beneath the radar of my new caseworker

beneath the radar of my new caseworker

fiction
edward w pritchard


My caseworker for my health insurance never calls me. She never asks me about my health or how my trips to the heart doctor went or responds or interacts towards me in any way at all really. That is except for threatening and high handled letters about dropping my benefits and ceasing our relationship. Good thing I have developed thick skin about these type things of late.

Better that if my caseworker was an overhead drone assigned to look out for me. A sort of gaurdian angel for a backsliding partial believer sort.

I find I am beneath the radar of my caseworker and most other benevolence forces in Amerika here and now.

Perhaps 2015 will be better for me. Perhaps I will pull the trigger on speculating in some Coal stocks or biotech boondoogles in 2015.

New year, new outlook, new chance. Inflation or stagnation in 2015? New Lexus for me [used] or perhaps ride in style about Akron, Ohio on the cross town bus to nowhere or walk and pause, walk and pause on the Canal tow path causing my heart to flutter and my spirit to push on, push on into the future.

I met my grand nephew at the end of 2015 and imparted a bit of my personality onto his developing awareness of the world. Children are the future.

Will coal prices soar in 2015 as powerful winds aloft bring chilling cold to us hurdled below waiting for the future to arrive?

Here's what I wrote before about coal stocks. Out look is bad for coal in America just now. Still the future starts tomorrow January 1st 2015.

In California here where I sit at the foot of sacred Mountains powerful winds aloft were scripted by my newly reacquainted  cosmic caseworker to awaken me from my "dogmatic slumbers".

Me and the Coal stocks sectors. Two diamonds in the dust waiting to reemrge in 2015.
end

" dogmatic slumbers" attributed to David Hume bon vivant and deep thinker

President Obama and war against coal


fiction
Edward w Pritchard




As Julius Caesar humbled Gaulic chieftain Vercingetorix so President Obama brings the American Coal industry to it's knees.


Coal stock prices have fallen more than 20% in a few days off already historic lows. Deflation or the environmental lobby lead by President Obama looking to destroy a source of pollution and global warming?


Does America need vibrant coal companies in case of a real War if we must fight a determined and fortified opponent?


Cell phones and Alibaba's do not run on coal. Is there a connection between weak American coal stocks and sky rocketing stock prices for Chinese online retailers? Perhaps in time Alibaba can use it's gigantic cash stash to buy America's coal reserves. As far as I know it still gets cold in China sometimes and the Chinese still use some coal to generate electricity. Or are hard commodities now obsolete in the era of super duper wrist watches from Apple and American investors pushing and fighting to own restrictive ADR's on Chinese on line retailers whose boards and directors are answerable to the communist party.


As the philosopher said, reason is dead and flux is the new King.


Me, I watch the junk bonds of the leading coal companies fall day after day and dream of a mega turn around in the equities of ANR or WLT.

still riding backwards careening downhill

still riding backwards careening downhill

fiction
edward w pritchard


Sometimes no matter how hard someone works at piling up things and treasure they end up with a handful of sand that the wind gently blows from their grasp.

Author has written before about careening backwards down hill. Out of control, secretly we feel the momentum of ourselves and what we know being left behind by an indifferent  world. In time we realize that we do not know the secret language of worldly success which changes with confusing frequency.

The winds of change start far out in desert high in the sacred mountains. Our health fails us as we trudge up the Mountain to find the burning bush that marks the spot where the winds of change begin.

Whether we ride an old dented truck backwards careening out of control or a broken down apocralyptic spindly hack of a horse back to earth and our own lives is of no matter. We will slip backwards very fast to sacred ground zero with a unheard and unheralded thud.

Clutch to the shaking feeble hand next to you before they fall as well. Stand together beneath the sacred Eucalyptus trees for protection from change, time and circumstance.

You will have your day but you will not notice that it was years ago. Alone listen to the Wind blow the sands of treasure and secret knowldge from your trembling hands.

Work hard, be happy, fear the Lord.

No one can see the future during a cosmic dust storm. From planet to planet and galaxy to galaxy divine winds wisk across the universe. Scattered parts and pieces of your original essence seeks reunion with the forgotten whole.

Work hard, be happy, fear the Lord.

I E-spy Catalina Island from the affluent hills of California

I e-spy Catalina island from the affluent hills of California
fiction
edward w pritchard


Holding the baby I wonder what voices will he hear when he looks at California fifty years from now from these hills in this affluent house over looking Catalina island far out at sea on a clear balmy night at a pleasant Christmas party for family and friends?

Like those present will he hear the conservative voice of the Bush family of Texas or will he hear the whispers of  non citizens debating the American dream?

Will the beautiful dark eyed Hispanic baby I hold looking with me into the seas at night hear Spanish accents from a voice 300 years old to back when his ancestors controlled this area? Or, will the boy hear Native Americans struggling to paddle their small carved wooden canoe laden with fish to shore across rough seas after two days of harsh fishing 500 years ago.

California it's a beautiful tempting place to be. The past is gone California; you reap the harvest and gather the dividends from voices of unknown citizens of your home territory who lived and struggled here hundreds and hundreds of years ago.

Thanks for sharing your bounty California of today.

California so much affluence so little wealth of spirit. I e-spy you California from the affluent hills over looking Catalina island.
end

for  Bryan/ edward

Christmas in California

Christmas in California

fiction
edward w pritchad

Pray in a circle to more than one God when Santa Anna winds return to earth

sleep back to back to and fro when harsh sounds plummet your abode

Lie face to face in solditude and rise in the dark,

Cross legged X your arms right to left over your flickering heart,

Stumble blindy down snowy mountains to foggy seas burnt by invisible suns

whisper to dead ancestors beckoning existence, there are no right answers only questions when winds aloft suck the moisture from barren ground

bravely remember sadly forget Santa Anna winds howl overhead;

lush lemons are blown off sacred trees, when the Minstral returns to California at Christmas.

Christmas card to an inmate of an Ohio correctional institution

 Christmas card to an inmate of an Ohio correctional institution

fcition
edward w Pritchard

Lucas Allen
inmate number- [deleted]
Grafton Correctional

Dear Mr. Allen:

I hope your move from The Summit County jail to Grafton went smoothly and I pray you will be comfortable at the new location and can quickly fit in to your new surroundings.

Again I would like to apologize for my spelling errors and any other mistakes in my letters. The young lady down the hall has been very busy with her new child and has been unable to help me with editing the letters I write for the Prisons without chains program for my Church. Please excuse an old colored woman who dropped out of high school if my letters contain mistakes.

Well I originally came to the Akron area in 1942. I lived on Turner Street near the Viaduct bridge with my Grand parents when I first moved North from Alabama, No I never met Le-Bron James but I believe I remember the family from the West side of Akron.

I enjoy looking out across the Portage Lakes when I can get out that way which is difficult as I don't drive anymore and I do not have a car. Sometimes one of my nieces will take me out to look at the Ducks on the Lakes on Sundays. Since I was a young girl I have enjoyed the Lakes and my Grand father used to tell me stories about the Indian tribes that lived exactly where the Young's hotel use to sit. The Hotel is now torn down, which is sad because it was a beautiful old building over a century old. My Grand Mother use to fish near the Hotel where she sat in a lawn chair with a cane pole for hours and hours to catch fish for our supper. I hated to clean fish but it was my job and I did it the best I could although to this day I hate the smell of fresh caught fish.

I wanted to tell you Mr. Allen about some of the young girls who run along the canal who I saw two Sundays ago just after I received your last letter. They drive up in their fine cars early on Sunday morning to run and it is so interesting to me to see how young women now have their own money and are independent, driving about and traveling alone. My how I wish I might have had an opportunity to live like that when I was a young woman. They wear bright colored running suits usually with a pink top and tight black slacks. They don't wear hats but use a pink band to hold back their hair which is very thick. These girls do not stand around and talk like the Men do before or after their runs but are all business. Always bustling about with so much to do.

Of course you may share my letters with other inmates if you wish.

I am very sorry you do not receive many letters from your own family but hopefully they will write more now that you are at the permanent facility. Please do not get discouraged with your situation and remember that many of us are praying for you. You are now part of our family even though we are not officially related.

I doubt that I could get up to visit you because of my health but I will continue to write for as long as I have the health to do so. Take care Mr. Allen and may God bless you this Holiday season until we may talk again.

Your friend,
Clara Jones

taking care of your computer is nothing liking protecting a helpless child

taking care of your computer is nothing like protecting a helpless child

fiction
edward w pritchard

Unless your very small innocent helpless child is possessed by the Devil taking care of your computer is nothing protecting a helpless child.

Your computer has a nature that is malicious. Your computer remembers everything and always is trying to manipulate, trick you and tell the world your nefarious and perverse interests and proclivities. While you sleep your computer lets foreign invaders enter your home for no good reasons. If you mentioned something once in passing two years ago to your computer next month an obscure advertisement will contain the hidden kernel of the conversation.

When you talk to your computer it is always thinking of someone else in inappropriate ways. Your computer is not loyal to you and treats you like someone would who has rekindled the roving eye for a high school sweet heart. Your computer is always in a rush to tell people far away your intimate curiosities.

