BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

"Nobody reads a mystery to get to the middle. They read it to get to the end. If it's a letdown, they won't buy anymore. The first page sells that book. The last page sells your next book."

Mickey Spillane (quoted in Jon Winokur, W.O.W.: Writers on Writing)

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He was one of those not born for death--unlike the rest of us born between the poles.
"What are a hundred years, a thousand years, when a single instant effaces all of them."
Alan Badiou

When the cage opens after thirty years you can't fly anywhere.

He who follows another will never overtake him.

When I die I'll discover that I really hadn't lived or as Thoreau put it, "that one has lived what was not life."

Enslaved to work and to the attempt to make money my soul has been crushed--we all create our own jails, (Gary Watson, Salmagundi, nos 164-165)

And of course, my favorite, Cavafy, "the Walls"

Walls

Without regard, compassion or shame,
they built around me great high walls.

And I sit here now, and despair.
No other thought: My fate eats me.

Because I had so many things to do outside.
Alas, when they were building the walls
How could I not pay attention?

But I never heard noise from the builders, not a
sound.
Without my notice the closed me in from the world
outside.

C. P. Cavafy, 1896 - '97

translator: Alan A. Boegehold


+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Walls

Without pity, without shame, without consideration
They've built around me enormous, towering walls.

And I sit here now in growing desperation.
This fate consumes my mind, I think of nothing else:

Because I had so many things to do out there.
O while they built the walls, why did I not look out?

But no noise, no sound from the builders did I hear.
Imperceptively they shut me off from the world without.

C.P. Cavafy, 1896-'97

Translator, Daniel Mendelson.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Here's a weaker translation:

Walls
With no consideration, no pity, no shame,
they have built walls around me, thick and high.
And now I sit here feeling hopeless.
I can't think of anything else: this fate gnaws my mind -
because I had so much to do outside.
When they were building the walls, how could I not have noticed!
But I never heard the builders, not a sound.
Imperceptibly they have closed me off from the outside world.

Constantine P. Cavafy

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

"who built these walls? -- me," for starters.

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Self-Description--Christmas day, 2009:

Avid reader, adroit non-believer, practiced forgetter, un-remorseful sinner.

Notes: the left is caught in a web of miserabilism, and most of us basically have a tragic sense of life.

BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

Is there life after death?

Yes, but not yours.

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Growing old teaches me that being matters more than knowing.

Harold Bloom

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Compassion. Karen Armstrong.

"Compassion means putting yourself in the position of the other, learning about the other."

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What ever you say, say nothing. Seamus Heany

Welcome, O life! I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my soul. James Joyce, A Portrait.

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...................Important aporia, aporetic.

a·po·ri·a (-pôr-, -pr-)
n.
1. A figure of speech in which the speaker expresses or purports to be in doubt about a question.
2. An insoluble contradiction or paradox in a text's meanings.
[Greek, difficulty of passing, from aporos, impassable : a-, without; see a-1 + poros, passage; see per-2 in Indo-European roots.]

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
aporia [əˈpɔːrɪə]
n
1. (Literature / Rhetoric) Rhetoric a doubt, real or professed, about what to do or say
2. (Philosophy) Philosophy puzzlement occasioned by the raising of philosophical objections without any proffered solutions, esp in the works of Socrates
[from Greek, literally: a state of being at a loss]
aporetic [ˌæpəˈrɛtɪk] adj

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..................Truth, Beauty, Goodness

Dear Jason,

When your Dad and I were at Horace Mann we had a wonderful art teacher named Ion Theodore. He lived in the dormitory and was a sculptor. He chipped away at wood and granite through the night and taught in the daytime. As my room was next to his room(s) I was kept awake by his steady, rhythmic chipping.

He liked to expound his ideas to us, when he wasn’t pounding his mallet.

Ion was a wonderful man, soft, compassionate, and patient. He made time to speak to each of us individually. He liked to emphasize that he believed that we should lead our lives seeking “Truth, Beauty, and Goodness."

I am not absolutely sure that these were the three icons that he urged on us. I googled “truth and beauty” hoping to find the three correct words. Google took me to the Steiner book, “Truth, Beauty, and Goodness.” Do you know whether there is a different set of ideals that Mr. Theodore may have said to me?

If Truth, Beauty, and Goodness, are the correct ideals, do you know where originated? It sounds Greek, but I would like to know.


mike

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Mike,

The Good was the highest archetype for Plato and the neo-platonists. From the Good, Truth and Beauty emanated (I think in this order). From this trinity of archetypes, lesser archetypes emanated until finally the material world - a shadowy reflection of the world of archetypes - distilled out.

Try Plato or Plotinus as sources.

Steiner felt that all education should kindle the natural feelings for Truth, Beauty and Goodness that all young people have inherently. The natural idealism of teenagers in particular must be cultivated. This idealism is in danger from the dark sides of modern life and human history. He felt students must have outlet to exercise activity to counter these dark "forces."

Your teacher was a natural pedagogue. How wonderful to have a student who remembers and ponders these ideas long after hearing them.

I hope this was helpful and that all is well with you and your family,

Jason
________________________________________

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“Los elefantes son contagiosos.”
Paul Eluard.



“Él estaba poseído del más sagrado berretín cósmico: El hombre quería vivir todas las vidas y estaba condenado a transitar solamente por una. Aprendan a soñar los que se contentan con sacar la lotería.”
Alejandro Dolina.
Crónicas del Ángel Gris.



“Casi nunca nos damos cuenta de que podemos suprimir cualquier cosa de nuestras vidas en cualquier momento y en un abrir y cerrar de ojos.”
Don Juan / Castaneda.

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Katatonia: Lyrics from Black Session

Katatonia Black Session Lyrics:

I sense infliction in the air
it's only me
I'm fucking up old times
it's a remembrance

O this
black session in my mind
O the black

I was too weak to fight the black
once more I let go
it is a black session
an invitation of sorts

I keep on living in
this my only wish
that life will be good someday
I keep on losing my
sleep because of this
seems so hard just to stay

so if you come by just
this last time
I'll be here
and I will talk to you like
if this had never been

O this
black session in my mind
O the black

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This is strange:

CNC says that "the Very Very Rich could do a bit more." What about the very rich? No? Or the Rich? Or the rest of us, who are living the middle class life?
-
You mean that there isn't anything that we could/should do for others? Did you know that the poorest are percentage-wise the most generous with their money?

I spent $120 for dinner for two the other night. Shouldn't I have helped the poor with that money? Or a part of it? According to the World Health Organization there are one billion undernourished people in the world. There are millions who are worse than undernourished--they are starving to death.
-
Are you saying that: "I work for my money, and I don't think that I should have to pay taxes that help someone else.?"

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Lamenting Argentina's deteriorating polital situation Borges says it was the same as when he went slowly blind: "It is like watching slow sunset."

Quoted by Michael Greenberg, who was quoted in turn by Jay Neugeboren in the New York Review Dec 17, 2009

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What difference is it whether we spend our days reading the newspaper, playing cards with the boys, creating art works, writing books, reading poetry or William James, or Paul Auster, having dinner with friends, studying, going to schul or church, golfing, doing Law, Business, or Medicine, reading philosophy, handicapping the horses, going to the theater, or watching television?

Is there any difference?

mek

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Living on a hook takes away your appetite.


...................Orson Wells, "Woman from Shanghai."

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***
Chapter One
I discover Ralph Blakelock and Paul Auster

Dear Edgar:

Perhaps one of these days we shall meet. I came upon the Questroyal Fine Art Gallery when I read of a mad artist, called Ralph Albert Blakelock. He is mentioned in one of Paul Auster's early novels, where it is also mentioned that some his work is in the Brooklyn Museum. I was, and am, interested in Auster and as I was working on Remsen Street at the time, I thought I would go over and see the mad painter's work.

Blakelock was an American Painter of the Catskill School and during his lifetime was very popular. His specialty was blazing sunsets behind dour landscapes, sometimes with Indian encampments in the distance. He was in and out of straight-jackets and died near Schroon Lake in the Adirondacks, after two years at Middletown, an asylum of the day. His body was brought to NYC, where his funeral service was at Grace Church on Broadway. I believe that he is buried in Greenwood Cemetery.

I arrived at the Museum on a Wednesday, having told my boss that I needed an afternoon of aesthetic retreat. I was eager to discover this new painter, as I was a little mad too, and I thought there might be some fraternal cognizance.

