How to Deceive with Statistics

Here we have a key example of using statistics and figures in a way that will make people think what you want them to think: (Courtesy of Greg Mankiw's Blog, an excellent resource for any curious individuals out there)


As you can see, the author wants the reader to realize our current economic crisis isn't anywhere near the problem that the Great Depression was. It is much more in line with other recessions.

The problem becomes clear if you notice the dates, though. Each recession, including the current one, shows a decline over a single year, while the Depression data shows the decline over 4 whole years. These statistics are not really comparable. A more meaningful comparison would be to compare the 1-year recessions with (A) the average decline per year of over the Depression, or (B) the decline in the worst single year of the Depression. For (A), this would be a decline of real GDP of about -7.3%: still twice the current crisis, but not factor of 8 implied by the existing graph. Even if (B) showed a more substantial difference, it wouldn't be the deceptively large contrast we see here.

I'm thinking this may be an ongoing series on this blog, so I'm going to start a new trend and label this post. Crazy.

Quotes Pertaining to Economics

Courtesy of the always exceptional commentary at Marginal Revolution:
http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2009/05/textbook-contest.html


"Problems cannot be solved at the same level of awareness that created them." ~ Albert Einstein

"There are no solutions, there are only trade-offs." ~ Thomas Sowell

"As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality." ~ Albert Einstein, Sidelights on Relativity

"He tried to read an elementary economics text; it bored him past endurance, it was like listening to someone interminably recounting a long and stupid dream." ~ Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed

"The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist." ~ JM Keynes

"Economics is really about understanding the world -- and changing it -- and not in a messianic fashion but in an honest fashion." ~ James Heckman

"Trade is the natural enemy of all violent passions. Trade loves moderation, delights in compromise, and is most careful to avoid anger. It is patient, supple, and insinuating, only resorting to extreme measures in cases of absolute necessity. Trade makes men independent of one another and gives them a high idea of their personal importance: it leads them to want to manage their own affairs and teaches them to succeed therein. Hence it makes them inclined to liberty but disinclined to revolution." ~ Alexis De Tocqueville

"Never appeal to a man’s ‘better nature.’ He may not have one. Invoking his self-interest gives you more leverage." ~ Robert Heinlein

"An economist's guess is liable to be just as good as anybody else's." ~ Will Rogers

"Beware lest you lose the substance by grasping at the shadow" ~ Aesop

"When you have to make a choice and don't make it, that is in itself a choice." ~ William James

"Maybe the main function of economics in general is not, as we usually think, the systematic building of theories and models, or their empirical estimation. Maybe we are intellectual sanitation workers. The world is full of nonsense, full of things people and institutions know that 'ain't so.' Maybe the higher function of economics is to hold out against nonsense." ~ Robert Solow

"The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design." ~ Friedrich Hayek

"It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest." ~ Adam Smith

"I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today." ~ Wimpy from Popeye

The Days of Miracle and Wonder

Walter Newman stared at Rose blankly.
"UUGGHH!"
Rose had no chance to think about the horrifying image before her, as a zombie ran up from behind Walter-zombie and jumped on top of her. They fell to the ground as the zombie leaned in to bite her. Rose was barely able to shove her club between the creature's jaws. The zombie was strong; it was all Rose could do to keep its head off of her as its hands began to tear into the skin of her shoulders.
As suddenly as it had landed on her, the zombie was yanked off of her and into the air. Walter-zombie had picked up her attacker and thrown it against a nearby tree with enough force to crack the skull of normal human. Of course, these ghoulish zombies were made of sterner stuff, and it recovered and jumped, this time at Walter. It sank its teeth deep into Walter-zombie's shoulder, tearing straight through the strap of his backpack.
Walter, seemingly unphased, pushed the zombie's head back with one hand and leaned in with his own. Walter-zombie's body obscured Rose's view of what happened next, but the zombie uttered a horrifying shriek and fell to the ground, limp. When Walter-zombie turned around, he had blood running down his chin.
"Walter? Are you still in there?" Rose asked a moment of adrenaline-fueled hopefulness. She struggles to her feet, maintaining a firm grip on the club. "Walter, if there's anything left of you in there..."
"UUGGHH!" Walter-zombie lunged toward her clumsily, grasping at her with a hand bearing an old scar resembling a bite mark. He opened his jaw hungrily.
For all her false hopes, Rose had not lost her wits. She immediately struck Walter-zombie's elbow, forcing his outstretched arm away from her. In his moment of imbalance, she swung with all her might at his chest. Walter-zombie tumbled backwards to the sound of his own ribs cracking, his dangling backpack falling to the ground. The contents of the pack spilled to the ground, including a wet pair of old socks and a small medical pack. Instinctively, Rose grabbed the medkit before running for a nearby clearing.
Stopping to catch her breath, Rose looks at the medkit. The moon was only half full, but it was still bright enough to read the two bold words on the cover: "Restorative Reagent." Opening the kit, Rose saw a small nebulizer mask and six inhaler cylinders designed to attach to it.
"What is... it can't be..." Rose muttered to herself. She began to attach one of the cylinders to the mask, forgetting for a moment what she had been running from. Too long a moment.
Walter-zombie seized her by the shoulders from behind. Rose nearly jumped out of her skin, dropping her club and the medkit. Rose twisted around, struggling to get free. She hit Walter-zombie in the chest and realized she had managed to hold on to the mask with attached cylinder. Rose pushed it up to Walter-zombie's face and fired the inhaler.
Walter-zombie slapped Rose's hand, knocking the inhaler away from his face as it fired. Rose shot a glance at the medkit on the ground, with five cylinders sitting in it securely. She then did something all her instincts and experience told her never to try: Rose head-butted a zombie.
Walter-zombie fell backwards to the ground, pulling Rose down with him. Rose pulled free and frantically began swapping a new cylinder into the mask. Walter-zombie grabbed her foot, and raised his head to bite it. Rose spun around, shoved the mask onto the hungry zombie's face, and fired.
Walter-zombie pulled back, coughing furiously. He began scrambling about on the ground, like a sleep-running dog. His eyes began to tear. He vomited.
"UUGGHH! UUUUUGgggghh. UUumm..." Walter rolled over, face down in the grass and dirt.

