Do Leave Home Without It...Sometimes

1) I entered the Starbucks at Sutter and Powell, just down the hill (what would you expect?) from my San Francisco hotel. I stood on line and noticed that every customer in the place was staring into their mobile phone.

 Everyone except me that is; gadzooks, I had left my phone behind in my room! Suddenly, I had a premonition that I was in danger of being arrested, for, in San Francisco, one never knows which new proposition might reign at any given politically correct moment. I quickly concluded that jail was not in my immediate future, at least not for being a phone-truant; however, it did look as though I might have wandered onto a set from Zombies By The Bay III.

 I'll tell you a scary secret and hope that you can bare it: sometimes I leave home without my phone ON PURPOSE.

True. On Sunday, I went for a walk on the nearby High Street ( for you young ones, this does not refer in any way to reefers, but means a street with shops) with no phone upon my person. I did not expire in the street, was not hit by a $200,000 vehicle driven by a guy whose Viagra prescription had run-out, and did not feel the least restrained by my audacious act of telecom neglect.

Moreover, when I returned home and looked into my so-called smart phone, I had not received any dire warnings of imminent terror, found that none of my offspring had come to any harm worth mentioning, and that my spouse had cared so little about demons that might have descended upon me...that she had left her phone at home as well.  Scary, no?

 We have come to the point, Friends, when we think it's remarkable when we do not carry a phone with us. We are being trained to believe that our phones can nearly instantaneously cure our desires for a new pop song, our favorite Seinfeld episode we've seen 175 times, or rally our friends and neighbors to bring down the regime in Cairo, or Occupy to prop one up in Washington. We seem to do every damn thing on our phones, except make phone calls, and one wonders if we are really communicating more or just simply being herded into vast flocks of sheep grazing in fields marked Let's Make A Deal.

 I concluded long ago that a television was not much more than a vending machine, dispensing bits of entertainment, information and commercial messages. Perhaps the best thing about TV as a dominant player in our lives was that it was not very portable. If we could not bring ourselves to turn it off, we might just go to another  room without one or leave the house (this was before airports, banks, delis had TV's). We could hide from advertisers. This was a good thing.

 Our mobile phones are more about advertising than meaningful communication in the form of  calls, texts, emails, web pages, Tweets. Google does a lot of cool stuff, but, at the end of the day, and more importantly at the end of the quarter, they are in the advertising business.  Facebook? Advertising and Marketing Info. Groupon? Advertising. We're walking around with little billboards in our pockets, which is okay as long as we know it.

Sometimes it might be better to, as some ad almost said,  Leave Home Without It. Talk about risky!

 2) For those of you who have not abandoned me after that frightening confession above, here's another. Sometimes I drive my car ( more precisely my Jeep) without listening to the radio or a cd.

Amazingly, there are no long term Ill effects from listening to the engine run, the gears shift, and the tires hug the road. I have gone so far as to listen to the clicking sound traffic lights make when they change without having to go to an Emergency Room for immediate treatment. In fact, driving a car much like our grandparents did (in my case a ton and a half navy DeVille, license 3N8) might be healthy for us.

Who knew?

Homage To Fabriana

Euro-Central Banks

The seemingly endless supply of European central bankers reminds me of those Volkswagen Beetles at the circus, from which a dozen or more clowns always emerged. I'm not casting aspersions - those clowns actually had a real function and performed perfectly every time.

In addition to all these central bankers, Europe seems to have produced an inordinate number of economists, many of whom used to be or are about to become central bankers.

This causes the European public and private banking systems to be like a railroad with dozens of Grand Central Terminals and only a very few minor stops, at which real people get on and off; that is, the kind of people who work in banks and actually do banking things like accounting or lending with an expectation of being paid back.

Perhaps fittingly, the term "pay back" has no direct equivalent in the Greek, Italian, or Spanish languages. The closest equivalents mean "check's in the mail," "just roll it over," and "is this a joke, Juan" respectively.

econo-banker

We should not necessarily jump to the conclusion, based on some current confusion, that thousands of European "economists" and "central bankers" are not qualified. They all must pass the same test; in fact, they all go to school together, marry each other, and breed the next generation of economists and central bankers. Parenthetically speaking, this is pretty much how those circus clowns regenerate as well.

This test is extremely difficult and involves not just having a way with numbers; it tests one's ability to think critically, reason existentially, and learn to behave like european royalty of long ago, but in an understated kind of way. Here are a few examples of test questions:

1. Dimitrios labors for his cousin, a local public works administrator. He works three days a week and gets paid for six. Dimitrios has a lot of expenses and does not pay any taxes. At what temperature should he bake his moussaka?

More Prada, please!