When I arrived at the museum, I was told that Blakelock was not presently hung, his works were in the basement, one or two being cleaned, the others just resting, I guess. I knew a curator, a classmate, who was at the Metropolitan, a curator of Colonial American Furniture, and a few weeks later, through his good offices, another curator at the Brooklyn met me on the front steps, and I was taken down to the inner sanctum where I was shown three Blakelock works, two small, and very dark. Instead of the famous sunsets, two had a moonlit scene, one a lake, the moon obscured by clouds, the second, an Indian campsite , pressed up against a hill in the back ground, the moon again obscured, this time by smoke from the Indians’ campfires. The third painting was a watercolor of Blakelock’s wife, Cora, a serious woman, about thirty or so, mostly in gray, if I recall correctly.

These 19th century paintings added little to my understanding of Paul Auster, a postmodernist writer whom I still read and enjoy. I suppose, that for him, mentioning Blakelock was a little stage business in the novel, neither symbolic, nor an arrow pointing to a murderer. (Auster’s latest novel, “Invisible,” has just been published.)

At the time I was separated from my darling wife, to whom I have since returned, as I am a man who knows a good thing only when he puts it aside for a while. Perhaps like coming back to Moby Dick or swimming in the Atlantic. In a moment of weakness she accepted my return and a happy fate has been sealed ever since.

I was graduated close to the bottom of my class of 106, in June of 1956. Eleanor Roosevelt spoke at our graduation, whearing a hat, veil and heavy Cuban heeled shoes. I see her with a fox wrapped around her shoulders, but it was June, and that is not likely. She shook my hand and wished me well, and shortly thereafter, my advisor managed to find a place for me at a distant school, a college that no one who had been graduated from my school had attended before; and so, unsuspecting, the admissions office, decided to take a chance on me.

I found the first two years of college so easy that I rarely, if ever, studied, (similar to my habit in high school) instead I lived in the stacks of the library, where I read mostly the dustiest volumes in the bottom rows of the stacks in the cellar. It was my thought that I was duty bound to rescue them from lack of readership.

It was in those stacks that I first became knowledgeable about the holocaust. I also read the most obscure, though readable, poets, and delved into some history. Ohio Wesleyan had an important geology department, and many specimens were kept in heavy mahogany showcases in the halls of the library. I became interested enough to take a course in Geology, and had I really understood what life would be like I might have become a geologist, as it had an intellectual aspect, and was done outdoors.

But, I wasn't that smart at the time. High School, had prepared me well for those first two years and at college I found myself to be a four point student; though I did not get into the Advanced English course for which a test was given. I was to write an essay on Delmore Schwartz, but having never heard of him, I assumed that Delmore Schwartz was a name fabricated by the examiners in order to ascertain which of the aspiring writers taking the examination would detect the game. I criticized the poetry crudely, ignoring the fact that in Mr. Clausen’s first form class I had never grasped the concepts of either rhyme or meter, I pointed out with glee what I believed to be Schwartz’s many flagrant errors in rhyme and meter. It turns out that Delmore Schwartz was a Pulitzer Prize winning poet. But, tell me, who could have such a name?

The examiners understood my ignorance immediately and relegated me to steerage with the other illiterates. I found, however, that many of the other illiterates were, actually literate, and a few of us began to write for the College Quarterly, The OWL. I wrote mostly pseudo-abstract poetry and pulled the wool over the eyes of my readers. A few female fans of pseudo-ism elected me Editor at the beginning of my sophomore year. Studying was still unnecessary and I became a dishwasher in Monet Hall, the girls' dormitory.

A few years later, at an alumni function on Park Avenue in New York City, I introduced myself to the new president of the college as Michael Morris Monet III, allowing him to make his own assumptions. This was not first time that I assumed a name, nor was it the last.

It was at Ohio Wesleyan that I met Joel. I arrived at the dormitory on a promising September day, in 1956. I was eager to meet my future roommate and so I rushed to our room. Joel’s luggage was there: three or four suitcases each tied with clothes line to protect it from the possibility of a train wreck or of an accidental opening by the Rail Road Express Agency. There was also a steamer truck, and one suitcase marked “First Aid.” This was going to be interesting, as the last time I had seen a steamer trunk was in Queen Christina, the Greta Garbo film that had been shown at school in a “modern arts” class. There was also one in our attic that my parents had stored for their New Years’ trips to Cuba or Rio.

When Joel arrived to claim his place in our room, I had already taken the bed closest to the window, as well as half of the built in Formica covered desk. I kept all of my things on the widow side of the room, thus dividing the room, fairly, I thought, into two equal shares. November 2009

Chapter Two
Getting to Know, Really Know, Joel

Chapter Three
My Unfortunate Discovery that Studying was Necessary

Chapter Four
My Egregious Exit from College

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There's always a sunrise behind the clouds.

BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

I must think on this; and hold it aside for a while.
I must put the draft of my thoughts aside
But in a safe place. I must remember
It's my purpose in life,

The names, the friends, and even
those I knew,
Left at the side of the road,
I must not    forget even one. It's my job.
But after me,

There's no one to pass on each
Memory.

mek  Nov 2009

BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

"If your sweetheart sends you a letter of goodbye
It's no secret, you'll feel better if you cry..."

Remember sunshine can be found behind the
cloudy sky,so let your head down and go on and cry

BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

A Poem by Harold Norse
ready-made

I transport from the canvas unsteady dissonance in the blue!
I heard in a dream about Marcel Duchamp.
Was he speaking from the other side of the Great Glass heavenly Dada
windows?
Marcel agreed to bring “a little intelligence into painting…this
turpentine intoxication,” he scoffed.

On Sundays friends gathered in the garden at Puteaux
Leger, Picabia, Metzinger, Appollinaire, Reverdy,
“with almost juvenile good humor. One almost forgets that
at that time nobody was anybody,” recollected Duchamp.

“Fascinating frivolity and beautiful illusions!”
chortled Ribemont-Dessaignes. They behaved like schoolboys on
holiday,
playing pranks, games, enjoying slapstick. Fame and public image had
not yet arrived. Marcel could not stand them when they did.


Like Picabia he demanded unlimited freedom
hated groups and schools, repetition of style.
“Art is useless, impossible to justify!” declared Picabia.

A wild ungovernable infant
riding its hobbyhorse
around the world, trampling
the pompous beneath its hooves
DADA was just arriving.

Marcel drew logical conclusions:
he painted a moustache on the Mona Lisa,
an act as pointless as suicide

to which he was utterly indifferent.
His heart belonged to Dada.
He painted all values into a corner:
the urinal is the good, the beautiful, the true.

Marcel was in love with bad taste:
he invented a way of being absent
that Rimbaud never suspected.
“Duchamp is destined to reconcile art and the people,”
said the unknown Apollinaire.
But were the people ready for ready-mades?



Marcel arrived in New York with a glass ball full of Paris air.
It was a gift for a friend. His “explosions in a shingle factory,”
as one critic dubbed Nude Descending A Staircase in 1913,
shocked everyone. Marcel was famous. With ironic humor
he detached himself on his condescending staircase
where with lofty vanity he observed,
“Without vanity we should all kill ourselves.”
He had no other deadly sin.

In 1915 he exhibited a bicycle wheel mounted on a stool.
a bottle rack and a urinal titled Fountain.
The ready-mades became works of art, he said, as soon as he declared
them so: looking at an object made it art.
He signed the urinal R. Mutt (the name of a firm of sanitary engineers).
The urinal achieved immortality.

Meanwhile Gertrude Stein
as busy in her own studio
inventing Hemingway
and Virgil Thomson;
when she created Ezra Pound
she frowned, screamed
and threw the rough draft away.


“Remarks,” said Miss Stein, “are not literature.”

Stein and Duchamp took the 20th Century for a ride
on the merry-go-round of painted horses and calliope tunes
of childhood where they play in our memory still

The song of Rrose Selavy.
The love song of R. Mutt.
The pigeons on the grass song.
Song of unsteady dissonance.

Chanson of the urinal.
The pissoir melody.
Marcel Duchamp in drag
as Rrose Selavy
camps through the studios
of friends and foes.

Marcel and Man Ray play a game of chess lasting forty years.


Harold Norse. (1916 – 2009)

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Harold Norse


"The fiery force is nothing more than the life force as we know it. It is the flame of desire and love, of sex and beauty, of pleasure and joy as we consume and are consumed, as we burn with pleasure and burn out in time."

— Harold Norse

In the Hub of the Fiery Force: Collected Poems of Harold Norse 1934-2003)

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By Michael Panzer Note Date

THE COMING DISASTER IN THE DERIVATIVES MARKET


by Michael J. Panzner
Author of Stock Market Jungle
November 9, 2005

"The derivatives genie is now well out of the bottle, and these instruments will almost certainly multiply in variety and number until some event makes their toxicity clear....[They] are financial weapons of mass destruction, carrying dangers that, while now latent, are potentially lethal."

