Digging Deeper

George Soros on the Coming U.S. Class War

2012-01-24T09:02:00.003-06:00

Sobering thoughts from the man who "broke the Bank of England."

George Soros on the Coming U.S. Class War - The Daily Beast

Inside Job

2012-01-24T05:58:00.002-06:00

Academy Awards are in the news. If you see one film this year, see Inside Job, recent Oscar winner, Best Documentary. It is the best explanation of the 2008 financial crisis, and the true nature of the political structure of America, we have yet seen.

$6,000 Gold & Newt Gingrich

2012-01-24T05:34:00.002-06:00

Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich talks about a path back to hard money for the U.S.

Here's the math:

$6,000 Gold? Keep An Eye On Newt Gingrich - Seeking Alpha

Predictions 2012

2012-01-10T14:52:00.005-06:00

Mayans rise to power and institute new calendar, calling for new end of the world, 4012. So, we go to overtime.......
Ahmadinejad renounces both Islam and little white jackets, applies to Harvard, where he is accepted as grad student and TA in nuclear physics.
To revive her moribund TV career, Sarah Palin comes out of hiding, wins Republican nomination, defeats Obama in photo finish race after all hanging chads counted (7 weeks).
Stock market falls 8,000 points.
Day after inauguration, Palin resigns, joins Oprah Winfrey Network as EVP. "You betcha," she says. "Just wanted to show all you I could do it!" She further explained that "all politics is entertainment" and only saw "the White House as a stepping stone to my dream job."
Stock market rallies 9,000 points.
Euro money crisis fades from view. EU finance minister explains: "All money is conceptual -- we imagined we had more, much more -- and it worked!"
Dow Jones reaches 35,000 -- predicted more than 12 years ago.
Gold plummets to 1930s level $20 per oz. Hedge fund king John Paulson: "When we broke $35, we realized we had trouble, big trouble, right here in....." Was led away while singing medley of Broadway show tunes.
Magyars replace Mayans as world thought leaders, suggest move U.N. headquarters to Budapest. "Only step one of many," premier says at news conference. Euro leaders demur.

Sorry to be tardy with these. More cross currents of change here than originally imagined.....

USA to Iran, watch this clip -- and yet, no joke, Iran needs to be stopped

2012-01-10T14:02:00.002-06:00

The book, literally, on who will win Presidency 2012

2012-01-05T10:50:00.002-06:00

2012 Presidential Election Markets Quotes

The futures market on presidential politics, from Iowa.

Jim Rogers isn't too optimistic about stock markets in 2012, sees longer term systemic collapse - Business Intelligence Middle East - bi-me.com - News, analysis, reports

2012-01-01T08:51:00.001-06:00

Jim Rogers isn't too optimistic about stock markets in 2012, sees longer term systemic collapse - Business Intelligence Middle East - bi-me.com - News, analysis, reports

About Jim Rogers

Jim Rogers has spent a career being one step ahead of mainstream investment thinking. Amongst his many accomplishments, Rogers was co-founder with George Soros of Quantum Fund. During his ten years with the fund, the portfolio gained more than 4,000%, while the S&P rose less than 50%.

Rogers retired from Quantum in 1980 and became a guest professor of finance at Columbia University Graduate School of Business and in 1989 and 1990, the moderator of The Dreyfus Roundtable, The Profit Motive with Jim Rogers, and a media commentator worldwide.

But ask Jim Rogers about his most important venture and he will answer without hesitation: fatherhood.

A Gift to My Children: A Father's Lessons for Life and Investing (RandomHouse, 85 pages, US$16) is Jim Rogers' love letter to his daughters, Happy and Baby Bee. Reminiscent of The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, which was also written by a father to his child, Rogers' book is full of no-nonsense, unsentimental fatherly advice.

Among Jim Rogers' best advice:

-- Conduct your own research and trust your own judgment.
-- Focus on what you yourself love.
-- Be persistent.
-- Broaden your horizons and see as much of the world as you can.
-- The most important thing you can learn is how to think and question everything you hear.
-- Study and learn from history.
-- Master more than one language - and make sure one of them is Mandarin.
-- Don't panic.
-- Take care of yourself and don't neglect the sunscreen.

-- Remember that boys need girls more than girls need boys.

Underscoring his convictions that future prosperity will come from China, Rogers' two young children speak Mandarin.

Admit nothing. Explain nothing.

2011-12-30T13:02:00.001-06:00

Admit nothing. Explain nothing.

A closer look at the 1 percent - chicagotribune.com

2011-12-29T08:16:00.001-06:00

A closer look at the 1 percent - chicagotribune.com

Au Ready?

2011-12-28T14:38:00.001-06:00

Au Ready?

It takes a village to raise a millionaire

2011-12-23T08:59:00.002-06:00

I am a wealthy guy. Yesterday I had lunch with a neighbor. He had sought me out as the result of an editorial I wrote for the local paper. He was my tennis partner when I started 20 years ago; we’ve kept our friendship going for nearly 30 years. Then I had coffee with another friend who had fallen on hard times, but is rising from the ashes, with courage, grace and good humor. Then I picked up some CDs at the library, was able to wish happy holidays to my favorite staff member. I hadn’t seen her in ages but we stay in touch by email. She and I go back to the mid-1990s when she helped me research esoteric math formulas for software I was building. Over the years she has been a genius at locating hard to find books or CDs or information of any kind. She, too, has weathered harsh storms in the sea of her personal life, she, too, is a survivor. Another friend, whose home we visited recently, was inside the library, we talked for a few moments, an unexpected bonus. Spending 31+ years resident in our small village surely pays dividends. It takes a village to raise a wealthy guy; I am a millionaire in friends. I hope you are, too.

Happy holidays, happy 2012, and Merry Christmas, dear reader…..

How Gold, Silver And Platinum Will Respond To ECB's Money Printing - Seeking Alpha

2011-12-23T06:49:00.001-06:00

How Gold, Silver And Platinum Will Respond To ECB's Money Printing

Gold prices will eventually respond directly to monetary liquidity increases, no matter how much central bank price suppression intervention there may be right now. With huge euro injections, alongside significant quantitative easing in the UK and the USA, gold will rise stronger than ever, at least over the next three years. Silver, which responds both to monetary liquidity and to commercial demand, is going to rise even faster, especially as commercial demand increases in Europe, and those that "feed" Europe, like China.

From Seeking Alpha......

1000 words

2011-12-09T14:43:00.003-06:00

Source http://www.jsmineset.com/

Primal Light from Mahler's The Youth's Magic Horn

2011-12-06T15:46:00.002-06:00

Urlicht - Primal light

We hear a lot of classical music, vocal music sung in foreign tongues. Every once in a while, I look up what's actually being sung, and came across this remarkable and strange piece of poetry from Mahler's famous work, Das Knaben Wunderhorn, the Youth's Magic Horn. It reminds me a bit of the woman who pursued Jesus for healing, and wouldn't be dissuaded, or the centurion who did the same, and many, many others....

O little red rose,

Man lies in greatest need,
Man lies in greatest pain.
Ever would I prefer to be in heaven.
Once I came upon a wide road,
There stood an Angel who wanted to turn me away.
But no, I will not be turned away!
I came from God, and will return to God,
The loving God who will give me a little light,
To lighten my way up to eternal, blessed life!

Words of a Euro Doomsayer Have New Resonance - NYTimes.com

2011-11-17T16:30:00.001-06:00

Words of a Euro Doomsayer Have New Resonance - NYTimes.com

Preparations underway to take over the Australian Open Tennis Tournament, January, 2012.....

2011-11-16T14:44:00.002-06:00

"More valuable than all the mining rights in the land down under," Obama says.

Obama boosts U.S. military in Australia, reassures China | Reuters

Guest Post: Is There No Shame? | ZeroHedge

2011-11-10T18:07:00.003-06:00

Re Penn State, one more post, because this says it even better.....puts the issue to rest.

Guest Post: Is There No Shame? | ZeroHedge

Personal rumination: In the days after the scandal broke, but before the heads rolled, it was confidently said by the media something to the effect, 'but the investigation does not involve Joe Paterno.' How could that be? I thought. The perpetrator had free range of the Penn State football facilities the entire decade after he resigned, and it was said he was working out there as recently as last week. How can Joe Pa "not be involved"? If I get rid of this guy for child molestation, i.e. forced "retirement", do I then invite him back --- to work out?

Didn't make sense to me. Appears I was just a couple days ahead of the grim reaper of consequences.

Conclusions:

Things are not what they seem, nor are they otherwise.
The media can get it wrong, sometimes way wrong, especially in the early stages of a crisis.
Calls to mind the phrase that was once made popular by another discredited figure: 'we don't know what we don't know.'
Next up: The relative complacency surrounding Greece, Italy, et al -- where will it finally lead? To a conclusion that no one (or precious few) in the media can foresee.....................?

Penn State's Paterno deserves no pity

2011-11-10T14:52:00.000-06:00

The Chicago Tribune weighs in:

Penn State's Paterno deserves no pity

So what were the Penn State students possibly thinking as they rioted all over campus and tipped over cars and a satellite truck? When will they realize, after the buzz wears off and sobering reality sinks in, that they were defending the right to cover up pedophilia? As much as they love JoePa, that's the harsh reality.

Woody Hayes threw a punch. Bob Knight threw a chair. But in 10 years or so we will remember Paterno as much as anything for the alleged molestation he enabled that made us want to throw up. He always can be referred to as a great football coach. But I still cringed hearing loyal ex-players refer to Paterno as a great man.

.... out-to-lunch University President Graham Spanier.....

How a Financial Pro Lost His House - NYTimes.com

2011-11-09T11:52:00.000-06:00

How a Financial Pro Lost His House - NYTimes.com

Urlacher opens up about loss of his mother

2011-11-07T10:13:00.000-06:00

Urlacher opens up about loss of his mother

Meets Wells Tower, newly designated Best Short Story writer for 2011

2011-11-01T06:02:00.000-06:00

New voice in short story writing: Wells Tower. Featured from time to time in the New Yorker. You may see yourself, or someone you know, in some of his stories.

Recently included in the 2011 “Best American Short Stories’’ anthology.

The next Cheever, or Murakami?

Fed's Operation Twist -- Explained

2011-10-05T10:46:00.002-06:00

............So basically now you know what the Fed’s recent “Operation Twist” is all about (a more appropriate name might be “Operation Payoff”). We are paying a King’s Ransom to pave the way to devalue the dollar in the next QE3 and beyond. Just remember the downside of a falling dollar will be higher import prices and higher inflation.

From Richard Benson via 321gold.com

Full story

The overlooked Internet technology: the RSS feed

2011-10-02T12:03:00.003-06:00

The Internet has changed life on this planet forever, but dare I say it, it is not perfect.

Shortcomings:

Advertising, ubiquitous
Trivialization (Facebook, Twitter)
Spam (email)

There is one underutilized technology, however, that holds at bay the aforementioned troika: the RSS feed. You go to a news website, hit subscribe, and read it all updates in Google Reader (or other reader). That's all there is to it.

I was somewhat behind the curve on this recently, before I got going with it, and wondered if I was the only one. I surveyed some 68 members of an email list I maintain (for tennis). Here's what I asked:

BRIEF (nonscientific) TECH SURVEY

1. Do you subscribe by RSS/Atom to newsfeeds and/or blog posts?

2. If so, to how many of each, roughly?

3. If so, do you use Google Reader, or other reader (which?)

4. Any other comments on the subject solicited.

27% responded to a single emailing.

One used RSS, one inquired about it. Here are comments:

Read Huffington Post and blogs there occasionally
I do absolutely nothing with respect to RSS type news feeds. I am on a number of e-mail distrubution lists, and I virtually always delete those without reading. Now, if it was a news feed about Winnetka tennis...that's another story!!!
I do not subscribe to any news or blog feeds.
I do not subscribe to any RSS newsfeeds.
I do not subscribe, but I do use Google and Ask on occasion.
I don't
I dont subscribe to those --I read few blogs, but do get three or four daily feeds from orgs or industries I keep up with. They come via Comcast mail, which I use.
I don't subscribe to those things.
I just got a Kindle as a Christmas gift from my wife, so my reading volume has nicely increased. I subscribe to RSS/Atom feeds directly through My Yahoo page.
I rarely subscribe to RSS feeds. To question, do you use Google Reader, "not sure."
I subscribe to no newsfeeds or blogs. I do subscribe to 5 podcasts on iTunes. The podcasts are, I think, RSS feeds.
No I don't use either.
NO, IMMEDIATE NEWS NOT THAT IMPORTANT TO ME. BLOG POSTS ARE MOSTLY OPINIONATED RANTS AND WHAT SOMEONE HAD FOR BREAKFAST LAST NIGHT
No.
Use Google Reader only and cannot get it to do what I what, i.e. spy on my competitors. Not feeds in either formant but am interested - suggestions on a primer for the novice?
Wrote back, but did not answer question(s), perhaps didn't understand them.
Wrote back, but did not answer question(s), perhaps didn't understand them.
Wrote back, but did not answer question(s), perhaps didn't understand them.

In our opinion, RSS offers a quick and easy way to keep up with news, favorite blogs -- and keep the advertising and spam at bay.

Strange but true: J.J. Rousseau

2011-09-06T19:39:00.002-06:00

The philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau was celebrated for his contributions to educational theory, but had earlier given up his five children to a foundling hospital.

Wikipedia:

According to his Confessions, before she moved in with him, Thérèse bore him a son and as many as four other children (there is no independent verification for this number^[8]). Rousseau wrote that he persuaded Thérèse to give each of the newborns up to a foundling hospital, for the sake of her "honor". "Her mother, who feared the inconvenience of a brat, came to my aid, and she [Thérèse] allowed herself to be overcome" (Confessions). In his letter to Madame de Francueil in 1751, he first pretended that he wasn't rich enough to raise his children but in book IX of the confessions, he gave the true reasons of his choice : " I trembled at the thought of intrusting them to a family ill brought up, to be still worse educated. The risk of the education of the foundling hospital was much less."

Ten years later, Rousseau made inquiries about the fate of his son, but no record could be found. When Rousseau subsequently became celebrated as a theorist of education and child-rearing, his abandonment of his children was used by his critics, including Voltaire and Edmund Burke, as the basis for ad hominem attacks.

Even stranger:

In an irony of fate, Rousseau's later injunction to women to breastfeed their own babies (as had previously been recommended by the French natural scientist Buffon), probably saved the lives of thousands of infants.

Skin Deep: OSU vs Notre Dame in the Scandal Bowl

2011-08-03T08:43:00.003-06:00

The Ohio State University vs Notre Dame: Whose Reputation is most Tarnished?

by guest columnist Rod Gibbs

Now is the season that two behemoth football programs will be putting on their pads for a bruising run at the national championship. There is no doubt that both Notre Dame and Ohio Sate University have been scared and tattooed by scandal. The marks left on skin and reputation will take many scrubbings of PR and good faith actions to dissolve.

Who is more culpable in these infamous incidents? On one hand, we have the OSU football program which has lost “More than a Coach”. They have lost Jim Tressel who has a national championship in 2002 and over an 82 % winning record. A coach who was like a father to his players but it turned out through a little digging by Sports Illustrated that dozens of his charges over the years were getting NCAA illegal assets at a tattoo parlor and car dealerships. On the other hand, we have the Holy of Holies - Notre Dame, which has smoothed over the fate of Declan Sullivan who fell to his death in a windstorm while filming football practice. Notre Dame has also tried to smooth over the suicide a St. Mary’s college student who was sexually harassed by a ND football player.

Jim Tressel had a record of oversight well before he arrived at OSU, including a physical episode on the sidelines. He always claimed he wasn’t aware of what was going on which should be a familiar refrain to USC fans who have watched the buddy to his players Pete Carroll go pro before possible NCAA sanctions.

The sins of OSU were underhanded payments while ND issues involved death in both cases, with blame resting on the shoulders of the ND “family” as they call themselves. Twenty year old Declan Sullivan was killed when the 40 foot tower he was on was toppled by a “sudden extraordinary burst of wind” as noted in the official report. I recall that day and the menace of wind storms was well noted on weather forecasts for the area.

Supposedly, the report of stronger winds didn’t appear to be upgraded until several hours before the start of football practice. However, Sullivan was aware of these severe weather reports before practice and Tweeted from the lift, “Holy shit, this is terrifying….I guess I’ve lived long enough” It is venial (a term familiar to Catholics) for ND to maintain that Sullivan was just joking about the situation since at that time planes were being diverted from landing at South Bend. The lift was rated for wind not above 25 mph while the gusts that came in were above 50 mph according to the OSHA investigation. Coach Brian Kelly called for the practice that day and was so dedicated to bettering his football team that he continued practice for nearly another half an hour after the accident.

The head of ND Rev. John Jenkins concluded, “numerous decisions by many people made in good faith…played a role in the accident” but “no one acted in disregard to safety”. So no one was responsible, no one charged, no one reprimanded, no one was fired. The most apt analogy that applies is the blindness and lack of responsibility by the catholic church in the case of child abuse by priests which lasted for decades. Yes, ND will set up a memorial scholarship and Sullivan’s sweet parents will not sue the university though no doubt they could gain millions if this were prosecuted.

The second issue is more problematic but shows the callousness and carelessness of ND and involves sexual harassment against Lizz Seeberg by an ND football player. She reported the episode to campus and local authorities but nothing significant was done. She supposedly received text messages saying “messing with ND football is a bad idea”. She was suffering emotional problems and several days later committed suicide. The investigation was brief by ND and local authorities who could not proceed because what Lizz had told them was “hearsay” - because she was dead. Just to illustrate the animus against a woman making charges in a campus environment are the words of -naturally – an anonymous pervert on a blog , “Thank god the female is dead. She’s one of those defective females who would be nothing but trouble.”

In comparing OSU to ND we must praise the Irish for a sterling 95% graduation rate, though this is in jeopardy now that the university has given Kelly the green light to recruit less qualified players. OSU has a mediocre 55 % graduation rate which actually breaks down to 85% of white players graduating to only 33% black players. OSU had seven players with felony records which was much less than Papa Paterno’s Penn State 16 felony players.

It is fair to say that Ohio State has far to go in football academics and payoff ethical issues. But these can be seen as essentially skin deep. The scandal issues of Notre Dame perhaps do not rate being banned by the NCAA as advocated by David Zirin in “The Nation” but there are deep flaws institutionally both in the football program and the university administration which have resulted in death and great pain to many families.

The Golden Dome has been tarnished and it will take serious reform to return the luster.

Acknowledge.....

2011-08-01T13:37:00.000-06:00

...then let go.

I heard a speaker cite this as his mantra one recent morning on NPR.

Wish I had heard it 40 or 50 years ago.

Acknowledge...then let go....

Soprano Nation -- no not that Soprano....

2011-07-22T13:58:00.002-06:00

A particularly thoughtful young man sent this, and we pass it along to you for consideration:

A Polity of Castrati

Soprano Nation

“All of the world's problems are products of the male ego,” said a swaggering bulldagger she-cop in Law and Order the other night. Average gringa. Actually, only some of the world's problems, as for example wars, are products of the male ego.

