Still Funmy After All These Years

 

The Hollywood Squares
These answers from the days when Hollywood Squares was not scripted. Peter Marshall, the host, asked the questions. Thanks to Carl  and Classic Squares

Q. True or False, a pea can last as long as 5,000 years.
A. George Gobel: Boy, it sure seems that way sometimes.

Q. You've been having trouble going to sleep. Are you probably a man or a woman?
A. Don Knotts: That's what's been keeping me awake.

Q. As you grow older, do you gesture more or less with your hands when talking?
A. Rose Marie: You ask me one more growing old question, Peter, and I'll give you a gesture you'll never forget! 

Q. Paul, what is a good reason for pounding meat?
A. Paul Lynde : Loneliness!

Q. If you're going to make a parachute jump, how high should you be?
A. Charley Weaver: Three days of steady drinking should do it.

Q. According to Cosmopolitan, if you meet a stranger at a party and you think he's attractive, is it okay to ask if he is married?
 A. Rose Marie: No wait until morning.

Q. Which of your five senses tends to diminish as you get older?
 A. Charley Weaver: My sense of decency.

Q. What are 'Do It,' 'I Can Help,' and 'I Can't Get Enough'?
A. George Gobel: I don't know, but it's coming from the next apartment.

Q. Paul, why do Hell's Angels wear leather?
A. Paul Lynde: Because chiffon wrinkles too easily.

Q. In bowling, what's a perfect score?
A. Rose Marie: Ralph, the pin boy.

Q. It is considered in bad taste to discuss two subjects at nudist camps. One is politics, what is the other?
 A. Paul Lynde: Tape measures.

Q. During a tornado, are you safer in the bedroom or in the closet?
 A. Rose Marie: Unfortunately, Peter, I'm always safe in the bedroom.

Q. Can boys join the Camp Fire Girls?
A. Marty Allen: Only after lights out.

Q. When you pat a dog on its head he will wag his tail. What will a goose do?
A. Paul Lynde: Make him bark?

Q. If you were pregnant for two years, what would you give birth to?
A. Paul Lynde: Whatever it is, it would never be afraid of the dark.

Q. According to Ann Landers, is there anything wrong with getting into the habit of kissing a lot of people?
A. Charley Weaver: It got me out of the army.

Q. It is the most abused and neglected part of your body, what is it?
A. Paul Lynde: Mine may be abused, but it certainly isn't neglected.

Q. Back in the old days, when Great Grandpa put horseradish on his head, what was he trying to do?
A. George Gobel: Get it in his mouth.

Q. Who stays pregnant for a longer period of time, your wife or your elephant?
A. Paul Lynde: Who told you about my elephant?

Q. When a couple has a baby, who is responsible for its sex?
A. Charley Weaver: I'll lend him the car, the rest is up to him

Q. Jackie Gleason recently revealed that he firmly believes in them and has actually seen them on at least two occasions. What are they? 
A. Charley Weaver: His feet.

Q. According to Ann Landers, what are two things you should never do in bed?
 A. Paul Lynde: Point and laugh

Machiavelli Personality Test

So, what's your Mach score?

Help me get blog-thing rolling & post your score or whatever below as a comment. Thanks!

Machiavelli personality test

This survey at Salon.com has 20 questions, takes 2-5 minutes: "Range is 1-100.  Most fall somewhere in the middle, but there's a significant minority at either extreme."  Survey says:

This survey itself measures only one thing -- whether you subscribe to the ideas of a 16th century Italian political philosopher. But experiments have shown that reactions to Machiavelli act as a kind of litmus test, delineating differences in temperament that can be confirmed with more traditional personality inventories.

High Machs constitute a distinct type: charming, confident and glib, but also arrogant, calculating and cynical, prone to manipulate and exploit.

(Think Rupert Murdoch, or if your politics permit it, President Clinton.)

True low Machs, however, can be kind of dependent, submissive and socially inept. So be sure to invite a high Mach or two to your next dinner party.

On Tue, Dec 15, 2009 at 8:41 AM, Chris wrote:

I just finished your 'Bama article on Clark-Works.  I've read bits and pieces on Facebook and through email, but the completed article is truly fantastic.  Powerful and well written, dear Clark.  I'm so impressed with your writing skills and powers of observation on the world around us, and honored to be your friend. -Chris

Chris, you are clearly the one to blame for this!  You didn't think I would fail to exploit this compliment, did you.  What, me a "high Mach" scoring 62?  Think again, boyo!
 

Seriously, I've let this blog linger on a dusty desuetude for a year or so now.  Maybe I can do something with it.  The idea is to have fun.

So g'ahead.  Be the first second Clark-Works Commenter ever!  (Who copped firsties as the one and only "Anonymous Commenter" to appear at Clark-Works?   You get 62 guesses.)

