As 7DB has been watching gold prices soar while the rest of the economy struggles back in fits and starts, an interseting question arises: Do investors actually know what they are buying when they buy commodities?
Many can recall Gordon Gecko, played masterfully by Michael Douglas, from the movie Wall Street in the '80s. The line everyone recalls form the movie is "Greed is good.", but another line may apply to today's investors buying things they don't understand.
"The most valuable commodity I know of is information."
When stocks went all topsy-turvy, people were convinced by their half-wit investment counselors to get out of the market and into commodities. Truly, what am I gonna do with a pork belly? My freezer is already full of turkey for Thanksgiving...where am I gonna store those?
Jokes aside for the moment, several thousand investors have money in sugar and sugar futures, and 7DB can guarantee they do not know about how approximately one in eighteen of the workers producing that sugar (from beets, in America) are slaves. Real slaves. Debt bondage, kidnapped from another country, even homeless people trucked in, plied with liquor and cheap drugs, then worked seven days a week, twelve hours a day.
The morality of money has always been of interest to this columnist, as too many actions are driven by the need for it, and even more alarming is the number of actions driven by the sheer want of it. The economic downturn has been attributed to investor greed and these made up 'credit default swaps', which are more or less insurance for investors against...loans going bad that were made and packaged by others who don't wish to reap the rewards of those loans.
A Reader's Digest breakdown: 7DB loans another lonesome blogger $1,000 at 10% interest, payable at one hundred dollars per month until paid off. That $100 in profit requires 7DB to wait eleven whole months to make a measly one hundred dollars, so the loan is sold to Bank X for $1,030. 7DB makes a profit, Bank X gets free money for doing nothing, and the terms of the loan do not change for the borrower. This is standard stuff.
Bank ABC thinks that Bank X is going to screw up the loan, so it buys insurance on the loan from AIG for the $1,000 loan for a total of $200. When Bank X tries to insure itself against the loan defaulting, their insurance is also $200. When the loan does default, due to the economy being unstable or what-have-you, Bank X and Bank ABC get paid $1,000 each from AIG. Bank ABC's involvement is on a credit-default swap.
So, to reset: Original loan maker makes $30, Borrower received $1,000 and never paid it all back, Bank X lost only $230 and Bank ABC made $800 for doing nothing. AIG loses $1,600 on the premise that most of the time, these loans get paid back. When everything goes sour too fast, AIG is too exposed, and the U.S. taxpayers step in with a few hundred extra billion, and all is paid in full.
Makes sense? Not to anyone without years in the business and to no one who does not have a bit of Gordon Gecko in them.
Hence, the broker can sell his clientele on commodities. Platinum trades at $1400-plus per ounce, gold trailing slightly at around $1150 as of this writing. The only applications of these rare metals that most people are aware of are sold by places that put the metals in a little blue box and mark it up 1500%, all in the hopes of some physical or emotional interaction with its recipient. These metals, like many other commodities, are up hundreds of dollars in these past few years, gold alone being in the plus an astounding 156% since 2005.
The question is: what are people buying when trading in this? Gold is trading at $1100-plus, but the local jeweler is probably paying about $350 an ounce for it. The melt places available online or by mail are paying in the low-$400's. Where do any of these come to a 'trading' number of $1100? It retails for more, but that is due to design and overhead from the distributors (Jewelry Mart, etc.), so there is no actual place that this commodity trades for this number outside of Wall Street.
All of this brings up the point of this diatribe, being there is one major investor whose name is well-known and whose policies on investing are proven and sound. Warren Buffett operates Bershire Hathaway, effectively a holding company that has shares trading for $103,000 per share. No splits, no 3.25-for-1.75 stock swaps. Just a stock that gains value all the time. The Class B stock, available for a far more reasonable $3,400 per share, gives investors a readily attainable way of benefitting from Buffett's strategies.
What are they? Buy stock in stuff that one can understand how it works and what it does. Buffett's most recent acquisition target was not sexy to most investors. He bought a railroad company. Burlington Northern, the biggest on the block, for $34 billion (yes, with a 'B'), knowing that these 'commodities' need to be transported somehow.
Berkshire Hathaway, without boring readers with too much minutiae, own parts of insurance companies (GEICO, with the little Aussie gecko), banks (Wells Fargo, U.S. Bancorp, M&T), consumables (Coca-Cola, Kraft Foods) and retailers (Wal-Mart) not to mention Nike, CostCo, Johnson & Johnson...you get the idea. All household names, all products and services that everyday life uses.
Want to prevent another fallout in the world's economy? Buy stuff you understand. Simple, isn't it?
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Some stoner-looking kid won the National League Cy Young Award, given to the best pitcher in baseball each year. Tim Lincecum of the San Francisco Giants won his second consecutive of these, even though he looks like a fifteen-year old skater punk.
Lincecum won in a very close vote over two teammates who both could have won individually (and may have cost each other by splitting loyalty voting), Adam Wainwright and Chris Carpenter of the Saint Louis Cardinals. (Check this link to see Lincecum throw a ball with what looks to be a mini-hula hoop around his neck. http://sanfrancisco.giants.mlb.com/team/player.jsp?player_id=453311)
While the tall, skinny skater boy would appeal to Avril Lavigne fans around the world, the thoughts at Casa du 7DB revolve around the other two top vote-getters. Cardinals fans right now must feel a bit like Democratic voters in 2000, when Ralph Nader split the voter block and allowed G.W. Bush to make a very competitve election out of what would have been a runaway for the Inventor of the Internet and Savior of the Environment, Oscar and Nobel-award winner Al Gore.
Adam Wainwright was a closer for the Cardinals at one point, brought in to shut down any hopes of a rally in later innings of games to guarantee the victory. His aspirations (and robust success) as a starter very well could have cost Carpenter the Cy Young, and the $250,000 bonus that went with it. (Carpenter did get a $100k bonus for finishing 2nd, as did Wainwright for finishing 3rd in the voting.) While it may seem an insignificant difference to multi-millionaires, the long-term monies lost to Carpenter by not winning that award could be tens of millions on the free agent market.
No matter. I am sure that Lincecum will build a sweet halfpipe in his yard and let all his bros come and shred on it. Congrats, kid...
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***7DB note: A short post today, with a weekend column coming and two columns next week before all eight (8! We're growing!) readers take the long weekend off for mass tryptophan consumption.
Things that 7DB has to be thankful for: a lovely new wife (the aforementioned Ms. 7DB), a lovely new home filled with cool animals in a different city than where the last 18 years went by, a phenomenal new family of in-laws and cousins, oh my!, the Official Brother of 7DB and his fantastic wife and stepson, cousins and aunts and uncles scattered acorss the nation (making the 7DB voting bloc of considerable clout in Washington in 2012...YES WE CAN!) and many friends and extended (read: non-blood relative) family. From the 7DB family to yours, Happy Holidays...
Friday, November 20, 2009
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Leggo my Eggo...or I'm gonna kick your a**!
Apparently, it has finally come to pass: there are not enough Eggos to go around. The wildly popular breakfast waffle is in shortage for the foreseeable future, due to flooding in Kellogg's Atlanta bakery. Estimates to catch up on inventory shortage put mid-2010 as the target point.