2. Fabriana loves to shop - in Roma, in Fiorenze, Paris and in New York. She maxed-out on all of her credit cards, and is behind on monthly payments on most of them. How would you arrange to keep Fabriana shopping, so that the economy can keep spinning along nicely? Would you recommend that she get a job in a bank, for example or become an economist?

3. Jose borrowed 6 million Euros against the value of his olive groves, which are currently valued at 2 million Euros. How many olives are needed to accompany a nice chunk of Manchego cheese at his favorite tapas bar?

4. How would you translate the following German-Swiss expression: Nein! into English, French, Gaelic, Greek, Italian, Portuguese, or Spanish?

Manchego

As you can see from the difficult nature of these questions, European economists and central bankers who successfully and creatively answer them can certainly find their way out of their current set of difficulties.

Don't you think?

Ciao, Bambinos.

Pilgrims' Regress

Pilgrims' Rock

Thanksgiving Day. What's not to like? Even turkey, which most days tastes like salted paper-towel, tastes great. Normally bland turnips turn into tantalizing tidbits on the tongue. There is no tree to purchase or trim, no frantic trips to town to buy Uncle Ralph a tie that we know he will never wear, and no marathon wrapping sessions in the attic.

Thanksgiving Day, brilliantly concocted to be on a Thursday, creating a four day weekend of food, football, and fooling around. Even we could not mess up Thanksgiving, could we?

Thinketh again, Pilgrims. Welcome to Thanksgiving Inc.

Wal-Mart has decided to open its doors at 10PM on Thanksgiving Night to accommodate "customers," AKA People Who Need to Get A Life.  Amazingly, those customers took umbrage at last year's experience, one might even say privilege, of having to line up beginning around midnight in order to get prized shoppers' wrist bands, which the stores didn't distribute until 2AM, while otherwise reasonable folk were sound asleep.

And they say that America can no longer innovate. Hah! Imagine what these sleep-deprived customers could accomplish if only they still had full time jobs with benefits and access to credit?

On 2nd Thought, Make it 12AM!

Thanksgiving Inc. Weep-eth with me, Pilgrims.

One guesses that the original Pilgrims could never have thought of something so clever as a huge shopping opportunity like Black Friday or, Black Thursday Night. After all, they could not even think of a name for the place at which they landed other than "Plymouth," the very name of the place from which they came. They landed at Plymouth on November 11, and, no doubt they were tired of the Mayflower's non-POSH food and the Pilgrim-in-Chief's constant sermonizing. Native corn, oysters, cranberries and wild turkeys, not to mention a snout full  of wild crabapple-liqeur must have seemed like a really good idea.

Americans now imagine that all descendants of early Pilgrims have become wealthy beyond all get out over the generations; but the truth is that not so many of them as imagined would make Warren Buffet's Millionaires' Most Wanted List for super-sizing their tax bite.  Instead, I think it's more credible and frightening to think that a good many Pilgrim descendants might be tempted to convene at Wal-Mart Store # 2336 off Route 44 in contemporary Plymouth to assail themselves of deals.

Bradfords, Brewsters, Standishes. Imagine the original Pilgrim set lined up in their pj's at midnight:

Pilgrim #1: "If only we had stow-ethed some of these container-size packeths of Depends for our ocean journey; we are indeed blessed in this new world."

Pilgrim #2: "You said-eth it, Pilgrim, and we could have used them along with these seven cases of bottled water for $1.29, with coupons! Have you knowledge of said blessing, Pilgrim, the coupon?

We live in an age in which we begin selling Halloween candy around July 4th, sign up for our free-range, grass-fed, organic turkeys while still wearing bathing suits, and begin seeing Christmas lights in the hardware store before the last homegrown tomatoes have fallen from the vine.

Bonkers Buyers Bunking

We may be able to do without the rotary dial; we can adapt to the new habit of treating a hurricane as Armageddon; we may survive allowing our boss, spouse, child to call/text us at 3AM; and now we know what it's like to have a blizzard in the northeast before the leaves fall.

But, Pilgrims, let us unite against this insidious intrusion into our Thanksgiving, one of the the last bastions of decency, sanity...peace.

Please-eth.

Rick, Herman, And...Kim?

New Bravo "debaters"

Bravo TV is rumored to be deep into negotiations to sign all the current Republican presidential candidates, except presumed winner Mitt Romney, to long-term contracts. A Bravo poll strongly indicates that most Americans already believe that the "debates" are a Bravo-produced reality TV show, and the cable channel is eager to pounce on an opportunity. Apparently, Americans are not put-off by having had nine candidate debates occur with a full year remaining before the actual election, in which most eligible American voters will not participate anyway.