"Are you coming around again? You look dehydrated, try to drink some water this time, OK?"
Walter Newman opened his eyes. He wondered for a moment if he were still dreaming. The sky was crisp and blue in the aftermath of the sunrise. He heard Rose Redding's voice.
"Sorry I haven't got anything to eat," Rose said. "You're probably starving."
"No," Walter said groggily. He turned to look at his friend. "I'm not hungry. For the first time in a long time, I think. It feels good not to be hungry."
"Walter," Rose said, "I wasn't sure if you were actually awake this time. Here, drink this."
Walter took a drink from a small bottle of water, swished it around his mouth, then spit it out. He took another drink and forced himself to swallow this time.
"You have to drink something," Rose said.
"My mouth tastes like blood," Walter said. "I don't entirely remember why. Don't think I want to."
"Do you remember it?" Rose asked.
"Yeah," Walter said. "Sort of. It was surreal, dream-like. But I think I know what it meant now." Walter shuddered.
"What..." Rose trailed off. "Maybe I don't want to know, but what did it feel like?"
"Which part, dying? Or coming back?" Walter said. Rose didn't answer him.
"'In restless dreams, I walked alone,'" Walter said, "'Narrow streets of cobblestone.' You know, like in the song."
"Yeah," Rose said.
Walter looked around. In the distance he could see a small farmhouse surrounded by a pond. "We should check that house for supplies before we..."
"We can't go to that house," Rose said. Her face was grave.
Walter nodded. "Fair enough. I guess you have some stories to tell, yourself."
Tears just began to touch Rose's eyes, the first since the nightmare began. "I just wish I were home. You know? Isn't that a song too? 'I wish I was'?"
Walter nodded again. "Home," he began to sing, "where my thought's escaping..."
"Home," Rose begain to join him, "where my music's playing; Home, where my love lies waiting silently for me."

"We have to get back to them," Walter said. "If they've followed the plan they're probably almost ready to leave for the lake."
"Almost ready?" Rose said. "Walter, we've been gone for months. It's spring."
"It's..." Walter said, unaware that he had lost so much time. He wondered how his family was. "Anyway, it doesn't matter. If they follow the plan they won't be safe."
"Because some of the zombies can swim, you mean?" Rose asked.
"Ghouls," Walter said. "The ghouls can swim, which means they can get into the camp even though the revenants can't."
"Revenants?" Rose said.
"The slower ones," Walter said. "There's a cure for the revenants, but not for ghouls. And revenants can kill ghouls. I think that's why they're here, why this all happened: to stop the ghouls."
"If that's true, we have to warn everyone," Rose said.
"Exactly, we've got to mo..." Walter began to say before gripping his stomach, turning from Rose, and vomiting. When he'd finished, Rose offered him the water to rinse his mouth. "It seems I'm not going to be much help for a while other than telling what I know. I guess there's a small return to normalcy in that," he said, grinning.
Rose smiled. "I'll protect you."
"That's a song too, I think," Walter said. "'If you'll be my bodyguard, I can be your long lost pal.'"
Rose laughed. "Let's go, 'Al.' "


