Cultural Photography

Cultural photography is a different art form than landscape photography - truly it is about interpretation of another human-being whose life until the moment of the photograph, has been taking place so far away from yours that you have to guess the 'whys' and use your camera to record how your heart sees that other person's life.   Jonathan Stewart does that exceedingly well. Sphere: Related Content

The Hand of Ethelberta

The Hand of Ethelberta, a lesser known novel by Thomas Hardy, has as the venue of its 31st chapter, the ruins of an ancient castle known in reality as Corfe Castle.   The town of Wareham, Dorset, UK is at the foot of the Corfe Castle hill.  I am traveling by rail from London to Wareham on January 22, during a layover on my way to New Dehli  to meet Tony Blake, a local photographer, and hike and photograph the area.  In the surrounding country side, author Hardy found the inspiration for Far From the Madding Crowd, Mayor of Casterbridge, Tess of the D'Ubervilles and other well know works. Sphere: Related Content

Jockulsarlon at 4 am

It's about 4 am and I am crouched along the channel that leads from the Jokusarlon glacier's bay out to the ocean.   It is too dim to photograph the birds swooping down to catch the small fish in the channel and the sound of the huge pieces of ice tumbling down the narrow channel, crashing into each other is an other wordly reminder of the powerful forces of nature.   I should have recorded a video with sound, but instead I took three rapid shots at high speed, maybe within a 1/3 of a second, bracketed the exposure and tried to express the range of ice, from dark and holding still frozen earth scraped from the volcanic sediment found at the center of Iceland to the pristine clear ice of compressed snow.  I was cold.  The wind was howling across the vast frozen surfaces unchecked.   This moment will not be forgotten. Sphere: Related Content

Compositional Signatures in the Photographic Art of Larry Sultan

Last week I had the privilege of a leisurely visit to LACMA, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art where, with my son Lawrence, I viewed, along with other great exhibits, the photographs of Larry Sultan.  http://www.lacma.org/art/exhibition/larry-sultan-here-and-home

As an aspiring photographer, I study the work of renowned photographers and attempt to understand the qualities which  make their work unique and respected.  In the work of Larry Sultan I found an immediate engagement with the viewer, as if Sultan himself was standing at my shoulder whispering and pointing, "look here, then look there!  See that, then notice this.  Chuckle to yourself...  Isn't that interesting, or disturbing or humorous??" 

The work of Sultan speaks to the viewer in a strong, universally human language of photography, written in light by a master communicator of the art.

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Ideas in the Stream

As we all access so much information so easily the process presents the risk for me of becoming a trap, an intellectual form of hoarding - a clutter of pixels.  I think of this river of ideas and facts like a trout stream where hundreds of beautiful fish endlessly await for the eager angler to to choose the correct fly and pull them from the water's grasp.  One might fish from hunger or the adrenalin rush of the catch or the challenge of the fish vs. man or the insatiable desire to view the beauty of holding the  fish in the sunlit flow, but all is temporary.  When younger my accumulation of books was the same.  

I travelled constantly for work.  When I had time off book stores offered a trout stream of ideas and stories.  More were caught than consumed. Shelves were filled which now must now be emptied.   Our next home will have no space to hold my books.   No one wants them.   

The same specter of uselessness sometimes hovers over my shoulder as I edit my photographs and post them to Flickr - now my 1,000's joining billions.  Off the internet my images consume terabytes.   I am uncertain of their value except for my own amusement.  What of the video cassettes of travels to remote places that are stored in a cabinet below my tv monitor?

We have a digital record of most all of our business work for the last 30 years - now approaching 800,000 pages.   In order to economically cease business the records must be converted to pdf's and stored off line in a safe.  Useless, really, except when there is some question posed, usually when someone has lost their own record.  I had made no promise that we would keep the records but we have.  

And then there is my study of the story of the photograph of Anna Marie Merkel by Andre Kertez, who she was and became and the strange book "Jusep Torres Campalans" by Max Aub.  I will someday publish that tale on my blog.... But again, information that illuminates such a small moment in history - one enigmatic moment in the life of a photographer, the images of Anna Marie safely stored in museums, her identity and life possibly a mystery to almost everyone, both then and now.

The retention of lists and information and ideas might have an audience and a purpose; the hundreds / thousands of students and the tens of thousands they have taught and the lives they have lived.  Anyone who has had a devoted teacher is very fortunate to be the beneficiaryof tenacious curiosity and devotion to knowledge

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Casterbridge

In 1979 or so, on a day of respite from insurance meetings at Lloyd's , I took the early morning British Rail train from London, and traveled along the south coast of England to the home of Thomas Hardy, Dorchester, the Casterbridge of his novels, watching the school children travel one stop to the next, workers, tradesmen and women, business travelers, until I reached the Dorchester station in Dorset county.  

I wandered into town, found the Hardy museum and bought a map - the key to the locations which Hardy translated into the stage upon which his beloved stories took place - all real, still there - preserved for time and the occasional English major wandering away from London on a whim.   Then a few steps down the street was the hotel, The Kings Arms, just as it had been 100+ years before.....

http://www.kingsarmshoteldorchester.com/

“The building before whose doors they had pitched their music-stands was the chief hotel in Casterbridge—namely, the King's Arms. A spacious bow-window projected into the street over the main portico, and from the open sashes came the babble of voices, the jingle of glasses, and the drawing of corks. The blinds, moreover, being left unclosed, the whole interior of this room could be surveyed from the top of a flight of stone steps to the road-waggon office opposite, for which reason a knot of idlers had gathered there.”

Excerpt From:

Hardy, Thomas. “The Mayor of Casterbridge.” iBooks. 

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Observing Life: Preliminary Observations Regarding Gustav Vigeland

In 2006, on a trip to Scandanavia with my mother, then 85, we briefly visited the Frognersparken, Oslo, Norway, home to the sculpture (nearly all of his life's work) of Gustav Vigeland.  Our eloquent guide was Norwegian and his description of the theme of these monolithic granite and bronze works caused me to view them with an open eye and heart.  My emotional reaction was quite strong and though I had taken many digital photos in the park at that time and my wife had made a video record which I later combined into a video with the guide's narration, I had the continuing fantasy that I would someday return, unrestricted by time, and view the many score of works closely and in the benefit of better light.  My first visit was during a cold grey rain which discolored and stripped the sculptures and limited the photography and viewing.  We were part of a tour group, on a schedule, and the segment of the day devoted to the park limited to about 45 minutes.  

Yesterday, June 10, 2014, I returned to the park, with a much better camera, a day and a half to visit the park and a bed at a B&B a short walk from the entrance.  With yesterday's late afternoon and evening photography and this morning's sundrise (3:59 am) to 8 am photography I have accumulated over 500 images.  About 80% are groups of three bracketed exposures which will be combined into single frame High Dynamic Range (HDR) photos and the rest are single photos making the total about 200+ unique images.  I also applied 8 years of photographic study and experience in "seeing."  I hope I have progressed since those earlier years.

More importantly though I believe the decade from age 62-70 has brought me more experience with life and the joy and challnge of becoming a grandfather and also older.

The grandfather's eye is most important to "seeing" Vigeland's work, because my view is that the
Sculptor used his art to convey his observations about life, relationships, love, jealousy, anger, sympathy, joy and the full range of human experience.  Vigeland does not use words but rather a remarkable language created out of mute granite and bronze to sing life's song as eloquently as Brahms or Whitman or Rembrandt.   With the luxury of several hours viewing through my camera's view finder, seeking the light and angle and the patience to try to translate three dimensional art into photography which I hope will convey enough of what Vigeland is, I believe, communicating, that you too will be motivated to come to Oslo and spend time in this unique place.  For, as Vigeland himself was stated to have said, "if you want to see my work, you must come to Oslo."   Indeed, virtually his life's work is in this one place - no where else.   Sphere: Related Content

Checked baggage weight to Iceland

Busted for 1.5 pounds over, I took the locks off my bag to decide what weighed 1.5 pounds.  Turns out that a Tottenham away jersey plus a digital camera raincoat (to protect the camera while you shive in the cold Iceland sideways early spring rain) weigh almost 1.5 lbs.  I nudged the bag slightly and she said OK and I locked up the bag.  I considered wearing the jersey but instead hung it from my bag and moved on. Sphere: Related Content

Making Travel Easy - Norwegian Style

My first travel to Oslo back in 2006 was a smooth effortless trip, but true to form, the Norwegians are making it even simpler in 2014.  Flytoget is the transport system from Oslo Airport to downtown.  For you those who do the research, you can register your credit card in advance, validate it once before boarding the first time and thereafter never have to bother with tickets.  That just makes sense.

https://www.flytogetkvittering.no/Flytoget/Pages/DC_Initial.aspx


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Long Days and Short Nights

Iceland.2014
On June 9 I begin a journey to Reykjavik to meet up with a group of photographers who will  travel through western and southern Iceland pursuing landscape and wildlife photography. Sphere: Related Content

The next 12 Months - Can we rise above?