Of course, a curmudgeonly male—though I don't know any of these—might respond, “Woman, everything that keeps you and your sisters from squatting in caves and crushing lice is a product of the male brain.”

Which is true.

It is curious: Women seem to have no idea how profoundly they depend on men, and not just to fix thingy-whiches that make cars go. The pattern is that men invent and women use. Men invented cars, and women learned to drive them, usually without having the foggiest idea of how they work. Men also invented refrigerators, television, aircraft, hair-dryers, and tampons. Since women with few exceptions do not think technically unless they have to, they are unaware of the inordinate amount of inspired brainwork that led over millenia to computational fluid dynamics, band theory, the double helix, and TCP/IP.

We hear much triumphalism from women these days about the “male malaise,” the poor performance of boys in class, their depression and inattention in school, their declining presence in the universities. Why are these thing happening?/..................

Read on -----

Inside the hedge fund world

2011-07-21T09:25:00.001-06:00

Portrait of no. 1 hedge fund Bridgewater's Ray Dalio.....in the New Yorker.

Retail experienceOr pays to shop around

2011-07-18T07:06:00.003-06:00

Commerce is as a heaven, whose sun is trustworthiness and whose moon is truthfulness.

Bahá'u'lláh 1817-1892, Persian nobleman and founder of the Baha’I religion.

Had a clink in my bike chain recently. Not every crank, just every ---- so – often -------------?

What did it mean? Was I about to go hurtling over the handlebars like some of the luckless worthies in this year’s Tour de France?

I stopped by the local cyclery, about five blocks from my house. Young guy finally comes up from the basement. I told him my problem. He looked at the bike.

“Your chain is shot,” he said. “And the gears. And the brakes might go out, too. I had three like these in the past month just SNAP.”

How much to fix?

“Chain and gears. $150 to $170. But you know for an extra hundred or so you can get a whole new bike. Let me show you one,” he said walking me to the front of the store. “You’re here, you have your helmet on. Try it out, take a ride.”

He took my driver’s license as security – I guess my bike sitting there wasn’t enough – and off I went. It was a nice new hybrid, a Marin Kentfield FS, in a metallic silver. It was a pretty smooth ride, but I didn’t have the history with it I did with my trusty Trek 800, circa 1990.

Turned out, though, the bike wasn’t a hundred more, it turned out, it was $499. I said I’d think about it. I didn’t think enough at that particular moment on the way out, though, because I forgot my license (so did mr. cool guy bike tech), and had to drive back later that day.

Very next day, I was pedaling north, and remembered that my original bike dealer had moved to Highland Park. Would their service shop take a look, and give an opinion?

I was met at the front counter by a sincere young professional type. He looked at the chain, I lifted the bike, he spun the wheel, the chain wouldn’t clink, I rued.

“Of course not,” he smiled, "they never do once you get here." he laughed, most reassuringly. He studied the bike for a moment, and guessed it’s age within a couple years.

“Can I try something?” He took the bike out on the sidewalk and rode it down and back..

“Your bike seems fine,” he said. “I tried the gears. You don’t need a new chain or gears.”

That was it. He didn’t try to sell me a bike. I inquired about a new one, and he asked me what kind of riding I did. (Up and down the Green Bay trail, about 50 miles a week.) He complimented me, and showed me their Cannondale Quick, $469. “Quick, responsive, sturdy, fun to ride,” he said. We talked a bit, and decided, if I wanted to, a halfway move up would be to try two new hybrid tires on my ancient Trek, $30 each.

The store was spacious modern, with restroom facilities for cyclists. I was treated with respect, not like an imbecile.

Which cycle shop will get my tune-up business end-of-season, even though it’s a long ride north? And whatever the cost? (It’s $110, by the way vs. $89.50 at the first shop I described.) You guessed it.

Postscript: The Marin Kentfield FS can be found online for $319, reg. “$449.” The Cannondale Quicks, of which there are a number, were actually more than the $469 I was quoted by the second dealer. Surely does pay to shop around, pays to meet people, gather information.

Extraordinary Comedown: Ohio State's Jim Tressel

2011-06-29T13:34:00.005-06:00

Pains me to share this, as an Ohio native, holder of two degrees from Ohio State University, and an author who featured Jim Tressel in one of his books, but we call this blog "Digging Deeper," and we go the mines every day, whatever our feelings.

Dig a bit below the gridiron glory of "More than a Coach" Tressel, Ohio Stadium, Buckeye football, and read the inside story on what took Jim Tressel down at Sports Illustrated. The fourth estate is the counterbalance to the illusion and misdirection that institutions -- seemingly nearly all of them -- put forth, and we are grateful for it.

Btw, to balance the ying and yang of these things, we also have a book "Extraordinary Comedowns." Not just for those afflicted with severe Schadenfreude, but for those who want to learn how things really work. It's hard to make it to the top of the mountain, yes, and even harder to stay there......

Digging deeper into the man behind the legend -- do it at your own risk

2011-06-22T09:27:00.003-06:00

BOOK REVIEW
THE LAST BOY MICKEY MANTLE
And the end of America’s childhood by Jane Leavy

When baseball soaked up much of America’s consciousness in the 1950s, before there were 500 cable channels, video games, soccer, and all the rest, there was a god who ran the ballfields and basepaths among the mere mortals and his name was Mickey Mantle. Raised by a pro baseball wannebe, dad Mutt and Mom, and named for old-time player Mickey Cochrane so even his name would have the right pop of an icon, he was Mickey Mantle, (MM, like Marilyn Monroe, get it)? We all did.

He backed it all up as a 18-year-old with a 3.1 second burst to first base, and 550 ft. home runs. Strength, speed, power – there was none like Mickey Mantle. For those of us who were boys then, we formed an attachment to him, to his name, to his capability that ‘defied logic,’ as Bob Costas put it, It was based solely on his speed, HRs, and the confident smile. We didn’t need to know more, and it’s a good thing. Because MM was no god, he was Esau selling his birthright out the back door, and author Jane Leavy deftly dis-mantles the legend. It is said ‘weary is the head that wears the crown,’ and in this case, one could add the word ‘cynical.’

What he did to himself with alcohol and womanizing, chronicled meticulously here, unforgiveable. What he did in promulgating his vices among his four sons, being “their friend,” sharing his drink, women, and dissolute ways, unspeakable. When told by someone he wished MM was his father, one of his sons quipped, ‘me, too.’ Their father was distant, away, uncommunicative, uncaring. But that wasn’t the half of it. Following in his steps, they led lives of alcoholism, drugs, dissolution, and even death wish. One played live Russian roulette, and only chance kept him from an untimely end.

Back in the 1990s, when pop Christianity still held some sway over pop culture, much was made of the cancer-ridden, liver-depleted Mantle’s deathbed conversion. Leavy is less than convincing on that score; read the passage there closely: without saying so per se, she’s not buying it. I hope I’m entirely wrong on this count, btw. I chronicle comebacks in my series of “Extraordinary Comebacks” books, and besides volunteering a bit for organ donation at the end, which resulted in some backfire for the cause since some claim he jumped the line to get a new liver (he didn’t), there isn’t much of one here.

In the end, an extremely sad tale, the ultimate cautionary tale for certain, we now have one less hero, when the larder, once stocked with the likes of Brett Favre, Tiger Woods, OJ Simpson, et al, was already pretty thin by now. Mickey Mantle we hardly knew ye, and maybe for the fact that such a great, great star was so fallen from the skies, maybe wished we hadn’t at all.

I like good writing very much....

2011-06-21T12:28:00.002-06:00

...an ad agency mogul once wrote me.

Here is a piece of good writing. I like it very much.

Novelist Salvatore Scibona in the New Yorker.

Excerpts:

No books about Aristotle...just Aristotle.....

upper middle-class prejudices about time and space....

even my body needed to read.....

such a gift to find my tribe....

every year since has been a more intense and enigmatic joy.......

You don't run across writing...

2011-05-11T08:13:00.003-06:00

...this transparent and revealing, every day.

Seems everyone has a story. They are as if "flying under the radar" --- only until you know their story. Not many reveal theirs.

Richard Russell has revealed some of his here....

An honors education: creating the self-educating individual

2011-04-01T08:21:00.005-06:00

Friday, April 01, 2011, winter is (pretty) safely behind us, we will ignore the snowstorm hitting the East today, and snow on the ground for the White Sox opener in Cleveland, and a few random forecasts for smaller amounts of same here, and look ahead one month to graduation season, and present you with these thoughts on education.

From the archives. Given to Ohio State University College of Agriculture, Honors Banquet, Ohio Union, 6 p.m., Thursday, November 3, 1983. Was chosen to speak since earlier that year college had given me Young Professional Award. Audience included faculty, staff, parents and students -- several hundred in all. I am amused that I called "journalism" a "hard" discipline vs. soft like literature. Otherwise, I am surprised at how prescient my comments were -- 12 years before Al Gore invented the Internet. The meat of the message -- we must continually educate and re-educate ourselves -- remains more timely than ever....

Thank you Dr. Darrow.

I appreciate the opportunity to be back here at Ohio State. I took an awful lot away from this institution and it's nice to be able to bring a little something back tonight.

Of course, it brings back a lot of memories to me.

I remember things like a victory over Michigan, the winning of a Big-Ten title and following a jubilant crowd down High Street ••• a crowd that was carrying part of the goal post down to the state capital. Kind of a crazy thing to do ••• but it seemed like a good idea to many at the time.

I remember personal things like meeting my future wife-to-be at an agriculture college function here in the student union.

And, I remember more sedate things like ••• studying. I suppose all of us in the honors program spend a good deal of time studying.

One of my favorite places to study was the stacks in the main library. I remember going up into the stacks in the early evening and settling into a quiet nook listening to the Orton Hall chimes, looking out occasionally on the Oval, and then getting distracted by all the thousands and thousands of volumes containing the wisdom of the ages in the bookshelves around me. I especially remember coming across one particular book, and happening upon a quote that stuck with me, and this is the quote. It said simply, that "the goal of a liberal education is self-educating man." I suppose for our purposes here tonight, we would not be doing too great a violence to the text if we were to substitute the word "honors" for "liberal" and say that "the goal of an honors education is self-educating man."

As a professional communicator, I try to avoid clichés and trite phrases and hackneyed sayings as diligently as I can. But I think it's important to note that we are living in a changing world. And the phrase "a changing world" is a cliché. But like most clichés it's very true.

And in this rapidly changing world, the need for self-education has never been greater. This need is amplified by the sometimes volatile economic pressures that are forcing these tremendous changes.

We hear a lot about computers.

We hear a lot about consultants and we hear a lot about communications in agriculture. We hear phrases like post-industrial society, third wave society. In his book megatrends, John Naisbitt examines these changes. He cites ten major changes ••• or megatrends. Quoting from his book, he says:

1. Although we continue to think we live in an industrial society, we have in fact changed to an economy based on the creation and distribution of information.

2. We are moving in the dual directions of high tech/high touch, matching each new technology with a compensatory human response.

3. No longer do we have the luxury of operating within an isolated, self-sufficient, national economic system; we now must acknowledge that we are part of a global economy. We have begun to let go of the idea that the United States is and must remain the world's industrial leader as we move on to other tasks.

4. We are restructuring from a society run by short-term considerations and rewards in favor of dealing with things in much longer-term frames.

5. In cities and states, in small organizations and subdivisions, we have rediscovered the ability to act innovatively and to achieve results -- from the bottom up.

6. We are shifting from institutional help to more self-reliance in all aspects of our lives.

7. We are discovering that the framework of representative democracy has become obsolete in an era of instantaneously shared information.

8. We are giving up our dependence on hierarchical structures in favor of information networks. This will be especially important to the business community.

9. More Americans are living in the south and west, leaving behind the old industrial cities of the north.

10. From a narrow either/or society with a limited range of personal choices, we are exploding into a free-wheeling multiple-option society.

Back in the days of antiquity, when I was a student at Ohio State in the late sixties and early seventies, social issues were paramount. Our economy hadn't yet begun to fully pay the price through inflation of the Vietnam War. Our society was still fat, happy and extravagant.

As we came through the economic wrenchings of the 70's, however, everybody found out that the party was over. Really over. Getting a job, keeping a job. These were the things that became paramount. Studies showed that the students of the mid and late seventies were more conservative. And with the tight economy, especially in agriculture of the recent years, this trend has continued.

I daresay your number one interest is your career. Getting started, getting your toe-hold in the marketplace.

From my experience, I can tell you that you already have a leg up on the situation. You are in the honors program. In being named to this program, you're already telling the marketplace that you're a little bit more motivated, a little bit more determined, a little brighter, perhaps, than some of your fellow students.

Will an honors education give you the skills you need in the workplace? It may. Being in the honors program is a great advantage. You can use this experience to help you win the job and create the career that you're working so hard to do.

Not long ago I read a book by an employment expert who recommended that students and recent graduates develop "clusters of expertise." in other words, combinations of expertise, that give them a unique advantage in the marketplace. And I know some of you are doing that. Some of you are combining agriculture and law, for example. Some of you have structured your technical and ag business program to prepare you for law school, thus ultimately giving you a unique agricultural and legal skill for the marketplace. You might be interested to know that an agricultural law center has just opened this quarter at Iowa State university. Immediately, thirty people signed up for this unusual combination or 'career cluster.'

Others of you are combining computer skills with all facets of agriculture, whether animal science, ag econ, horticulture or whatever.

Still others of you are combining agriculture with advertising.

And still others of you are combining technical agriculture with heavy course work in genetics and statistics and related areas to prepare you to take your place in the vanguard of the Biotech Revolution • • • a revolution that many futurists have written on extensively.

So will an honors education give you the hard skills that you need to get ahead? It very well may. But, it may not. But your custom-made honors program may give you something just as important as skills. It may give you curiosity and resourcefulness.

In my program, I took both a hard and soft skills route. Hard -- courses in journalism so that I could learn my trade, so to speak. But I also took independent studies in literature, criticism, music and history. Not hard core skills, but courses to satisfy my own curiosity.

How does this apply to what's happening in the marketplace? Well, in undertaking some of these areas that were not ag related, I learned that you can learn about anything, if you're interested. You can, in

Fact, self-educate.

How does this apply to the "real world" so to speak? Several years ago, our company was faced with a unique problem. Our client, Elanco Products Company, wanted us to develop a multi-image program for the U.S. Feed Grains Council. A multi-image show, as you know, is a rather spectacular and wonderful thing. Many images, music, action and so forth. They are very expensive to produce and very expensive just to put on. We knew that the initial showing of this multi-image show would be spectacular, but we also knew that the resources of the Feed Grains Council were limited; the number of times the show would be seen after that would be limited. So we went back to the drawing board. For some time, our company had had an interest in television, specifically narrowcasting or beaming messages at farmers.

As a matter of fact, we had counseled our clients and developed special reports in this area. We had studied it, read magazines, interviewed people, spent time self-educating. When this moment arrived, when we were to undertake the multi-image program, we told our client that we appreciated the assignment, but let us go back to the drawing board and think about it a bit.

We came back to them with an idea that cost them a great deal more than a multi-image show, as expensive as those are to produce, but our point in so doing was to bring our client an idea that would generate for our client many, many times more the value than a mere credit at the end of multi-image show.

Our idea was to create a television special! A national television special for national agriculture day. Our client liked the idea immediately, and we were commissioned to do the job.

The first year’s program dealt with grain exports; our second year program was a human interest story on three young people who, despite the odds, got started in farming, and wet re right now in the midst of the production for our third year show. We have applied the idea to communications opportunities for the National 4-H Council and the National Association of Realtors. We are presently producing a television special for "Private Property Week" April 8 - 14, 1984 for the National Association of Realtors, the nation’s largest trade association.

The point is, all this was made possible through self-education, the goal of the honors education. Just as you go beyond traditional curriculum to put together agriculture, law, computer, biotech and other unique combinations, so too we had to go beyond traditional public relations: news releases, feature stories, and so forth, to create a public relations concept that expanded our frontiers, and those of our clients. The television program included dimensions of public relations, but also of advertising, programming and so forth. Through this intra-disciplinary broad outlook we were able to go beyond traditional public relations to create an entirely new communications product. One that’s not only of value to agriculture but also to other industries, such as real estate.

I tell you this story to encourage you to use your time now in the honors program to be original, to be thinking, to be expanding your concepts of the areas that you will soon be working in. I also tell you this story to encourage you to take full advantage of your honors program.

How to do that?

Plan for your career. Set goals. Nothing ever happens until a goal is set.

I recently ran across the definition of a goal that I liked very much. Someone said that a goal was a dream with a deadline. So dream, plan, set deadlines.

Second, allow for some serendipity. Allow for synthetic thinking. Take an idea from area A, apply it to area B and create a whole new area, C.

Third, take an academic chance along the way. That's the only way that you can really achieve synthetic thinking. Even if you are not comfortable in humanities, take music history. If you're very literary, take a computer course. Your right brain will start to talk to your left brain. You will create new vistas, new horizons for yourself.

If you do all these things, you'll be well prepared to begin another phase of your education upon graduation from this hallowed ground. You'll be ready for a whole new set of achievements. You'll be self-educating and you will have achieved the goal of an honors education.

Thank you very much

###.

La guerre finance and demonstration Madison coming to a city near you

2011-02-23T11:53:00.005-06:00

A retired teacher friend writes and says he is on the way to Madison to show solidarity with the demonstrators.

I see this scene as a movie, in black and white.

The labor unions and govt seem to me two cinema noir gangsters.

They collaborate on the heist of public funds until the final scene.

The jackpot turns out to be fake bills.

Then they shoot each other.

Both die in the end.

Have you seen this movie? Appears we are all going to see it very soon. Refer you to this week's cover stories in BOTH Barrons and Forbes on the coming and certain (muni) bond crisis. They can beat the drums in Madison, very entertaining, I love percussion music, but the markets will decide. Bankruptcy, and the shareholders, and the bondholders, and then the pension holders (and the dollar holders, i.e. all of us) will be reset at or near zero. Things that can't be so easily "reset," i.e. gold, oil, corn, wheat, anything "real," will stay the same, but the pricing of it in dollars old or new is another matter. We will be the new Uruguay or Zimbabwe. Or as someone put it, the USSA.

This movie will flash on Internet screens around the globe and will happen like the Mideast -- all in one day, like a blizzard or hurricane.

Just like the Wall St crisis -- greed all around: banksters, politicians, unions, public -- the "something for nothing" political party, and that includes all Americans (except Ron Paul), ends very, very badly. (We have a new mayor in Chicago today, the old one sold our assets for expenses, no one cared. Ho hum. Someday when the markets say "enough" we'll care.)

Mene mene tekel upsharim, we have been weighed in the balances and found wanting....

Bible Prophecy Blog

2011-02-21T12:33:00.001-06:00

Bible Prophecy Blog
features posts today on the meaning of events in the Mideast, especially regarding Bahrain. Not to be missed.

