Our First Day of Ship Hunting the "Wisconsin" Big Bay De Noc-Went Pretty Well

12' rudder CC Hand

Day 1 of our search for a lost shipwreck went better than expected. We are on the hunt for Queen City that went down near For River over a century ago. We went out and practiced on two ships the C.C. Hand and the "Wisconsin". The first ship we dove to try out some equipment and learn to coordinated while the second ship is much smaller and has never been registered. The marine archaeologist asked us to film the "Wisconsin" so he could get some ideas of the era as the name doesn't appear to be correct and/or reflective of the name locals were using. 

The first ship is well known called the C.C.Hand that went down with 24K tons of soft coal from Cleveland to Chicago in 1914. The ship hit ground while trying to navigate fog and was able to peel itself off the island. However, when eating dinner the ship started to smoke and caught fire. You can read more about it HERE. Everyone was evacuated. As an important side note the underlining shipping structures are some of the reasons why Delta County could have high value as a centralized shipping area.

The Great Lakes, and Delta County in particular, have an abundance of prior discovered and still undiscovered ship wrecks. Our team is chasing the Queen City. The diving is great and the water is often clear. There are plenty of places to explore and one is unlikely to run out of ships. Rumor has it that there is gold ingots from the Civil War near poverty Island from a ship called the Griffin. That would be a major find but unfortunately that ship is not our priority but I certainly would like to some day look for it. 

In our case, the gold is finding artifacts we can send to the local museums. I have been looking at some of the laws and rules around discovering artifacts on the Michigan Department of Environment Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE) website. It appears that we have no issues with just discovery but once we do discover the ship we can record it and then send in to the State of Michigan for an extraction permit. As our plan is to donate to a local historical society and are working with an archaeologist who once worked for one of the states archaeologist services I suspect we will be considered qualified.

Part 761 and the Federal Abandoned Shipwreck Act of 1987 provide necessary and sufficient statutory authority. Part 761 prohibits the removal, alteration and destruction of abandoned property which is in, on, under, or over the bottomlands of the Great Lakes including those within a Great Lakes underwater preserve without a permit issued by representatives of the Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) and the Department of Natural Resources (DNR). Each permit may contain appropriate conditions. Engaging in activities prohibited under Part 761 are crimes. A person seeking a permit must complete and file a prescribed application form (see below). 

The first ship was the CC Hand and the second one was dubbed by a few locals who knew about it the "Wisconsin". It looks about 75 feet long smashed on the rock. It has square nails and appears to be part metal and part wood which would make me think it was a private yacht that eventually smashed on the rocks. My suspicion is that it was from the 1920's and was seeking safe harbor in the small marinas of the area and it ran aground and broke up. When we saw it, it was pretty broke up and scattered. When I went past the stern, beyond what you would normally go, I kept finding ship parts everywhere. Didn't find a name but I would like to go back in the summer and just take closer look at everything. 

I haven't shared the video because I plan on making a high quality documentation of the day but it will take some time to edit and put it together. Our goal is to attract a few sponsors and some marketing interest for the area.

Economic Recovery-Are My Projections Still on Track?

The economy is showing some signs of improvement through the jobs report and economic activities. I'm reading the Reuters article U.S. economy is improving, weeks before the election. Will Trump benefit? by Ann Saphire and I thinking about whether I'm going to be close in my original projects. It is great that our economy is growing and that can have a big impact on people's lives. Projections are a little like looking in to a "crystal ball" but there are indicators that sometimes give us insight. It is interesting to watch the market and see what makes it tic and hum along. 

Projections can be hard. I'm curious if my belief that the economic recovery will happen in Q3 and be back to normal by Q4 at which time 2021 will see improvements above pre-covid levels. While its not directly tied to the theory I'm working on, it is the principles of the research that I'm using to predict an upswing. In part, its based on improvements in GDP through enhanced network capacities and influx of investments that lead to innovative adaptation and hopefully higher economic growth. 

Retrieved from Reuters

Because I'm curious about how it will work out I will talk about some of the economic news and how it might relate in part to the the theory (You can read more HERE). If my predictions are right that is awesome and if they are not right that is awesome! The outcome isn't really tied to the theory. The theory is about economic developing in a Digital GDP world and how that will change our economic assumptions to fit more with a network cluster development type theory; or the Theory of Transactional Clusters.

I'm just sort of playing around with different aspects of the theory to see if they can be useful for economic activities in an economy that relies increasingly on a virtual world/economy. I wrote in April the article GDP Contracts 1st Q of 2020-Is It a Short Lived Shock and Digital GDP Recovery? that relates in more detail what a digital recovery might look like.