Bravo, Fox, and other cable channels, along with The New York Times have already concluded on behalf of potential primary voters, most of whom won't vote, that the primary race is now over even though there has not yet been a primary vote yet. Bravo poll data also indicated that voters will consider any future Romney-Obama debates as being as exciting as debates between the Accounting faculties at Utah State and the University of Illinois; and believe that viewers would rather see more entertaining "candidates"continue making fools of themselves in the most amazing ways.

Reportedly, a representative of former Governor, former candidate, former this 'n that Palin, the most successful reality TV candidate in history, has already approached Bravo with an offer to join the current group of hapless, but lovable, debaters. Bravo has declined, feeling that $25Million over two years (Bravo plans to continue the show well-beyond the November 2012 Election Day) is too steep.

Newest "candidate"

Instead, Bravo sees the possibility of making this new show an extension of its stunningly popular Kardashian franchise, now that Kim's marriage plot has dissolved, with Kim joining the group as a candidate.

A spokesperson for Mr. Cain's campaign referred questions about Ms. Kardashian to Mr. Cain's lawyer and claimed that the candidate had never been in the same room with her, at least as far as he could recall. Mr. Perry said that he had a reaction to the reports, but that he could not, for the moment, remember what that was.

_________________________________________________________________________________

Foreign reaction to the Bravo rumor was swift:

In Moscow, former and future President Putin said that, "...as usual, the Americans had been quick to criticize his 'arrangement' with Mr. Medvedev, the Russian voters, and the manufacturers of Russian voting machines as being a sham and not real democracy. These ridiculous 'debates'  show that the Americans  are so busy spreading democracy abroad that they forgot to be serious about practicing it at home." He went on to say that the Russian people rightly consider a long debate, or any debate about who will lead them to be a waste of time and money.

Debates? Nyet

In Teheran, Mr. Ahmadinejad offered to hold one of the future Bravo "debates" on Iranian soil and pre-agreed to a UN controlled radiation inspection of the debating hall.

President Karzai, in Afghanistan, said that Americans will finally have an opportunity to see how corrupt their political system has become, with a political industry of consultants, lobbyists, reporters, unions and hangers-on sharing hundreds of millions of dollars in donated booty. "In Afghanistan," Mr Karzai said, "we have always had our corruption out in the open, where people can see it, which is  more honest." A spokesperson for Karzai said that his use of the term "booty" was not meant as a reference to Ms. Kardashian, even though the President has long admired her from afar.

A spokesperson for the government in Beijing said that officials were too busy managing their own inherently corrupt system to be bothered talking about someone else's.

______________________________________________________________________________

The White House staff, newly re-organized around the President's small group of most trusted advisors, in order protect him from any ideas or opinions that he might not like to hear, could not help gloating over the Bravo reports...

Can one candidate "win?"

...until it became apparent that there was a distinct possibility that the non-Fox cable media and the Times might very well find some piece of scandal with which they could knock off the only remaining opposition candidate, leaving the President a clear path to running...

...against himself. And they wondered what it would mean if he won an election against nobody.

By The Numbers

Nein-Nein-Nein: Leading Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain's answer to allegations of sexual harassment while he was head of the National Restaurant Association.

One: To add insult to alleged injury, Marjorie Kettleworthy, 83, of Sandusky, OH has filed a discrimination suit against Mr. Cain, alleging that she was the only female employee at the National Restaurant Association during Mr. Cain's tenure as president , whom he did not sexually harass.

365: i) Actual number of days remaining before the actual presidential Election Day 2012; ii) actual number of Americans who knew the election was not today; iii) number of Iowan voters deciding who the next Republican candidate will be; iv) final number of alleged sexual harassment incidents needed to convince Herman Cain to drop out of the race; v) Number of times this week, so far,  that NJ Governor Chris Christie has declined pleas from the Republican National Committee to run; vi) Number of times this week, so far, that NYC's Mayor Mike Bloomberg has denied plans to enter the race, despite the fact that nobody asked him about it.

4: Number of times that Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York has been seen in public since he was sworn in last December.

44: Number of times Gov. Cuomo has called VP Biden this year to assure the Veep that he has no intention of trying to replace Biden on the 2012 ticket.

444: Number of private cell phone calls to Gov. Cuomo originating in the Oval Office this year, so far.

4,444: Number of millionaires it takes to make one Warren Buffet, who is spearheading a national movement to raise the tax rates for millionaires.

Zero: Number of billionaires named Warren Buffet, who understand that they are not obligated to take every possible deduction available to them, or to take advantage of every loophole in the personal and corporate tax codes.

471: Total number of published blog posts in the ThirdGarage/RareBurghers communications conglomerate, including this 281st posting.