 

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Sunday Onanism (A work in progress)

BEGUN: Sunday 13 December 2:30am CST
==========================


A patented device designed to prevent masturbation by inflicting electric shocks upon the perpetrator, by ringing an alarm bell, and through spikes at the inner edge of the tube into which the penis is inserted. (2)






Yup, you read it right: Sunday Onanisim!

I just had to steal this from a great blog written by a great friend. C2C, you know who you are!

Anybody here know what Onanism means? Raise your hands!

Yes, you little Johnny, in the back of the class ... Well yes, Onanism does means masturbation. That's the usual definition. Let's learn more!

It's time for for our friend, Mr. Wikipedia. I want you to type in Onanism (this will open in a new tab or window). What do you see?

 

 Masturbation, 1911, copper engraving by Mihály Zichy.

Self-portrait of Egon Schiele 1911,
depicting masturbation. (4)

Oh my!

 Masturbation was depicted in 19th century Shunga

prints, such as this piece by Kunisada. (6)

 
This is Wikipedia? 

Gustav Klimt's "A Young Woman Masturbating" (1916)

Well, it is artistic—wait, what's this?

Masturbate-a-thon?

Masturbate-a-thon. (7)

Longest time:

• Female: 7 h, 6 min (Ms. Kitty Kat, San Francisco, 2008)
• Male: 9 h, 58 min (Masanobu Sato, visiting from Tokyo, Japan and representing the Tenga company; San Francisco, 2009)

Most orgasms:

• Male: 31 (Michael Hariprem in 2008)
• Female: 94 (Pernille from Copenhagen, Denmark in 2008)
  

You say there are more photos, little Johnny? No, children, don't scroll around the page! Stop laughing, little Johnny! 

Sally, stop crying! 

All right, turn off your laptops right now!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We're all adults here, right? At least old enough to read Wikipedia. So let's talk. First, a show of hands. Anybody here not guilty of committing the sin of Onan? Raise your hands. Both hands! Not you, Miss Sally? Nor you, Mr John? And how old are you now? Sixty? You're sure you have never masturbated, not once in your whole life? That's not a sin, but it is a shame. I mean, it's nice to be a virgin when you are sixteen, but when you're sixty?

All right let's try this one more time. Back to Wikipedia. Now take the jism - make that ism - out of Onanism. This time Search Wikipedia for Onan. See? That's the one we're looking for.

A lot of you already knew about the Genesis 38 story of (disambiguated) Onan, son of Judah, younger brother to Er, elder brother of Shelah. Onan was a middle child. So Judah finds a wife marries off his firstborn son, Er, to Tamar. So far so good, but it doesn't work out for Er and Tamar because Er "was wicked in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord Killed him." Dang! Judah needs and heir, because in Genesis, it's being fruitful and multiplying. If you don't do a lot of begetting and begatting, in Genesis you just won't make the cut. Sorry, but that's the law, and not too bad a law when you think of it, especially given the name of the book. Come on, it's about genesis, not genius! So Judah sends in his back-up son, and says to Onan. “Go in to your brother’s wife and marry her, and raise up an heir to your brother.”

This doesn't sit well with Onan. Why? Well, Genesis may be all about begetting, but having heirs means having more than just you name on the Big List of begetters. Marriage also means combining the wealth of two families, having land and power. So to have an heir is to have an asset - free labor till he or she is married off, a valuable trading opportunity when it's time for marriage, and after marriage, children and grandchildren to look after you, the patriarch or you, the matriarch. Okay, so the Mom's deal is more about derived power, and from the time of Genesis, it is through the mother that one's lineage is traced. Why? Simple. Because there is no doubt about who one's mother is, Nature takes care of that. But one's father? Before DNA testing, who knew? So that's still the way it is today in Judaism (hey look, Judah gets to have his name associated with a major world religion!).

But wait, there's a problem. Here's what Genesis tells us: "Onan knew that the heir would not be his; and it came to pass, when he went in to his brother’s wife, that he emitted on the ground, lest he should give an heir to his brother. And the thing which he did displeased the LORD; therefore He killed him also." Dang! Exit Onan. He emitted, the Lord omitted. Bang, zoom, gone! But Onan left us with one thing, which we all still practice today. All? Pretty much. Even him? Even her? Yup. You too. Remember, both hands!

An aside - so what happened next? Any writer would see this coming. I mean, why bring up Shelah, the third brother, and leave him waiting in the wings if he isn't going to get in on the action? And so it was. But Tamar has to wait, since Shelah's only a child. And anyway, Judah wasn't so hot about sending in his final son to this hottie Tamar, a proven man-killer, “Lest he also die like his brothers.” So Tamar has to "live like a widow," the Bible reports. Lots of drama, about goats and pledges and mistaken identities, harlots, Tamar almost getting burned alive, but it all ends up with Tamar having sex with old Judah - and twin sons, Zarah who got to be the eldest only because he stuck out his hand before being born and had a scarlet thread tied around his wrist by the midwife, and Pharez or Perez, who became King David, an ancestor of Jesus Christ.