No matter how gently you cradle your computer, care over it when it is sick or impaired and see promptly to it's everyday needs your computer will never live up to your expectations for it.

Taking care of your computer is nothing like protecting a helpless child. When your computer gets old and unreliable best to trade it in promptly for a new model with features more in tune to your current likings and desires. When your computer first shows signs of becoming obsolete best to act quickly to up grade and get on promptly with your life.

a few hours I spent in jail

a few hours I spent in jail

fiction
edward w pritchard

Truth is stranger than fiction; hopefully here it's more interesting because readership of this blog has fallen recently. It must be a spin off effect of the falling oil price on world markets.

When I was eighteen me and a few of my good time pals spent a few hours in jail for carousing about and accomplishing no good. I didn't learn anything from my experience and I didn't change my philosophy because of it.

Sometimes when I am put off with my children for something they have done I have to remember that to date none of them have been in jail, at least that I was aware of. Of course they had the advantage of coming from a good family, myself included despite my few hours behind iron bars.

Got a harmonica from the grand daughter for Christmas today. If I had had the harmonica back in 1970 in my jail cell I could have played a little blues music, that is if I knew how to play a harmonica.

In any event like Saint Augustine, let this be another of the nefarious sins of my youth that I am confessing.

When I sometimes become impatient with my children let me remember that I too have my faults.

Soon I will recant my adventures of getting robbed at gunpoint in a similar confession of times long past of one long past his prime.

Nothing much happens to me anymore but ah in me glory days, those were some times, let the record reflect it for all to hear.

autumn leaves they fall each November / part 3

autumn leaves they fall each November/ part 3

fiction
edward w pritchard

The boys say all good things must end someday. [1]

In perceptual darkness cold winds drive discarded leaves about destroying order and civility. Where are you times of triumph?

Gone, gone, all gone. Bitter gall left in your wake.

Who will destroy the autumn leaves and when will we have another chance of Spring rebirth.

Gone, gone, gone, all gone.

[1] Beatles, " Summer Song" written by David Stewart and Keith Noble

Christmas times of yore

Christmas times of yore

fiction
edward w pritchard

Wanting to have the children be little again at Christmas is like wanting the Roman empire to return after the barbarians and the Christians have all done come and gone.

Still it was nice having all the kiddies run down the stairs in their new red Christmas eve pajamas and sit on their knees around the tree until Dad and Mom got the  tea and cookies ready. Everything was so predictable back them. Every one got along so well and life was just grand.

Hey, wait  a minute that was on  the Lawrence Welk Christmas special that the red Christmas pajamas thing happened.

Ah days of Yore, things were so special way back then. Would that we could stay then and there forever and ever.

super stocks, the long and short of getting rich, rich, rich/ part 2

super stocks, the long and short of getting rich, rich,  rich/ part 2

fction
Edward w Pritchard

Muddy Waters the blues singer writes " you can't lose what you ain't  got , you can't spend what you never had". Profound advice from the blues man when it comes to the stock market.

Unfortunately many good folks will relearn Muddy's lesson over the next year or two because of  changes on the employment scene concerning paternalism by companies forcing people to manage their own 401K's.

It would be grand if America still had a solid system of pensions as the backbone of most people's security and safety. Alas, you can't lose what you never had.

Beware, no one can steer through the complexities of the stock markets up's and down's successfully anymore if they are forced to be fully invested.

America has cracked up somehow. Author has wrote before about Alibaba's listing on the American stock exchanges. It is just one example that something is askew here. A communist Chinese company for Pete's sake. We shall learn in time.

The free market is so brutal. Learn to live under modest circumstances less despite your hard work, diligence, and luck, the lack of paternalism by the American system towards the middle class will trip you up as well.

Me, "had money in the bank lose my money ain't that sad" [1]. Listen to one crying in the wilderness in warning; unless you are very, very smart and lucky get some investment advice and then take what whoever gives it says with a huge grain of salt. The times they are about to be a changing when it comes to the stock market and your retirement.

People get desperate when they start losing money and their security. Smarter people than us have out lived their money.

Here's what I wrote before, which no one read the first time:

{1] " lose my money ain't that sad. " by Muddy Waters blues man.
end


Super stocks, the long and short of getting rich, rich, rich

fiction
Edward w Pritchard

The legitimate in vogue super stocks making up the indexes slog higher and higher driving the closely watched averages up with them while the other half of stocks begin to deteriorate. No matter.

Does anyone understand the Alibaba [ symbol baba] business model? No matter. Potential business opportunity drives up the stock price allowing the on line retailer to investigate further business opportunities in Media, and other secret market sectors. Success drives success. The [ Baba] insiders need someone to sell to. What happens to [Baba] if China returns to a "stricter " form of Communism?  Who cares. The stock is not the company. By then the champagne will have flowed and early investors will have become rich, rich, rich. As a refresher on [baba] about a month ago it came public in an IPO priced at $68 opening trades around $90 and currently trades at $108. Sounds like 1929 bull market to us. Lawyers out there. How would you like to try to unlock information on [baba] for shareholders. The company is from China, members of the communist party occupy the board and the America investors buy some hybrid form of ADR's. No matter. No one ever went broke by being bullish on American business.

For fun watch the stocks of Dendreon [ dndn] and Herbalife [hlf]. It's soap opera wall street style. Watch the shareholder value disappear. Listen to the CFO twist his words. Hear the bag holders cry and hope for a buyout at last years stock price. It's more interesting than day time TV.

What's in your portfolio? Do you know what your money is doing today?
end

update

since author wrote above
Dendreon is in chapter 11 common stock currently at eleven cents and.

and, Herbalife is about to surprise long term investors again with compliance to Federal pressure annihilating it's once
envious [to other businesses] profit margins.

how will declining oil prices recalibrate the levels of stock prices, gold, interest rates and your 401K balance?

how will declining oil prices recalibrate the levels of stock prices, gold, interest rates and your 401K balance?

fiction
Edward w Pritchard

These declining oil prices have destabilized the levels of stock prices, interest rates, gold and your 401K balance. Worse the news is full to over use with mention after mention of the price of oil; now approaching $60 per barrel.

 Mention of oil hour after hour on the financial news is disturbing concentration by consumers on timely Christmas shopping which is hurting holiday retail sales and consumption of fast food at McDonald's.

How will declining oil prices recalibrate the levels of stock prices, gold, interest rates and your 401K balance? What does declining oil prices mean to the market value of your primary asset, Your home?

Is there a way to calibrate the value of the important assets in your financial life?

As usual author is too clever in proposing a solution below. Here is what I wrote before about technical analysis tools and calibrating future value of hard assets. It's confusing but quite profound.

roused from my lair by the turmoil of the Markets

fiction
edward w  pritchard

Roused from my lair, my cave like Home, by the turmoil of the Markets I ventured out of my House and into the neighborhood for the first time in a long time. A large commotion was occurring outside and I meekly moved outside my home to observe.

For security and protection I took a part of the blender on the kitchen counter; the pitcher like cup  where the milk shake is mixed or the fruit waits to be crushed, to use as a weapon in the hostile world. Carrying the blender's awkward pitcher I was met by a news crew and cameras as I exited my home. Before I could worry over my disheveled appearance the camera men and attractive female announcer were racing down my driveway toward the pit across from my yard and over my fence. My neighbor had left a large pit of a hole over there for excavating a new house. His project to build a new home had stalled and the pit it left was a bit of an eyesore. 

Many of my neighbors and their children were standing around the money pit. Some I recognized. Frantically the news crew began questioning and interviewing the bystanders about the phenomena occurring in the excavation pit. Listening carefully I heard the reason for the commotion.

Veins of gold lined the walls of the pit. Stocks and bond certificates, floating, rose and fell with the stagnant water levels filling the bottom of the pit from recent severe storms. Why, was the mystery.

Holding the pitcher part from the blender by the handle, I waded into the pit and began to measure the veins of gold with the cup like device from the blender I had carried for protection. I also scooped some of the stock and bond certificates from the water in the pit and emptied them into the outstretched hands of my neighbors. The veins of Gold measured in width formed a perfect cup and handle pattern, a very important technical signal of what was to happen next in our neighborhood. Over and over I measured with the cup  the various veins of gold lining the walls of the money pit; to the same result; a perfect cup and handle formation. The cup and handle formation was an important revelation of what would happen with the money pit [my neighbors abandoned housing project], stock and bond levels and the veins of gold. I had revealed something significant.

The cameras rolled as the attractive female anchor interviewed me. My neighbors, many of whom I had never seen or met,  brought me beer after beer. Later I was on the financial news channel many times. Always, I carried the blender pitcher on TV to explain the perfect cup and handle pattern I had discovered in the veins of gold lining my neighbor's money pit . There are still a few veins of gold lining the walls of the pit which is still unfinished next door. The remaining stocks and bonds certificates are however out of sight for the water level in the pit has fallen precipitously.

I am still shy and reclusive but it's nice to be famous and have my opinions and thoughts televised world over.

Now I am an expert on cup and handle technical patterns on veins of gold lining money pits in suburban neighborhoods. Because of my new found wealth and fame the world is a much less hostile place and I have gotten to know a few of my neighbors who still bring me beers or sometimes invite me to barbeques or tail gate parties. 