Only 15 states have taken the necessary steps to adopt the Affordable Health Care Act. This failure will result in a massive intrusion of the Federal government to implement the provisions. This will result in a rapid massive shift in the basic process of obtaining, documenting and providing for health care. No one can predict the turmoil involved.

Very soon we face the fiscal cliff. The immediate impact would be an immediate slow down in domestic economic activity to reduce the GDP to -1.7%, increasing health care costs by 1% because of layoffs which means piling on of health care utilization before COBRA clicks in and a probable increase in unemployment backiy to 9%.

Plans are for layoffs and reduction of capital expenditures.

Taxes will increase on dividends and capital gains. The income which supports our seniors will be reduced significantly.

For details of these predictions, see the interview of Mark Bertolino, Chairman and CEO of Aetna on CNBC 11/7/2012.

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Romney v Obama in The Town Hall

Remember that Mitt Romney comes from a culture, his faith, where all members of the congregation are pastors, caring and supporting each other in times of need and trouble. When Mitt Romney is placed in that all too familiar environment of the congregation of the American people,, his family, he will present the compelling warm caring father and wise older brother and supportive husband that I know him to be. Watch carefully and you will at least understand why I support him for President. Sphere: Related Content

What would you say?

What I would like to hear Romney say tonightThe great issues“The 14th Amendment was adopted to end discrimination in the United States in 1868. The accomplishment of that goal has been a work in progress ever since. Not until the mid 20th century did true progress occur primarily through the leadership and sacrifice of Martin Luther King followed by advocates for women’s rights and other gender related issues.As president of the United States, I would actively pursue the eradication of discrimination in the United States of every type and form. The realization of the full effectiveness of the 14th Amerndment is my number 1 goal. I believe that a culture and society which is free of discrimination, where every citizen has equal opportunity and where every person regardless of ethnicity, race, creed or gender has equal opportunity education, employment, marriage, family and the pursuit of happiness, the goal of America. These are the “great issues” before us, now as they have been for many decades, as our country evolves and grows in a world of instant global communications, trade and relationships. We all must learn to live peacefully and I further believe that America’s founding fathers and God established the United States to be the example to the world. We have much to do.Today, in 2012, we have more challenges as a nation than ever before. Not only do we have challenges from abroad like the terrorists who invaded our embassy in Libya and assassinated our ambassador, like the challenge of so many people across the world who celebrated that tragedy, but also those who patiently plot and plan to create world imbalance like the nation of Iran. This is a world with great issues of its own, which needs the United States to fully engage its role as a leading example of freedom and democracy. The same role of leadership is required on economic issues and that is where the current President of the United States and I so strongly disagree.While I believe that I have stated the long range goals of our nation in a way to which we should all abe able to agree, I believe that we must put our economic recovery at the very forefront of our plans and efforts. Without a strong national and global economy with the United States leading the way in employment, balanced national budgets, provision of world leading health care and world leading education, none of our primary goals as a nation can be achieved. I ask you to elect me in November for 4 years, with an option to renew for four more years conditioned on the achievement of a clear improvement in our national economy and global economic leadership. With the world respect and position that this recovery should achieve, I believe we will do more to achieve our national goals of a discrimination free society than in any other way. Let’s put first things first and get out of the hole that may have started long ago but which our current President has only dug deeper. President Obama has not achieved what I set as the threshold requirement for re-election, true progress towards economic recovery.Let us keep our eye on the goals our forefathers set for our nation back in the time of Abraham Lincoln and towards which we made so much progress towards during the too short life of Martin Luther King. That is a national goal on which we can all agree. I believe that we first put our house in order economically and I am going to show you all how I plan to do this during these debates. I really do not care what slings and arrows my opponent may attempt to cloud these issues with. My vision for our future is clear, well considered and correct. I will not waver from my purpose; an America with.Equality of opportunity - elimination of barriers based on any kind, be they race, sex, ethnic heritage, sexual preference, age or educational opportunity. Equality of care - every citizen must have equal access to quality medical care - with the knowledge that there will never be financial or other barriers to life saving medicine and hospitalizationEquality of security - every American must be confident that in retirement and old age that they will not become burdens on their families. Every citizen must be protected in their golden years and have access to safe shelter and nutritional food.” Sphere: Related Content

Finaly about 8 years ago, with the help of my friend Skip Cressman, I finished a full 100% of all the United States by visiting Oregon for a great fishing trip to the Rogue River.
create your own personalized map of the USA or check out ourCalifornia travel guide Sphere: Related Content

In my 67+ years, I have been fortunate to have traveled to so many wonderful places, seeing the diversity and beauty of our world and its people.
create your own visited country map or check our Venice travel guide Sphere: Related Content

Making Sense of What is About to Happen

The United States (and the rest of the world) is about to plunge into a recession which could be prolonged. This period might actually be more of a permanent reduction in our standard of living than a temporary downturn.

We have come to expect ever increasing actual wealth but for many years that "wealth" has been an illusion created by our manipulation of interest rates, housing values and deceptive calculation of inflation.

True productivity has been squeezed from technology but there are limits to the amount of information a single worker can meaningfully manipulate and turn to profit.

The fiscal cliff which I last wrote of in July is now only 4 months away and it's repercussions are a constant background discussion which unfortunately is not rising above the shrill cacophony of the election. The cliff is in plain view. The consequences are written into the law. No one, except a few Congressmen, are paying any heed.

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The President's Speech

The President will spend most of a lengthy speech tonight trying to make the undecided voters believe that in his next term he will be more like Bill Clinton. However, I do not believe that Obama is capable of Clinton's consensus building. The arrogant way the Healthcare Act was foisted upon even the Democrats who supported him in his election made building a coalition in congress impossible. Ask Senators Grassley and Baucus. They understand how to get job done but even their leadership is thwarted by Obama's Whitehouse. If America wants to further experiment with America's future by reelecting this failed leader then I fear for the destiny of our nation. I am sure most Democrats today secretly wish Hillary had won 4 years ago. Sphere: Related Content

Cliff Diving

Cliff diving

You all have likely seen the Mexican cliff divers who launch themselves into the air over the rocky waters of Acapulco. They seem heroic and brave before they plunge to disappear for a breathless few seconds beneath the surface to then appear, smiling, arm waving, to the delight, applause and relief of those watching. The divers are called "death defying" and "fool hardy.". Yet their bravado pales next to a president who leads his nation to the brink of the cliff and urges the population to jump. The Acapulco divers know every rock below, every depth at each moment of the surging tide. The President has not a clue. The divers know how far beneath the water their dive will take them and how much breath and strength is needed to rise back to the surface. They survive going off the cliff. We, my fellow Americans, will not.

The current projected shortfall of our underfunded corporate pension plans (low interest rates assumed) is a monumental $400 Billion which is trivial compared to the governments' (state and local) shortfall of $4 trillion. Folks the water beneath our fiscal cliff is as unknown as the dark depths of the Mariana Trench. We don't have enough oxygen to get back to the surface if we take the plunge.

So i ask you, "do you know anyone who voted for McCain 4 years ago that is voting for Obama this time?". In logic that question is called a rhetorical reduction to absurdity. An impossible thought.


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Joe Dinner Bucket Meets Mitt Romney in Ohio

Back in my youth I was the parlimentarian for the City Council of Canton, Ohio. The council members would argue about city affairs and rarely did I have to make a ruling. On one side was a successful dentist and on the other was a union organizer at Timken Roller Bearing. The working man vs the businessman. That was 40 years ago and times haven't changed in Ohio.

At a time when more than 16% of Americans who do not have a high school diploma are without work and in total dependence to the social benefits of the government for food, shelter and medical care while only 4% of Americans with a college diploma are unemployed, there is a cultural and societal gap that is widening by every day which passes. No wonder a president who is presiding over a failing economy and a budget which is so stressed it can't even be passed is still likely to be re-elected. He is promising continued benefits and support for those in need. Joe Dinnerbucket has an empty bucket that only the government can fill. These are votes of desperation and the promise of a wise and compassionate businessman doesn't seem enough to create any hope for change.

What can Mitt Romney do in the next couple months to start to reveal his humanity and relate to those who are in need. Go to the edges of America. Visit tenements and trailer parks. Talk to people who have been unemployed for years. Talk to the social workers and policemen and church people who feed and care for them. Speak in Spanish, speak in common English.

Do I really think this could happen? Do I have any way of knowing what is in Mitt Romney's heart? The answer is a qualified yes. In 2002, in preparation for the Salt Lake Winter Olympics, I was invited by a client to accompany the U.S. Delegation to Athens to "pick up the flame." There was a ceremony in the original Olympic Stadium and we met the U.S. Ambassador at the embassy. In just 24+ hours we flew from Salt Lake to Athens to Atlanta and delivered the flame to the torch which started the relay across the nation. Mitt Romney was the leader of the delegation because he was the President of the U.S. Winter Olympics. My mother, then 81 years old was with me.