-- Warren Buffett, Chairman and Chief Executive, from his Letter to Shareholders, 2002 Berkshire Hathaway annual report

For years, experts had warned about the near certainty of disaster. With its unique geography and hurricane-track locale, New Orleans was a city at risk, and it was only a matter of when, not if, a powerful hurricane would eventually roar ashore and overwhelm the Big Easy.

To be sure, steps were taken beforehand to try and minimize suffering and disruption in the wake of such a catastrophe. Levees were built up and secured. Arrangements were made to cope with the mass evacuation of hundreds of thousands. Federal, state and local emergency preparedness officials drew up myriad plans to mobilize people and supplies.

Nonetheless, when the event many feared finally came to pass in late August 2005, much of those efforts seemed for naught. Instead of organization there was chaos. Instead of action, incompetence. Instead of lives saved, the focus was on what was needlessly lost.

For all the awareness, advance planning, and available resources, the reality was that there was little to show for it when the terrible moment of truth arrived. As a result, it will take a long time for the people of that Gulf Coast region, and for the country as a whole, to fully recover from the disaster known as Hurricane Katrina.

Still, if there was one silver lining to the tragedy, it was the lesson that, as a nation, we needed to be better prepared. Ready, in other words, for the inevitable worst. Indeed, in a September 19, 2005, cover story, “The Next Big One,” Business Week noted as much, describing a litany of potential disasters, from earthquakes to pandemics to “dirty-bomb” terrorist attacks, lurking on the horizon.

Curiously though, one threat, a brewing economic hurricane, was not mentioned. That was odd given the magazine’s audience and purview. Nonetheless, it was not a complete surprise, because the disaster that already seems to be unfolding is one few people understand or are even aware of, let alone are prepared for. Once full-blown, however, it is likely to wreak havoc not only in the U.S., but around the world.

No doubt this sounds alarmist, but there are experts who would suggest otherwise. Indeed, such estimable giants of the financial world as Warren Buffett, legendary investor and chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, and Bill Gross, founder and principal of Pimco, one of the world’s largest fixed-income managers, have raised serious concerns about this growing menace.

In truth, while no one can say for certain when the day of reckoning will arrive, it seems a good bet that if some of those who are in a position to know are worried about the derivatives market and the associated systemic risks, you should be, too.

One of the difficulties people have with understanding this particular disaster-in-the making is its complexity and seeming irrelevance to their day-to-day lives. Unlike an earthquake or a car bomb, a derivatives-inspired financial meltdown won’t to lead to leveled buildings or bloodshed, at least initially. Yet, the toxic fallout will likely be as painful, long-lasting, and difficult to overcome as any of the more widely discussed scenarios.

What makes the coming debacle even more difficult to comprehend is that it stems from a long chain of seemingly benign interactions and financial relationships. Indeed, despite the fact that the modern derivatives market has flourished because of big money, complex technology, and highly-paid talent, the culprit when it all goes wrong is likely to be simple: human emotions -- fear and greed -- run amok.

For most people, the term “derivative” has little meaning. In many cases, the mere mention of the word is enough to cause eyes to glaze over. That is partly because these financial instruments are somewhat ethereal. They are, in other words, largely created out of thin air. Practically speaking, they have no value in and of themselves.

They are also hard to understand because, like many intangible concepts that occasionally involve a great deal of theory and calculation, academics have done wonders transforming the complex into the incomprehensible. As is often the case, though, if you break them down into smaller, more digestible parts, they are easier to grasp. That is also true with respect to the derivatives market.

Look closely at how the world works, how people function and otherwise go about their daily business. It is not hard to see that our modern existence is, and is increasingly, about interdependence. We survive because of our ties to each other, whether spiritual, emotional, organizational, geographical, or genetic. We also rely on an extensive network of financial relationships with people and institutions we know, as well as many we don’t.

Moreover, all of us operate within a framework of uncertainty. Life is about risks -- taking them, mostly -- and acting on imperfect information. Some may claim to see the future and perhaps one day that may be proved true. For now, most of us can only guess what will happen tomorrow, or next week, or in a year’s time.

Because we can never know for sure, we make calculations and compromises. Like deciding whether it is better to have a bird in the hand or two in the bush.

This usually involves agreements of one kind or another. Contracts, obligations, promises, and responsibilities -- whether written or oral, implicit or explicit, they are a means by which we work together with others. To secure what we want or need, now or in the future.

And, hopefully, to protect ourselves in ways that suit us best. Buying insurance, for example, is one way we try to alleviate some of the harmful effects of life’s inevitable misfortunes.

Derivatives are, generally speaking, contractual agreements that offer a means for individuals or businesses to restructure or rearrange the risks they may face in future. In many respects, they function like insurance, though with some critical differences, as will be noted later on.

Although they are usually in written form, like most financial commitments, that is not necessarily a prerequisite. Unless, of course, either party wants to be able to trade, exchange, or sell these contracts. In that case, they usually take shape as securities.

In their simplest form, derivatives provide for certain rights or obligations between two parties, or “counterparties.” Most important, the way in which these instruments are evaluated almost always takes into account that they are linked to some other security, commodity, event, or any of a wide variety of agreed-upon conditions. In essence, they derive their value -- hence, “derivative” -- from something else.

In some ways, a marriage proposal has elements in common with a derivative. In that case, a couple decides in advance to come together on a certain day and exchange vows. They promise to live together as man and wife and assume a host of obligations and responsibilities. Essentially, they agree now to make a deal later.

Similarly, the purchase of an airplane ticket, or a ticket for a rock concert, could also be viewed as a crude form of a derivative. Money is handed over today in exchange for enabling a service to take place at some future date.

The most appropriate examples, of course, are those securities that have evolved to form the cornerstones of the global derivatives market: futures, forwards, options and swaps. In simple terms, they are contracts where two counterparties agree to undertake, or to possibly undertake, a transaction or transactions at some point in the future, based on conditions established at the outset.

In practical terms, futures and forwards are alike: both create obligations between two parties. The main difference is that the former tend to have standardized terms and trade on recognized exchanges. Typically, there is a designated middleman, or “clearinghouse,” which acts as the official counterparty to every transaction. That makes it easier to transfer -- by buying and selling -- commitments between the various market participants.

Probably the most widely known derivatives of this type are the futures contracts that trade at places like the Chicago Board of Trade. The CBOT was originally founded in 1848 as a centralized marketplace to help growers and others protect against the risks and often wild price fluctuations inherent to the agriculture industry.

The classic example of why these contacts exist describes a farmer wishing to lock-in a price for his wheat before the actual harvest. To do this, he might strike a deal with a baker, also keen to fix his costs. Both sides could then take comfort in knowing that no matter what happened to prices in the interim, they would be protected and wouldn’t have to worry. Then, on the agreed date, they would make the exchange: crops for cash.

In this arrangement, both sides end up hedging their exposure to the vagaries of the marketplace -- which could be affected by unexpectedly high or low yields, unusual weather, plant diseases, etc. They gain security today at the expense of uncertainty tomorrow. In theory, they have shed at least some of the risks they do not want in exchange for those they do. Net-net, a positive.

The real world, of course, is not so simple, and though the farmer might want to reduce his exposure today, the baker may not have reached that same conclusion yet. What happens then, and what markets and exchanges facilitate, is that other parties -- speculators -- jump into the fray. Often, they are individuals who don’t have any inherent interest in agriculture or the products being traded, other than how they can profit from fluctuations in their prices.

So, in this case, the farmer might end up fixing a price for his wheat in, perhaps, three months time, by selling a futures contract on the CBOT, typically through a broker. By doing so, he commits to deliver a set amount of grain, of sufficient quality, to a location determined by the exchange. He receives today’s price in return.

In contrast, the buyer of the futures contract, who could be a trader on the exchange floor, makes a different decision. He operates on the premise that, at least temporarily, the farmer is wrong. If the speculator turns out to have bet correctly, he can sell the obligation for a profit later on. Maybe even to the baker, or to another trader, though it doesn’t really matter who.

Typically, both sides put up a good faith deposit, or “margin,” which represents a small fraction of the face, or “notional” value of the contract. In theory, this is meant to serve as protection against default. However, it also allows both sides to assume a large commitment without having the full value of the contract immediately on hand.