Saphire, A. (September 11th, 2020). U.S. economy is improving, weeks before the election. Will Trump benefit? Reuters. Retrieved September 12th, 2020 at https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-economy/us-economy-is-improving-weeks-before-the-election-will-trump-benefit-idUSKBN2622TG

Who is Going to Win Executive Orders in the Supreme Court of Michigan?-Conflict Leads to Definition

Emergency powers has been enacted in a number of states to squelch the spread of COVID. Since that time the political and medical landscape had changed and the essential question of how long can a Governor have emergency management powers. I'm not a big conflict supporter but do sometimes see the benefit of conflict that leads to greater defining of an essential issue of who and when we can and can't use emergency powers and when do those terms end. This article isn't about picking a side or talking about who is right or who is wrong. In a pandemic it is very hard to make perfect choices with imperfect emerging information and thus conflict helps us define essential issues that could be used in the future. 

Let me say I'm taking a bird's eye view of this from an objective viewpoint and not really discussing my personal opinion on when emergency powers are expired. My interest is in the political mode of conflict and how groups disagree but that these disagreements can sometimes be more beneficial than harmful if the parties come to a resolution of important topics. (Trust me...I'm not in favor of most conflicts 😡.)

One wants a 28 day limit and the other one doesn't. Let us just use two denotations to create more objective clarity R FOR 28 day limit and G for NOT 28 days (I couldn't think of a better one😬). R and G are our two logical terms that will be used to denote the opposing sides. I suspect we could build an equation out of this if we really put some effort into it. That is not in the scope of this post either. 

R and G are upset over a contract interpretation and they have a conflict. One says Its OK and the other says its not OK. They try and settle their differences and they can't and still fell upset after talking so they want a third party to help. So we have to introduce factor C (🙈🙉🙊) They have been to court 2X  so we have C1 and C2 and they want to go again so we can introduce C3. C1 and C2 have ruled in favor of G thus far but no one knows what C3 will do. 

How will C3 decide?

Well...I have no idea! 😂 What I can say is that there is a lot of ambiguous information and there are ways in which we might break down and analyze the outcomes. There are some models out there and I will refresh my memory and share a little latter. However, I do know that this is a point in time so I want to use a trajectory so as to look at the very next likely step. 

I'm going to say again that I'm not a legal expert and am only slight familiar with how all the appeals processes work and under what circumstances. What I can say with my labor relations experience is that there are methods to dealing with this ambiguity to help decide what the likely options are. Thus, we need to look at some data so we can create some trends that help us predict the future. 

We might look at C1 and C2 and sort of predict that C3 will be the same just using probability. We might always want to review what courts have typically decisions in order to better understand how appeals courts ruled. We can thus look at prior court cases for trends in information on such things as reverse rates, total amount lost, lawsuits per year, political background, income, education, etc.. etc... etc... Whatever information is available gives us a hint. 

As a side note that is what is scary about cyber crime in that when multiple databases are hit they create lots of information and sometimes this triangulation of hits leads to new knowledge. Other times there may be enough information to create historical trends because past behavior predicts future behavior. The point being, a lot of information creates insight when it is put together well and interpreted by skillful people. 🙈

This isn't a novel idea. The intelligence community and high powered attorneys use these skills from time-to-time. For example a study of past behavior modeling of courts and the supreme court found, "Casting predictions over nearly two centuries, our model achieves 70.2% accuracy at the case outcome level and 71.9% at the justice vote level." (Katz, Bommarito & Blackman, 2017).

In this case you would have to model at the Michigan and Supreme Court level. While 70% is accurate and narrows down the ambiguity it still leaves a lot of room for error. You will want to use other decision matrix to help determine other potential choices. Because we are dealing with real actors and living people with animal spirits we must assume some rationality in decision making. Courts are typically places of higher levels of rational thought (Depends on who you ask and assuming the courts are using both critical thinking and morality in the process 😕.)

To balance this out I could use other tools to help me make decisions and Game Theory and probably another one. I like Game Theory because it interactive with moving players in a fluid situation. that doesn't mean it doesn't have its downfalls. Its just that it allows for presence of the utility of agents that can change and adjust at each of the stages to create possibilities and potentials that can be quantified. So that 30% looks something like perhaps 15%. 

A gap of 15-30% is a still a big open unknown space for people and that can be risk. Because we are dealing with novel situations that will require additional cognitive effort by the judges to fall back and rely more heavily on their strengths and personalities. This is where one would get into deep psychology and how personality impacts choices. It could go into such detail that people might be able to use neuroscience to understand human choice at a granular level.