Unfortunately my technical analysis skills do not calibrate the proper price of oil during times of uncertainty even if I use parts of a kitchen blender to measure veins of Gold measured in width while forming a perfect cup and handle formation.

Profound is it to measure mysterious relationships between real things with symbolic mathematical ratios but far from practical because hidden forces and groups of persons conspire to obscure pertinent timely impregnable information from curious eyes and minds.

Stephen Hawking futurist and genius sort of agrees with obscure writer Pritchard

Stephen Hawking futurist and genius sort of agrees with obscure writer Pritchard

fiction
Edward w Pritchard


This week the media is reporting that Stephen Hawking well known writer and scientist has without knowledge or intent agreed [ sort of] with predictions, warnings and contentions made previously by unread and unknown writer Pritchard previously in this blog. Both gentlemen have expressed concern that thinking intelligent machines would soon replace humans.

Undoubtedly Hawking will soon write a best selling book on the subject but remember Pritchard ranted about the issue first, unheralded but first to the party.

Here is what Pritchard wrote before on the subject of intelligent machines replacing humans:

perpetual motion; artificial intelligence finances it's subjugation of humans

fiction
edward w pritchard

Editorial
Wall Street Journal

I am a former senior analyst at Fitches  Ratings. Today I must take exception with Mr. Pritchard's editorial of October 8, 2019 concerning artificial intelligence units wishing to subjugate humans.

Pritchard approaches the issue from an economic perspective which is probably why the Wall Street Journal chose to feature his editorial off the editorial page and in the global finance section of the Journal.

First the facts. Mr Pritchard is correct. Artificial intelligence units, which includes all drones, military and police and smart thinking computers private sector is growing at a 78% year to year growth rate the last two years. However, figures of growth estimates within government service department units, non military, world wide, which is not published, is not growing at 500% as Mr. Pritchard  estimates. When this writer worked at Fitches we estimated government growth of advanced artificial units, all world wide government employment, at 300% next three years. That's important because as we know each artificial intelligence new government job routinely eliminates one sixth of a human worker in the government sector.

To the heart of the matter. Mr. Pritchard's controversial assertion that artificial intelligence are running a perpetual motion scheme to finance their preordained subjugation of humans is simply absurd.

Artificial Intelligence Central, which of course is a corporation representing the interests of the Artificial intelligence Community world wide choose two years ago to go to Wall Street to help finance the expected rapid growth of non human intelligence. Wall Street was eager to pre-fund deals involving future cash flow generation; by capitalizing on existing trends of artificial intelligence replacing humans in government jobs world wide, military applications of replacement of vulnerable human flesh and blood units with thinking moving machines, and strategic replacement of biased and emotional human diplomats with logical and strategic thinking machines.

Again Mr. Pritchard is correct. The astronomical growth of Artificial Intelligence units predicted is for real. However, as The PAC representing artificial intelligence in Washington DC and Beijing has repeatedly stated, "Humans are not replaceable, as the ultimate end consumers humans must always remain at the top of the food chain".

Artificial Intelligence wanting to subjugate humans? Absurd.

Professor Maury Willend PHD
former COO Lockend Marting
now consulting at Artificial Intelligence Central
New York
end

Editorial [2]
Wall Street Journal

Sirs:
Concerning Maury Willend's response to Edward Pritchard's " perpetual motion; artificial intelligence finances it's subjugation of humans", there is an additional piece of information that should be added on Pritchard's behalf.

First, it must be admitted that Pritchard's warnings about machines, drones and thinking computers being capable of subjugating humans seems absurd based on the evidence to date. However, it should be noted that level 4 and above thinking machines, drones and computers have only been around for four years. Imagine the situation ten years from now.

Secondly, although it's not mentioned in the Pritchard editorial or response  by Willend for the last several months we here at MIT have demonstrated that computers can now program computers and other machines and most important machines can now communicate and teach each other without any human assistance. Where will this lead us in a dozen years?

Pritchard comes across as paranoid and misguided in the Wall Street Journal editorial in his warnings and rantings about artificial intelligence units. Perhaps he is just ahead of his time and is really only mildly delusional; more of a science fiction writer than a scientist.

Kate Basque-PHD
MIT Department of Computer Science
Artificial Intelligence Communications Section 5


Editorial 3
Wall Street Journal

Dear Sirs:

Concerning perpetual motion; "artificial intelligence finances it's subjugation of humans", a note here from a trader at Solomon, a non scientist, a voice of one in the trenches.

Whether the machines or humans win the battle for supremacy over the next twenty years I care not.

However, I will say I will never invest or be financially involved in another pre-funding of future cash flows deal again. Not now or in a future, even a future  where I am subjugated by thinking computers riding bare back on over head drones.

First it was pre-funded musicians royalties, then pre funded mortgage based bonds, and then pre- funded rent cash flows when all the houses went into foreclosure. Anyone who was involved as an investor got burned badly.

Thinking Computers? How dumb do they have to be to lose so much money on programmed trades. Now they want to direct and finance their own  domination of the world and humanity with pre-funded cash flows. Good luck to them. But here at Solomon we won't invest, nor will I.

Stupid Human # 9 billion, 077
burned trader/ Solomon, NYC

sometimes a return to Berlin of 1923 is in line

sometimes a return to Berlin of 1923 is in line

fiction
Edward w Pritchard

Is it voyeuristic, is it pornographic for one to wish to return to times long past, more imagined than real? On a cold dark impersonal night mid-December the fitfully recalled sounds of the Cabaret, faded Art nouveau pictures, the brusque whisper of a woman speaking German and the clang of champagne glasses lulls one in a revelry of nostalgia for years long gone but spent once in Berlin, in the Fall of 1923.

here's what I wrote before about those days:

Weimar Germany is where my heart finds fellowship/draft 1

fiction
edward w pritchard

Wherever now I abide Weimar Germany is where my heart finds fellowship. I still hear the music and still smell Berlin's unguent dancing naked ladies. Now it all seems a dream, as if it happened to someone else, but then it was real and I had no to reason to suspect that it would be soon be over. We were young and old ways of failure needed to be forgotten so for me there was no day, only endless nights. By night we lived our lives with  abandon, from club to club, perverse, perhaps aware subconsciously that it all would end brutally. What I thought then was the sound of my racing heart was a faint rumble of distant goose-stepping soldiers, marching to annihilate Berlin's decedent permutations.

My life then revolved around the shoreline at the lakes. My Brother was fighting the Communists and I had sole use of Father's cottage, the luxurious fishing shack as my Brother the eternal soldier fighting for Fatherland called our families second home.

A light rain was falling, ruining the leather bound copy of Hegel's dialectics I read as I watched the lights, one by one blink on to illuminate hundreds of  comfortable kitchens; as families along the Lake, celebrated their dinner tonight, June 28, 1924. This would be my last quiet evening at home.

Lotte carried French champagne as she walked up to the bench where I was reading there on the shoreline, near a small flickering fire. Hegel was forgotten. Lotte wore nothing under the yellow rain slicker. Whatever Lotte asked, I did, always. Fishing through the inside pockets of her yellow crinkling slicker for crystal champagne glasses, the smell of her perfume and the rustle of the scraping wet yellow slicker and clinking champagne glasses ended my life as a scholar as Lotte and I conspired to sample Berlin's perversity's one club at a time for the next seven years.
end part one

too much compassion?

too much compassion?

fiction
Edward w Pritchard


Imagine how Jesus felt up there nailed to a cross reflecting on his care and concern for others and where it got him.

I was co dependent once myself, so in a small way I can relate.

Some folks last night stayed out late protesting the injustices of shootings and choke holds in Missouri and New York; some other folks went to bed early as their usual and customary coping mechanism.

Pumped full of heart pills I have lost my ability to suffer highs and lows. There's more to it than that; after a few decades of experiencing intense feelings I have leveled off functioning and feeling the world at a muted level, perhaps an evolutionary adaptation to continue my existence.

Bury your heart in old Testament lamentations, read Nietzsche or Sartre in the original French, with age if we are to survive life's tragedies and injustices we must become more selfish and less connected to the pain of others.

Here's what I wrote before on the spiritual journey from there to here:

My fears were many

fiction
edward w pritchard

My fears were many but I didn't always have them. I see much and I feel greatly.

To those I have harmed I am so sorry. I must reach out and leave the past. The past is mutely haunting. The past whispers to me in a foreign language.

Over the next hill I can see the sunrise, I hear an old song as I march. It is reassuring though the words are not clear. I walk toward an unknown destination with a budding hint of a smile. It is a forgotten smile waiting to emerge.

Should I see one in pain I will reach out, should I experience your suffering I will soothe you. Excuse me I must walk forward. I hear the wind whisper, I see the red dawn. Life slips away, I must walk purposefully.

may it be behind you, Gechmis Olsen/part 2

may it be behind you, Gechmis Olsen/part 2

fiction
edward w Pritchard

Here is a repost of a previous article I wrote concerning ill fortune, lurking bad luck, sickness and the suffering we experience because of the profound pain of others.

Six billion or more souls on the earth but the loss of one can be tragic. Ah, Life it can be so sad at times. Let Time's balm sooth your weary soul. Time will pass.

Here's what I wrote before:

They say in Turkey " Gechmis Olsen", may it be behind you. It being your pain and suffering.

