Linda is skeptical about this; but the truth is that I picked the site for our house so it could face due South toward the sugar maple tree about a hundred feet down toward the creek. I also picked the site to face a little to the right of due South of a beautiful scarlet oak which then promptly died. I failed to ensure that the ground level around the scarlet oak wasn't changed when they excavated for the basement of the house and regraded the lot. And that happened because we wanted the house to sit a couple of feet higher than the former grade level to improve the view of the pond.
All very complicated; but as a result we've had a great view of that sugar maple tree out the South facing windows as it has grown these past twenty-four years. I was about to say that there are few trees as magnificent as a sugar maple at this time of year; but that's not true. What's true is that there are no trees as magnificent as a sugar maple at this time of year. And there is only one tree, the sweetgum, that can and will make an effort at competing when its leaves start to turn in a couple of weeks; but by then the sugar maple's leaves will be a dim memory. It's impossible to keep in memory an accurate picture of the subtle reds and oranges and yellows and greens that make up the sugar maple right now, and it is impossible to capture its full glory in a photograph, so in truth even the effort of comparison between it and other trees is questionable. Vincent Van Gogh could have captured its full glory, and he would have if he could have; but he never saw a sugar maple tree.
You can get a dim idea of what I'm talking about by checking out the color wheel of leaf colors on this wikipedia page. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acer_saccharum
Our sugar maple is actually a very young tree. It was perhaps twenty years old in 1984 when it was about forty feet tall and had aabout an eight inch diameter trunk. It's now about eighty feet tall and its trunk is about eighteen inches in diameter. As an aside, I was pleased to see that the tree at the Morton Arboretum whose picture is posted on wikipedia is a lightweight next to our tree. And our tree is a mere youth. I'm too lazy to look it up right now; but I think our tree can expect a life span measured in hundreds of years; and it can conceivably grow to a trunk girth of four or five feet at which point the spread of its branches (there's a better word I want here but again I'm lazy), the spread of its branches - aha - the diameter of its canopy, dripline - still not exactly right, dagnabit, but I'll settle on dripline for now. You'd think I would remember that word because the reason we have a crappy silver maple in the spot formerly occupied by that long dead scarlet oak is because I didn't realize that the ground level could not be changed all the way out to its dripline.
But enough with the dripline or canopy or spread, or whatever. When the sugar maple is mature in a couple of hundred years the diameter of its dripline will be as great or greater than its hundred and fifty foot height. A pity I won't be around to see it.
But I will be around to see the sweetgum when its leaves turn in a couple of weeks. The sweetgum will be quite a bit more garish than the sugar maple now is when it reaches the peak of its color; but I'll appreciate it for the same reason that I can appreciate Van Gogh even as I appreciate Monet, although, oddly enough, when it comes to art in a museam or on the printed page I'm more a fan of the flashy Van Gogh than of the subtle Monet. I think it's a question of scale. Had he ever seen a sugar maple in its glory Monet would have painted it realistically; but Van Gogh would have captured its eighty by forty feet of subtle beauty and condensed it into an eye popping splash that would have expanded in one's mind into a full sized tree.
And that's why I prefer Van Gogh. At two or four or six or eight foot wide scale I want to be knocked over; I want colors to pop out at me. At eighty by forty foot I prefer a bit more subtlety of shading.
Meanwhile I have to get out into the woods. And while I'm out there I have to contemplate the important question of taste that Linda just asked me. Would I prefer chocolate chip cookies tomorrow, or would I prefer coconut custard pie. I've already given my provisional answer that I would prefer chocolate chip cookies if they're going to have nuts, and I would prefer the coconut custard pie if I can't have nuts in the cookies to give them a bit of texture and bite. But I have to think some more about that. And I have to see how things are out in the woods across Doony Brook.
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Warren Buffett finally comes around
I'm glad to see that Warren Buffett has finally come around to my opinion that the time is ripe to invest in the stock market.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/17/opinion/17buffett.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/17/opinion/17buffett.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Do your part against CO2 emissions
Again this evening, when Linda and I went on our walk, we saw heedless neighbors walking environmentally destructive pets. I'm talking about fast living mammals that consume and digest huge volumes of food and exhale great gouts of CO2 into the atmosphere because of their need to maintain their warm body temperature. What's worse is that they require meat for their food, and raising animals for meat is also tremendously damaging to the environment. And That's not counting all the fuel necessary to move the dozens of pounds of food that even the smallest of those dogs require each year from the slaughterhouses to the packing houses and then to the supermarkets and finally to all the Collegeville homes.
All in all, I wouldn't be at all surprised if the average Collegeville dog generates more CO2 than the average poor villager in India or China does. If you want to be green you should get rid of those mangy mutts, and get rid of the cats too. And the birds. Birds burn up even more food per pound of weight than mammals do.
I'm feeling especially self-righteous about this right now, because I was just reminded of just how virtuously green my own pet is. I just opened a new 1.94 ounce container of Reptomin Floating Food Sticks and realized that this is only the third or fourth container of food sticks I've needed to buy since we adopted him 22 years ago as a tadpole. The pet store that sold me the last container I bought is now out of business, which isn't surprising because I think that old container of about 2,500 food sticks set me back $2.50 or so - something like one-tenth of a cent per little food stick. The new container cost $3.29. I hope my pet appreciates that it's now costing me about one-sixth of a cent per day to keep him in vittles.
For those of you who are new to this blog I should point out that my pet is not brown or white or black like those yappy dogs our neighbors were walking. My pet is green; and he's green both ways. He's literally green like a mottled faded leaf. And he's figuratively green enough to give Al Gore the kind of woody he gets when he meditates long and hard on Sheryl Crow's commitment to the health of the planet. Which gives me a chance to suggest that you watch this short video that gives one possible explanation of Sheryl's sanitary methodology, so to speak.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkemqYRjcek&feature=related
Now that you're back from the video, I can get to the real point of this blog entry, which is to give a hearty endorsement to Tetra, the company that makes Reptomin Floating Food Sticks out of fish meal, wheat starch, dried yeast, corn flour, shrimp meal, wheat gluten, potato protein, dehulled soybean meal, soybean oil and a long list of other stuff with chemical names. Assuming he doesn't sneak out of his bowl at night to shag other food, my frog has been eating nothing but Tetra's product for at least ten years, and at this point he may be among the oldest of his species on the face of the earth at 22 or so years old. If you're reading this Tetra, you should be aware that my frog is available to do endorsements or commercials concerning the excellence of your product and the truthfulness of your advertising on the container. Reptomin is indeed a "highly nutritious diet."
Which brings me to the fact that the battle for truth has temporarily swung in favor of the forces of good. For a long time the forces of evil on wikipedia insisted that frogs like mine live only a few years even after I tried to reason with them. So I began waging guerilla war against them for control of the African Clawed Frog entry and the related Xenopus entry. The wikipedia article on African Clawed Frogs now says quite reasonably that they usually live from 5 to 15 years and that some can live to 30 years. And the Xenopus article restricts itself to scientific nomenclature and doesn't mention life spans. So peace reigns, at least for now, in one of the little corners of wikipedia that I watch over.
But peace doesn't reign in San Francisco. Someone in San Francisco apparently had the same idea as a certain person around here who wanted to put my frog in the pond to live out a summer of liberty and then perish in the cold of winter. Fortunately I wouldn't hear of it or they might be writing terror inducing articles like this about a pond in Collegeville.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,258519,00.html
All in all, I wouldn't be at all surprised if the average Collegeville dog generates more CO2 than the average poor villager in India or China does. If you want to be green you should get rid of those mangy mutts, and get rid of the cats too. And the birds. Birds burn up even more food per pound of weight than mammals do.
I'm feeling especially self-righteous about this right now, because I was just reminded of just how virtuously green my own pet is. I just opened a new 1.94 ounce container of Reptomin Floating Food Sticks and realized that this is only the third or fourth container of food sticks I've needed to buy since we adopted him 22 years ago as a tadpole. The pet store that sold me the last container I bought is now out of business, which isn't surprising because I think that old container of about 2,500 food sticks set me back $2.50 or so - something like one-tenth of a cent per little food stick. The new container cost $3.29. I hope my pet appreciates that it's now costing me about one-sixth of a cent per day to keep him in vittles.
For those of you who are new to this blog I should point out that my pet is not brown or white or black like those yappy dogs our neighbors were walking. My pet is green; and he's green both ways. He's literally green like a mottled faded leaf. And he's figuratively green enough to give Al Gore the kind of woody he gets when he meditates long and hard on Sheryl Crow's commitment to the health of the planet. Which gives me a chance to suggest that you watch this short video that gives one possible explanation of Sheryl's sanitary methodology, so to speak.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkemqYRjcek&feature=related
Now that you're back from the video, I can get to the real point of this blog entry, which is to give a hearty endorsement to Tetra, the company that makes Reptomin Floating Food Sticks out of fish meal, wheat starch, dried yeast, corn flour, shrimp meal, wheat gluten, potato protein, dehulled soybean meal, soybean oil and a long list of other stuff with chemical names. Assuming he doesn't sneak out of his bowl at night to shag other food, my frog has been eating nothing but Tetra's product for at least ten years, and at this point he may be among the oldest of his species on the face of the earth at 22 or so years old. If you're reading this Tetra, you should be aware that my frog is available to do endorsements or commercials concerning the excellence of your product and the truthfulness of your advertising on the container. Reptomin is indeed a "highly nutritious diet."
Which brings me to the fact that the battle for truth has temporarily swung in favor of the forces of good. For a long time the forces of evil on wikipedia insisted that frogs like mine live only a few years even after I tried to reason with them. So I began waging guerilla war against them for control of the African Clawed Frog entry and the related Xenopus entry. The wikipedia article on African Clawed Frogs now says quite reasonably that they usually live from 5 to 15 years and that some can live to 30 years. And the Xenopus article restricts itself to scientific nomenclature and doesn't mention life spans. So peace reigns, at least for now, in one of the little corners of wikipedia that I watch over.
But peace doesn't reign in San Francisco. Someone in San Francisco apparently had the same idea as a certain person around here who wanted to put my frog in the pond to live out a summer of liberty and then perish in the cold of winter. Fortunately I wouldn't hear of it or they might be writing terror inducing articles like this about a pond in Collegeville.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,258519,00.html
Nuclear or bust - I fear we will bust
The way to think about your fears of nuclear power is by asking, "Compared to what?"
Linda and I live about seven miles from the limerick nuclear power plant. As a result we get a scary evacuation mailer once a year so we're sure to be aware of how to escape in the event one of the engineers comes running out of the plant yelling "She's gonna blow." Well, the plant hasn't blown yet; and it's been producing 2,400 megawatts of electricity for twenty years.
If we lived seven miles from a coal powered plant producing the same amount of electricity we wouldn't get that scary mailer. That's because nobody is scared of coal plants even though a coal burning plant the size of Limerick would be getting and burning up a big trainload of coal every day. And there is no way you can burn that much coal without putting some serious crap into the air.
T. Boone Pickens says we should use windmills to make our electricity. Well, the biggest windmills around produce about 5 megawatts when the wind is blowing strongly. So even if the wind blew strongly all the time it would take about 500 windmills to generate as much power as the Limerick nuclear plant. Oh, and each of those windmills would be about 600 feet tall, almost as tall as the tall buildings down in Philadelphia. And, before I forget, the wind doesn't blow strongly all the time, so it would really take about 1,500 windmills to generate as much power as the Limerick nuclear plant.
Windmills as far as the eye can see, all of them droning and droning and droning. And did I mention that windmills kill bats even though the bats are smart and agile enough to avoid the spinning blades. That's because the lungs of the bats can't handle the pressure differential that they encounter when they fly near the blades. Not that I really give too much of a damn about bats - I don't even like bats. But that doesn't mean I want all the bats coughing their lungs out even though they're also smart enough not to smoke.
How about solar power, you're probably saying. Well, the biggest solar power plant produces about 50 megawatts when the sun is shining. That sounds pretty good because it would seem that you could replace the nuclear plant with only about 50 solar power plants. But alas, the sun is not always shining, so it would really take about about 250 solar power plants to replace the Limerick nuclear power plant. Each one of those 250 solar power plants would cover about about 450 acres of land.
There are other issues with nuclear power, like waste disposal; but I think the insane worry over nuclear waste disposal is one of the biggest hoaxes ever perpetrated. Yes, spent nuclear reactor fuel is very worthy of respectful and careful handling. But the French have been handling spent reactor fuel for decades while they have generated 80% of their electricity from nuclear. They reprocess the fuel so they can use most of it to fuel reactors again, and then they dispose of only a small portion of it.
And then there's the matter of relative risk. The folks who scream bloody murder about nuclear power don't tell you how many people are dying from steadily breathing the pollution that coal power plants put into the air. And if you're risk averse you had best stop driving your car. There is nothing in the energy field that comes near to the risk you will take tomorrow or next week or next year when you have a couple drinks and then pass a tractor trailer loaded with gasoline on the Schuylkill expressway going 70 miles an hour.
The link below leads to an article by a guy who seems to make sense to me. I think he minimizes the problems and issues a bit; but anyone who thinks we can continue living anything like our current lifestyles without nuclear power is fooling themselves. There simply is no alternative.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZDIwMjVjMTIyZTQ1NTJhNjM1YzFmZmFmNWVkNDA4ZjE=
Linda and I live about seven miles from the limerick nuclear power plant. As a result we get a scary evacuation mailer once a year so we're sure to be aware of how to escape in the event one of the engineers comes running out of the plant yelling "She's gonna blow." Well, the plant hasn't blown yet; and it's been producing 2,400 megawatts of electricity for twenty years.
If we lived seven miles from a coal powered plant producing the same amount of electricity we wouldn't get that scary mailer. That's because nobody is scared of coal plants even though a coal burning plant the size of Limerick would be getting and burning up a big trainload of coal every day. And there is no way you can burn that much coal without putting some serious crap into the air.
T. Boone Pickens says we should use windmills to make our electricity. Well, the biggest windmills around produce about 5 megawatts when the wind is blowing strongly. So even if the wind blew strongly all the time it would take about 500 windmills to generate as much power as the Limerick nuclear plant. Oh, and each of those windmills would be about 600 feet tall, almost as tall as the tall buildings down in Philadelphia. And, before I forget, the wind doesn't blow strongly all the time, so it would really take about 1,500 windmills to generate as much power as the Limerick nuclear plant.
Windmills as far as the eye can see, all of them droning and droning and droning. And did I mention that windmills kill bats even though the bats are smart and agile enough to avoid the spinning blades. That's because the lungs of the bats can't handle the pressure differential that they encounter when they fly near the blades. Not that I really give too much of a damn about bats - I don't even like bats. But that doesn't mean I want all the bats coughing their lungs out even though they're also smart enough not to smoke.
How about solar power, you're probably saying. Well, the biggest solar power plant produces about 50 megawatts when the sun is shining. That sounds pretty good because it would seem that you could replace the nuclear plant with only about 50 solar power plants. But alas, the sun is not always shining, so it would really take about about 250 solar power plants to replace the Limerick nuclear power plant. Each one of those 250 solar power plants would cover about about 450 acres of land.
