politics as usual in america

 politics as usual in america

 fiction

edward w pritchard

Now that women are joining in the spoils and fame of politics in america it's not unusal to see a pretty blonde govonor or lady senator in trouble for some minor violation of the ethics code. Yes, the good old boys of fifty years or more ago could get away with misfeasance as politicans but my how the current news media like to spinkel the internet with sad pictures of female politicans in situations of damsels in distress over minor violations. 

I like it too at some level but lets give the ladies a break and respect their position and give them a chance to learn the ropes of politics as usual. 

worst lightening strikes in history

 worst lightening strikes in history

fiction

edward w pritchard

Lightening frightens us all. It's not unusual to have reports unverified and less than scientific that lightning killed up to 300 persons in ancient babylonian times or native americans at youngstown ohio sometime in the past. Of course there are no scientific provable witness collaborations. Although there at Youngstown there is a large rock that was split !/3 2/3rds by gods' wrath, lightning. 

But what of lightning strikes on distant galaxies that perhaps wiped up to billions [ 300 billion] life sources?

sometime in the distant past with no witnesses or collaboration. A tragedy indeed long since forgotten or unknown. 

Don't carry an umbrella in a lightning storm. There is a connection between god's moods and lightning deaths among sentient beings. Be safe around lightning, although the odds of being emulsified are low its an absurd way to go. 

wealth longevity and the secret of it all, including early retirement, nba super stars, beautiful demur women ,non shrewish but smiling , early retirement, riches beyond imagination, and bulging retirement accounts

 wealth longevity and the secret of it all, etc

fiction

Sometimes I remember the time I was at a nice hotel in new orleans with the kids safely in bed, the wife asleep that I shuffled  out through the rainstorm and went to a small club and heard a formerly beautiful once a near celebrity with a record or two  black torch singer doing " I get the blues when it rains". as I recall I bought her a drink anomously and was depressed when I saw such a talent walking home alone through the back streets of new orleans to her run down apartment [I  supposed. and her grey hair dripping in the drizzling rain] as she stumbled along. 

America the beautiful, the sad Indians at Taos, up from slavery for folks moving north, and super inflation lurking around this corner of our future. 

If Alexander Hamliton hadn't been shot he could help President Trump get through the next few years.

donald trump update

 donald trump update

fiction

edward w pritchard

Mr Trump, my you certainly do keep busy. Even in my most large delusions I can't keep up with your day to day life. 

I hope things go well for you, as I always respect our ex presidents but I am confused and a little worried by your latest predictament. 

Here's  what I originally wrote you when you first became our President:

PS maybe the FBI would backoff if you would negotiate a pause with Mr Putin to his war in the Ukraine, at the very least it would take your mind off your own problems. 

New President Trump's welcome letter from a citizen

fiction
edward w pritchard


Congratulations on your election in becoming our Country's new President. We wish you continued good health and continued success in your new assignment.

Tonight new President Trump consider all the light, heat and energy produced and consumed by all of the magnificent Properties throughout the World you own and manage. Additionally consider all of your employees and their families you have paternalistic-ally been responsible for as their employer over the last forty years of your life and the how you indirectly created the security that allowed your employees to thrive. Soon, President Trump you will be responsible in a similar way for the safety, security and to some extent welfare of over three hundred million Americans and indirectly as leader of the premier nation economically on Earth of the remainder of the six billion plus citizens of our planet. It is an awesome responsibility you have assumed.

New President Trump as you successfully manage the challenges and responsibilities of your new assignment and your Power grows exponentially as the one of the World's most important citizen's remember the Power of all the light, heat and energy produced and consumed by the trillions of stars and billions of galaxies across the vast and timeless universe and may you recognize our place in it all.

your humble follower
myself

don't buy a new car, house, or take that european vacation until you talk to pete best

 don't buy a new car, house, or take that european vacation until you talk to pete best

fiction

edward w pritchard

Americans are scratching their heads as they watch all the large cap super duper stocks crash and with it their delusions about permanent prosperity and endless riches. Us baby boomers have gotten old and we are getting swept out along with our delusions and ideals. 