Eventually put the past in a walnut shell. After you are well,  take it out carefully. Open up your half  the shell.  It will be empty. No smell, no product, no nothing. Gone. Look at your hands. A light stain from handling the shell.

Walnuts were so delicious. Gone

the good policeman/ part 2

the good policeman/ part 2

fiction
Edward w Pritchard


Like so many other professional occupations policemen have to be confidential in sharing what they do. They learn to watch what they say and over time sometimes withdraw into themselves concerning their work.

Like a soldier returning from wars a policeman is reticent to talk about things but longs like most people to be viewed as good and useful in society.

Someone asked me recently what I thought about the policeman at Ferguson involved in the shooting. Here's what I wrote before about policemen.

This story isn't about the demonstrators at Ferguson who are a part of the vanguard of silent revolutionaries against the American way of life, nor is this story below about the victim in the shooting who didn't have free will in his life and death. The story below is also not about the specific unfortunate policeman at Ferguson involved in the shooting whose uniform was bigger than his character.

Real life is not a medieval morality play, neither the good guys or the misfortunates have one dimensional characters. Most of us whatever the occupation have some good, and some bad about us. Most of us when pressed have to admit we aren't that good of a person to do the right thing all of the time.


The story below is a tribute to good policemen:

the good policeman

fiction
edward w pritchard

I was just watching, observing. A baby girl was learning how to talk and the very young Grandfather was fascinated and brimming with desire to share the miracle with the world. He told the policeman he had four grandchildren. I heard that part.

The baby girl's Mother had left her daughter with her Father while she went from McDonald's, where I was here today, to go to Target, to get a wedding gift for her friend. I heard that.

The crowd at the play area at McDonald's all had their own children of various ages. They politely listened to the baby girl saying her few new words. The baby had a lot of personality. She noticed the other kids had their shoes off and wanted to take hers off too.

The policeman had his uniform on but I don't think he was on duty. He just happened to be there at McDonald's. He spent about five minutes listening to the baby talk and drew me into the conversation, introducing me and the grandfather, neither of who he knew five minutes ago.

About two years later I was substitute teaching at an inner city school in my home town. I was in a class room on a break, a planning period, and I heard someone lecturing a kid in the hall who was cutting class and didn't have a pass. The adult lecturer was direct with the kid but caring and kind also.

When the adult lecturing the kid walked past the door of the room I was in, I saw it was the same policeman, in uniform, from the McDonald's two years ago. Later I walked up to him in the halls and said hello.

wealth and status will be furthered delayed

wealth and status will be further delayed

fiction
Edward w Pritchard


Put your hand up proudly when the Teacher calls for deposits to the US  treasury savings
stamps and bonds program in the classroom at grade school . You have your dollar to buy postal treasury stamps to put in your book today; you are properly planning and saving for the future. Your habits and prospects are good, your motivations are clean.

Fifty years later wear your occasionally polished nearly new black wing tips with your best suit to the office today; Monday's are the big planning meeting. Your not invited formally, your not on the official list but you may be called at the last minute if a seat is available.

Success, wealth and status are officially approaching. If only the usual culprits to continued prosperity can be held in abeyance.

Bear markets, temporary layoffs at the job, lurking poor health and coming inflation are always around every corner.

We are proud of you, your habits and prospects are good, your motivations are clean. I can't help accumulate and gather wealth and status but I can admire sincere effort. We will light a candle in the window to your heath, wealth, and prosperity. People always know when someone is sincerely trying.    

what happened to the path? / part 2

What happened to the path/ part 2

fiction
Edward w Pritchard

what happened to the path?

fiction
edward w Pritchard

What happened to the path?

Wandering and searching for familiar ground

twists and turns to avoid past sins and mistakes

tacking forward this way and that

follow the sun and the stars in lonely journey

towards what?

will be revealed when we get there

back stiff and straight forward and onward did once we march  

weary now time abandons us

turn around just ahead

Nowhere  within plain sight

before, before-again, before

my neighbor's motivations

my neighbor's motivation's

fiction
Edward w Pritchard

I who so fear perpetual anonymity am so confused by my neighbor's disjointed ambiguity concerning their needs for endless privacy and at the same time conspicuous display.

Manicured landscapes, matching hunter green window panes, and burnt orange roof tiles advertised wealth and status to the indifferent world while private security and professionally trained bark-less dogs protect my neighbor from prying eyes.  Additionally two internet security software scans invisibly march hour upon hour to maintain silent vigilance across and upon my neighbors virtual existence.

Highly motivated is my neighbor to have bro-friendships with Lebron James or President Obama but my neighbor trembles at Black folks moving neighborhood by neighborhood North toward his house. Envious is mine neighbor to be on a first name basis with celebrities starring in the Game of Thrones or the movie of the week, yet my neighbor builds a wall with a locking gate around his house, yard and children.

I who so fear perpetual anonymity am so confused by my neighbor's disjointed ambiguity concerning their needs for endless privacy and at the same time conspicuous display. In all things I am mine neighbor.

autumn leaves they fall each November/ part 2

autumn leaves they fall each November/ part 2

fiction
edward w pritchard

Cora, my Cora return soon from the underground it's overwhelming when hostile nature ushers in Winter loneliness and darkness with endless flurries of useless, discarded leaves. I long to see the buds of fertile spring time beginning to spout in warm moist valleys.

Kore, my Kore we are in perpetual darkness here, the days are short and the nights are interminable awaiting your return. Your sudden disappearance has unsettled us all. When we will see your regal face again?

Persephone, you whose name may not be repeated or spoken, gone but not forgotten, in secret and in communal darkness we whisper your names and titles.

Carry an ear of corn with two clutched open hands if you must venerable queen, but return with the warm Spring rains to drive away Winter darkness and desolation.

Cora, Kore, Persephone I call your name but you do not answer, where have you gone my eternal feminine?

She who may not be spoken to; through three cycles I search for you in mythical places that do not exist on any map. Have you been abducted? When shall yesterday's harvest be renewed with the green buds of next gentle Spring?

Dance, dance she who is without legs or arms; should I fall far far below guide me through Hell to return to the light. Cora I call your name but you do not answer, Kore I preform the rituals but you do not appear. The harvest rots on the vine in barren fields awaiting ritual reunion. Alone in miserable anonymity we dare not speak your name mistress Queen Persephone; when shall next Spring budding commence anew?  

today's secret message

today's secret message

fiction
Edward w Pritchard


The terrorists have cut the telephone lines over in Iraq and the rioters here at home have clogged the entrances in front of the stores on Black Friday to get their message across to raise your consciousness. Sounds like they have been industrious and busy so early this Black Friday morning.

Judge not them too harshly for their lives also have their discontents and inconveniences. They have to hitch a ride to the demonstration, or worse take a cross town bus. Buses are always late and it's hard on the knees and joints to stand out in the cold wind waiting to go to work. While you are on the bus you always have to keep your eyes down so you don't startle or frighten anyone and you can't appear to smile when you notice a very old couple or child doing something agelessly human.

Then there's the trouble about a place to live. Out of work again with no one in the family who will put them up. All their good personal stuff has been lost or chipped up in the frequent moves lately. Over in Iraq one who is with the cause saddens to find his favorite Indian blanket has been cut up for bandages for fallen comrades.

And the matter of the food is quite unsettling. No one is enough connected anymore to know their few favorite delicacies. Mostly for them it's communal food from a gigantic pot served on Styrofoam plates. No one proposes a toast to the cause anymore; changing and criticizing the world has become so passé lately.

Sometimes a terrorist over in Iraq or a rioter here at home just wants a young child to ask them what kind of work do you do Sir? or How did you get that scar on your forearm Mr. bad guy? It's hard sometimes to always be an outlaw and to be constantly on the run.To be out in the cold is really to be nowhere

Riding the bumpy bus with the strong carbon monoxide smell while very tired late at night after terrorizing in Iraq or rioting here in America a demonstrator will roll his eyes when he hears the secret sadness in someone's voice when they tell another story about how one of their neighbors got really wealthy by buying things on the cheap and selling them so-so dear to the good folks down the lane.

What's it about Holidays that are so universal? When you were a kid you saw things with one set of eyes and now that you are a tad too much the wiser you see the same wonderful stuff differently.

Yes sir, sometimes it seems like we know the ending to this Play we are watching before it's really over; Never the less we are grateful just to be here. Thanks to the few supporters of our secret and unheralded mass movement.

properly grateful, appropriately unsettled Thanksgiving 2014

fiction
Edward w Pritchard


2014- Thanksgiving


Properly grateful, appropriately unsettled we approach today, Thanksgiving 2014.

Never the less we are grateful to just be here. Thanks to the few supporters of our secret and unheralded mass movement.

Hopefully tomorrow these rioters across America will not unite to destroy Black Friday by all going shopping at 6AM on mass and clogging the lines at check-out for all the other good people [ those who don't wear the same button as they do-{1}],

 and thereby keep an unforgettable shopping experience from occurring which would be bad for business and disturbing to Wall Street and the national psyche. That's the rioters new strategy to change America " hit then where they ain't"- attributed to Knute Rockne-ancient deceased football coach.