During the flight home Mitt came back to our seats and knelt down and spoke at length with my mother. The conversation was caring, listening, encouraging and I smiled as my mother reacted so positively to his warm concern for her comfort. When he left, I said to my mother, "That man could be president of the U.S." I still think he could, but he needs to kneel down and talk to America the way he spoke to my mother, is low quiet tones, listening and encouraging. This peaceful gracious man is what America needs now. I am sure he can do this, but the question remains, will he? Sphere: Related Content

My Photography

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Cleaning out the office

Subject: Cleaning out the office
 
Over the many years of Bridgestone’s Explorer cases and my fling with mass torts, my office had become piled with paper, magazines, notebooks, novels and odd pieces of electronics which, when assembled into my trusty Tumi rolling office, became my life and business support system when I traveled to a mediation or a meeting.  The detritus included fishing notes, maps, books as well as a hearing aid to hear high pitched women’s voices in a large conference rooms, reading glasses, cd’s of regulations and statutes, pens, batteries, recorders, an iPod, ear phones, a ruler and the small magnifying glass that my grandfather left me.

 

As 2011 wound down I made a firm resolution to clean the place out, dust off the furniture and bring some order to evidence which would lead some to believe that I should be the subject of a reality cable show called, Hoarders.  Unusual as it may seem to those who know me well, I have kept my resolution.  My rug is visible and more than 5 fifty gallon garbage bags of paper and trash have gone to the recycling center.  The result is a decent room, some organization of the remaining materials and the jarring confrontation with lots of old memories that lay buried in the flotsam.

Mostly the items, like the recollections mentioned in Wordsworth’s Lines Written a few miles above Tintern Abbey, were pieces of what came back from great fishing trips and encounters with friends from all over the country.  Venezuela, New Zealand, Oregon, Montana, Pennsylvania, Idaho, South Dakota, Virginia, North Carolina, Vietnam and on and on.

There are pictures of Fred Bush that I need to scan.  I am awash of recollection.

January, 2012, was the first month in this century that I haven’t traveled for business.  Maybe I am like my dad, an old soldier.

 

Any way, what prompted this outburst was a note from a good friend quoting an entry from a blog called Trout and Gin, which I am sure has significance for us all.

http://flyandgin.wordpress.com/2012/02/01/old-gear/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+FlyGin+%28Fly+%26+Gin%29

 

Larry

 

Old Gear.
Posted: 01 Feb 2012 10:20 AM PST

 

I browsed a roadside thrift shop the other day. Its basically a cinderblock four-car garage stacked wall to wall with….junk. Old furniture, books, ornaments, paintings, sporting goods, electronics, you name it. It’s shopping’s version of the treasure hunt, never knowing what you might find. In this case, I found a few old fishing items I thought I’d share.

Amongst some old ski poles, pool sticks and an ancient looking pair of ice skates stood a collection of old fishing rods in various stages of decay and disrepair, some with bobbers and line still attached that clearly hadn’t been cast in decades. I examined them for brand names I may recognize as classic or deceased, just in case I was staring at a collectors item, and concluded there was not much more than junk here. None the less, it makes you wonder who owned them, and what kind of fish they caught, and where. More, it makes me wonder who decided to give away all of their fishing gear, and why. Maybe it wasn’t the original owners choice at all. Maybe they were just clutter in someones garage; remnants of people long gone.


My favorite find were these fishing publications from the 60′s. Sports Afield, complete with hand drawn covers of fisherman in row boats or standing alongshore, a nod to a time before there digital cameras and fisherman covered in sponsorship badges making them look not unlike Nascar drivers, and standing in $40,000 boats and holding $700 rods. The bold tagline on it the cover was optimistic: “The Best Ideas on Fishing Ever Assembled in any Magazine!’ The back cover was for cigarettes, promoting how this particular brand would make you stand out in a social crowd.

Another copy from the 70′s showed an older man in jeans and a button down shirt and the obligatory fishing hat, standing in a beat up old boat and holding a three-foot pike. A sub line promises an extensive article on wilderness trout, of which there had to have been many more of than there are today, and the opportunity to order, from Sports Afield, a kit that would allow fisherman to test for acid rain.

Though absent long, 

Wordsworth

These forms of beauty have not been to me, 

As is a landscape to a blind man's eye: 

But oft, in lonely rooms, and mid the din 

Of towns and cities, I have owed to them, 

In hours of weariness, sensations sweet, 

Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart, 

And passing even into my purer mind 

With tranquil restoration:—feelings too 

Of unremembered pleasure; such, perhaps, 

As may have had no trivial influence 

On that best portion of a good man's life; Sphere: Related Content

Electing a President

What process would you undertake in deciding how to vote for president when there is a sitting president and a host of challengers from another party or maybe even several parties?

Would you review the record of sitting president and grade that president on his or her accomplishments? Would you look at the economy, employment, the value of the dollar, our relationships with trading partners and competitors, the status of relations with other countries, the status of social issues that are important to you (list some other important elements) OR would you simply say:
1. I have always voted for that party so I will be faithful and vote based on party alone
or
2. I am a "liberal" or "conservative" and so is the current president so I will vote that way
or
3. I think the current president has charisma and makes great speeches and inspires me so I will vote for that
or
4. Things aren't so good right now but its not the president's fault so let's give the president a chance to get it right
or
5. Things aren't so good right now but the alternative is worse for one reason or another so I will vote for the least bad choice?

How are you approaching the decision? Sphere: Related Content

Reducing the Deficit Through Taxation and the Law of Unintended Consequences

Taxes are collected by states and the Federal government for owning real estate, owning stocks, owning cars, buying goods, buying gas, working and dying, to name a few of the sources of taxation.

For another take on the Buffett tax see:http://www.cnbc.com/id/44584116




If you earn too little, you pay no tax on income. If you buy stocks and sell them quickly, you pay tax on the gain like the gain was ordinary income. If you buy stocks and hold them for a longer time, you pay a tax only on the gain that you have made and it is lower than the tax on ordinary income. So if you are one of the very successful business people who have climbed the corporate ladder and you are now a vice president or CEO of a large company, you don't get paid as much in ordinary income as you do in stock. If your administration is successful and the stock of your company goes up, then you are paid for that success with capital gains, taxed at the lower capital gains rate. That is why Warren Buffett pays a lower percentage of his total income in taxes than his secretary. Most of Buffett's income is in capital gains, not ordinary income. If his company is not successful (Bershire Hathaway ticker symbol BRK) then Buffet has no capital gains and he is not able to sell his stock at a long term profit to take advantage of this rate.

However, Buffett got most of his stock when he STARTED the company. He was the founder and the risk taker. So he would pay 15% of the huge gain on every share he sells (basically he would pay $15,000 Federal tax on each share so because each share is worth something over $100,000.) So what did Buffett do with the money? He gave it away instead to a charity - run by Bill Gates....... Great for charity and great for the people who receive the benefits of the charity. What did the government lose in taxes? Around $4.5 billion on the $30,000,000,000 or so Buffett gave away. Would that make much of a dent in the deficit? Yup, a little one. The deficit needs to be reduced by $1,000,000,000,000 this year or so. Maybe the same next year and for some more years to come. Would paying the tax on all this wealth at ordinary income rates help out? Sure would? Instead of a measly $4.5 billion, the tax at ordinary income might be $14,000,000,000. A little bit bigger portion of the $1,000,000,000,000 needed this year and next. And if we did this to all the capital gains of all the fat cats like Buffett, then maybe we could pay off the deficit. Hmmmmm...... is this why Buffett already decided to give it away?

This now focuses us on the law of unintended consequences. Which is, basically, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction and maybe not the one that was intended.

If someone magically seduced the congress to join hands and pass the fat cats tax, effective for all sales of long term assets effective tomorrow, what would happen today? All the stocks owned by U.S. citizens long term would be sold to get the lower capital gains tax, the market would crash and we would all be in a depression.

Maybe someone ought to think this all through before we get wrapped up in making sure Buffett's brethern (remember he already gave his away) pay their fair share. Sphere: Related Content

How Does It All Add Up?

During the next 12 months, the U.S. must refinance more than $ 1 Trillion (that's $1,000,000,000,000) in short term debt. The interest rate that the taxpayers of the U.S. must pay in order to accomplish this refi could make a significant dent in any supposed savings which the U.S. might achieve from attacking the deficit with the gimicks now proposed. How does the U.S. prevent paying a higher rate for the refi? Simple, the U.S. must keep its AAA rating. Every rating agency has stated that the downgrade in the rating will occur unless the U.S. addresses the current deficit with at least a projected $4 Trillion reduction. Does anyone else see that part of the package for raising the ceiling and getting the U.S. back on track must address the deficit and that means addressing the massive costs of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

I, for one, do not believe that addressing the cost of these entitlement programs requires reduction of benefits. The systems that support the delivery of medical care and administrative process for Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security are so bloated with excess redundant and unnecessary overhead costs that the U.S. would come a long way towards the reductions it needs simply by modernizing the systems, cutting out the wastage from inefficiency and focusing on lower cost delivery of services. Wasn't that what Ross Perot promised to do nearly 20 years ago? Sphere: Related Content

Detroit 187 - Chicago Code 0

I hope that you are not missing one the of the best written, directed, filmed and edited television police dramas ever made: Detroit 1-8-7. Sunday evening a pivotal episode was slotted into the 10 pm dead zone when most people are getting to sleep early to prepare for Monday's work after a long weekend. Shame on ABC. After months of building intricate plot lines, ABC puts the payoff on Sunday evening. Glad I have a DVR. Anyway, go online at http://abc.go.com/shows/detroit-1-8-7.
.