Don't despair ask original beatles drummer Pete Best who was replaced just before the fab four hit the big time what it's like to be thrown out with the trash. 

Watch your sacred stocks and investment like fine homes, expensive cars and meta stocks crash and throw you to the junk pile with them. Your old dude. It's time for a new paradigm and your not invited. 

I liked Ringo Star a lot but Pete Best didn't seem like such a bad guy. Things have changed, try to make yourself comfortable baby boomer when you are uncerimoniously tossed on to the trash pile. 

they call them the baggies

 they call them the baggies

fiction

edward w pritchard

When a stock has crashed and former investors keep hanging on , desperately buying more and more to average down on manipulated dips and buying occasionally more, more, more  on the ravings of mad men;  they call those hangers on,  those gullible saps,  the baggies, that is bag holders, holding a bag of worthless garbage. Baggies are all delusional but in a nice, hopeful, patient way. 

America has crashed and former patriots keep hanging on desperately becoming more and more optomistic

desperately hoping that  a decaying document of 18th century values will rejuvenate  a dying nation.

 Dismantle the war machines and worship of wealth America- times have changed. Listen to the falling soft rains, a few minutes pre dawn. Rain, the greatest commodity in the universe, to erase our sins. 

Alzheimer's disease

 Alzheimer's disease

fiction

edward w pritchard

There are none of the minor actors in Shakespeare or other playwrights except Death who waits backstage clear till act five to give his few lines on the death of Kings. In real life when Death sits at the bedside of the poor soul with Alzheimer's disease does Death wait and wait months and years indifferently to finish his lines until after a short eternity Death mumbles his final denouement. Only then does the audience shuffle off, heads hung down, with confused emotions.  

choose your psychological make up

 choose your psychological make up

fiction

edward w pritchard

Should you base your behavior and psychological makeup on Neitzche's writings and similar philosophies   or the Good Summarian? That seems to be the confrontation facing ordinary Americans and wrong choices among many can lead to 

an unhealthy breakdown in the social order. Which seems to be happening now. 

Help others, harm no one, and force yourself if necessary to be cordial with strangers. If your moods lead you to be two faced like Janus keep the cynic in yourself and display in public your positive proclivities the best you can. 

I am starting today. Join me.

1859 slave memories pre juneteenth

 1859 slave memories pre juneteenth

fiction

edward w pritchard

five minutes from freedom

fiction
edward w pritchard

Usually a hazy swirl surrounds our recollections of the past. But to this day I can vividly remember the slave auction house there on tenth street in Wheeling Wv [ then called Wheeling Virginia] one rainy Tuesday afternoon at 2 o'clock in the afternoon back in 1859. My Mother's great grand Mother rode in a wagon by the large auction house building as a little girl and her Mother ordered her to close her eyes so she couldn't see
the chained slaves waiting to be taken to be sold.

Of course my Mother's relatives were too poor to own slaves but by circumstances they found themselves in a slave owning country and state. 

To this day I recall my Mother's great grandmother thinking as she peeked at the chained slaves back in 1859 that they were only five minutes from freedom. Up over the roof of the slave auction building on tenth street in Wheeling Wv and ten miles North across the River to Martin's Ferry Ohio and a colored person could be free.

Today I live in Ohio, north of the Ohio River about ten miles south of some all black neighborhoods. The fact that we had slavery in the United States saddens me. If I had lived back in civil war times I suppose I might have been killed as a soldier fighting in an Ohio regiment. Many people in America sacrificed to end slavery in the past of our Country's history.  Me, today I enjoy black blues music; scrapper blackwell, tampa red, lead belly, elmore james, muddy waters and many others. The music is the memory of the suffering of the past.

be glad you are poor

 be glad your poor

fiction

edward w pritchard

Be glad you are poor. You have never screwed a friend  over money and you are not fretting over the stock markets eating up your hard earned savings . 