So, to reiterate, the world will be down on their Eggo's until late spring. Maybe those folks who notice this will be able to mix in some fruit or a bit of exercise during this unfortunate shortage. Perhaps the intake of bready, doughy food that can be eaten with one hand while negotiating traffic en route to work with the other hand will be reduced enough for traffic safety and flow to improve. Possibly, there could even be a Eggo Flip Flop Choco Nilla Waffle reduction that could cause some of America's more corpulent children to throw a fit just long enough to burn some of the 200 calories per serving (before syrup) that these gut bombs contain.
Nahhh. USA! USA! Make more fat kids who don't give a crap in class. USA!
( http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/108191/leggo-your-eggo-theres-a-waffle-shortage )
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The Charlotte Observer recently printed a list of salaries for NFL quarterbacks for the 2009 season. Eli Manning of the New York Giants led the list with a $16.25 million salary for the year, followed by USC grad and Cincinnati Bengals QB Carson Palmer, trailing by a mere $80k. Eli won a Super Bowl a couple years back, and Palmer has his team in front of his division, so some of those are justifiable. Let's visit the ones that aren't.
67-year old Brett Farveverevrvrrve (eighth-highest salary, $12.5 mil) leads the league with a 107.5 passer rating and his team is 8-1. That one is good. Sage Rosenfels (28th, $3.82 mil) is the man that was brought in to start for the Vikings before Favre un-retired again. That one is not good. Jake Delhomme of the Carolina Panthers (23rd, $6.08 mil) has thrown thirteen passes to opposing players, and his team is horrible. But the winner (or, Biggest Loser) is...former Bronco Jay Cutler.
Cutler whined his way out of Denver, prompting the team to trade him to the Chicago Bears. Cutler demanded (and was given) a shiny new contract that pays him $14.67 million, fourth-highest in the league. This year. The fourth-year quarterback has managed to lead the league in one category: interceptions, with 17 thus far. He has also guided his team to a sterling 4-and-5 record.
Cutler has joined many athletes in contributing to the founding of the Crabtree Corollary. Athletes who believe they are bigger than the team games they play end up stinking up the joint, negatively affecting the fan base, and generally souring people on the sport they play. Next up, 7DB fave Larry Johnson, now a member of the Cincinnati Bengals. Watch LJ knock the Bengals out of the playoffs in the first round after creating a cancerous atmosphere in their locker room, then leave a comment on the bottom of this column to commemorate said event.
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The Congressional Budget Office has announced their estimate of the House's health care package to save America costing approximately $849 billion over ten years. After the ten years, some folks are anticipating it paying back small portions of the outlay to the federal government.
Without going into the merits (or lack thereof) of the bill, the idea of this plan eventually putting money back into the tax coffers is laughable. I seem to recall state governments around the country saying that state-run lotteries would 'supplement' education funding, then slowly pulling away the funding that the lottery would supplement, then slowly pulling away portions of the lottery revenues to 'payback' the state for its educational overruns, then blaming lottery officials for not meeting revenue targets. All the while, educational standards suffer, and teachers and support staff are paid like burger flippers. Is there any doubt that this will come to pass with health care? Any at all?
I wish I could have submitted budgets for projects at work and told them they could make money in ten years, knowing full well that cost overruns are acceptable and probable. Then again, I wish that puppies could fly, and that hamsters could do accounting. Oh wait...the CBO.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
There is a company, probably one of many, that will vet names of babies for people for a fee, making sure the children are not inadvertantly named something that would expose them to ridicule. While not touching the last names proferred, first names are often misinterpreted or chosen because they 'sound nice', and this can cause problems. Today's Translation in Great Britain is here to solve this problem.
Many remember the Chevy Nova, a muscle car produced in the 70's by GM. The Nova had a 'shooting star' marketing campaign and sold fairly well, but not so well in Mexico. Why, you ask? Simple. 'Nova' in Spanish means 'no go'. Therefore, GM was trying to sell a car entitled 'no go' to a seemingly skeptical public. Same idea behind naming babies.
For example, America's favorite couch-jumping idiot and his new wife had a baby. Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes elected to name their baby Suri. There is a bit of a problem with that name, it seems...
"It sounds incredibly nice, but in Japanese, we found it means pickpocket," said Jurga Zilinskiene, Today's Translation's chief executive, whose first name means "farmer" or "earth worker" in Greek.
Suri also means "turned sour" in French, "red" or "fire" in Farsi and "horse mackerels" in Italian - not exactly the words parents want associated with their little darling.
The first punchline about this that came to mind involves The Church of Scientology welcoming a pickpocket into the fold, then realizing they are over the limit. Resisting those jokes, realize that this little girl will probably have enough issues to overcome due to her very...um, 'interesting' parents, but to now add on being named for something sour in French, and something called a horse mackerel in Italian just seems like piling on.
Which is what we're here to do.
Suri can always go hang out with Apple Martin, she of Gwyenth and Coldplay's Chris fame, and Zuma Rossdale, from Gwen Stefani and Bush frontman Gavin Rossdale. This may help her to feel more normal...unless she travels to Kyoto.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Lastly, to summarize the real estate market nationwide, and more specifically in cash-strapped Detroit, Michigan, the deal of the century recently took place.
The Pontiac Silverdome, once home to the Detroit Lions and many major concerts and events, was recently sold for...$583,000. Thousand. Barely a half a million. A building paid for by the citizens of Michigan to the tune of $55.7 million just 35 years ago, sold for peanuts, just to get the $1.5 million in annual upkeep expenses off of the books of the city of Pontiac.
Councilman Everett Seay said he expects someone -- possibly a prospective buyer turned down in recent years -- to file a lawsuit to block the sale.
"The citizens of Pontiac deserve better," Seay said. "This is pennies on the dollar (of what it cost). It goes to show how bad times are ... Worse, we don't even know who bought it."
The sale was executed by sealed bid, leaving an unnamed Canadian company as the winning bidholder. The Canadian company is planning to bring a soccer league or franchise to the building, but no one can contact the new owners, as no one knows who they are yet.
I have a newly found affection for Michigan, having recently married one of its most beautiful citizens, but I cannot doubt that the city of Pontiac is reeling for reasons of its own doing. It is named after a defunct automaker, for pete's sake! If Pontiac, MI took on a new moniker, perhaps one that would be attractive to the new soccer team, they could start in to a new future. Maybe call themselves Manchester City, since they have a good reputation for soccer...just don't use that silly 'FC' in front of the name. FC East Detroit doesn't have a good ring to it.
So, to reiterate, the world will be down on their Eggo's until late spring. Maybe those folks who notice this will be able to mix in some fruit or a bit of exercise during this unfortunate shortage. Perhaps the intake of bready, doughy food that can be eaten with one hand while negotiating traffic en route to work with the other hand will be reduced enough for traffic safety and flow to improve. Possibly, there could even be a Eggo Flip Flop Choco Nilla Waffle reduction that could cause some of America's more corpulent children to throw a fit just long enough to burn some of the 200 calories per serving (before syrup) that these gut bombs contain.
Nahhh. USA! USA! Make more fat kids who don't give a crap in class. USA!
