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Showing posts from March, 2009

The Cherry Tree on a wet weekend

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Taken in our backyard by Jennifer with her new iPhone. My daughter's softball tournament got rained out. Some unexpected, unplanned free time! First blush of spring...Some money plant blossoming on the edge of our woods. We got this from my mother's mother. The money plant grows beside a rather large patch of ground cover Jennifer transplanted from an old maid that lived near our house known around here as Miss Lucille. Miss Lucille was a quiet but strong and persistent woman who gardened practically until the day she died. We got a lot of various kinds of poppies and other plants from her right after we built our house in 1993-1994. I can remember seeing her out with her walker in her garden slowly, meticulously hoeing away at weeds with a hoe that was so old most of the blade had been gradually whittled away by the friction of its daily use to little more than a precisely shaped nub. The yellow bloom reveals that this ground cover is yellow archangel . These plants are very h

When $10,000,000,000,000 ain't enough

A couple of interesting things to consider about the Great Recession: The recent sharp rise in the markets has been the steepest two-week gain since 1938. Such steep rises are indicative of bear market rallies . Between 1929-1932 there were nine rallies of 15% or more, averaging about two-weeks per rally. In the recession from 1937 and 1942 there were another nine rallies of 15% or more averaging almost 3 months each. So, have we bottomed out yet? No one knows but history would suggest we haven't. Frontline had another excellent program on last night. This one focused on the national debt, something I've posted about before. As you know, I support President Obama on most of his initiatives but I believe NOTHING is worse for the economic future and social stability of this country than public debt. The basic story, according to Frontline, is that President Reagan authorized a large tax cut immediately after assuming office in 1981. Only a couple of years later, however, he was

Music of the 30's

Perhaps in part to honor the Great Recession I’ ve been listening to some excellent music from the 1930’s era. The combo of swing, jazz, and big band sounds yield some truly amazing work. Many songs from this period of music, songs like Stardust , As Time Goes By , and The Man I Love , are timeless. Great clarinet solos, trumpets, saxophones, and pianos take the lead in danceable, often carefree tunes. Some virtuosos, like Earl Hines or Teddy Wilson , approach compositions of classical complexity. Earl Hines was a brilliant performer . As was Count Basie . Indiana was an awesome tune. (Note: Unfortunately, all I can share with you are mostly videos from the early 60's when the compositions featured are performed with more of a 40's and 50's influence than the more "straight-laced" approach of the pristine 30's.) It’s difficult to put into words why I like this music. I’ ve always enjoyed the music of the 30’s. It is easy, clean, innocent, yet sophisticat

"Cheap Populism"

This is a priceless moment for Jon Stewart and "The Daily Show" , perhaps the most clever and humorous show on television. It was ultimately brought about by the video I posted in the sentence "Let Rome burn" on February 19. The video that shows the relationship between the two events is here . A good journalistic overview of this is featured in Business Week . Since his duel with CNBC financial whiz Jim Cramer , Stewart has enjoyed a rise in popularity while Cramer has seen a drop in his ratings. People seem to appreciate it when a "Snake Oil Salesman" labels himself as such while they tend to steer clear of those who go on with pretending they are something they're not. But, as Stewart clearly points out, Cramer is not the problem, he's just a symptom of our times. More stuff... The NAACP says Blacks got screwed worse in the sub-prime mortgage crisis than whites . If this is true then racism is alive and well in America. If it isn't

*F7*

On Friday evening my daughter lost her fancy, text messaging machine of a cell phone. Her world went suddenly mute. We searched for it, me several times and once by desperate flashlight. She was already upset with herself when I decided she was getting a little sloppy mentally. Last year she lost her digital camera. We get nice equipment. She might be a bit spoiled. But, I don’t like financially paying $300 every few months just because she can't keep up with her shit. So, I made some rules and forbid her from using Jennifer’s laptop, which she uses all the time, more than Jennifer. She asked: “Why?” In explaining this to her I expressed a dissatisfaction on her level of maturity. She was a lazy ass. She almost teared up. The next morning she was to sign up for high school, apply for special classes she wanted to take. Electives. She got to meet some of her would-be teachers and look at textbooks, talk about examples of classes. Her travel fastpitch softball team was opening the s

New Slogan Suggestions

Jennifer scratches her head and asks "Where does all the money go?" Hell if I know. Poof. Five major stocks (and their bullshit web sites): Price on 3/5/2008 - Price Today... General Electric : $33.55 - $6.66 Slogan: "Imagination at Work." My suggestion: "Imagine if I had Work." Bank of America : $37.55 - $3.17 Slogan: "Bank of Opportunity." My suggestion: "Desperate for Opportunity." General Motors : $22.97 - $1.86 Slogan: "Leadership of Tomorrow Today." My suggestion: "Pray for the Volt ." CitiBank : $22.15 - $1.02 Slogan: "Banking the way it should be." My suggestion: "We put the CASH in CrASH." American International Group : $44.61 - $0.35 Slogan: "Moving Forward." My suggestion: "Over the Cliff." This is, as of today, the second worse stock market crash in history with a 53.4% loss to date, bumping the 1937-38 crash's 49.1% loss. The number one spot still belongs to t

Just the (recent) historic facts

There are a lot of things I'd really enjoy writing about. I want to do a piece on spring training for the Braves , on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan , I have another blog that is my personal experiment with the biography of the life and ideas of Fredrich Nietzsche which I need to tinker with, there's a book on psychology I'm reading that I've love to share with you, my daughter is starting her new fastpitch travel ball season soon, and there's even a fourth part to our trip to Alaska last summer (see the first entries of this blog from 2008) I've outlined to write about. But the fact is nothing - absolutely nothing - overrides the present historic global economic circumstances. Personally, I haven't felt the "hard rain" of these economic times (except for a very hard hit to my 401k). Most of my friends haven't felt it. All that is subject to change, of course. This Great Recession is not going away anytime soon and it could be the demise

The Ape in the Mirror

When I bought our HDTV after Christmas I decided to throw in a Blu-Ray disc set with the deal so I could see exactly what my PS3 could do with the latest video technology. The Blu-Ray I purchased was a splendid nature series narrated by David Attenborough and produced by the BBC entitled Planet Earth . Each episode is filled with incredible photography and surprising information about our precious habitat on this pale blue dot of a home. What the viewer sees is often beautiful but sometimes it can be terrible as well. Nature does feed off nature, after all. At the conclusion of the episode on "Jungles" there is a segment that made a tremendous impression on me. In the rain forests of Uganda , we saw a group of 150 male chimpanzees organize themselves and attack a neighboring territory . Their object was to drive the native chimps out and overtake their feeding grounds . Several were killed in the successful attack. Among the dead was an infant, its frail, limp body passed a