Fun and Games

A week ago Saturday, Ali and I celebrated our 12th anniversary. The plan was to go hiking near KareKare, but the weather turned from sort-of-cloudy to serious rain by the time we got there, so we wound up grocery shopping instead. Ah, the romance.

My first Investment Law lectures were this week and, all in all, they went ok. Three hours – 1 on Thursday, 2 on Friday – about the history of securities regulation. I know students generally think it’s a dull topic, but I’ve always loved history. I recently found out why European stock exchanges are called “bourses.” It’s from the Van Der Beurse family – prominent innkeepers-cum-bankers in early 14th century Bruges. The family crest was three money pouches – or purses; beurse or bourse in Latin. I think that’s pretty cool; Ali’s started calling me a geek.

I tried to make it lively – my last chance to make a good impression, since next week we start on stock exchange listing rules. The last hour on Friday I introduced them to game theory. I started by auctioning off a $1 coin, and got the bidding up to $2.30 for it. (And I know I could have got them to go higher if I’d just known their faces better.) Next we played variations on Prisoners Dilemma, which everybody seemed to enjoy. It’s good for sorting out the wolves from the sheep, but I also think it provides a good illustration of how challenging it is to get human beings to cooperate.

The Iranian Ambassador to NZ spoke at an international relations forum on campus recently. I wasn’t expecting him to say much more than the “party line,” but it turned out to be a very interesting evening. He was an articulate defender of Iran’s right to develop nuclear technology, which I expected. But he also spoke quite eloquently about his own hopes and beliefs for the country’s future – particularly regarding social progress. Nice to think people like that are able to reach – and keep - fairly high level positions. It also made me realize that Ahmadinejad may be just another nutty head of state - not necessarily a good representative of the people simply because he won an election.

It’s been over a month now, and the UN has finally passed a watered-down sort of cease fire resolution. The parties are supposed to adopt it in the next couple days, but, in the meantime, Israel and Hezbollah are continuing to pound Lebanon.

Of course the latest big news story was the foiled plot to blow up a dozen planes with liquid explosives. It was announced the day after Joe Lieberman lost the primary.

Cheers,
Sandie