( http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/108191/leggo-your-eggo-theres-a-waffle-shortage )
---------------------------------------------------------------
The Charlotte Observer recently printed a list of salaries for NFL quarterbacks for the 2009 season. Eli Manning of the New York Giants led the list with a $16.25 million salary for the year, followed by USC grad and Cincinnati Bengals QB Carson Palmer, trailing by a mere $80k. Eli won a Super Bowl a couple years back, and Palmer has his team in front of his division, so some of those are justifiable. Let's visit the ones that aren't.
67-year old Brett Farveverevrvrrve (eighth-highest salary, $12.5 mil) leads the league with a 107.5 passer rating and his team is 8-1. That one is good. Sage Rosenfels (28th, $3.82 mil) is the man that was brought in to start for the Vikings before Favre un-retired again. That one is not good. Jake Delhomme of the Carolina Panthers (23rd, $6.08 mil) has thrown thirteen passes to opposing players, and his team is horrible. But the winner (or, Biggest Loser) is...former Bronco Jay Cutler.
Cutler whined his way out of Denver, prompting the team to trade him to the Chicago Bears. Cutler demanded (and was given) a shiny new contract that pays him $14.67 million, fourth-highest in the league. This year. The fourth-year quarterback has managed to lead the league in one category: interceptions, with 17 thus far. He has also guided his team to a sterling 4-and-5 record.
Cutler has joined many athletes in contributing to the founding of the Crabtree Corollary. Athletes who believe they are bigger than the team games they play end up stinking up the joint, negatively affecting the fan base, and generally souring people on the sport they play. Next up, 7DB fave Larry Johnson, now a member of the Cincinnati Bengals. Watch LJ knock the Bengals out of the playoffs in the first round after creating a cancerous atmosphere in their locker room, then leave a comment on the bottom of this column to commemorate said event.
--------------------------------------------------------------
The Congressional Budget Office has announced their estimate of the House's health care package to save America costing approximately $849 billion over ten years. After the ten years, some folks are anticipating it paying back small portions of the outlay to the federal government.
Without going into the merits (or lack thereof) of the bill, the idea of this plan eventually putting money back into the tax coffers is laughable. I seem to recall state governments around the country saying that state-run lotteries would 'supplement' education funding, then slowly pulling away the funding that the lottery would supplement, then slowly pulling away portions of the lottery revenues to 'payback' the state for its educational overruns, then blaming lottery officials for not meeting revenue targets. All the while, educational standards suffer, and teachers and support staff are paid like burger flippers. Is there any doubt that this will come to pass with health care? Any at all?
I wish I could have submitted budgets for projects at work and told them they could make money in ten years, knowing full well that cost overruns are acceptable and probable. Then again, I wish that puppies could fly, and that hamsters could do accounting. Oh wait...the CBO.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
There is a company, probably one of many, that will vet names of babies for people for a fee, making sure the children are not inadvertantly named something that would expose them to ridicule. While not touching the last names proferred, first names are often misinterpreted or chosen because they 'sound nice', and this can cause problems. Today's Translation in Great Britain is here to solve this problem.
Many remember the Chevy Nova, a muscle car produced in the 70's by GM. The Nova had a 'shooting star' marketing campaign and sold fairly well, but not so well in Mexico. Why, you ask? Simple. 'Nova' in Spanish means 'no go'. Therefore, GM was trying to sell a car entitled 'no go' to a seemingly skeptical public. Same idea behind naming babies.
For example, America's favorite couch-jumping idiot and his new wife had a baby. Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes elected to name their baby Suri. There is a bit of a problem with that name, it seems...
"It sounds incredibly nice, but in Japanese, we found it means pickpocket," said Jurga Zilinskiene, Today's Translation's chief executive, whose first name means "farmer" or "earth worker" in Greek.
Suri also means "turned sour" in French, "red" or "fire" in Farsi and "horse mackerels" in Italian - not exactly the words parents want associated with their little darling.
The first punchline about this that came to mind involves The Church of Scientology welcoming a pickpocket into the fold, then realizing they are over the limit. Resisting those jokes, realize that this little girl will probably have enough issues to overcome due to her very...um, 'interesting' parents, but to now add on being named for something sour in French, and something called a horse mackerel in Italian just seems like piling on.
Which is what we're here to do.
Suri can always go hang out with Apple Martin, she of Gwyenth and Coldplay's Chris fame, and Zuma Rossdale, from Gwen Stefani and Bush frontman Gavin Rossdale. This may help her to feel more normal...unless she travels to Kyoto.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Lastly, to summarize the real estate market nationwide, and more specifically in cash-strapped Detroit, Michigan, the deal of the century recently took place.
The Pontiac Silverdome, once home to the Detroit Lions and many major concerts and events, was recently sold for...$583,000. Thousand. Barely a half a million. A building paid for by the citizens of Michigan to the tune of $55.7 million just 35 years ago, sold for peanuts, just to get the $1.5 million in annual upkeep expenses off of the books of the city of Pontiac.
Councilman Everett Seay said he expects someone -- possibly a prospective buyer turned down in recent years -- to file a lawsuit to block the sale.
"The citizens of Pontiac deserve better," Seay said. "This is pennies on the dollar (of what it cost). It goes to show how bad times are ... Worse, we don't even know who bought it."
The sale was executed by sealed bid, leaving an unnamed Canadian company as the winning bidholder. The Canadian company is planning to bring a soccer league or franchise to the building, but no one can contact the new owners, as no one knows who they are yet.
I have a newly found affection for Michigan, having recently married one of its most beautiful citizens, but I cannot doubt that the city of Pontiac is reeling for reasons of its own doing. It is named after a defunct automaker, for pete's sake! If Pontiac, MI took on a new moniker, perhaps one that would be attractive to the new soccer team, they could start in to a new future. Maybe call themselves Manchester City, since they have a good reputation for soccer...just don't use that silly 'FC' in front of the name. FC East Detroit doesn't have a good ring to it.
Friday, November 13, 2009
Hot Bloggin' on a Friday Night...
While Ms. 7DB watches some show designed to make women between 25-45 whimper silently into their Chardonnay (if it is a Private Practice, why is it on national TV???), it seemed like a good time to catch up on the rest of yesterday's topic matter...
It brings no small amount of pleasure to the 7DB household to watch the misery of the Green Bay Packers fan base as their Hall of Fame-bound quarterback plays for their rivals and kicks the snot out of them. It does not change, however, how much the Minnesota Vikings fans should dislike having Brett Favreverevevrvre as their quarterback.
Without boring those of you who read my columns and do not follow sports so much, having Brett Favre at the helm of the Vikings is similar to Tom and Jerry teaming up to get Spike to stop hitting Tom with a trash can lid.
For those of you born after 1980, the Favre/Vikings parallel may be better described as having P. Diddy produce Tupac's album after Notorius B.I.G. was shot and killed.
For those of you with very little in the way of pop culture references, the Favre/Vikings situation compares well to Nancy Pelosi becoming a spokesperson for Fox News.
For those born in my grandfather's generation, it is the same as having Winston Churchill invite Joe Stalin to run for British Prime Minister after the Marshall Plan took effect.
For those who are sick of analogies, I will stop now.
For those of you who aren't, more will be posted in the comment section of this blog.
It pains any true Viking fan to cheer on someone who has caused so much turmoil for this team over his 18 years in the NFL. This Benedict Arnold leaves 7DB feeling...well, British. (those of you born after 1980 should Wiki this reference) It is just too difficult for the Viking fans of lore to cheer on a turncoat rival.