There are other issues with nuclear power, like waste disposal; but I think the insane worry over nuclear waste disposal is one of the biggest hoaxes ever perpetrated. Yes, spent nuclear reactor fuel is very worthy of respectful and careful handling. But the French have been handling spent reactor fuel for decades while they have generated 80% of their electricity from nuclear. They reprocess the fuel so they can use most of it to fuel reactors again, and then they dispose of only a small portion of it.
And then there's the matter of relative risk. The folks who scream bloody murder about nuclear power don't tell you how many people are dying from steadily breathing the pollution that coal power plants put into the air. And if you're risk averse you had best stop driving your car. There is nothing in the energy field that comes near to the risk you will take tomorrow or next week or next year when you have a couple drinks and then pass a tractor trailer loaded with gasoline on the Schuylkill expressway going 70 miles an hour.
The link below leads to an article by a guy who seems to make sense to me. I think he minimizes the problems and issues a bit; but anyone who thinks we can continue living anything like our current lifestyles without nuclear power is fooling themselves. There simply is no alternative.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZDIwMjVjMTIyZTQ1NTJhNjM1YzFmZmFmNWVkNDA4ZjE=
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Where's the outpouring of sympathy?
While driving back from our Rumba lesson Linda and I noticed that gas prices at WAWA are down to $2.97 per gallon. A couple of months ago the prices were up at near $4.00 per gallon.
So the oil companies have suffered a 33% decline in the amount they're getting for their gasoline!
Yet I haven't heard a word of sympathy from all of the politicians and commentators who were screaming for mobs to lynch the oil executives only a few months ago when prices rose.
If a rise in gas prices is evil price gouging, why isn't a huge fall in gas prices a tragedy for the poor oil companies?
So the oil companies have suffered a 33% decline in the amount they're getting for their gasoline!
Yet I haven't heard a word of sympathy from all of the politicians and commentators who were screaming for mobs to lynch the oil executives only a few months ago when prices rose.
If a rise in gas prices is evil price gouging, why isn't a huge fall in gas prices a tragedy for the poor oil companies?
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Death and hamburgers
There are at least eight billion stories I haven't gotten to yet, but the first thing on my agenda right now is to mention Rebecca, since Linda and I saw her and Matt at Sam and Deb's earlier this evening. Mentioning Rebecca, by the way, has nothing to do with the fact that she shamelessly asked to be mentioned. Instead, it has everything to do with the fact that she shamelessly praised this blog, telling me that I have readers I didn't know about in California and in the Tampa area of Florida.
In the course of this Rebecca told me I have a pathologist as a reader, a pathologist who has described me at different times, she reports, as both crazy and brilliant. I'll gladly take both the bitter and the sweet. I would much rather a pathologist judge me crazy after reading this blog than judge me as being past my sell by date after reading a slide of my liver cells. And anyway, everybody knows there's a thin line between genius and insanity. I'm quite content to be thought of as walking close to the line.
Also, Rebecca deserved to be mentioned because she has an unfailing knack of making conversations interesting. Tonight, for instance, we talked of Butch, and of the lion in the Stone Harbor zoo, and of Pop and Uncle Joe Sky. And we talked of a 1911 house trailer with sides of thin bakelite rather than metal. We also talked of sailing ships and sealing wax and cabbages and kings before talking about sturm und drang. Most surprisingly, we even talked of immanentizing the eschaton, which very rarely comes up in casual conversation. In fact, I'm very sure it has never come up in conversation in my presence in all of my sixty years. I've read the phrase a few times, and I've written it once in a former blog entry, and I may have spoken it quietly once or twice as a memory aid; but I've certainly never actually said it to someone. I may well be a bit insane, but I'm not that insane.
But I didn't set out to write about any of those things. I set out to write about death and fairness, or more specifically about death and hamburgers. However, first I have to write about Swiss Chard; because that's the whole reason Linda and I had to go up to Sam and Deb's this evening for rice pudding and coffee and conversation in the first place. Sam, you see, grew the most amazing Swiss Chard plant in the history of the world, or at least of Montgomery County, this year; and I noticed it in his garden on Friday night when we went up there for coffee. So I set out to pick it this morning on the way to Corropolese for rolls and bread. At Corropolese, by the way, I also found them to have an excellent new variety of tomato pie with breaded eggplant on it. But I can't talk about that now because I have an important point to get to and mustn't tarry.
But first I have to finish with the darn Swiss Chard. You're probably going to be skeptical, but Sam's prize Swiss Chard plant was at least three feet tall, and the leaves had stems perhaps two inches wide and an inch thick, bigger and better Swiss Chard by far than what they sell in the market. From that one plant and a couple of other somewhat smaller plants I made enough chard by itself to serve as a vegetable for a few meals, plus enough chard, green bean and potato stew to feed me and Linda for dinner, with leftovers enough to feed me at least a couple more times this week - Linda is somewhat resistant to eating the same thing multiple times in a few days; but I'm like Pop in that respect, I can happily eat something I particularly like every day until it's gone. Pop could and would happily eat Pasta Fagiole for breakfast lunch and dinner when it was around. Butch was like that too, only his favorite meals all involved meat, which made sense because he was a butcher.
Anyway, there was a lot of chard and a lot of stew left over. And that's even after I took out a couple of generous helpings of each to take up to Sam. Which gets me back to why we happened to be up there this evening to see Rebecca and Matt. I had to go up there to deliver Sam his fair share of the Swiss Chard and stew, and also of the peppers I picked up this morning when I stopped to get the chard. I got the peppers because I did the right thing and told Sam yesterday morning that I was planning to come up and pick the chard since he wasn't picking it. So he told me to take the peppers as well. So I had to bring Sam some roasted peppers as well as the chard.
This is all of a sudden getting boring, or at least it would be getting boring if food could ever get boring; but it's not leading very directly to the point I want to make that started this whole blog entry. So I think I'll write a bit about Rose and Butch.
First off, it was not me that nicknamed them Pruney and Mumbles. I wish I could claim it was me, for the nicknames are as apt and melodious as any pair ever were, but Sam did that; and he and Jas and I have been laughing about them whenever we remember Rose and Butch for the past twenty years. Second, despite contradictory assertions and a certain amount of skepticism held by some parties as to the accuracy of my memory, I still think Linda and Alex and I were at the Stone Harbor zoo in the evening to see the lion that had roared at Johnny and Jenny the evening before when Pop and Mom showed up to tell me and Jas that they were headed home because Butch had died. Third, it was not me who started the story of Butch dying with his boots on, so to speak, by suffering his fatal heart attack while enjoying his customary late night snack of two good sized hamburgers. Sam started that story, repeating what Pop told him, I think, sometimes telling it as a story of tragedy and sometimes as a story of triumph.
But perhaps I'm the one who embroidered it into a story of triumph. Because I'm sad Butch was taken from us in 1986; but I'm determined to believe he got to enjoy to the full those two hamburgers before his head plopped down onto the coffee table and he went the way all of us will go if we're lucky.
Death is bad, sometimes hellishly bad; but I can tolerate the fact that death takes people from us because there's nothing to be done about it. What I can't tolerate is the thought that Butch didn't get to finish the burgers before his head plopped down. None of us can live forever, and only a very select few among us get to plop our head down onto an empty plate; but, dammit, Butch was too big hearted a guy to be cheated out of finishing those last two burgers.
In the course of this Rebecca told me I have a pathologist as a reader, a pathologist who has described me at different times, she reports, as both crazy and brilliant. I'll gladly take both the bitter and the sweet. I would much rather a pathologist judge me crazy after reading this blog than judge me as being past my sell by date after reading a slide of my liver cells. And anyway, everybody knows there's a thin line between genius and insanity. I'm quite content to be thought of as walking close to the line.
Also, Rebecca deserved to be mentioned because she has an unfailing knack of making conversations interesting. Tonight, for instance, we talked of Butch, and of the lion in the Stone Harbor zoo, and of Pop and Uncle Joe Sky. And we talked of a 1911 house trailer with sides of thin bakelite rather than metal. We also talked of sailing ships and sealing wax and cabbages and kings before talking about sturm und drang. Most surprisingly, we even talked of immanentizing the eschaton, which very rarely comes up in casual conversation. In fact, I'm very sure it has never come up in conversation in my presence in all of my sixty years. I've read the phrase a few times, and I've written it once in a former blog entry, and I may have spoken it quietly once or twice as a memory aid; but I've certainly never actually said it to someone. I may well be a bit insane, but I'm not that insane.
But I didn't set out to write about any of those things. I set out to write about death and fairness, or more specifically about death and hamburgers. However, first I have to write about Swiss Chard; because that's the whole reason Linda and I had to go up to Sam and Deb's this evening for rice pudding and coffee and conversation in the first place. Sam, you see, grew the most amazing Swiss Chard plant in the history of the world, or at least of Montgomery County, this year; and I noticed it in his garden on Friday night when we went up there for coffee. So I set out to pick it this morning on the way to Corropolese for rolls and bread. At Corropolese, by the way, I also found them to have an excellent new variety of tomato pie with breaded eggplant on it. But I can't talk about that now because I have an important point to get to and mustn't tarry.
But first I have to finish with the darn Swiss Chard. You're probably going to be skeptical, but Sam's prize Swiss Chard plant was at least three feet tall, and the leaves had stems perhaps two inches wide and an inch thick, bigger and better Swiss Chard by far than what they sell in the market. From that one plant and a couple of other somewhat smaller plants I made enough chard by itself to serve as a vegetable for a few meals, plus enough chard, green bean and potato stew to feed me and Linda for dinner, with leftovers enough to feed me at least a couple more times this week - Linda is somewhat resistant to eating the same thing multiple times in a few days; but I'm like Pop in that respect, I can happily eat something I particularly like every day until it's gone. Pop could and would happily eat Pasta Fagiole for breakfast lunch and dinner when it was around. Butch was like that too, only his favorite meals all involved meat, which made sense because he was a butcher.
Anyway, there was a lot of chard and a lot of stew left over. And that's even after I took out a couple of generous helpings of each to take up to Sam. Which gets me back to why we happened to be up there this evening to see Rebecca and Matt. I had to go up there to deliver Sam his fair share of the Swiss Chard and stew, and also of the peppers I picked up this morning when I stopped to get the chard. I got the peppers because I did the right thing and told Sam yesterday morning that I was planning to come up and pick the chard since he wasn't picking it. So he told me to take the peppers as well. So I had to bring Sam some roasted peppers as well as the chard.
This is all of a sudden getting boring, or at least it would be getting boring if food could ever get boring; but it's not leading very directly to the point I want to make that started this whole blog entry. So I think I'll write a bit about Rose and Butch.
First off, it was not me that nicknamed them Pruney and Mumbles. I wish I could claim it was me, for the nicknames are as apt and melodious as any pair ever were, but Sam did that; and he and Jas and I have been laughing about them whenever we remember Rose and Butch for the past twenty years. Second, despite contradictory assertions and a certain amount of skepticism held by some parties as to the accuracy of my memory, I still think Linda and Alex and I were at the Stone Harbor zoo in the evening to see the lion that had roared at Johnny and Jenny the evening before when Pop and Mom showed up to tell me and Jas that they were headed home because Butch had died. Third, it was not me who started the story of Butch dying with his boots on, so to speak, by suffering his fatal heart attack while enjoying his customary late night snack of two good sized hamburgers. Sam started that story, repeating what Pop told him, I think, sometimes telling it as a story of tragedy and sometimes as a story of triumph.
But perhaps I'm the one who embroidered it into a story of triumph. Because I'm sad Butch was taken from us in 1986; but I'm determined to believe he got to enjoy to the full those two hamburgers before his head plopped down onto the coffee table and he went the way all of us will go if we're lucky.
Death is bad, sometimes hellishly bad; but I can tolerate the fact that death takes people from us because there's nothing to be done about it. What I can't tolerate is the thought that Butch didn't get to finish the burgers before his head plopped down. None of us can live forever, and only a very select few among us get to plop our head down onto an empty plate; but, dammit, Butch was too big hearted a guy to be cheated out of finishing those last two burgers.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
A long and lonely morning here in Collegeville
It's an absolutely beautiful day here. The sun is shining. It's warm enough so that a few more figs may ripen. A great blue heron was down by the creek; and then, oddly, it flew up and walked around on the grass for a while. Maybe it was hunting frogs.
Sam was here earlier for traditional Saturday morning coffee and we called Al R to get his view of things from down in the sunshine state. Then we had barely finished with Al when California rings on the phone, so of course it's Angie, calling while on the way to water aerobics. Can there be anything more quintessentially California than taking a long drive to go to water aerobics on a Saturday morning? I didn't ask Angie, but I picture all the water aerobicists sitting around afterward in lotus position with thin slices of cucumber covering their eyes and sacred warmed river rocks nestled in their laps, the whole group solemnly intoning "Ommmmm, Ommmmm" between sips of decaffeinated herbal tea and little munches of toasted sesame seeds.
Anyway it was great catching up with Angie even though she was bad and didn't call when she was here in the area a couple of weeks ago. Not that Sam and I mind. We know she likes Marianne better; she's always liked Marianne better. So we don't mind at all that she came all the way from California to spend a day seeing everybody on her father's South Philly side of the family without so much as calling us. And we don't mind that she only called and saw Marianne on our side of her family while she was in town. Did I mention that she's always like Marianne best?
Jas was missing today. He and Kathy are at the shore taking advantage of the beautiful day. He sent me an email about it yesterday. But Sam and I didn't mind at all that our brother abandoned us to walk on gritty sand, smell dead fish and get splinters on the boardwalk. We'll be just as nice to him tonight at the Ballroom on High as we always are, even though he left us high and dry and lonely this morning. Linda and I plan to impress him by proving that we've practiced and can still do all the moves he and Kathy taught us at the Wednesday night beginner Rumba lesson.
Oh, also, Mario A called to report on his trip to Arizona and to talk over his plan to invest regularly in the broad market index funds over the next couple of years. He hiked down a mile and a half into the Grand Canyon and he visited Sedona while he was out there. No one will ever say that Mario doesn't get around. He has been everywhere that's anywhere.
Other that that it's been a long and boring and lonely morning; and now I face a backbreaking afternoon. I have to get on the tractor and continue the never ending work of maintaining my paths through the woods and fields.
But I'm not one to complain. To hell with the fact that before and after and between the brief talks with Al and Angie and Mario, Sam and I mostly commiserated with one another about how deeply we've been gored by the faithless stock market!
Tonight we dance!
Sam was here earlier for traditional Saturday morning coffee and we called Al R to get his view of things from down in the sunshine state. Then we had barely finished with Al when California rings on the phone, so of course it's Angie, calling while on the way to water aerobics. Can there be anything more quintessentially California than taking a long drive to go to water aerobics on a Saturday morning? I didn't ask Angie, but I picture all the water aerobicists sitting around afterward in lotus position with thin slices of cucumber covering their eyes and sacred warmed river rocks nestled in their laps, the whole group solemnly intoning "Ommmmm, Ommmmm" between sips of decaffeinated herbal tea and little munches of toasted sesame seeds.