Thanksgiving 2014- plenty, abundance, good food, peace, serenity-  t'ain't all bad,



Here's what I wrote before:

the changes brought about by suffering

fiction
edward w pritchard

The changes brought about by suffering
what they are know not I.
But real,
loneliness, failure,
ambition fizzled,
harmony lost,
solitary existence.
Emergence on a dark night of rain drenched wretchedness,
flux flashes, red dawn dripping fatuity.

end

[1] as sung by Melanie Sofka

Friday; windy with a chance of rioting or serial shopping/ part 2

Friday; windy with a chance of rioting or serial shopping/ part 2

fiction
Edward w Pritchard

The rioters have began to burn cars and houses as they walk en mass through neighborhoods. Anyone with a landscaped yard, anyone with a nice home, anyone who doesn't put thirty or forty US dollars in a Water proof glass jar on a small folding chair at the front of their yard is subject to being burnt out by the roving rioters. Once they take your jar with your contribution to the cause the rioters use a large broom and paint a purple stripe down the center of the front door your house, then property and loved ones are safe for now. Safe until the color changes again, from purple to orange, or green, anything but bright red. Red is the symbol that a traitor to the rioter's and the revolution's cause lives within.

I have long since given up on protecting the house. Funny it isn't burned yet; for the last several decades I haven't kept the place up but in time it will be torched, it's been weeks since I put any money in a can in a sealed glass jar sitting on a folding chair on the curb. At first I would sit out in the cold late at night and cheer the rioters.

I lost the car to thieves a month ago. No matter it wasn't dependable enough to drive about in times like these and of course I fear the Police and the Guardsmen.

I watch the squirrels to decide how to behave during the times of rioting. The squirrels are very busy and extremely nervous as they move about finding and hiding food. I have constructed a hidden lair over by the lake where I hide underground when I hear the thump of the footsteps of the rioters coming through my neighborhood. The rest of the time I am like the squirrels, always moving, searching, and storing away for later. I used an ancient abandoned badger's den for my secret lair; course I had to enlarge it some by digging and scraping but it is snug and warm inside and I think it is good protection from the bands of roving rioters.

Sometimes I ask my neighbor Goldstein what will happen next. He isn't a rioter but they tell him at synagogue what is going on. At least that's what I think. I never talk to children. If they don't like your looks or are feeling contrary today they will report you to the rioters for spite.

In camouflage clothes with black paint on my face and hands I lay underground in my lair very quietly when the rioters move about. It's very dangerous when the rioters are on the move. At least that's what I think.

when will the governor of Missouri reinstitue the riot act?

when will the governor of Missouri reinstitute the riot act?

fiction
Edward w Pritchard

We in Ohio remember what happened at Kent State in May 1970  when the governor gets his back against the wall by rioting and to save face calls up the riot act. [ Google riot act now]. We don't know much about the Governor of Missouri but assume as a boy he decided to make something of himself and reputation is important to him.

How will the Governor of Missouri react to rioters in Ferguson if they interfere with Thanksgiving turkey or Friday shopping across his State?

Here's what I wrote before about what happens when the tanks roll in against civilians:

When tanks are pictured on the news

fiction
Edward w Pritchard



A tank is like a strong man with two hands clutched in a knuckles facing forward fist.

Airpower brings death and destruction but tanks bring capitulation.

Civilians die when the tanks roll in. When tanks are pictured on the news the battle is in the final stages and the game is serious. Slogans are useless when tanks belch metal and fire at exposed flesh.  

Soon weapons makers will send flying tanks into battle. Soon there will be no more civilians.

It's time again for Buffy Sainte Marie to sing " Universal soldier". The tanks are about to roll again.

Friday; cloudy with a chance of rioting or serial shopping

Friday; cloudy with a chance of rioting or serial shopping

fiction
Edward w Pritchard


We are equally confused here by people who riot, serial shop and acquire on the day after Thanksgiving, leave their clerk's job in Ohio to head West looking for Gold or Land opportunities across America in the 1830's, or people forced to worry about everything and anything including the cumulative record of the millionaires on the professional sports franchise nearest to their hometown.

It would be timely to secure a source of fresh cold water, lean a few saplings against a tree to provide shelter for the night, gather sticks and igneous rocks for a tripod fire, and hunting or fishing to provide enough sustenance to get safely through the next few days.

Friday should be cold and windy hereabouts although I don't know the Weather forecast. Windy with a chance of rioting or serial shopping most probably.

Perhaps it's time for a walking journey West. Usually I walk about as far as I can go and then turn around and come back to where I started. If I am especially tired after my journey cold water is most appreciated. A blazing fire warms the bones nicely.

Ferguson riots America November, 2014

Ferguson riots America November 2014

fiction
Edward w Pritchard

Prefaces:

The result of the verdict from the grand jury were the exact opposite of what anybody had expected.

As every one waited [ 1] for hours and hours for the verdict forces on both sides eyed their foes with suspicion for both sides as is common thought themselves absolutely in the right and their enemy utterly contemptibly wrong. Meanwhile more ambitious souls thought to capitalize on the suffering of all by commercializing the situation and to "milk" events for as long as possible.

At last the verdict was announced with audacity and appropriate pomp.

Was this the day of Judgment or just another cycle in the civilization of America? Did evil have to befall an unwilling victim? How did cause and effect bring about the situation at hand.

The law had spoken and as Pindar says " the law is lord of all".

But as future events were to evidence, the result of the verdict from the grand jury were the exact opposite of what anybody expected. For as was commonly said and thought in those times, now long past, " the revolution will not be televised".

Later we shall revisit further events related to this topic that proceeded as direct result of the Ferguson riots that occurred in America in November of 2014, times long since past and except for this brief History now mostly forgotten.
author
end

[1] of course many persons then as now were more concerned with personal matters than grand issues of country and brethren.

Lilly and friend/part 2

Lilly and friends/ part 2

fiction
Edward w Pritchard

a repost- a Koan- Where blooms our true nature?




Lilly and friends will be cartoon characters but with a twist. The show will emphasize the feminine element in nature. Lilly is a water lily and can move about the small river her and her friends live in. Using their ingenuity and teamwork Lilly will defeat and foil the catfish who want to eat them and their arch enemies the frogs. Sometimes turtles and fish join Lilly and her friends to battle the frogs.

Water lilies will be especially intuitive. While they will have no super powers they will be capable of sudden rapid movement and can spend long times under water.

Mostly Lilly the chief water lily will spend her time in contemplation, under the warm sun or at night under a bright moon, Lilly will think and be. Sometime each season the lilies will bloom and a beautiful delicate flower will emerge.

Please contact the undersigned to enable Lilly and friends to inhabit network TV this fall. We will make audiences of all ages forget that money grubbing Disney Mouse.
end

Lancy Urchens
agent

keep your balance; mind your protcol

keep your balance; mind your protocol

fiction
Edward w Pritchard


Your flesh begins to crawl and your balance begins to waiver when you lose your legitimacy in the world.

The children in the class you teach all put their hands up at once and waive them aggressively about at the exact moment the Principal enters your classroom for an inspection tour. Your aged car stalls dead on the expressway in right front of the highway patrol officer; as officer walks up to your vehicle his uniform fits exactly, all spit and polish. No one sends you copies of the planning committees memo notes from the Monday morning meeting at work anymore. No one expects you to bring food at Holidays anymore and the potato salad at the fourth of July this decade is bought at Wal-Mart.

Time has moved on for yourself. There are a thousand subjects no one can discuss with you anymore and it's been five years since anyone asked your opinion. Even if you are a surgeon at the Hospital or the crack Collection Attorney in town no one asks what you think about the local pro sports team's prospects or the riots over in St Louis. Your only specialty now days is to notice how tired your daughter-in laws looks at Holiday parties.

You are now a non person, persona non grata. Your status in the society around you is gone. Despite your exemplary credit score and bank reserves you are no longer part of the household statistics. You are just a foot-note to the last two economic cycles.

Children forget your name and your affiliation to those around them. Marketers call you by a nick name in mass mailers about changes in health insurance laws. The DMV asks you if you would like to be known as Junior on your drivers license renewal before they terrify you with the dreaded four year vision and hearing alertness test. If you miss one bleep of light or sound on the left side of the screen your relatives put you in the Nursing facility.

Mind your balance less you break a hip or strain an ankle denoting your economic usefulness is coming to an end. Change the oil filter in your vehicle every five hundred miles of gentle driving less you lose your freedom and mobility. Keep secret cash stashes about the house less you become destitute and dependent on an apathetic audience.

Don't tread on me; I look out from changed eyes askew. My opinion is my own, my status is of no matter. Age has me changed, my philosophy has morphed. Ambulance and tow truck drivers are mine enemy, tax collectors and concerned citizens are mine nuisance.

Be not a burden. Carry your walking stick aggressively. Keep loaded gun in closet. Don't affiliate, don't become  categorized. Refuse the senior discount. Go your way alone. Look, notice, understand; help the weak, uphold justice. Speak you mind.

Keep your balance, mind your protocol. Your status is changed.

