A Sheldon comic about three levels of insurance

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sometimes a comic strip can add to both your knowledge and vocabulary. I had previously heard of reinsurance but not the next level of retrocession, as is shown above.

 

Dave Kellett’s Sheldon comic on July 15, 2026 has the following dialogue:

 

Arthur (the talking duck): You buy insurance.

 

Arthur:     But then the insurance company buys

                  ‘Re-insurance’ on your insurance.

                  As insurance.

 

Arthur:     But then that reinsurer needs 

                   their own insurance!

                  So they buy ‘retrocession,’ which is insurance

                  for reinsurers of insurance.

          

Gramp:    Dear God. It’s insurance all the way down. 

                  [An infinite regress.]

 

Arthur:     And the secret? NOT A SINGLE ONE OF THOSE 

                  POLICIES PAYS OUT WHEN NEEDED.

 

The Wikipedia page on Reinsurance says it is:

 

“…the transfer of liability from the insurance company, which issued the insurance contract, to the reinsurance company. The reinsurance company assumes some of an insurance company's liability in exchange for a payment or a portion of the insurance contract costs.^”

 

Munich Reinsurance, known as Munich Re is one example, and Swiss Re is another. Munich Re used to post an interesting quarterly magazine called Schadenspiegel (about losses and loss prevention) on their web site. Later they restricted it just to their customers. You can find their 2007 Special feature issue – Risk factor of earth as a 58-page pdf.

  

Lloyd’s of London is another somewhat different reinsurer. The Wikipedia page about them says:

 

“Lloyd's of London, generally known simply as Lloyd's, is an insurance and reinsurance market located in London, England. Unlike most of its competitors in the industry, it is not an insurance company; rather, Lloyd's is a corporate body governed by the Lloyd's Act 1871 and subsequent acts of Parliament. It operates as a partially-mutualised marketplace within which multiple financial backers, grouped in syndicates, come together to pool and spread risk. These underwriters or ‘members,’ include both corporations and private individuals, the latter being traditionally known as ‘Names’.”

 

There is an article by Ramon Berenguer at Reinsurance News on August 20, 2025 titled How does retrocession in reinsurance work? He says that:

 

“Retrocession is a reinsurance transaction where a reinsurer transfers risks of an insurance company it has reinsured to another reinsurer. The reinsurance company that takes on another reinsurer’s risk is called the retrocessionaire.” 

 

How did I learn about Munich Reinsurance? Back in 1964 Munich Re published two books (of text and plates [images]) with failure analysis case histories by E. J. Pohl titled The Face of Metallic Fractures. They were subtitled Results of Investigations on Failed Engineering Components Carried Out by the Engineering Insurance Department of the Allianz Versicherungs-Aktiengesellschaft.

 

In 1990 I was working in Columbus, Ohio doing consulting which included lots of failure analysis. I bought the 1988 Fatigue Design Handbook from the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE). On pages 297 to 330 there was Chapter 11 on Failure Analysis by David Broek which referred to E. J. Pohl’s book. Munich Re had a U.S. office in downtown Columbus, so I visited them and asked the manager whether I could buy a copy of that book. He said no, it was long out of print. But then he asked around that company, found a spare copy at another office, and mailed it to me as a Christmas present!

 

 

There is a massive 710-page book titled The Complete Johnny Cash: Lyrics from a Lifetime of Songwriting

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back on April 4, 2011 I blogged about Stories in words and music: country edition. Of course, I mentioned Johnny Cash (February 26, 1932 to September 12, 2003) and his songs Folsom Prison Blues, I Walk the Line, and Tennessee Flat Top Box. Songs are magical – they tell a story in a few minutes with poetic words and music.

 

At my friendly, local public library I found and am leafing through a massive 710-page book from 2025 assembled by Mark Stielper and titled The Complete Johnny Cash: Lyrics from a lifetime of songwriting.

 

Folsom Prison Blues (from 1955) appears on page 26. I Walk the Line (from 1956) appears on pages 40 and 41. Tennessee Flat-Top Box (from 1961) appears on page 120.