It took some time for them to reach the lake, but once they were there it wasn't hard to spot the compound. Reed had the location spotted out almost as soon as it was discovered that revenants don't swim. The lake was large enough to support several small islands, with one only about 50 feet from the shore line at its closest point. Close enough for a temporary bridge to allow heavy equipment onto the island for construction. The interwoven buildings of the compound towered several stories high, with a patchwork wall of sheet metal surrounding it. Three wind turbines, stolen relics from the seemingly failed government containment attempts, loomed above the compound, casting shadows on the tops of the trees. Puffs of steam from the outside wall and billows from the center of the compound revealed the primary means of transmitting power throughout the compound. Two sentry towers on top of the wall flanked the main gate facing the dismantled bridge and the shore line. Pendulums and clockwork gears managed household functions within this steampunk haven for failing humanity. It was all very much according to plan.
Unfortunately, the plan also prevented Rose and Walter from approaching by the main gate. A contingent of revenants had set up shop near the shore line, occasionally venturing closer to see if there is a way to cross on foot. No sooner did they come out from beyond the treeline, however, than snipers from the towers cut them down with rifle fire.
"If we just walk up and say hello, they'll shoot us before we can get a word out," Rose said. "And why would they waste the bullets when they know the zombies can't reach them?"
Walter remained silent, thinking about the tortured souls still trapped in the revenant bodies, gunned down without hope of redemption. "Sport," he said.
"There's left over equipment and debris all along the lake shore," Rose continued, "we might be able to find something that could float us over there along one of the far sides."
"Right," Walter said, still looking at the dead revenants, "lets do it."

As twilight settled in, Rose and Walter pulled the make-shift raft onto the island next to the compound's outer wall. This side wasn't watched, and there were plenty of gaps in the wall big enough to fit through.
"They're really not expecting trouble along this side, I guess," Walter said. On the inside of the wall, they found themselves in something of an alleyway, lined with boards and sheet metal on one side and sturdier walls covered in pipes and wiring on the other.
"I guess they keep this easily accessible for maintenance," Rose said. "So there's probably a way to the main courtyard from here. Let's find Reed quickly. They need to know that these new zombies could walk right into the compound!"
They wandered the service alley for a few minutes before finding an access path to a more functional street (or hallway, as indoors and out somewhat blurred together here). After more walking through the back way, they finally saw a long, narrow stretch leading to a more open area. The could see two semi trucks, complete with trailers attached, that were hooked up to the walls with a variety of wires and tubes. The streets were full of vendor carts, and more importantly, with people! Walking, talking, laughing, living human beings, their friends. They began to walk more quickly when Walter realized he recognized one of the people going about her business in the courtyard. He would have recognized her anywhere.
"Daisy?" Walter said in a halting voice. He began to jog forward, away from Rose. He called out to his wife in a firmer voice.
"Dai...!" Walter was cut off as a bag fell over his head and he was struck unconscious.

Walter came to with the bag still on his head. He began to struggle.
"Good you're awake," A vaguely familiar voice said. "You sleep heavier than anyone I've ever seen. Anyway, I'll get to the point: would you care to explain yourself?"
"I'd care to stop having things and people hit me in the head!" Walter said.
"What did you expect, snooping around?" the voice said. "We keep sentries in those alleys in case some other band of people decide they want to take our stuff. Now what made you think spreading mass panic was a good idea?"
"We don't know what you're talking about," Rose said. "Who are you, where's Reed?"
"Leon, get the hoods," the voice said. Their hoods came off. "It's Jason. Reed isn't the supreme dictator around here anymore, we've found democracy. And you were wandering around the alley talking about zombies in the camp, the sentry overheard you. Do you have any idea what spouting that nonsense in the camp would do?!?"
"We didn't say they were in the camp," Rose said.
"But they can get in," Walter added. "The plan has a flaw, something we didn't know about."
"The plan is fine," Jason said, "and if you shout 'fire' in a theater, or maybe 'the end is extremely [bleeping] nigh,' saying 'that's not what I meant' doesn't get you off the hook."
"Jason, why are our hands tied?" Walter asked, because they were.
"I'm figuring out if you're a danger to the camp," Jason said, "and you'll stay tied until I know it's safe. If you start yelling, Leon and I will gag you, too." Walter and Rose turned to see Leon Romero, who was standing silently behind them.
"We won't yell," Walter said. "But you have to listen to us. You have to take us to Reed."
"There's a new kind of zombie coming," Rose said. "They're fast. And they can swim. They can get into the camp and they were right behind us, they could be here any day."
"I don't know what you're talking about," Jason said.
"You have to believe us," Walter said. "And we need to talk to Joan. Where's the backpack?"
"I have your stuff here; you've seen these yourselves?" Leon asked behind them.
"Leon? I'm handling this," Jason said. "Look, guys, I want to be reasonable, but you sound like you were out in the cold a bit too long. I'll have Leon take you to an apartment were you can sleep tonight. Tomorrow morning I'll meet with Reed and we'll get this all sorted out."
"Tomorrow??" Walter said, "what about my wife!"
"Walter, if you raise your voice again,..." Jason said sternly. "Leon, take them to one of the empty apartments. Use the alley so no one sees them."