Tamar is a healthy young woman, and then, like now, healthy young women are not supposed to be interested in sex. They have to be chaste and virginal and all that. Wars have been launched over the matter of virginity and progeny. Male apes will bust any other male ape who messes with his womenfolk. Same goes for us, it seems. Whether it's Helen or Mary or Draupadi or Sita, you just don't mess with another man's wife (except in the curious case of Mary, who gets to have a lover named God, and also gets to stay a virgin - we're serious about this. Really serious! No mocking, Mister). So what if Joseph is made a cuckold by God himself. Tough, man. Good enough for Zeus, good enough for our Father in Heaven, hallowed art thou! (Watch it, Mister. This is getting close to blasphemy. We may have to do the Lord's work on you, and you don't want that, do you, not after reading Genesis.)

Okay, let's drop that and get back to Onan. (Watch out, buddy. We mean it.) Okay, let's talk about Onan as a metaphor then. How like Onan, we can shoot our wad (watch it!) -- okay, how we can waste our God-Given Gift, our GGG, whatever it may be, or at least not let them be fruitful and multiply. So we come, to coin a phrase, to this Note, and to my habitual scribbling on sheets or paper or in emails stuff that at one time I used to publish. What am I doing? Hand over heart, I am trying my best. Plus I like to write this way, without any pressure, fear of censorship, money to be made, deadlines to be hit. Just to write, for me to you, from one friend to another. Or if I have no one to write to or no reason to wtie, thne just to write in a journal. Dabbled in blogs, but like emails better, or comments on Facebook, or in certain internet forums. These things are kind of transitory and ephemeral, but I like that part too.

However, lately I have been writing a lot of emails, posting in a lot of blogs, writing Notes and comments hither and yon. And I find I am cutting and pasting from one email to another, or to a blog, or from a blog-post to a Note. As ideas begin to percolate, then cool and condense fro fragments and snippets into complete thoughts, it becomes necessary to put those pieces together into a more finished form, to clear the decks so you can move on.

Take this Note, for instance. It began in an email to a friend, continued as a comment to a Facebook post by Nina Snowden about her first novel, In and Out of Madness, about which Nina added a new comment yesterday on her Facebook profile:

My book, In and Out of Madness, deals with sexual addiction....the same illness that Tiger Woods has. No one has written about it in fiction, only nonfiction. Tiger has put this on the national radar. Not only does my book entertain, but it educates as well. I did a lot of research on the illness before I wrote the book.

There was already a string of comments when I added my own"

Nina, you just made a sale, dammit! When the movie comes out, I wouldn't need to use the Mehod to play both roles - the bipolar woman and the sex-addict she married. In fact, I was just writing about Sex and God: "Remember, the lowest ,chakras and the highest ones are both in overdrive in the devil-saints! Even the great sages and avatars - and yes, even Him, and even our Mother Mary - we puritans have a hard time thinking of them as human men and human women with our human flaws and urges. Hey, maybe to some I am the ishta-deva, but here on earth I am a man! My guru in India whispered to me in private, "Clark, show me a saint who doesn't get an erection, and I'll show you a saint who is worth much!" Sex and God keep little company in the religious mind and our hopeless division of the two. It's a shame - God was no fool when He and/or She made two sexes! Just my opinion. Watch out for lightening bolts!

Then Polly made a comment:

Ummmmmm....I don't think religion makes a natural instinct a sin....I think God makes lack of control of our natural instincts a sin.

Then Nina:

What about the elderly who have a natural instinct to void but lose control and need depends....they can't control that natural instinct. There are many instances where natural instincts are hard to impossible to control. So, I guess we can't make a definitive blanket statement about instincts, control, and sin. None of us. Just a thought.

To which Polly replied.

That's not a choice.

And I chimed in again.

Polly, I agree with your point. Both of them: (1) placing a premium on balance and moderation, not being enslaved to one's emotions and drives, and (2) that this premium applies in those cases in which one's will or choice is not impaired, which would cover probably 95-99% of us (note: I am not a statistics person, but you get the idea.) Personally, I am not comfortable with the sentence called "sin" (not the word, the sentence - think on it).

I was a religion major at Vanderbilt and learned Greek so I could read the koine Greek of the New Testament. We also wrestled with a definition (not academic, not etymological, but practical) for "religion." I was, by accident of geography, born and borne into the world as a Christian, albeit a rather bland Methodist. I set out in earnest on my spiritual journey when I was 17, after a high school summer job as a Merchant Marine took me to Vietnam. Won't go into detail here, other than to say that I am still on this journey. Always will be, I suppose.