All of the Packer fans who read this column can take heart in the fact that Favre usually starts showing up on the injured list right around this part of the year. At that point, vengeance will be theirs, but the Packers next play the Vikings sometime deep into the fall of 2010. So, Packers fans can stick it. :)
For those of you born after 1990, the Favre/Vikings equivalent would be LC deciding that Brody would be cool to date if Blake Lively ever gives up on him. Or something equally inane.
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Robert Enke is a name that most of the readers of this column will not recognize. He played soccer for a living, making him even less likely to appear on the radar of the average American. Don't feel guilt for this, as many are still not sure soccer is a sport.
Enke (Soccer stars, known as 'footballers' around the planet except for America, often pick their first or last name as their common moniker. The reason this doesn't work in the U.S.? There would be forty-seven 'Joe's and 'Smith's. It does work for the NBA, as many players in that game have unique names...but I digress.) was a top-tier goalkeeper for Hannover 96 in the major circuit known as Bundesliga in Europe, as well as the leading contender to be the keeper for the German National team in the prestigious World Cup coming up. Professionally, it appeared that Enke had it all coming together.
On Tuesday, two days after helping his team to a 2-2 draw against Hamburg, the thrity-two year old Enke walked off of a train platform in front of a regional express train. His wife disclosed after this horrific event that Enke had been battling depression for at least six years. His first daughter, Lara, was born in 2004, meaning that his wife was pregnant in 2003...six years ago. Lara was not long for this world, as a congenital heart defect tragically stole her from her family at the age of two. The couple adopted baby Leila in May of this year.
(Pause for dramatic effect.)
I am angry. At everyone involved. Enke's wife knew he was depressed for six years? How did a man with access to the best of health care in all of Europe not have an opportunity to seek help for this? 7DB refuses to pin this to the weakness of socialized health care, but...what the heck? Even worse, how did Robert (not ENKE, the athlete...but Robert, the father) check out on his new baby daughter Leila?
While readily acknowledging limited understanding of mental illness existing outside of these two ears, 7DB has little patience for those who take responsibility for those who need help, then quit on those responsibilities. Enke was ill and needed help...but wtf?! Someone failed Robert...either his wife for not forcing him into a situation of help, his various teams for not doing a psych profile on an athlete who plays a position that demands solitude, or the system that allowed him and his wife to adopt a child without a psychiatric evaluation. There are too many places along the way that a 32-year old man can find the support he needs when things are bad. 7DB will probably be the only American who wonders why no one will answer these questions.
Then again, he played soccer, so maybe there was something else deeper that was wrong with him...
(What? Too soon?)
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The two Bear Stearns executives, Ralph Cioffi and Matthew Tannin, recently put on trial for conspiracy and fraud (and a de facto trial of the financial system) were acquitted in a Brooklyn, NY courtroom this past Tuesday. The acquittal upset many folks reading or hearing about it, and even more of those reporting on it. And those people are very wrong to be mad.
If the worldwide financial meltdown hadn't happened, this case never would have been pressed. If the feds didn't also have the folks at Countrywide and AIG in their sights, this case would have been handled in a much quieter fashion. The federal court system is currently holding show trials on behalf of an angry America. The public needs to know that someone is responsible for their pensions and benefits being slashed, their friends and loved ones being unemployed, the economy's struggles...that somewhere the blame rests on something that can be pinpointed.
And that is just silly, isn't it?
The case was built around accusations that these two execs planned to defraud thousands of investors out of millions of bucks. The truth is probably closer to the idea that they felt like they either a) screwed up and people were losing their money, or b) that things out of their control were driving the market, and that they had to tell their investors to hold on until they could figure out how to fix it before they took their money to another investment house. Simple case of C.Y.A. gone bad.
Dumb? Yes. Criminal? Possibly. Malicious? No. Instead of trying the charges they knew they could hit, the Feds tried to hit them on all the counts they could muster. It backfired, and now they have an issue about what they can and can't try to do against future defendants. Stupid for federal prosecutors, but grooves right in to the show trial concept.
As time goes by, the economy will recover and eventually outpace where things were when it all went bad. As it does, people will want to move ahead with their lives. Bernie Madoff will be a slightly humorous footnote, AIG will go back to running commercials and having the general public wonder 'What the heck they do anyways?' about them and things will move forward. To get us there, we need blood. Even if it's from the wrong place.
Anyone who has had money in the market or a 401(k) in the last ten years has likely benefitted from the credit default swaps and mortgage-backed securities that history will point to as the source of our misery in 2008 and 2009. There were few complaints about the highly complicated way these profits were made, but lotsa griping when that same money was lost. Guilt like that is a complicated thing.
The easy solution is the show trials of a few of the 'greedy' people that still made money when everyone else was losing. (Don't mix Madoff in with these folks, as he was a pure thief. He didn't even pretend to try to invest moeny. He stole from Peter to pay Paul. And himself.) Trials of this nature went on with regularity before the financial crisis without so much as a peep out of the mainstream media.
Total bloodlust. Don't buy the hype. The economy will be ok in less than two years...just hang tight.
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There is a feature about Cat Ladies on 20/20 tonight. Ms. 7DB had two when we met, three now, plus two lovely puppies. Some of the women in this feature have over 100 cats in a two-bedroom house. If Ms. 7DB were awake right now, instead of asleep on the couch with a book on her lap, the 7DB Universe wonders what would be said of this segment.
It brings no small amount of pleasure to the 7DB household to watch the misery of the Green Bay Packers fan base as their Hall of Fame-bound quarterback plays for their rivals and kicks the snot out of them. It does not change, however, how much the Minnesota Vikings fans should dislike having Brett Favreverevevrvre as their quarterback.
Without boring those of you who read my columns and do not follow sports so much, having Brett Favre at the helm of the Vikings is similar to Tom and Jerry teaming up to get Spike to stop hitting Tom with a trash can lid.
For those of you born after 1980, the Favre/Vikings parallel may be better described as having P. Diddy produce Tupac's album after Notorius B.I.G. was shot and killed.
For those of you with very little in the way of pop culture references, the Favre/Vikings situation compares well to Nancy Pelosi becoming a spokesperson for Fox News.
For those born in my grandfather's generation, it is the same as having Winston Churchill invite Joe Stalin to run for British Prime Minister after the Marshall Plan took effect.
For those who are sick of analogies, I will stop now.
For those of you who aren't, more will be posted in the comment section of this blog.
It pains any true Viking fan to cheer on someone who has caused so much turmoil for this team over his 18 years in the NFL. This Benedict Arnold leaves 7DB feeling...well, British. (those of you born after 1980 should Wiki this reference) It is just too difficult for the Viking fans of lore to cheer on a turncoat rival.
All of the Packer fans who read this column can take heart in the fact that Favre usually starts showing up on the injured list right around this part of the year. At that point, vengeance will be theirs, but the Packers next play the Vikings sometime deep into the fall of 2010. So, Packers fans can stick it. :)
For those of you born after 1990, the Favre/Vikings equivalent would be LC deciding that Brody would be cool to date if Blake Lively ever gives up on him. Or something equally inane.
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Robert Enke is a name that most of the readers of this column will not recognize. He played soccer for a living, making him even less likely to appear on the radar of the average American. Don't feel guilt for this, as many are still not sure soccer is a sport.