"Leon, you have to believe us," Rose said as Leon led them down the alleyway. "They can get in."
"I believe you," Leon said, "but you have to admit it sounds crazy."
"There's more," Walter said. "There's a cure."
"What?"
"For the revenants," Walter said. "There's a cure."
"Jason's right, you really are crazy," Leon said.
"Leon, I was one," Walter said. "I'm cured." Leon scoffed.
"It's true," Rose said.
"Look at me, Leon. You're a cop, look at the clues," Walter said. He held up his hands, pulled his shirt from his shoulder, showing all the bite marks which had faded to little more than ancient scars. "The reason they only die with a head shot is that they can heal. Rose broke my ribs a few days ago."
Leon looked at Rose incredulously. She nodded. Leon felt Walter's ribs, locating where Rose had struck him with the club.
"This must have happened months ago," Leon said.
"Leon, a week ago I was a revenant, just like those people wandering the shore this evening," Walter said. "If you look inside the backpack, you'll find a medkit with four shots of the cure. We have to get it to Joan, and you have to get shotguns along the lakeside."
"We don't have anywhere close to enough shotguns. Plenty of rifles, though."
"Then," Rose said, "You have to let the zombies in."
"She's right," Walter said. "If the ghouls come, you have to get everyone upstairs and let revenants onto the island."
"Let the what onto the island?" Leon said. "Because I know you're not using a fancy word for 'let zombies into the zombie-proof fortress.' "
"Leon, they can kill the ghouls. Without lots of shotgun ammo, we can't."
"It can't be that hopeless," Leon said.
Up ahead, they noticed someone standing ominously, facing toward them.
"Your sentry?" Rose asked, knowing the answer.
"I don't recognize him," Leon said. He quickly untied the ropes binding his prisoners and drew his gun. "You! Who are you?!?"Someone else climbed through outside wall. This second intruder turned to face them, too, then let loose a terrible shriek.

They ran. The ghouls poured in. Leon shouted something. An alarm sounded through the compound. The backup generators were started and left running. Gunshots. Children were herded into protected upstairs rooms. Ghouls pounced and attacked, rending flesh from bone. Bullets pierced them without effect. Panic. Fear.
"Leon, the only thing that can stop them now is the revenants!" Walter shouted.
"It's too late!" Leon responded. "We've got to get to higher ground. Run!"
Leon and Walter ran. Rose paused, turned and looked at the 'generators.' Semi tractors with trailers still attached. Probably over 40 feet long. Pointed at the main gate. The gate leading to a 50 foot rift between revenants and ghouls.
Rose ran toward one of the trucks. She climbed into the cab and pulled the gear shifter. Nothing happened. She jammed on the clutch, shifting into gear, and stomped with all her might on the gas pedal. Wire and hose ripped from the walls beside her as the truck lurched forward, then began to pick up momentum. Rose stayed on the gas. Her name, shouted by parties unknown, echoed off the compound walls. Rose stayed on the gas.
The truck had begun to pick up a bit of speed, smashing kiosks and ghouls beneath it. It approached the sealed gate. Rose stayed on the gas. The gate, never planned to resist inside forces trying to get out, burst out and collapsed beneath the heavy truck. Faster now, the truck sped toward the water. Faster. Rose stayed on the gas.
The truck skipped in the air for a moment before coming down in the water. It lost momentum fast. the engine flooded and died. But the truck made it nearly the entire way through 10 foot deep water. Water poured into the cab, and Rose climbed out on top of the truck, now only a few feet from dry land. Rose looked back behind the truck, then climbed onto the trailer behind the cab just as the outstretched arm of a revenant, already climbing the cab, missed grabbing her feet. The revenants were behind her surprisingly quickly for creatures that move so slowly.
Rose ran toward the back of the truck as she felt a bullet whiz past her head. The snipers in the towers were shooting at the revenants, and her with them!
"Stop!" Rose screamed as loud as she could. "Tell them to stop!" Reaching the back of the truck, she leaped to the shore. Just as she tried to re-balance herself for the run to the compound, a bullet struck her in the heal.
"AAAAARRRRGGHH!"
Rose stumbled forward. The revenants behind her were now gaining as the ghouls in the compound approached. Rose reached the gate, but could never make it to any of the stairs. There were no survivors left on the ground. She paused, staring at the ghouls that were almost upon her, then turned around to face the revenants behind her.
"There are worse things than dying," Rose said to herself. She closed her eyes, full of stressful tears, and held her hands up as if to receive a gift.
If her eyes had been open, she may have been blinded by the rope ladder that suddenly struck her in the face.
"Grab on!" Leon shouted from a window two floors above. Rose did, and Leon, Walter, and Reed Wright pulled her up out of the reach of the zombie armies crashing into each other below.