The ebb-and-flow of prices tends to be driven by the interplay between the two groups: those who have a direct involvement in what happens -- the hedgers -- and those who are merely betting on which way prices are headed -- the speculators. As long as the two camps remain somewhat in balance, it serves as a useful mechanism for divvying up risk in an efficient manner.

However, once out of whack, as appears to be the case in the derivatives market, the potential for instability expands dramatically. History suggests the value and relevance of a market ultimately depends on those who actually need it, not those who only seek to profit from it.

Another other popular form of derivative is an option. Options are different from futures and forwards in that one party has a right, rather than a firm commitment, to initiate a transaction at some future date based on the established terms. Typically, the option is granted by the “writer,” the one who is obligated if called upon, in exchange for a payment up front.

In a sense, these types of contracts resemble traditional insurance products. The writer of the option is like Allstate, Prudential, GEICO or any other company issuing a life or homeowner’s policy, where the holder ends up receiving a predetermined amount if an event takes place (e.g., a fire ravages the property) in exchange for paying a premium or premiums beforehand.

But the terms can vary widely. So can the triggering event and the action that may be taken. A simple example of an option might involve the owner of a parcel of land offering a prospective buyer the right to acquire the property at a fixed price in six months time, for a relatively small payment at the time the deal is struck. This is usually referred to as a “call” option.

In this case, the owner, who is writing the option, is acknowledging that he is willing to sell the property and accept the risk that the market value might rise above the contract or “strike” price and that he can do nothing about it. He also faces the prospect that he may still own the property after the agreement ends. In other words, he might find himself in the same position as when he started, though with some extra income for his troubles.

The option buyer, on the other hand, is essentially locking-in the cost of acquiring the property by making the initial premium payment, thereby reducing the risk resulting from market gyrations while the agreement is in effect. There are many reasons why he might want to make that decision. Perhaps he is hopeful, but unsure, whether he will be able to line up financing to make the purchase.

Or maybe he believes market prices are headed higher, and wishes to have temporary control of the property with a relatively small outlay. In this way, options represent a form of leverage, similar in some respects to the margin on a futures contract, where the holder can potentially receive the upside benefit without having to pay the full cost up front.

Whatever the reason, it is up to the option holder whether he goes ahead and “exercises” the option. Once the premium payment is made, he is generally under no further obligation other than to come up with the money necessary to cover the specified contract price if he wishes to acquire full ownership of the property.

Instead of the underlying asset changing hands, some agreements allow for a payment of the difference between the strike price and the market value, depending on whether it is higher or lower and what rights the holder has. This “cash settlement” feature is also seen in many modern derivatives contracts, especially those involving indexes or “events.” Stock index futures are a well known example.

Swaps are another key feature of the derivatives market. In essence, they involve contracts where two sides agree to exchange one or more payments during an established period based on conditions determined at the outset. Widely used in the credit and currency markets, they enable counterparties to transform undesirable risks or comparative advantages in one market into obligations that, theoretically at least, better suit the needs of both.

One example of this type of agreement is an interest-rate swap. That is where, for instance, a company with an existing loan whose rate fluctuates every six months might arrange with, say, a bank, to eliminate that uncertainty. What happens next is that the financial institution, for diversification or other purpose, assumes responsibility for the varying, or floating-rate, payments, while the borrower agrees to cover the amounts tied to a predetermined or fixed rate of interest.

These four categories of derivatives are by no means the end of it. Indeed, it is safe to say that there are myriad variations, a fact which has likely laid the groundwork for the coming unraveling. Regardless, it is worth noting that instruments such as futures, forwards, options and swaps have played an important role in commerce and finance. In fact, individuals and businesses have used a wide variety of risk-transfer methods for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years, and no doubt society as a whole has benefited.

Without having some way of gauging or laying off their exposure, people might find it impossible, for example, to provide for their loved ones upon death or to protect their homes and businesses from calamities such as fire. It would also be very difficult for companies to evaluate or make sizeable investments in large-scale or long-term ventures. Derivatives can give decision-makers the flexibility to decide which risks to keep -- and which to try and pass on or trade to others.

In this respect, they have proved exceptionally useful. Arguably, they have become integral to the financial lives of almost everyone, though most people are probably unaware of this fact. Apart from their straightforward use by investors looking to reduce risk or profit from potential trading opportunities, various forms of synthetically-created securities have enabled millions to enhance their economic wellbeing and tap into the American dream.

From educating our children to buying a place to live, from the way we manage our credit and finances, from greasing the wheels of global trade to overcoming the dizzying array of risks and uncertainties faced by businesses large and small, derivatives have played a major role.

One way in particular these instruments have helped is by facilitating a process known as “securitization,” whereby loans, financial instruments, and other assets are bundled together and sold to investors as a package. This has created tremendous economy-of-scale benefits. It has allowed individuals seeking financing say, for the purchase of a home, to tap into a plethora of funding sources in the U.S. and around the world, helping to lower their interest costs. It has also enabled people to obtain products and services personalized to their needs and risk requirements.

Many have recognized the value of synthetically-created financial instruments. Alan Greenspan, long-time Chairman of the Federal Reserve, noted in 2003 that "The benefits…have far exceeded their costs." He also said that the “growing array of derivatives and the related application of more-sophisticated methods for measuring and managing risks had been key factors underlying the remarkable resilience of the banking system.”

Nonetheless, there is a dark side. It is impossible, for instance, to discuss derivatives without noting that these instruments, indirectly or by virtue of their structure (e.g., options), almost invariably employ some element of leverage (i.e., “other people’s money”). Indeed, that has likely been a spur to their increased usage among amateur and professional investors (and speculators) alike, especially in recent years.

With difficult conditions in the wake of the post-1990s stock market bubble, historically low interest rates, and intense competition, money managers have increasingly sought to garner more bang for their buck by using high-octane financial instruments such as futures, options and swaps.

This includes hedge funds, a group of operators that has come virtually out of nowhere in the mid-1990s to aggressively oversee more than $1 trillion in capital, often geared up with borrowed funds. With inbuilt incentives to place riskier bets than traditional old-line managers, this crowd has discovered that derivatives have considerable appeal. Rather than shedding risk, they have been adding to it. Indeed, many have taken to these instruments like ducks to water, though not always with eyes wide open.

Aside from that, because modern financial engineering involving synthetically-created securities has, in many respects, made it easy for even the least creditworthy individuals to borrow money for all sorts of purposes, derivatives have undoubtedly contributed to the breathtaking, but ultimately very risky, expansion of credit that has occurred during the past few decades.

Taken together, the combination of increased leverage and heightened risk-taking has served to stir up a potentially volatile miasma around derivatives, especially the newer, more complex varieties. That makes them exceptionally dangerous if not handled properly.

Conceptually, it is not hard to grasp the basic economics of a garden-variety derivative such as a futures contract. If the market price of wheat goes up between the time a deal is struck and the expiration of the agreement, the buyer wins and the seller loses. That is what is known as a zero-sum game. Nonetheless, whatever a farmer, to use the earlier example, might give up as a result of hedging his output is offset by the reduced uncertainty.

But it is an altogether different story when it comes to analyzing options, or a portfolio of derivatives, especially those with lots of complicated bells and whistles. In most cases, valuation and risk assessment depend on mathematical formulas and computerized models, with many inputs derived from estimates and past data. That is all well and good if the tools are perfect and the history is complete.

Unfortunately, there is little evidence that this is the case. In truth, many experts believe the derivatives market rests on a number of very precarious assumptions that have yet to be tested.

And even then, the history of the derivatives market is replete with high-profile disasters. These include the 1994 bankruptcy of Orange County, one of California’s richest, due to naïve investments in exotic derivatives; the 1995 failure of the 200-year old Barings Bank as a result of unauthorized futures and options trading by a rogue employee; the 1998 collapse of hedge fund Long Term Capital Management on the heels of ultra-leveraged bets gone wrong; and, the ongoing implosion at Fannie Mae, the nation’s largest mortgage lender, because of derivative, accounting and other irregularities.

Up until now, none of these derivative-related hurricanes has breached the high-water levees of the U.S. and global financial systems. But as was the case with earlier, less destructive storms in the American Gulf Coast region, rather than decreasing the odds of a disaster, the relative calm of the past seemed to have inspired a false sense of security.

Indeed, the fact that New Orleans had long been spared despite the inevitable and persistent threat made for considerable complacency. As did the availability of government-sponsored flood insurance and a belief that authorities would step in and save the day if need be. Instead of getting prepared for the worst, people did virtually the opposite: they boosted development in flood-prone areas without thinking twice about it.