Its not that simple though as these random "acts of God" that happen that mess it all up. We have no idea where they come from but even the best plans are subject to derailment. New information, environmental changes, political shifts, etc... all impact the context of choices. In all prediction games there is an element of randomness where even if you think your really really sure it will turn out, it doesn't, and you missed something in your calculation such an unknown or random event. Thus you must control for the unknown and randomness in some way (Way beyond the scope of this article). 

So R, G, C1, C2 C3? are all part of the same problem. If we analyzed the situation well we might have narrowed it down to being 87% sure of who will win. There is still enough large variability that one cannot discount the opposite occurring. In business we would try and hedge some risk but ultimately people will put their resources where they are likely to have a win. In business we might analyze cases to understand what new industry and legal landscape changes are occurring. 

If you want to know more about predictive analytics and some of the different models you can look at a pretty good piece entitled What is predictive analytics? Transforming data into future insights that states, " Predictive analytics is a category of data analytics aimed at making predictions about future outcomes based on historical data and analytics techniques such as statistical modeling and machine learning"(Edwards, 2019, para 1).  

While we narrowed down the most likely choices we must still use common sense. We can make predictive modeling of the possibility of reversal, adjustment and confirmation of previous legal decisions. We may find the case won't be heard and we have a vaccine as an act of a changed playing field and thus decisions that might have ended one way ended up another way; while the fundamentals of the case didn't actually change but their context did. So at the upper levels Supreme Court Justices must make decisions that impact a whole different set of expectations. If we knew what those are we can create better decision matrix by reintegrating that knowledge into our existing method. More information continues to adjust and make increasingly accurate the predictions. 

I have a good idea of which side I think will win but that is just my personal opinion. Remember that this case defines certain powers between the executive and legislative branch during an emergency so it is best we just define it and keep moving forward. 

Edwards, J. (August 16, 2019). What is predictive analytics? Transforming data into future insights. CIO. Retrieved 09-11-2020 https://www.cio.com/article/3273114/what-is-predictive-analytics-transforming-data-into-future-insights.html

Katz DM, Bommarito MJ II, Blackman J (2017) A general approach for predicting the behavior of the Supreme Court of the United States. PLoS ONE 12(4): e0174698. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0174698

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2020/08/21/whitmers-emergency-actions-upheld-court-appeals/3402687001/

President Trump Holds a News Conference 09/10/20

 President Trump discusses lives saved, improved job market, Afghan peace discussions, and much more. We are going through tough times as a nation but we must continue to worry about the other things going on in the world. They just don't disappear because we are focused on COVID. True...they may go on pause and everything settle down because people are using their energy and resources to fight the pandemic. Sometimes problems aren't so important after major events and other times the become even more important. Watch the video to understand what is currently going on in the country.

Governor Whitmer September 10 2020 Press Conference

Governor Whitmer provides news update on Michigan. The state has lower COVID cases when compared to other states. This means people were able to social distance and tracking/monitoring made a big difference. Yes... there are so many other factors to consider but on the surface its an impressive number. Frontliners program are helping to finance front line workers for free college. Furthermore, there was discussion on helping people update their skills through education grants. You will need to watch it yourself to get the details. It does look as though we are on the back end of this thing 😷! Hopefully!

President Trump Delivers Remarks on Judicial Appointments

 President Trump discussion Judiciary Nominees. The Supreme Court is the top court in the land and having nominees often means that people will be selected based on their backgrounds, ideologies, and personality. The court influences our laws and cultures. When they make a decision it is pretty much final. Having people you trust on the panel influences the ideological viewpoints through rulings.

How The Economic Machine Works

It is helpful to understand on at least a rudimentary level how the economy works. Each of us must find our place within the economic system. That place should be defined by our natural skills and abilities. Sometimes we have other factors that skew that development from racism/bigotry all the way over to family structure. Developing capitalism rests in many ways on how we use labor and in turn the development of full human potential. Thus, there is a larger economic cycle and system at play where factors such as labor development, investment, resources, etc... connect and interact with each other to develop a perpetual moving system that allocates and uses resources during its change cycle.Understanding the system allows us to create greater fiscal policies. 

In Search of Delta County's Queen City Shipwreck-Some Functional Characteristics

A few divers and I have formed an ad hoc team of people who are seeking to search out and find Queen City shipwreck in Delta County. The team consists of two deep/seasoned divers, a archaeologist, and me. It is kind of cool to be invited to ship wreck. I suppose I have some diving experience over the last couple years, boating, research and other organizing skills (ummm gift for gab) to go and look for this boat. Its a great project and it will be fun to really go a National Geographic type hunt. 