Fitch, a central character, played by Michael Imperioli, like Casals played the cello, has tones of insight and nuance rarely seen in series television. The character becomes real in all his tormented life. Face with moral decisions of dire consequence to his son and his partner and his unit, he bravely accepts potential ramifications to himself which most less clear persons would run from.

This is a show that makes the post GM bankruptcy Detroit come alive. The exteriors are clearly in Detroit. The fabric of the city is the fabric of the story. Don't miss this. If there is a hint that it might not be renewed for another season, write ABC and tell them you want more. And you will. Just watch the latest episode online. Sphere: Related Content

Being a Cat

We have currently two cats; Rascal and Raja. Our third old guy, Rama, obtained from the local shelter a few years ago, died in 2009. Our cats are unconcerned about the price of their food, for which one must shop to obtain a price near 50 cents per can (many grocers try to get more than 60 cents per can). Our cats know exactly how to obtain our attention (they knock stuff off my desk or begin to shred my work papers) and get us to open the door so that they can roam the back yard (there is an electric fence to keep them out of the heavy traffic on the once rural road out front). They did not watch and puzzle over Allen Greenspan this morning. Sphere: Related Content

The Organic Gardener in an Urban Setting

Watch this space for updates as my wife's organic garden is prepared for the winter and planted for spring. Sphere: Related Content

The Tree at Lake Needwood Park

October, 2010

October, 2009


What a difference a year makes! The economy has pushed local governments to begin selling commericial rights to the use of local parks. Here is an example of one such concession, Go Ape!, on a beautiful meadow at the entrance to Needwood Lake Park in Rockville, Maryland. For some reason the concession has not yet opened for business. I plan to give them a copy of these pictures when they do. Sphere: Related Content

The Value of Photography

The recent curiosity regarding classic photography may be a symptom of our beleagued economy. In pre WW2 Europe stamp collecting became a method for storing value efficiently - binding value into small, near weightless paper which was easily ported, smuggled and identified. After the war the transfer began to larger works of art which could be verified authentic or books or even pulp comic books which are now authenticated, graded and sealed, never to be read again.So the process has now begun with photographs. Reproducible with the right chemicals and a negative in the dark. Great lengths have gone into the verification process and collectible photographs, certainly guaranteed to deteriorate in light over time a handled only with spotless white gloves,I have previously written about the copyright and "first edition" problem of digital books. Now we turn to consideration of digital images. First these collections of binary code are proliferating at an exponential and accelerating rate. They are the business plan support for vast storage farms and disk drive makers. We want to send these images - somewhere - ever faster. Witness the new USB 3 standard. Who will look at them all? More importantly, who will have time to "read" these photographs - because great photographs are meant to be read. Not only might they be cauldrons of wealth but also repositories of ideas. A photograph has the quality to transport the "reader" to a time and place the reader has never been. The photographer was there and the reader was not. The reader can at least grasp the visual sense of the place and understand part of the action. An Aleut may never been to a baseball game, but the picture of the "shot heard round the world" would compel more than a passing glance. A Brooklyn subway rider may never have been in a kayak circumnavigating ice flows..... The photographer can also use the technical to produce an image that none of us can "see" with the help of that device; a pin pricking a balloon, a horse running with all hooves off the ground, the eye of an insect. But most importantly the "reader" can see into the mind of the photographer as the photographer imagined the picture, set the camera and executed the photo. A direct 1 to 1 transport of idea through image. I have posted over 4,000 photos to http://www.flickr.com/lhcurtis and only averaged 1.5 views per picture. What is the value of this many years' collection of photographs? As images very personal. As ideas, I hope a wealth. As a personal archive it has value to me - value as a history - value as an expression of my own inner vision of the world through which I move. What is the intrinsic value of a photograph? I would proffer that it is what the viewer/reader perceives it to be. Sphere: Related Content

Economic Stimulus: The Question of Who

A sound argument can be made that without stimulus the economic morass which exists on September 1, 2010 would have been much worse. This discussion is literally the "glass half full, glass half empty" classic. A lot of jobs were created by government spending. A lot of jobs were saved by government spending. GDP was larger because of the additive impact of government spending.

However, the situation is still pretty grim. There is uncertainty and the government, the Federal Reserve, the Congress and the Executive branch, all have little left to do. They are hamstrung politically and economically. There just isn't much left to give. Interest rates are low. Shouldn't that stimulate risk taking and entrepreneurship? Taxes are low. Doesn't that encourage private spending?

The answers are no and no.

Why? Because it was the government that chose how to spend the money and how to make future tax policy totally uncertain. The "cash" in America is in the hands of small businesses and those businesses just don't want to bet the farm. The administration in Washington has said that if you are successful - earning in the higher brackets, we are going to tax you. Well, at least, maybe we are going to tax you. The uncertainty is palpable. How does the government "allow" small businesses, the backbone of the country, the source of job growth, to just get on with it?

Easy, it would seem. Just allow the small businesses to make those decisions without fear of some new government program or tax policy sweeping away their freedom of choice. Sphere: Related Content

The Transformative Power of Narrative Fiction

Amazon has a great feature in allowing the browsing potential buyer to read the first chapter or so of each book you consider buying. Do you do this? If so, do you find that with a very few writers the words seem to explode off the page, drawing you immediately inside another world, inside another mind, some where else.

What brings me to comment? I picked up Crow Road by Ian Banks from my bookshelf this morning. I had purchased this British paperback version at Waterson's near the Water Tower on Michigan Avenue some cold January in the last century along with a couple other books. The black bound tome had rested, waiting, on the shelf upstairs, in the Ian Banks section, next to the Ian M. Banks section, for more than a decade. My books do that. They wait for me. I am not sure in the randomness of my life if there is a plan for when my books are read, but they are, eventually. Each one takes me back to where I was when I purchased it, my frame of mind and the why of the choice of author or subject.

This is a draft beginning of an unfinished entry Sphere: Related Content

The Photograph of Xavier Torres

I sent a friend of mine this photograph and told her that I thought it was possibly the greatest photograph I had ever seen. She asked me to explain.

Why it is a great photograph? I knew, as soon as I understood the image, like reading words but instead getting the visual information from a photograph, what the story was. The incredible human without legs, was swimming in a competition pool. Obstacles had been overcome and the splash was like, well to me, triumph, applause, joy. It made me cry because a person who had suffered something I could not imagine, had overcome, become, was, competing. Because of the great concept of the photographer, all this information came through the image without one word spoken. There did not have to be a language. Every human could "see" what was being communicated. How brilliant! And to think that a mechanical tool, a construct of plastic, metal and mind, a machine - a camera, had been used to make me feel emotional connection to another person I did not know.

To answer another way the question raised, I went to the internet. Google produced more than the 1,000 words which the picture replaced. I found that the man who dove into the water in the photograph is Xavier Torres of Spain. He is renowned not only as a great champion in the pool but also as a great champion for adapted swimming and those who overcome challenges and turn them into triumphs. Without the photograph I never would have met him.
Without the idea of the photograph in the mind of the photographer, Bob Martin, I never would have felt just a little of what it is like for Xavier Torres to swim. I am certainly glad that I have.

Google the picture:

Xavier Torres, 2004 Summer Paralympics
Caption: GREECE - SEPTEMBER 20: Swimming: 2004 Summer Paralympics, Aerial view of ESP Xavier Torres prosthetic legs during olympic 200M freestyle handicapped action, Athens, GRC 9/20/2004 (Photo by Bob Martin/Sports Illustrated/Getty Images) (SetNumber: X71893 TK4)
Date created: 20 Sep 2004 Sphere: Related Content

Singularity and Complexity

Thomas Pynchon has, over his lifetime, provided himself with ever more complex challenges of language and structure. Certainly he has entertained himself and most recently in Inherent Vice, entertained me. I laugh out loud, unable to control the magic of thought and word. Certainly, as has been proffered before, the reader's mind is doing part of the work, but how powerful Pynchon's control.

Occasionally I stop by the silent piano in my living room. I don't play, but I understand, the instrument.

I touch a key and a single note reverberates through the high ceilinged room. It crescendos and then fades - a skewed bell curve of vibration, battered by the currents of the air conditioning and the resonance of the glass, brick, stone and wood that cluttered the room. If I were to think that this single note is simple I would be very wrong. If my hand's fingers were to randomly touch several keys of the piano in rapid succession, it could be a concerto or chaos. Such is reading Pynchon. Sphere: Related Content

Who Ought to Run Pepco?