For three days they guarded and reinforced the stairway doors. Food and water began to run very short. Every survivor felt hungry and lethargic. The ghouls were gone, slaughtered at the revenants' feet, but zombies still roamed the island constantly, occasionally trying to get into the more protected parts of the compound. The upstairs areas lacked all the resources necessary for a prolonged defense. A mist spread over the whole lake, followed by a light but strengthening rain.
"I thought I'd come home to some peace," Walter said, holding his wife and child tightly. "I thought I'd be able to take care of you like I should have been doing all along. I'm sorry."
"None of us thought it would end this way," Reed said over the sound of someone coughing. "So much for planning, huh?"
"Well, no," Daisy Newman said. "I mean, we all did what we had to, right? God doesn't promise us everything will be sunshine and frozen custard. And He doesn't tell us we have to win. He just tells us what we have to do."
Leon, drowsy from dehydration, smiled. "That's a Protestant thought I can get behind. Thanks, Daisy. But please don't talk about food."
They chuckled. People were coughing all around them.
Daisy began to hum a tune, and they all joined in, singing themselves to sleep.
"God only knows, God makes his plan / The information's unavailable to the mortal man / We're workin' our jobs, collect our pay / Believe we're gliding down the highway, when in fact we're slip sliding away."


The morning sunlight poured into the room. The survivors woke to a distant humming sound and the not-so-distant sound of voices below them. Not grunts or moans, but human voices.
"What? Do you guys hear that?" Leon asked.
"Are there more survivors down there?" Walter said.
They heard the disconcerting sound of someone vomiting directly below them.
"Are you OK?" A voice asked.
"Man, I don't feel so hot either," said another, followed by more vomiting.
"What happened?" A third voice said.
The survivors scrambled to a nearby window and looked out. The grounds were filled with people. Ill as they seemed, there were no zombies in sight.
"Hello?" Reed shouted down to them.
"Hello up there! Can you help us?" Someone shouted back.
"Reed? Is my family with you? Are they safe?"
"Dad?!!" Rose shouted giddily. The survivors unblocked the door and ran down to greet the recovering zombies (except for Rose, who limped quickly). The humming had gotten much louder, like an airplane engine.
"What is that sound?"
Overhead, an airship floated by just above the wind turbines. It settled above the island between the gate and the water, lowering a small carriage with half a dozen people in it. Two men in suits stepped out onto the island first, with four workers proudly wearing the letters CDC following. The lead man was lean, gray haired, and wearing sunglasses.
"I'm looking for the... mayor, or whoever is in charge around here," the man said.
"Reed, I think that's you," Walter said. Reed stepped forward.
"I'm Reed Wright."
"Detective John Munch, NYPD," Detective Munch said. "Or I was, back when there was a functioning PD."
"Kind of a long way from New York," Reed said.
"Yeah, they're sending us into newly disinfected areas," Detective Munch said. "Rebuilding a society takes good leaders, and they're going to need as much help as they can get."
"Who exactly are 'they'?" Leon asked.
" 'They' are the new government," Detective Munch said. "DC was pretty much wiped off the map. They were one of the first urban areas hit by the "ghouls" or whatever they were." Munch supplied the air quotes. "Reed here is pretty much the future of the US goverment."
"How did you know they're called ghouls?" Walter asked. "And how did you know we were disinfected?"
"You want the party line version, or the real story?" Detective Munch asked. "Officially their brilliant scientists just discovered the cure and they deployed it immediately. Unofficially..."
"Unofficially, they've been targeting areas where the ghouls seem to have been killed off," Walter said.
"Reed, your friend here catches on quick," Detective Munch said. "Sounds like you had people you could count on."
"We'd have never made it alone," Reed said. Rose and Mr. Redding walked up, standing side by side with Walter & Daisy, Reed & Liv, Leon, Jason, and all the others.
"Hi," Rose said, "does your zeppelin have Guinness?"


IT'S OVER!

And For This Milestone Achievement...

... which is to say, my 100th post, let me announce officially before the blogosphere that I am a father.

Lucy Marcia Maynard was born on April 26th at 10:32pm. She was 8 pounds 2.5 ounces and 21.75 inches long. We hardly noticed the thunderstorm outside the midwives' birthing cottage, and I held my wife's hand until they lifted Lucy out and laid her across my wife's chest. I saw a strength in my wife that night I had never seen before, and I can honestly say it was the most emotional experience I have ever felt. I cried at the sight of my daughter's full head of hair.