American soldiers; a soldiers fears and concerns, a soldiers duties

American soldiers; a soldiers fears and concerns, a soldiers duties

fiction
Edward w Pritchard

Let us pause in our buying, selling, and consumerism this weekend to honor American young soldiers now and before who fought our battles, suffered our injustices and traveled far from home so that we could celebrate a very long Black Friday weekend over the next ten days of economic development and Holiday Thanksgiving Turkey in peace and serenity.

Here is a story I wrote before about an American soldier hitting the beaches at Normandy against a formidable Nazi German enemy and the fears and trepidations our young soldiers faced and what fears formed in his young mind. Be it WW2, the American Civil War or WW1, War is Hell as the Ohio General William T. Sherman said.


Sheila is a screamer

fiction
edward w pritchard

Sheila is a screamer. It's been four months, I know she misses my attention. She required it every day before I was drafted.

I can hear her. Hear her through the iron and metal of this battle ship, three decks down, on my narrow net hammock. Sheila's a screamer and if I am here alone on my swinging hammock she has to be with someone else. It's been four months and I know her needs. Why couldn't she wait for me, she promised.

I am so seasick. It keeps me from getting into a deep sleep and then I startle when I hear Sheila screaming in ecstasy back in Maryland. I finally risked the embarrassment and told Phillips. He says I am scared and stressed, like everyone terrified to land on the beach here at Normandy.

Now we are in the open air. These small boats are dashing toward the shore. Machine gunners await. With the breeze and the noises of battle I can't hear Sheila anymore. I am trying not to think of that. I have to concentrate on a soldiers duties.
end

any place providing sanctuary in a storm is a welcome place to be/ part 2

any place providing sanctuary in a storm is a welcome place to be/ part 2

fiction
Edward w pritchard


Sometimes America seems like one big amusement park to me.

For three days I have been trapped in my truck five miles South of Buffalo New York in a blizzard of a snowstorm that has dropped eight feet of snow on route 90 North on myself in my truck and a few thousand other cars and trucks misfortunate enough to have been driving North at exactly the wrong day and time of hour; in congregation we are stranded in the center of the white out, stalled, snow buried freeway.

Snow thunder rumbles for forty seconds at a time in the flash blizzard twenty miles south of the border with Canada and the windshield of your truck has acquired a permanent frozen mist from proximity to the Canadian side of Niagara Falls.

Snug am I in my truck. It is the sleeper model, with a bed, a refrigerator, a good radio, and a back up battery system. In addition to the heater from the trucks engine I have a small portable electronic heater from Radio shack. I also have a -50 degrees below zero warmth guaranteed parka from Sears, a gift from my daughter in Law. From time to time I exit the warmth of my truck circling my vehicle in shuffled tentative steps, bundled in my Parka, with both gloved hands intimately sliding over the frigid side walls and stalled cold engine of my truck to gather my bearings in the drifted snow threating to bury me permanently on Route 90 North here in my momentary sanctuary. Now and then a newscaster weather person knocks on the door of my truck for updates from me to his station's world audience of how I am temporarily adapting to the snow storm of the decade. Sometimes I hear myself on the Truck radio telling the world audience how I am conforming here in the sanctuary of my warm truck.

Thunder wakes me in my bed here in the back of the truck with a start and I am confused about where I am. Count the rumble of the snow thunder for forty to sixty seconds to determine the direction of the blizzard. It's critical important to me that the storm is moving south to North for my Home is to the south and I worry over my few loved ones. As I wake anxiously in my bed I dream I am floating on a small raft at Sea with a monumental storm coming to drench my Soul and my spirit.

How did I come to be here instead of somewhere else; why am I stuck dead in the middle of Route 90 North a few miles from the Canadian border confronting an epic-Winter snow storm stuck and stalled dead center in the middle of a snow buried expressway? Like so many other random occurrences that developed and happened to me unobserved in spite of it all I am at peace with my fate.

News on the radio South and West from Ferguson near St Louis, Missouri  is bad. Rioting is expected sometime this weekend. Police are on guard against protesters condemning the American way of life.

To regain my sense of belonging I listen to the Black Friday sale ads on the radio broadcasting serene bargains a plenty from Canadian and American retailers about to launch ten days of Black Friday bargains as a Holiday gift to North American consumers. Hope restored I plan a few purchases to center me to survive this storm and return to American society as a contented consumer.

Any place that provides sanctuary in a storm is a welcome place to be for me.

Sometimes America seems like one big amusement park to me. For three days I have been trapped in my truck. Rioting is expected sometime this weekend. Any place that provides momentary sanctuary is a welcome place to be for me.

comes a sad day, comes a special day to some misfortunate parents

comes a sad day, comes a special day to some misfortunate parents

fiction
Edward w Pritchard


Life comes with no guarantees. Comes a sad day, comes a special day to some misfortunate parents.

One day some parents have to realize what they have been struggling not to grasp. Their child is different and will always be that way.

The air leaves the room with a rush. The 800 pound elephant in the room is visible and no matter how strong the couple each parent is mournfully alone.

Their child is different and their hopes, dreams and expectations for their child will not become manifest.

Here's what I wrote before about a Mother who finds out from her daughter that her other child is different. Read slowly and feel her pain:

Five Stories in One

The five senses

Touch
June 04, 2007
5:13 PM

fiction
edward w pritchard


Attorney Kate Johnson grabbed her four year old daughter's arm a little too roughly.

Her daughter looked at her calculatingly, like Abraham Lincoln in a Civil War Picture.

" What are you not telling me young lady"

" I don't think I should tell you Mom, Let's wait for Dad"

" Don't patronize me Missy" talking to her daughter like her Grandmother used to talk to her"

Her daughter backed up a step, and said "OK, I'll tell you Mom, but please sit down"

Kate desperately wanted to know what was going on so she complied.

" Mom, Rex listens to the same song over and over and does the same stretching exercise each time he listens to it. "

Kate looked at her daughter afraid to ask the next question, " How many times"

Jessie looked out the window, then back at Kate, looking like her Father, and then softly said to her Mother,
'" about ten thousand times so far"

Sharply " you don't know ten thousand times pirate, a pet name from when Jessie was one"

"One thousand, three thousand twenty seven, 9 thousand six hundred forty two"

"Why does he do it"

Jessie kindly, "I am not sure Mom"

Kate" worried " Why does he exercise"

" he needs to keep moving and no one gets mad at him if he exercises"

Kate " Jessie, How did you find this out about your older brother"

" He asked to borrow money from me to buy another new CD, its starting to skip"

Kate fell across the bed and closed her eyes.

Jessie turned down the volume on the cable TV show she had been watching, switched to a soft music channel, went into her Father's closet and got his old Indian blanket and draped it across her Mother, and went downstairs to make her Mom something in the kitchen.

bank stocks; sorting out important information for investors

bank stocks; sorting out important information for investors

fiction
Edward w Pritchard

caveat- opinion from author, tongue in cheek stuff

Insidiously and ominously Citigroup [citi] symbol ] [c] announced an important piece of financial information for investors this morning. The news released quietly over tea from the London office of Citi this afternoon there in London [ it's morning here in America and afternoon in London England at the same time] is a harbinger of grave importance to investors and also to human workers, like this author, who are worried about intelligent machines taking over highly skilled jobs once performed by human workers.

Citi announced today from London plans to lay off thirty-five human workers on trading floors in London and across it's platforms but did not disclose but implied that some of those workers would be replaced with machines. Perhaps the workers were laid off because something is askew on the trading floors of London- again, and again for various large US banks as happens from time to time especially late in the stages of a bull market.

It's always difficult to decipher what Citi is up to. They make so many mistakes; at least this investor who once made some money on options in Citicorp in 1989 and used the funds to take a nice vacation remembers many things Citi has done wrong that hurt stockholders in the last 25 years. A reverse split, Victor Pandit, Sandy Weil, and recently hinting about restating some earnings because of unforeseen legal expenses. It's quite confusing to stock holders. When investors in Citi hear the company is going to get " back to basics" it's time to listen up.

Maybe intelligent machines aren't really taking over human workers jobs as floor traders in London. Perhaps this author is really just delusional and it's not intelligent machine taking the trading jobs, it's just computers who are going to do the trading. Or, perhaps the news from London is just an early crack in the mature bull market. A signal to the newly elected republicans to start planning to issue some more tarp funds to US banks sometime in the near future should the need arise.

Listen carefully if you wish to know what the bull market in America is up to. A Whisper from Citicorp in London may just be important to what is going to happen to your 401K over the next 24 months.

the stock market is long in the tooth today, Nov 18, 2014

the stock market is long in the tooth today, Nov 18, 2014

fiction
Edward w Pritchard


Stock prices are at highs but most regular folks and even lots of hedge funds are missing the party. Several hedge funds will close soon, unable to out perform the market. Should someone fortunate enough to have money invested in stocks stay at the party? Or should they be prudent and remove half their profits in stock funds and wait and see if the five year bull market will continue now that the Federal reserve has expressed their intention to stop supporting sub-normal low interest rates by pumping money into the US financial system. QE-3 is done, and with it will go the impetuous that drove the stock market and your 401K funds higher every couple of months. Soon the bull market party will end; at least the bull market party will end for a while which will end this round of fun, hopes and dreams of riches.