The two crews that have been out here, truck 14040 being the last, have been great people, devoted to their work and the restoration of service to the customers. They do work that is difficult and sometimes dangerous. They are trying to put band-aids on equipment and infrastructure that is decades old. They climb into buckets and are lifted high in the air and come close to wires that have super high voltages.

They listen and keep going from one unending job to the next. Thanks to them. I vote that they have a representatives on the Board of Directors. Maybe the suits would find out what is really going on out here.

As for the customer service / emergency line department..... well my vote is to start all over again and get people from New York's Con Ed. Sphere: Related Content

Urban Survivalist August 15 2010

We have become totally dependent upon electricity in ways we don’t understand until it is gone. Power for our phones, cell phones, iPads, iPhones, Blackberries, lights, refrigeration, safety, comfort. Our social infrastructure which supports this pipeline is rapidly deteriorating. Utilities charge higher and higher rates to and are unable to keep service at a status quo. Storms should be expected. Winds blow branches onto lines, trees are uprooted, machinery fails. All these are anticipated problems but as they occur in locations where populations have become more densely compacted and where connections have aged without being maintained or technologically updated, the stresses upon the system become greater and greater until it crumbles. That has happened in our nation’s capital.

I live in a 5,600 square foot home built in 1991. My wife has diligently seen that all possible maintenance has been performed. We have a geothermal heating and cooling system. We have storm surge protectors on the fuse boxes. We have battery backups (two hours) on the servers and phone system. The appliances are all energy star certified. But……

We didn’t count on the local power company monopoly to not be able to promptly return current to our home after a power outage, nor did we anticipate that there could be some many outages in one year.

Last Thursday morning, August 12, 2010, there was a severe local thunderstorm which woke me up at about 6 am. The power went out. It has happened so many time before, I did not realize that this would become a catastrophe. Our own minor version of the BP oil spill, not even close to the horror that Louisiana and its sister states are suffering, but in its own way, a wakeup call to the reality of our lives in America in the 21^st century and how close to the precipice above the abyss of becoming a third world country we have become.

Because this type of outage has happened on a regular basis, we believe that there is something flawed about the design of the grid, feeder or connections at our home or that something has deteriorated and is no longer sufficient to prevent minor storms from shutting down our power. However, when we called our power company, which has a monopoly in this area, Pepco, we got quite a different message. First it was our fault for not letting them cut the trees back from the above ground lines. I said, I don’t have any above ground lines. So next it was that we didn’t have our home fused properly. Sorry again there, madame, but we have two industrial strength fuse boxes and a surge protector in between us and you. Next it we were told that it had been fixed hours ago. I asked, “why then would I be calling you?” Silence. Then came a river of excuses about too many customers, we had been put on the wrong grid by our contractor and we weren’t enough people to be concerned about because people in apartment houses should be fixed first. OK, I said, when do we get fixed. By 6 pm on Sunday I was told but check back for updates. Total to date. 7 apologies, more excuses and no service.

Lesson learned from all this is that the Pepco has a standard set of responses and if you call enough they will start over again at the top of the list. Next their complaint unit is really not connected to the field and they are not trained to listen but rather to attack the customer and blame external forces for everything. Maybe that is true. There are external forces at work. We have given up the right as a society to expect to have first class service and robust infrastructure. We have sold our consumerist soul to China and over spent on our national credit card. We have to face the harsh reality. Our currency is becoming worthless. Our infrastructure is rotting. Our leaders are constantly bickering instead of leading. Blame is the occupation of most. The solutions are not apparent. We have dug a hole from which we cannot climb only to find it is a foxhole and we are at war with ourselves.

So what to do?

Move to the woods. Get a generator. Learn to smoke and preserve meat and grow vegetables. Store up some small gold coins and other supplies with which to barter. Buy an axe and figure out how to defend your property and install solar panels and a wind generator. Get a lot of books. Don’t depend on power. Learn to survive. “There is a beauty underneath the gold and silver in my teeth that preserves us, not for specialists.” WD Snodgrass April Inventory.

Sphere: Related Content

Freedom of Information Responses of MMS - BP/Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

There is much to read and understand about the culpability of British Petroleum. Here is a link to disclosures made by Minerals Management Service (U.S. Government Agency responsible for regulating offshore drilling)

http://mms.gov/deepwaterreadingroom/

Welcome to the Minerals Management Service's Electronic Reading Room, which contains documents related to the BP/Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill that have been cleared for public release. We recommend that you search this site before filing a FOIA request because you may find the documents or information that you are seeking.

Please note that we will be adding to this collection regularly as we continue to process and release documents that have been requested by members of the public and by members of Congress. We are providing this service in recognition of the intense public interest in this material and in furtherance of the Administration’s commitment to open Government through increased proactive disclosures.

Sphere: Related Content

Oil in the Gulf

When will it be stopped? Wednesday, June 16, Washington, D.C. time, the President will meet with the Chairman of BP. Will the U.S. Marshalls be there to arrest this criminal (Justice Department has a criminal investigation underway, so someone has to be arrested. Why not get the desperado before he can get away?)?

Will the IRS be there to hand the Chairman a bill for excess spillage taxes that will reduce the pension payments for 1,000’s of Brits? Will the President take over control of BP – as if he doesn’t have enough on his mind already?

None of these are likely.

They will talk. The President will ask him to bend over and let him kick him and the Chairman will politely refuse. Nothing will get done. The oil will still keep gushing. Don’t we have submarines and technology to get down there and plug the leak? Maybe we should ask Holland. They might be able to find the descendant of the little boy who put his finger in the dike………….

In the United States there is a Consitutionally guaranteed freedom of the press.

Sorry BP, we will take the pictures:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/10/us/10access.html

Sphere: Related Content

Res Ipsa Loquitur

These pictures speak for themselves. My heart grows heavy with the implications of this tragedy..........

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/04/assignment-35

http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/06/oil_spill_spreads_in_barataria.html

Sphere: Related Content

The Necessity of the Impossible

In 2004, Richard Posner published a book length essay entitled “Catastrophe: Risk and Response.” In the book he limited his range of discussion to those possible future events which could threaten the existence of mankind. His thesis is that there are some risks that might be very unlikely to ever occur but whose consequences are so grave as to be unacceptable no matter the corresponding potential benefit.

Are there consequences of such magnitude, but less than global annihilation, whose implications for disaster, maybe involving a negative life's outcome for 10's of thousands of humans, entire eco-systems and a plethora of species of animals and plants, such that taking that risk to achieve a benefit is not acceptable?

Imagine what will happen to the Lousiana, Mississippi, Florida and Alabama coastal area as the oil inundates each plant root system, soaks far into the soft soil, seeps into the smallest aveolae of the lungs of birds and the gills of fish and the lives of so many people who live and love in that special area. Imagine the even more hideous possibility that this oil spill could find its way around Florida and up the coast of the United States towards the mid-Atlantic and out in the ocean towards Europe. Is there any risk worth taking for any reason that could allow even the remote possibility of such an occurrence?

Yet British Petroleum took this risk, a risk which BP and its subcontractors, Transocean and others could have minimized but simply failed to test batteries, interlocking overrides and fail / safe activators on the Blow Out Preventer (BOP) which they knew or should have known was the final link in the risk analysis which could have kept this catastrophe from occurring. Simple mechancial failures and shobby cost centered lazy management judgments may have global consequences which last decades.

Can mankind ever again afford taking what seem like infinitesimally minute risks but which have infinitely large negative consequences? A risk management analysis which perceives such consequences as tangible possibilities is no longer a viable criteria for decision making.

Business judgment must therefore be restrained by the magnitude of possible consequence.

Who should apply the restraints? Who should decide that an acceptable risk is no risk at all? Is it now necessary to eliminate the remotely possible? Has the impossible become necessary?

In 2010 Southern Louisiana and other Gulf of Mexico contiguous states are threatened by a seemingly unstoppable regurgitation of the earth’s past, an uncapped deep sea oil well which is spewing forth 5,000 to 19,000 barrels of oil per day. There is even a live cam situated somewhere a mile below the surface, sending back continuous color pictures of the flow.

This “catastrophe” has been ongoing for 45 days as of this writing and ingenious efforts to stop the leak have been unsuccessful. Even the personal attention of the President of the United States, at the urging of his daughter, has not quelled the flow. Where is Superman or Iron Man or Doc Savage or Dr. Who (he ought to be involved as it is British Petroleum that is the lead villain in this story, though there are many henchmen who are claiming not to have been involved)?

Recently, I was fortunate to have had a full day in the swamps of Louisiana taking photographs with my son. We were guided by Captain Rae Donaldson, who lives near Houma, and has significant knowledge of the area both as a fishing guide and as an environmental expert.

We learned that the giant platforms out in the Gulf of Mexico are actually floating ships, kept in position by engines turned on an off by computerized gyroscopic devices which are a lot like the vibration reduction mechanisms in the most modern camera lenses. This precise positioning is necessary because the platform, after the oil well has been drilled, is the top of a sometimes mile long pipe that connects the top of the well on the ocean floor with the platform which then connects the output to either a tanker or a pipeline to take the oil to the refinery.