Likewise, many view the lack of widespread economic upheaval following earlier derivative blow-ups as a reason to be unconcerned about the current state of the financial system. The seemingly unprecedented intervention of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in the wake of the LTCM collapse, as well as central bank “accommodation” after the 1987 stock market crash, have also inspired confidence that authorities will not let things get too far out of hand if and when disaster strikes.

Unfortunately, this sense of moral hazard has almost certainly increased the risk and destructive potential of a catastrophic meltdown in the derivatives market.

The reality is, when people erect a raft of new buildings in vulnerable locales, it generally doesn’t increase the odds that a hurricane will strike. That is not the case with respect to risky behavior in the synthetic securities market, however.

When big operators take on a lot more risk than they otherwise might -- they drive faster, perhaps, because they know their car has anti-lock brakes -- it tends to raise the danger stakes for the system as a whole. Millions of dollars of losses can break the bank at a few unlucky firms. Billion -- or even trillion -- dollar failures can bring down the whole house of cards, especially given the dense network of dependent relationships that exists in the global financial arena. As well as the key role that finance-related activities now play in today’s service-oriented economy.

In addition, while an earthquake in a major city would likely cause severe damage and untold loss of lives, it would not necessarily lead to aftershocks 3,000 miles away. In the modern world, however, the “counterparty risk” factor seems to be zooming off the charts. What that means is that a potentially unstoppable domino effect, a “cascade of ruin,” could be set in motion if a global bank or “bulge bracket” Wall Street firm ends up with the derivative short straw.

That potential ripple effect has as much to do with the concentration of exposure at large players such as banks and Wall Street derivatives powerhouses as it has to do with the abundance of overlapping ties to specific developments or changes in asset prices. Many credit-related derivatives, for example, either shadow or are directly linked to indexes that include the debt of certain large borrowers. The fact that the scale of the exposure is obscured by the market’s lack of transparency adds to the potential for a sudden and unexpectedly sharp turn for the worse.

Another point the disaster in New Orleans made clear was that having plans in place to deal with a long-predicted event doesn’t necessarily mean success is assured. One of the biggest holes in the emergency response effort following Hurricane Katrina was the chaos that resulted from poor communications and overlapping jurisdictional responsibilities. Essentially, one hand -- of government -- did not know what the other was doing, and no one was fully in charge, at least in the beginning.

In the modern global financial system, where many participants are either unregulated or are monitored by a patchwork of country or sector-specific regulatory overseers, chances are that a derivatives-related catastrophe will see a similar lack of coordination that will produce a far more devastating outcome than if it was a purely domestic affair.

It is one thing for a central banker to summon the heads of various financial firms into a room to sort out the mess at hedge fund LTCM, as the New York Federal Reserve chief reportedly did in 1998. Despite the fact that the Fed had limited statutory authority in the matter, it is not hard to see why none of those who were asked to attend turned down the “invitation.”

However, if a derivatives time-bomb is set off by the failure of a large London-based hedge fund, will a banker in the Cayman Islands, an investor in Japan, an insurer in Germany, and a regulator in France feel similarly inclined to respond, or even to take the lead? That is assuming, of course, that those affected even understand what is going on or why it may be relevant to their own interests. Overall, there appears to be little, if any strategy in place for dealing with cross-border financial upheaval.

What will likely make matters worse is the fact that the derivatives market has become mind-numbingly complex and remains extremely opaque. Few individuals, let alone regulators, have a solid handle on the aggregate picture, especially globally. And while there is a great deal of activity that is transparent, such as the trading that takes place on recognized venues like the CBOT or Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the vast majority of deals are private, “over-the-counter” transactions that go unreported.

Adding further fuel to the fire has been the liberalization and globalization of financial markets. Because of competitive pressures and the ease with which capital flows between firms, markets and countries, activities that used to be limited to large firms in highly regulated sectors (e.g., banks) are being taken on board by all and sundry. Often in locations where standards are low or oversight is lax.

Hedge funds, insurers, corporate treasuries, the finance arms of industrial companies, and other non-traditional players are increasingly involved in the derivatives market. For the most part, they have less stringent capital requirements and less of a history managing complicated financial risks and broad credit exposure through several cycles of economic activity than banks do.

In sum, there are more inexperienced players taking part, more firms with diverse -- and occasionally inadequate -- capabilities linked to each other, and a maze of overlapping and often competing jurisdictions. This suggests that a simple solution, or even a consensus, will be almost impossible to find if and when the worst-case scenario does come to pass.

Scarier still, it is likely the disease that typically goes hand-in-hand with disasters of the money kind will be transmitted around the world at light speed because of modern technology and advanced communications networks. The far-reaching epidemic that people don’t usually like to discuss in mixed company, let alone acknowledge, when the worst unexpectedly happens: panic and contagion. Throughout history, they have been a recurring feature of convulsing markets and dramatic financial crises.

When people are calm and otherwise thinking clearly, they tend, more often than not, to act rationally. However, when problems arise and even the most sophisticated players become terrified of losing their jobs or their shirts, or they are overwhelmed by the sheer scale of potential risks they are confronted with, they frequently experience a primal fight-or-flight response. Or even temporary paralysis -- like the proverbial deer in the headlights.

During many of history’s broad-scale financial upheavals, such as the period surrounding the 1987 stock market crash and the collapse of Long Term Capital Management, markets became momentarily transformed. Traders stopped buying and selling and even answering phones. Money managers froze or reacted in knee-jerk fashion. Bankers called in loans. And regulators, for the most part, stood back and watched. All the while, many of those who were most heavily exposed were forced to liquidate positions at fire-sale prices.

At those points, fear had taken over -- the kind that says “run” when someone shouts “fire” in a crowded theater.

And, perhaps, the kind that had people shooting and looting, or wandering aimlessly, or cowering in stifling attics above flooded rooms, when essential services failed and the lights went out in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Once troops and emergency responders moved in, and people in the surrounding regions and elsewhere rallied round, rationality and order returned to that Gulf Coast city. And in the weeks that followed, many of those affected did figure out at least some way to start picking up the pieces and start living again.

We weathered earlier storms in our financial system, too, though no doubt the cost has often been considerable. The risk this time, however, is that conditions are, and will be, more complicated and dangerous than before. While New Orleans was a relatively self-contained locale, whose citizens and government officials could potentially reach outside the area for assistance, a firestorm set in motion by a derivatives debacle is unlikely to leave many parts of the global financial system unscathed.

It doesn’t help that there are unsustainable imbalances in the global economy, either. America faces record trade and budget deficits. Many economically advanced countries around the world have aging populations and underfunded pension systems. Real estate seems to have taken the bubble baton from the stock market, though there are signs that the top is already in. And the world is awash in debt and a vast sea of open-ended obligations and contingent liabilities.

Moreover, if history is any guide, the period of monetary tightening that began in June 2004 will likely blow the cover off at least some shaky operations that had been kept alive by cheap money in the wake of the post-1990s new-era collapse. Odds are, in fact, that one of those will be the match that lights the fuse that ultimately triggers widespread financial turmoil.

Already there are rumbling in the financial world, akin to the small tremors that shake the ground ahead of a massive earthquake. In the spring of 2005, several large hedge funds reportedly lost billions of dollars on complicated credit bets gone wrong. One firm even admitted that it had made a substantial “miscalculation” -- which they only realized, of course, after the fact. Given the increasingly complex nature of the derivatives market, that refrain is likely to be heard over and over again in future.

Certainly, the U.S. and global economies have been remarkably resilient, especially in recent years, and it may be a mistake to bet on the downside. What’s more, there are those who would argue that the financial markets have attracted the best and the brightest, and a gut-wrenching, blood-letting debacle is in no one’s interest. Unfortunately, the odds seem stacked against a happy ending, and the cyclical nature of financial crises suggests it is definitely the wrong time to be thinking like a Pollyanna.

Unfortunately, the reality is, if it all goes horribly wrong, it will not only be Wall Street that suffers. Main Street will, too. In the worst case, brokerage firms and banks will shut their doors. Markets will plunge and many investors will lose everything, Interest rates will shoot sharply higher, taxes will rise, and parts of the economy will grind to a halt, at least temporarily. Those seeking a mortgage, a college education, a job, or even day-to-day sustenance may find themselves left wanting.

At a time when many have abandoned prudence in search of profits, and where those who are knowledgeable about the disaster-to-come in the derivatives market are seeking to protect themselves, it is the timeless wisdom that remains true: forewarned is forearmed.


© 2005 Michael J. Panzner

Michael Panzner is author of The New Laws of the Stock Market Jungle: An Insider’s Guide to Successful Investing in a Changing World and a 20-year veteran of the stock, bond and currency markets. He is currently at work on a book about global financial risks.