Delta County Michigan has a lot of shipwrecks still not found. Visit Escanaba has some resources on local shipwrecks that may be of interest. A little more information at the Delta County Historical Museum. The amount of wrecks in Delta County is substantial but the number eludes me. I think it was around 40-50 but many are undiscovered so there is room to explore.

Queen City is a ship that hasn't been found despite being suspect in semi-shallow water. We have its general location and a navigation map where other researchers have previously explored. We are going to continue off of that map and we are going to canvas the likely areas looking for structural changes on the bottom of the water. If we can find something of interest we will stop and dive off to see what it is. There will be other strategies I'm sure but this one gets us out there in a few days. 

Its not my first shipwreck dive but it is my fist shipwreck hunt. The principles of research will be relatively the same as other studies but they will be adapted to shipwreck study. Where we need specific knowledge we can talk with the archaeologist and/or divers as the case is needed. Furthermore, it is possible to hedge volunteer researchers/historians. 

The one beautiful thing about the U.P. of Michigan is there are lots of historical society and people who love to study this stuff. When I review the literature about the ships we can find the authors. Most of those are historians themselves and can be contacted. I guess that is why we should include references and contacts with our work. I have used that option a lot over the years. 

Much of the basic work has been completed by the time I got asked. There is an amateur historian-diver connected to the group and they have reviewed the documents and have a pretty good idea (with the map) to start looking. However, I think it would be beneficial to contact the ports and historical societies in the ports where it did the most commerce to see what information they have. 

My suspicion (and I'm not an expert in nautical history) is that there may be more paper logs out there that talk about the ship, give hints to its cargo, and how much commerce it contributed to local commerce. I also think no one went back to contact the owning company and/or its chain of ownership just to see if they have any knowledge of the ship. They might love to be a little involved! Just for the marketing purposes alone! Its an idea I might bring up when we meet again. 👀

At present it looks like we have a knowledgeable team, a methodology, including research approach and a wide network of specialized divers (including ice and deep) that can be called upon to help us for free if we need it. I have dived with many of them and I can say the are really nice people and truly enjoy helping out on dives and an excuse to do it with people they like. Each of us has some experience with the others and we have our own individual skills.

 We are at present just paying for it ourselves and are taking a semi-serious recreational approach to it and we think it would be helpful to the understanding of local history. Perhaps it can help bring awareness of Delta County tourism offerings as well the economic aspects of the area. With luck we can find some artifacts and can film them and see what the next steps are with local historical societies and state/local permits. While we plan on giving any findings to the local museums and on having lots of fun trying. Maybe there are grants for these things to augment some of the costs? I might have to look and see if there is anyone interested in sponsoring the costs (which we are willing to flip ourselves for tanks and gas and stuff).

Could Escanaba Attract Seasonal Visitors Through "Hometown" Events, Condos and Marina?

One thing that Escanaba offers is a hometown atmosphere that puts on fun events for families and vacationers. It also offers a beautiful Marina and lakefront that is underutilized. With renewed interest in downtown development and housing options it is a great opportunity to connect events, condos and the marina to attract summer visitors. 

People who own boats and yachts love to have a good time and enjoy visiting fun places that are safe and keep their interests and fun sensors perked throughout their visit. For example the 906 Labor Day Event hosted at the docks and sponsored by Escanaba Public Safety, Meijers, Resort Island & Casino and others is one example of how the downtown and waterfront add value. 

You can get a windy video HERE.

Consider if we also took some of the run down blocks on that end and allowed for young entrepreneurs, developers, and others to purchase, refurbish and offer upstairs condos for sale and vacationers. I've hosted on AirBnB and I'm aware that it is possible to seasonally rent these places until a larger purchase or renter is found. It might be wise to keep a few open for vacationers. You may even find people from outside the area buy property and storefronts to rent out the store front and stay/rend out the top.

Escanaba Yacht Club

We can connect and coordinate events between the harbor, housing and events to ensure that we attract people with boats that want to come and rent a place and stay for a week or a few months (i.e. 20% discount for slip fees if you rent a condo kind of thing). That would require coordinated marketing and effort. We may consider encouraging the recreational department to get involved to provide fun events for tourists in general. 

Its just one idea we can use to enhance tourism. To attract tourism and long-term industry requires a more detailed plan I have been working on but this is certainly something that could have merit. 

Finding a Path to Peace through Conflict Management-From Molotov Cocktails to Toasting Togetherness

Finding a path to peace requires us to keep our calm and use our conflict management skills. What I see in this video might be different than what other see. I see someone throwing a Molotov Cocktail and hitting other protesters. If that would have landed in the intended location that would have hurt a lot of officers. We have to start thinking about how we are going to use conflict management skills to open up the lines of communication and simmer angry sentiments. 