"Sin" in English carries such stern baggage! It is the way of religion, versus the way or spirituality, perhaps. I lean more toward the less judgmental and guilt-laden notion of the Buddhists, who speak of "mistakes" and "ignorance" rather than "sins." Actually, this is more in line with the New Testament. The koine (common) Greek of the Bible for sin is hamartia (ἁμαρτία) and what we call "sin" in the original means "to miss the mark." Paul was a scholar, he knew this: "for all have fallen short of the glory of theos" he wrote.

As a sentence, the verdict of sin is awfully strong. No arguing with such a sentence. And we all know what the "wages" of "sin" are! Death to you! To Hell with you! Or else: Accept your pardon - your ONLY pardon. Or ELSE! Isn't it? Be honest, is this not the bailiwick of "religion" and the twin weapons of religion: Fear of hell and hope of heaven, delivered in absolutist terms. Such intolerance is nowhere in the original New Testament, and certainly not in John or the Epistles of John, which border on heresy if you read the original! "Heresy," my wise Baptist preacher pointed out, with his usual humor, "is what other people believe!" Best definition ever!

I won't go into the beginnings of body-hatred, given a big boost by Paul, of puritanism, etc. - just think in terms of natural, loving, body-positive, healthy sex - as for me and my house, I say yum yum! (If you know the Vedas, you can say yab-yum, yin-yang). In short, where religion ends, spirituality begins. And the beginning of spirituality? Tolerance.

This is my view; maybe I am wrong. "Maybe I am wrong" is a phrase one seldom hears from a religious person, but I mean this sincerely - after my long long long pilgrimage I know this for sure: No one path, no single person can encompass all truth, all the great mystery, of the mind of God. Big Mind is beyond any concepts of Little Mind, and the variety of pronouncements about Big Mind coming from this little planet must cause Big Laughter.

So far, so good. It's now Sunday at 5:15am, so that's where we'll leave this. Now I can rest. Like God intended.

===========================

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On Bama Fans and Mobile, Alabama: Hard Words

Last revised 12:32 am 11 December 2009 Claiming same leeway they get in  Congress with routine magic words  "Mr Speaker, I request the right to revise and extend my remarks for the record."

12/11 Added asides on racism, on personal history. Revised title. Appended "Fight Son" and "Rammer Jammer"

12/9  A few unfair remarks cooled. 

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

History: I posted something about the SEC Championship from my brother, who is a big Bama fan.  Did not generate many comments. It was, after all, mostly analysis.

Then I wrote a private message to one friend, and then to a lot of friends I knew to be Bama fans. In this private message, I shared thoughts from Philip Shirley, my old pal from T-town who now writes a very good column about Bama football at al.com called From Behind Enemy Lines.

My concern was the tone of some remarks Bama fans were beginning to repeat, and it looked like the mean-spirited stuff was gaining a kind of general acceptance.  Like it was okay.  It's not okay, and I didn't not like it.  So far, no response to that message.  No - the other day there was one (1) reply, from Mark. 

So now, this.

Fair warning, it is over the edge.  But I found out I had to raise the pitch to drive the point home - and I hope, to stimulate a lively conversation.  A fair and balanced editorial wouldn't get it.  I hope this rant merits an honest and productive discussion. [Dec 11: since it was first posted on Tuesday 8 December, this hope has been working out okay.  It has probably peaked, so I'd be selling short from here.  But it's had a good run.]



Now I enjoy talking smack as much as any fan - after all bragging rights are an Iron Bowl tradition, an art-form of the highest order! And this year - at last! - Bama fans really can enjoy our day in the sun! Yet some of the smack talk I was hearing more and more stopped being witty and seemed to just turn mean. It's not like yelling in traffic at all the idiots - we all do that.  Nobody can hear you.  But immature flame-wars and mean-spirited taunting? Not worthy of us Bama fans.  This may be okay for the lowly Texas, Florida, or Auburn louts, but not for us Crimson elite. (: Do I need to say that this is smack-talk?  See, wink-wink smiley face! ->  ;)

A little history.  My big brother, Frank "Trip" Powell, was Student Council president of Murphy in 1964, the year the first black student came, and he was assigned the task by the administration to "look after that colored boy" and try to keep the racial violence down.  He saw how we white folks treated Henry Hobdy. Urine poured into his locker on a regular basis, bumps in hallways during class-change, books scattered, constant threats both subtle and outright, beatings.  The South - and he rest of the country - has come a long way since then.  Racism is no longer so obvious.  And by racism, I do not refer only to whites against blacks, but the other way also.  (And throw in browns, yellows, the whole spectrum while you're at it.  Racism must have external markers to work right.  How can you be racism agaist people with 0-positive blood?  But you can if they ae old, or fat, or young, or poor, or if they have a funny dialect.)

A few guys on this list were on the first football team where a black student managed to make it through the summer two-a-days.  I was one of those guys. That didn't happen till 1970.  In 1971, the year my wife graduated,  the anger finally erupted in blood and broken glass at Murphy.  I showed up that day to visit my History teacher, Harriett Lillich, and that's what I found - blood and broken glass.  The school empty.  I tried to ask Ms Lillich what happened but she stopped me: "How did you get past the police cordon?"  My wife is a graduate of Murphy, one of the few in the class of 1971 who did not move to Davidson High School or UMS - anywhere but Murphy.