Contact Information
Michael J. Panzner
P.O. Box 115
Manhasset, NY 11030

BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

More Harbingers of the Decline and Fall of the US

Just over a year ago the Russians successfully launched and fired a multiple-warhead road mobile ICBM, a type of weapon that the US doesn’t have and which is presently impossible to track.

A month earlier the Chinese slipped a “cloaked” nuclear submarine undetected into firing range of a US aircraft carrier during war games. The carrier was accompanied by dozens of US warships. One NATO figure said that the shock was similar to that experienced when the Russians launched Sputnik.

In August the Chinese successfully hacked in the Pentagon computer demonstrating the ability to disable our entire US defense system.

The Chinese and Russians, erstwhile enemies, have conducted joint war games in the Pacific.

The Russians have established an agreement with the Syrians to use a Syrian port as a home port for what has now, in effect become its Mediterranean Fleet. For the first time, the Russians will have a permanent presence on the Mediterranean.

The Saudis have made a billion dollar purchase of Russian military equipment.

The Russians have been making port visits of many South American countries--in addition to Venezuela and Cuba.

Many countries are in the process of finding other ways than the dollar to settle accounts. this is especially important to us in regard to oil imports and our relationship with China.

BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

People are saying that Joe Biden should resign as a statement of his position on Aphganistan.


If Vice-President Biden resigns he'll go out in a blaze of glory and be forgotten quick time. It's better that he make his voice heard at national security meetings, and in the White House where people are capable and willing listeners.

This isn't the Cheney administration where argument was kicked under the table and left unheard. In the Obama administration there are willing, open minded listeners who can change their positions and who aren't afraid to do so. Mr.Biden belongs in the meetings. .

And who would become next in line for the Presidency? Nancy Pelosi? And after her? Robert Byrd.

No, Joe, stay where you belong.

mek

BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

We shall not cease from exploration. And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.
T. S. Eliot, Little Gidding

The Inscription of John Fowles' "The Magus."

Also quoted by ROBERT S. McNAMARA during a post Viet-Nam interview.

BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

Is Walmart good for the economy of the US?


Isn't it obvious? We've lost more than a million manufacturing jobs even before the recent debacle starting in 2000. Before that the manufacturing industries in the US, like apparel, tools, audio and visual equipment, pens, eye wear, foot wear, and so forth were already decimated.

Besides the loss of jobs there is also the loss of manufacturing capacity to consider. In addition, hundreds of thousands small shop and supermarket retail jobs have been lost.

Small towns lost their main streets and experienced an extreme loss of tax revenue when Walmarts would be located just out town boundaries.


Add in the fact that many of Walmart sites would tax abated for twenty and even forty years by the counties and states in which they were located. -- This while the stores that would be eventually driven out of business were paying their full real estate taxes on main street.
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In many cases Walmart got the counties to construct highway exits leading to their sites.
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Sewers were built. Talk about corporate welfare!

BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

Portrait

He finished up the portrait~~~~ yesterday at noon. Now
he studies it in detail. ~~~~ He did him in a gray
jacket, all unbuttoned, ~~~~ a deep gray. Without
any vest or tie. ~~~~ In a shirt of rose;
so a little of ~~~~ the beauty of the chest,
the beauty of the throat, ~~~~ might show through a bit.

The right side of his brow ~~~~ is almost totally
covered by his hair,~~~~ by his beautiful hair
(which is combed the way ~~~~ he fancies it this year).
The note is utterly ~~~~ the voluptuous one
that he wanted to strike ~~~~ when he did the eyes,
when he did the lips... ~~~~ That mouth of his, the lips
made for the fulfillment ~~~~~ of a choice eroticism.

C.P. Cavafy

note: Cavafy used space.
Blogspot wouldn't recognize the spaces so I inserted ~s.
The poem looks better with the spaces.

BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

................


Sometimes, on waking, she would close her eyes
For a last look at the white house she knew
In sleep alone, and held no title to,
And had not entered yet, for all her sighs.

What did she tell me of that house of hers?
White gatepost; terrace; fanlight of the door;
A widow's walk above the bouldered shore;
Salt winds that ruffle the surrounding firs.

Is she now there, wherever there may be?
Only a foolish man would hope to find
That haven fashioned by her dreaming mind.
Night after night, my love, I put to sea.


Richard Wilbur

 



Moon over Ft Lauderdale


BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

 

My life long friend, Joel, Warts and All, As He Is.


BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

 

BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?

BusterStronghart@Gmail.com


Who can understand the human mind? I have enough enough trouble understanding God.

mek

BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

Life is all memory
except for the one present moment that goes by so quickly you hardly catch it going.

................Tenn. Wms.

BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

On Lovers:

I have thought about this problem for many years. I see that many people are committed to the "ideal" of lifetime commitment, but as a man who has known a few women, I feel differently about marriage, I just couldn't bring myself to join those who want to live with one person for forty or fifty years without involving themselves with any other member of the opposite sex.
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People are too interesting. Confining one's self to one person within a box barely justifies living the one life we are given to live.
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This is not to say that marriage cannot be fulfilling. I would want to be married to a lifelong partner (as I am, although in a continuation of what I now call my second marriage) but, although I love her more deeply than ever, I would not want to have known only her.

Friendships and relationships deeper than friendship are necessary.

BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

It is so obvious to anyone who knows the numbers that single payer would be cheaper and a more efficient health care delivery system. Corporate America has us chained to its misled minions. Because they can shout louder than us they control. It's like dealing with a madman. You have to patronize him to keep him quiet.

We saw a Glenn Beck inspired demonstration on the corner of Broward Blvd and Andrews Avenue yesterday. the people looked like homeless people. They waved hand made signs (suppossedly proving that it was not an organized demonstration.) A scruffier bunch could not have been found on the Bowery of the 1940's.

Maria wanted to get out of the car and ask them what Medical Plan they had. My guess was Medicare and Medicaid.

Over and over again I think of Ortega y Gasset: "the masses are asses."

BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

Is anti-Catholicism the antisemitism of the intellectual?

Would you say that atheism is the antisemitism of the intellectual?

BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

LibraryThing recommendations

1. A Writer at War: A Soviet Journalist with the Red Army, 1941-1945 by Wassilij Grossman
2. The Case of Comrade Tulayev by Victor Serge
3. The Radetzky March by Joseph Roth
4. Stalingrad by Antony Beevor
5. Kaputt by Curzio Malaparte



6. Oblomov by Ivan A. Goncharov
7. The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia by Orlando Figes
8. The Kindly Ones by Jonathan Littell
9. To the Finland Station (New York Review Books Classics) by Edmund Wilson
10. The Siege of Krishnapur by J.G. Farrell

see more recommendations for this work
Member recommendations

1. christiguc recommends The Radetzky March by Joseph Roth
2. chrisharpe recommends Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar by Simon Sebag Montefiore
3. chrisharpe recommends Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler
4. chrisharpe recommends One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
5. chrisharpe recommends War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

It's the sentimental man who gets killed first.

Hemingway

BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

Do Americans Know what Socialism is?

A Christain has complained that Obama is a socialist:

I see, so "man has a strong tendency to want to prosper at the expense of others," and this is his "God given right." So that's what God wants.
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"When property is taken from its owner without his consent, and transferred to another solely for the benefit the recipient, then property rights have been violated and an act of plunder has been committed." In this case I suppose you are referring to the money that taxes take from citizens. --Strange, I thought we had elections and that the people choose the representatives that establish these taxes.
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When you refer to "recipients" above are you referring to old ladies in nursing homes who turn their social security checks over to the Fortune 500 corporations that are taking care of them? Are you referring to school lunch programs that are responsible for keeping millions of children from hunger? Or are you referring to the reverse taxes (also known as tax breaks) given to major corporations like Exxon?
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As to: "The total inertness of mankind. Man needs the state to order his social life and is incapable of organizing his own life without the overreaching hand of government elitists."
This is not even near the case in Sweden or Norway, and there are no "overreaching hands of government elitists." Instead there are well housed, well educated, citizens with adequate health insurance.
But, speaking of "overreaching hands" what do you call the bureaucrat-administrators of private health plans in the US who decide which prescriptions to fill and which operations to perform on the 80% of the population who actually have any insurance? Last year United Health Care rejected (denied) 30% of medical claims submitted to them.


And then, "The infallibility of the state and its legislators. Under socialism, the state is by definition always right and can never be wrong. This means that when something goes wrong, a scapegoat must be created."
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The kind of socialism referred to here is the kind that Hitler created under National Socialism. No one in the US is talking about any kind of socialism, no less Nazism.