Guest columnist Roderick Gibbs chants, rants: MIRROR MIRROR ON THE WEB

2011-02-06T17:15:00.007-06:00

Some days ago we engaged the widely-traveled, literate, lover of the arts, and always thoughtful Mr. Rod Gibbs in a discussion of the raging social phenomenon known as "Facebook," and we found his views thought-provoking. The exchange proved to be too brief, and so we upped the ante by saying if he would put pen to paper and fully develop his conception of the never-mentioned downside of the FB phenom we would immortalize his thoughts, right here. He said he would, and being a man of his word, he did, and we share his well-aimed, and well-timed rant here:

MIRROR MIRROR ON THE WEB

By Roderick Gibbs
Sunday, February 06, 2011

“There comes a time in the affairs of men when he must take the bull by the tail and face the situation” said Mark Twain. The asinine situation (on the Jersey Shore or otherwise) has arrived now that Facebook has passed Google as the most popular internet site.

No doubt Facebook is used for mercantile purposes by capitalist vendors and buyers alike, however, the main purpose seems to be to look into the monitor or screen and see the self-reflection and self-referential image. In short, like many other societies , e.g. the Romans who admired their visages in their latifundia pool before they went to the vomitorium to purge for another round before the barbarians came out of the East, we are a nation of narcissists. Now there are benefits to this but mainly for the Chinese, large corporations, and Republicans who can manipulate those looking in the mirror but not the present past or future reality. The Russians have seen what America is looking at and has rushed to invest in Facebook so this ephemeral media is now worth more than 50 billion. See http://www.facebook.com/press/releases.php?p=103711

The founder of Facebook was living as a Harvard dorm dweeb when he stole the idea from two bright twins. Now the grown version who claims he was popular with the girls but has relationship issues sets the agenda for an infantilized nation. TIME names him the man of the year, probably to appeal to “younger readers” who don’t know who previous gravitas cover boys were like Franklin Roosevelt, Hitler, and Eisenhower.

We must invoke George Orwell who wrote, “If you want a vision of the future, imagine about stomping on a human face forever.” Voted into office recently were Tea Party members who had a blurred vision of the future which involves having tea and eating their cake too. They do not care about the nation’s health but are choosing to have free congressional health coverage. They want their taxes cut – especially for the rich of Wall Street and themselves but care nothing about the deficit except to cut education and social security. They can only narcissistically talk about their own little microcosm and how proud they are about using Twitter and Facebook to keep their constituents informed about their seeming desire to follow the Constitution but yet dismantling the lower class safety net.

Camus described culture as “the cry of men in the face of destiny.” Facebook is an anti-cultural force along with cell phones since it focuses on the self to the exclusion of learning about the world and truly knowing others face to face. Yes, there can be a call for a gathering but without the education and real knowledge behind an event the validity is compromised.

Of course, I could be wrong. Karl Lagerfeld has declared “Facebook is a flawless object” It is flawless for a merchandizing machine who deals only in overpriced bits of cloth. A French woman wrote that on Facebook people “create a person they want to be. I don’t see the harm in that sort of dreaming” So is it not Jay Gatsby’s and John Boehner’s strongest goal to create a new persona – the ultimate American Dream. Just mentioning the American Dream can bring tears to Boehner’s eyes. Though giving that to young people in the Dream Act is not his cup of tea or sympathy.

But here’s the rub, dear reader: If we only dream for ourselves then we sleep without a sense of humanity. And yes we can have friends on Facebook though we can “Defriend” them with Jimmy Kimmel Live. Aristotle said,” A friend to all is a friend to none.” but that is Greek to Faceits. The neurotic desire to have more artificial friends and be constantly in somebody else’s life is paradoxically a denial of true self. True self is knowing who you are and being able to leave the ego aside and confront the world in creative and honest ways.

Digging deeper into visual learning style:The story behind Violin Scale Charts™

2011-01-27T08:59:00.012-06:00

This piece was also posted on violinist.com Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Eyes are vocal, tears have tongues,
And there are words not made with lungs.
Crashaw

The gaps are the thing. The gaps are the spirit's one home, the altitudes and latitudes so dazzlingly spare and clean that the spirit can discover itself like a once-blind man unbound. The gaps are the clefts in the rock where you cower to see the back parts of God; they are the fissures between mountains and cells the wind lances through, the icy narrowing fiords splitting the cliffs of mystery. Go up into the gaps. If you can find them; they shift and vanish too. Stalk the gaps. Squeak into a gap in the soil, turn, and unlock -- more than a maple -- a universe.
Annie Dillard

In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's mind there are few.
Shunryu Suzuki

Th ink, if you will, of Beethoven.

Do you hear G - G - G- Eb----------?

Or do you see that face: eyes piercing, hair tousled, mouth scowling?

Either way, you activate your 'right brain.'

It's this side of your brain that had historically been overlooked in the traditional academic presentation of lectures and reading, employing left brain and linear thinking, but today many modern educators realize just how productive right-brain, visual, holistic learning can be. They take steps to incorporate it into the learning experience.

As Linda Verlee Williams notes in her book Williams Teaching for the Two-Sided Mind (Touchstone Book: "Visual thinking [should not be only] associated with the visual arts and relegated to a single area in the curriculum; it [should be considered] a part of every subject because it is a basic way of obtaining, processing, and representing information. To ignore its role in any subject is to fail to train students in its use and to deny to those who are primarily visual processors the opportunity to learn in the mode which comes most easily for them."

"Any subject" can even include the 'sound' and serial note world of music, I learned as a Suzuki parent.

Supplementary scales

Expanding on our regular Suzuki regimen, our teacher, Susan Rozendaal, assigned scales to my daughter, Sharika, then 9. To aid her learning, I devised a simple, visual chart of the notes, much like a chord chart common in the guitar world. I used the Hypercard program for the Macintosh -- a graphics and text processing program. Each week she would be assigned a new scale, and each week I would draw up one new chart. I titled these, simply enough, 'Violin Scale Charts.'

So, instead of presenting the information serially, (left brain), as traditional notes on a scale, or aurally, on tape, as pure sound to imitate, Violin Scale Charts™ presents the scale and arpeggio information as a simple (right brain) picture, a map of where to put your fingers.

Sharika used these charts regularly. Her tone, confidence and specifically, `4' finger were noticeably enhanced.

When our Suzuki teacher happened upon my charts in the pile of Suzuki volumes, Applebaum, Auer, Dofflein, Schradieck, Trott, and Wohlfahrt, at our weekly lesson, she said `What a great idea! You must publish these!' Flattered, and thinking that the worst case scenario would be that my daughter would have a full, finished set, I set about to develop a complete set of scales and arpeggios, two octaves, major and minor keys.

Preparing the charts was a formidable task. Just as there is no one way to process information, I learned there was no one way to present scale and arpeggio information. Therefore, I began the Violin Scale Charts™ with the following preface:

While every effort has been made to make this graphic reference work authoritative, it must be noted that there is no single, one and only, and exclusively "correct" way to finger a scale. Different scale passages in different repertory may call for different approaches. Different scales may be, and in fact, must be, played in different positions, different finger patterns from time to time. On an even more individual level, one player's high "3" may be another player's low "4." G major is a good example. Some violinists ascend on open strings D, A and E, and descend using "4" for those notes. This is the most common teaching. Nevertheless, other players go up and down with "4." Still others go up and down with open strings. You see what we mean, of course . . .

These elementary level Violin Scale Charts™ open the door to various positions and finger patterns. By all means, experiment. Should your teacher differ with anything presented here, please follow his/her approach. What's the position of your editors, you say? As you play through the book, you'll notice your editor has stressed the use of "4" versus open strings in order to develop your facility and confidence in this often called for, and sometimes insecure finger. Indeed, one of the greatest benefits of using Violin Scale Charts™, especially at the elementary level, will be to build a strong and secure "4" finger, a more beautiful tone, and stronger and more confident expression.

After all, as a musician who happens to play the violin, expression is what you are all about anyway, isn't it? Have fun with these charts. They will make you a more expressive, more confident musician.

My initial effort was edited by teachers at the Music Center of the North Shore (Chicago), and Washburne Middle School, both of Winnetka, Illinois, including Enid Cleary, Milton Goldberg and Kathleen Paramore.

Hands across the water

Subsequently, two fellow denizens of the Internet global village also made significant and creative suggestions of their own: Klaus Pfefferkorn, Conductor, Bludenz Youth Orchestra, Bludenz, Austria and Christopher Hoff, Violinist and Attorney-at-Law, Germantown, Maryland.

Next step was to make the Charts available to the larger violin world. A mailing to Suzuki trainers and teachers yielded positive results. The large catalog company, Shar Products, expressed interest in carrying the project if I would develop mailers, which I did. Finally, reaching out to string players around the globe, the Violin Scale Charts™ worldwide web site debuted in 1995:

http://sarkett.com/vsc/violin_scale_charts.shtml

The Violin Scale Charts™ are now used by players across Europe, North and South America, remote islands of Hawaii!, Australia, the Far East. It is offered by major distributors such as Shar Music.

What is it about this presentation of scales and arpeggios that makes it effective and helpful? Actually, there is a good bit of educational psychology behind it, the power of right brain learning, though I didn't realize it per se when I was drawing up these charts.

Developing the inner eye

It was in 1865 that Paul Broca reported that injuries to the left side of the brain almost invariably produced speech disorders while injuries to the same area of the right hemisphere did not. His report was confirmed, in 1874, by German researcher Carl Wernicke. A number of researchers followed in their footsteps, but the next major ground-breaking study came in the early 1960s when Cal Tech's Roger Sperry performed a series of operations which made it possible to study the two brain hemispheres in isolation from each other. His work received the Nobel Prize in 1981.

Sperry was working with patients affected by severe epileptic seizures. Sperry believed that by cutting the thick bundle of nerve fibers (200 million !) connecting the two brain hemispheres he could prevent the seizure from spreading from one hemisphere to the other. Subsequently, he and his team conducted a series of subtle experiments to identify characteristics of the right and left brain hemispheres. Briefly summarizing this complex work, he identified the sides of the brain with the following functions:

Left Hemisphere	Right Hemisphere
Verbal	Spatial
Parts	Patterns
Language	Musical - Visual
Serial processing	Holistic processing
Analytical	Relational, constructional

While subsequent research indicates a much greater complexity within the hemispheric model, (e.g. ability of the right hemisphere to process words, individual variations, variations for left-handed individuals, male-female variation), nevertheless, a path was cut through the mysterious forest of brain function. The importance of the right hemisphere, i.e. musical, visual, spatial mental processing was laid down.

The implications for education cannot be overstated, and in the last 30 years or so, extensive changes have been made to incorporate visual learning into our school systems. Students today, as a matter of course, supplement book-lecture learning with the production of charts, graphs, artwork, and demonstrations. Film and video are considered teaching tools no less than books and monographs, and in some case, possibly superior in their ability to make a lasting impact on the mind's eye.

As author Williams Teaching for the Two-Sided Mind (Touchstone Book) notes, it all begins with seeing. Students must learn to see, they need to know what to look for, and how to interpret what they see. Next, they need to learn to represent information graphically. Some information, such as the spatial relationships between notes in a scale or arpeggio, can be better represented in a picture than via a verbal description. Finally, students must develop their inner eye. Visualizing helps with a wide variety of tasks that go beyond scales and arpeggios, and include remembering information, spelling, math, and solving problems with spatial relations.

From this base, they may gain facility with fantasy, metaphor and self-expression in any mode, including old-fashioned, left-brain, verbal. They may integrate and maximize the dual functions of the brain for maximum creativity and productivity.

Not just for kids

Interestingly, though Violin Scale Charts™ was developed for a young Suzuki student, many of the users are adults.

While Suzuki has traditionally been a children's program, I believe it holds potential as an adult enrichment educational experience as well. From my experience in corresponding with and talking with adult string players around the globe, mature learners -- adult beginners -- are some of the most interested, motivated and passionate musicians around. They are hungry for tools to realize the sounds that are bursting forth in their inner ears.

The other beneficiaries are traditional Suzuki parents. "All my students use Violin Scale Charts™ . . . parents benefit, too!" Laura Polick, Violin Teacher, Wheaton Suzuki Institute, Wheaton, IL., wrote me some years ago. Some parents may lack music and music theory training, but pictures -- well, anyone can understand a picture, it seems. Anyone can read a map. They can see what is to be played, and they can easily enough repeat it on the violin themselves, or check to see if it is being played correctly by their young Suzuki musician. For many parents, the material is less forbidding, less technical if it is presented in a picture.

Summarizing, visual thinking is so basic a part of our daily lives that we use it all the time, whether we are aware of it or not. Violin Scale Charts™ presents another way to literally look at musical information. It takes advantage of everyone's ability to learn through seeing pictures. It is especially helpful for the predominately visual learner, the adult beginner and the Suzuki parent. Finally, it stimulates whole brain productivity, and opens the door to the larger world of fantasy, metaphor and self-expression.

As Lao-Tzu advised so long ago in the Tao Te Ching:

Give them Simplicity to look at, the Uncarved Block to hold,
Give them selflessness and fewness of desires.

John A. Sarkett may be reached at jas@option-wizard.com or Violin Scale Charts™. Technical research for this feature was provided by educational psychologist Karen Kurtzon, M.S., Evanston, Illinois.

`LEARNING STYLES`
`VISUAL Clues`	`VISUAL Learning tips`
`NEEDS TO SEE IT TO KNOW IT`	`USE OF GRAPHICS TO REINFORCE LEARNING: FILMS, SLIDES, ILLUSTRATIONS, DIAGRAMS`
`STRONG SENSE OF COLOR`	`COLOR CODING TO ORGANIZE NOTES AND POSSESSIONS` `WRITTEN DIRECTIONS`
`LIKELY ARTISTIC ABILITY`	`USE OF FLOW CHARTS AND DIAGRAMS FOR NOTE-TAKING`
`DIFFICULTY WITH SPOKEN DIRECTIONS`	`VISUAL SPELLING OF WORDS OR FACTS TO BE MEMORIZED`
`TROUBLE FOLLOWING LECTURES`	`USE OF FLOW CHARTS AND DIAGRAMS FOR NOTE-TAKING`
`AUDITORY Clues`	`AUDITORY Learning Tips`
`PREFERS TO GET INFORMATION BY LISTENING - NEEDS TO HEAR IT TO KNOW IT`	`USE OF TAPES FOR READING AND FOR CLASS AND LECTURE NOTES`
`DIFFICULTY FOLLOWING WRITTEN DIRECTIONS`	`LEARNING BY INTERVIEWING OR BY PARTICIPATING IN DISCUSSIONS`
`DIFFICULTY WITH READING`	`HAVING TEST QUESTIONS OR DIRECTIONS READ ALOUD OR PUT ON TAPE`
`KINESTHETIC OR HAPTIC Clues`	`KINESTHETIC OR HAPTIC Learning Tips`
`PREFERS HANDS-ON LEARNING`	`EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING (MAKING MODELS, DOING LAB WORK, ROLE PLAYING)`
`DIFFICULTY SITTING STILL`	`FREQUENT BREAKS IN STUDY PERIODS`
`MAY BE VERY WELL-COORDINATED AND HAVE EXCELLENT ATHLETIC ABILITY`	`TRACING LETTERS AND WORDS TO LEARN SPELLING AND REMEMBER FACTS`
`CAN ASSEMBLE PARTS WITHOUT READING DIRECTIONS`	`EXPRESSING ABILITIES THROUGH DANCE, DRAMA, GYMNASTICS, ETC.`
`LEARNS BETTER WHEN PHYSICAL ACTIVITY IS INVOLVED`	`USE OF COMPUTER TO REINFORCE LEARNING THROUGH SENSE OF TOUCH, MEMORIZING OR DRILLING WHILE WALKING OR EXERCISING`

This piece was also posted on violinist.com Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Everybody's not so fine here, after all

2011-01-12T15:00:00.002-06:00

Film review: EVERYBODY’S FINE (2009). (Netflix allows all of a 2,000 character review, which to me is like a long tweet, and doesn’t even break a sweat, so permit me to vent my spleen here……..as follows……)

Leaving behind the world of the Fokkers, and the smash box office and cash flow that has provided, our protagonist, Robert De Niro, sets about making a serious movie here, for which we can only applaud. He loses his wife, and after months or solitude, embarks from his modest, neat, well-tended (“I didn’t know your mother did so much work.”) Elmira NY home on a cross-country trip to visit each of his four grown children, with stops in NYC, Chicago, Las Vegas and San Francisco. Everything about the film very good: the acting, the cinematography, the script. (We especially liked how the telephone line theme – connection, communication -- is employed top to bottom, and in different ways, plot, dialogue, graphics.)

Except one thing. The tone. More oppressive than the oppression it purports to stand against. The father figure here vacillates between decidedly unappealing sad sack “pitiable” all the way up to and through “villainous.”

Why? Because, as a factory worker (he put the coating on telephone lines), he dreamed of a better life for his children, and apparently, pushed them a bit. (How exactly, or how bad, we’re never told, we’re left to dream it. After all, your imagination will make it much worse than it might have been in reality – same way you dread going to the dentist, the reality isn’t as bad as the dread.) But in the esoterica of political correctness law, section 101022.subsection A123B22, this makes De Niro not as bad as a serial killer, no, but worse than, let’s say, a drunk driver.

Why? Because the innocent have been slain. By asking his children to dream and achieve, he has killed or nearly so that beautiful pristine spirit that is resident onboard each and every one of us. So Dad is insufferable because he wants his four children to do better in life than himself. “Mom was nice, she listened to us,” the message from the kids said. “You were hard, you pushed us.” So, after having to endure this indignity, how did they turn out? The kids themselves in this movie are a bit of a mixed bag: the eldest is a successful NY artist with a drug problem. No. 2 is a mega-successful ad agency owner. No. 3 is a percussionist, not a conductor (after seeing him rehearse, in sad sack mode, out behind the concert hall, during a break, De Niro asks him what seems like 22 times, “are you sure you’re not a conductor, I thought you were conducting” --- just to be sure you, the viewer, can plainly see what an ass he is, only trouble is, in straining so hard here to bend your mind for you, the filmmaker loses his credibility, even the believer here knows he’s being manipulated). No. 4 child purports to be a successful and wealthy Las Vegas showgirl, but in reality, is a restaurant hostess with child and no husband (but in a thoroughly modern touch, has instead a girlfriend, another sidelong blow vs. the male in our society, who needs ‘em?).

Doesn’t matter today if you are on the left (this film) or the right (remember the little Cuban émigré, Elion Gonzales) side of the political spectrum, we can all join hands and agree that fathers, father figures, and authority, use your imagination --- evil. Best dispensed with. Anything is better than hanging with Dad, whether it’s freedom or capitalism or whatever. So let’s extrapolate a bit. Why do we so hate authority? Because it requires us do something. Your gym teacher was an authority figure. He/she wanted you to be fit. That takes work, discipline. So where is our nation in terms of fitness? Terrible and getting worse. Obesity is now called an “epidemic,” like it’s the bubonic plague or something and it leaps on and kills people. We have entire NBC serials about it, with lead actors > 500 lbs. So we watch, on our couches, eating Tostitos all the while.