I also taught for several years at Murphy, and aimed a lot of criticism in my Press-Register column at the black community.  I'll tell them straight to their face that they are messing up what was given to them by those who came before.  I am certainly no comfy liberal, far removed from what is happening.  I still live in the South.  And my wife still teaches, as she has for 25 years.  We've both seen unbelievably bad behavior from the younger generation of black kids.

So don't give me this "Oh, Clark doesn't get it.  Or dismiss it with what my high society friends whisper when they think I can't hear: "You know he's always been crazy. He's just an a-hole.  He's not one of us."  Damn right!  I'd plead to those charges.  But I still get this stuff from people who don't know a thing about me other than the guy the remember in high school, or college. It's the same for you, I'll bet.  It is hard to be who you are among those who know who you were!

At age 58, I petty much know who I am and who I was - yes, I was at times an insufferable ass, and sometimes I was pretty crazy.  So what? I'm pretty sure most people could find similar critics. Yet after 25 years based here in Mobile, I also I know some other things, some wonderful, some I do not like and never did.  I am tired of keeping quiet: there is a special brand of racism in Mobile. We never had real riots here.  We are too polite. You can find this in John Howard Griffin's visits to Mobile as a white soldier about to ship out in 1942, and again when he "passed" as a black man in 1959. He saw two very different Mobiles as he reported in Black Like Me.  Or more recently, in an excellent documentary The Order of Myths by Margaret Brown, a Mobilian herself.  This shows how the Mobile society is really quite complex, how you find the best and the worst of humanity mixed into the crazy gumbo of this very "inside" town.  Mobile is quite different from the rest of the state of Alabama, and even different than the neighboring cities along the Louisiana, Missisiippi, Alabama "Cajun Coast," as I call this unique region - which is larger and older than just Louisiana.  It is a strange realm, this Cajun Coast ...

Mobile now has its first black Mayor, and we like to use that to prove we are not the steroeptype, though few of my white friends actually voted for Sam Jones (Ijust to be testy, I put a Sam Jones sign up at my place on Riviere du Chien!  The new racism is not substantially different than the Jim Crow it replaced, it has only changed the words it uses. It is more subtle, but just as real.  From both sides, mind you, who like to pretend racism does not exist, or at least it's not so bad, not here, not in Mobile! But it does, here and just as it does everywhere.  Just take a look at the most racial and segregated hour in America - ten to eleven on Sunday mornings.  You know what I'm talking about.

I have seen this stuff all my life. Seen the colored and white only bathrooms downtown, seen those signs go away, seen the troubles of the 1960s, seen those pass, seen what's happening now, seen how the latest generation is as different from us as we were from our parents, and (dare I say this?), I've seen what is to come, though exactly when I'm not so sure.  Man, I drove cabs into Orange Grove and Happy Hill in the middle of the night. I've worked on river towboats, on ships, drove trucks, done hard labor, taught school kids from grade 6 through Sophomores in college. I've been places most haven't dreamed of visiting, seen things most can't imagine.  White Mobilians, for example, know more about Spring Hill or Russia than they do about whole sections of their own city.  Same, but in a different way, for Black Mobilians.  I am tired of this polite-but-separate New South.  I won't, I can't keep quiet any longer. Not now, not at my age.  Soon I'll be dead.  Then I'll keep quiet.  But now, if I don't speak my heart, I'm already dead.  That's how it feels.

Okay, sermon's done, history class is over.  Now for some football. (Wait. Do I need to bring up the fact that Mobilian Winston Groom pointed out in Forrest Gump - or do I?  Think of the Alabama teams of the 1960's, George Wallace's infamous pre-staged psychodrama at the steps of Foster Auditorium on June 11, 1963.  Notice with me the color of the first string this year.  Wonder when we will mark the first black quarterback, the first black Head Coach?  It may come sooner than you think!  O the demographics, they are a-changin')

Trip, who has lived overseas for the past 20 years, just sent me an email. It's an email, so he rares back and really speaks his mind.  I didn't ask his permission to post this, since he isn't on Facebook, but I will. Remember, he himself says "Sorry, just felt the need to vent a bit."  Me too. As I said, the point is to stimulate some discussion - even provoke it - and I never expected everyone to agree.  How to express differing but deeply held views, maybe crossing the line a little with some smack-talk, (you gotta laugh but show some class)

So here's my brother Trip, and remember, friends, he is as he himselfe= admits venting (slightly different than ranting but that's quibblie.  I leave it as it is:

You know, after a whole season of reading about Bama on the Internet ... and reading at least portions of many comments on most articles, I find myself totally shocked and embarrassed/ashamed and pissed off at the vast majority of Bama supporters. They have almost universally trashed Tebow for crying and no one, not one single comment, has yet commended Tebow for his class in congratulating Alabama, wishing them well, and saying he was "proud" of the Bama team. They frequently are really violent in their comments and often want to kill or maim one or more members of the opposing team. They trash other fans and constantly say rude, mean, and hurtful things to people they don't even know. I know one thing - I couldn't live my life with so much anger and hate inside me. I don't know how they do it. They must live really miserable lives with Bama football being the only good thing in life for them. And none of them can spell at all - I think almost all of them are functionally illiterate. How did they ever graduate from Bama or any other university if they don't know the difference between their and there or how to spell definite (if I see definate one more time, I'll scream). They never give another team credit for anything and even trash FIU and UTC. Even after all the bad years Bama suffered, they have no humility at all - or empathy or sympathy. I like what Saban tells his players - when you score a touchdown, have some class and act like you've been there before. Too bad Bama fans don't listen to what Saban says like his players do. Bama fans just don't have any class. And Rammer Jammer, for me, goes into that category of "no class" too. Why not have a cheer for your team instead of one that trashes the other team?  Celebrate your own team; don't trash and embarrass the other team.

Bama fans were so impressed with the class of the Virginia Tech fans and a couple of other fan bases. Why can't they take a cue or two from them? Why doesn't the class of another fan base cause Bama fans to self-reflect on their own 'classlessness'?  I hate to say it, but I think it's because they don't have the self-reflective capacity it would require - or the self-consciousness to even be aware of their own lack of class.

In short, illiterate rednecks to the core. I know that reveals my own discriminatory tendency, but it's not the way I started this year. I started by assuming there was some good with the bad like everywhere else. But now, unfortunately, I think the good and enlightened Bama fan is a minuscule percentage if not a complete oxymoron.

I guess I have romanticized my past a lot - I don't remember everyone in Bama or who follows Bama being so, so redneck. In short, I'm so turned off I don't even come close to having words to describe how turned off I am. I have realized I have absolutely not a thing in common with them except loving Bama football. That's it. I don't think I would socialize with any of them. If I ever fleetingly entertained thoughts of ever returning to Alabama to live, those ideas are dead and gone forever. Makes me wonder how you manage to continue living in Mobile all these years. Sorry, just felt the need to vent a bit.

Sorry, folks, but he has a point.  Though my brother has been overseas for a long time, I've had reasons to stay in Mobile.  I love it down here in L.A. (Lower Alabama) on the Redneck Riviera and I'll go to the mat for my sweet home Alabama.  But I do not bigots and srupidity and just plain hatefulness.  And I don't like what we are becoming down here. We're better than that. Unlike most Bama fans, I actually graduated from the University. (I scuttle to say that you don't have to attend or graduate from any school to qualify as a fan!  But you do get some bragging rights.) We didn't see fans acting this way when Coach Bryant was around.  I too am embarrassed for the state of our State.  And I am too old to keep quiet, like a polite Mobilian always does.  To hell with that!

It's time for all of us to stop being proud of being stupid.  And it's time for someone to say this.  Maybe this one will generate a conversation!

Roll Tide!

This Note is set to be public to "Everyone" so if you object or agree or if you want to pass it on to someone, feel free.




Fight Song

Yea, Alabama! Drown 'em Tide!
Every 'Bama man's behind you,
Hit your stride.
Go teach the Bulldogs [how] to behave,
Send the Yellow Jackets to a watery grave.
And if a man starts to weaken,
That’s a shame!
[here's where the rhythms get wobbly]
For Bama's pluck and grit have
Writ her name in Crimson Flame.
Fight on, fight on, fight on men!
Remember the Rose Bowl, we’ll win then.
So roll on to victory,
Hit your stride,
You're Dixie’s football pride,
Crimson Tide, Roll Tide, Roll Tide!

"Rammer Jammer"
    Hey Gators!
    Hey Gators!
    Hey Gators!
    We just beat the hell out of you!
    Rammer Jammer, Yellow Hammer. Give 'em hell, Alabama!

Mystery Chart

10/14/2009 Futures Mystery Chart

Technical Chartists, please! What do you see here?

 Double-Top or Inverse Head-and-Shoulders?
Yes, no confirmation yet but if possible ...

Your best-guess appreciated! Probable path next month?

Dear Michael Moore

Monday 12 October 2009

Dear Michael Moore,

SUMMARY:  Why not champion the humble self-directed investor?  No need to damn all participants as amoral or immoral for investing on their own, the way the Pension and 401k are doing for us all already.