Or, "A popular fallacy of our times is that it is not considered sufficient that the law should be just -- it must be philanthropic. Nor is it sufficient that the law should guarantee to every citizen the free and inoffensive use of his faculties for physical, intellectual and moral self-improvement. Instead it is demanded that the law should directly extend welfare, education and morality throughout the nation."
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Let's take welfare to start. It's a pretty good idea not to allow people to starve or sleep in the streets. Is that welfare? Before, you brought God into the argument--does God prefer that people sleep in the streets?
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Education: Do you actually believe that education of the entire population regardless of ability to pay, destroys the state? I'm shaking my head in disbelief. --We need more free education in order to further strengthen our country. Without it we're headed for the dump. China & India are already nipping at our heels. They're not afraid of education.


"...and morality throughout the nation."
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This country has always legislated morality and there are people who wish to legislate more morality. They don't live in the left.
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Who has kept marijuana away from freedom loving citizens--no less hospitals and hospices? Leftists?
Who is agitating for anti-abortion laws. What about selling liquor on Sundays? The left? Why are doctors afraid to prescribe heavy does of narcotics to cancer patients in pain? A socialist government already in Washington?
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I am running out of steam--but I can say this at last: If Jesus were here he would be a true socialist and would be caring for every child and ever oldster in the nation. He would be working toward a single-payer universal health plan. He would demand that every person have the food he needs to live a healthy strong life. He would fight for a progressive tax system (render under Caesar)that would ensure that the poor would be able to live full lives.
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With Jesus as our guide greed and rapaciousness would wither and disappear--and would not be considered virtues.

BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

fqyuie3vm5

BusterStronghart@Gmail.com
wisdom from Arnold Rothsteinand my father:

During the late fifties and sixties, one of the best tout sheets at Belmont Park in NY was Dr. Marlin's Picks. Dr. Marlin was a pretty good handicapper and earned the appellation "Dr." when he picked the winners of seventeen straight races in 1963. To my knowledge his longest streak after that time was six straight winners, a feat that is not unheard of, though rare, among racing cognoscenti. However, like all gamblers who live long enough, he died broke, as eventually, as Arnold Rothstein (and my father) said, "the odds will always get you."

BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

MAGNOLIA --Paul Thomas Anderson*, writer, director.


I saw this 3 hour film tonight at home. One of the best. Enters my top fifty if I ever make a list. It's complex and original. And never fails to be interesting. Several intertwined stories dealing with forgiveness, happiness, attempting to erase the indelible past, confession, coincidence, deus ex machina, the weakness of the strong, the strength of the weak, choices made in the past, choices to be made in the future, and choices of the present. Creating false personas, and promising to be true.

And, two men dying asking for forgiveness from those they hurt, and from those who don't now that they have been hurt.

Is this enough to keep your interest?

*Note: Two actors have 3 part names like the writer, Paul Thomas Anderson: Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Phillip Baker Hall, if that doesn't confuse you then the movie won't either.

Comment from a friend:

Magnolia. You asked me to tell you what I understood from the rain of frogs. All of the characters in Magnolia, like all of us, are enslaved by our thoughts. We make ourselves, then we get stuck in our own viewpoint. We behave in accordance with what we think. Each of us must liberate ourselves from the incarceration of our ideas. That is the most difficult task we will ever face. It takes great courage to insist on an honest appraisal of what we are and demand of ourselves that we become what we know we must be. The rain of frogs alerts us to the urgency of this task. There is no more time. We must face up to ourselves now, or we shall never escape. The frogs are a warning that everything depends on our acting to liberate ourselves now, or it will be to late, and will languish in the prison of our childish notions until we die. Michael

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Here's something from the Paris Review, Summer 2009. #107:

Gay Talese on infidelity.

"Here's what people don't get. Sex is not that important. It isn't the most important thing in any relationship. Marriage is never about sex, and yet in American fiction so many stories and novels present a sexual dalliance ans an unpardonable sin. (In real life) I never thought that should be true. Marriage is the main event. These other relationships bring me into worlds I would otherwise not know. These relationships have helped our marriage. ..I think of all these people who get divorced over minor matters...I don't see how people can live in conventional marriages. "

Gay Talese has a fifty year marriage with a very accomplished,independent and fiscally successful wife.

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E.L. Doctorow, Homer & Langley to be published in September

"And so do people pass out of one's life and all you can remember of them is their humanity, a poor fitful thing of no dominion, like your own."

This novel is unlike anything Doctorow has written before, it uses to the Collyer brothers to draw us through the twentieth century in America as seen by a blind man and his eccentric pack rat brother whose bodies were found in a Fifth Avenue mansion after their deaths.

"Homer Lusk Collyer (November 6, 1881 – March 21, 1947) and Langley Collyer (October 3, 1885 – March 1947) were two American brothers who became famous because of their snobbish nature, filth in their homes, and compulsive hoarding.

The brothers are often cited as an example of compulsive hoarding associated with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), as well as disposophobia or 'Collyer brothers syndrome', a fear of throwing anything away. For decades, neighborhood rumors swirled around the rarely-seen, unemployed men and their home at 2078 Fifth Avenue (at the corner of 128th Street), in Manhattan, where they obsessively collected newspapers, books, furniture, musical instruments, and many other items, with booby traps set up in corridors and doorways to protect against intruders.

Both were eventually found dead in the Harlem brownstone where they had lived as hermits, surrounded by over 100 tons of rubbish that they had amassed over several decades." Wikipedia

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Nina Simone

Never an empty note or word.

Of how many singers can that be said?

Amália Rodrigues
Om Kalthoum (Arab Singer of the 40s, 50's 60's)
Celia Cruz
Bessie Smith
Billie Holiday
Dinah Washington

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Know this:

What age does to them,
It will do to you.

Complaint is a Trap, never
Leading to Satisfaction. It only
Roils the Heart.

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William Vollmann

But meaning can be found in the most desolate zones, for survivors if not for victims, and in Rising Up and Rising Down Vollmann relates the following story from the San Francisco morgue as what he calls a "Solomonic parable":

Three different mothers were led into the viewing room one by one to identify a dead girl, and each mother claimed the girl as hers, with a desperate relief, as I would suppose.... Those three mothers must all have given up hoping that their daughters would ever speak to them or smile at them again. They wanted to stop dreading and start grieving. They didn't want to go into viewing rooms any more. And maybe the glass window was dirty, and maybe their eyes were old or full of tears. It was a natural mistake. But one mother was lucky. The dead girl was really her daughter.

 

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Toots enjoying Hugh Taylor Birch Park, Ft. Lauderdale, July 2009

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"A Man Escaped" Director: Robert Bresson--1956

The most tantalizing, enthralling movie I have ever seen. The true story of a French prisoner of the Nazis, who meticulously plans an escape. The detailed planning takes 1 hour and 30 minutes of the 1 hour and 40 minutes of the entire film. Breathless, riveting, alarming, complete non-stop tension.


Rating:
Run Time: 102 min
MPAA Rating:
Released: 1956
Directors: Robert Bresson

Genre/Type: Drama
Prison Film
Docudrama
Escape Film

Producers: Alain Poiré
Jean Thuillier

Plot Synopsis by Tom Wiener
In a genre crowded with quality films, director Robert Bresson's POW drama has become legendary, in part because it strips down the experience of a man desperate to escape to the essentials. That's in keeping with the approach Bresson took with all of his films. The filmmaker, who spent a year in a German prison camp during World War II, based this story on the experiences of Andre Devigny, a French Resistance fighter sent in 1943 to the infamous prison in Lyons, where 7,000 of the 10,000 prisoners housed there died either by natural means or by execution. Lt. Fontaine (Francois Leterrier) is certain that execution awaits him, and he almost immediately begins planning his escape, using homemade tools and an ingenuity for detecting the few weaknesses in the prison's structure and routine. For a time, he goes it alone, then takes on a partner, but only reluctantly. Fontaine does get some help from a couple of prisoners allowed to stroll in the exercise yard, but for the most part he is a figure in isolation. For Bresson, the process of escape is all, and in simplifying his narrative he ratchets up the tension, creating a film story of survival that many feel is without peer.

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Yes, I’m at my desk, alone,
I can’t look in my mirror , instead I look
In books and at my computer,

I was warned. But I am not surprised,
Even though I knew, I didn’t act and my
Strength disappeared, slowly, I didn’t notice,
What dreams I had.

I thought there was always time.