Enke (Soccer stars, known as 'footballers' around the planet except for America, often pick their first or last name as their common moniker. The reason this doesn't work in the U.S.? There would be forty-seven 'Joe's and 'Smith's. It does work for the NBA, as many players in that game have unique names...but I digress.) was a top-tier goalkeeper for Hannover 96 in the major circuit known as Bundesliga in Europe, as well as the leading contender to be the keeper for the German National team in the prestigious World Cup coming up. Professionally, it appeared that Enke had it all coming together.
On Tuesday, two days after helping his team to a 2-2 draw against Hamburg, the thrity-two year old Enke walked off of a train platform in front of a regional express train. His wife disclosed after this horrific event that Enke had been battling depression for at least six years. His first daughter, Lara, was born in 2004, meaning that his wife was pregnant in 2003...six years ago. Lara was not long for this world, as a congenital heart defect tragically stole her from her family at the age of two. The couple adopted baby Leila in May of this year.
(Pause for dramatic effect.)
I am angry. At everyone involved. Enke's wife knew he was depressed for six years? How did a man with access to the best of health care in all of Europe not have an opportunity to seek help for this? 7DB refuses to pin this to the weakness of socialized health care, but...what the heck? Even worse, how did Robert (not ENKE, the athlete...but Robert, the father) check out on his new baby daughter Leila?
While readily acknowledging limited understanding of mental illness existing outside of these two ears, 7DB has little patience for those who take responsibility for those who need help, then quit on those responsibilities. Enke was ill and needed help...but wtf?! Someone failed Robert...either his wife for not forcing him into a situation of help, his various teams for not doing a psych profile on an athlete who plays a position that demands solitude, or the system that allowed him and his wife to adopt a child without a psychiatric evaluation. There are too many places along the way that a 32-year old man can find the support he needs when things are bad. 7DB will probably be the only American who wonders why no one will answer these questions.
Then again, he played soccer, so maybe there was something else deeper that was wrong with him...
(What? Too soon?)
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The two Bear Stearns executives, Ralph Cioffi and Matthew Tannin, recently put on trial for conspiracy and fraud (and a de facto trial of the financial system) were acquitted in a Brooklyn, NY courtroom this past Tuesday. The acquittal upset many folks reading or hearing about it, and even more of those reporting on it. And those people are very wrong to be mad.
If the worldwide financial meltdown hadn't happened, this case never would have been pressed. If the feds didn't also have the folks at Countrywide and AIG in their sights, this case would have been handled in a much quieter fashion. The federal court system is currently holding show trials on behalf of an angry America. The public needs to know that someone is responsible for their pensions and benefits being slashed, their friends and loved ones being unemployed, the economy's struggles...that somewhere the blame rests on something that can be pinpointed.
And that is just silly, isn't it?
The case was built around accusations that these two execs planned to defraud thousands of investors out of millions of bucks. The truth is probably closer to the idea that they felt like they either a) screwed up and people were losing their money, or b) that things out of their control were driving the market, and that they had to tell their investors to hold on until they could figure out how to fix it before they took their money to another investment house. Simple case of C.Y.A. gone bad.
Dumb? Yes. Criminal? Possibly. Malicious? No. Instead of trying the charges they knew they could hit, the Feds tried to hit them on all the counts they could muster. It backfired, and now they have an issue about what they can and can't try to do against future defendants. Stupid for federal prosecutors, but grooves right in to the show trial concept.
As time goes by, the economy will recover and eventually outpace where things were when it all went bad. As it does, people will want to move ahead with their lives. Bernie Madoff will be a slightly humorous footnote, AIG will go back to running commercials and having the general public wonder 'What the heck they do anyways?' about them and things will move forward. To get us there, we need blood. Even if it's from the wrong place.
Anyone who has had money in the market or a 401(k) in the last ten years has likely benefitted from the credit default swaps and mortgage-backed securities that history will point to as the source of our misery in 2008 and 2009. There were few complaints about the highly complicated way these profits were made, but lotsa griping when that same money was lost. Guilt like that is a complicated thing.
The easy solution is the show trials of a few of the 'greedy' people that still made money when everyone else was losing. (Don't mix Madoff in with these folks, as he was a pure thief. He didn't even pretend to try to invest moeny. He stole from Peter to pay Paul. And himself.) Trials of this nature went on with regularity before the financial crisis without so much as a peep out of the mainstream media.
Total bloodlust. Don't buy the hype. The economy will be ok in less than two years...just hang tight.
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There is a feature about Cat Ladies on 20/20 tonight. Ms. 7DB had two when we met, three now, plus two lovely puppies. Some of the women in this feature have over 100 cats in a two-bedroom house. If Ms. 7DB were awake right now, instead of asleep on the couch with a book on her lap, the 7DB Universe wonders what would be said of this segment.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
This love triangle was just spacy...
NASA has continued to shovel off the fallout from the bizarre love triangle involving astronauts Lisa Nowak and William Oefelein. Oefelein was dismissed from the space program this week, returning to the armed forces from where he came.
Oefelein, a married man, had an affair with Nowak while having a girlfriend on the side, one Air Force Captain Colleen Shipman. Nowak became aware of the extra relationship, believing that a man should apparently have only one extramarital affair at a time, and responded like any sane woman would. She tried to kidnap Shipman, while packing a BB pistol and an air hammer. Nowak was arrested at the airport when the kidnapping was foiled by the victim...rolling up her car window and driving away.
Nowak drove non-stop from Orlando to Houston to catch this woman at the Houston airport. This is where it gets weird.
To get there faster, Nowak reportedly wore diapers so she would not have to stop. I repeat: She wore diapers to be able to not stop driving to catch a woman that she believed was having an affair with her lover, who was married.
Now, most of my seven readers have been jolted at some points in their love lives. Breaking up is never easy to do, to be sure...and maybe we have had the thoughts of some sort of revenge on the third party as the emotions sort out. I can tell you that driving by someone's house to see if they are home is waaaaaaaaay different than to cross two time zones with weapons to try to abduct someone from a highly-secured area like an airport.
Doesn't the rage fade when you hit, oh I dunno, Tuscaloosa? Maybe Birmingham? The thoughts "This is crazy! What am I doing?" should have happened somewhere in there, right?
Oh, by the way, Nowak was married during the affair, too.
So, if you cheat on your spouse, and the person you are cheating with is also cheating on their spouse, should you be surprised when they in turn cheat on you? Shouldn't you expect it, or at least note the possibility of it? I sincerely hope that NASA studies the effect of space travel on morality after this escapade. Or, at least, gives the rights to Vivid Video for a proper re-enactment video for those who are so inclined...
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As noted in this space, Penn State grad and Kansas City Chiefs running back Larry Johnson is an idiot. The team has acted accordingly, first suspending the idiot for his homosexual slurs on his Twitter feed, then releasing him outright when the suspension ended.
The now-former Chief was baited into an online war of words with 'fans' of his Twitter feed, then raised it (or, more accurately, lowered it) to a battle of slurs. When given a chance to respond to the media after this came to light, Johnson used the same slurs that brought up the issue to begin with.
