from the north is currently forced over to Sage or Chimney Rock.

How long until the residents of Chevy Chase (which meets McCue from the west in this area) want their street blocked off is anyone’s guess. My money’s on “when the construction starts, unless they’re reading this.” FYI I’m not sure if the Centre at Post Oak is a Wulfe development, but if it is, this will allow him to assemble a mega-block approximately the size of the current Galleria.

What kept me digging through this until I understood it was the lengthy discussion of the past history of this project — apparently the deal had been through previous incarnations in 2004 and 2006. The 2004 deal involved Ed getting to cut the streets in question off, and having to construct barriers and. Then the deal was renegotiated in 2006:

…City Council authorized the abandonment and sale of a portion of South Post Oak Lane, a portion of Skylark Lane, four turnaround street easements, two 10-foot-wide utility easements, and a 10-foot-wide prescriptive water line easement in exchange for the conveyance to the City of right of way for the realignment and the construction of South Post Oak Lane and Skylark Lane to City standards at no cost to the City…

Now Ed’s back again, with yet another re-negotiation of the deal. The new ordinance reads:

…an ordinance authorizing the abandonment and sale of a portion of South Post Oak Lane, a portion of Skylark Lane, two 10-foot-wide utility easements, and a 10-foot-wide prescriptive water line easement in exchange for a consideration of $1,500.00 plus the conveyance to the city of right-of-way for South Post Oak Lane and Ambassador Way…

Notice what’s missing? Ed Wulfe no longer has to construct the streets to handle the additional traffic caused by his development!

.

Boy, talk about some rules for some folks (Ashby high-rise developers) and other rules for Ed Wulfe! Not only does he not have to spring for a traffic study (it’s not a multi-family high rise, after all), he doesn’t even have to build the streets — we get to do that for him at taxpayer expense!

But don’t worry… BLVD Place, a development the size of the Galleria, will be conveniently near a rail station, and that nice park we also got to pay for (screw the owners)!

Huh, a complete disregard for the effects on vehicle traffic, and land development coincidentally near the rail alignment. Y’know, has anyone ever actually seen Metro chairman (and also coincidentally, land developer) David S. Wolff and land developer Ed Wulfe in the same place at the same time? I’m just askin’…..

Ed Wulfe

David Wolff

Four years ago, I wrote a letter. It was meant to badger someone into doing something I thought was important. They refused, but I don’t apologize for it, even though I completely understand that person’s decision — and ironically, have made exactly the same one. Hypocritical? I don’ t know — is it hypocrisy when I admit to it?

Well, as I related over at Bridgebunnies, I have been going through some old files, and I found a copy of that letter. It’s been almost exactly four years since I sent it, and while it rambles a bit at first, I think it makes an interesting read, particularly in light of how events have played out in the meantime. Of course, I might be biased about that. Nevertheless, I present an excerpt comprising about 85% of the letter.

Reading it, you can probably guess to whom it was sent. I will not confirm or deny speculation, in order to spare the target further annoyance, and me further embarassment. Looking back at it, in the first half, I appear to be explaining the concept of “big” to an elephant. It made sense at the time…

Wisdom

. There is an egotistical thought common to every human being, that we, and we alone, have the Only True and Correct Opinion on SomeThing. And it seems the dumber a human is, the more likely they are to think there are more SomeThings that they have Correct Opinions on. In reality, it’s not true. There’s four things that have to come together to produce a Wise One, someone whose word and Opinion is, far more often than not, actually correct. ‘Wise One’ is awfully cheesy, but I don’t have a good term to substitute here. ‘Savant’ implies mere intelligence. ‘Authority’ implies lack of humility (granted, you’ve never been accused of that virtue, but your writing betrays that you lack the opposite vice also). So, ‘Wise Man of the Tribe.’

Intelligence: A Wise One has to be smart. S/he has to have the a bit more than rudimetary thinking and deduction ability.

Education: more than formal learning, it is honing, supplying with facts, and getting experience in the ways of the world. But don’t sell the formal learning short.

Wisdom: Common sense isn’t common. The Wise One knows when to draw the line and say “I don’t know.” Education, in the sense of experience above, can somewhat make up for this, but it takes one wise enough to be willing to learn the lesson. In the end, Wisdom trumps Education in our culture’s self-view, even if Education may earn more money.

Erudition: A true Wise One has the ability to *explain* him/herself, to make the complicated seem simple. Not just to look smart, act smart, and be smart, but to enrich those around him or her with their own talents.

All four of these are needed to produce a Wise One. Leave any out, and you get… well, something that may look like a wise one, but isn’t.

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