Imagine a mile long straw, flexible enough and strong enough to withstand the sea currents, the movement of the “ship” to which it is tethered above. This straw is filled with oil, being driven upward by the immense internal pressure on this pool of liquid under the surface of the sea floor. The connection must be designed for rough seas, of which, during hurricane season, there are a plenty. The possibility of some incident occurring which snaps the pipe is quite real; neither remote nor unimagined. When the hole is made in the sea floor, a huge device, a Blow Out Preventer (BOP), is placed between the well and the pipe. The device has massive steel rods, much like the lock on a massive bank vault, which are snapped into place if the connection between the well and the rig is broken or the device is activated by either affirmative decision from the platform or any of several possible fail / safe circumstances.

A picture of a much smaller form of the same type device is pictured here. The one in the picture is about 12 feet high and is used on stationary rigs where the platform is actually secured by pylons sunk into the sea floor in locations where the water is not too deep. Much of downtown New Orleans’s buildings are anchored into the soft delta earth in the same way.

So it is a given possibility that an event where the pipe between the platform and well is broken could occur. In fact it is even a planned for event, so one could not ever claim that it is an event of remote or infinitesimal possibility. The odds are real. The event which initiated the horror that now floats towards our Southern coast and beyond was a contemplated risk.

However, the sudden explosion and collapse into the water of the platform must not have been considered or at least not considered in conjunction with the failure of the device which was to immediately cap the hole into the well. Plus, there are some disturbing elements to add to the analysis.

First, the collapse of the platform was not an event that took place in a matter of minutes, as I had first thought. A blazing fire followed the explosion and the fire was fought over a period of days, with the rig surrounded by boats that pumped thousands of gallons of water onto the fire.

Second, flammable gases coming up the pipe from the well on the sea floor were feeding the fire. Therefore the responsible parties must have had knowledge or should have understood that a collapse of the platform could break the pipe connection between the well and the platform and then trigger the device designed to cap the well.

The fire on the platform was intense. The photographs taken from helicopters confirm that extent of the disaster. However, a haunting question remains: Why was not the device which would have capped the well triggered during the fire? The fuel for the fire was coming up the pipe. Without fuel the fire would have gone out and the rig would not have collapsed. Did BP try to cap the well during the fire or was the decision made that it was potentially more profitable to put out the fire, save the platform and not cap the well at that time?

I do not know the technology of initiating the capping process. Could it have been triggered remotely during the fire? Was the capping process a permanent irreversible act that would have meant a re-drilling of the well would have been, perforce, required? Is there a claim that the capping device was not functioning properly and that BP had already tried to cap the well and failed as a part of the fire fighting? There is some evidence already obtained by Congressional hearings that there was a dead battery in the BOP, that the proper rods were not in place in the device and that the fail / safe links onboard the platform may have been disconnected by the fire. Mention is made of possible favorable inspection reports that could not have been actual reports of the condition of the BOP. I don’t know the answers but I suspect that someday, as the sequence of events is made known, we will find out who are the culprits.

In retrospect and in an atmosphere of cries for more regulation of the drilling process, it is reasonable to ask whether the potential immensity of a spill made a necessity of more robust and redundant devices to cap the well and whether there could never be a choice of trying to save the well and platform which the alternative could result in a spill. It may be impossible to anticipate all possible causes of a spill, including malfunction of equipment that has redundant means of activation, but it seems clear now that the horror, which awaits Louisiana and the other states, cannot be avoided. The inevitable and destructive oily tide slowly makes its way through the habitat of so much life, leaving sadness and dislocation for so many.

Once again we are presented with a moral dilemma and compelled to ask, “is this remotely possible failure of precautions too great a risk to bear to achieve the comfort of more oil. Is it necessary to attempt the possibly impossible - a riskless deep sea drilling method?”

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Life Changing Events

May 9, 2010, I turned 65. When asked how old I felt, I responded "50," and I celebrated for a week with friends fishing, family, Mother's Day, dancing with my wife and smiling a lot. My next birthday will be my best birthday and then the one after that.

I get the privilege everyday of seeing the beautiful garden my wife has created around our home and hugging her and our cats. My grandson played baseball on Saturday and my granddaughter asked me to play with her.

Now I have a MacBook Pro. Maybe I feel like I'm 49.

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America: Wednesday Morning March 24, 2010

Early in March I sent a letter to my internist asking for a refill of my prescription medicines; both drugs I have taken for several years. The letter was sent so that there would be no rush or worry about getting the prescriptions renewed, mailed to the pharmacy provider of my insurance and filled in the normal course.

I had not gotten a response so I called the doctor's office. He was on vacation but his substitute would look at the file. Shortly thereafter I got a call, "Please come in for a full physical, substitute doctor can not refill without the physical." (I had just had a physical in the late fall of 2009.)

"O.K.," I said, knowing better than to argue with a doctor. I went in, submitted to the physical, paid the charges and got an order for blood tests that went along with the physical. I returned home with the prescriptions. Later that evening, my wife brought to my attention that the prescriptions, instead of being for 90 days, were in the form of a 30 day prescriptions with 2 refills. I said, "Well that adds up doesn't it? 3 times 30 = 90." She responded, "Yes, but not to the insurer's pharmacy. If I send it in that way, there will be a $ 254.00 surcharge for delivery in three separate units."

So, 8:30 am the next morning, March 24, I leave my home for the 6 mile drive to the doctor's office to get the prescriptions rewritten and then to go 1.2 miles further to the blood laboratory to get the blood drawn for the tests.

I live on a cul de sac which exits on to a two lane narrow country road on the outskirts of town. There aren't a lot of houses out here. In fact the population of this unincorporated area might be a few hundred people and some cats and dogs at most. Many more trees than people.

However, it took 18 minutes to exit my driveway. Apparently the world has found that our little country road, at 8:30 am, is the closest and quickest way between a larger two lane road to the north and a 4 lane thoroughfare about 1 mile to the south. The cars just kept coming, fast, much faster than the posted 30 mph and I couldn't get anyone to slow to let me in, even though 400 yds. further is a stop sign where the line of stopped cars is quite visible to the traffic coming along.

I got out. Then another 15 minutes to go the next mile. I turned right onto the thoroughfare and was immediately in a traffic snarl that took over half an hour to get me the next mile. So now 53 minutes into the 6 mile trip to the doctor, I had made it half way.

At the doctor's office I signed in and took my seat. You know the rest of the story, sort of. I sat. Finally I got to tell a receptionist why I was there, without an appointment. I had the fact of the $254.00 penalty printed in letter form. She took it back to the doctor. Time passed. She returned with the prescriptions. "The doctor is keeping this letter in the file." I thanked her and left.

The good news is that the technician who drew my blood at the lab was very efficient, stuck me only once to find a vein and smiled while she did it.

I can't wait until this process is controlled by the Department of Health and Human Services. Somehow I think the word, "Human" ought to have an "e." Sphere: Related Content

Left Undone Those Things I Ought To Have Done

Mega hypermodern novels line my bookshelves. They have been carefully gathered over decades of roaming the used bookstores of the U.S., my head turned sideways in the book collector posture, reading through the bottom of my bifocals and learning the bibliography of this (fascinating to me) subgenre of fiction.

I did a survey of my shelves recently, inspired by the publication of Ralph Ellison's posthumous "second" novel, the 1136 pages compendium of 40 years of writing, Three Days Before The Shooting ... which was reviewed in the Financial Times.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/2cb8e368-1ce5-11df-aef7-00144feab49a.html

I looked for other novels which fit into the category of "Three Days" and which I should put onto my read and study list for my undetermined but still far in the future retirement.

Here is my list:

Sometimes a Great Notion - Ken Kesey
Babel Tower - A.S. Byatt
Rememberance of Things - Proust
In the Spoirit of Crazy Horse - Matthiessen
Colossus - Stephen Marlowe
An Instance At the Fingerpost - Pears
Antarctic Navigation - Elizabeth Arthur
Giles Goat Boy - Barth
Women and Men - Joseph McElroy
JR and The Recognitions - William Gaddis
Divine Days - Leon Forrest
Ulysses - James Joyce
The Royal Family - William Vollmann
Harlot's Ghost - Norman Mailer
Gravitiy's Rainbow - Thomas Pynchon
War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
Underworld - Don Delillo
French Lieutenant's Woman - John Fowles
Night's Dawn Triolgy - Peter Hamilton
Shannara Saga - Terry Brooks
The Book of the New Sun - Gene Wolfe
Robert Angstrom (Rabbit) - John Updike
Quiet Flows the Don - Mikhail Sholokov
The Baroque Cycle - Neal Stephenson
Perdido Street Station - China Mieville
Inherit the Earth Future History - Brian Stableford
Cyteen - CJ Cherryh Sphere: Related Content