Let’s jump over to financial fitness. Work hard, budget, save. Is that where we are? Or is our nation $14 trillion under? Are our states just as bad – Illinois, California and the rest? The housing crisis – live in a mansion you can’t afford (wink, wink). Didn’t turn out well. Yesterday I heard an NPR radio report that said in Oregon the statewide high school tests you must pass to graduate will no longer require speling (sic) skills. Duh. Let’s keep lowering the bar. Hell, let’s throw the damn bar away. I could go on and on and on. Make it easier, make it softer, fuzzier. Don’t ask me to get up off the couch. Don’t make me get to work on time. In fact, don’t make me work at all. If I have sex and have kids, don’t make me get married. It’s invidious but the vibe is everywhere around us. It’s in the air, it’s in the water. The oldest son here, (I won’t betray his fate, maybe you’ll guess anyway), says “It wasn’t your fault, Dad.” But the other 99% of this film screamed that it was. I don’t believe this film, it’s way too facile an explanation for the ills that beset us (blame Dad). I think step one in building a life is to take responsibility for yourself. We need more benevolent coaches, trainers, teachers, believers, dreamers, hands-on Dads – not fewer. Just don’t tell the PC police I said so, ok?

PS The ending contains an original song by Paul McCartney, created for this movie. Watch the extra on the making of it, excellent. Sir Paul never says why he did the song other than that he was asked through "his office". I think it wasn’t for the money. I think it was for the creative challenge, pride, if you will. Something inside the former Beatle that keeps him going long past 64…..wonderful antidote to the ‘woe is me’ tone of the previous 120 minutes…..(he turns 69, btw, June 18, 2011). Paul, we all still love you, way past 64.........

Paul Mccartney - I Want To Come Home

For so long I was out in the cold,
and I taught myself to believe every story I told.
It was fun hanging onto the moon, heading into the sun,
but it's been too long. Now I wanna come home.

Came so close to the edge of defeat.
But I made my way in the shade, keeping out of the heat.
It was fun shooting out of the stars, looking into the sun,
but it's been too long. Now I wanna come home.

Home. Where's there's nothing but sweet surrender,
to the memories from afar.
Home. To the place where the truth lies waiting,
we remember who we are.

For too long I was out on my own.
Every day I spent trying to prove I could make it alone.
It was fun hanging onto the moon, heading into the sun,
but it's been too long. Now I wanna come home.

For so long I was out in the cold,
but I taught myself to believe every story I told.
It was fun hanging onto the moon heading into the sun,
but it's been too long. Now I wanna come home.
Yeah, it's been too long, now I want to come home.
Been too long, now I want to come home.

====================================================================

And words to the classic, "When I'm 64..."

When I get older losing my hair,
Many years from now.
Will you still be sending me a valentine
Birthday greetings bottle of wine.

If I'd been out till quarter to three
Would you lock the door,
Will you still need me, will you still feed me,
When I'm sixty-four.

You'll be older too,
And if you say the word,
I could stay with you.

I could be handy, mending a fuse
When your lights have gone.
You can knit a sweater by the fireside
Sunday mornings go for a ride.

Doing the garden, digging the weeds,
Who could ask for more.
Will you still need me, will you still feed me,
When I'm sixty-four.

Every summer we can rent a cottage,
In the Isle of Wight, if it's not too dear
We shall scrimp and save
Grandchildren on your knee
Vera, Chuck & Dave

Send me a postcard, drop me a line,
Stating point of view
Indicate precisely what you mean to say
Yours sincerely, wasting away

Give me your answer, fill in a form
Mine for evermore
Will you still need me, will you still feed me,
When I'm sixty-four.

Digging Deeper like the name of the blog says: so why is it we love music so much?

2011-01-09T20:01:00.002-06:00

Love music? Thank a substance in your brain

What is it about Bach, Beethoven, Brahms and Bartok that makes us feel pleasure? Turns out the sounds they create makes the brain release a chemical that gives us pleasure, a new study says.

The brain substance is involved both in anticipating a particularly thrilling musical moment and in feeling the rush from it, researchers found.

Previous work had already suggested a role for dopamine, a substance brain cells release to communicate with each other. But the new work, which scanned people's brains as they listened to music, shows it happening directly. More....

Review: FREEDOM, Jonathan Franzen

2011-01-06T10:16:00.006-06:00

FREEDOM. By Jonathan Franzen. I acquired my copy of FREEDOM about the same time I did the GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO. I really wanted to like the latter, the backstory is so compelling, guy labors in obscurity, dies, goes viral, that sort of thing grabs the imagination, then there is the film version. I wasn’t so sure I wanted to go on a 562-page trip with Mr. Franzen, however, the so-called diffident one (remember the Oprah fiasco? Turns out he’s not diffident, btw).

As things happen, I bonked on Lisbeth Salander et al after about 50 pages. The character(s) just didn’t grab me, at least not during my intial foray. Franzen’s tome I couldn’t put down. The characters, too compelling. The slow train wreck of their lives, in process, I couldn’t turn avert my eyes. The intercut narratives of the different generations – the modern cliffhanger – it surely did its job, and kept you onboard for the whole trip. And the inherent bedeviling Paradoxical nature of the event (yes, capital P Paradox, industrial strength paradox going on here) – it was all just too compelling. I was sorry to reach page 562. What better compliment to an author than that?

Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose. Frrrreeeeeedddddddddom! – Wm Wallace, Braveheart. Land of the free. And now FREEDOM, by J. Franzen. What do we mean by Paradox? We were surrounded by paradox at every page, or so it seemed:

• Just the length of it is a paradox today: a 562-page novel telling the story of three (and one-half?) generations in the age of the 140-character Twitter.
• A harrowing look at relationships, marriage, family – that reaffirms the merits of each, come what may.
• Franzen, interestingly however, himself is divorced, no children.
• A storyline that is consistently anti-religion, even anti-spirituality – yet ends in a faith-affirming modus operandi.
• A book whose main character realizes that “nothing matters,” – then proves that ‘everything matters.’

And the greatest paradox of all, the much vaunted ‘freedom’ that is so sought after ---- is unbearable.

August 12 2010 TIME put J. Franzen on its cover, an honor accorded to very, very few writers over the years. Then they dubbed it No. 1 in fiction, year end. This book is that significant, imo. I really doubt that texting, Twitter, Facebook, or youtube rainbows have the power to move you, to explain yourself to you, and dare I say it, explain something of this thing, life. In a way that sticks. That, dear reader, remains in the realm of art, and that is what Franzen can do and, in fact, does. In so doing, he proves that the novel, that literature, is not only not dead, but more vibrant an experience than ever, juxtaposed against the 24/7 onslaught of noncommunication communication we must all endure now, that is, for those still relatively few who seek it out.

Regarding the plight of the underclass, please take this message to Garcia...

2010-12-31T16:37:00.005-06:00

We called out author Joe Bageant for his thoughtful and thought-provoking book DEER HUNTING WITH JESUS. Just the power of the title made me read it. I'm glad I did.

No author is perfect or all-knowing, and in the aftermath, I came around to thinking: Joe never really treated how some people escape a background of poverty and poor thinking. Part of it may be that part of the existentialist or libertarian or Christian creed: take responsibility.

We fully understand that only the very, very few are willing to do something so momentous as to take full responsibility for their life. Much easier, much more "gratifying" to blame parents, class, whatever for holding one back. Trouble is, it doesn't advance the cause.

As we launch out into 2011, ready or not, pays us all to think about "taking responsibility" -- for whatever.

An old story, dating from 1899, said it very well.

Share it with you here now:

A Message to Garcia

By Elbert Hubbard

In all this Cuban business there is one man stands out on the horizon of my memory like Mars at perihelion. When war broke out between Spain & the United States, it was very necessary to communicate quickly with the leader of the Insurgents. Garcia was somewhere in the mountain vastness of Cuba- no one knew where. No mail nor telegraph message could reach him. The President must secure his cooperation, and quickly.

What to do!

Some one said to the President, "There’s a fellow by the name of Rowan will find Garcia for you, if anybody can."

Rowan was sent for and given a letter to be delivered to Garcia. How "the fellow by the name of Rowan" took the letter, sealed it up in an oil-skin pouch, strapped it over his heart, in four days landed by night off the coast of Cuba from an open boat, disappeared into the jungle, & in three weeks came out on the other side of the Island, having traversed a hostile country on foot, and delivered his letter to Garcia, are things I have no special desire now to tell in detail.

The point I wish to make is this: McKinley gave Rowan a letter to be delivered to Garcia; Rowan took the letter and did not ask, "Where is he at?" By the Eternal! there is a man whose form should be cast in deathless bronze and the statue placed in every college of the land. It is not book-learning young men need, nor instruction about this and that, but a stiffening of the vertebrae which will cause them to be loyal to a trust, to act promptly, concentrate their energies: do the thing- "Carry a message to Garcia!"

General Garcia is dead now, but there are other Garcias.

No man, who has endeavored to carry out an enterprise where many hands were needed, but has been well nigh appalled at times by the imbecility of the average man- the inability or unwillingness to concentrate on a thing and do it. Slip-shod assistance, foolish inattention, dowdy indifference, & half-hearted work seem the rule; and no man succeeds, unless by hook or crook, or threat, he forces or bribes other men to assist him; or mayhap, God in His goodness performs a miracle, & sends him an Angel of Light for an assistant. You, reader, put this matter to a test: You are sitting now in your office- six clerks are within call.

Summon any one and make this request: "Please look in the encyclopedia and make a brief memorandum for me concerning the life of Correggio".

Will the clerk quietly say, "Yes, sir," and go do the task?

On your life, he will not. He will look at you out of a fishy eye and ask one or more of the following questions:

Who was he?

Which encyclopedia?

Where is the encyclopedia?

Was I hired for that?

Don’t you mean Bismarck?

What’s the matter with Charlie doing it?

Is he dead?

Is there any hurry?

Shan’t I bring you the book and let you look it up yourself?

What do you want to know for?

And I will lay you ten to one that after you have answered the questions, and explained how to find the information, and why you want it, the clerk will go off and get one of the other clerks to help him try to find Garcia- and then come back and tell you there is no such man. Of course I may lose my bet, but according to the Law of Average, I will not.

Now if you are wise you will not bother to explain to your "assistant" that Correggio is indexed under the C’s, not in the K’s, but you will smile sweetly and say, "Never mind," and go look it up yourself.

And this incapacity for independent action, this moral stupidity, this infirmity of the will, this unwillingness to cheerfully catch hold and lift, are the things that put pure Socialism so far into the future. If men will not act for themselves, what will they do when the benefit of their effort is for all? A first-mate with knotted club seems necessary; and the dread of getting "the bounce" Saturday night, holds many a worker to his place.

Advertise for a stenographer, and nine out of ten who apply, can neither spell nor punctuate- and do not think it necessary to.

Can such a one write a letter to Garcia?

"You see that bookkeeper," said the foreman to me in a large factory.

"Yes, what about him?"

"Well he’s a fine accountant, but if I’d send him up town on an errand, he might accomplish the errand all right, and on the other hand, might stop at four saloons on the way, and when he got to Main Street, would forget what he had been sent for."

Can such a man be entrusted to carry a message to Garcia?

We have recently been hearing much maudlin sympathy expressed for the "downtrodden denizen of the sweat-shop" and the "homeless wanderer searching for honest employment," & with it all often go many hard words for the men in power.

Nothing is said about the employer who grows old before his time in a vain attempt to get frowsy ne’er-do-wells to do intelligent work; and his long patient striving with "help" that does nothing but loaf when his back is turned. In every store and factory there is a constant weeding-out process going on. The employer is constantly sending away "help" that have shown their incapacity to further the interests of the business, and others are being taken on. No matter how good times are, this sorting continues, only if times are hard and work is scarce, the sorting is done finer- but out and forever out, the incompetent and unworthy go.

It is the survival of the fittest. Self-interest prompts every employer to keep the best- those who can carry a message to Garcia.

I know one man of really brilliant parts who has not the ability to manage a business of his own, and yet who is absolutely worthless to any one else, because he carries with him constantly the insane suspicion that his employer is oppressing, or intending to oppress him. He cannot give orders; and he will not receive them. Should a message be given him to take to Garcia, his answer would probably be, "Take it yourself."

Tonight this man walks the streets looking for work, the wind whistling through his threadbare coat. No one who knows him dare employ him, for he is a regular fire-brand of discontent. He is impervious to reason, and the only thing that can impress him is the toe of a thick-soled No. 9 boot.

Of course I know that one so morally deformed is no less to be pitied than a physical cripple; but in our pitying, let us drop a tear, too, for the men who are striving to carry on a great enterprise, whose working hours are not limited by the whistle, and whose hair is fast turning white through the struggle to hold in line dowdy indifference, slip-shod imbecility, and the heartless ingratitude, which, but for their enterprise, would be both hungry & homeless.

Have I put the matter too strongly? Possibly I have; but when all the world has gone a-slumming I wish to speak a word of sympathy for the man who succeeds- the man who, against great odds has directed the efforts of others, and having succeeded, finds there’s nothing in it: nothing but bare board and clothes.

I have carried a dinner pail & worked for day’s wages, and I have also been an employer of labor, and I know there is something to be said on both sides. There is no excellence, per se, in poverty; rags are no recommendation; & all employers are not rapacious and high-handed, any more than all poor men are virtuous.

My heart goes out to the man who does his work when the "boss" is away, as well as when he is at home. And the man who, when given a letter for Garcia, quietly take the missive, without asking any idiotic questions, and with no lurking intention of chucking it into the nearest sewer, or of doing aught else but deliver it, never gets "laid off," nor has to go on a strike for higher wages. Civilization is one long anxious search for just such individuals. Anything such a man asks shall be granted; his kind is so rare that no employer can afford to let him go. He is wanted in every city, town and village- in every office, shop, store and factory. The world cries out for such: he is needed, & needed badly- the man who can carry a message to Garcia.

THE END

(of the story.....the beginning of 2011..............) Wish you the best new year yet.....

Rx: for what ails you, work

2010-12-30T11:21:00.002-06:00

To novelist Alice Adams in 1960, while breaking up with his second wife, author Saul Bellow wrote:

“The only cure is to write a book. I have a new one on the table and all other misery is gone.”

Mozart used to quote from himself, from work to work, and if it was good enough for him, surely for me. So, may we quote from "Extraordinary Comebacks: 201 Inspiring Stories of Courage, Triumph, and Success":

95. KING, STEPHEN

OUT FOR HIS DAILY FOUR-MILE WALK NEAR HIS
summer home in Lovell, Maine, on June 19, 1999, superstar
author Stephen King was hit by a minivan. Suffering a collapsed
lung and several broken bones, he was raced to the
hospital at 110 mph over country roads. King nearly died.

Recovery was slow and painful, and the physical
therapy was grueling. King doubted his ability to ever
write again. But he did write again, five weeks after the
accident, and King eventually said it offered the best
therapy of all, even though it didn’t seem that way at the
outset. There was no inspiration that first day, only a
stubbornness and a determination and a hope that
things would get better, he said. That resolve was
enough to get King started.

King finished On Writing, his tome about the craft of
writing, in 2000 and turned to his long-stalled Dark Tower
series in the following years. He even ended up writing
himself, and his near-fatal accident, into the seven-volume
series. He later told interviewers that he was using the
work as a painkiller because it was more effective than any
pharmaceutical the doctors had prescribed.

Though King has permanent physical ailments as a
result of the accident, he didn’t lose his sense of humor.
He eventually purchased the van that caused him so much
pain for $1,500 so he could smash it with a sledgehammer.

We've come across a very off-the-beaten track writer: Joe Bageant

2010-12-26T13:42:00.003-06:00

Author of DEER HUNTING WITH JESUS

Here's a thought-provoking essay:

Anderson Cooper and Class Solidarity

You cannot man the barricades with a mouth full of Cheetos

By Joe Bageant

"Class solidarity was such a good idea. It really was. Obviously, most of the people who need solidarity are in the world's laboring classes. After all, the rich have more than enough solidarity already, as was recently demonstrated by their successful execution of the greatest global financial heist in history.

More....

Blogs he credits for publishing or defending or criticizing his work:

alternet.org

worldnewstrust.com

peaceandjustice.org

Bartcop.com

enrevanche.blogspot.com· tinyrevolution.com

peakenergy.blogspot.com

people.tribe.net

talk2action.org

fairshot.typepad.com

happyfeminist.typepad.com

stupidevilbastard.com

opednews.com

arvinhill.blogspot.com

peakoil.com

jdeanicite.typepad.com

idleworm.com

theamericanmuslim.org

wealthbondage.com

williambowles.info

thehollywoodliberal.com

adreampuppet.blogspot.com

taylor-report.com

badattitudes.com

alternativesmagazine.com

benedictionblogson.com

zionsherald.org

peacebang.blogspot.com

blog.wirearchy.com

selvesandothers.org

mickeyz.net

swans.com

moonofalabama.org

theunknowncandidate.blogspot.com

thomasmccay.blogspot.com

blondesense.blogspot.com

unknownnews.net

narconews.com

electricedge.com

theriverblog.blogspot.com

allspinzone.blogspot.com

liberalgirlnextdoor.blogspot.com

effwit.blogspot.com

susiemadrak.com

abigfatslob.blogspot.com

No one "dug deeper" to find the musical meanings than Carlo Maria Giulini

2010-12-17T10:48:00.019-06:00

Came across mention of a newly published (2010) biography on a former Chicago luminary: Carlo Maria Giuilini. He was guest conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, back in the golden days of 1960s, 1970s.

I read the book with interest. Then I listened to his recordings again, what a revelation.

Even before the 24/7 age of Twitter, Facebook, CNN, CNBC, cell phones, iPads, smart phones, emails, IMs, and all the rest, before there was an Internet, here was a man who insisted on taking enough time to sequester himself, to think, to study, do the job right. He often worked extensively with the string section of an orchestra on bowings, something many other conductors gave little thought to. But Giulini was himself a viola player. He knew how important these things were to get the "sound" he was after. Furthermore, he purposely limited his repertory to those works he could master. He purposely limited his time on stage to seven months per year so that he could spend the remaining five months studying, to be better.

His aim: music that touched the soul. He eschewed flash, dash, empty bombast, in favor of warmth, lyricism, humanity.

(I am made very aware, today, as I write this, that God truly is in the details, in any and every field of human endeavor. "Drink deep....." the saying goes...)

I had the unexpected fortune of meeting Maestro Giulini, on the street, outside Orchestra Hall, some 33 years ago.

I was looking in the display case of then-named Orchestra Hall one brilliant, freezing winter’s day (now it’s “Symphony Center”). On proud display: the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s brand new recording of the Mahler Ninth Symphony, Carlo Maria Giulini conducting. Such was the affection of the music world back then for him that the yellow-label DGG cover art was solely the patrician visage of Giulini himself, dressed for the elements in a striking fedora and dashing scarf.

Sensing a new presence to my left, I turned and there was the maestro himself, wearing the selfsame hat, and the very scarf, taking in his mirror image.

Making eye contact, I nodded and said something terribly profound like “Nice to see you, Maestro.”

“Nice to meet you, too,” the tall Italian chortled, delighted at the visual irony of the moment, extending his hand, which I shook. In those days, much was made, in the media, of his humanity and grace, vis-à-vis the motoric thrashing the high octane music director Solti gave his selections (make no mistake, we were and are big Solti fans, too). Giulini conveyed that in a few seconds, in a chance encounter.