My wife and baby are asleep within arms reach of me as I type this. I love them both deeply.

Lucy is being baptized this Sunday. If you know me or my wife at all, and you can make it to Christ the King Presbyterian Church in Norman, you should come and see her admission into the covenant family of God. I will be taking vows for her.

This is what life is made of. Now wasn't that a worth while 100th post?

Two Things the People Need

I'm doing a "read through the Bible in a year" program (thank you, Bible Gateway), and have been mostly keeping up. The last couple weeks have been tough, though, as I'll mention in post #100 later. The plan I've been following takes me through some of the Old Testament and some of the New Testament every day, so I am now in I Kings and nearing the end of Luke. I think I have come to appreciate more how much Jesus focuses on and references things in the Old Testament.

It's possible my analysis is just crap, since after all I'm no Hebrew scholar, but I feel like all the books in the Old Testament since Deuteronomy have been making two main points. First, God's people need a king. They can't be orderly on their own, and they can't protect themselves against the sinful designs of those both outside and inside the family without a single, powerful leader. Of course, they are terrible at choosing their king (i.e., they don't want God as their King), and thus God gives them Saul, who again proves they need a better king, David. Even David proves they need a better king, since David doesn't govern his own family that well, and thus cannot insure justice beyond his own lifetime. With Solomon comes peace and prosperity, but it is short-lived, and to get these benefits Solomon is sometimes a cruel task master, acting more like Pharaoh than God. And the kingdom is split after Solomon. The People Need a King.

Second, God's people need a temple. After all the intricate instruction for how to build the tabernacle, and all the victories bound to the Ark of the Covenant, once Israel occupies the land they start setting up alters and making sacrifices and having priests and "worshiping" God wherever and however they please. Unless I missed the part in the Law where it's a good idea to keep private priests in your home, ignoring the feasts God commanded, not feeling like traveling all the long way to wherever the Ark is, this is a problem. Even David isn't great on this front, what with transporting the Ark by oxcart and such. The people need to know where the dwelling place of God is, they need to see the cloud enter and live amid the people. They need a God-With-Us. But even once Solomon builds the Temple in Jerusalem, again the peace is short-lived. The kingdom is split and Jeroboam sets up rival temples. Israel is again left to wander about meeting with God in haphazard ways (or not at all). The People Need a Temple.

I'm sure there are more insights to come, but I can see now why Jesus is so concerned with the Kingdom and the Temple. The Church can't really be the people of God without them.

(I should have put links in this post, but I got lazy. I hope you don't mind. But if you do...)

Leviticus 26:29

Ten minutes after Walter Newman died, his eyes opened.
I'm hungry, Walter thought. Where's the never-ending pasta bowl when you need it?
Walter looked around in a haze. He was on his back, on the ground, in the yard of some kind of fortress or castle. He saw other people around, vaguely, but he was certain that wasn't important at the moment. He started to get up, trying to remember where he was or what he had been doing on the ground.
Walter rubbed the back of his neck, feeling fresh scar tissue. For a moment, Walter felt a flash of reality. No. He had fallen. He had felt his neck crack, the bones of his shoulder breaking through his skin. No. Walter looked around frantically, seeing the dead walking all around him, slowly, almost hovering, buzzards looking for a meal. NO!
"UUGGHH!" Walter moaned mournfully, closing his eyes tightly as he fought back the disturbing images in his mind.
Walter looked again. They were just people, people he didn't know. The walked away, saying nothing to him. He looked up at the white tufts of cotton in the sky above him. A midget riding a chicken passed overhead. Walter knew it was somehow absurd, but he didn't question it. Chicken. Walter was very hungry.

"Breakfast is on, Rose."
Rose Redding jolted awake, dropping the copy of Pride and Prejudice from her lap. She was seated in a soft maroon chair in the Cooper family's farmhouse. Her arms were wrapped around a crowbar. Ever since that first night in the house, she slept fitfully unless she had something to defend herself with.
"A rough night, dear?" Mrs. Cooper asked.
"No more than usual," Rose said. Together they walked into the kitchen where the rest of the Cooper family waited at the table.
"Rose, sleep all right after your watch?" Nat Cooper said.
"Just fine, Mister Cooper," Rose said. "What's for breakfast?" The family chuckled.
"Same thing as always, eggs and taters," the younger son said. "Why are we always havin' eggs and taters, eggs and taters. I don't want any eggs and taters, I want cereal!"
"Pipe down, Daniel," Nat Cooper said. "We're in a tough way, and your mother's doing everything she can. And don't think being in a tough way'll keep me from tannin' your hide."
Rose was almost too intent on her meal to notice. She hadn't eaten much for the last week. The sight of the new zombies had left her without much appetite. She quickly devoured her egg and polished off her potato.
"May I have another egg?" Rose asked. Mr. and Mrs. Cooper looked at her silently for a moment. Rose blushed slightly as she tried to explain herself. "I know we don't have a lot of food to spare, but I really think I need the protein, and they're more replenishable than our potatoes at the moment."
Mr. Cooper's glance fell to his children's plates, then returned to meet Rose's gaze. "OK, Rose. Mother, will you put another egg on the fire?"
Mrs. Cooper stood from the table slowly. "Yes, dear."