More Musing on First Edition Electronic Book Collecting

The publisher would have to gauge the demand and balance that against the willingness of the collectors to pay a premium for the "first" edition. Obviously, when a new writer's first novel is being published, there is usually limited demand for the first edition and fewer are published. The publisher would have to say, "First edition, digitally signed by the author, limited to 500 copies - premium $5.00." Then, later, when the first novel becomes a best seller, those who bought the first 500 copies and paid the premium would reap the benefit. 15 years later, those 500 could be worth a significant amount. Witness Patricia Cornwell's first novel, Post Mortem. Today on abebooks.com the signed first edition sells for $ 2,500 when it has a "contemporary" signature. See

http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?an=Patricia+Cornwell&sortby=1&x=0&y=0

Postmortem (SIGNED).
Cornwell, Patricia.
Quantity Available: 1
Book Description: Scribners: NY 1990 1st ed/1st printing, 1990. SIGNED with a rare contemporary signature "Patricia D. Cornwell Hardcover. Fine in fine jacket A truly stunning copy of this Edgar Winner. Bookseller Inventory # 14408 Price: US$ 2500.00


The collector/investor who was willing to buy the book early in its history and who got it signed at that time obtained a valuable collector’s item for probably $22.50.
Later, authors might sell their digital signatures in person via email executable program which would search out a legitimate purchased copy of their book on the collector’s iPad, attach itself to that electronic copy with a date and inscription, like “Thanks for reading my book, sincerely Patricia Cornwell” and that signature would be imbedded in the file. It might even contain a facsimile of the signature that goes on the first page of the electronic edition making that owner’s copy uniquely different from anyone else. The owner of the iPad could then proudly show off the signed copy. The interesting legal challenge then becomes whether “used” copies of the electronic edition can be sold in the aftermarket……….. Maybe only the first 500 are transferrable or there could be a premium paid by the original buyer for the book which would allow it to be transferred X times. Like loaning your wife your copy to read on her Kindle. Lots of interesting legal challenges. Sphere: Related Content

Last Edition, First Edition: Electrontic Book Collecting

There are many people who are obsessed with collecting. Witness the late night cable channels selling art, coins, bears, knives or costume jewelry. Wired into some DNA is the near insatiable need to possess and amass large quantities of "rare" objects, particularly those that have a unique identity as evidenced by the 1234567890 sequence of the First Edition book or the "Limited Edition" of many other collectibles, e.g. No. 847 of 10,000 of the Artist's Proof etc..

The world is about to experience a sea change in publishing. Electronic iPads, Kindles, Nooks and Sony Readers and any host of other form factors and content delivery systems are going to make finding a true First Edition near impossible - thousands of digitally identical publishings will exist, each simply a copy, downloaded, of the first.

I would propose that the publishers begin thinking about how to imbed a digital tag in the first X copies downloaded, that can only exist in those copies and somehow continue to imbed in those copies the history of their transfer and use. How wonderful it might be, to some future obsessed collector, to be able to prove that the edition of the next great novel which is stored on his or her iPad, in fact, was at one time, in the possession of the author and there is a unique digital signature tag that establishes that fact which cannot be removed or altered.

Think of the money to be made and the DNA mandates to be satisfied. Sphere: Related Content

Conseqences of Financial Change on Behavior

American Airlines has announced, according to the ticker on CNBC this morning, February 9, 2010, intention to charge $8 if you want a blanket on domestic flights in excess of 2 hours. How stupid is that?

People will just change their behavior. If someone really wants a blanket, they will bring a blanket with them, further clogging overhead bins and making movement to seats slower and more crowded as people carry on larger and blanket stuffed baggage.

What in the world does American Airlines believe will be accomplished? Do they simply want to raise revenue? How odd! Why not add a tax to people who wear shoes with laces who are going through security at the airport?

Stopping food service on planes has merely increased the pressure on airport concourse takeout food establishments, resulting in discomfort at boarding areas as people have bought their greased potatoes munch on luke warm french fries during flights and juggle their McDonald's sack and beverage with their blanket stuffet carry-on as they search for their boarding pass as the next boarding group is called.

Hasn't anyone who has actually flown on a commercial airplane ever been hired to figure out the consequences of these daydream insanities from the ivory tower executives at the airlines. Maybe the executives just farmed out the question to focus groups peopled by phone answering employees at a phone centers in Mumbai who of course, are qualified to opine on such issues because they talk about air travel all day long.

My head spins in sadness for my grandchildren. They will not only have to pay off an unpayable debt that Washington is incurring, they will have to deal with fear of arrest for using a styrofoam coffee cup. Sphere: Related Content

It's an Easy Choice!

Where to try the terrorists? Why not base the choice of the American city by determining where the economic impact of spending $ 100,000,000 for security for the trial would do the most good. My nominee: Detroit, Michigan. High unemployment, chronic center city deterioration and training the security workers would give many the opportunity to find permanent jobs after the long trial.
Stimulus through law. That's an idea. Sphere: Related Content

Irony: The U.S. Banks vs. The World

Let's consider them the U.S. Olympic Team, they are the best of the breed, the most highly skilled of the world, ready to bring home the gold. So we decide to send them to the competition with weights on their legs and one arm tied behind their back. How soon will it take the rest of the world to figure out that the U.S. is now vunerable because there is anxiety in D.C. over the mid-term elections.

Bring the unemployment rate down to 7% and manage the Treasury without bankrupting our grandchildren and you will certainly get a lot of votes. Publically asking for a fight with our major financial institutions may be populist rhetoric but how can it be effective goverance? Sphere: Related Content

Dancing Tango Vertical

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWxcVyBRecE

Click on the title Dancing Tango Vertical to view the dance

Argentine Tango is a horizontal dance, in which the partners, with knees always bent, are into the floor. Or is it? Here two amazing acrobats interpret the music vertically with great success. Sphere: Related Content

Nano Seconds

With an ever increasing rate of acceleration, man's ability to measure and engineer is outpacing man's ability to perceive. We can contemplate and design and execute machinery which makes decisions and processes information far faster than we are able to perceive with our senses of sight, touch, hearing and even taste.

Recently it was disclosed in an article in the Financial Times that financial programmers were contemplating how to profit from an increase in the processing speed of the computers which perform automatic trades in securities. That increase is measured as 400 nanoseconds. I think that means 400/1000000th of a second. There is a variable in all financial trading related to the ever decreasing value of the dollar due to the time value of money. It is called the Theta factor and is an important element of options trading. Every second that passes imposes inflation, risk and interest costs (and I suppose all kinds of other costs about which I am unaware) on the value of a dollar. If you can trade fast enough, before everyone else catches the change, then that intermediation will make you a gain over what other traders can achieve. Hence the new programming gives the 400 nanosecond advantage to those those control it. Wow~!

If our dollar loses value in microscopic time increments which we cannot perceive, how much greater is the loss if we can perceive it? Last week there was an auction by the U.S. Treasury of $30 bln of 3 Year Treasuries. A significant portion of that auction's sale was purchased not by the usual brokers who then make a living distributing those securities to individuals and companies who want them, but by some individual unknown source which gobbled up about $ 7 bln of the $30 bln auctioned. Now I can't count that high (my grandson can if you give him enough time) but that seems like an awfully large amount to be privately bid. That kept the interest rates low, held some of the dwindling strength of the dollar and no one can find out who spent the money that way. I fear that it was the Federal Reserve Bank or China.

On a more interesting note but still in the nano world, Kodak, remember them they used to be America's pride - the leading photographic company in the world, filed suit against RIMM and Apple for alleged infringement of Kodak's patents in digital image processing. Amazing that there is anyone left at that decimated company who actually understands the patents they own. Also remarkable is that there are enough different ways to accomplish the same end product - video and images on your phone - that these companies can each manufacture and sell rival products that work.

When will our phone just be built into a chip that is implanted at birth? In the scheme of things, it will probably seem like it happened in nanoseconds. Sphere: Related Content

"Non-Existent" Inflation.......

As readers will note from a previous post, we have installed a geothermal heating/air conditioning system in our 18 year old home with the object of lowering our monthly heating/air conditioning costs. We anxiously awaited the first new bill. To our dismay, the bill kind of looked like our old bill - $ 708.67 now vs. $947.81 for same period 2 years ago. We were expecting a much sharper drop considering that we had lowered the thermostat (geothermal is much more comfortable at lower temperatures) by three degrees to 67 and were trying to be more conscious of our use in other regards.

How could that be?

The hot water heater and the heating system were getting the first 55 degrees of heat from the earth for "free." We still have several computers (including 2 servers running all the time) and a large house, but it should have been a 40% or better reduction down to $568 or lower.

The answer is that electricity costs in Maryland have gone up by 11.5% (according to our calculations of our billing rates in the last 24 months. That means that unless this levels off somehow (yeah right!!) our heating bill for this house and the same useage will be right back where it was before we installed the geothermal. I don't want to tell you how much the new system cost. Consider it my contribution to global warming reduction......though I suspect the government is going to ask me to contribute a little more to that soon enough. Sphere: Related Content

A Life Well Lived

A fly fisherman's obituary from Boston

Home / Globe / Obituaries
Jack Gartside, 66; fly-fisher lived simply to pursue goal
Jack Gartside was well known for his devil-may-care lifestyle.