Anyway it was great catching up with Angie even though she was bad and didn't call when she was here in the area a couple of weeks ago. Not that Sam and I mind. We know she likes Marianne better; she's always liked Marianne better. So we don't mind at all that she came all the way from California to spend a day seeing everybody on her father's South Philly side of the family without so much as calling us. And we don't mind that she only called and saw Marianne on our side of her family while she was in town. Did I mention that she's always like Marianne best?
Jas was missing today. He and Kathy are at the shore taking advantage of the beautiful day. He sent me an email about it yesterday. But Sam and I didn't mind at all that our brother abandoned us to walk on gritty sand, smell dead fish and get splinters on the boardwalk. We'll be just as nice to him tonight at the Ballroom on High as we always are, even though he left us high and dry and lonely this morning. Linda and I plan to impress him by proving that we've practiced and can still do all the moves he and Kathy taught us at the Wednesday night beginner Rumba lesson.
Oh, also, Mario A called to report on his trip to Arizona and to talk over his plan to invest regularly in the broad market index funds over the next couple of years. He hiked down a mile and a half into the Grand Canyon and he visited Sedona while he was out there. No one will ever say that Mario doesn't get around. He has been everywhere that's anywhere.
Other that that it's been a long and boring and lonely morning; and now I face a backbreaking afternoon. I have to get on the tractor and continue the never ending work of maintaining my paths through the woods and fields.
But I'm not one to complain. To hell with the fact that before and after and between the brief talks with Al and Angie and Mario, Sam and I mostly commiserated with one another about how deeply we've been gored by the faithless stock market!
Tonight we dance!
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Global warming and energy independence - Solved!
I read a lot of stuff written by liberals proposing all manner of complicated schemes to cut use of fossil fuels and force energy efficiency. And I read all kinds of things by conservatives about how they want the US to become independent of foreign oil. But I never hear anyone with the guts to propose the only simple way to achieve both of those ends - tax all fossil fuels heavily; but start the tax slowly and raise it steadily and predictably so people and businesses can adapt in the natural course of things. Finally, give the proceeds back to the country's whole population as an equal payment to each citizen and legal resident. That way the cost would fall primarily on heavy users of fossil fuels, and lesser users would actually end up ahead.
If something like that had been started in the 1970's we would already be a lot less dependent on fossil fuels.
This is the perfect time to enact such a plan because prices of all forms of fossil fuels are falling, and people and industry are already somewhat accustomed to the pain of higher prices. Congress should pass a tax starting at say three cents per gallon of gasoline and fuel oil (and an equivalent amount on coal and natural gas by energy content). Congress should also mandate that the tax will increase by three cents per month indefinitely - ideally it would be set up to increase automatically unless congress votes to stop it by a significant supermajority, so that it would be very hard to stop. That way everyone would have a clearly defined incentive to buy cars and homes based on energy efficiency, and industry would have clear expectations as to future costs of energy from fossil fuel sources. People developing alternative sources of energy would also have clear expectations of the energy markets in which they will compete.
Such a tax would also leave it to the free market to decide on the details of energy efficiency and alternative energy issues - by far the most efficient way to decide among those things. Some will argue that a time of recession is not the time to start such a plan, but I'd fire back that putting some reasonable expectations around the issue of global warming and energy independence and defanging the threat of truly disastrous types of government intervention (like cap and trade which will certainly turn into a huge political honeypot) would itself have a major stimulative effect on the economy.
Being a humble person I decline the honor should someone want to name this The Sully Plan.
If something like that had been started in the 1970's we would already be a lot less dependent on fossil fuels.
This is the perfect time to enact such a plan because prices of all forms of fossil fuels are falling, and people and industry are already somewhat accustomed to the pain of higher prices. Congress should pass a tax starting at say three cents per gallon of gasoline and fuel oil (and an equivalent amount on coal and natural gas by energy content). Congress should also mandate that the tax will increase by three cents per month indefinitely - ideally it would be set up to increase automatically unless congress votes to stop it by a significant supermajority, so that it would be very hard to stop. That way everyone would have a clearly defined incentive to buy cars and homes based on energy efficiency, and industry would have clear expectations as to future costs of energy from fossil fuel sources. People developing alternative sources of energy would also have clear expectations of the energy markets in which they will compete.
Such a tax would also leave it to the free market to decide on the details of energy efficiency and alternative energy issues - by far the most efficient way to decide among those things. Some will argue that a time of recession is not the time to start such a plan, but I'd fire back that putting some reasonable expectations around the issue of global warming and energy independence and defanging the threat of truly disastrous types of government intervention (like cap and trade which will certainly turn into a huge political honeypot) would itself have a major stimulative effect on the economy.
Being a humble person I decline the honor should someone want to name this The Sully Plan.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Sturm und Drang
On the way home today I filled my car's tank with gas at $3.16 a gallon. Slowly and stealthily gas prices have dropped by almost 25% from their peak over the past couple of months and yet nobody seems to have noticed. I certainly noticed today.
After I got home Linda and I had to eat a hasty light dinner because we were due for our second in the series of six weekly Rumba lessons up at the Ballroom on High Street. As usual Jas and Kathy put on a great lesson for the twenty or so in the class; and this time we guaranteed that we'll retain what we learned by practicing for about a half hour after we got home. We've pledged ourselves that tomorrow night we'll run through our Waltz, Foxtrot and Rumba routines instead of walking.
Those were the good sides of the day. The bad side was that the stock market tanked again today, with the DOW going down another 180 points. All told the market is off almost 40% from last year's high. The first of the 401K statements for the third quarter arrived in today's mail; but I hate the thought of opening it. The most annoying thing is that Linda and I are already pretty fully invested in stocks and real estate; so I can't see any way of freeing up enough cash to take proper advantage of what may soon be a truly phenomenal buying opportunity.
Here's a free investment tip which is certainly worth no less than it's costing you. The idea is to buy low so that later you can sell high. Going further, the idea is to be one of the few who are smart enough to buy when everybody else is totally sunk in doom and gloom. If you have a access to a 401K plan at work now is the time to maximize your monthly deductions. If you don't have access to such a plan now is the time, if there ever was a time, to cut back on your spending and free up some money to buy as many shares as you can each month in a broad no-load, low fee mutual fund. With the market as low as it now is, and perhaps going lower, it's as close to a sure thing as you will ever be able to place a bet on.
The U.S. has easily the most free and vibrant large scale economy in the world; and it will retain enough freedom and vibrancy to continue to dominate the world even if Barry and Joe and their buddies get control of all three branches of government and thus have the opportunity to run wild and establish a bunch of new government boondoggle programs. Also, there are a host of new technologies being worked on which promise even more amazing developments than we've seen in the recent past. The stock market indexes are now going down, and they may go down or stay flat for an extended period, years even; but in the long run, the five or ten or fifteen year run, the market is going to make back all of its declines and go on to peak much, much higher.
Yes there are problems, just as there have always been problems. But in the long run the problems we currently face are essentially trivial next to the opportunities. We live in by far the very best country, and we live at by far the very best time to be alive in the history of the world. And tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, will be an even better day to be alive for the vast majority of us.
Anyone who doubts that this is the very best time to be alive should comment on this post and I'll recommend a couple of very readable history books.
After I got home Linda and I had to eat a hasty light dinner because we were due for our second in the series of six weekly Rumba lessons up at the Ballroom on High Street. As usual Jas and Kathy put on a great lesson for the twenty or so in the class; and this time we guaranteed that we'll retain what we learned by practicing for about a half hour after we got home. We've pledged ourselves that tomorrow night we'll run through our Waltz, Foxtrot and Rumba routines instead of walking.
Those were the good sides of the day. The bad side was that the stock market tanked again today, with the DOW going down another 180 points. All told the market is off almost 40% from last year's high. The first of the 401K statements for the third quarter arrived in today's mail; but I hate the thought of opening it. The most annoying thing is that Linda and I are already pretty fully invested in stocks and real estate; so I can't see any way of freeing up enough cash to take proper advantage of what may soon be a truly phenomenal buying opportunity.
Here's a free investment tip which is certainly worth no less than it's costing you. The idea is to buy low so that later you can sell high. Going further, the idea is to be one of the few who are smart enough to buy when everybody else is totally sunk in doom and gloom. If you have a access to a 401K plan at work now is the time to maximize your monthly deductions. If you don't have access to such a plan now is the time, if there ever was a time, to cut back on your spending and free up some money to buy as many shares as you can each month in a broad no-load, low fee mutual fund. With the market as low as it now is, and perhaps going lower, it's as close to a sure thing as you will ever be able to place a bet on.
The U.S. has easily the most free and vibrant large scale economy in the world; and it will retain enough freedom and vibrancy to continue to dominate the world even if Barry and Joe and their buddies get control of all three branches of government and thus have the opportunity to run wild and establish a bunch of new government boondoggle programs. Also, there are a host of new technologies being worked on which promise even more amazing developments than we've seen in the recent past. The stock market indexes are now going down, and they may go down or stay flat for an extended period, years even; but in the long run, the five or ten or fifteen year run, the market is going to make back all of its declines and go on to peak much, much higher.
Yes there are problems, just as there have always been problems. But in the long run the problems we currently face are essentially trivial next to the opportunities. We live in by far the very best country, and we live at by far the very best time to be alive in the history of the world. And tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, will be an even better day to be alive for the vast majority of us.
Anyone who doubts that this is the very best time to be alive should comment on this post and I'll recommend a couple of very readable history books.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
The inside story for Tarzan fans
Fans of the king of the jungle who want to know the other side of the story will rush out to buy this new tell-all book now. I'll wait until it comes out in paperback.
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/non-fiction/article4875066.ece
In the meantime, I finished listening to the audio version of The Book of Air and Shadows by Michael Gruber last week. It wound itself out to a very satisfying ending and I will definitely pick it up one day as a paperback for a read. Not least I'll remember it because of the amazing coincidence I recognized as it came toward the end. I've also been reading, off and on, a paperback copy of Little Man by Robert Lacey that Sam gave me. I could be wrong; but I think Gruber based some of his characters on Meyer Lansky's convoluted life.
The coincidence comes in because I picked up Air and Shadows soley because it was billed as being abut a lost Shakespeare manuscript. Then it actually turned out to be about a complex set of characters, including Russian Jewish mobsters, searching for and fighting over a Shakespeare manusript and the clues leading toward it. What are the chances I would be reading about Lansky and also listening to a book, some of whose characters are an awful lot like Lansky?
Finally, over the weekend I learned that some of you young-uns out there think political assassinations are mainly the work of right wing nuts. This false meme probably arises from the fact that left wing propagandists have been selling you that line - including on wikipedia where die-hard lefties insist that Lee Harvey Oswald was a pawn of the CIA against the simple facts in evidence. Here's a short memory list of recent political assassinations and attempts:
Ronald Reagan - shot by a complete loon who wanted to impress Jodie Foster
John Lennon - shot by a loonie rock music fan
Gerald Ford - shot at by a loonie hippie follower of Charles Manson and then almost shot at later
by a loonie housewife whose motives defy description
Martin Luther King - killed by a loonie multiple times felon, perhaps the exception that proves
the rule
Robert Kennedy - killed by a loonie Palestinian who believed Kennedy was too much a supporter
of Israel
John F. Kennedy - killed by a loonie Marxist who had defected to the Soviet Union and then
returned to the U.S. You're free to pick your own conspiracy theory, but if I'm forced to
vote for one I come down on the side of Oswald acting for Fidel Castro in some way. Castro
had a legitimate and timely beef against JFK since JFK and his brother Bobby had actively
and persistently plotted to have him assassinated in one of the more comic opera affairs of
recent history. Google Operation Mongoose and keep firmly in mind the fact that Saint
John F. Kennedy and his brother Saint Robert F. Kennedy were the president and
attorney general who pushed for it.
Look this all up for yourself if you don't believe me; but be careful to read deeply because propagandists on the left are very persistent and ingenious at twisting and embroidering the actual facts. Assassinations are mostly carried out by lone true believers, a species of lunatic which the left spawns much more frequently than the right. This makes sense because the left persistently sells the idea that simple and radical plans and actions can bring about Heaven on Earth while the right more typically believes that most attempts to change the existing order of things end badly.
Read the wikipedia entry on Immanentizing the Eschaton for more.
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/non-fiction/article4875066.ece
In the meantime, I finished listening to the audio version of The Book of Air and Shadows by Michael Gruber last week. It wound itself out to a very satisfying ending and I will definitely pick it up one day as a paperback for a read. Not least I'll remember it because of the amazing coincidence I recognized as it came toward the end. I've also been reading, off and on, a paperback copy of Little Man by Robert Lacey that Sam gave me. I could be wrong; but I think Gruber based some of his characters on Meyer Lansky's convoluted life.
The coincidence comes in because I picked up Air and Shadows soley because it was billed as being abut a lost Shakespeare manuscript. Then it actually turned out to be about a complex set of characters, including Russian Jewish mobsters, searching for and fighting over a Shakespeare manusript and the clues leading toward it. What are the chances I would be reading about Lansky and also listening to a book, some of whose characters are an awful lot like Lansky?
Finally, over the weekend I learned that some of you young-uns out there think political assassinations are mainly the work of right wing nuts. This false meme probably arises from the fact that left wing propagandists have been selling you that line - including on wikipedia where die-hard lefties insist that Lee Harvey Oswald was a pawn of the CIA against the simple facts in evidence. Here's a short memory list of recent political assassinations and attempts:
Ronald Reagan - shot by a complete loon who wanted to impress Jodie Foster
John Lennon - shot by a loonie rock music fan
Gerald Ford - shot at by a loonie hippie follower of Charles Manson and then almost shot at later
by a loonie housewife whose motives defy description
Martin Luther King - killed by a loonie multiple times felon, perhaps the exception that proves
the rule
Robert Kennedy - killed by a loonie Palestinian who believed Kennedy was too much a supporter
of Israel
John F. Kennedy - killed by a loonie Marxist who had defected to the Soviet Union and then
returned to the U.S. You're free to pick your own conspiracy theory, but if I'm forced to
vote for one I come down on the side of Oswald acting for Fidel Castro in some way. Castro
had a legitimate and timely beef against JFK since JFK and his brother Bobby had actively
and persistently plotted to have him assassinated in one of the more comic opera affairs of
recent history. Google Operation Mongoose and keep firmly in mind the fact that Saint
John F. Kennedy and his brother Saint Robert F. Kennedy were the president and
attorney general who pushed for it.
Look this all up for yourself if you don't believe me; but be careful to read deeply because propagandists on the left are very persistent and ingenious at twisting and embroidering the actual facts. Assassinations are mostly carried out by lone true believers, a species of lunatic which the left spawns much more frequently than the right. This makes sense because the left persistently sells the idea that simple and radical plans and actions can bring about Heaven on Earth while the right more typically believes that most attempts to change the existing order of things end badly.