A music god had come down to the pavement and there I was to meet him. Like Judy Tenuta used to say “it could happen.”

And it did.

Hats off to author Thomas D. Saler; highly recommended:

EXCERPTS

Tooley visited Giulini the day before Marcella was to undergo surgery to relieve pressure on her brain after the aneurysm. As he was leaving, Tooley told Giulini that he and Marcella would be in his thoughts and prayers. "John, thank you for that," Giulini replied, "but the world is full of suffering and there is no reason why Marcella and I should escape it." He then found a silver lining that could help others in the same position, noting that the surgeons could learn something from the operation. Marcella's illness brought the couple even closer..............p 134

Giulini extended his kindness even to strangers. Marsha Head, a London piano teacher, who had never met Giulini, sent the maestro a letter telling him how much his "exquisitely sensitive, meticulous and spiritual interpretation" of the Mozart Requiem with the Philharmonia Orchestra and Chorus had moved her. That following Christmas, Head received a phone call from Italy. "It was Maestro Giulini, who had taken the time and trouble, despite his own important commitments, to find out my telephone number and speak to me at length on the subject of music, sensitivity and spirituality. I did not expect or ask for a reply (to my letter), especially from such an eminent conductor. I will always remember that deep conversation, his genuine interest in my music, and the kindness, sincerity, humility, and huge musical intellect of Giulini...." p 137

Third Coast Festival -- Radio features

2010-11-26T10:38:00.005-06:00

Came across Third Coast Festival. Highly recommend this amazing package of award-winning radio features.

This feature really grabbed me.

Here's an excerpt, a poem written by a Dutchman whose self-appointed task it has become to provide dignity to those who have passed on without anyone in attendance, poor or, surprisingly, even the rich.

Goodbye stranger

Goodbye stranger.

I say “goodbye” on the road to nowhere to the final country where everyone is welcomed in. Where nothing needn’t know your origin.

Farewell, sir, without papers, without identity, what were you looking for?

How much did you lose along the way?

Who stares through the empty window, waits, nameless man? Wait, while I speak and empty my empty words into this empty room.

I am too late. You, I never knew. Not in your weakness, not in your strength, not in the final country where you are greeted without name.

I don’t know the words you spoke, not to me. Who, then, loved you? In which rooms did you sleep? Who kissed you good night, who wear out your shirt?

Who will want to stand where you once stood? Who now takes the roads you took? Who still looks for you? Who remembers whence you came?

Who heard the voice calling out for you to come on home, man, to your final haven, Amsterdam?

Classical insanity

2010-11-01T08:58:00.001-06:00

I have listened to classical music for 56 of my 59 years, but on and off, sometimes with large gaps. I started quite by chance with Liberace at age 3, before his rhinestone and Las Vegas era, when he performed classical selections, Mozart, Chopin, Liszt, et al, on his daily television program, often with his brother, George, violin. I was such a groupie I would don a proper bow tie to watch; photographic evidence proves it. I was not an exclusive zealot at the time, however. My tastes were fairly kid-catholic and my other favorite shows at the time included Howdy Doody and Buffalo Bob. Their music was, of course, more jingo than classical: “It’s Howdy Doody time, etc etc etc.”.

By age 7, my next great passion had taken Liberace’s place; it was sports, (both of them) and especially the greatest exponents of same, the Cleveland Indians and Cleveland Browns, depending on season. There was no ESPN, there were only home town teams, everyone else was opposition. I especially idolized Indian right-fielder and slugger Rocky Colavito (has there ever been a better baseball name?). He hit four home runs one fateful night and achieved baseball immortality (June 10, 1959). Back in the 1950s, there were exactly two sports in the known Western world, no more, no less. We played all day in the summer, till dark during school. Our arms were baked cocoa right to the short sleeve mark. We were alabaster underneath. We watched our heroes on TV, when they weren’t on TV, we listened on the radio. Our career aspiration was to one day take their place. It seemed to us the natural order of things. It was all we knew of life.

Musically speaking, elementary school band was the next new thing. There was not much choice or thinking that went into it. You were expected to play an instrument and so we did. Nearly all of us. It was an orderly and entirely unfair process. To begin, we queued up to borrow free school instruments. Perhaps still in the sway of swingster Benny Goodman, my parents had instructed me to request a clarinet. By the time I got to the front of the line, all the licorice sticks were taken. Somewhat crestfallen, I felt I had somehow let my parents down. A “mellophone” was shoved at me. “Try this.” I took it home. I was summarily told to take it back, I did, and somehow wound up with a “cornet.” I don’t remember how. I took it home. Neither I, nor my father, nor my mother knew how to make a sound on it. My parents decided it was “too hard” to blow. The next day I was taught something about embouchure, lips were to buzz into the mouthpiece, not around it. Aha. The ship was sailing.

School officials further instructed parents and children to take private lessons to supplement school lessons. There were two choices: the frou-frou Educators Music (expensive, classical), and down the street, Duran’s Music Shop (cheaper, $3 per lesson, pop-oriented). Mom and Dad chose the latter (“you don’t like longhair music, do you?). So every Thursday night for 30 minutes, Mr. Local Harry James Guy with his white hair slicked back with Brylcreem would teach me, between cigarettes. The room was the size of a large refrigerator box. I could hardly breathe. I hated it.

One day in junior high band, my tone rankled the music director, a crewcut ex-Marine whose name I forget but I can see his face. In front of 60 kids, he called me out. Here’s how. Man of few words, he threw a chalk-filled eraser at me and hit me in the pants. (He later would throw an eraser at a reed player and hit him in the eye. A parent complained, school officials intervened, and that ended the practice. But I digress.)

“Play a tone,” he commanded.

A shy, acne-ridden skinny nobody back chair player, maybe 13 out of 14 trumpets, a real slacker underachiever, I was mortified.

I played the tone. It was pathetic, like a tiny, muted trumpet.

Only it wasn’t. Tiny or muted.

“Come up here,” he said. “Yes, that’s right, come up here!”

The master clinician sensed the problem, and immediately took my trumpet apart, stuck his white baton into the mouthpiece, and pulled it out, now covered with glunky black indeterminate matter, holding it high aloft for the millions of kids to recoil in horror at.

“Ohhhhhhhhhhhh, ahhhhhhhh, yyyyyyuuuuuuuuukkkkkkkkkkkkk,” said my 60 bandmates, as though one.

I was now past mortified. I was wishing I was dead. My face was burning red, indicating I was still alive.

Mr. Marine Band Director Guy grabbed someone’s mouthpiece brush, marched me out to the hallway sink, and set about the operation, plunging the brush in and out about 100 times, all the while rinsing the little silver implement like a madman. He made a mouthpiece that had apparently never been scrubbed squeaky clean.

“That’s how it’s done, lad,” he sniffed. “Come on, let’s go back.”

He marched me back in, I skulked back to my chair like a wet cat, and he immediately called me out again.

“Play a note now,” he said. “That’s right, play a middle C and hold it.”

I did, and the tone was big, fat, pure and true. I had never heard myself sound that way before.

“Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh,” said the band again, but this time a good oohhhh.

I think I recovered from the episode, but my love of things musical, band or otherwise did not for a long time, not to what it was back in the days of Liberace when it was fun and interesting and entertaining, even for a three-year-old. This was the dark side of music, and I didn’t like it.

Not long after I quit the band, and took typing in its place. I never thought about the band again for years.

Meeting Beethoven

As a teen, I listened to the Rolling Stones and Beatles, like everyone else. An aspiring percussionist, I turned metal wastebaskets upside down in my bedroom and beat the hell out of them to all their tunes. Couple of us formed a garage band, it lasted approximately one session, since we couldn’t really play guitars, drums or anything else. So not being able to emulate them directly, we did the next best thing: we read about our heroes. I read something that stuck with me: Beatles lead guitarist George Harrison said his favorite musician was Segovia. So I bought an album, Segovia. I was really taken with it. Here was another world…..

Later, upon entering college, in the university welcome packet, the School of Music had a little insert suggesting Music 141 (Classical Survey) to fulfill the humanities requirement. So, made curious by Segovia, and these new sounds, I did, 9 a.m., three days a week, first quarter, freshman year. Mr. Gano was the teacher, tall, dark, and wry. I’m not sure he wanted to be there. I did, though.

I applied myself toward the goal of getting an A. That included covering the required listening. In the audio lab in my dorm, I heard for the first time in my life Herr Beethoven, the immortal Appassionata, Piano Sonata No. 23 in F minor, Op. 57, and immediately after, the Fifth Symphony. G-G-G-Eb. I was “on the edge of 17,” like the Stevie Nicks ballad. I still remember the night. The top of my head was torn off. I was shaken to the very core. My life -- changed forever.

Through four years of college, I continued to take every music history course offered for non-majors. I wrote music criticism for the school newspaper, no credit, just for the love of it. I became an inveterate concert goer, and record collector. My goal was to return to college someday, and study music history. Soon enough, I graduated. My adviser said I was leaving too soon, I was just finding my passions. He was right.

Regarding my plan, I never did make it back, by now I had joined the working world, but I kept going to concerts, kept buying records, taping off the air, and attending master classes whenever possible: Weissenberg, Pressler, Schnabel, Fleischer, Schiff, Harrell, Glennie, Preucil, Miriam Fried, Starker, and now again, most recently, me at age 59, still at it, master cellist Lynn Harrell, Wednesday, October 27, 2010, Pick-Staiger Concert Hall, Northwestern University.

We had not seen Mr. Harrell teach since July 7, 1994, when my 11-year-old daughter and violinist (I was the Suzuki parent) attended his wonderful master class at Ravinia. We tailed him out to the parking lot after, where he graciously signed his CDs, Bach Cello Suites, and Beethoven Piano Trios (Grammy winner). He was a youthful 50, affable, down-to-earth. He gave my daughter a friendly smile as he signed. He is often smiling, kind of the antithesis of the tormented classical artist stereotype.

Fast forward 16 years. Wednesday, October 27, 2010. Lots has changed, but some things have not. My daughter has long since laid down her violin, but I continue showing up at master classes. Mr. Harrell had aged a bit, there was a bit more paunch, the red-brown hair now a mass of flying white wisps on top, the ruddy complexion seemingly a bit more pale (or was it the lights of Pick-Staiger?). His wonderful affability, and charisma, and genius and humanity? Still intact. For me, he is a kind of Schubert of cellists and teachers, sunny, but exceedingly intelligent, and with an undercurrent of understanding of darker things. (Regarding the latter assertion: listen to The Erlkoenig, or Winterreise.)

Which made Mr. Harrell’s presentation this time all the more remarkable. He was coaching a string quartet on their performance of the Schumann String Quartet, A, Op. 41, No. 3.

“Do you know how Schumann died?” Mr. Harrell asked the players out of the thin blue, very casually, and seemingly innocently enough.

“In an insane asylum,” came the matter-of-fact reply from the primo violin.

“Yes,” Mr. Harrell said. He paused a beat. “And you are aware that he suffered from schizophrenia, and manic-depression, and that he had earlier tried to commit suicide?”

“Oh, yes,” our scholarly twenty-somethings averred.

“It’s in the music,” Mr. Harrell. “Under the surface, but we have to hear that,” implying that we hadn’t been up to that point. (He is such a nice critic.)

Continuing he said: “Sometimes there is in the written music here that sense of ‘cold sweat,’ of ‘holding the dog down,’ of profound discomfiture, so to speak, and it has to come out.”

Then it hit me: all classical, all art, is insanity. Insanity, or nearly so, is discomfiture, on a scale from yearning to desperate pain. It is that desperate cold sweat. Or, as Mr. Harrell metaphorized, ‘holding the dog down.’ The teacher didn’t say it, but the contraverse screamed out: happy people don’t make art.

And so Mr. Harrell spent the rest of the two plus hours of teaching earnestly trying to get “more” discomfiture, more yearning, more insanity, if you will, out of his very calm, very clean, very well-dressed, very good-looking, very well-turned-out young upper class classical wannabes. We waited, we hoped, we sent good vibes up to the stage. But it never happened. My hair never caught fire.

I’m not sure it was possible. The kids were just too sane. Too long the post-modern world has been taught ‘cool’, not passion. The wood is very wet now. You have to care very, very much and you have to be perhaps a bit insane to make someone’s hair catch on fire.

It happens for those a bit older, a bit more wizened by life’s vagaries, a bit more insane, shall we say. From some of those ‘not from around here.’ (Sir Georg Solti used to have a phrase, “super-Hungarian.” You know intuitively what he means: crazy, insane, over the top.) Let’s take Solti, for one more minute. His CDs continue to sell many times more than other CSO conductors. Why? Because they are more out there, bolder, more plaintiff, more visceral, more shocking. And what is insanity, after all, but “perilously extreme discomfiture?” How’s that for a definition? Perhaps not so clinical as operational, but for me, for this essay, it works. It explains a lot to me, things I ‘knew’ on one level, but not quite on another.

What drove Solti? Quite simply, I think part of it was he was haunted. By something as small, he said, as a flip comment he made to his father when they were parting at the train station just as World War II was getting underway. George was being sent away for his personal safety. His father told him they would never see each other again, and became emotional. Young Georg? He was flip, dismissive. Sure enough, it was their last time together, and those few flip words, the lack of apprehension, the off-handedness, haunted him the rest of his life.

This is the existential discomfiture that moves the handful of Bachs, Beethovens, Brahms’, and Bartoks, and their interpreters, among us, to respond, research, record their thoughts in notation for performance, and then posterity. You don’t need partings at train stations to generate this feeling. There is enough insanity resident onboard the human condition all by itself. And we each one of us are touched by some of that insanity, from a little to a lot, the terror and beauty of insanity woven into the fabric of the human condition. Composers? Artists? It itches them something fierce, something violent, and they break out in not in rashes, per se, but in great torrents of sound. They take the pain to write it down, and pass it on, generation to generation, as though it were the only salve, the only balm, extant for this strange rash of insanity that is more or less resident onboard every human on the planet.

And why the discomfiture? Now we cross the line into unspeakable things, but I’ll speak them anyway: it is the injustice of the human condition. We are put here without our consent, as flawed beings, and we are condemned to death. It is manifestly unfair.

It is a crime.

It is why people don’t like God, religion, the Bible. It’s not that they’ve never heard of him, like evangelicals think, it’s that they’ve heard, and they don’t like what they’ve heard.

Most let it go at that. They choose religion like choosing a political party, I’m a Christian (fire insurance), or I’m not (maybe the light just goes out and nothing’s there at all, I’ll take my chances). But neither side much cares for God, the dirty little secret of Christianity. If you love someone, or something, you read, and study, and learn all about them. You are enraptured, you spend the time and the time flies by. But most Christians tolerate God at best, and most have never read the Bible. They are conscripts, more or less drafted, and as ignorant as an enlisted man as per the whys and wherefores of the Pentagon. They do the minimum. They look forward to being free of the service one day, though they know there’s no out. So they don’t think about it. When they do, their antipathy shines through.

Amazingly, one active Christian once asked me why would anyone want God to rule the world? He said it with incredulity, condescension and disgust. He spends his weekends telling prisoners about things spiritual. He takes them cookies.

Pulling back the curtain

At least one individual has not been so easily put off. He has been neither daunted by God’s distance, nor his imperiousness, nor by pop culture images and icons of what he’s supposed to be. Rather like a bold Judy Garland in Wizard of Oz, he pulls back the curtain to see the man behind, and get at the real truth, surely a perilous undertaking, no? You risk your life when you get close to God.

Speaking about author Jack Miles. He writes as follows in his remarkable, Pulitzer Prize winning book, God An Autobiography, about how the real God of the Bible not the fake God of our culture, and the remarkable way he changed over time in the Biblical narrative but few have noticed:

“Among these self-characterizations, the most startling comes in a soliloquy derived from The Book of Numbers. Thinking back to his origins in heaven and forward to his human death, Yahweh Incarnate recalls, of all unexpected moments, the time when he sent a plague of poisonous snakes – “fiery serpents” – upon the Israelites. Wandering in the desert, they had complained of hunger and thirst. The snakes were his reaction to their complaint. After many had died of snakebite, the survivors turned to Moses desperate for relief, more than ready to repent of their crime of complaint. Moses then prayed to the Lord, who instructed him to break one of the Sinai commandments and make a graven image of a serpent. “Set it on a pole,” he told Moses, “and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live” (21:4-9). Moses obeyed, the plague was lifted, and the people moved on.

“Now, alone in the night, more than a millennium later, having committed a capital offense against the religiopolitical establishment in Jerusalem, Jesus imagines himself “lifted up” on the gallows of his day and compares himself, in that condition, to the serpent that Moses “lifted up” on that pole in the desert. The serpent was lifted up so that the dying Israelites could be cured of fatal snakebite. YI will be lifted up “so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.” This is the equation, but it is a deeply shocking equation, for what did the Israelites see when the looked at the bronze serpent? Antiquarians may say what they will about sympathetic magic or apotropaic (preventing or intended to prevent evil) medicine. In the story as we now have it, what the Israelites saw was a reminder that the Lord had been prepared to kill them in large numbers for no greater offense the complaining of hunger and thirst. When they looked at the bronze serpent, even though it cured them, they saw a reminder of why they had so greatly to fear him. The snakes, after all, were not the cause of their dying. The Lord Himself was the cause.

“What, then, does Jesus suggest that all mankind will see when they look upon him lifted up on the cross or, later, look upon an image of him in that condition? How can we avoid saying that they will look upon the cause as well as the cure of their distress? To the objection that this comparison is far-fetched, I would reply that it is Jesus himself who has fetched the comparison from afar. The bronze serpent is a detail from an obscure episode in Israelite history. The comparison is so arcane, so recherché, that it can only be fully, provocatively intended.

“Anyone who sets out to comment on the character of Jesus quickly finds himself in competition with his subject. Jesus is more provocative in characterizing himself than most commentators begin to guess. I include not just learned commentators but naughty screenwriters, satirical novelists, nihilist philosophers, everybody. The latter all intend to blaspheme, and they all succeed (blasphemy is an easy target to hit). Jesus, however, blasphemes with a resourcefulness that exceeds theirs, because he knows so much better than they do whereof he speaks. Was there no other image available to him than that of the killer snake? Could he not have compared himself, for example, to the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night that led the Israelites through the desert? Why dredge up this brutal incident and this grotesque symbol? Why, if not because in this incident human crime and divine punishment are so excruciatingly ill-matched? The death penalty for a complaint about bad food? How can divine innocence not be called into question? Why conjure up the memory of the bronze serpent if not to suggest that those who will see Jesus upon the cross will look upon not just the remedy for the human condition but also its cause?”

So God changed, most remarkably. More remarkably, perhaps, than we have ever heard, or if we heard, understood.

In a way that is geometrically more powerful to rock one to the core than even mighty Beethoven’s Fifth, than his Appassionata.

Some say he didn’t change at all, that’s he’s the same individual, e.g. he killed Ananias and Sapphira for lying to the Holy Spirit. And when he returns, he will make war with the kings of the earth, killing again.