Two thoughts: One, I hate to be accurate in predicting the stupidity of athletes. Professionally, I saw it up close, and it never fails to come true from the guys who play sports for money and take it as a sign that they have 'something special' to offer. They do offer something special...on the field, between the lines, when the clock is running. Afterwards, they should be very, very careful, as all eyes are on them, waiting for a mistake. Truthfully, it couldn't happen to a nicer guy.
Larry, for the record, you told that Twitter user that 'U can't stop me getting paid.' I believe he did. Dummy. Pull your act together, and see if the Canadian Football League can use a washed-up running back that likes to slam minorities.
-----------------------------------------------------------
In another instance of 7DB being both accurate and possessing fortune telling-skills, please note that the San Francisco 49ers have proven me right once again. When 49ers WR Michael Crabtree began his preposterous holdout to demand being paid more money than his draft position warranted, 7DB introduced the Crabtree Corollary, suggesting that the bad mojo generated from such a move would backfire, plus the loss in earnings would be significant.
Crabtree ended up signing a contract for the same money he was offered after he was picked 10th in the draft. He did so after the 49ers came off their first loss of the year, a nailbiter against the Minnesota Vikings, that was lost on the last play of the game. Since he signed his contract, the 49ers are 0-4.
Hopefully for all involved, Crabtree discovered that he acted badly on the advice of an agent who may have different interests than young Michael does. Either that, or a young, greedy kid got smacked in the mouth to the tune of $2 million in lost salary. Either way, I'm good with it.
---------------------------------------------------------------
There will be more said in this space about the horrific events that took place at Fort Hood this week, but at first blush there are two glaring things to note:
1) Asking a man of faith to prepare young men and women for battle against people of said faith can be tricky. Asking them to do so in a climate charged with a xenophobic media and already marginal ethics makes for a bad formula. No matter what a man can say to your face, getting people riled up with veiled hints that faith drives the fury will make that prophecy come true.
2) How does a man live on a military base (recently transferred there from an East Coast base) and then take to arms against men and women that he eats, sleeps and socializes with? There is a deep-seeded truth that we have yet to see, either in a radical background from the alleged killer or an atmosphere of chaos and tension that served as a tipping point. It is vital to the interests of the nation and its military that this is rooted out and exposed to daylight.
If people are not given an explanation for what made this event happen, there will be an even louder chorus of distrust coming from those who believe that even having a military causes it to go find wars to sustain itself. No benefits can be taken from an ill-informed public when it comes to the murder of those we train to defend a way of life.
The thoughts and prayers of the 7DB family go out to those who were lost in this tragedy.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Jennifer Lopez is suing her first ex-husband to stop the release of a 'honeymoon tape'. The tape is purported to include Lopez in various states of undress, plus includes a verbal disagreement between Lopez and her mother.
First things first. What kind of honeymoon includes anybody's mother? The thought of a mother being near a video camera within the same time zone as a honeymoon should be horrific to anyone who is married or wishes to be someday. (shudder)
Secondly, this suit has a history. Lopez has already blocked in court a tell-all book from the first husband, one Ojani Noa. Since he is the only former or current spouse of Lopez' who was not famous, she wants to make sure he gains no notoriety off of her past with him.
As it turns out, Noa is trying to sell a film about his life story. He has eleven hours of footage, and someone got in his ear and told him to get paid off of it. Lopez has been granted a temporary restraining order blocking the release of the video. Noa's comments, you ask?
"It's a movie about my life," Noa said outside court. "They're trying to ruin my life again ... She don't want me to succeed and that's the problem." (thanks to Kansas City Star.com)
Noa is obviously a scholar of high esteem. He will also lose this, and hopefully leak the video out anyways, just to piss Lopez off. She's not nude in any of it, according to reports, so the case behind it being 'damaging to her career and reputation' gets a bit more difficult to prove. Nonetheless, anyone with aspirations of a career of fame and fortune should be wary of anyone holding a video camera. Also, Lopez is a publicity hound of the highest regard, who has only become reclusive after marrying her third husband (not counting Ben Affleck, whose wedding to her was called off hours before it was to take place) in 2004.
I believe I speak for many when I wish that Mrs. Noa-Judd-Almost Affleck-Anthony-Lopez would just go play with her mad stacks of money and stay away from a camera or a microphone for awhile. Please?
--------------------------------------------------------------
A Northwest Airlines pilot and co-pilot apparently fell asleep while flying a plane. While normally not too disturbing, as the pilot and co-pilot are by protocol to take turns getting rest on long flights, these two flew past their target city by hundreds of miles!
If it was a small airport, maybe you could understand them missing the runway and having to turn around or something, but it was Minneapolis! Very, very big airport, I can tell you from experience...oh, and one of their corporate hubs. Do you think any bosses were there to meet the pilots when they came off? They better have been. Since the airlines recent merger with Delta, customer service has been reduced to referrals to Delta's website, and their pilots are either overworked or undercaffienated. Feel free to throw some coffee onto the plane, boys....yeesh.
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The Berlin Wall fell 20 years ago this week, a lasting reminder of what was a horrific early 20th Century in Germany reduced to rubble by the hands of the citizenry. President Reagan told the leader of the then-Soviet Union "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that wall!" and the people then did.
Can you imagine building a wall to split a city like Berlin? Anecdotal stories of people escaping to the West during the wall's construction, dodging bullets from sniper towers as they ran, populated the youth of 7DB. The most amazing part was what happened over the next 40-odd years after the wall was built.
The pictures from both sides of Berlin are equivalent to black-and-white versus high-definition televisions. Dreary, plain mass housing and buildings not repaired from World War II to one side, ancient and glorious architecture, bursting with color and life, that has survived many wars on the other. One example of a lesson learned: no one my age or younger could imagine doing that to a great city ever again. Gooooo progress!
And now, finally, after his life was extinguished tragically some 45-plus years ago, John F. Kennedy could finally be the jelly doughnut he dreamed of being.
(Dangit. I was gonna let the reference go, but I fear some of my readers may not have been taught the historical point during their schooling. JFK travelled to West Berlin as it was then referred to, and proclaimed in a speech that 'Ich bin ein Berliner'. It was meant as a chant of solidarity with the Germans, but translates to 'I am a jelly doughnut'. There. Conscience cleared.)
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New post tomorrow, including fun stuff about Bear Stearns, the Green Bay Packers being absolutely terrible and a suicide-by-rail that has shocked the sports world, but not America, as soccer is not a sport here. See ya soon.
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Oefelein, a married man, had an affair with Nowak while having a girlfriend on the side, one Air Force Captain Colleen Shipman. Nowak became aware of the extra relationship, believing that a man should apparently have only one extramarital affair at a time, and responded like any sane woman would. She tried to kidnap Shipman, while packing a BB pistol and an air hammer. Nowak was arrested at the airport when the kidnapping was foiled by the victim...rolling up her car window and driving away.
Nowak drove non-stop from Orlando to Houston to catch this woman at the Houston airport. This is where it gets weird.
To get there faster, Nowak reportedly wore diapers so she would not have to stop. I repeat: She wore diapers to be able to not stop driving to catch a woman that she believed was having an affair with her lover, who was married.
Now, most of my seven readers have been jolted at some points in their love lives. Breaking up is never easy to do, to be sure...and maybe we have had the thoughts of some sort of revenge on the third party as the emotions sort out. I can tell you that driving by someone's house to see if they are home is waaaaaaaaay different than to cross two time zones with weapons to try to abduct someone from a highly-secured area like an airport.