 

I Still Miss Someone (from 1957) with Roy Cash Jr. appears on page 52. There is a video from  1990 with Highwaymen – a duet with Willie Nelson. The lyrics lament:

 

“At my door the leaves are falling
A cold wild wind will come
Sweethearts walk by together
And I still miss someone

 

I go out on a party
And look for a little fun
But I find a darkened corner
'Cause I still miss someone

 

No, I never got over those blue eyes
I see them everywhere
I miss those arms that held me
When all the love was there

 

I wonder if she's sorry
For leaving what we'd begun
There's someone for me somewhere
And I still miss someone”

 

Elsewhere there is a curious description for a song Johnny wrote with another person. That song, Tiger Whitehead (from 1973), is listed as being with Nat Winston. An article at Bob Cox’s Yesteryear on February 24, 2014 titled Dr. Nat Winston Fondly Remembered as a Noted Psychiatrist, Musician says that:

“Martha Winston recalled that Nat often talked about the time he received a call from June Carter Cash urging him to treat her husband. Although Johnny would not agree to enter a hospital for rehabilitation, he was perfectly willing for Nat to come to his Hendersonville, Tennessee home for private therapy. Nat did this over a period of one year, visiting Johnny every day after work without accepting compensation. He did it out of friendship and love for Johnny and members of the Carter family. Also, since he was serving as Commissioner of Mental Health, he felt it would be a conflict of interest to continue to treat patients for a fee while he was serving the state.

‘Johnny Cash credited Nat,’ said Susan, ‘both in his biography and publicly on the Larry King Show for his medical treatments that restored his life and career.’

‘On one visit,’ Nat told him of James ‘Tiger’ Whitehead, a colorful Carter County mountaineer, mill operator and bear hunter (reportedly killed 99 bears during his lifetime). On another trip to Nat's cabin, he took Johnny to visit Tiger's grave on Tiger Creek Road between Hampton and Roan Mountain. Johnny was so impressed by the story that he wrote ‘The Ballad of Tiger Whitehead,' which he later recorded on an album. Nat had no idea that Johnny gave him credit as co-writer until one day when he received a royalty check. Listen to Johnny talk about Tiger Whitehead and sing the song.”

 

There also are some clearly mistaken attributions in the book. Gold All Over the Ground (from 1967) on page 192 is listed as with Brad Paisley. But Brad was born later, on October 28, 1972. Chinky Pin Hill (1970s) on page 248 is listed as with Sarah Jarosz, Aoife O’Donovan, and Sara Watkins. Sarah Jarosz was born on May 23, 1991. Aoife O’Donovan was born on November 18, 1982. Sara Watkins was born on June 8, 1981. Those three women formed a band, I’m With Her, in 2014.

 

There is a 2016 posthumous book by Johnny Cash titled Forever Words: The Unknown Poems. And there is a 2018 album by that same name. The thirteenth song is Chinky Pin Hill  by I’m With Her. There is a review of it at RedGuitarMusic on April 23, 2018 titled Johnny Cash – Forever Words (Album Review). The song Gold All Over the Ground by Brad Paisley is the second one on the Forever Words album.

 

And To June, This Morning on page 320 (1970) is listed as with Ruston Kelly who only was born on July 31, 1988, and Kacey Musgraves, who was born on August 21, 1988. The song is the second one on the Forever Words album. There is a video of them from April 6, 2018 titled Ruston Kelley, Kacey Musgraves – To June This Morning (Johnny Cash: Forever Words).

 

The 1977 image of Johnny Cash came from the Library of Congress.

 

 

Saying that you can ‘connect the dots’ just is a silly cliche

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Wikipedia page for the phrase connect the dots says that:

 

“The phrase ‘connect the dots’ can be used as a metaphor to illustrate an ability (or inability) to associate one idea with another—to find the ‘big picture’, or salient feature, in a mass of data; it can mean using extrapolation to solve a mystery from clues, or else come to a conclusion from various facts.”

 

But, as is shown above, there can be more than one way to connect even four or five dots.   

 

A post on July 15, 2026 by David Murray at his Writing Boots blog is titled Communicators, stop saying you ‘connect the dots’; It’s dumb.

 

He says that:

 

“1.  In a dynamic and ever-evolving world, there are no fixed dots to connect. If there were, you  wouldn’t hire a communicator to connect them, you’d hire the sort of slightly weird person who you might bring along to an escape room. But luckily for communicators, dots aren’t a thing.

 

2.  Even if there were dots, it’s laughably arrogant to anoint yourself the only one who can connect them. Imagine telling an intelligent colleague from another discipline, ‘Don’t worry, I’m here to connect the dots. Gotcha covered, Buttercup.’

 

3.  It’s insufferable, listening to communicators telling each other on LinkedIn and at conferences that their value has nothing to do with the actual skills and philosophies and strategic approaches we have developed over years of studying and working on difficult communication problems. Rather, we just magically ‘connect the dots.’ (We must have a lot of free time, in between).”

 

He says we need to find a far richer and more meaningful metaphor.