Read the wikipedia entry on Immanentizing the Eschaton for more.
Monday, October 6, 2008
The Handel and Hayden Society is ready. . .
Linda and I went up to Boston over the weekend to see Alex and Christina. While there we went to a concert put on by the Handel and Hayden Society. It was an excellent concert and very useful because I've been thinking of buying one of Handel's other oratorios and the Society put on selections from Solomon, Jeptha and Semele. None of them, of course, compare with Messiah, which is one of the most brilliant pinnacles of art.
The most interesting thing about the concert was the Society's inclusion of the music Handel composed for the coronation of King George I. It was good to see that they're all ready for the coronation, I mean the inauguration, of Barack Obama if he wins the election. The last anthem they played, with its rousing choral performance of "Long live the king, God save the king," will make a perfect musical accompaniment to the beginning of Obama's reign. Of course they may plan to play "Unto us a child is born, unto us a king is given" from Messiah, which may, after all be more appropriate given what a lot of people expect of Obama.
The most interesting thing about the concert was the Society's inclusion of the music Handel composed for the coronation of King George I. It was good to see that they're all ready for the coronation, I mean the inauguration, of Barack Obama if he wins the election. The last anthem they played, with its rousing choral performance of "Long live the king, God save the king," will make a perfect musical accompaniment to the beginning of Obama's reign. Of course they may plan to play "Unto us a child is born, unto us a king is given" from Messiah, which may, after all be more appropriate given what a lot of people expect of Obama.
Friday, October 3, 2008
Free Pete Rose!
Poor Pete Rose is unjustly being denied his deserved spot in the Baseball Hall of Fame. And why? Merely because he placed a few little bets on basebal games. And he didn't even bet against his own team. Unjust! Especially in the new world of ethics we now inhabit.
Last night a crooked journalist named Gwen Ifill moderated the debate between Sarah Palin and Joe Biden. And all the while she was supposedly being evenhanded, Ms Ifill was nervously wondering how her huge bet on the outcome of this year's election will turn out.
You see, Gwen Ifill has already written a book titled The Breakthrough, Politics and Race in the Age of Obama, and that book is scheduled to be released on January 20, 2009, which just happens to be inauguration day for the next president. If you don't believe me you can look it up on Amazon, where the book is already for sale on pre-release basis. If Obama wins, she will sell tons and tons of those books. If Obama loses, she may as well plan to insulate her house with the books.
I say that if Ms Ifill is still invited to polite parties after this conflict of interest, Pete Rose should immediately get his place in the Hall of Fame. His actions were a lot less corrupt than hers.
And lest you say that she was fair in how she moderated the debate, here's an amusing letter that was sent to Stephen Spruiell of Media Blog about one of her supposedly fair questions.
IFILL: OK, our time is up here. We've got to move to the next question. Senator Biden, we want to talk about taxes, let's talk about taxes. You proposed raising taxes on people who earn over $250,000 a year. The question for you is, why is that not class warfare and the same question for you, Governor Palin, is you have proposed a tax employer health benefits which some studies say would actually throw five million more people onto the roles of the uninsured. I want to know why that isn't taking things out on the poor, starting with you, Senator Biden.
Translation – tell why it’s okay to make the evil rich pay their fair share, o’ herald of the mighty light bringer. And you, mouth of Sauron, why are you and the dark lord trying to make things worse for the poor?
I might add that anybody who believes Barack Obama and Joe Biden can pay for the vast spending plans they have proposed by increasing taxes only on people earning over $250,000 is smoking some mighty fine weed.
Here's are two examples. Obama and Biden are right this moment sponsoring a law in the Senate which, if passed, will require the U.S. to donate something like $10 Billion per month to the United Nations to be strewn around the world as foreign aid. And both of them strongly support the idea of the government requiring industry to buy so-called carbon credits to cover the CO2 it emits. That carbon credit scheme is a pure tax, disguised to look like an environmental law, and - in fact - it is a very regressive tax which falls hardest on those who earn the least. Companies are going to pass that tax directly onto you and everybody else who buys anything.
Update 10/05/08: My apologies to Pete Rose for comparing him to Gwen Ifill. After reflecting on it I now realize that Pete Rose doesn't deserve that. What he did doesn't compare in immorality to what Gwen Ifill did. What she did is only comparable to a baseball umpire placing a big bet on a game with a bookie just before going into the stadium to umpire that game. In a rational society she would be fired from her job and barred for life from engaging in journalism just as a major league umpire would be fired and barred for life if caught betting on a game and then officiating at it.
Last night a crooked journalist named Gwen Ifill moderated the debate between Sarah Palin and Joe Biden. And all the while she was supposedly being evenhanded, Ms Ifill was nervously wondering how her huge bet on the outcome of this year's election will turn out.
You see, Gwen Ifill has already written a book titled The Breakthrough, Politics and Race in the Age of Obama, and that book is scheduled to be released on January 20, 2009, which just happens to be inauguration day for the next president. If you don't believe me you can look it up on Amazon, where the book is already for sale on pre-release basis. If Obama wins, she will sell tons and tons of those books. If Obama loses, she may as well plan to insulate her house with the books.
I say that if Ms Ifill is still invited to polite parties after this conflict of interest, Pete Rose should immediately get his place in the Hall of Fame. His actions were a lot less corrupt than hers.
And lest you say that she was fair in how she moderated the debate, here's an amusing letter that was sent to Stephen Spruiell of Media Blog about one of her supposedly fair questions.
IFILL: OK, our time is up here. We've got to move to the next question. Senator Biden, we want to talk about taxes, let's talk about taxes. You proposed raising taxes on people who earn over $250,000 a year. The question for you is, why is that not class warfare and the same question for you, Governor Palin, is you have proposed a tax employer health benefits which some studies say would actually throw five million more people onto the roles of the uninsured. I want to know why that isn't taking things out on the poor, starting with you, Senator Biden.
Translation – tell why it’s okay to make the evil rich pay their fair share, o’ herald of the mighty light bringer. And you, mouth of Sauron, why are you and the dark lord trying to make things worse for the poor?
I might add that anybody who believes Barack Obama and Joe Biden can pay for the vast spending plans they have proposed by increasing taxes only on people earning over $250,000 is smoking some mighty fine weed.
Here's are two examples. Obama and Biden are right this moment sponsoring a law in the Senate which, if passed, will require the U.S. to donate something like $10 Billion per month to the United Nations to be strewn around the world as foreign aid. And both of them strongly support the idea of the government requiring industry to buy so-called carbon credits to cover the CO2 it emits. That carbon credit scheme is a pure tax, disguised to look like an environmental law, and - in fact - it is a very regressive tax which falls hardest on those who earn the least. Companies are going to pass that tax directly onto you and everybody else who buys anything.
Update 10/05/08: My apologies to Pete Rose for comparing him to Gwen Ifill. After reflecting on it I now realize that Pete Rose doesn't deserve that. What he did doesn't compare in immorality to what Gwen Ifill did. What she did is only comparable to a baseball umpire placing a big bet on a game with a bookie just before going into the stadium to umpire that game. In a rational society she would be fired from her job and barred for life from engaging in journalism just as a major league umpire would be fired and barred for life if caught betting on a game and then officiating at it.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
An interesting and excellent fig salad recipe
In the unlikely event you have a fig tree and run into the problem I've suffered lately - namely the figs bursting open before they're fully ripe - I tested a recipe I remember reading about.
Rinse about ten figs and cut off their stem ends (the stem end is even less ripe than the burst end)
Then quarter the figs and sprinkle about half a tablespoon of sugar and half a tablespoon of balsamic vinegar over them.
Let them marinate for about a half hour and you have a superior salad.
Of course, I would rather that the darn figs hadn't burst in the first place. Oh well, at least we enjoyed a few truly ripe ones before this rainy period came on.
Rinse about ten figs and cut off their stem ends (the stem end is even less ripe than the burst end)
Then quarter the figs and sprinkle about half a tablespoon of sugar and half a tablespoon of balsamic vinegar over them.
Let them marinate for about a half hour and you have a superior salad.
Of course, I would rather that the darn figs hadn't burst in the first place. Oh well, at least we enjoyed a few truly ripe ones before this rainy period came on.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
If the banks are short of cash to lend why. . .
If the banks are so short of cash to lend why have I continued to ger the usual mailings offering cheap credit over the past couple of weeks?
One bank sent me a letter saying we're pre-qualified for a second morgage of up to $150,000 at a 4.5% rate which can't be adjusted for two years. Several others have sent me their usual envelopes of pre-printed checks offering loans at zero interest for the next six months. One offered to double the limit on our present credit card with them, and offered to guarantee an interest rate of 4.9% for the life of the loan if it's used to pay off another credit card. Reading them carefully, as I always do, I find, that most of the loans are not really at zero interest because there is a 3% processing charge up front, but one of them offered the old sweet deal of a flat maximum $75 up front processing charge.
Are these offers the last trumpetings of rampaging brain shot elephants? Are they the last reflexive tail twitchings of headless snakes?
I'm looking at an offer of up to $30,000 that just came yesterday, a day after congress failed to pass the bailout bill that the banks supposedly need to keep the financial system from collapsing. It's from Capital One, which proclaims that "As of 09/23/08, our records show you've earned this offer for a 0% APR on balance transfers and 0% APR on purchases until January 2010." Capital One is one of the greedy ones that charge 3% up front, so I'll probably throw their offer away eventually; but then again maybe I'll save it for a few days against the possibility that I don't get a better offer and the stock market really tanks, tanks to a level which makes it irresistible. After all, somebody has to patriotically support the market when the whole world is fully in insane panic mode and well run companies in recession resistant industries are selling for five or eight times solid earnings. Just for comparison the S&P average is now at about 20 times trailing earnings.
Sometimes the banks make kiting credit so cheap that it makes sense; but don't even think about trying this at home unless you're very disciplined about promptly paying the minimum amount monthly, and you also have another safety valve line of credit available in the event the mail gets lost or something else like that. This is a game that needs both a belt and suspenders because such offers always carry the threat of reverting to something like Capital One's 24.9% rate if you miss or are late with two payments.
One bank sent me a letter saying we're pre-qualified for a second morgage of up to $150,000 at a 4.5% rate which can't be adjusted for two years. Several others have sent me their usual envelopes of pre-printed checks offering loans at zero interest for the next six months. One offered to double the limit on our present credit card with them, and offered to guarantee an interest rate of 4.9% for the life of the loan if it's used to pay off another credit card. Reading them carefully, as I always do, I find, that most of the loans are not really at zero interest because there is a 3% processing charge up front, but one of them offered the old sweet deal of a flat maximum $75 up front processing charge.
Are these offers the last trumpetings of rampaging brain shot elephants? Are they the last reflexive tail twitchings of headless snakes?
I'm looking at an offer of up to $30,000 that just came yesterday, a day after congress failed to pass the bailout bill that the banks supposedly need to keep the financial system from collapsing. It's from Capital One, which proclaims that "As of 09/23/08, our records show you've earned this offer for a 0% APR on balance transfers and 0% APR on purchases until January 2010." Capital One is one of the greedy ones that charge 3% up front, so I'll probably throw their offer away eventually; but then again maybe I'll save it for a few days against the possibility that I don't get a better offer and the stock market really tanks, tanks to a level which makes it irresistible. After all, somebody has to patriotically support the market when the whole world is fully in insane panic mode and well run companies in recession resistant industries are selling for five or eight times solid earnings. Just for comparison the S&P average is now at about 20 times trailing earnings.
Sometimes the banks make kiting credit so cheap that it makes sense; but don't even think about trying this at home unless you're very disciplined about promptly paying the minimum amount monthly, and you also have another safety valve line of credit available in the event the mail gets lost or something else like that. This is a game that needs both a belt and suspenders because such offers always carry the threat of reverting to something like Capital One's 24.9% rate if you miss or are late with two payments.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
We interrupt this panic for a little humor
The stock market is going down faster than the Hindenburg after that fellow lit his cigarette. The supposedly staid and sober bankers now seem to be about as solvent and judicious as drunken sailors. The economy is collapsing around our ears. Congress is running around in circles screaming and shouting. And somehow it's no longer quite so amusing that President Bush looks a lot like Alfred E. Newman.
But enough of all this doom and gloom!
We interrupt this panic for a little humor. . . but not right away.
It turns out P.J. O'Rourke has cancer. . . pause, drumbeat, rising volume. . .the big C!
That kind of puts all that economics gloom in perspective don't it? Even though P.J. has a relatively survivable form of cancer.
But I promised humor. And P.J. O'Rourke wouldn't be P.J. O'Rourke if he didn't still have his sense of humor. So, in his inimitable way he has made lemonade out of the great big lemon life has dealt him.
His latest column is an interesting example of bitter sweet humor.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-orourke28-2008sep28,0,3317114.story
But enough of all this doom and gloom!
We interrupt this panic for a little humor. . . but not right away.
It turns out P.J. O'Rourke has cancer. . . pause, drumbeat, rising volume. . .the big C!
That kind of puts all that economics gloom in perspective don't it? Even though P.J. has a relatively survivable form of cancer.
But I promised humor. And P.J. O'Rourke wouldn't be P.J. O'Rourke if he didn't still have his sense of humor. So, in his inimitable way he has made lemonade out of the great big lemon life has dealt him.
His latest column is an interesting example of bitter sweet humor.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-orourke28-2008sep28,0,3317114.story
Monday, September 29, 2008
An eight minute tutorial on how politics works
Here's an eight minute video of clips from a congressional hearing in late 2004 that tells you all you need to know about who's most responsible for the fact that the financial crisis is as bad as it is. Even President Clinton now recognizes the truth.
The main fault that lies with Republicans is that they should have forced this issue to public consciousness in 2005.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MGT_cSi7Rs&eurl=http://5.gmodules.com/ig/ifr?pid=dell&url=http://www.google.com/ig/modules/youtube_videos.xml&nocache=0&up_pre
The main fault that lies with Republicans is that they should have forced this issue to public consciousness in 2005.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MGT_cSi7Rs&eurl=http://5.gmodules.com/ig/ifr?pid=dell&url=http://www.google.com/ig/modules/youtube_videos.xml&nocache=0&up_pre
Sunday, September 28, 2008
We need a bailout regardless; but. . .
Why do I get the feeling that every one of the jubilant hogs in this picture of the happy Democratic bailout negotiators has just confirmed the deposit of a couple of billion dollars of swag in his or her secret offshore bank account?
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MDJkMzNlNTNjNzk3YzhhZGM2NTM0Mjc0NDA1NzQzMjE=
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MDJkMzNlNTNjNzk3YzhhZGM2NTM0Mjc0NDA1NzQzMjE=
Bursting figs
Chalk this up as a learning experience.
I've been watching a couple dozen figs begin to ripen over the past couple of weeks and now the ripest of them have started to burst before they're fully soft and ready to pick. We've eaten about ten figs, but it appears the major part of the crop will be spoiled, or at least not able to ripen to perfection.