Doesn't the rage fade when you hit, oh I dunno, Tuscaloosa? Maybe Birmingham? The thoughts "This is crazy! What am I doing?" should have happened somewhere in there, right?
Oh, by the way, Nowak was married during the affair, too.
So, if you cheat on your spouse, and the person you are cheating with is also cheating on their spouse, should you be surprised when they in turn cheat on you? Shouldn't you expect it, or at least note the possibility of it? I sincerely hope that NASA studies the effect of space travel on morality after this escapade. Or, at least, gives the rights to Vivid Video for a proper re-enactment video for those who are so inclined...
-------------------------------------------------------------
As noted in this space, Penn State grad and Kansas City Chiefs running back Larry Johnson is an idiot. The team has acted accordingly, first suspending the idiot for his homosexual slurs on his Twitter feed, then releasing him outright when the suspension ended.
The now-former Chief was baited into an online war of words with 'fans' of his Twitter feed, then raised it (or, more accurately, lowered it) to a battle of slurs. When given a chance to respond to the media after this came to light, Johnson used the same slurs that brought up the issue to begin with.
Two thoughts: One, I hate to be accurate in predicting the stupidity of athletes. Professionally, I saw it up close, and it never fails to come true from the guys who play sports for money and take it as a sign that they have 'something special' to offer. They do offer something special...on the field, between the lines, when the clock is running. Afterwards, they should be very, very careful, as all eyes are on them, waiting for a mistake. Truthfully, it couldn't happen to a nicer guy.
Larry, for the record, you told that Twitter user that 'U can't stop me getting paid.' I believe he did. Dummy. Pull your act together, and see if the Canadian Football League can use a washed-up running back that likes to slam minorities.
-----------------------------------------------------------
In another instance of 7DB being both accurate and possessing fortune telling-skills, please note that the San Francisco 49ers have proven me right once again. When 49ers WR Michael Crabtree began his preposterous holdout to demand being paid more money than his draft position warranted, 7DB introduced the Crabtree Corollary, suggesting that the bad mojo generated from such a move would backfire, plus the loss in earnings would be significant.
Crabtree ended up signing a contract for the same money he was offered after he was picked 10th in the draft. He did so after the 49ers came off their first loss of the year, a nailbiter against the Minnesota Vikings, that was lost on the last play of the game. Since he signed his contract, the 49ers are 0-4.
Hopefully for all involved, Crabtree discovered that he acted badly on the advice of an agent who may have different interests than young Michael does. Either that, or a young, greedy kid got smacked in the mouth to the tune of $2 million in lost salary. Either way, I'm good with it.
---------------------------------------------------------------
There will be more said in this space about the horrific events that took place at Fort Hood this week, but at first blush there are two glaring things to note:
1) Asking a man of faith to prepare young men and women for battle against people of said faith can be tricky. Asking them to do so in a climate charged with a xenophobic media and already marginal ethics makes for a bad formula. No matter what a man can say to your face, getting people riled up with veiled hints that faith drives the fury will make that prophecy come true.
2) How does a man live on a military base (recently transferred there from an East Coast base) and then take to arms against men and women that he eats, sleeps and socializes with? There is a deep-seeded truth that we have yet to see, either in a radical background from the alleged killer or an atmosphere of chaos and tension that served as a tipping point. It is vital to the interests of the nation and its military that this is rooted out and exposed to daylight.
If people are not given an explanation for what made this event happen, there will be an even louder chorus of distrust coming from those who believe that even having a military causes it to go find wars to sustain itself. No benefits can be taken from an ill-informed public when it comes to the murder of those we train to defend a way of life.
The thoughts and prayers of the 7DB family go out to those who were lost in this tragedy.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Jennifer Lopez is suing her first ex-husband to stop the release of a 'honeymoon tape'. The tape is purported to include Lopez in various states of undress, plus includes a verbal disagreement between Lopez and her mother.
First things first. What kind of honeymoon includes anybody's mother? The thought of a mother being near a video camera within the same time zone as a honeymoon should be horrific to anyone who is married or wishes to be someday. (shudder)
Secondly, this suit has a history. Lopez has already blocked in court a tell-all book from the first husband, one Ojani Noa. Since he is the only former or current spouse of Lopez' who was not famous, she wants to make sure he gains no notoriety off of her past with him.
As it turns out, Noa is trying to sell a film about his life story. He has eleven hours of footage, and someone got in his ear and told him to get paid off of it. Lopez has been granted a temporary restraining order blocking the release of the video. Noa's comments, you ask?
"It's a movie about my life," Noa said outside court. "They're trying to ruin my life again ... She don't want me to succeed and that's the problem." (thanks to Kansas City Star.com)
Noa is obviously a scholar of high esteem. He will also lose this, and hopefully leak the video out anyways, just to piss Lopez off. She's not nude in any of it, according to reports, so the case behind it being 'damaging to her career and reputation' gets a bit more difficult to prove. Nonetheless, anyone with aspirations of a career of fame and fortune should be wary of anyone holding a video camera. Also, Lopez is a publicity hound of the highest regard, who has only become reclusive after marrying her third husband (not counting Ben Affleck, whose wedding to her was called off hours before it was to take place) in 2004.
I believe I speak for many when I wish that Mrs. Noa-Judd-Almost Affleck-Anthony-Lopez would just go play with her mad stacks of money and stay away from a camera or a microphone for awhile. Please?
--------------------------------------------------------------
A Northwest Airlines pilot and co-pilot apparently fell asleep while flying a plane. While normally not too disturbing, as the pilot and co-pilot are by protocol to take turns getting rest on long flights, these two flew past their target city by hundreds of miles!
If it was a small airport, maybe you could understand them missing the runway and having to turn around or something, but it was Minneapolis! Very, very big airport, I can tell you from experience...oh, and one of their corporate hubs. Do you think any bosses were there to meet the pilots when they came off? They better have been. Since the airlines recent merger with Delta, customer service has been reduced to referrals to Delta's website, and their pilots are either overworked or undercaffienated. Feel free to throw some coffee onto the plane, boys....yeesh.
------------------------------------------------------------------
The Berlin Wall fell 20 years ago this week, a lasting reminder of what was a horrific early 20th Century in Germany reduced to rubble by the hands of the citizenry. President Reagan told the leader of the then-Soviet Union "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that wall!" and the people then did.
Can you imagine building a wall to split a city like Berlin? Anecdotal stories of people escaping to the West during the wall's construction, dodging bullets from sniper towers as they ran, populated the youth of 7DB. The most amazing part was what happened over the next 40-odd years after the wall was built.
The pictures from both sides of Berlin are equivalent to black-and-white versus high-definition televisions. Dreary, plain mass housing and buildings not repaired from World War II to one side, ancient and glorious architecture, bursting with color and life, that has survived many wars on the other. One example of a lesson learned: no one my age or younger could imagine doing that to a great city ever again. Gooooo progress!
And now, finally, after his life was extinguished tragically some 45-plus years ago, John F. Kennedy could finally be the jelly doughnut he dreamed of being.