 

 

How to become smart according to a Pearls Before Swine comic

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stephan Pastis’s Pearls Before Swine comic strip has a running gag with a gray donkey called the  Great Wise Ass who sits atop a hill and dispenses sage advice. His July 11, 2026 comic had this dialogue:

 

Pig:                       Oh, Great Wise Ass, how does one 

                              become smart?

 

Great Wise Ass: The key is to read, read, read, read, read.

                              Do you do that?

 

Pig:                       Does watching Instagram videos count?

 

Pig (to Rat):         Turns out it doesn’t count.

 

On July 6, 2024 I blogged about The magic of reading books – stories told by librarians and booksellers. Near the end of that post I had said:

 

“Back in high school I found a life-changing little book by George Polya titled How to Solve It: a system of thinking which can help you solve any problem. It gave me a whole new intellectual toolbox – which I used in my careers in applied research and engineering consulting.”  

 

My image shows the shelf with public speaking books at the downtown Boise Public Library.

 

 

The Extended Date/Time Format (EDTF) is a standard digital way for listing dates and times

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On this blog I refer to dates for articles, etc. in the usual American format of Month_ Day,_Year. But I am aware that the British instead put the Day first.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a standard way of listing dates and times using only numbers called the Extended Date/Time Format (EDTF), as shown above, with dashes between date items and colons between time items using a 24-hour clock.

 

The Library of Congress has an article on February 4, 2019 about this Extended Date/Time Format (EDTF). And Wikipedia has a page on the International Standard for it, which is ISO 8601. Markus Kuhn at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center has an article with A summary of the international standard date and time notation.

 

Finally, there is a very detailed 23-page pdf article by Annamarie C. Klose, Scott Goldstein, and Morris S. Levy in Library Resources and Technical Services on October 2025 titled It’s About Time and subtitled Use of the Extended Date/Time Format in the Digital Public Library of America.

 

 

A xkcd cartoon about holes we have drilled in the earth

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

An xkcd cartoon by Randall Munroe on July 1, 2026 (shown above) is simply titled Holes. Its vertical scale extends from 4,000 meters above sea level to 12,000 meters below it. Details shown on it are discussed at Explain Xkcd.

 

The Bingham Canyon open-pit copper mine near Salt Lake City is shown at the upper left. I blogged about it on July 15, 2011 in a post titled What can we say about a really big hole in the ground?

 

At the lower right Randall shows the two deepest holes, at almost 12,000 meters (or 12 km). How far have we gone relative to the center of the earth? The radius of the earth averages 6,371 km. So we have drilled 0.19% of the way to the center – barely scratching the surface.

 

 

Full-body pauses are a key to charisma

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have been skimming through a 2022 book by Zoe Chance titled Influence Is Your Superpower: The science of winning hearts, sparking change, and making good things happen. There is a preview at Google Books. Her passage starting on page 86 about full-body pauses being a key to charisma says that:

 

“Full-body pauses – moments when you’re not walking, fidgeting, or making any dramatic hand movements, but you are breathing easily, your hands comfortably by your side – are especially helpful. Not just during your presentation but also before and after. This key to charisma is so simple that almost no one teaches or practices it, yet it works for speakers and performers of all kinds.

 

Here are some opportunities for a full-body pause in a formal talk or performance situation.

 

When someone else is speaking or performing, you pause with your whole body and focus your attention on them. Maybe an audience member is asking a question. Maybe a junior employee is speaking up at the meeting. Maybe your bandmate is playing a solo. Whoever should have the audience’s attention should have your attention too. You’ll be tempted to look around at other people, or look down or away. If you do, you’re fracturing the group’s attention, and fractured attention is harder to collect when it’s your turn to speak. When it’s someone else’s turn to be charismatic, don’t distract others or let yourself get distracted.

 

When it’s your turn to speak or perform, thank the person introducing you, if there is one, then shift your focus to the audience. Take a full-body pause for one complete breath, smile, and you’ll have the audience’s full attention when you begin. When you’re on a panel or in an informal meeting, the pause needn’t be so obvious, but taking that movement to shift your attention will catch theirs. Now all eyes are on you.

 

When you finish your turn in the spotlight, take a moment to thank the audience before you leave. If there is applause, pause to bask in it for at least one breath, letting the audience’s attention rest fully on you. You have been focused on everyone else, charisma blazing, and they felt it. Now, humbly and gratefully, you receive. We tend to imagine that rushing offstage shows humility, but it conveys a tacit apology – I’m sorry I wasted your time. Instead, take a moment to appreciate your audience with a pause that says, Thank you for your time. I’m grateful for it, and I enjoyed being with you, too. You might nod, bow, put a hand to your chest, or even blow a kiss if you’re that kind of person and it’s that kind of event.”

 

The car key image was adapted from one at OpenClipArt.