I think rain over the past three days has overloaded them with more water than they can incorporate. Next year I have to keep the fig tree better watered during droughts, especially as the figs begin to mature. Also, there's a damn bird messing with the figs on occasion. I also need to get a net to put over the tree. And I need to research the old Roman recipe for larks and thrushes.
Update: This week's Economist has helped me to develop some perspective on the problem of birds eating my figs. It seems bears are very busy this year eating Canadians. I don't especially like Canadians, except for Mark Steyn and sometimes David Frum when he's not being too annoying; but I also don't especially dislike Canadians. On the whole I'm not sure I approve of bears eating them indiscriminately. I would prefer the bears restrict themselves to eating the liberal ones. They're probably sweeter and chewier than crusty conservative Canadians anyway.
Update 2: This article (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080926143908.htm)
got me to remembering the stalwart goose Mork, who terrorized all in the vicinity of our pond until Mr. C's dog taught him to be more respectful of others and then ate him. If I knew how to post pictures here I would post the one I have of Mom running from Mork that day at the picnic. First and only time any of us ever saw Mom run. I don't have a picture of Mork startling Jas and getting him down on the ground between the cars. And I don't have a picture of Mork continuing to attack even though Linda was beating him moderately hard about the head and neck with her riding crop. Most of all, I wish I had a movie of Alex dueling with Mork along the bank of the pond. Back and forth, Alex advancing with his giant supersoaker, driving Mork back, and then Mork advancing with beak and wing, fearless. A noble goose. A priceless memory. All the money and effort spent on paleontology is worth it for reminding me of watching that confrontation. Ah, the other memories of that great season when Mork ruled the pond and all within fifty yards of it, chasing even the horses when he chose to go into their pasture.
Update 10/2 - Linda reminds me that Mork played with the horses and that the horses were gone to their new owners before Alex was walking. Ergo, Alex had to duel with a different and later goose, probably one of a pair that was defending young.
I've been watching a couple dozen figs begin to ripen over the past couple of weeks and now the ripest of them have started to burst before they're fully soft and ready to pick. We've eaten about ten figs, but it appears the major part of the crop will be spoiled, or at least not able to ripen to perfection.
I think rain over the past three days has overloaded them with more water than they can incorporate. Next year I have to keep the fig tree better watered during droughts, especially as the figs begin to mature. Also, there's a damn bird messing with the figs on occasion. I also need to get a net to put over the tree. And I need to research the old Roman recipe for larks and thrushes.
Update: This week's Economist has helped me to develop some perspective on the problem of birds eating my figs. It seems bears are very busy this year eating Canadians. I don't especially like Canadians, except for Mark Steyn and sometimes David Frum when he's not being too annoying; but I also don't especially dislike Canadians. On the whole I'm not sure I approve of bears eating them indiscriminately. I would prefer the bears restrict themselves to eating the liberal ones. They're probably sweeter and chewier than crusty conservative Canadians anyway.
Update 2: This article (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080926143908.htm)
got me to remembering the stalwart goose Mork, who terrorized all in the vicinity of our pond until Mr. C's dog taught him to be more respectful of others and then ate him. If I knew how to post pictures here I would post the one I have of Mom running from Mork that day at the picnic. First and only time any of us ever saw Mom run. I don't have a picture of Mork startling Jas and getting him down on the ground between the cars. And I don't have a picture of Mork continuing to attack even though Linda was beating him moderately hard about the head and neck with her riding crop. Most of all, I wish I had a movie of Alex dueling with Mork along the bank of the pond. Back and forth, Alex advancing with his giant supersoaker, driving Mork back, and then Mork advancing with beak and wing, fearless. A noble goose. A priceless memory. All the money and effort spent on paleontology is worth it for reminding me of watching that confrontation. Ah, the other memories of that great season when Mork ruled the pond and all within fifty yards of it, chasing even the horses when he chose to go into their pasture.
Update 10/2 - Linda reminds me that Mork played with the horses and that the horses were gone to their new owners before Alex was walking. Ergo, Alex had to duel with a different and later goose, probably one of a pair that was defending young.
Friday, September 26, 2008
Electrorheology Leads to Efficient Combustion
I find it amazing that I just read this at sciencedaily.com and haven't heard of it before. If this is workable on standard production cars and trucks at reasonable cost and with reasonable reliability it's amazing news. Yet it hasn't leaked to the popular press despite the fact that it was sent to the American Chemical Society on June 12th. The Temple professor who did the research must be very closemouthed indeed given the significant implications. For one thing it has the potential to reduce U.S. oil usage by something like ten percent and reduce oil imports by something like twenty percent. That's a greater impact than all the windmills and solar energy plants Al Gore envisions being built in the next ten years in his wildest dreams. For another thing the patent on it is probably worth more than Temple University spends on it's entire science program in a decade.
I'll be interested to see what Alex thinks of the original paper on which the science daily article is based. Given what this paper claims this may be totally bogus, or else it may be hugely expensive or impossible to manufacture on a large scale. It's claims are not quite like claims to be able to run a car on water, but they are almost as remarkable given the maturity of internal combustion engine technology and the huge efforts automotive engineers put into improving fuel efficiency by one or two percent.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080925111836.htm
I'll be interested to see what Alex thinks of the original paper on which the science daily article is based. Given what this paper claims this may be totally bogus, or else it may be hugely expensive or impossible to manufacture on a large scale. It's claims are not quite like claims to be able to run a car on water, but they are almost as remarkable given the maturity of internal combustion engine technology and the huge efforts automotive engineers put into improving fuel efficiency by one or two percent.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080925111836.htm
Thursday, September 25, 2008
A brief note on this credit crisis
Everybody is trying to capsulize what caused this credit crisis, and both political sides are trying to minimize their role. Here are some simple facts.
In the 1990's some congresscritters, mostly Democrats, noticed that many inner city people could not qualify for mortgages because they could not provide a record of income sufficient to justify a mortgage. So they passed a law with some Republican votes requiring banks to provide so called "no document" mortgages without checking the borrowers income. Furthermore the law required Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to buy those mortgages from the banks. A former law had established Fannie and Freddie as quasi arms of the government, which allowed them, in turn to borrow money from the Treasury and from others at lower interest rates than usually required for such things as mortgages. The Federal Government thus became sort of responsible for the debts of Fannie and Freddie.
If congress had just restricted such "no doc" mortgages to cheap housing in the inner cities all would have stayed manageable. But noooooooooo! The congresscritters, Democrats and Republicans, quickly figured that it would be unfair to only let poor people take advantage of the system like that - so they quickly raised the limit on such mortgages to middle class and even wealthy people. After that it became all the rage for banks to offer everybody who couldn't or didn't want to prove their income "no doc" mortgages.
As a result pretty soon banks were writing big mortgages on first homes and even on second and third, fourth and fifth home mortgages on a "no doc" basis. This all resulted in a very enjoyable party wherein folks were buying and selling homes like sausages, especially in Florida and California. If you doubt this you can turn on the TV and find a show called Flip That House which is all about how everybody can get rich by buying houses, fixing them up a bit and then selling them for big profits. Naturally all this game playing drove the price of housing up to the sky in the hot markets.
It all worked quite nicely while home prices continued to go up fast because people could take out a new mortgage to pay their old mortgage. But then in the early part of this decade the nasty old Grinches, like Warren Buffet, tried to spoil Christmas by pointing out the old Chinese proverb that "No tree grows to the sky."
So, in 2005, some congresscritters (mostly spoil sport Republicans this time, including John McCain) noticed that Fannie and Freddie were writing an awful lot of bad mortgages, and they were also fostering a market in blindingly complex bonds and betting pools called "derivatives" which were being sold and kept in bank and insurance company vaults as assets just as though they were real money. The Republicans were shouted down in 2005 because they were gutless wimps and because nobody wanted to leave off drinking the champagne and eating the caviar that came of writing and trading and betting on all these interesting new "derivatives" even though nobody could really understand them.
So there you have it. High finance in a few paragraphs. That is what brought us to where we are now, when even the smartest financial wizards don't know what those "derivatives" are worth, and when if the government doesn't bail out all the dumb banks and insurance companies the whole shebang will come apart.
As an aside, practically every well known congressman and senator except John McCain was on the Fannie and Freddie payroll to keep the party running as long as possible. And even McCain is not blameless because he should have shouted his concerns from the rooftops in 2005 instead of letting the Democrats kill the bill which would have at least moderated the crisis. But, of course, if he had done that he wouldn't have been able to run for president because nobody likes a Grinch. His opponent, Barack Obama, is trying his darndest to wriggle out of his share of responsibility for all of this, but that's pretty hard when it's a simple fact that he took the third biggest money envelope Fannie and Freddie handed out last year.
In the 1990's some congresscritters, mostly Democrats, noticed that many inner city people could not qualify for mortgages because they could not provide a record of income sufficient to justify a mortgage. So they passed a law with some Republican votes requiring banks to provide so called "no document" mortgages without checking the borrowers income. Furthermore the law required Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to buy those mortgages from the banks. A former law had established Fannie and Freddie as quasi arms of the government, which allowed them, in turn to borrow money from the Treasury and from others at lower interest rates than usually required for such things as mortgages. The Federal Government thus became sort of responsible for the debts of Fannie and Freddie.
If congress had just restricted such "no doc" mortgages to cheap housing in the inner cities all would have stayed manageable. But noooooooooo! The congresscritters, Democrats and Republicans, quickly figured that it would be unfair to only let poor people take advantage of the system like that - so they quickly raised the limit on such mortgages to middle class and even wealthy people. After that it became all the rage for banks to offer everybody who couldn't or didn't want to prove their income "no doc" mortgages.
As a result pretty soon banks were writing big mortgages on first homes and even on second and third, fourth and fifth home mortgages on a "no doc" basis. This all resulted in a very enjoyable party wherein folks were buying and selling homes like sausages, especially in Florida and California. If you doubt this you can turn on the TV and find a show called Flip That House which is all about how everybody can get rich by buying houses, fixing them up a bit and then selling them for big profits. Naturally all this game playing drove the price of housing up to the sky in the hot markets.
It all worked quite nicely while home prices continued to go up fast because people could take out a new mortgage to pay their old mortgage. But then in the early part of this decade the nasty old Grinches, like Warren Buffet, tried to spoil Christmas by pointing out the old Chinese proverb that "No tree grows to the sky."
So, in 2005, some congresscritters (mostly spoil sport Republicans this time, including John McCain) noticed that Fannie and Freddie were writing an awful lot of bad mortgages, and they were also fostering a market in blindingly complex bonds and betting pools called "derivatives" which were being sold and kept in bank and insurance company vaults as assets just as though they were real money. The Republicans were shouted down in 2005 because they were gutless wimps and because nobody wanted to leave off drinking the champagne and eating the caviar that came of writing and trading and betting on all these interesting new "derivatives" even though nobody could really understand them.
So there you have it. High finance in a few paragraphs. That is what brought us to where we are now, when even the smartest financial wizards don't know what those "derivatives" are worth, and when if the government doesn't bail out all the dumb banks and insurance companies the whole shebang will come apart.
As an aside, practically every well known congressman and senator except John McCain was on the Fannie and Freddie payroll to keep the party running as long as possible. And even McCain is not blameless because he should have shouted his concerns from the rooftops in 2005 instead of letting the Democrats kill the bill which would have at least moderated the crisis. But, of course, if he had done that he wouldn't have been able to run for president because nobody likes a Grinch. His opponent, Barack Obama, is trying his darndest to wriggle out of his share of responsibility for all of this, but that's pretty hard when it's a simple fact that he took the third biggest money envelope Fannie and Freddie handed out last year.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Perspective please
Sam called me earlier and we talked about all these economic problems that are in the news. Now. . . first of all I don't think the Washington idiots are going to so mishandle things as to put the country into a real depression. But even if they're a whole lot more stupid than they seem, lets keep a little perspective.
1. This is America. If you find yourself on a streetcorner starving the police will pick you up and take you to a place where folks in white coats will feed you unless you actively resist.
2. Even if things get so bad that they no longer pick up starving people and feed them, Grandpop A mostly fed, clothed and housed a family of eight on the produce he grew and partly sold from about two acres of worked out ground up near Johnson Highway. It's true he had a Model A Ford to use as a huckster vehicle, but we can use my tractor to haul a cart if need be. If we can't build a cart with the parts from the ten or fifteen cars the extended family owns we probably deserve to starve.
3. Among our extended family we own about eight acres of lawn on former farmland that has been patiently accumulating nitrogen in the soil for thirty years. And Dave and Marianne have an old brick bread oven that just needs a bit of assembly. You say, what about fertilizer? I say the kind of long unworked soil we have will produce good crops for several years before someone will have to open the septic tanks and dip out fertilizer to spread on it. Based on Grandpop A's productivity we can feed something like thirty-five or forty on land we own that's lying fallow. And we wouldn't even have to break that ground laboriously with a spade each spring as he did because I have a tractor that can plow all those acres using a couple gallons of diesel fuel. You say diesel fuel may be unavailable? I say Alex can distill usable fuel for that tractor from the wood of the trees we would be cutting to break even more ground for crops. You want meat? Dave probably still has that old black powder blunderbuss, and the deer in the herd around here are utterly impudent, more than willing to walk within range.
4. If the whole world economy goes into a new dark age the US will be in the position of growing enough food and producing enough energy to sustain its current population at something like 1950's living standards for hundreds of years, if not indefinitely. The highly ironic net result of such a catastrophe would be that most of us would live longer and healthier because we would get more exercise and lose some weight. People aren't going to forget how to make penicillin.
So - lighten up. What's the worst that can happen?
And set yourself up to look on the bright side by reflecting on Grandpop L's saying whenever there would be a seemingly dire source of grief - "These problems only trouble the living."
1. This is America. If you find yourself on a streetcorner starving the police will pick you up and take you to a place where folks in white coats will feed you unless you actively resist.
2. Even if things get so bad that they no longer pick up starving people and feed them, Grandpop A mostly fed, clothed and housed a family of eight on the produce he grew and partly sold from about two acres of worked out ground up near Johnson Highway. It's true he had a Model A Ford to use as a huckster vehicle, but we can use my tractor to haul a cart if need be. If we can't build a cart with the parts from the ten or fifteen cars the extended family owns we probably deserve to starve.
3. Among our extended family we own about eight acres of lawn on former farmland that has been patiently accumulating nitrogen in the soil for thirty years. And Dave and Marianne have an old brick bread oven that just needs a bit of assembly. You say, what about fertilizer? I say the kind of long unworked soil we have will produce good crops for several years before someone will have to open the septic tanks and dip out fertilizer to spread on it. Based on Grandpop A's productivity we can feed something like thirty-five or forty on land we own that's lying fallow. And we wouldn't even have to break that ground laboriously with a spade each spring as he did because I have a tractor that can plow all those acres using a couple gallons of diesel fuel. You say diesel fuel may be unavailable? I say Alex can distill usable fuel for that tractor from the wood of the trees we would be cutting to break even more ground for crops. You want meat? Dave probably still has that old black powder blunderbuss, and the deer in the herd around here are utterly impudent, more than willing to walk within range.