True. He is the same person, but with this remarkable act stuck in the middle of the play, of taking responsibility for his creation, and redeeming it, and making good on the crime that makes us all, more or less, crazy, he changes, too. The same and different at the same time. It is nothing less than a mind-shattering turn of events. Any other perspective renders the self-sacrificial action functionary, pedestrian, agenda-bound --- instead of perpetually awe-inspiring, even shattering (in the common youth parlance, [I am] “wrecked” by it).

That he would do this for us, convict himself of the crime of the human condition and then pay the price to achieve justice for us……….when properly understood, can never fail to stun, amaze, awe.

Perhaps you have to be a little “insane,” to ‘get it?’ Otherwise it just goes over one’s head, no?

As another Great Musician, reggae man Bob Marley once said: “who feels it knows it mon.”

Indeed. Music is a balm. It treats the existential itch.

But this Yeshua, this Jesus, as Jack Miles so powerfully illustrates is The Balm. He alone cures the existential itch. Some composers, Bach most notably, understood. The rest were trying desperately to as well.

Is more money the answer?

2010-09-13T13:27:00.003-06:00

There was a report out last week that said, roughly, after you meet your basic needs, more money doesn't make you happier. We were inclined to "dig deeper." Here's what we found. These individuals had money, and lots of it. Here's what they said:

I hate to be a failure. I hate and regret the failure of my marriages. I would gladly give all my millions for just one lasting marital success.
J. Paul Getty

The care of $200 million is enough to kill anyone. There is no pleasure in it.
W.H. Vanderbilt

I am the most miserable man on earth.
J.J. Astor

I have made millions but they have brought me no happiness.
John D. Rockefeller

Millionaires seldom smile.
Andrew Carnegie

I was happier when I was doing a mechanic's job.
Henry Ford

We thought also of the story of Jesse Livermore, one of the greatest speculators of his day, the 1920s, 30s, 40s. He killed himself, with a shot to head in the coat room of the Sherry Netherland Hotel, NYC, November 28, 1940. Fable has it that he was broke, but not true. He had more the $5 million in cash and trusts. He had fought depression all his life, the depression won.

Surely, all of this experience, all of these men, food for thought...............

Credit for quotes: "When the game is over it all goes back in the box," by John Ortberg.

Illusion vs. RealityAuthor Russ Baker Connect the Dots

2010-07-23T08:50:00.005-06:00

We have movies like The Matrix that tell us there's another reality beneath the surface that we are unaware of. But these come from Hollywood, and they're harmless, and fun, and meant to entertain us, and entertainment is pretty much everything nowadays, right? And we don't believe that stuff, not really, right?

Here's a book the puts forth the supposition that everything you thought about the last 50 years of USA history is wrong. That the reality in your mind is an illusion. That the institutions and people you have placed your trust in have not been worthy, to put it mildly. That your attention has been misdirected, masterfully, but the likes of the CIA, Big Oil, the Eastern Establishment. I've heard this stuff, you have, too, and shrugged it off. After all, America is basically honest, right, the land of the free, home of the brave, apple pie, baseball, and all the rest.

500 plus pages here. Couldn't put it down. This work, (and Shoebat's God's War on Terror) are two must read's that, well, you "must read."

How's that for irony?

2010-07-09T06:28:00.002-06:00

King James (LeBron) tattoos include "witness" and "history" on his legs, "chosen 1" on his back and ironically to Clevelanders: "loyalty" tattooed on his chest.....

Giving away or returning a hard drive? Read on....

2010-05-02T15:11:00.003-06:00

Many PC users are still under the impression that deleting a file removes it from the hard drive. It does not. The data is still onboard, and savvy banditos can access it if they get their hands on your drive. That's right, your account numbers, passwords, user IDs, credit card numbers, you name it.

How to handle?

Surf over to Kill Disk. They have a free product that will "kill" your disk, or remove all data. There are two levels: one pass "kill" (free download), and high level, military-style multi-pass, priced from $39.95 to $59.95.

The free version is a no-brainer, and if you're hesitating at the tariff on the high-level versions, we have two questions for you: 1) how much is your peace of mind worth? and 2) how much will it cost you in time and effort to reclaim your life if all your confidentials fall into the right hands?

Can't happen to you? Happens to the U.S. government even; students found sensitive U.S. defense contracts -- in Ghana!

A groundbreaker SHOP CLASS AS SOULCRAFT

2010-01-27T21:17:00.005-06:00

Today we are digging deeper into the meaning of work. What could be more basic? What can someone possibly add to this inquiry? Turns out: a lot. What Jack Miles is to theology, Walid Shoebat to Bible prophecy, Malcolm Gladwell to perception -- i.e. a groundbreaker -- Matthew B. Crawford is to work.

Yes, that stuff we do each and every day. In SHOP CLASS AS SOULCRAFT he challenges our basic assumptions about blue collar vs white collar work. He goes on to to tackle bigger issues of meaning, satisfaction and community.

The writing style is a joy. One section he is the uber-academic (he has a PhD from the uber-University of Chicago, what can be more academic?), the next is talking like an earthy mechanic (he is one of those too, a motorcycle shop owner in his real life).

Not too be missed.

At the very least you'll have a new appreciation for the guy who fixes your pipes or tunes your car. And maybe you'll steer your son or daughter to consider ALL of their options. Here's a range of hourly rates for plumbers in my area: 138, 156, 172. Compare that with Best Buy's starting rate of some $8 to $10 per hour. That's a 15:1 ratio. Like they say, "do the math."

This web page tells you everything you need to know about USA financial picture

2010-01-22T08:01:00.003-06:00

USA debt clock. We call your attention especially to the harrowing bottom line of tsunami debt soon to break on shore and wipe everything out in its path: unfunded liabilities for Social Security, Medicare, and Rx drugs. At this writing, an incomprehensible $107 trillion. Worth bookmarking.

We desperately need new representation in all levels of government by those who understand and can solve this massive and accumulated problem. There are a few, men like Ron Paul, Rand Paul (his son). Does the recent election in Mass. portend a turning................?

Japan -- bankrupt

2010-01-17T16:18:00.002-06:00

You hear a lot about Uncle's deficits, and how bad off Euroland is (Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, etc.), but not as much about Japan. They have been, shall we say, "under the radar." Here is a new screenshot of the radar, however....

New book by David Walker

2009-12-14T13:56:00.001-06:00

What could be more significant to us all:

Muslim Prayers Fuel Spiritual Rebuilding Project by Ground Zero

2009-12-08T15:27:00.003-06:00

We came across this rather remarkable story in the NY Times:
"Muslim Prayers Fuel Spiritual Rebuilding Project by Ground Zero."

On this subject, may we recommend to you Walid Shoebat's GOD'S WAR ON TERROR? It is, quite simply, a revelation.

Free Tibet

2009-11-17T08:09:00.001-06:00

Trekking in Tibet I meet the Dalai Lama.
Hello Dalai. Hello David. After some
Hesitation and small talk, I ask him
What kind of washer-dryer combination
To buy. He says, “What is your universe
Of choices?” Basically, it’s down
To ASKO, the Swedish import, and Maytag,
The quality American product. The snow
Contrail winging off Chomolungma turns
East toward Bhutan. A sign? I explain
That the ASKO duo is friendlier to all
living things -- uses less electricity, water,
bleach, detergent -- and gets clothes cleaner,
Purples, purpler, but costs twice as much.
The Maytag is spartan, righteous, renounces
Superfluity, cleans O.K., but throws repairmen
Out of work. The Dalai Lama nods, sips
his yak-butter tea, and eyes a fisky dzo
in the yawn of Tingri Plains distance. I
consider his silence. Is this a reproach?
While waiting, and waiting, for his answer
I ponder his baggage: the Swedes had come
Through with the Peace Prize, overdue,
granted,
but still. Plus he’s quite green, definitely
pro-planet. Is a dear object more material
than a cheap one? Would the “Buy American”
motive be dismissed as empty nationalism?
And yet who rides higher, astride his kiang,
With the banner of the nation-state, than he?
The huge head of Richard Gere, a tsonga
blossom
In his hair, comes floating like a Macy’s
Parade balloon above the snowcapped summit
of sacred Kailas. The Dalai Lama coughs,
reaches for a peppermint lozenge not yet
spoiled by the Chinese occupation, and says,
“Sometimes a belonging that doesn’t work
properly creates suffering for us.”

David Breskin

THE POWER OF CONNECTION

2009-11-17T06:15:00.005-06:00

To be known is to be in the know. Superb feature via Bloomberg and HarvardBusiness.org.

Read the Time cover story this week on president of the Ohio State University for a full 3D, technicolor, big screen realization of the quote.

And to confuse things just a bit, a quote from Baudrillard on the "other side" of networking:

It is forbidden to unplug yourself, and not only in active, interactive social life, but also on your deathbed: it is forbidden to tear out the tubes, even if you want to. And this is not criminal because it is an attempt on your own life – who cares about that? – but because it is an attempt on the life of medicine, and of high technology, which must ensure their own salvation first. The network principle carries with it the absolute moral obligation to remain plugged in.

All the news that fits

2009-10-27T10:32:00.001-06:00

Islam's -- the "religion of peace and love" -- Chop Chop Square
http://www.walrusmagazine.com/articles/2009.05-field-notes-chop-chop-square/
Koran 47.(4) When ye encounter the unbelievers, strike off their heads, until ye have made a great slaughter among them; and bind them in bonds: And either give them a free dismission afterwards, or exact a ransom; until the war shall have laid down its arms. This shall ye do: Verily if God pleased, He could take vengeance on them, without your assistance; but He commandeth you to fight his battles, that He may prove the one of you by the other. And as to those who fight in defence of God's true religion, God will not suffer their works to perish...

Great journalism here at the NY, as usual and very thought-provoking feature on America's gladiators, and their disturbing fate
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/10/19/091019fa_fact_gladwell?currentPage=all

"Extraordinary Comebacks: 201 Inspiring Stories of Courage, Triumph, and Success"
Tuesday, October 27, 2009 10:37 AM
Amazon.com Sales Rank: #94,564 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)
Popular in this category: (What's this?)

#86 in Books > Health, Mind & Body > Psychology & Counseling > By Topic > Motivation

Smile, smile, smile

2009-09-14T15:21:00.002-06:00

Felix Lloyd Powell (23 May 1878 – 10 February 1942) wrote the music for " Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag and Smile, Smile, Smile", a WWI marching tune. It was regarded then as one of the the most optimistic songs ever written.

But the effect was lost on its creator. Powell committed suicide in 1942, shooting himself in the heart using his own rifle.

Enough

2009-09-14T14:09:00.003-06:00

True story, Word of Honor:
Joseph Heller, an important and funny writer
now dead,
and I were at a party given by a billionaire
on Shelter Island.
I said, "Joe, how does it make you feel
to know that our host only yesteray
may have made more money
than your novel 'Catch-22'
has earned in its entire history?"
And Joe said, "I've got something he can never have."
And I said, "What on earth could that be, Joe?"
And Joe said, "The knowledge that I've got enough."
Not bad! Rest in peace.

Kurt Vonnegut, May, 2005, New Yorker

Something Better Than The Internet Genie

2009-09-01T06:25:00.006-06:00

"My son met her in an Internet café in Katmandu. Isn’t she beautiful?"

Indeed, she was.

Though I had met him on his lawn, just three minutes earlier, my new host had swept me and the wife up in a whirlwind and was now showing me around his home. His no. 1 pride and joy: pictures of his son, his new Nepalese wife, and their young children. His son is a freelance photographer living in Nepal. He was also extremely resourceful. He had made 7,500 bricks, by hand, and was about to begin construction on his new home.

Just as his dad, Nicholas Prokos, 75, my guerrilla host, before him. Nicholas had built his own home behind the dwelling he owned and rented out at 1698 First Street, Highland Park, Illinois, and we could see he loved to show off every immaculate, well-designed inch.

It was the last Sunday of August, 2009, and the huge and ever-expanding Port Clinton Art Fair was in full swing. The long string of exhibits ran south, right to his lawn, where he was showing his stoneware, and I struck up a conversation with him.

“They brought the fair to you,” I said.

“Why pay $700 for a booth!?!,” said the dapper older gentleman, attired in a spiffy new black golf vest. We chatted briefly, and within minutes he said, ‘come and see my house, it’s in the back, I built it myself.’

“When you say ‘built it myself….’,” I said.

“That’s right, with my own hands.”

So off we went.

The spry old gentleman was nothing if not handy – quite literally. A ceramics professor at Michigan, School of the Art Institute, Barat College, he made his living with his hands and teaching others to do likewise. At 75, (he appeared younger), he was now retired, and playing golf, when he wasn’t crafting magnificent stoneware.

Did he have a website? “No, I don’t need more work!,” he laughed. “I have to have time for my golf!”

His walls were decorated with arresting sketches and impressive art from his students over the years, some of whom he had stayed in contact with. A large fiber work hung over his dining room. He described in detail how it was made. Pictures of his family were all around.

He showed us the beautiful secluded patio, his kiln (“I built it myself.”)

Floored by his easygoing and natural-as-pie hospitality, I realized something:

I spend too much time on the Internet. Way too much. And too much time with the alphabet news teams: CNN, FOX, CNBC, HLN, and all the rest. Email is great. The web is great. But you begin to mistake it for face-to-face communication – which it’s not. You miss the inflection, the intent, the gesticulation, the enthusiasm, the….well…humanity.

Our host said he talks to his sons (another lives in N. Mexico, also a professional potter) on Skype all the time. We did the same with our daughter when she was studying in the Far East. It’s a marvel, a modern magic, and no one would ever willingly give it up. Not even my tennis friend who lives nearby, but insists on calling me and hitting me up for a chat on Skype. And our new friend’s son met his wife in an Internet café after all.

No -- the Internet genie is out of the bottle, and he’s not going back in.

But every once in a while, you have simply got to leave behind that apparition and choose, instead, to be with people. Especially people as warm, genuine and colorful as Dr. Nicholas Prokos, master builder, potter, and instant friend and host.

Fighting the good fight

2009-07-08T04:47:00.004-06:00

Our friend John Terry has brought his new book to our attention:

Christian Martial Arts: The Passion, The Calling, The Journey: How To Effectively Incorporate Faith-Based Principles Into Your Martial Arts Practice.

Christian and martial arts, you say, isn't that a contradiction in terms? The author shows here that it's not. In today's society, predators seeks out children and women as victims; self-defense is no longer an option, but a must.

He de-bunks the myth that karate originates from Eastern mysticism. His chapter on marketing will make you think about how you can get your message out in less self-serving, more effective ways. In a day and time where "Christian" conveys "weak" to many, Terry provides a the antidote -- but in a caring, intelligent, spiritual way.

One caveat: this book may catalyze a desire to run out and sign up for a Christian martial arts class.

About the Author
John L. Terry, III is the founder and executive director of the Christian Martial Arts Council. He is an ordained minister, martial arts and self-defense instructor, and a “Kid-Safe” and “Women-Safe” community advocate. John holds a black belt in Okinawan Karate and Kenpo. He is both a member of, and has served on the boards of, several professional martial arts associations. John has a degree in Business from Arkansas Tech University and has been a sales and marketing consultant since 1988. Contact him directly at john@revelationfiles.com where he provides a daily email review of Bible prophecy topics.

New calculus: USA interest soon to = SS + Med + Defense

2009-03-11T07:05:00.003-06:00

What is the cost of the "stimulus package," the deficit spending to break the Greater Recession? In just four short years, author C.H. Smith paints a scenario in which the interest the US pays on its debt will equal the payments it makes for Social Security, Medicare and Defense.

He calls it the Road to National Insolvency. Surely a must read. What to do? Start with a visit to IOUSA, watch the 30 minute film, write your representatives.

What are (failed) bond sales in Euroland forecasting?

2009-01-14T11:29:00.001-06:00

Read

Financial meltdown catalyzes suicides

2009-01-06T12:55:00.005-06:00

German billionaire Merckel

Frenchman and investor Thierry Magon de la Villehuchet

And, more recently, an attempted suicide by Marcus Shrenker.

Even if they didn’t opt for the ultimate and most permanent of solutions, like Messrs. Merckle and Villehuchet, with the SP500 down almost half in 2008, the average investor and/or 401K holder was feeling plenty blue as 2008 wound down.

Small consolation, but things have also been as tough, sometimes much tougher, percentage-wise, for other legends of business and finance. It appears none will miss lunch, as a result, but still, they felt the cold slap of ignominy right in the chops, along with all the other “long term” investors. For many, the blow is coming at the end of a long and illustrious career.

Even the “Babe Ruth” of investing was not immune.

Warren Buffett, 78, and his Berkshire Hathaway stock did not escape from the meltdown. The stock declined from approximately $151,000 per share, to $74,100 at its low ($99,700 per at this writing). That doesn’t make him particularly unique in an environment when the SP lost half its value. The strange twist here is that the creator of the phrase “derivatives….weapons of financial mass destruction” himself was an avid participant in the options market, generating a loss of an estimated $3.7 billion. He sold LEAP puts on some $37 billion of equities with maturities ranging from 2019 to 2027 – exercisable only at maturity, not before.

Maybe it’s a clever strategy to sell puts for a time in the future when you may or may not be around, but still, they get marked to market, and have apparently created a real short term difficulty. Some opine that this is the reason Berkshire invested in Goldman Sachs, the broker for this transaction. Goldman counterparties were concerned about their counterparty risk, the thinking here goes, and demanded more collateral in case of continued stock decline (even though the original bet did not require any collateral due to the seemingly impregnable state of BRK finances, impregnable to this point, at least). As a result, Berkshire Hathaway credit default swap rates climbed to five full points, from one-half point earlier in the year. Could the decline in stocks last a decade or more?

Sheldon Adelson, developer of the Las Vegas Sands, injected some $525 million of his own funds to keep his gambling empire from defaulting on its debt and going into bankruptcy. Additionally, he converted $475 million in convertible notes into common stock. To raise another billion, he more than doubled the number of shares outstanding, sold them at $6, and massively diluted the holdings of existing shareholders. That left him with 51% of the company, versus an earlier 69%. At the time of the announcement, the stock had traded down from $145 to the $4s over a 12 month period. As recently as Sept. 2007, he was the Forbes No. 3, with an estimated net worth of $28 billion. At this writing, with a stock price of some $5.50, market cap for LVS was approximately $2 billion; Adelson’s half worth now just $1 billion, a loss of $27 billion in one year.

Kirk Kerkorian, 91, saw his MGM Mirage stake fall in value from $14 billion to $2 billion, a loss of $12 billion. The company owns approximately half the rooms on the Las Vegas strip. Additionally, he is selling his $1 billion stake in Ford (6.4% of the co.) for 2/3rds less, a loss of $700 million since the summer. He bought the shares because the company had a good quarter earlier in the year and he had confidence in the Ford CEO Alan Mulally. Kerkorian reportedly told friends recently that he had “lived one year too long.” Kerkorian was No. 27 on the Forbes 400 when his net worth was listed at $11.2 billion.