This is my second email to you, inspired this time by your Facebook message yesterday.  (Now it has to be a blog post since your email box was full)  The first time I wrote you was almost 20 years ago, I think, after I first saw Roger and Me.   At that time I was an inner-city school teacher in my hometown of Mobile, Alabama.   I took seriously what Emerson and Gandhi wrote about education.  When Bush, Sr. sent his Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander to our school for a pep-talk and photo-op about his then education “plan,” and we had students at our school who did not have desks or books, teaches painting their own classrooms, all that, I decided to take a sick leave and return with signs to protest the sham or shame of this appearance.  I paid a price, but that’s another story.  Your movie gave me hope, and ever since I remain an admirer and solid fan.  And when you took time to reply to that email, I was floored.  My deepest gratitude for you and your work is both personal and impersonal.  I consider you the essential gadfly America must have.  Keep after ‘em!

I make no apologies for the length (hey - one email per decade! )  If you even see this, given your fame now and the amount of feedback you get daily it will be a miracle.    But I needed to reply to your message yesterday at Facebook:

Friends,

I'd like to have a word with those of you who call yourselves Christians (Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Bill Maherists, etc. can read along, too, as much of what I have to say, I'm sure, can be applied to your own spiritual/ethical values).

In my new film I speak for the first time in one of my movies about my own spiritual beliefs. I have always believed that one's religious leanings are deeply personal and should be kept private. After all, we've heard enough yammerin' in the past three decades about how one should "behave," and I have to say I'm pretty burned out on pieties and platitudes considering we are a violent nation who invades other countries and punishes our own for having the audacity to fall on hard times.

I'm also against any proselytizing; I certainly don't want you to join anything I belong to. Also, as a Catholic, I have much to say about the Church as an institution, but I'll leave that for another day (or movie).

Amidst all the Wall Street bad guys and corrupt members of Congress exposed in "Capitalism: A Love Story," I pose a simple question in the movie: "Is capitalism a sin?" I go on to ask, "Would Jesus be a capitalist?" Would he belong to a hedge fund? Would he sell short? Would he approve of a system that has allowed the richest 1% to have more financial wealth than the 95% under them combined?

I have come to believe that there is no getting around the fact that capitalism is opposite everything that Jesus (and Moses and Mohammed and Buddha) taught. All the great religions are clear about one thing: It is evil to take the majority of the pie and leave what's left for everyone to fight over. Jesus said that the rich man would have a very hard time getting into heaven. He told us that we had to be our brother's and sister's keepers and that the riches that did exist were to be divided fairly. He said that if you failed to house the homeless and feed the hungry, you'd have a hard time finding the pin code to the pearly gates.

I guess that's bad news for us Americans. Here's how we define "Blessed Are the Poor": We now have the highest unemployment rate since 1983. There's a foreclosure filing once every 7.5 seconds. 14,000 people every day lose their health insurance.

At the same time, Wall Street bankers ("Blessed Are the Wealthy"?) are amassing more and more loot -- and they do their best to pay little or no income tax (last year Goldman Sachs' tax rate was a mere 1%!). Would Jesus approve of this? If not, why do we let such an evil system continue? It doesn't seem you can call yourself a Capitalist AND a Christian -- because you cannot love your money AND love your neighbor when you are denying your neighbor the ability to see a doctor just so you can have a better bottom line. That's called "immoral" -- and you are committing a sin when you benefit at the expense of others.

When you are in church this morning, please think about this. I am asking you to allow your "better angels" to come forward. And if you are among the millions of Americans who are struggling to make it from week to week, please know that I promise to do what I can to stop this evil -- and I hope you'll join me in not giving up until everyone has a seat at the table.

Thanks for listening. I'm off to Mass in a few hours. I'll be sure to ask the priest if he thinks J.C. deals in derivatives or credit default swaps. I mean, after all, he must've been good at math. How else did he divide up two loaves of bread and five pieces of fish equally amongst 5,000 people? Either he was the first socialist or his disciples were really bad at packing lunch. Or both.

Yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com

I have not seen Capitalism: A Love Story.  The reason is simple.  It is not playing here in Mobile, Alabama.  (To see Fahrenheit 911 we had only two days at a small mall screen to do it – then, poof, gone – wait for the DVD.)   Down here where I was born, and my father, and his father, it seems I'm a stranger in a strange land.  It's my feeling that in the Bible belt one can find some of the worst travesties of Christ and authentic Christianity. ( One Christian woman told me you belong in jail - and several were less mild!)  Groupthink, if it can be called thinking, is a scary thing.