4. If the whole world economy goes into a new dark age the US will be in the position of growing enough food and producing enough energy to sustain its current population at something like 1950's living standards for hundreds of years, if not indefinitely. The highly ironic net result of such a catastrophe would be that most of us would live longer and healthier because we would get more exercise and lose some weight. People aren't going to forget how to make penicillin.
So - lighten up. What's the worst that can happen?
And set yourself up to look on the bright side by reflecting on Grandpop L's saying whenever there would be a seemingly dire source of grief - "These problems only trouble the living."
A sublime confection
For the past couple of weeks I've been listening on and off to an audio novel titled The Book of Air and Shadows by one Michael Gruber, who I’ve never heard of before although I find he has five recently published novels on Amazon. He must have achieved significant success with one and then had publishers eager to bring out his former efforts.
I’m only about halfway through Air and Shadows; yet he has already managed to include a bookie, an intellectual property lawyer, the Russian mob, Shakespeare scholars, a document ciphered in the 16th century, a discussion of world class weightlifting, a Palestinian driver who formerly served as one of Yassir Arafat’s bodyguards, a detailed discussion of bookbinding, a pistol formerly owned by a decorated member of the SS and a world class model. What a sublime confection. When I have such an audio book in the car I yearn for the days of long commutes.
In enumerating the list above I’m only scratching the surface of the complexity; yet he makes it delightfully readable, or rather listenable. I have to be careful of that distinction because on more than one occasion I've found novels that enrapture me in audio to later bore me on the printed page - and not because I’ve read them as my second go around, already knowing the plot. I often reread novels, yet I only rarely find my first judgment faulty on second or third reading. The very best novels, in fact, become like old friends, improving with the rereading at different stages of life. In that class I can name, off the top of my head: Tai-Pan, Hawaii, The Godfather, The Mote in God's Eye, The Winds of War, War and Remembrance, Shogun, Stranger in a Strange Land, Shibumi, A Soldier of the Great War, Kim. . . I'd better stop; the list could go on for a long time.
Lest you think me a total time wastrel I should point out that I took a one credit hour speed reading course way back when at Illinois Tech. I came out of that course barely able to sustain eleven hundred words per minute, almost a page of easy material at a glance; although a headache would stop me after about a half hour. So, when I say I read something, I might mean I savored it at a couple of hundred words per minute, and I might mean I slammed through it at six or seven hundred words per minute. There was a time when I could slam through an interesting novel of a certain sort at almost a thousand words per minute without the headache.
Here's a cheery thought for you young folks - the performance of one's central processing unit, among other things, does not improve with age; and furthermore, as a general rule, what does not improve over time degrades over time. I used to see more than a dozen stars in The Great Square of Pegasus - now I see two. That is not all the result of light pollution.
The physicist Richard Feynman did a long running study of his own central processing unit by regularly doing certain mental calculations and recording the time and accuracy in his notebook. If you find his writeup of that study it will not improve your mood. There's another great book - What Do You Care What Other People Think - and another - Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman. Not for nothing did Freeman Dyson once refer to him as "all genius, all buffoon" - what a character. I once believed that I had attained a glimmer of understanding of why his seemingly simple little idea of Feynman Diagrams was worthy of a Nobel Prize in physics but I gave up on thinking I understood that kind of stuff a long time ago.
Another related story, Albert Einstein once wrote a simple little book in plain language about general relativity. I can't remember the title; but I remember foolishly thinking I understood what he was saying - this was back when I foolishly thought I grasped the Lorentz Transformations because I could ponderously follow the equations when they were laid out in front of me. Later I read that Niels Bohr, I think, once said that there were perhaps a dozen people in the world capable of fully understanding the implications of Einstein's simple little book. Taking Bohr as speaking figuratively, I knew one of those "dozen" once, and had a bit of a chance to appreciate the workings of her mind - in fact that has a lot to do with why I'm a words schlub rather than a science schlub; but I see that I have digressed a bit - that's a story for another day.
Anyway, I’ll definitely find The Book of Air and Shadows as a print book after I finish the audio. I hope it doesn’t disappoint.
I’m only about halfway through Air and Shadows; yet he has already managed to include a bookie, an intellectual property lawyer, the Russian mob, Shakespeare scholars, a document ciphered in the 16th century, a discussion of world class weightlifting, a Palestinian driver who formerly served as one of Yassir Arafat’s bodyguards, a detailed discussion of bookbinding, a pistol formerly owned by a decorated member of the SS and a world class model. What a sublime confection. When I have such an audio book in the car I yearn for the days of long commutes.
In enumerating the list above I’m only scratching the surface of the complexity; yet he makes it delightfully readable, or rather listenable. I have to be careful of that distinction because on more than one occasion I've found novels that enrapture me in audio to later bore me on the printed page - and not because I’ve read them as my second go around, already knowing the plot. I often reread novels, yet I only rarely find my first judgment faulty on second or third reading. The very best novels, in fact, become like old friends, improving with the rereading at different stages of life. In that class I can name, off the top of my head: Tai-Pan, Hawaii, The Godfather, The Mote in God's Eye, The Winds of War, War and Remembrance, Shogun, Stranger in a Strange Land, Shibumi, A Soldier of the Great War, Kim. . . I'd better stop; the list could go on for a long time.
Lest you think me a total time wastrel I should point out that I took a one credit hour speed reading course way back when at Illinois Tech. I came out of that course barely able to sustain eleven hundred words per minute, almost a page of easy material at a glance; although a headache would stop me after about a half hour. So, when I say I read something, I might mean I savored it at a couple of hundred words per minute, and I might mean I slammed through it at six or seven hundred words per minute. There was a time when I could slam through an interesting novel of a certain sort at almost a thousand words per minute without the headache.
Here's a cheery thought for you young folks - the performance of one's central processing unit, among other things, does not improve with age; and furthermore, as a general rule, what does not improve over time degrades over time. I used to see more than a dozen stars in The Great Square of Pegasus - now I see two. That is not all the result of light pollution.
The physicist Richard Feynman did a long running study of his own central processing unit by regularly doing certain mental calculations and recording the time and accuracy in his notebook. If you find his writeup of that study it will not improve your mood. There's another great book - What Do You Care What Other People Think - and another - Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman. Not for nothing did Freeman Dyson once refer to him as "all genius, all buffoon" - what a character. I once believed that I had attained a glimmer of understanding of why his seemingly simple little idea of Feynman Diagrams was worthy of a Nobel Prize in physics but I gave up on thinking I understood that kind of stuff a long time ago.
Another related story, Albert Einstein once wrote a simple little book in plain language about general relativity. I can't remember the title; but I remember foolishly thinking I understood what he was saying - this was back when I foolishly thought I grasped the Lorentz Transformations because I could ponderously follow the equations when they were laid out in front of me. Later I read that Niels Bohr, I think, once said that there were perhaps a dozen people in the world capable of fully understanding the implications of Einstein's simple little book. Taking Bohr as speaking figuratively, I knew one of those "dozen" once, and had a bit of a chance to appreciate the workings of her mind - in fact that has a lot to do with why I'm a words schlub rather than a science schlub; but I see that I have digressed a bit - that's a story for another day.
Anyway, I’ll definitely find The Book of Air and Shadows as a print book after I finish the audio. I hope it doesn’t disappoint.
Monday, September 22, 2008
Many people believe in many strange things
This article in the Wall Street Journal by Mollie Ziegler Hemingway discusses an interesting paradox. It turns out that religious people are actually somewhat more more likely to be rational than non-religious people when it comes to things like Atlantis, bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, ghosts, etc.
The author points out that Bill Maher, for example, who often mocks people who believe in a "sky god" as he puts it, turns out not to believe in scientific medicine. This in the face of a hundred years of evidence, a good bit of which evidence he surely saw with his own eyes in the simple fact that we and our children are far healthier over all than the average of our grandparents and their children. He doesn't believe that vaccination is what wiped out polio, for instance, even though he actually lived through the time when the disease was eliminated. Sheer bloodyminded idiocy. Bill Maher is a short slim strunze.
The Baylor University study that the author refers to got results exactly opposite to what I would have expected. At any rate I found this to be an interesting article.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122178219865054585.html
The author points out that Bill Maher, for example, who often mocks people who believe in a "sky god" as he puts it, turns out not to believe in scientific medicine. This in the face of a hundred years of evidence, a good bit of which evidence he surely saw with his own eyes in the simple fact that we and our children are far healthier over all than the average of our grandparents and their children. He doesn't believe that vaccination is what wiped out polio, for instance, even though he actually lived through the time when the disease was eliminated. Sheer bloodyminded idiocy. Bill Maher is a short slim strunze.
The Baylor University study that the author refers to got results exactly opposite to what I would have expected. At any rate I found this to be an interesting article.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122178219865054585.html
It seems Sarah Palin really drew out the geezers
Jas thought last evening that Sarah Palin pulled in a crowd of 18,000 at The Villages the other day. The fire chief of The Villages estimated 60,000. I've seen other estimates as low as 25,000.
One way or another that's quite a crowd. I was a little surprised to see somewhere else that Joe Biden only drew 2,000 when he went there. Maybe Palin offered a blue plate special to get her big crowd. On the other hand Biden must have tried to charge them or something. I know Biden is boring, but heck, there are usually 2,000 or so wandering around lost and confused in The Villages at any given time.
My impression of The Villages is that you can get a bigger crowd than 2,000 if you spread the rumor that you'll give out free boiled peanuts and new rubber feet for people's walkers and canes. For those of you who haven't experienced boiled peanuts I'll just say that you haven't really lived until you try them and learn what people will eat when they're starving.
I wonder if Al and Doris dropped by to see Palin.
http://news-press.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080921/NEWS0107/80921022
One way or another that's quite a crowd. I was a little surprised to see somewhere else that Joe Biden only drew 2,000 when he went there. Maybe Palin offered a blue plate special to get her big crowd. On the other hand Biden must have tried to charge them or something. I know Biden is boring, but heck, there are usually 2,000 or so wandering around lost and confused in The Villages at any given time.
My impression of The Villages is that you can get a bigger crowd than 2,000 if you spread the rumor that you'll give out free boiled peanuts and new rubber feet for people's walkers and canes. For those of you who haven't experienced boiled peanuts I'll just say that you haven't really lived until you try them and learn what people will eat when they're starving.
I wonder if Al and Doris dropped by to see Palin.
http://news-press.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080921/NEWS0107/80921022
The few, the proud, the hardheads
The fellow quoted below went the full mile in his attempt to qualify for a Darwin award, but failed because he survived Hurricane Ike. Others may feel differently, but I'm glad there are still people like this around to keep things interesting. I'd like to meet him. The link at bottom leads to a nice picture of him sitting on the porch where he rode out the storm. He looks a lot like Popeye's old Pappy.
Here are a couple of questions to ponder. Why do we take lots of risks when we're young and have decades of life to lose? Why do we become conservative and avoid risks like the plague when we're old and don't have so much to lose?
"Ray Wilkinson doesn't consider himself a hero for being the only Surfside Beach resident to ride out Hurricane Ike in his home.
Rather, the 67-year-old Marine Corps veteran considers himself to be the only one "stupid enough" to stay behind.
"I'm just a crazy, old hardhead," said Wilkinson, while sitting on the front porch of his Fort Velasco Boulevard apartment today. "I didn't say I had all my marbles."
The 30-year Surfside Beach resident said he watched the frenzy of Ike's arrival from the front porch of his upstairs apartment, which faces away from the beach.
"I just saw all kinds of goodies floating away, like my refrigerator downstairs," he said. "I watched automobiles floating by," like a Volvo that traveled for several blocks before ending up in a ditch."
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/chronicle/5999563.html
Here are a couple of questions to ponder. Why do we take lots of risks when we're young and have decades of life to lose? Why do we become conservative and avoid risks like the plague when we're old and don't have so much to lose?
"Ray Wilkinson doesn't consider himself a hero for being the only Surfside Beach resident to ride out Hurricane Ike in his home.
Rather, the 67-year-old Marine Corps veteran considers himself to be the only one "stupid enough" to stay behind.
"I'm just a crazy, old hardhead," said Wilkinson, while sitting on the front porch of his Fort Velasco Boulevard apartment today. "I didn't say I had all my marbles."
The 30-year Surfside Beach resident said he watched the frenzy of Ike's arrival from the front porch of his upstairs apartment, which faces away from the beach.
"I just saw all kinds of goodies floating away, like my refrigerator downstairs," he said. "I watched automobiles floating by," like a Volvo that traveled for several blocks before ending up in a ditch."
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/chronicle/5999563.html
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Shakespeare farce in Phoenixville
Last evening Linda and I went to see Shakespeare in Hollywood at the Forge theater in Phoenixville. It's quite an amusing little farce - based on an actual film of Midsummers Night's Dream which was produced in Hollywood in 1935.
I just googled the 1935 film and learned that it did indeed star James Cagney, Olivia DeHaviland and Dick Powell, among others. Linda mentioned after the play that we're going to have to seek out the film and see it one of these days.
I recommend the play if you can get to Phoenixville to see it by October 4th. Tis true it's written about like a typical high schooler's satire, but then Shakespeare's play itself has a plot like a typical high schooler written satire. Midsummers Night's Dream is the one where a character is changed into a jackass and in which a magic spell causes characters to fall into hopeless love with the first person they see when they wake up. Of course, Shakespeare's play may be a smidgen better written than a typical high schooler's if you can handle all that iambic pentameter stuff.
Have I mentioned that I wrote a play back in high school, and even published it on the school mimeo machine? There was no iambic pentameter; but there was a fair run of poetry in one rather humorous scene. It was overwhelmingly well received by the cast and a small audience at its first reading. And it garnered quite a bit of word of mouth. That play could well have had a run like Midsummers Night's Dream had it not been altogether less well received by the principal and head disciplinarian when the word of mouth reached them. Alas, it never opened to wider audiences, and all the mimeo copies were rudely destroyed by the book burners. Worst was that all of our study halls, and all of our detention hours, were closely monitored after that, eliminating all scope for creativity.
Anyway, enough of life's little trials and the sacrifices made for art. Here's a little sample of the 1935 film that's precious:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGYghQtsumo&feature=related
I just googled the 1935 film and learned that it did indeed star James Cagney, Olivia DeHaviland and Dick Powell, among others. Linda mentioned after the play that we're going to have to seek out the film and see it one of these days.
I recommend the play if you can get to Phoenixville to see it by October 4th. Tis true it's written about like a typical high schooler's satire, but then Shakespeare's play itself has a plot like a typical high schooler written satire. Midsummers Night's Dream is the one where a character is changed into a jackass and in which a magic spell causes characters to fall into hopeless love with the first person they see when they wake up. Of course, Shakespeare's play may be a smidgen better written than a typical high schooler's if you can handle all that iambic pentameter stuff.