Walter walked through a desert, the sun beating down and burning his skin. I have to get back to my family, Walter thought. He knew that was why he had been walking for so long. Where he had just been, Walter wasn't quite sure. How long have I been walking?
Too long, came the voice. Walter looked up. The sky had gone dark, and a frowning Cheshire cat looked down on him from the sky. You need to get past the forest, the cat seemed to say.
Walter looked around at the trees. He did seem to be in a forest. The canopy blocked out the sky. Was I in the desert earlier? Walter thought. He felt his stomach growl. And who are all these people wandering around? Can they help me? Walter knew intuitively if he called out to them, none would answer him. Not until he found his wife. But before he could do that, he definitely needed to find something to eat.
Walter entered a break in the trees, and looked up for the cat. It was there, but lower in the sky. Its frown was thinner, almost impossible to see. Maybe the cat is hungry too, Walter thought.
There's always food in the Quick-E Mart, the cat seemed to say. Walter looked around. There, standing in a field next to a cow house (What are those called? He thought.) was a brightly lit Quick-E Mart, open for business. All the other wandering people were going toward it. Thunder rolled, a sure sign of a coming storm. Some of the wanderers fell down before they could get to the store. Walter walked toward it, feeling sluggish.

"They're coming around the side!" Rose shouted. She raised her rifle and fired. The slower zombies were easy targets, even in the black of night, and fell immediately at a headshot. The others, though...
"They're too close, Nat!" Mrs. Cooper shouted downstairs toward her husband.
Thunder roared from below as Nat Cooper fired the shotgun from between the boarded windows. "They're too damn fast, I don't want to waste ammunition! David, watch that window, he's coming around!"
David raised the heavy hunting rifle toward the window, but struggled to keep the barrel up.
From above, Rose fired her rifle twice more. "That's the last of the slow ones! How many left?"
"Three, I think," Nat Cooper shouted. A piercing shriek from outside preceded a fast body springing from the darkness and shattering a board on the window Mr. Cooper was guarding. Arms covered in splinters and rivulets of blood reached into the house.
Thunder, cocking, and more thunder. "Two left," Nat Cooper said.
"I think one's come around this side, Poppa," David said.
Rose and Mrs. Cooper came downstairs with their rifles, ready to help guard the windows from the nearby intruders. In the center of the house, young Daniel sat with his knees to his chest, crying softly.
David hefted his gun to the window again, resting it on one of the guardian boards.
"David, don't leave that there!" Rose shouted, moving to help him.
Too late. A hand grabbed the barrel from outside and yanked, pulling the boy toward the window. Two bodies smashed the boards on the window and grabbed David. "MOOOMMAAA!!"
The whole family ran to him. Rose struck the zombies with her crowbar. Mrs. Cooper screamed, swinging a shovel with strength only adrenaline and maternity can create, beating the zombies off her son. Mr. Cooper fired four shots from the shotgun, obliterating the zombies.
"David! David, are you all right?" Mrs. Cooper asked frantically. She stumbled, and Mr. Cooper dropped the shotgun on the floor to catch her.
David stumbled backward, turned, and vomitted. He looked up at his mother with blank, bloodshot eyes. An inhuman shriek sprang from David's body.
"David?" Mrs. Cooper said, eyes full of tears as he lunged at her.
"NO!" Rose shouted as she struck the creature that had been David Cooper with the crowbar. The creature came again, and Rose struck again, and again. The creature fell back, then turned toward Daniel, still on the floor crying.
Rose moved quickly. She scooped the shotgun from the floor, spun to the monster, and fired the last round. What remained fell to the ground.
"NO!" Mrs. Cooper screamed. "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO MY SON?!"
Rose was in shock. "He... it wasn't your son anymore."