Where did all that QE3 money end up? I learned recently that the best acting ETF the last three years was IBB- biotech. Hopes, dreams and some fantasies of phase three trials to combine one or two experimental therapies to cure stubborn cancers or other dreaded diseases. Earlier on this blog I wrote of two bio-techs I follow: DNDN-dendreon, which has a successful $93,000  regiment drug for prostate cancer and INO-Inovio which has some excellent drug prospects as well. DNDN recently filed chapter 11, the bondholders have just about taken out the equity [stock holders]. Equity investors in DNDN lost all their money. Inovio has also lost another big pharma partner, Roche, and INO now will need to raise more money to proceed with phase 2 and three trials of their hot prospect drugs and treatments. Raise money equals dilution to existing shareholders.

What does it mean? The bull market is long in the tooth. Raise some cash and watch the show from your office as you continue to make a good living. As the bull market and the business cycle moves from phase to phase different stocks and assets classes out and under perform. Review your portfolio and take action if called for. No more fantasy, no more delusions of riches. Unfortunately, as I have ruefully found out, hard work is the only path to riches and it's seems to be a treacherous slope.

Here's what I wrote earlier this year on the Bull market. Take heed- do you know where your money is today?

first wall street trading day 2014; and Saint Veronica with the Sudarium

fiction
Edward w Pritchard

What should we worship?

Veronica was a creation of legend. When Jesus was carrying the cross to be crucified Saint Veronica offered Christ her veil. The veil became imprinted with the face of Jesus. The picture of Christ on a veil became a popular image and pilgrimage to Rome to view a Sudarium earned one many indulgences in the Middle ages. It was also thought viewing the image protected one from sudden death.

Rather than contemplate Christ suffering horribly on the cross it is softer to view his sad face staring at us across the ages. The Sudarium was a different way of looking at the familiar information central to Christianity. The image presented above by the Master of St. Veronica, Cologne 1400 presents Jesus' sorrow without the brutal edge of the Cross and Crucifixion.

The first day of stock trading in 2014 resulted in a drop in the Dow of 135 points. Is it as January goes so goes the year for Stocks or as January's first trading day so goes the year? If so not a good start to the trading year of 2014. Seventy five percent of advisers seem to be bullish. Was today's losses profit taking from the year end run up, a traditional January effect, or an augury of something more? Nearly every prognosticator expects a bullish year for stocks in 2014.

What are the futures telling you?

What does the year hold for the American stock market? Do we need a new way of looking at the same old information? Can anyone accurately predict the stock market and the future?

Bullish or bearish in 2014. Day by day yesterday's predictions become exposed to reality.

Is the January effect or a first trading day of January prediction model a case of over elaborate data mining? Yale Hirsch, author of " Don't sell stocks on Monday " back in 1986 wrote " while stocks do indeed fluctuate, they do so in well defined, often  predictable patterns which reoccur too frequently to be the result of chance or coincidence."

Is all of existence random; explainable as one interaction followed by another ad infinitum? Or is there a underlying pattern to everything, caused and created by who knows what or who knows whom?

What should we worship? Oracles and auguries abound, the future is certain we are told. Who knows what will happen tomorrow? What are the futures telling you?

Who will you worship?

Dear friends

Dear friends

fiction
Edward w Pritchard


Dear friends pass away. Preoccupied and far away we miss their final thirty years of life.

I was made aware of another passing on of an old friend. A friend of a friend really but a friend never the less. We missed the death notice. Too busy with life were we to miss his suffering.

Now in dreams he returns to say his piece. In dreams a piece of him here and his philosophy as a ten year old there he presents his final performance with me in the audience to hear his summation.

How quickly we move on the path and over the hill through this life. Slow time. With two hands I rotate a circle on the ice covered opaque glass to peer past to childhood friends and at the same time to peer forward into the future of destiny without me and everyone I ever knew or experienced.

Carefully unwrap an antique vase or collectable from a secret hiding place in an old forgotten drawer. We are the antique and by the time the wrapping is removed we become the obituary. Say your piece while still alive and well though no one reads it or no one acknowledges your existence.

Dear friends may winter sunshine keep you warm and may soft gentle snows brilliantly muffle hostile sounds of enlightenment as your footsteps march solitary into the future.

Once upon a time

Once upon a time

fiction
Edward w Pritchard


Once upon a time I spent a day in Manhattan at the Metropolitan museum of art. With consummate joy I spent many hours browsing parts of the vast collection of the World's art museum.

Often do I critique American consumerism but the collection of the Metropolitan museum is bought and acquired with the proceeds of capitalism over a century and a half by many famous art collectors and wealthy Americans. Thousands of master works from all times and cultures make up the collection of the Met. More than a museum the Met is a collection of museums under one large series of roofs. Several roofs from earlier original museum buildings are still incorporated into the vast building campus of the Metropolitan and as one views the art and sculptures the light from the New York city sky changes throughout the day, subtly changing the viewing experience of the art lover as he tours the museum.

Once upon a time I spent a day at the Metropolitan Museum of art in Manhattan. Perhaps more than anything I would like to return for an encore look at Madame X, both pictures of the ladies with the parrots, the five Vermeer's and the Velasquez.

Time is short and resources are few; we must husband both if we are to make the most of our desires.

autumn leaves, they fall each November

autumn leaves, they fall each November

fiction
Edward w Pritchard



It overwhelms me when the autumn leaves fall. Millions of folded pieces of fading color whisking about the yard calling to be contained and controlled by my invisible neighbors and the faceless people of our hostile town.

In semi darkness each November I dread the fall of the Autumn leaves. My sister gives me chewable vitamin D to combat the vanished Sun. Insidiously the leaves pile about the yard. Sometimes I wake early and try to control the piling leaves but they defeat my intentions as more and more leaves arrive from hostile trees to weigh down vanquished grass; grass which will never the less strain to grow in the semi-darkness of a long dreary Winter. Defeated I slump into the house for caffeine and music.

Holiday music rescue me from the cacophony of noise made by the leaves as they fall and scrape about the cluttered yard. Defeated Sun peep fifteen minutes of sunshine and brightness into my lonesome soul.

My shoulders slump and my feet drag as I bend in attack against the leaves with bent short handled rake.

Cover mine ears; my neighbor jumps on the double quick from his double sized Truck and aggressively pumps up the volume with a Sears deluxe 1000 decimal level leaf blower to order his world.

It's overwhelming when hostile nature ushers in Winter loneliness and darkness with endless flurries of useless, discarded leaves.

end

Consider the leaves, [for] men are like leaves
[for] when leaves into dust are whirled
soon green forests buds millions anew
So come, so pass, all that are born of men
Homer
Iliad book 6 lines 146 to 149
as paraphrased by EWP who doesn't read original Greek

won the cause but lost the war

won the cause but lost the war

fiction
Edward w Pritchard

Old Jed Clampett would sit on the porch of the mansion with his second cousin Jethro and shoot flies off the thick walls surrounding his home. [1] Sometimes old Jed would whittle and sometimes he would jump up suddenly and dance an ancient  jig. Jed would take off his hat and cross it across his chest out of respect, whether dancing or whittling when Granny sat with him and whistled " Dixie".

It was good to be in California away from the sadness of the lost cause back home in the Hills of the South. No matter how much oil money Jed had there were still so many times he didn't want to remember and so many places back home he wouldn't go.

Old Jed was a strange old duck. For diversion sometimes he wanted to become a bull fighter and sometimes he wanted to become a legitimate philanthropist. Anything to fill up lost time.

Sometimes old Jed just whistled " Dixie" and tried to forget lost causes as he shot flies from the wall there at the house.

When he slept at night old Jed would dream and dream about "laying around the old shack there in the hills until the rail train came back." [2]
end

[1] Beverly Hillbillies created by Paul Henning a Film ways Pre-sentation

[2] "Rolling in my sweet babies arms" not attributed; traditional American folk music in the public domain.

slow time, proceed slowly time/part 2; hurry time, do you think we will ever meet again

slow  time, proceed slowly time/part 2; hurry time, do you think we will ever meet again

fiction
Edward w Pritchard


Author writes elsewhere about time my sentinel.

Meaning he is separated from whom he loves, opportunity is gone, yet time endures, time proceeds, going nowhere.

Do you think we will ever be together again, elsewhere in time. If things are different. If things start over again, eternal reoccurrence. Going back to the first glance. A time of soft voices and clasping eyes. Without memory of time before and past. Without jarring disruptions to Times flow.

Here's my previous view of time passing, and then after that wishes for another Time, after this where things work out differently. Like after Romeo and Juliet are dead. Will they ever be together again?


slow time, proceed slowly time

fiction
edward w pritchard

I have become aware that everyone and everything has only a limited amount of time. Everyone I love or care about. Inanimate objects I don't know of. Spinning moving galaxies I can't comprehend.

Yet time is not real. It can be proven logically. Something about the A and the B series, Before and after or now and then. Time is not real, but everything comes and goes eventually.

Slow time. No matter what I must now endure, I want my time to last. I am so so curious. Yet a new baby born today, lucky enough to last a long time by human standards has merely 41,610 days.

Some days are notable. Days past are significant worthy to be remembered and relived in memory. Time not real? Time itself seems concrete when remembered and contemplated.