In the video we see the officer jump in to help the person put the fire out (appears that way to me). This is where training on how to protect people comes into play. Most officers have good intentions and a desire to help others. They are trained to help under stressful situations.

That doesn't mean we shouldn't start thinking about those reforms that appear to make the most sense and restores trust in the Justice System. 

People are going to talk and tell everyone their opinion. We can tell the genuineness  of that opinion based on whether it solves problems and draws people closer. Those who want to exploit this conflict will encourage people to engage in more radical behavior. That may be an unintended path to societal split if the right buttons are pushed at the wrong time by exploitative individuals.

We do need some type of policing in some manner so I'm not sure if we should be talking about banning police but maybe more akin to looking toward reform measures. That which pushes the justice department to go universal but at the same time further encourages police departments to be more effective. 

That won't happen unless we have dialogue. What should happen at this point is that we get people talking and reduce some end of the anger and hurt that comes from racial/religious inequality. We must have a path going forward and that can only come through finding commonalities. We need to talk to each other and listen.

We know we need police and we know we can reform aspects of the justice system that aren't as effective or transparent as it should be. I'm not sure what other options we have other than to work together and keep the focus on improvement and development. 

There are different types of models and theories as they relate to conflict management. You can learn a few about them from the Institute of Peace and Conflict. 

I would like to just discuss common sense. Most of the conflict has been over culture/image, resources, modes of thinking and potential fear of injury/loss. Thus, talking more about how police and protesters have similarities in helping and protecting people with inalienable human rights. Recognizing there have been mistakes and moving to correct areas where we can but being frank about things we cannot change (i.e. would make it difficult to protect the public). While most of the anger is directed at police there are four essential issues as I see them:

1. Lack of Accountability: Ensuring that there is some accountability with bad officers who need to be investigated and if necessary removed before they hurt people. Let's not allow the behavior of a few bad apples blemish the records of many. Build in more feedback loops, internal investigations, and connections to the communities. Promote officers with positive, pro social, and effective practices.

2. Systematic Racism: The justice system is made up of humans who unfortunately can be prone to bias and poor decision making that doesn't always reflect the highest standards of justice. Overstuffed courts that don't spend time looking at the facts. High power attorneys allow some to walk and sometimes and hit the poor harder. Small crimes from minorities (ethnic and religious) may be (one would have to look at the data)  may be treated than others. Research and open discussion can help here. 

3. Prison and Incarceration: We want to ensure that our prisons do not continue to be an expensive drain of national resources. We want people who are dangerous to go to prison and those who have done minor things to reform. Science is pushing our outer limits in space and our inner limits to how the brain works. Let us push the Justice system to accept science in reform and the ability to help people with mental health issues that can lead to a safer world without as many people going to incubative prison systems. 

3. Development of Full Capitalism: We have toward high participation within our economic system and government to create a full capitalistic system that is based on democratic principles. This means doing better to remove anything that limits a persons chances for individual and collective success based on merit alone. Other considerations outside of performance mean we are detracting from the ability of the system to grow and function fully. Psuedo-capitalism may be limiting our ability to overcome market challenges through innovative economic engagement base in biased practices. 

Thus, the fights between protesters and counter-protesters are a symptom of other essential issues that are being played out on the protest line. While many people from both sides understand some of the issues there are likely a lot of people that are going there to protest on partial knowledge and partial understanding. They are there for how they feel, their fears, what they value, and what they would like to see in their world. Taking a bigger picture and finding some safe place to discuss these issues for a stronger America is important in drawing them together.

I get it! I been on both sides of the isle. I understand the pain of the protesters and am upset when corruption and bias in policing damage people's lives and there is a lack of accountability. One the other side I know many of these officers are trying to do the right thing and feel that they are a target when this is what they have been trained for and taught how to do things. We must hold criminals accountable while pushing the system forward to its universal justice level. I fight for what I feel is right and I can say this is a tough one. We need a path forward!

A few ideas on how to reduce some of the conflict. 

1. Encourage our leaders to start talking about a path forward.

2. Don't sugar coat or bend around issues. Tackle them straight away.

3. Look for common ground and focus public discussion on that common ground. As we do this we may find our common ground growing.

4. Think about how to reform in a way that is cost effective, safe, and unbiased.

5. Don't de-legitimize...empower people to be better and solve problems

6. Build cognitive models on both sides by sharing information, knowledge, and perspectives that leads to understanding and mutual empathy.