Have I mentioned that I wrote a play back in high school, and even published it on the school mimeo machine? There was no iambic pentameter; but there was a fair run of poetry in one rather humorous scene. It was overwhelmingly well received by the cast and a small audience at its first reading. And it garnered quite a bit of word of mouth. That play could well have had a run like Midsummers Night's Dream had it not been altogether less well received by the principal and head disciplinarian when the word of mouth reached them. Alas, it never opened to wider audiences, and all the mimeo copies were rudely destroyed by the book burners. Worst was that all of our study halls, and all of our detention hours, were closely monitored after that, eliminating all scope for creativity.
Anyway, enough of life's little trials and the sacrifices made for art. Here's a little sample of the 1935 film that's precious:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGYghQtsumo&feature=related
Friday, September 19, 2008
Pop and Uncle Joe Sky's restaurant
Debra asked on Labor Day if Pop once ran a restaurant. I’ve been thinking about that for two weeks now. What do I know about that? And what do I think I know? It resides in that recess of my mind where the memories of what I actually saw and heard at the time jostle with the memories of what Pop and Mom and others related about it later.
In that regard this is an especially mixed up story because Pop and Mom talked about it often both between themselves and with us from the 1960’s on. And then, most confusingly, it was one of the things Pop talked to me about during those long days and nights in the hospital at the end of his life. Why he picked up on the restaurant story I don’t know; although it did fit in some ways with other things he was interested in talking about during those long weeks of the vigil.
Late at night I would return to his room after a little walk while he was asleep, and I would find him awake; and he would tell me stories of the old days. In the hospital, much more so than in former times, he was responsive when I asked questions, perhaps because I was grown up then and perhaps because he felt more comfortable about sharing things about what was by then the distant past, most of the participants gone. When I was young Pop didn’t exactly dodge questions; but he had a way of skirting around and answering a different question, or he would change the subject. And then he would just laugh when I clumsily tried to pin him down.
So beware! This story about the restaurant is formed from a very few direct observations folded into three decades of stories, including stories told to me at a very emotional time. I’m going to tell it as though I’m confident I have it straight, which is always questionable. I’ve been known to realize after ten years of telling a story that I have a wrong character in it, or I have the era wrong, or I have it mixed with some other story.
With that warning, here goes. First off, Pop definitely did run a restaurant. He ran it with Uncle Joe Sky during a period when both of them were underemployed because of some special circumstances. Pop and Uncle Joe needed temporary work and some income; and Tommy, or maybe it was Reds, knew a fellow who needed a liquor license. As I understand it, a liquor license was easier to get, or cheaper, if you could show that you already had a functioning restaurant for a year or so. The restaurant didn’t actually need to be at the place where you wanted to use the liquor license; it just needed to be nearby – or something like that.
At any rate, Tommy's friend rented a small storefront on Main Street down past the Conte Luna factory toward Black Horse, on the way to Conshohocken. Don A, down in Florida now, told me that section of Main Street and the blocks between it and the river were called Mogeetown or Miggietown way back when.
So now Pop and Uncle Joe have a storefront for their restaurant. It must have been a deli or something like it in a former life; because it had a couple of booths with tables, and a counter and such. It was laid out to serve cold sandwiches. In the era before supermarkets it's owner probably also sold a few varieties of canned goods. It had a regular kitchen stove rather than a grill behind the counter; which was probably just as well. I doubt either of Pop or Uncle Joe was much of a cook back then.
So, they had a restaurant, but they needed supplies. And the way this deal worked is that the guy who wanted the liquor license provided the restaurant and all the needed supplies; and Uncle Joe and Pop earned something each week in the manner of wages. Plus, they got to keep any revenues from the food they served.
So on the weekend that they started Mom and Aunt Mary R were there cleaning the place. I think Aunt Lucy, Uncle Joe's wife, was sick then which was probably why she wasn’t there. Pop and me and, I think, Norfi, Cappy, Doc and Uncle Joe were out front. The restaurant was in one of those irregular shaped buildings that result when streets don’t cross at right angles; and I was interested in how the walls were angled back. None of the four corners of that building were right angles. I had to squeeze down the narrow alley on one side of the building to get in the back to see the fourth corner. Mom and Aunt Mary wouldn’t let me go through to get to the back because the floor was wet or something. Or else I decided not to try to go through the building to the back. I was old enough to know that when they were in that kind of cleaning frenzy, with ammonia and buckets and mops and scrub brushes, it was best to stay clear.
Anyway, Pop and the boys, and Uncle Joe in his suit, were out front on the sidewalk talking like they always did, and a car drives up. And the driver gets out and shakes hands with Pop and Uncle Joe after asking, “You Johnny?” I can't remember what he called Uncle Joe. Then he pops the trunk of the car and unloads a few cases of coffee mugs. Then from the back seat he unloads a couple or three more cases of coffee mugs. And from the front seat he produces a box of stainless steel flatware - forks, spoons, butter knives - all jumbled in a large cardboard box which he picks up carefully and carries from underneath, because it’s heavy.
I should explain that Pop didn’t help in unloading or anything physical because even back then he had to be pretty careful how he exerted himself. If he wasn’t careful he could end up spending a long time trying to catch his breath, holding his hand out to you if you asked a question. He had to concentrate all his attention on the task when he caught his breath. So he didn't help; but now that I think about it that guy didn’t ask for help, or seem to want help. He just went about unloading the car and carrying the stuff inside.
Anyway, that guy leaves. And a little later, Uncle Nicky drives up in the dump truck from the factory where he worked. He had been down to Philly; and he had that truck filled with stuff. He and Norfi and Cappy start to unload five or six huge boxes of paper towels, and boxes of napkins and paper cups, and plates and saucers and steak knives and cases of canned foods and all sorts of other stuff. And again I should explain about division of labor. Doc was a real doctor, so he didn't do anything manual that might hurt his hands. He was in good shape and all, and he played ball at the Redpeppers picnic, although come to think of it he always had a pinch runner like Pop, and the boys treated him just like one of the guys; but the thought of him doing physical work just didn't occur to him or anyone else. Uncle Joe Sky was the same in a way. He was a stander out of the way when physical work was being done back then; although later he became a manual laborer to support the second family he started after Aunt Lucy died.
So I didn't think it was odd that Pop and Doc and Uncle Joe just watches as Norfi and Cappy and Uncle Nicky did the physical work even though they were not involved in the restaurant except as bystanders. Just as I didn't think it odd that Uncle Nicky used the company truck on weekends whenever anything needed to be moved, or that he would show up at our house in Trooper with that truck and unload, for instance, a full set of the Encyclopedia Brittanica which I much later realized was the 1913 edition. A funny story how I came to realize that, but that's another digression.
Cappy and Uncle Nicky and Norfi did the work because they were factory guys to whom manual work came naturally. I later learned that Norfi was a very elite sort of factory guy, a highly skilled machinist who made one of a kind parts of exotic alloys for the space program. But in almost naturally doing manual types of work Norfi was just like Cappy and Uncle Nicky.
So, they unload paper products, and dishes, and then they start unloading cases of food. They unload until Mom comes out and says there isn’t enough room in the restaurant or in the back room to put all this stuff. So back onto the truck go three or four big cases of paper towels, and a few cases of coffee mugs, and cases of napkins, and other stuff as Mom and Aunt Mary sort and decide how much of each thing needs to be there at the restaurant, and how much else will fit in the back room.
After that Uncle Nicky couldn’t very well take that unneeded stuff back to Philly, so he took it to Grandmom L’s house and put it in the cellar there. I remember that those paper towels lasted for several years, and that was with all the aunts using as many rolls of paper towels as they wanted. Mom used those coffee mugs in Trooper and in Collegeville for the next thirty years. For a long time there was a case of those coffee mugs in the basement in Trooper; but eventually that was gone after all of its mugs were taken to replace broken ones upstairs. I wouldn’t be surprised if Marianne and Dave have some of the surviving coffee mugs from that case at their house.
Come to think of it Aunt Mary R used those mugs at her house all the way through the 1990's when Mom lived down there with her after Pop died. Here’s a laugh. I’d almost be willing to bet that Frankie Jiggs or Gussie have some of those coffee mugs down in Maryland to this day, or that Al R has some of them down in Florida. And if Angela has some in her condo in San Diego it wouldn't surprise me in the least. They were very good coffee mugs, with just the right balance and heft. An olympic swimming pool of coffee was served in those mugs. We're talking about an era wherein I, or any of a couple dozen cousins, could walk into the delicious smelling kitchen of any one of eight or ten houses through the unlocked side door and immediately be offered coffee and cookies and conversation and then "Can you stay for dinner? I'm making. . ."
So what else can I say. Pop mostly ran the restaurant for the year because Uncle Joe wasn’t really cut out for hanging around a restaurant. Pop, on the other hand, was perfectly cut out for hanging around a restaurant. One or two or three of the boys were always stopping by to have a cup of coffee and talk. And Pop knew just about everybody in Norristown, or it seemed that way. So anybody who walked in would be a conversation about sports or politics or the old days. Mostly Pop sold cold sandwiches. He made zeps and hoagies on Corropolese or Morabito rolls; and he also made plain lunch meat sandwiches on spongy white American bread, which a surprising lot of people were willing to eat just like it was real bread.
Pop also got to where he made pretty good peppers and eggs. And that was when he started making ham and eggs with deli type boiled ham; because he was being supplied with far too much lunch meat for what he was selling. He was even being supplied with too much of the expensive stuff like sliced boiled ham. I guess the guy who wanted the liquor license didn’t mind the expense, because for that whole year cars came up from Philly bringing more supplies and food than Pop could possibly use. I remember him saying that he even told the delivery guy that it was too much. But the next week there the guy would be again, with too much stuff. It was a major issue he talked often with Mom about, getting rid of the stuff without wasting it.
Not that too much stuff was ever really a bad thing back then, at least not in Mom’s opinion. Some of the extra supplies came home, although we became resistant about eating restaurant type stuff after a while. Anyway, the last thing we needed was meat, what with Butch bringing a box of meat from the butcher shop every Wednesday night when he and Rose came over to play canasta.
There was always too much lunch meat, Butch would simply bring way too much, no matter what Mom said. Three or four inches thick of baloney and of white American cheese; maybe a couple inches thick of Italian salami; and always a stack of deli ham two or three or even four inches thick in the box with the ground meat and the chip steaks and the t-bone steaks and maybe a pork roast or whatever else mom had ordered. And then there might be a ring baloney on top. Nobody but Butch himself ate much ring baloney, other than Jippon.
By Sunday Jippon would have eaten the leftover ring baloney. And on Monday and Tuesday, Jippon would be eating baloney and American cheese. Jippon even ate boiled ham sometimes; but that used to make Mom a little crazy, feeding expensive boiled ham to the dog. And she would tell the story of Grandmom L in the 1930's, feeding ten on pasta and one pound of ground meat made into enough meatballs with a couple of eggs and a lot of bread crumbs. Sometimes she would even go on to the story about them trapping blackbirds which I acted like I believed, but never really did believe.
How could I believe that someone ate scrawny blackbirds when the controversy in our house was about someone getting tired of eating steak, although even then we ate linguinis at least a couple or three times a week, with meatballs. But the meatballs had to have a good mix of bread crumbs in them, just as hamburgers had to have a generous mix of breadcrumbs. We would resist if Mom made them too heavy on the ground meat.
Jippon ate a lot of leftover meatballs and hamburgers too. He was not as particular as us. He liked them if they were too meaty, and he liked them if they had a good mix of bread crumbs. He especially liked the ribs from the gravy. You could make him jump surprisingly high to get his teeth on one of those ribs. But you had to be alert; because Jippon's patience had a distinct limit. If you frustrated him beyond a certain point he would suddenly abandon the game you were playing and go after your ankles, fast as lightning. Just to nip, mind you. But he could convince you that the next time he might bite hard.
The extra supplies from the restaurant also went to the various aunts, of course - Aunt Mary R and Aunt Lucy and Aunt Carmella and Aunt Mary P - and to the wives of the boys whose families lived on Penn Street. And then Pop could usually send some stuff home with whichever of the boys stopped by who didn't live on Penn Street any more. And at least a few times Mom filled up a box of lunch meats and eggs and milk and stuff and had me take it over to Doris S. Mom somehow had the feeling that the other neighbors in Trooper were too proud or something to accept a box of food; but she was easy about it with Doris, who she knew from before. I think Doris worked at Logrip's rug mill when Mom was the bookkeeper there just after the war.
So that’s the story of Pop and Uncle Joe Sky’s restaurant, which was really more of a luncheonette. I’ve tried and tried to zero in on what year that was. I think I was at least ten or so years old, so it couldn’t have been before about 1958; and I’m sure I wasn’t in high school yet, so it had to be before 1962. I know that because Pop and Uncle Joe Sky were no longer working together by the time I was in high school.
About the time I started high school Pop started driving the school bus for Visitation School; and a little later he started working nights at St. Gabe's home for boys, tending the boiler in the brick machine building on Park Avenue. That was the perfect job for him because he could mostly sit and read his paper, or listen to a West Coast ball game, or do his crossword puzzles while keeping an eye on the water level in the boiler and adjusting the valves that controlled how much hot water and steam for heat were going to the residential buildings further from Park Avenue, where the Christian Brothers and the bad boys lived. Perhaps the brothers hired Pop to watch at night because he could relate to the bad boys when one or a few of them would contrive to escape at night and foolishly think they were going to be able to hitch a ride back to Philly.
In that regard this is an especially mixed up story because Pop and Mom talked about it often both between themselves and with us from the 1960’s on. And then, most confusingly, it was one of the things Pop talked to me about during those long days and nights in the hospital at the end of his life. Why he picked up on the restaurant story I don’t know; although it did fit in some ways with other things he was interested in talking about during those long weeks of the vigil.
Late at night I would return to his room after a little walk while he was asleep, and I would find him awake; and he would tell me stories of the old days. In the hospital, much more so than in former times, he was responsive when I asked questions, perhaps because I was grown up then and perhaps because he felt more comfortable about sharing things about what was by then the distant past, most of the participants gone. When I was young Pop didn’t exactly dodge questions; but he had a way of skirting around and answering a different question, or he would change the subject. And then he would just laugh when I clumsily tried to pin him down.
So beware! This story about the restaurant is formed from a very few direct observations folded into three decades of stories, including stories told to me at a very emotional time. I’m going to tell it as though I’m confident I have it straight, which is always questionable. I’ve been known to realize after ten years of telling a story that I have a wrong character in it, or I have the era wrong, or I have it mixed with some other story.
With that warning, here goes. First off, Pop definitely did run a restaurant. He ran it with Uncle Joe Sky during a period when both of them were underemployed because of some special circumstances. Pop and Uncle Joe needed temporary work and some income; and Tommy, or maybe it was Reds, knew a fellow who needed a liquor license. As I understand it, a liquor license was easier to get, or cheaper, if you could show that you already had a functioning restaurant for a year or so. The restaurant didn’t actually need to be at the place where you wanted to use the liquor license; it just needed to be nearby – or something like that.
At any rate, Tommy's friend rented a small storefront on Main Street down past the Conte Luna factory toward Black Horse, on the way to Conshohocken. Don A, down in Florida now, told me that section of Main Street and the blocks between it and the river were called Mogeetown or Miggietown way back when.