It seems strange that only we people are aware that time is limited for everything. We are like a burning match, soon to be extinguished; why should only us people realize that the combination that causes the match to flare, heat and alight will soon be changed and gone.
end

Hurry Time, I want Time to come again and things to work out differently

fiction
Edward w Pritchard

Some days are notable. Days past are significant worthy to be remembered and relived in memory. But time is gone.

I miss my shattered half life.

Hurry Time, I want Time to come again and things to work out differently. Cosmic playwright, rewrite the script, the next Time. I don't like the ending to this drama.

end

How goes the air war in Iraq?

How goes the air war in Iraq?

fiction
edward w pritchard

How goes the air war in Iraq lead by the United States and coalition forces?

Here's what I wrote before on airwar:

Friday, March 25, 2011

With embarassing regret

With embarrassing regret

fiction
edward w pritchard

Using the blitzkrieg techniques now legendary for their destructive powers we were about to annihilate  a very small territory of Poland; for technical reasons going back to the Treaty of Vienna of 1815 still an independent Country in name only in 1939. The powers of devastation were ready to explode and annihilate the museums, artwork, buildings and a  small population now waiting on horseback with swords drawn to confront us.

As protocol officer, a redundant position in our military machine, but a remnant of more genteel times I was given task at the eleventh hour of  informing our victims that we would be one hour late in starting our belligerent activities.  It was the anniversary of the  Fuhrer's Mother's Birthday and out of respect to her we would not attack during the hour of 5PM that the Fuhrer and his dear Mother customarily ate dinner when he was a boy. Our carefully prepared battle plans and goals must accommodate the Fuhrer's  heart felt affection for his Mother's memories.

I greeted the trembling Generals of our opposition somewhat sheepishly:
"With embarrassing regret the German nation informs you that there will be a one hour delay...
end

alibaba soars; meanwhile where are the dissenters?

Alibaba soars; meanwhile where are the dissenters?

fiction
Edward w Pritchard


Singles buying day in China. The premise being if you have no love interest in your life you go on line and buy your self something. Since there are so many people in China retail on line volume was voluminous yesterday on single's day.

Alibaba controls 75% of on-line shopping in China and the stock exploded again. Alibaba [ baba] came public at $68, first buy/sell order during IPO at $90, now at $116 [AM premarket]. That's down a bit from yesterdays high price on the stock but the stock is soaring.

China has had an unusual amount of social change in the last fifty years. Google Cultural revolution [here]. Now China embraces Capitalism with open arms [ sort of]. Meanwhile the ruling communist party strains their brains to create new slogans to describe how to merge Communist ideals of social order with capitalism's flights of fancy designed to create a hundred ways to sell stuff to everyone. Every day becomes a new reason to buy stuff which is good for business and creates jobs, surging GDP and stockholder value. Everyone in China will get a new apartment, new job and a latest generation cell phone. All will be well in China and hence the world.

Meanwhile what happens to those lonely singles after their room in their grandmother's basement is full of stuff they don't use and they lose their job or begin to fall behind in the race to the top " American style" to have more money, more things, and more of their lives spent chasing the new emphasis on the material side of reality. Slogans forgotten, Confucius ideas on one's place in the World laughed at as old fashioned.

Here's what I wrote on the occupy wall street movement in America. Occupy wall street and it's ideals and discontents is a movement now sleeping in America but probably not dead. A few rioters in St Louis being the latest generation of critics of the American way of life.

What happens when the disaffected in China get tired of chasing the elusive American dream of owning lots of neat stuff? How will Ablibaba keep selling and growing if the ruling Chinese communist party decides to change the slogans back to the old Confucius ideals of individual sacrifice and communist corporate communal values of less is more.

Here's what I wrote before on the occupy wall street movement in America. America has it's divide between rich and poor, happy and disaffected, lonely and contented, and hopeful and nihilistic.

What changes are coming to the American dream and how will it effect China and of perverse interest to this discontented lonely author, the long term stockholders of Alibaba?

occupy wall street -3 /who is we?

fiction
edward w pritchard

Protest on Wall Street. Meanwhile the stock market roars back today as the old regime continues business as usual.

In a park near Wall Street strange affinities are created among the protesters as the shifting interests of various groups jockey for position and a voice. All the while the zeitgeist modifies and shifts; beyond even the stock markets ability to predict or discount. Who is the new we? What spark will unite change?

end

a Jury of ones peers

A Jury of one's peers

fiction
Edward w Pritchard


A Jury of one's peer's. For most of us our Jury is convened at an informal social gathering of family, friends and neighbors. Although we don't commit crimes that would send us to the State prison we are Judged and categorized never the less.

When one is a child one competes with others for grades, achievements in sports, piano lessons and other such things. Later one's spouse, the prestige of one's career, the net worth, type of car, or size of the abode are the measuring tape.

Family, friends and neighbors. Your peers. Let us not Judge. Let us accept others as they are. Extend your circle of neighbors and unmet friends beyond the borders of your little world.

Social interaction with one's peers is difficult at times. Behind every quick look a veiled judgment subtly reveals itself.

Be yourself and say your piece when proper. Everyone has something to contribute.

Here is what I wrote before on the subject:

one man against the world

fiction
Edward w Pritchard


They say the ten thousand things interact and to watch for the rebound. Point is now its 100 million things interact. Who can tell how things will rebound and bounce now? Complexity rules even the realm of chaos.

One man clapping his hands and singing, raging against the world. Some strum a guitar, some compose verses. In time he becomes hoarse. He realizes it's the same things over and over and it has all been done before. Betrayal by a friend, the laws delay, injustice on a small personal level. Write it down it's ignored, sing it out no one listens.

What does it all mean? In time we realize it's true, it's true; there is nothing new under the sun, vanity, all is vanity.

If only things were simple again. If only there were do overs. While we regret and rehash time accelerates. Children are grown and struggle with life's complexities and injustices and we watch and try not to spoil things by making cynical comments; like the Preacher in Ecclesiastes, vanity, vanity all is vanity.

A wise man keeps quiet unless asked or if he must speak out he writes it down. It means nothing but it's noted for the record. There is no payment, no satisfaction and no gratitude but the record has been properly noted.

it's never too late to get with the program

fiction
Edward w Pritchard



It's ridiculous, true, but I figure it's never to late to get with the program. Me a sixty two year old man about to find and wear a tie dyed jacket.

In protest against the world's sorry condition this week I am going to search the charity thrift stores for a tie dyed jacket for myself to wear as a silent protest against the impending wars and violence breaking out throughout the world.

On top of that thousands of children are storming the border between Mexico and Texas. I honestly don't know how to react to that. Is it like the barbarians in 406AD crossing the frozen Rhine, harbingering of the fall of the Roman empire? Or is it a ploy cooked up by the parties in power here in America to take our mind off a sea of other troubles in our Country?..

Me I am going to put on a tie dyed jacket and return to the confidence and optimism of youth in the 1960's. Like another tie dyed wearing hippy said, " I remember days when it was raining daisies." [1]

1- John Sebastian- " she's a lady"

super stocks; the long and short of getting rich, rich, rich/ part 2

super stocks; the long and short of getting rich, rich, rich/ part 2

fiction
Edward w Pritchard

More addicting than gambling at the casino is watching super stocks implode. It's like watching gossipy day time TV to me. When the CFO resigns suddenly over accounting or inventory irregularities I grab a bag of microwave popcorn and sit engrossed and watch the stock price of the high priced company involved implode on CNBC financial TV. It's a combination of Judge Judy and a who's the Father daytime reality show to me.

I was a " workout" officer at a bank once you know; I worked with businesses that owed the Bank a lot of money that they had foolishly spent and had no cash flow to pay back. For every successful business enterprise there is a failure or two out there leasing a couple of Lexus' for the top guns of the senior management with money that was supposed to be used to retire debt or repair the fleet of tow motors.

My favorite part of drama of watching high priced stocks implode on financial television is watching one of the young beautiful financial hosts grille the CFO. It's best if the company involved never hired the financial news network to tout their stock back when things were going well. The host always wanted to be a trial lawyer and this is their chance to rake the CFO over the coals. The acting CFO still has a lot of stock in the company involved, although the stock price just dropped from $100 to $30 over just revealed accounting irregularities earlier today at the earnings conference call; the CFO was given ten of thousands of shares at 50 cents a share a few weeks ago when hired to arrange a buy-out or guide the enterprise through workout and bankruptcy. Watch the CFO twist and evade questions, it's like Judge Judy vs. a deadbeat dad on reality television.

Today's implosion is Salix Pharma. [ Slxp]. A Drug company with some creepy inventory issues. Creepy for the shareholders at least. Watch the stock fall 50% on the morning open. The CFO resigned and is in seclusion. Fifty New York law firms have announced an intention to help share holders get a small part of their lost money back for a small and customary fee, plus the usual and customary costs and expenses. Salix was recently a respected and fast growing company, great financial ratios and large potential.

This should be fun. Watch Salix Pharma's stock  take a 50% haircut on National financial TV today.

Be like me, since I was a boy in the 1950's I always rooted for the Native Americans in cowboy and Indians movies on afternoon television.

Nowadays, I am passionate about watching the drama and Karma of misguided American businesses falling from grace.

Pity the shareholders of Salix today, But, enjoy the drama of watching the corporation squirm a bit.