Sumner Redstone, 85, via his holding company National Amusements sold some $233 million of stock in Viacom and CBS after he breached a $1.6 billion loan provision which catalyzed a margin call from lenders. As recently as early October, the shares were worth $420 million, creating a paper loss of $187 million. Few knew he had so much debt, and fewer still that it was tied to stock values at CBS and Viacom. Additionally, his 25-year investment in a video game maker, Midway Games (and its predecessor), has cost him between $500 and $700 million, according to one analyst. Midway makes the game Mortal Kombat; it hasn’t been profitable since Q2 2000. Over the past three years alone, it has lost $258.9 million in operations. In 2005, shares in Midway were $23; recently, they sold for less than one dollar. Redstone’s life has been described as a soap opera, with turbulent divorces (including one now in real time), estrangements from his daughter and son, and employees, including the likes of Tom Cruise, who he excoriated in the media after his erratic behavior on various high profile media outlets. Some speculate Redstone could lose control of his media empire, but the octogenarian has already survived worse: the protagonist once saved his life during a hotel fire by crawling out on a ledge until help arrived. He underwent 30 hours of surgery, and was not expected to survive. He was 56. He did indeed survive. On Nov. 11, Redstone told media he promised to forego any further sales of CBS or Viacom stock. Analysts weren’t so sure; some said the situation may be beyond his control. The Harvard graduate was recently No. 25 on the Forbes 400.

Aubrey K. McClendon, Chesapeake Energy Corp.’s CEO, was forced by a margin call to sell most of his shares in his firm. He received some $620 million for shares that earlier in the year were worth $2.3 billion: loss: $1.68 billion. In October, 2008 published a press release that said he had "involuntarily sold substantially all of his shares of Chesapeake common stock over the past three days in order to meet margin loan call." It went on to say: “I am very disappointed to have been required to sell substantially all of my shares of Chesapeake. These involuntary and unexpected sales were precipitated by the extraordinary circumstances of the worldwide financial crisis. In no way do these sales reflect my view of the company's financial position or my view of Chesapeake's future performance potential. I have been the company's largest individual shareholder for the past three years and frequently purchased additional shares of stock on margin as an expression of my complete confidence in the value of the company's strategy and assets. My confidence in Chesapeake remains undiminished, and I look forward to rebuilding my ownership position in the company in the months and years ahead." He was recently No. 134 on the Forbes 400.

Iceland’s former billionaire, Gjorgolfur Gudmundsson, 67, with his son, owned a large stake in Landsbanki. One year ago, the stake was worth $3.1 billion. Now, zero. His son, Thor, 41, had a net worth three times that of his father as of March, 2008. But in October, 2008, his investment firm had to sell a stake in a Finnish telecom for $310 million to pay debts. He still had stakes, however, in a Polish telecom group, and an Icelandic generic drug firm.

Three Russian oligarchs felt the pinch, too. Oleg Deripaska, Alisher Usmanov, and Kostyantin Zhevago, lost $600 million, $2.1 billion and and $515 million, respectively.

The aforementioned luminaries were captains of industry, builders of corporations. Even though their losses are staggering, breathtaking, none may be described as “plungers,” like the spectacular speculator from the 1920s and 1930s, Jesse Livermore, on whom the famous Reminiscences of a Stock Operator was modeled.

Now, unfortunately, some are meeting his same fate.

After surviving those tumultuous decades, and making and losing several fortunes, Livermore, 63, suffering from depression, ended it all with a shot to the head in the cloakroom of New York’s Sherry Netherland Hotel in 1940. He left an eight-page suicide note

(“My dear Nina: Can’t help it. Things have been bad with me. I am tired of fighting. Can’t carry on any longer. This is the only way out. I am unworthy of your love. I am a failure. I am truly sorry, but this is the only way out for me. Love Laurie”).

Strangely to some, he left behind approximately $5 million in capital which was apparently tied up in trusts and cash. In the final analysis, it’s all “left behind,” some point out. With that thought in mind, suffice to say, no necessary motivation to hasten the process oneself. It will happen, all by itself, and soon enough......

Byron Wien: $1200 gold for 2009

2009-01-06T09:01:00.001-06:00

WESTPORT, Conn. - (Business Wire) Byron R. Wien, Chief Investment Strategist of Pequot Capital Management, Inc., today issued his list of Ten Surprises for 2009. Mr. Wien has issued his economic, financial market and political surprises annually since 1986. The 2009 list follows:

1. The Standard and Poor’s 500 rises to 1200. In anticipation of a second-half recovery in the U.S. economy, the market improves from a base of investor despondency and hedge fund and mutual fund withdrawals. The mantra changes from “fortunes have been lost” to “fortunes can still be made.” Higher quality corporate bonds, leveraged loans and mortgages lead the way.

2. Gold rises to $1,200 per ounce. Heavy buying by Middle Eastern investors and a worldwide disenchantment with paper currencies drive the price of precious metals higher. In a time of uncertainty, investors want something they can count on as real.

Preacher sees $1900 in 2009, socialism, Soviet moves, and more

2009-01-05T11:03:00.003-06:00

Pat Robertson makes his annual predictions.

No more USA?

2008-12-31T16:20:00.005-06:00

A Russian analyst predicts the USA will soon split up into regions.

Unimaginable only weeks ago, could the profligate ways and bankruptcies of our federal, state governments, plus banks, auto companies, homeowners, etc. etc. etc. bring this result?

Is this why there is no mention of the USA in Bible prophecy? Must read

A thoughtful quote

2008-12-31T07:58:00.002-06:00

Jean Baudrillard, Cool Memories

If parapsychological or extraterrestrial phenomena were genuine, or even merely plausible, one ought to devote oneself to them entirely, wasting not a single moment. I cannot understand how one could waste even a second on other matters. But this also holds for science. If science is what it is, and truth is what it claims to be, they are worthy of a radical passion. Now, nothing like this actually happens. Not only the masses, but scientists themselves only devote themselves to it half-heartedly. We only feel a relative passion, a casual commitment for truth, the same as we feel for irrational phenomena. Only the suspense of science can rouse a sudden interest, but that is the passion for suspense. It is aroused today by the fact that even scientists acknowledge there are no final answers in science.

Pastor takes note of the 'fog of Christianity'

2008-12-18T09:13:00.002-06:00

Read

Auto writer sees 'end of the world' (as we know it, at least) in 2009

2008-12-12T11:16:00.003-06:00

One man's view. Calls one new modeal an "adequate way to drive to hell." What do you think? Comments, please.

Thomas Merton on vision, end point of the Christian faith

2008-12-03T10:35:00.008-06:00

If it were a matter of choosing between “contemplation” and “eschatology,” there is no question that I am, and would always be, committed entirely to the latter. Here in the hermitage, returning necessarily to beginnings, I know where my beginning was: having the Name and Godhead of Christ preached in Corpus Christi Church. I heard and believed. I believe that he has called me freely, out of pure mercy, to His love and salvation and that at the end (to which all is directed by Him) I shall see Him after I have put off my body in death and have risen together with Him. That at the last day “all flesh shall truly see the salvation of God.” What this means is that my faith is an eschatological faith, not merely a means of penetrating the mystery of the divine presence and resting in Him now. Yet because my faith is eschatological, it is also contemplative, for I am even now in the Kingdom and I can even now “see” something of the glory of the kingdom and praise Him who is King. I would be foolish then if I lived blindly, putting all “seeing” off until some imagined fulfillment (for my present seeing is the beginning of a real and unimaginable fulfillment!). Thus contemplation and eschatology are one in Christian faith and in surrender to Christ. They complete each other and intensify each other. It is by contemplation and love that I can best prepare myself for the eschatological Vision – and best help the Church and all men to journey toward it.

The union of contemplation and eschatology is clear in the gift of the Holy Spirit. In Him we are awakened to know the Father, because in Him we are refashioned in the likeness of the Son. It is in this likeness that the Spirit will bring us at last to the clear vision of the invisible Father in the Son's glory, which will also be our glory. Meanwhile, it is the Spirit who awakens in our heart the faith and hope in which we cry for the eschatological fulfillment and vision. In this hope there is already a beginning, a "promise" of fulfillment. This is our contemplation: the realization and "experience" of the life-giving Spirit in Whom the Father is present to us through the Son, our way, truth, and life. The realization that we are on our way, that because we are on our way we are in that Truth, which is the end and by which we are already fully and eternally alive. Contemplation is the loving sense of this life and this presence and this eternity.

Thomas Merton
Best selling author, Catholic monk, hermit
Journal entry, December 22, 1964
From The Intimate Merton: his life from his journals

The next ten years, 2008 to 2018, what does the future hold?

2008-11-25T12:56:00.001-06:00

Here is a most thought-provoking article from Jack Kelley. It is highly speculative, but at the same time, mind-expanding. What do you think of it?

Nothing new under the sun

2008-09-03T11:28:00.001-06:00

The national budget must be balanced. The public debt must be reduced; the arrogance of the authorities must be moderated and controlled. Payments to foreign governments must be reduced, if the nation doesn't want to go bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance. --Cicero, 55 BC

Subprime to make 1929 look like "walk in the park?"

2007-12-27T08:55:00.000-06:00

Read...

Connecting the dots

2007-10-26T05:24:00.000-06:00

America, Iran, the dollar, international finance, Bible prophecy, America in Bible prophecy question, etc.

Superb essay. Recommended.

Timing is, indeed, problematical

2007-10-26T04:55:00.000-06:00

The Federal Reserve Board is working to raise the inflation rate while the U.S. Treasury is trying to talk down the dollar exchange rate. Not every day does the world's hegemonic power pursue a policy of currency debasement. Still less frequently does it have the courtesy to tell its creditors what it's doing to them.

More....by James Grant.

Jim Rogers Shifts AssetsOut of Dollar to Buy Yuan

2007-10-25T06:22:00.001-06:00

Oct. 24 (Bloomberg) -- Jim Rogers, chairman of Beeland Interests Inc., said he is shifting all his assets out of the dollar and buying Chinese yuan because the Federal Reserve has eroded the value of the U.S. currency.

``I'm in the process of -- I hope in the next few months -- getting all of my assets out of U.S. dollars,'' said Rogers, 65, who correctly predicted the commodities rally in 1999. ``I'm that pessimistic about what's happening in the U.S.''

Rogers, delivering a presentation late yesterday at an investors' meeting organized by ABN Amro Markets in Amsterdam, said he expects the Chinese currency to quadruple in the next decade and that he is holding on to commodities such as platinum, gold, silver and palladium.

More...

Time running out, "foreclosure" looms...

2007-10-24T06:46:00.000-06:00

"Geo-monetarily as well as geo-financially, the US is now, in principle, in the same position as any American who has had a subprime loan at low teaser interest rates for some years." More....

The bullish case for...

2007-08-21T07:46:00.000-06:00

...silver, from Rich Dad, Poor Dad author.

The doctor will see you now...

2007-08-10T05:51:00.000-06:00

China holds the cards. Read....

Do you love lists?

2007-08-01T05:52:00.000-06:00

Try this one....

Next war: financial

2007-06-14T07:12:00.001-06:00

Richard Russell's usual cogent commentary --

Excerpt: "I've held all along that the next war will not be a military war. It will not be a matter of the major powers fighting each other. The coming war for power and world leadership will be an economic war. It will be fought with competitive currencies and the movement of gold and the potential threat of nuclear bombs."

Film: A Crude Awakening (2006)

2007-06-07T14:31:00.000-06:00

Highly recommended. A chilling look at the trip down the other side of Peak Oil mountain.

Gold $34,500 per oz to back US debt

2007-05-12T00:42:00.000-06:00

Quoting from The Daily Reckoning:

Well, let's see; the current total debt of the United States alone, as measured by the National Debt, is almost $9 trillion. And how much gold is in the Treasury? For that, we turn to The Financial Management Service of the Department of the Treasury, which came out with their "Status Report of U.S. Treasury-Owned Gold" dated March 31, 2007. It reports that the Fed has 261,498,899.316 Fine Troy Ounces of gold, which they value at $11,041,058,821.09. This comes to about $42 an ounce, an artificial government fiat value that hasn't changed since the '30s when gold WAS $42 an ounce.

At $660 an ounce, on the other hand, that seeming treasure trove of 261 million ounces of gold has a current market value of a mere $172.6 billion, which is chump change anymore. I mean, it's less than the deficit in the annual federal budget alone!

So, using Mr. Sinclair's formula, I grab my calculator, punch in the figures for $9 trillion in debt backed by only 261 million ounces of gold and, after a lot of data-entry errors, a lot of cursing and throwing the damned things across the room a few times in frustration, I find that gold would have to be worth $34,500 an ounce, right now!

This is why we call this blog "Digging Deeper" -- a financial outlook from Jim Sinclair

2007-04-26T00:12:00.000-06:00

Posted On: Tuesday, April 24, 2007, 6:12:00 PM EST

AMEX Precious and Base Metals Conference Luncheon Presentation

Author: Jim Sinclair

Dear CIGAs,

The following is the transcript of the luncheon presentation I gave at the AMEX Precious and Base Metals conference on April 11th, 2007.

PARTICIPANTS
Jim Sinclair

Moderator: Okay, I hope you enjoyed the morning session. Again, I'm John McGonigal, head of the Equity's Group at the AMEX. Up here, I'm going to introduce someone that does not need an introduction probably to 99.9% of the folks in this room. He is a noted author, a noted speaker, he is involved with an AMEX listed Company, and can actually trace his roots back to when we had folks outside the AMEX trading on the curb. His dad was a trader at that time, on the curb, a predecessor of the American Stock Exchange. So without any further delay, I know all of you are here to hear him speak and not me, please give a big warm welcome for Jim Sinclair.

(applause)
Jim Sinclair:

Thank you very much, I don't mean to interfere with your lunch, but we have got a very broad subject. A subject that we can spend and I have spent almost a lifetime trying to and understand. A subject which is more than simply a business to those that are in this luncheon, in terms of the companies that operating in gold and base metals, but rather in fact something which is and has been and will continue to be a money form.

Now for the base metals, because that is what this conference is all about, base metals are cash cows. Gold has an attraction to the subjective character of people, which makes it the most popular of the entities to be involved in, but bear in mind when you are talking about something like copper, like nickel, you are dealing in an entity which is, when finally brought about from its birthing process is a cash cow. Something that will flow out very significant amounts of monies, and in some cases, well beyond what any of us in gold would ever see to a bottom line. So something like the Kabanga project with Exstrada and the Barrick in Tanzania, which is surely coming on line as a combination of cobalt nickel mine, where it will make enough cobalt to actually control that market. The amounts of money coming out of it will be in the 100s upon 100s upon 100s and finally billions of dollars. Now where base metals are concerned, base metals at the present time, in terms of their value and demand are tied in intricately to the outrageous expansion economically in the developing worlds. The amount of materials being consumed, not only in China, but all of Asia, has actually brought to the producing companies a phenomenon that they find mind boggling. It is not something which is simply a passing, momentary market. It is long term, solid trend experience.

Now I will ask a question, not to see a raise of hands, but just for you to take into consideration. How many of the people attending today's luncheon have in fact lived outside the United States, especially in an area in Asia or in Africa? Those that have, especially in the Asian event, are seeing something that will not be reversed. What you are seeing is small percentages of huge populations being enfranchised as consumers, a trend that will not end. Simply stated, the first thing you want, the first day you have some money, as you have been living in poverty most of you life, is a stainless steel cup to drink out of, or a stainless dish to be able to eat a meal on. When you begin that, you begin to consume nickel. This is what is taking place. Don't discount this as a short term trend event.

When China contracts its economy, it will contract to somewhere between 6 and 8%. If the Euroland or the U.S. had a growth rate like that, we would consider it the greatest boom in our lifetimes. Bear in mind, this will ebb and flow, like all things do, but it is not going to ebb and flow away. So base metals are the most interesting area because of enormous cash flow but without much sex appeal.

When we speak gold, we come down to something entirely different. Something which just like the base metals is not about to simply like past markets, reach a price where it becomes overpriced from that level go into a prolonged bear market.

I'm going to attempt to make this presentation into a bullet form, because it is such a short period of time, and I have so much that I would like to be able to share with you. And, I am going to have a warning for you.

You must understand precious metals. You must understand gold. In order to be able to both in the mining sense and in the sector of a trading or investing sense, to have the confidence in your conclusions in order to be able to best benefit from the market itself.

That is understanding that gold migrates from a commodity form, to a barometer, to a currency, to a international assets balance sheet form.

When gold bottomed at $248 that was the true commodity value of gold. When gold is trading as a commodity, it is worth-less. It will trade eventually and finally, like any commodity, at the price of producing the metal. The price of producing gold is not the fallacious cash price of gold or price that the mine had; you also have to take into consideration the chairman's private jet and the scrap paper, from every end of corporate operation divided by the ounces produced. That is the true price of that entity's gold production per ounce.

When gold bottomed at 248, it had approximately met the level in a most efficient manner that valued it correctly at the average true cost of production per ounce. So the ability to be able to catch a low in gold is by no matter of means some act of a seer or genius. It is the act of somebody with an adding machine.

Gold will move out of that as it has now, into a form of a barometer. A barometer measures the level of anxiety brought about by various and different factors. Whether it is Iran, whether it is the concern over sub-prime loans, debt levels, over consumption, maxing out on credit, all of these items create some degree of anxiety, which is measured in the gold price.

Now gold will have all of these characteristics running together as it goes forward. In other words, you will never lose the sum of commodity form. It will never lose the sum of barometric form. It will finally find itself in a currency form.

Gold becomes a currency, when the appreciation in gold is in a percentage term greater than the appreciation in the strongest currency trading at that time. Clearly then, gold has been elected as the currency of choice, by the majority. Now that you might say is only a statistical comparison, but it won't happen unless a subjective mind of the marketplace sees the entity as a currency. If you understand where you are in that transition, you can have the degree of courage required to know, that in fact, the metal you are trading, the metal you are producing, the metal you are interested in, the metal you investing, is in fact within a category and that has not reached its maximum valuation.

The maximum value category in gold, in which gold gets fully priced, is when it attempts to balance the balance sheet of the United States. Whether that will continue as the U.S. loses its position internationally as the major key player in the world economy, is questionable, but it is in fact right now still in that position. That is when the amount of gold held by the U.S. Treasury, in the form of Treasury gold certificates, is by increasing valuation attempting to equalize the value of an external debt of the United States held by central banks to the value of gold held in Treasury. That is how I was able in the market, between '68 and '80 early on in '74; suggested 900 would be the high. Therefore the value of gold as it stands right now is not in danger of being overpriced, and any idea that, that has occurred, is not an idea with foundation or understanding, in fact, of what this commodity, barometer, currency, and international balance sheet item is. So that takes care of the general understanding.

What right now has the greatest impact on the gold you produce? There are 2 items that will have the most impact. The first item is the Treasury International Capital Flows Report, because that basically speaks to the willingness of the international investors to sustain the debt and spending of the U.S. There has been a lot of help from friends to keep that relatively positive, but if you take a look at it in technical form, you would know that there was no question that in fact the TIC was in its declining trend. The first item's most important event would be three consecutive monthly reports, in which the TIC report was below the level of the deficit trade balance. That is the measure in the minds of most analysts, as to whether or not internationally, the consumption activities, military processes, day-to-day cost of government, spending and entitlements, are covered by international lending. So the TIC report of three consecutive numbers below the deficit Trade Balance would be an extraordinarily event, taking gold to the next level of characterization.