So now Pop and Uncle Joe have a storefront for their restaurant. It must have been a deli or something like it in a former life; because it had a couple of booths with tables, and a counter and such. It was laid out to serve cold sandwiches. In the era before supermarkets it's owner probably also sold a few varieties of canned goods. It had a regular kitchen stove rather than a grill behind the counter; which was probably just as well. I doubt either of Pop or Uncle Joe was much of a cook back then.
So, they had a restaurant, but they needed supplies. And the way this deal worked is that the guy who wanted the liquor license provided the restaurant and all the needed supplies; and Uncle Joe and Pop earned something each week in the manner of wages. Plus, they got to keep any revenues from the food they served.
So on the weekend that they started Mom and Aunt Mary R were there cleaning the place. I think Aunt Lucy, Uncle Joe's wife, was sick then which was probably why she wasn’t there. Pop and me and, I think, Norfi, Cappy, Doc and Uncle Joe were out front. The restaurant was in one of those irregular shaped buildings that result when streets don’t cross at right angles; and I was interested in how the walls were angled back. None of the four corners of that building were right angles. I had to squeeze down the narrow alley on one side of the building to get in the back to see the fourth corner. Mom and Aunt Mary wouldn’t let me go through to get to the back because the floor was wet or something. Or else I decided not to try to go through the building to the back. I was old enough to know that when they were in that kind of cleaning frenzy, with ammonia and buckets and mops and scrub brushes, it was best to stay clear.
Anyway, Pop and the boys, and Uncle Joe in his suit, were out front on the sidewalk talking like they always did, and a car drives up. And the driver gets out and shakes hands with Pop and Uncle Joe after asking, “You Johnny?” I can't remember what he called Uncle Joe. Then he pops the trunk of the car and unloads a few cases of coffee mugs. Then from the back seat he unloads a couple or three more cases of coffee mugs. And from the front seat he produces a box of stainless steel flatware - forks, spoons, butter knives - all jumbled in a large cardboard box which he picks up carefully and carries from underneath, because it’s heavy.
I should explain that Pop didn’t help in unloading or anything physical because even back then he had to be pretty careful how he exerted himself. If he wasn’t careful he could end up spending a long time trying to catch his breath, holding his hand out to you if you asked a question. He had to concentrate all his attention on the task when he caught his breath. So he didn't help; but now that I think about it that guy didn’t ask for help, or seem to want help. He just went about unloading the car and carrying the stuff inside.
Anyway, that guy leaves. And a little later, Uncle Nicky drives up in the dump truck from the factory where he worked. He had been down to Philly; and he had that truck filled with stuff. He and Norfi and Cappy start to unload five or six huge boxes of paper towels, and boxes of napkins and paper cups, and plates and saucers and steak knives and cases of canned foods and all sorts of other stuff. And again I should explain about division of labor. Doc was a real doctor, so he didn't do anything manual that might hurt his hands. He was in good shape and all, and he played ball at the Redpeppers picnic, although come to think of it he always had a pinch runner like Pop, and the boys treated him just like one of the guys; but the thought of him doing physical work just didn't occur to him or anyone else. Uncle Joe Sky was the same in a way. He was a stander out of the way when physical work was being done back then; although later he became a manual laborer to support the second family he started after Aunt Lucy died.
So I didn't think it was odd that Pop and Doc and Uncle Joe just watches as Norfi and Cappy and Uncle Nicky did the physical work even though they were not involved in the restaurant except as bystanders. Just as I didn't think it odd that Uncle Nicky used the company truck on weekends whenever anything needed to be moved, or that he would show up at our house in Trooper with that truck and unload, for instance, a full set of the Encyclopedia Brittanica which I much later realized was the 1913 edition. A funny story how I came to realize that, but that's another digression.
Cappy and Uncle Nicky and Norfi did the work because they were factory guys to whom manual work came naturally. I later learned that Norfi was a very elite sort of factory guy, a highly skilled machinist who made one of a kind parts of exotic alloys for the space program. But in almost naturally doing manual types of work Norfi was just like Cappy and Uncle Nicky.
So, they unload paper products, and dishes, and then they start unloading cases of food. They unload until Mom comes out and says there isn’t enough room in the restaurant or in the back room to put all this stuff. So back onto the truck go three or four big cases of paper towels, and a few cases of coffee mugs, and cases of napkins, and other stuff as Mom and Aunt Mary sort and decide how much of each thing needs to be there at the restaurant, and how much else will fit in the back room.
After that Uncle Nicky couldn’t very well take that unneeded stuff back to Philly, so he took it to Grandmom L’s house and put it in the cellar there. I remember that those paper towels lasted for several years, and that was with all the aunts using as many rolls of paper towels as they wanted. Mom used those coffee mugs in Trooper and in Collegeville for the next thirty years. For a long time there was a case of those coffee mugs in the basement in Trooper; but eventually that was gone after all of its mugs were taken to replace broken ones upstairs. I wouldn’t be surprised if Marianne and Dave have some of the surviving coffee mugs from that case at their house.
Come to think of it Aunt Mary R used those mugs at her house all the way through the 1990's when Mom lived down there with her after Pop died. Here’s a laugh. I’d almost be willing to bet that Frankie Jiggs or Gussie have some of those coffee mugs down in Maryland to this day, or that Al R has some of them down in Florida. And if Angela has some in her condo in San Diego it wouldn't surprise me in the least. They were very good coffee mugs, with just the right balance and heft. An olympic swimming pool of coffee was served in those mugs. We're talking about an era wherein I, or any of a couple dozen cousins, could walk into the delicious smelling kitchen of any one of eight or ten houses through the unlocked side door and immediately be offered coffee and cookies and conversation and then "Can you stay for dinner? I'm making. . ."
So what else can I say. Pop mostly ran the restaurant for the year because Uncle Joe wasn’t really cut out for hanging around a restaurant. Pop, on the other hand, was perfectly cut out for hanging around a restaurant. One or two or three of the boys were always stopping by to have a cup of coffee and talk. And Pop knew just about everybody in Norristown, or it seemed that way. So anybody who walked in would be a conversation about sports or politics or the old days. Mostly Pop sold cold sandwiches. He made zeps and hoagies on Corropolese or Morabito rolls; and he also made plain lunch meat sandwiches on spongy white American bread, which a surprising lot of people were willing to eat just like it was real bread.
Pop also got to where he made pretty good peppers and eggs. And that was when he started making ham and eggs with deli type boiled ham; because he was being supplied with far too much lunch meat for what he was selling. He was even being supplied with too much of the expensive stuff like sliced boiled ham. I guess the guy who wanted the liquor license didn’t mind the expense, because for that whole year cars came up from Philly bringing more supplies and food than Pop could possibly use. I remember him saying that he even told the delivery guy that it was too much. But the next week there the guy would be again, with too much stuff. It was a major issue he talked often with Mom about, getting rid of the stuff without wasting it.
Not that too much stuff was ever really a bad thing back then, at least not in Mom’s opinion. Some of the extra supplies came home, although we became resistant about eating restaurant type stuff after a while. Anyway, the last thing we needed was meat, what with Butch bringing a box of meat from the butcher shop every Wednesday night when he and Rose came over to play canasta.
There was always too much lunch meat, Butch would simply bring way too much, no matter what Mom said. Three or four inches thick of baloney and of white American cheese; maybe a couple inches thick of Italian salami; and always a stack of deli ham two or three or even four inches thick in the box with the ground meat and the chip steaks and the t-bone steaks and maybe a pork roast or whatever else mom had ordered. And then there might be a ring baloney on top. Nobody but Butch himself ate much ring baloney, other than Jippon.
By Sunday Jippon would have eaten the leftover ring baloney. And on Monday and Tuesday, Jippon would be eating baloney and American cheese. Jippon even ate boiled ham sometimes; but that used to make Mom a little crazy, feeding expensive boiled ham to the dog. And she would tell the story of Grandmom L in the 1930's, feeding ten on pasta and one pound of ground meat made into enough meatballs with a couple of eggs and a lot of bread crumbs. Sometimes she would even go on to the story about them trapping blackbirds which I acted like I believed, but never really did believe.
How could I believe that someone ate scrawny blackbirds when the controversy in our house was about someone getting tired of eating steak, although even then we ate linguinis at least a couple or three times a week, with meatballs. But the meatballs had to have a good mix of bread crumbs in them, just as hamburgers had to have a generous mix of breadcrumbs. We would resist if Mom made them too heavy on the ground meat.
Jippon ate a lot of leftover meatballs and hamburgers too. He was not as particular as us. He liked them if they were too meaty, and he liked them if they had a good mix of bread crumbs. He especially liked the ribs from the gravy. You could make him jump surprisingly high to get his teeth on one of those ribs. But you had to be alert; because Jippon's patience had a distinct limit. If you frustrated him beyond a certain point he would suddenly abandon the game you were playing and go after your ankles, fast as lightning. Just to nip, mind you. But he could convince you that the next time he might bite hard.
The extra supplies from the restaurant also went to the various aunts, of course - Aunt Mary R and Aunt Lucy and Aunt Carmella and Aunt Mary P - and to the wives of the boys whose families lived on Penn Street. And then Pop could usually send some stuff home with whichever of the boys stopped by who didn't live on Penn Street any more. And at least a few times Mom filled up a box of lunch meats and eggs and milk and stuff and had me take it over to Doris S. Mom somehow had the feeling that the other neighbors in Trooper were too proud or something to accept a box of food; but she was easy about it with Doris, who she knew from before. I think Doris worked at Logrip's rug mill when Mom was the bookkeeper there just after the war.
So that’s the story of Pop and Uncle Joe Sky’s restaurant, which was really more of a luncheonette. I’ve tried and tried to zero in on what year that was. I think I was at least ten or so years old, so it couldn’t have been before about 1958; and I’m sure I wasn’t in high school yet, so it had to be before 1962. I know that because Pop and Uncle Joe Sky were no longer working together by the time I was in high school.
About the time I started high school Pop started driving the school bus for Visitation School; and a little later he started working nights at St. Gabe's home for boys, tending the boiler in the brick machine building on Park Avenue. That was the perfect job for him because he could mostly sit and read his paper, or listen to a West Coast ball game, or do his crossword puzzles while keeping an eye on the water level in the boiler and adjusting the valves that controlled how much hot water and steam for heat were going to the residential buildings further from Park Avenue, where the Christian Brothers and the bad boys lived. Perhaps the brothers hired Pop to watch at night because he could relate to the bad boys when one or a few of them would contrive to escape at night and foolishly think they were going to be able to hitch a ride back to Philly.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Life doesn't get much better than this
I just ate a delicious fig fresh from the tree. Last night Linda and I shared four others. And there are a few more ripening.
The fig tree has clearly adapted well to it's new in-ground site after its years in the pot. Now all I have to do is make sure I wrap it properly for the winter and next year there will be a massive crop. I have a couple of 1943 pictures of Grandpop A's Penn Street backyard wrapped and bucket helmeted fig tree as a guide, but I trust someone out there on the net has posted step by step instructions.
I may even share a couple of figs with others next year.
The fig tree has clearly adapted well to it's new in-ground site after its years in the pot. Now all I have to do is make sure I wrap it properly for the winter and next year there will be a massive crop. I have a couple of 1943 pictures of Grandpop A's Penn Street backyard wrapped and bucket helmeted fig tree as a guide, but I trust someone out there on the net has posted step by step instructions.
I may even share a couple of figs with others next year.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Insurance company management is all about controlling risk
It's not often that I find something I totally disagree with on National Review's blog The Corner, but today I came across something incredible.
In a comment about the AIG bailout, Mark Hemingway wrote in part:
". . . AIG underwrites a massive amount of credit default swaps — which are very similar to insurance contracts for debt instruments. While I wouldn't say AIG couldn't have done anything to avoid their predicament, in some important respects, AIG's financial burdens were not created through their own mismanagement so much as being left holding the bag on these contracts after the failings of its customers. . ."
My comment on this is that AIG is an Insurance Company. The core business of an Insurance Company is to insure risks. The essential core of insuring risks is to avoid taking on so much of any one kind of risk as to put at risk the company's ability to survive the failure of any one type of risk. Insurance companies justify their existence and make their profits precisely by being responsible for "holding the bag" when the risks they insure go bad. AIG's management thus failed in not exercising the prudence which is the most essential characteristic of an insurance company. If that isn't mismanagement, I don't know what is.
Note that Mr. Hemingways comment above was made within a longer post about the wisdom of the government bailout of AIG and of statements by Joe Biden and Sarah Palin on that bailout. As it happens I don't know enough about the details of how AIG's failure might have affected other imprudent and mismanaged companies, so I can't comment on the wisdom or otherwise of his entire post beyond saying that his argument seems reasonable to me. You can read his entire post for yourself at:
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NWU3ZDk1Y2U0NjU0YTBlMTcxZTliMjcxNDI1YTYwMmE=
In a comment about the AIG bailout, Mark Hemingway wrote in part:
". . . AIG underwrites a massive amount of credit default swaps — which are very similar to insurance contracts for debt instruments. While I wouldn't say AIG couldn't have done anything to avoid their predicament, in some important respects, AIG's financial burdens were not created through their own mismanagement so much as being left holding the bag on these contracts after the failings of its customers. . ."
My comment on this is that AIG is an Insurance Company. The core business of an Insurance Company is to insure risks. The essential core of insuring risks is to avoid taking on so much of any one kind of risk as to put at risk the company's ability to survive the failure of any one type of risk. Insurance companies justify their existence and make their profits precisely by being responsible for "holding the bag" when the risks they insure go bad. AIG's management thus failed in not exercising the prudence which is the most essential characteristic of an insurance company. If that isn't mismanagement, I don't know what is.
Note that Mr. Hemingways comment above was made within a longer post about the wisdom of the government bailout of AIG and of statements by Joe Biden and Sarah Palin on that bailout. As it happens I don't know enough about the details of how AIG's failure might have affected other imprudent and mismanaged companies, so I can't comment on the wisdom or otherwise of his entire post beyond saying that his argument seems reasonable to me. You can read his entire post for yourself at:
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NWU3ZDk1Y2U0NjU0YTBlMTcxZTliMjcxNDI1YTYwMmE=
The attack dogs are really out
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URIypadX3n0
Only Jonah Goldberg of National Review's The Corner would post such a thing. I read his stuff compulsively for it's sheer manic brilliance even though I'm still a bit irritated at him for his continued refusal to fess up to his error re Superman's birthplace in the footnotes to his otherwise excellent book Liberal Fascism.
Superman was born on Trantor, Jonah. No, I mean he was born on. . . I can't remember right this moment. But he certainly wasn't born in the midwest.
Only Jonah Goldberg of National Review's The Corner would post such a thing. I read his stuff compulsively for it's sheer manic brilliance even though I'm still a bit irritated at him for his continued refusal to fess up to his error re Superman's birthplace in the footnotes to his otherwise excellent book Liberal Fascism.
Superman was born on Trantor, Jonah. No, I mean he was born on. . . I can't remember right this moment. But he certainly wasn't born in the midwest.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