Walter was still hungry. He had eaten on the 3-foot hero sandwich lying next to the bag of oats on the Quick-E Mart floor. The wanderers seemed inexplicably intent on that bag...
Another flash. People, expressionless, bent over a human body. Blood on their faces. Walter's sandwich, somehow attached to the body.
"UUGGHH!" Walter clenched his eyes, then opened them. Whatever it was had passed. He really needed to talk to someone. And find more food. Still hungry.
Walter saw new people moving amid the wanderers. Who are they? He wondered. But they weren't people: they were like life-sized marionettes, moved by strings that floated up into the air. They moved like animals, fast. They would be in one place one moment, and in the blink of an eye much closer. Walter didn't like them. Neither did any of the wanderers. Walter needed to cut those strings. Yes. The marionettes were too creepy, they needed to put cut and put away.
In an instant one was upon him. No, a 10-foot snake was upon him! He moved as it struck, barely missing. The snake struck again. Walter felt fangs enter his right hand. Blood flowed out of him as venom flowed in. Walter pulled the snake, still embedded in his hand, towards himself. If that's the game, Walter thought, two can play. Walter bit the snake, sinking his teeth into it. Its body whipped about violently, then went limp and fell to the ground, releasing him. Walter looked at it again. A marionette, but no strings. All around him, wanderers stood next to limp marionettes. Walter felt jubilant, wanting to celebrate. The wanderers didn't look like they wanted to have a party. As he walked off, Walter wished his wife were there to congratulate him.

They buried David the next day. There was little time for mourning, though, because of the repairs needed to keep the house protected. The zombies had smashed a number of boards, and had gotten the last of the chickens. Rose worked hard hammering boards over the windows, hauling firewood into the house, cleaning the guns. Twilight approached quickly, and the day's work was showing on her.
"If you keep this up, you won't be able to stand tonight, much less fight," Nat Cooper said as Rose nailed the last board to one of the windows.
"I'm just doing what I have to," Rose said. "I can't let it happen again."
"You don't owe us anything, you know," Nat Cooper said. "We fed you, you fought for us. We've been square all along."
"You guys took me in," Rose said. "You've been like a family to me since I got here."
"Get in hear, dear," Mrs. Cooper said. "Sun's going down, we've barely time to eat before they come."
Nat Cooper walked into the house. Rose hammered the last nail and then followed him to the door. Nat paused, then turned in the doorway. The shotgun was in his right hand.
"We're not your family," He said. "And with the chickens gone, we can't afford another mouth to feed that ain't flesh and blood."
"What?" Rose said, shocked. "You can't mean that."
"Plus, after last night," He said, "I reckon Mrs. Cooper couldn't bear to have you under our roof again. Now here's something to keep your strength up." Cautiously, he handed her a small hand towel with a boiled potato wrapped inside. He then placed both hands on the gun. "If I was you, I'd head south."
"Mister Cooper..." Rose said, fighting back tears, "Nat..."
"We needed you to fix our house today. You needed us to give you food for the road. So it's like I said, we've been square all along."
Rose stumbled back, turned to leave, then looked back at Nat angrily. "My shotgun?"
"If you try to come back," Nat Cooper said, "You'll get done to you what David got done to him."
Rose walked away from the farmhouse, slowly and wearily. As the sun set, there was rustling in the woods to the north.

I wonder how long I've been wearing this backpack, Walter thought. He knew it didn't have any food in it, or he would have eaten it already. He had followed the wanderers, which led him to a clearing with what looked like a little family restaurant on a peninsula surrounded by a small pond. The water looked harsh and forbidding. Probably poisoned, Walter thought, best avoid it. If he could find money in the backpack, maybe he could get a friendly server at the restaurant who would sit with him a while.
He saw a deer running lightly away from the restaurant. Maybe I should go hunting instead, Walter thought. He felt he could eat the whole thing. It was a doe. Doe, a deer, a female deer. Walter looked up at the Cheshire cat. It was grinning widely, evidently recognizing the song Walter was trying to remember.
Between him and the deer, Walter saw a dozen of the marionettes chasing it. They were going to get to his dinner first. He had to beat them to it. To beat them. Walter hated the marionettes. Maybe there was something he could use against them in the backpack. How long had he been wearing this backpack?

The fast zombies caught up with Rose among the trees. She had run for the area with all the good firewood. She picked up a strong, slender branch from the ground and struck the first zombie in the head. She began beating them off, but she clearly wouldn't be able to do it for long.
The slow zombies began to reach them. But instead of attacking Rose, they grasped at the faster ghouls. They began to struggle, wrestling with each other violently. The ghouls bit into the slow zombies repeatedly, but in vain. When one of the slow zombies returned the favor, the ghoul screamed and went into convulsions before falling to the ground, limp. Rose tried to move away from the struggle, but was block from behind by a couple of slower zombies. She struck the first to the ground, then struck it in the head with her make-shift club. She didn't linger to see if it was dead or just dazed. The second was wearing some kind of military looking backpack. Rose looked at its face more directly, struggling to make out its features in the failing light.
"Oh my-..." Rose gasped in fear and horror, "Walter?"
Walter Newman stared at Rose blankly.
"UUGGHH!"