The other item with the potential of changing gold characterization is the fact that the economy in the U.S. has rolled over, be it as slightly as it is. You as business men and business ladies understand that the profit you make in a corporate operation is made on a very small, very small margin between the gross income and full expenses. So the mathematics of that is that if you have a roll-over in your gross activities, gross business activity, you are going to have a geometric fall in the taxation revenues. So the second factor as business activity contracts is what will occur in terms of tax revenue at a period of time, where there seems to be no real willingness to restrain international or national spending.

What you are looking at, is the probability, no I would even go higher than that, the almost certainty that there will be a significant expansion in the Federal Budget deficit. Now that expansion will be small at first, but will grow very quickly. It doesn't take much of a roll-over of general business activity to create a significant amount of depreciation in the amount of revenue received by the Federal Government. One is arithmetic, the roll-over. The other is geometric, tax revenue contraction. Things have gone so well because of the enormous tax revenue that has been a product of the very significant business expansion over the last seven years. This has been brought about by a huge growth of liquidity that was produced in 2002 and 2003, when the fear was that the US, like Japan, were headed towards zero rate of interest bound. The post 2002 expansion came about primarily because Governor Bernanke created a wonderful mechanism for being able to inject the most liquidity into the international system in the shortest period of time. This was done as a by product of the Bank of Japan's intervention in currency, the function of international bank wire and the fact that they New York Federal Reserve who manage what is called the Japanese float account. BOJ intervened, they gained dollars, which then came directly over to the New York Federal Reserve Bank and was invested by the investment committee of that bank, which purchased US debt instruments. The float account managers did not subscribe to issues but rather purchased bonds, and notes, and bills, all over the entire yield curve, from the shortest instrument to 30-years, and bought them in the open market. This process injected liquidity into many and all international investment banks dealing for themselves, and into their client's pockets.

That enormous injection of liquidity gave you the various bubbles that we have run into and especially the last, which is of course your housing experience. It gave the ability to create bubbles, but it also created a serious byproduct. For everything you do medically, there is something that happens that you don't expect. For everything you do economically, you have a goal that you can accomplish when something happens you don't expect. The injection of liquidity has no practical means of being drained. It is very simple to follow. If all of you were bond traders for a major international investment bank and I am a New York Fed, and I am constantly making the rounds asking you offerings and I'm taking the offerings in large amounts, therefore, sending you cash and taking your instrument the liquidity is created. This is somewhat similar in classical way that any central bank has ever put liquidity into a system, yet different. It is the first time that any central bank anywhere, put liquidity into the international monetary system, but I don't think it was extraordinarily well thought out because the transaction can only be reversed in same way it was created. That is you have to sell all those maturities into the international market for US Treasuries. That can't be done in the practical sense. If you bought all over the world in that anonymous market called the Treasury Market, if you bought every single maturity from the days left on a 91-day Treasury bill to 30 years maturity you have created a monster. The monster is a huge ball of liquidity that rolls around the world looking for markets to be involved in, which now begins to explain the huge international bubbles that develop, but it cannot be removed in any practical sense. So when you hear that the FED is in fact active as an inflation fighter, they are in fact active as an inflation fighter, more in the rhetoric than in the reality. The type of inflation creeping up on us now has no definition or economic precedent. This is one of the reasons why the materials that you are involved in, that you invest in, that you produce are looking at a significant future in terms of price, in terms of length of this bull market, which will be generational, and because of the reality underlying it, which is a combination of what I've now discussed in three ways; characteristic, the events coming up in the Treasury International Capitals report, and in your Federal budget deficit, and in this enormous ball of liquidity that has no practical means of being drained.

I see this moving out well into 2011, 2012, with a move in 2007 and 2008, which will be very interesting.

I know there is going to be a Q&A session, so I'd like to make a warning and a definition for you. In the means of financing most of the new production, silver, gold and in some cases base metals, has been to obtain non-recourse lending. We all know that there isn't a bank around alive who is willing to take risk on a loan for interest return. It was in the old days, that we finance by equity issues for new production, because we believed firmly that bringing on this new production was economic. Non recourse loans don't require even your confidence that the project would be economic, because you actually sold the product in the future, in order to guarantee to the bank the economics of the entity in order to give them comfort that you would pay the debt. Because if the economics didn't support your payment of the debt, the market profit on the gold sold for the future, the silver sold for the future or the copper sold for the future, would cover the banks liability. For that reason, they banks took only that project as their collateral making the loan non recourse to the producer's other assets.

Now, this has come home to roost. But the companies that say they don't have any margin call are legally telling you the truth. They don't. Because a margin call is generally involved with the price of the final product versus some contractual relationship. In this case, the banks have made the loan predicated on the condition of the company's balance sheet and the rating of the company's bonds. As long as the balance sheet is kept liquid and the bonds maintain their present rating level or don't drop significantly in credit rating, they will have no problem at all with any of the gold or silver or copper that is sold forward. However, if the balance sheet should weaken in a simple liquidity sense, where the liquidity ratios that measure the health of the balance sheet begin to change, then according to what was negotiated to be embedded in the loan contract, there will be a demand for funds. Ashanti is your test case, if you want to know how this happened and what it means, then you need to study step-by-step how brokers became creditors in the Ashanti case, and how that outstanding debt was settled in shares of the Company. It is very important to understand.

Now as junior companies in production, mostly on a percentage transaction, where you have taken your 30% of a project, and you have entered a relationship with a major company to obtain financing by subordinating your percentage of the property as collateral for the loan.

The question that you need to ask is very simple. Does the major in the project have a loan which is recourse or non-recourse? If the answer is non-recourse, than you as the percentage junior have a derivative risk. The reason why you would have a derivative risk is because you have collateralized your percentage, as you must, in the property that you are operating to the major, for the development loan. So you actually have of that loan 30% and all of the characteristics of the loan. If embedded in that loan there is a short of gold or silver derivative, then what you own is 30% of that risk. Should that risk come to fruition, ask yourself whether the major is a philanthropic and merciful entity. If your answer comes up not a chance, then recognize that you do have the potential of losing your property to the major, who will then water down their stock to their creditors and keep just paddling along very nicely, especially if the price of the final product is rising. As in the case of Ashanti, the stockholders didn't really get creamed, they ended up with a watered down item, and if the bull market continues, they should be able to get their price or better back.

So the derivative risk means more to the junior than it means to the major. I'm not making any statement of catastrophic risk, but I am telling you that your majors are not of the character to fail, to take advantage of opportunity. In that sense, consider renegotiating your contracts. If there is a non-recourse loan then you have your percentage of that derivative risk. I would renegotiate to exchange the percentage for royalty, because 3% royalty, is really more money down to the bottom line than you will ever see with 30%, because no mine makes money in the developing world at the mine head. You already know what the expenses look like that you are getting from your majors as you begin to produce. So my particular message is to those who represent the companies that are beginning to grow, beginning to become something of significance, who are fulfilling what the mission of the American Stock Exchange has really always been, and that is to nurture and provide a place of trading for solid young companies that seek to become old major companies. Then you need to protect yourself from a nuance of our industry, which in fact has put everyone in that sense and definition into danger. The question is easy. Is the loan of which I am part non-recourse? If the answer is yes it is non-recourse and isn't that wonderful, the real reply is, then let's go back to my board and see what kind of renegotiation we can make on this, because in the final analysis, your stockholders would benefit infinitely more from having money to the bottom line than counting ounces that don't really mean anything.

So that simple part of the presentation is, really I believe for this unique audience, the most important part. This industry has gotten into a situation because of the need to maintain the liquidity of the balance sheet of the major, where exploration has come to a screeching end. If the company announces that they are doing exploration, that means they are approaching bankable feasibility or at bankable feasibility, because the majors cannot allow their balance sheet to deteriorate. They can take over, and accumulate, and purchase other companies with ease, because that simply puts more assets into a pot, and a creditor doesn't give a darn about how many shares are outstanding because all the creditor looks at are the total assets within the corporation. So the consolidation of the industry is in proof the natural byproduct of the fact that the derivatives were set at infinitely lower prices. So the round you've seen of companies accumulating other companies doesn't produce 1 ounce more reserves, it simply consolidates the known reserves at that price of the entity within the one company. But how many major new projects have started in the last 16 to 18-months from a grass roots type of exploration? The answer is, very, very few, except the ones that you have undertaken. That makes your industry infinitely more important as time goes along. Therefore, the industry must survive by examining what their liabilities are, having subordinated their percentage of the property to the development loan, and what type of entity is built into or embedded within that loan because the derivative short of gold has come home to roost.

Gold shares have been relatively weak lately because they have become a playground of the hedge funds, and because of the exchange traded funds, there has been new money attracted away.

The potential for gold right here, is $682, $761, $887.50 and then into 4 figures. If you compare what 4 figures would mean, you will find out it doesn't mean much. I wouldn't even be the old high of the 1980 experience, and therefore, not outrageous. Silver will obviously do exactly what it always does. That is, it starts slow and then specs launch it like a rocket ship.

We haven't reincarnated the Hunts Brothers, but a lot of that equation is there. Markets in the ETFS exchange traded fund achievement, may in fact be the reincarnation of quasi Hunts. We certainly do have a very significant problem in energy, should push come to a real shove. We also have this mountain of liquidity floating around the world that nobody can get rid of. That combination is actually a form of a combination that brought silver into the great heights. So, silver generally performs better than gold in the final analysis. But with my apologies to the silver producers, silver is a game, gold is a currency. Yet, silver is a great game, and it is a game full of the highest and most powerful rollers in the world. So I am not in any sense negating that silver is an extraordinarily interesting item with a high potential, I'm simply being very down to earth in what it is. Silver is not a currency, no matter how many people tell you it is. Yet, that doesn't in any sense with the new uses of silver, and this huge amount of silver being purchased by both speculators and funds, take away by any matter of means the potential for the metal.

I would suggest that as we go out further that there is a possibility that we won't go into the huge decline we went into, but that is a subject in itself, and it would deal with, and I have written on it extensively, would be a modernize and revitalized Federal Reserve gold certificate ratio tied to a measure of international liquidity, not tied to interest rates. That is very possible but that is not convertibility. That is however bringing gold back into the monetary system. It is simply using gold for what gold really is. Gold is a control item, and we live in a society that has neither controls nor alarms. Should situations become so that policy makers decide or should enough money be made by major people that they want its values to remain solid, then that subject which would take us another hour to discuss, will in fact in that definition come about. But, I've got all the things that I have ever written down. Convertibility is an impossibility because of the size of world trade, period, end, forget it. It is in fact historic, it can't be brought back, it just simply wouldn't work. It is like trying to do 150 mph in a Model-T, it won't happen. The price of gold will remain high and a major bull market in the dollar will begin should a modernized and revitalized Federal Reserve Gold Certificate Ration be readopted and tied to a measure of international liquidly, not interest rates.

Now, I understand there is a question-and-answer period. I don't want to use up to much time, and not leave enough time Q&A. I see we have got about 8 or 9 minutes left. It is time for me to stop trying to tell you what I would think you need to hear, and for you now to tell me what you want to hear.

Q: First, I would like to thank you Jim for sharing your mind with us and for coming here today and for all the things you say on your website. I think I speak for everybody here. My question is 2 parts. One, if you were to be appointed the Secretary of the Treasury tomorrow, how would you bring back some kind of a standard in a basket of medals or what ever, to stabilize the dollar and to control Congresses spending? Second, is your heard of elephants in Tanzanian starting to get restless and move?

A: The answer to the first question is I did have the honor of being proposed of Secretary of the Treasure in the Nixon administration, and a great, good fortune not to have been chosen. The second part of the question, they would never appoint me Secretary of anything after what they just heard. But I go refer you to the former Chairman of the Federal Reserve Volcker. I'm going to take a quote from him, which is the answer to your question. Until polices are adopted, that have an historical ability to be able to move deficits towards surpluses, the dollar will continue to decline. In fact, I was at a dinner with him. He looked at me and my former partner, and said oh you two were the gold guy's, I certainly got you. And I said, no you didn't, when I saw you coming I left. So the answer to your question is policies that have a clear precedent for being able to solve the problem. The problem is no different than a problem that a family would have, it is simply overspending. It is simply the birth of authoritarian free enterprise, rather than a capitalistic system or free enterprise system. That is really what has taken place. The comparison, although it is not a direct comparison, is fascism. It is where the corporate authoritarians are the primary entities to be preferred in all matters.

Yes, is the answer to the second.

Q: Jim you said your, correct me where I'm wrong, but I believe your upward targeted goal is 1650.

A: That has to do with the computation dealing with where gold would acting as the asset to balance the amount of treasuries held by foreign central banks. That is the same basic computation used to predict $900 in 1974.

Barrons was not to pleased taking a advertisements for that prediction at that time. So the $1650 as we speak is gold's final role as the asset to balance the balance sheet. Now if something like that was to occur, and you where a major holder of dollars, would you not want that balance to remain because of that is the beginning of a major bull market in the U.S. currency. Because a currency is a common stock of the nation it represents, which has been in bankruptcy and now repairs itself to the point where the assets now cover all the liabilities, does it not begin to gain value. So you have to take the U.S. dollar, and look at it as the United States incorporated, then assets equaling liability on a national basis would be what would end the bear market in the dollar. If you had all the dollars, would you want it to remain a bear market? No. The means to keep the balance now developed for the national balance sheet is a modernized and revitalized Federal Reserve Gold Certificate Ratio, tied to a measure of international liquidity, not tied to interest rates, as it was back in the 20s.

Q: You are basically saying that is what you prediction is? What you think will happen once gold does hit $1650, which is not even inflation adjusted to $850 back in '79-'80? We talked upstairs and you briefly had said that you see the blow-up happening in 2011-2012. What will be that process? What is the current range for the blow-up....

A: We might not just blow-up. Blow-up comes from your previous history in watching what happened in March in 1980. when Volcker jammed rates to 14 7/8 percent return on 10-year treasuries. That would suck money off of the moon. What you need to keep in mind, is markets don't simply happen. I'm convinced that there is no market that isn't in fact constructed or made in the final analysis. Your investment banks recommending tech shares had made a price on the market back in 1999 and 2000. The concepts we are talking about here, are the concept of what would make the dollar solid. By that time, those authoritarians, which exist throughout every administration, whether it is democrat or republican, have accumulated so much wealth, that at that point in time, they would want that wealth to pass on to their families because they are married to paper as solid paper. You could begin a long-term bull market in the U.S. dollar as the common shares of the United States, by taking its balance sheet and balancing because it is always an ongoing business. So there is a possibility, of adopting a medium, the revitalized and modernized Federal Reserve Gold Certificate Ratio tied to a measure of international liquidity making sure that at some point in the future, the dollar gains again the quality of the Reserve currency of choice. That is a very simple formula of how to make it happen. That would go back to the question, if I was to make policy, the first thing I would do, would begin to set in place slowly, because you can't inject into an economy to much medicine or it goes into seizure. So you would want to slowly put into place those policies that have a precedent reversing deficits towards surpluses, and they are very well known and they are simple. Then you would want to make sure money began to become worth more rather than worth -less. So you'd have the policies first and then you would go to look at something that would control international liquidity as an automaticity then I believe you would have a sound concept, which by the way I expect will be adopted at some time between 2012 and 2015. I have worked on this for some degree with Dr. Brenner up in Canada, a Nobel Prize winner. Well one of the major prize winners. He sees that as a viable concept.

Spartak Tennis -- how to grow a super athlete

2007-04-25T23:31:00.000-06:00

March 4, 2007 N.Y. Times feature

Quote: David Walker

2007-04-25T08:05:00.001-06:00

I would argue that the most serious threat to the United States is not someone hiding in a cave in Afghanistan or Pakistan but our own fiscal irresponsibility."
-David Walker, Comptroller General of the United States [March 2007]

China turns its attention to classical music

2007-04-03T06:15:00.000-06:00

More........

Gold closes at all-time monthly closing high

2007-03-30T07:13:00.000-06:00

$669.35 Feb. 2007 vs.
$666.75 Sep. 1980

27 years in the making.

Read more....

This is why he should be President 2008

2007-03-05T22:16:00.000-06:00

Ron Paul. Read what he has to say about our nation's fiscal crisis.

Greatest threat to America is Not Osama bin Laden

2007-03-04T19:31:00.001-06:00

...but our own financial irresponsibility, says U.S. comptroller general David Walker, e.g. Medicare, Rx drug benefits, Social Security. He was featured on CBS 60 minutes.

"The prescription drug bill was probably the most fiscally irresponsible piece of legislation since the 1960s," Walker argues. (So much for the "conservatism" of "Republican" pres. Bush, who signed it into law, and if fact, has not vetoed a single piece of legislation during his time in office -- unprecedented profligacy that will likely put him in the history books as the president who most hastened the demise of the USA to date.)

Asked why, Walker says, "Well, because we promise way more than we can afford to keep. Eight trillion dollars added to what was already a 15 to $20 trillion under-funding. We're not being realistic. We can't afford the promises we've already made, much less to be able, piling on top of 'em."

With one stroke of the pen, Walker says, the federal government increased existing Medicare obligations nearly 40 percent over the next 75 years.

"We’d have to have eight trillion dollars today, invested in treasury rates, to deliver on that promise," Walker explains.

Asked how much we actually have, Walker says, "Zip."

His conclusion, which no one debates: USA is heading towards bankruptcy. Still, official Washington knows this, and does nothing.

Rush Limbaugh on the origins of MLK Day

2007-01-17T11:14:00.001-06:00

Was driving our youngest back to University of Illinois on Martin Luther King Day, Jan. 15, 2007. Rush Limbaugh was on the dial. In a very agitated tone, he was remonstrating about the origins of the holiday. He said it came about because the ski resorts needed another 3-day weekend between Christmas and President's Day. His source: a golfing buddy, who worked in the ski industry and "he doesn't lie."

RL had a good story if he could document it. Of course, he didn't. Since he couldn't/wouldn't, I asked my riding companion, how are we to regard RL, as some kind of folk comedian or entertainer, like a Jay Leno or David Letterman or Jeff Foxworthy, the redneck comedian? She didn't know.

Seemed to me that such commentary requires documentation, especially a brazen one like this, else the source is forever discredited.

Meanwhile, the law of unintended consequences kicked in. MLK advanced the cause of human dignity, like a Gandhi, or a Mandela, but there are still some holdouts, like the Japanese soliders in jungle hideouts who, though isolated, continued to fight WWII many years after it ended.

Even more bizarre than his Japanese counterparts, this holdout hides in a radio booth in plain "view" of millions.

Hot spice fights cancer

2007-01-13T20:46:00.000-06:00

Details here

Cong. Ron Paul to run for President 2008

2007-01-13T20:43:00.000-06:00

One of the very few truth tellers on the public scene, a medical doctor by profession, and a genuine patriot. Hats off to him, we wish him well....

Real Heroes...

2007-01-10T04:33:00.000-06:00

...and the value of history.

Day of reckoning fast approaching

2006-12-12T16:03:00.001-06:00

Author writes on death of the dollar

Gold $630 or........

2006-12-06T16:57:00.000-06:00

$240,000 an oz.?

Bush draws Vietnam lesson for Iraq

2006-11-17T14:24:00.000-06:00

Don't quit.