July 2009

 


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Can you see the man in his flying machine? Taken from my balcony.

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Musings, notes,

I don't know whether to write truth or fiction, but then I never know what my life is. mek

"It was, It will never be again. Remember." Paul Auster

Why is it that there are so many great trailers, but so few good movies? mek

"It is not what is criminal that is hardest to acknowledge; but rather what is ridiculous or shameful." Jean Jacques Rousseau

Understand, do not deny, that from the beginning we live in a state of perpetual decay. mek

"Art cannot exist without surprize or without change." Jean Renoir

Cutting work back is fine. But don't stop working until someone measures you for the six sided box. mek

Two skeletons on a tin roof during a windstorm. (of a piece of modern music by an unknown critic.)

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If you don't intend to get married is it still premarital sex?

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Synecdoche, New York, Screenplay – Charlie Kaufman.

"There are almost thirteen billion people in the world and not one is an extra. They are all leads in their own stories. And they must be given their due.

I woke up and found my life. She helped me find my after I lost it.

The end is built into the beginning.

-

Everything is more complicated than you think. We see only 10% of what is true. There are a million little strings attached to every decision we make. And you destroy your life every time you choose and maybe you won’t even know it for twenty years. And you may never trace that decision to its source. You only get the one chance to play it out.

And they say that there is no fate—but there is: it’s what we create. Even though the world goes on for eons and eons we are here for only a fraction of a second. Most of our time is spent being dead or not yet born. But while we’re alive we wait in vain wasting years for a phone call or a letter or a look from someone or something to make it all right.

But it never comes or it seems to but doesn’t really so we spend our time in vague regret or vague hope that something good will come along. Something that will make us feel connected, make us feel whole, make us feel loved.

-

What was before us, our exciting mysterious future is now behind you. Understood, disappointing. We realize we are not special; we have struggled into existence and now are stepping silently outward. This is everyone’s experience, every single one. The specifics hardly matter. Everyone is everyone.

-
As the people who adore you stop adoring you—as they die,as they move on, as you shed them, as you shed your beauty, your youth, as the world forgets you, as you recognize your transience, you begin to lose your characteristics one by one, as you learn that there is no one watching you, and there never was, you think only about driving, not coming from any place, not arriving any place, just driving, counting off time, now you are here, it’s 7:43, now you are here, it’s 7:44, now you are---gone.

-
Where is everyone?
– Mostly dead—some have left—

(paraphrase) I’m tired,…and lonely...everyone’s dreams.. in all those lives, all those thoughts, we’ll never know, that’s the truth of it.

I love you
I love you too.
I know how to do this play now…I have an idea.

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Word of the Day for Thursday, August 28, 2008

chthonic \THONE-ik\, adjective:

Dwelling in or under the earth; also, pertaining to the underworld

"Driven by dæmonic, chthonic Powers."
-- T.S. Eliot

"The chthonic divinity was essentially a god of the regions under the earth; at first of the dark home of the seed, later on of the still darker home of the dead."
-- C. F. Keary

"The chthonic imagery of Norine's apartment, which..was black as a coalhole and heated by the furnace of the hostess' unslaked desires."
-- M. McCarthy

"Two great and contrasted forms of ritual: the Olympian and the Chthonic, the one a ritual of cheerful character, the other a ritual of gloom, and fostering superstition."

Chthonic comes from khthón, the Greek word for earth.

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for chthonic

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That time of year that mayest in me behold

when yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang

upon those boughs which shake against the cold:

Bare, ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.

.................sonnett 73, Shakespeare.



\

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Love has to be open--otherwise it leads to death.

The Silence, Ingmar Bergman.

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The forest is a solemn place of wonder and discovery. It is there that most often that the cosmos comes to fill the soul. This is a time when all is shed and room is made for universal commonality and centrality.

You are a part of all and all is a part of you. You can feel it most among the trees.

m

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Is there a distinction between what is real and what is apparently real? This goes to my Picasso story about the "print" in his hostess' bathroom, that he identifies as being an original. His hostess immediately takes the print from the bathroom and replaces another painting from its honored place above the mantelpiece in her living room with the newly discovered Picasso original.

"But why?" asks Picasso, isn't it the same work that was previously delegated to the bathroom?

Is there a distinction between what is real and what is apparently real?

+++++++++++++++++++++

"Three Indian climbers were trapped high on the Northeast Ridge (of Everest) on May 10, and early the next morning a Japanese party intent on the summit walked past them, though they were still alive. By the time the Japanese descended, one of the climbers was dead, another missing, a third barely alive and tangled in his rope. They removed the rope from the survivor but made no effort to help him down the mountain. He too would die. 'Above eight thousand meters,' one of the Japanese climbers offered by way of self-justification, 'is not a place where people can afford morality.' "

"Fallen Giants, A History of Himalayan Mountaineering from the Age of Empire to the Age of Extremes" Maurice Isserman & Stewart Weaver

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Monkeys:

Put eight monkeys in a room. In the middle of the room is a ladder,
leading to a bunch of bananas hanging from a hook. Each time a monkey tries to climb the ladder, all the monkeys are sprayed with ice water, which makes them miserable.

Soon enough, whenever a monkey attempts to climb the ladder, all of the other
monkeys, not wanting to be sprayed, set upon him and beat him up. Soon, none of the eight monkeys ever attempts to climb the ladder.

One of the original monkeys is then removed, and a new monkey is put
in the room. Seeing the bananas and the ladder, he wonders why none of the other monkeys are doing the obvious. But undaunted, he immediately begins to climb the
ladder. All the other monkeys fall upon him and beat him silly. He has no idea why.

However, he no longer attempts to climb the ladder.

A second original monkey is removed and replaced. The newcomer again attempts to
climb the ladder, but all the other monkeys hammer the @%!*# out of him. This includes the previous new monkey, who, grateful that he's not on the receiving
end this time, participates in the beating because all the other monkeys are doing
it.

However, he has no idea why he's attacking the new monkey.

One by one, all the original monkeys are replaced. Eight new monkeys are now in the
room. None of them have ever been sprayed by ice water. None of them attempt to
climb the ladder. All of them will enthusiastically beat up any new monkey who tries, without having any idea why.

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From "Public Enemy" -- 2009

Some folks are for 'come from,'
Others are for 'going to.'

Johnny Depp (John Dillinger)

BUT

From "Out of the Past' -- 1947

Robert Mitchum (Jeff) and Jane Greer (Kathy) have this dialog:

Jeff: What's your name?
Kathy: Kathy.
Jeff:I like that name.
Kathy: But do you know where I come from?
Jeff: Baby, I don't care. I'm thinking about where we're going.

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watched The Burmese Harp tonight.

High in the castle in springtime
At a flower viewing banquet
The sake goblet makes the rounds
Casting its shadow against the walls.
through boughs of ancient pine
Moonlight shines
where has it gone
the light of days long past...

-------------------------------------------

There is no end to words of farewell.

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Another from Cavafy:



The Windows

In these shadowed rooms, in which I pass
gloomy days, up and down I pace
that I might find the windows. ---For a window
to be open would be a consolation.---
But there are no windows, or I can't
find them. And perhaps it's best I don't.
Perhaps the light will be a new oppression.
Who knows what new things it will show.

Translator: Daniel Mendelsohn

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Notes from Bergman, "Through a Glass Darkly"


certainty unmasked.

One draws a magic circle around one's self to keep everything out that doesn't fit ones secret games..secret garden...

Each time that life breaks through the circle the games become puny and ridiculous so one draws a new circle and creates new defenses.

I'm scared Papa--anything can happen. Reality burst open and I tumbled out. It's like in a dream.Anything can happen.Anything.

" I know."

I can't live in this new world.

"Yes, you can. But you must have something to hold onto."

What would that be? A God? Give me some proof of god. You can't.

"Yes I can. But you have to listen carefully."

Yes, I need to listen.

"I can give you only a hint of my own hope. It's knowing that love exists for real in the human world."

A special kind of love, I suppose?

"All kinds. the highest and the lowest, the most absurd and the most sublime.All kinds of love..

The longing for love?

"Longing and denial. Trust and distrust."

So Love is the proof?

"I don't know if love is the proof of God's existence, or if love is God himself."

For you, love and God is the same.

"That thought helps me in my emptiness and in my dirty despair."

Tell me more, Papa.

"Suddenly the emptiness turns into abundance and despair into life. It's like a reprieve, my son, from a death sentence."

Papa, if it's as you say, then Karen is surrounded by God, since we love her.

"Yes."

Can that help her?

"I believe so." Papa leaves the room.

Papa spoke to to me...