(Dangit. I was gonna let the reference go, but I fear some of my readers may not have been taught the historical point during their schooling. JFK travelled to West Berlin as it was then referred to, and proclaimed in a speech that 'Ich bin ein Berliner'. It was meant as a chant of solidarity with the Germans, but translates to 'I am a jelly doughnut'. There. Conscience cleared.)
----------------------------------------------------------------
New post tomorrow, including fun stuff about Bear Stearns, the Green Bay Packers being absolutely terrible and a suicide-by-rail that has shocked the sports world, but not America, as soccer is not a sport here. See ya soon.
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Monday, November 9, 2009
One man dies, a baby is born...
Every once in a great while, the calendar catches the eye and reminds the viewer how fast it turns. A birthday, the summer solstice, the monthly reminder chime on your Blackberry about the dog's medicine...there's always that moment that screams "Didn't I just (insert action) the other day?"
The stock market is at a high for the year, signalling the recession is ending, although the job market says otherwise right now. The new movie from the Coen Brothers is being released, reminding one of Fargo and The Big Lebowski, and how groups of people would cluster outside of the theatre, chain-smoking and holding cups of terrible coffee, huddled together discussing the marvel they'd just seen. Through all of this, I think of my father.
He died eighteen years ago. Today.
By doing some rudimentary math, that means that Dear Ole Dad missed out on a whole bunch of developments that would have fascinated him. He was an '80s technodork, with the calculator watch he gave me for my tenth birthday one of the best presents I can remember getting. (Although my mother and brother teamed up that year to get me my very own 19" black-and-white Philco television. I remember plugging it in, adjusting the antenna, and watching the first thing that came on. It was an episode of 'Get Smart', and I put on my socks and sat there in bliss while it unfolded...) What would that man have thought of this Internet, of LED TV's, of Blackberry's and iPhones, of even this blog, written by his youngest, available to the world at no fee? His fascinating and curious mind lives on in the uncontrolled morass that operates between my ears, but I can only imagine what he would have done the first time he linked a Palm PDA via Bluetooth and downloaded files bigger than the first computers he worked on in the '70s could even store.
He also missed both of his children getting hitched, missed the wars in the Middle East that he incessantly predicted would happen (Called it within a year of accuracy when the first Desert Storm-style invasion of Iraq would happen. Even guessed correctly that it would be driven by one country invading another over oil reserves, and that the United States would be forced to 'protect its interests'.) The last real conversation we had was about Magic Johnson and HIV. Magic's press conference announcing that he had 'attained' (Magic's word) the HIV virus and would be forced to retire happened two days before Dad passed on, and we talked about an athletic idol retiring before his time. Dad predicted that Magic would live on for "at least five or ten years...he's too healthy to lose the battle." (Magic, of course, is very much alive and well some eighteen years hence) As much as Dad caused me the headaches that teenage boys have when dealing with authority, it is hard to dispute that he was a smart sonuvagun.
Dad missed a bunch of stuff that it would have been handy to have him around for, and more things that would have changed the course of the future for some. I'll always be a little bitter he doesn't get to meet his grandkids (that are not en route yet, but will be sometime soon), and my negative opinion of him fades slightly as each year goes by. Time may indeed heal all wounds.
The only thing that repeatedly comes to mind today, however, is that the day Dad left this mortal coil, there were babies born. Lots of them. To think that a day that holds an anniversary of sorts for me is also a cherished day of freedom for literally thousands of young men and women...bizarre. All of these little runts that now can drive after dark without an adult in the passenger seat, that can now vote and file tax returns and such...they did not exist when my Dad was alive. I cannot believe how time goes. I never will understand that part, but will always be fascinated by it.
Happy birthday to the new cadre of kids born November 9, 1991. Embrace your freedom, and do good things with it. Make those who left before you got here into what history makes all of us: stepping stones into a new and better world.
-------------------------------------------------------
I purposely did not make posts during the last week or so, due to my mind being overwhelmed by the amount of dumb things that happen and would provoke columns of the sort I normally post. In the good news department (for you loyal six readers), 7DB seems to be drawing up some of that old-fashioned angst again, meaning that many columns will be flying at you in the near future. Stay tuned...and thanks for reading.
The stock market is at a high for the year, signalling the recession is ending, although the job market says otherwise right now. The new movie from the Coen Brothers is being released, reminding one of Fargo and The Big Lebowski, and how groups of people would cluster outside of the theatre, chain-smoking and holding cups of terrible coffee, huddled together discussing the marvel they'd just seen. Through all of this, I think of my father.
He died eighteen years ago. Today.
By doing some rudimentary math, that means that Dear Ole Dad missed out on a whole bunch of developments that would have fascinated him. He was an '80s technodork, with the calculator watch he gave me for my tenth birthday one of the best presents I can remember getting. (Although my mother and brother teamed up that year to get me my very own 19" black-and-white Philco television. I remember plugging it in, adjusting the antenna, and watching the first thing that came on. It was an episode of 'Get Smart', and I put on my socks and sat there in bliss while it unfolded...) What would that man have thought of this Internet, of LED TV's, of Blackberry's and iPhones, of even this blog, written by his youngest, available to the world at no fee? His fascinating and curious mind lives on in the uncontrolled morass that operates between my ears, but I can only imagine what he would have done the first time he linked a Palm PDA via Bluetooth and downloaded files bigger than the first computers he worked on in the '70s could even store.
He also missed both of his children getting hitched, missed the wars in the Middle East that he incessantly predicted would happen (Called it within a year of accuracy when the first Desert Storm-style invasion of Iraq would happen. Even guessed correctly that it would be driven by one country invading another over oil reserves, and that the United States would be forced to 'protect its interests'.) The last real conversation we had was about Magic Johnson and HIV. Magic's press conference announcing that he had 'attained' (Magic's word) the HIV virus and would be forced to retire happened two days before Dad passed on, and we talked about an athletic idol retiring before his time. Dad predicted that Magic would live on for "at least five or ten years...he's too healthy to lose the battle." (Magic, of course, is very much alive and well some eighteen years hence) As much as Dad caused me the headaches that teenage boys have when dealing with authority, it is hard to dispute that he was a smart sonuvagun.
Dad missed a bunch of stuff that it would have been handy to have him around for, and more things that would have changed the course of the future for some. I'll always be a little bitter he doesn't get to meet his grandkids (that are not en route yet, but will be sometime soon), and my negative opinion of him fades slightly as each year goes by. Time may indeed heal all wounds.
The only thing that repeatedly comes to mind today, however, is that the day Dad left this mortal coil, there were babies born. Lots of them. To think that a day that holds an anniversary of sorts for me is also a cherished day of freedom for literally thousands of young men and women...bizarre. All of these little runts that now can drive after dark without an adult in the passenger seat, that can now vote and file tax returns and such...they did not exist when my Dad was alive. I cannot believe how time goes. I never will understand that part, but will always be fascinated by it.
Happy birthday to the new cadre of kids born November 9, 1991. Embrace your freedom, and do good things with it. Make those who left before you got here into what history makes all of us: stepping stones into a new and better world.
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I purposely did not make posts during the last week or so, due to my mind being overwhelmed by the amount of dumb things that happen and would provoke columns of the sort I normally post. In the good news department (for you loyal six readers), 7DB seems to be drawing up some of that old-fashioned angst again, meaning that many columns will be flying at you in the near future. Stay tuned...and thanks for reading.
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