I am no stranger, however, to Christianity.  In 1970,  I became a full-gospel, evangelical, charismatic Christian - the whole nine years..  Or to be more precise, I came along as a hippie Christian, a Jesus Freak.  At that idealistic moment in history, we actually took up a lifestyle based on the first books of Acts, living communally in and around a number of “house ministries” around the South.  We referred to ourselves as First Century Christians.  Of course most of us moved on – in fact a number are the very ones here who have become hateful right-wing Christians, the very ones who tell me Michael Moore should be put in jail.  Me, I continued my lurching toward the Source. I have been meditating for some 30 years, beginning with Zen, and then on to India to study raja yoga.  I was drawn to try to find truly enlightened beings, some hidden; others, like Mother Theresa, who I visited in Calcutta, more well-known.  Interesting moment that, but it’s for another movie, as you said.  Fact is, there is one truth with many names, and you can stay within your tradition, as Mother Theresa and Thomas Merton did, or certain rishis of India, and Sufis of Islam (yes, I learned from wonderful people in these traditions too), or if you need to, find another way more suitable to your Nature.  AS the great Ramakrishna wrote, “God is like a mother who prepares food for her children according to their taste.”  And Jesus himself said, “In my Father’s house there are many mansions.”  The Gita says, “In whatever form you worship me, in that form I appear unto you.”  I could go on, but you already know the point: many paths, one truth.  I just took the trouble to devote a large part of my life exploring many of those paths.  Most Westerners are entirely ignorant of any tradition other than Christianity.  To me, this is a huge tragedy.  Muslims, Jews, Christians are equally ignorant – but, another time …

All this (have you even read this far?) is preamble to my observations of what I gather to be the central thesis of your movie; namely, that capitalism (and especially the predatory capitalism of Wall Street) is anti-Christian.  I see your point.  But for the past year, oddly, I have been studying this myself – not only studying, but practicing!   Facing some serious health problems, unable to work, and having no marketable skills and no assets other than my own my modest savings, which like everyone’s become more modest in the past few years, I fired my broker.  After all, I could lose money as easily as he was doing, I thought.  But seriously, I wanted to take responsibility and control of my own back after I concluded that investment experts had an interest in making us feel like children.  “You don’t understand this stuff, you should never try to do it yourself, etc.”

So in keeping with my approach to spirituality, I started the process of learning about things I had avoided all my life: the economy in general, and the market in particular.  I became a guppy, a retail stock trader, one of the million small-fry eaten regularly by the sharks and con-men at places like Goldman Sachs.   Like 90% of the small guys who try to do this, I am, at this point, still losing.  But this I expect for the first year, if I can survive – I consider it tuition.   At least now I am the one is losing my own money, not some broker or investment manager.

The bottom line is still the bottom line – to earn some money.  But for a guy like me, the Market has become one of the best teachers I have ever had.  In short, below the bottom line, for one who cares to notice the Stock Market is, like the Tao, a great guru, remorseless, exacting --  relentlessly testing one’s character, revealing all sins and weaknesses, especially the twin emotions fear and greed, and severely punishing traders who fair to learn and accept personal responsibility for their mistakes.  It is not for everyone, but even little guys from places Flint or Mobile can get in, if they choose.  Why not champion the humble self-directed investor who chooses to do this?  No need to damn all participants as amoral or immoral for investing on their own, the way the Pension and 401k are doing for us all already.

I invite you to join me in this education.  Not that you should become a day-trader yourself.  But consider my thesis.  The greatest saints and wonderful of the East was included untouchables, some with shunned occupations, like butcher, or corpse burner, and even the richest, the rulers, the raja rishis.  A businessman, even a stock trader or lawyer (or film-maker) as a saint?  Unthinkable?  As one of my great spiritual teachers, a Baptist preacher named Charles Simpson used to say, “God can hit a straight lick with a crooked stick.”  Even galoots like you or me are not excluded.

Here’s a modest proposal:  Assume that the stock market is becoming a true democracy, more accessible and information more available to anyone with a computer.  This is a fact – what once was only for a few select folks in Chicago or New York is now more available to everybody who wants to give it a go. In this way, it is much more fair than it was for my father, who dabbled, but also much more dangerous in another way, since few take the time to acquire the discipline to trade.

Now assume that the market is still subject to all kinds of shenanigans to take advantage of the lowly new-comer. (OK, you know this.  See Deep Capture Blog for a resource we can all access about the latest scams, and Business Jive for a great presentation of economic corruption and how the SEC is really operating)  Now, join in the campaign to force the SEC and other government institutions that are supposed to regulate fair-play to do their jobs!  Of course, most people will still lose money, but the Market, the largest poker game in the world, won’t have so many dishonest dealers pulling cards from the bottom of the deck.  No, that’s naïve – but maybe the SEC and FTC , etc etc could do a better job – like those casinos.  To dismiss the entire endeavor as immoral seems incorrect.  It is amoral.  Like God, the Market doesn’t care.  When the two angels appeared to Joshua just before the battle of Jericho, he asked, “Are you for us or against us?”  I love the reply they gave.  It was one word: “Nay.”  But I stray back into Christianity again.

What is the best way for us to partake of the bounties of the planet in the 21^st century?  I am far more radical – perhaps even more radical than you, if this is possible.  But enough.  It’s been many years since I felt moved to write such a … missive to you.  I expect no reply, and doubt this will even reach you.  But I needed to get it off my chest.

Your pal and fan,

Clark Powell

clarkpowell@gmail.com

http://www.facebook.com/friend1