By Bryan Marquard
Globe Staff / December 9, 2009
Jack Gartside invented some of his much-prized fishing flies while using a vise clasped to the steering wheel of his cab as he sat in Logan Airport’s taxi queue, waiting for a fare. Even behind the wheel, Mr. Gartside kept one wader-clad leg planted in the trout streams of Montana, a secluded nook in New Zealand, or a neglected fishing hot spot in Boston Harbor.

“In my high school yearbook, other people listed doctor or lawyer in the space provided for their future job,’’ he told Field & Stream magazine in 1999. “I put fishing.’’

More than 30 years ago, Mr. Gartside quit teaching high school English to fish more or less full time, living simply and supplementing his fly-tying income by driving a cab or grabbing a temporary job near a fishing destination. Once he helped make caskets; another time, he degreased snowmobile runners.

Mr. Gartside, who was as well known internationally for his devil-may-care lifestyle as he was for his expertise fly-fishing and fly-tying, died of lung cancer Saturday in the Bear Hill Rehabilitation and Nursing Center in Stoneham. He was 66 and had lived in Winthrop after many years in a Mission Hill apartment crammed with books and tools of the fly-tying trade.

A devotee of trout fishing, Mr. Gartside spent so much time fishing in and near Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming that for a while his car was registered in Montana.

Then, he logged so many hours in the salt water around Boston that his writings about the best locations became indispensable to those who want to fish the harbor.

“I’ve fished with some of the greats, and Jack was as good, if not better, than anyone I’ve fished with,’’ said Dave Skok, a Winthrop neighbor and fly-fishing ambassador for the Patagonia clothing and gear company. “The same goes for his fly-tying. His flies were exquisite, and his casting and fishing style was precise and graceful. And he was tall and lanky, so he kind of looked like a heron. He didn’t just act like one.’’

The way Mr. Gartside lived drew as much envy as the graceful arc and whip of his casts or the creativity and precision of his flies.

“He’s who we’d all like to be if we all had more guts,’’ said Mike Quigley of Nahant, a friend and fishing buddy.

Said Skok: “Jack Gartside was a trout bum before the term had even been coined. He was the real deal, man.’’

He drove a cab part time so he could leave on a whim, and his fishing travels included California, Minnesota, Mexico, Denmark, Japan, France, Germany, and Norway.

Mr. Gartside liked to tell the story of the day, nearly 30 years ago, when an airline said it would give a round trip ticket to anywhere in the world for $1, plus tax, to 225 people who dressed in clothes depicting a destination. He showed up at Logan in a New Zealand bush jacket and an Australian campaign hat
Chosen from the crowd, he hustled back to his Mission Hill apartment to grab his fishing gear and soon landed in New Zealand with a couple of hundred dollars in his pocket. He stretched the money out for a month, hitchhiking around the country while holding up borrowed waders and a fishing rod.

“I frankly don’t make much of a living, but I make a hell of a life,’’ he told the Globe Sunday Magazine in 2001. “I really don’t look too far down the road, and I imagine I’ll do what I’m doing now until the day I die.’’

Growing up in Revere, Mr. Gartside was the son and grandson of machinists.

As a boy, he began fishing on a breakwater at Revere Beach, but only started embracing his future in fishing after going to a sportsman’s show in Boston to see his baseball idol, Ted Williams.

“He was tying a fishing fly, and I’d never seen one tied before,’’ Mr. Gartside told the Globe Sunday Magazine. “That Ted Williams was doing it made it even more magical. . . . He showed me how to tie a woolly worm, a very simple fly, and from that moment on, I was hooked.’’

Working his way through college, Mr. Gartside graduated from the University of Massachusetts at Boston and became a high school English teacher in Boston. As student shenanigans escalated, he decided to seek work elsewhere.

“It’s safer driving a cab at night in Boston than it is teaching in a Boston school during the day,’’ he told Sports Illustrated.

Mr. Gartside also eked out a living from speaking engagements, the sales of self-published books, and selling the fruits of his fly-tying.

He never married, and his sister, the last of his immediate family, died several years ago. His friends and admirers, however, can be found from the North Shore to New Zealand.

“He was a fantastic model for someone who wants to go out and explore the world and isn’t necessarily interested in the more commonly tread path in life,’’ Skok said.

A memorial service will be held at 10 a.m. tomorrow in St. John’s Episcopal Church in Winthrop. Burial will be in Woodlawn Cemetery in Everett.

“Perhaps I do resist financial success,’’ Mr. Gartside told the Cleveland Plain Dealer in 1994. “My grandfather always said, ‘There are no luggage racks on hearses, no pockets in shrouds.’ All we have is this life, and it’s up to us to make the most of it.’’ Sphere: Related Content

Trying to Be Energy Efficient - Maryland Government Roadblocks Grants

We got our application for the $3,000 stimulus grant provided by the state of Maryland for installation of a geothermal system to replace the old electric heating system which was built into our house in 1991. The application contains pages of technical questions which my wife researched with the contractor and system designer. Then she came to the 20 pages of written regulations which which we must have complied in order to get the grant. There were references to statutes on subjects of discrimination, wage levels paid, selection process for contractors, use of various metals and plastic components and other very very arcane subjects. We thought we might have our attorney research whether we could sign this document and be assured that we would not be prosecuted at some later date. The lawyer could do this research in about a day of statute looking up and reading. That would be 8 hours at $420 per hour - $ 3,360. So we are going to pass on the grant and hope that just being green and using the earth's heat of cool and heat our home will be reward enough.

This is just another example of how government gets in the way. Sphere: Related Content

My Best Photograph

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Dubai Debt Dooms Dollar?

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14 Minutes 59 Seconds Left

Dan and Nancy at Beartooth Fly Shop just north of Yellowstone gave me one second of fame this year. Thanks. Hope to fish the Beaverhead again in 2010!

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Back to New Zealand: But buy the currency now

See " >





Forecast for the US Dollar's deterioration vs the New Zealand Dollar is startling. Sphere: Related Content

Gold and Silver In My Teeth: What This Really Means..............(click on this title for link to news about Gold)

Folks, something really really important is happening and if you aren't tuned into this, well, you might wake up in a few days or weeks and find out that all you have done for your entire life about being conservative and saving and prudent and pinching pennies has not mattered one whit.......

Is that scarey? What I am saying is that the value of your dollars, whether you put them in a bank ($250,000 limit thank you very much) or under the bed with a gun to ward off evil doers, HAS EVAPORATED!!

How bad is that??

In other words, even though the stock market has gained 30%, the ole greenback has deteriorated 30% against the other currencies of the world and you have NOTHING to show for your taking the risk of investing in stocks for the last 6 months.

Around the corner may lurk potential inflation which will whack your bucks even more.

Now this is not the first place that this has been said. Witness the absolutely incredible run in gold and silver. This morning on CNBC a fellow who was very articulate said gold will be $2,000 per oz sometime in 2010. Last night on Glen Beck another guy was talking about $4,000 per oz. Are they looney? Where were the guys in the white coats and straight jackets? They were not running to capture these two "crazies" they were running to their local coin store to buy the only loonies that matter, the Canadian kind, made from gold.

I am just plain old scared again. This is the real deal. This morning someone decided to sell gold. That selling lasted for less than an hour. It was then like Black Friday at Walmart. When the word got out that you could buy GLD for a $1 less than yesterday, well the buyers came back in force and up gold went again. New high. Remember in a couple months it is 2010 and the guy on CNBC said $2,000 and oz. Get some now while your dollars still can buy a loaf of bread for $ 4.00 and a gallon of gas for less than $5..................... Sphere: Related Content

The Death of the Cities

In 1987 I traveled to St. Louis, Missouri for the first time on business. The downtown center city was a vibrant destination. Along with streets filled with shops and shoppers, the riverside beneath their famous arch was an attraction in itself with riverboats boarding for evening cruises and a plethora of taverns and cafes serving every nature of cuisine from Kenya brewed beer to Missouri meatloaf sandwiches. Business was good then and the participants in my meetings engaged in the process and the negotiations.
This week I returned for the first time since 2002 to the downtown of this major city. There was an immediate feeling of emptiness. Where had all the people gone? At 4 pm in the afternoon on a Monday there was almost no traffic. The sidewalks were deserted except for a few wandering vagrants. The City buses went by either empty or with a couple elderly passengers staring vacantly out the window.
My hotel was ironically called the Renaissance. The room was mediocre equipped with a fading analog tv and two dusty bottles of Fiji water for $5.00 each. Outside my room three dirty glasses, one stuffed with a used paper napkins and another half empty with bubbleless Coke were in plain view in the hallway. There they stayed, even AFTER my room was made up, for 36 hours until I finally went to the front desk and told them that this made their hotel seem tacky. Insults sometimes get results. The glasses were taken away.
Across the street from the hotel was a huge convention center. Empty. No future programs were advertised on its marquee. I have been to New Orleans - the same. Akron, Cleveland, Detroit, Houston and on and on. Where has our nation gone? Sphere: Related Content