You are star dust you are golden. We have got to get ourselves back to the garden. [ Crosby, Stills and Young.]

the future lives in the past

 the future lives in the past

fiction

edward w pritchard

The future lives in the past. 

Rather than electric, hydrogen or gasoline being the future of the auto industry and peoples preferences of perpetual locomotion economic and environmental  circumstances will dictate  trains as the new source of locomotion for Americans. 

Heed the future. Look for trains as the next best thing. 

all the news that's fit to print

 all the news that's fit to print

fiction

edward w pritchard

Everybody at some time in their life finds themselves working in some kind of a job to support themselves. In my case I sit in a very small space capsule traveling very fast at the edge of the solar system and transmit the stock market action across the universe as far as humans have settled to investors millions and millions of miles from home. What I do is routine but of great importance because I am the last link in the mother economy stretching from earth to the next galaxy. Still sometimes I get exasperated being involved with persons obsessed so much with money and I sometimes get in trouble for the  sarcasm that I sneak into my financial reports

As example during the worse crash in the stock indexes in twenty years I began to sing during my broadcast the Kinks song " celluloid heroes" between my commentary on the DJ Industrial 11% fall this morning.

I remember myself singing " everybody's  a dreamer, everybody's a star, and everybody's in movies, it doesn't matter where you are". I like to think that the writer of the song Ray Davies of the Kinks would smile if he could hear me now. Of course broadcasts traveling back to earth on financial matters are forbidden  for a 30 day period as everyone knows. So it will take  about five weeks for my boss to reprimand me for my disobedience. 

wall street may 09, 2022

 wall street may 09, 2022

fiction

edward w pritchard

Another debacle on Wall Street today. Could be the start of serious times. 

Here's today's summary of today's wall street action from Henry James in 1904, " The American Scene" New York chapters.

" confusion carried to chaos for any intelligence", any perception, any welter of sounds in which relief, detachment, dignity, meaning, perished utterly and lost all right. "

Couldn't have said it better myself.   

the new future done arrived

 the new future done arrived

fiction

edward w pritchard

 New future done arrived,

nobody heard the door bell ring.

 Everybody forgetting to grow vegetables,

 store of value gone empty.

Here when we live electricity doesn't work anymore,

 houses shaken off foundation,

 Everybody's neighbors be missing,

 winds increasing steadily,

 fires of Hell spread across  old neighborhood;

who can hear for the silence,

 Romans knocking down last cross,

tearing apart heavy boards,

soldiers stacking rough hewed wood for posterity,

someone used boards at future time,

to construct a rocking chair for Nietzsche,

to spend his final ten years staring into the past.

inflection point

 inflection point 

Several times in my life I have met a person facing their inflection point and have struggled to decide should I offer my opinion on their cage that is currently restraining them. Often[ twice] the person was a pretty bar maid  stuck in a cage of a job restraining their true personality. Of course she was pretty. Should I speak out?

The environment is always dark for them, melancholy music always on the jute box and two hundred twenty four men a month routinely bores them with their pick up lines and life stories. The tips are good. 

Should I speak out and offer her my be true to thy self lecture covering Buddhism, Greek philosophy, and Lucretius. 

I note I am too old to get to know them these days. 

first hour movement of Sun across morning sky

 First hour movement of Sun across morning sky

fiction

edward w pritchard

Author has invited deceased author F. Nietzsche author of "Twilight of the idols" and " the anti Christ" and Lao Tzu" Tao Te Ching" to enjoy with author [ed} the rotation of Earth facing and circling the morning sun resulting in brief temporarily awakening where author now temporarily lives and abides. Various processes of the universe cause a hundred sounds each early morning  as this daily process unfolds and it is a privilege to have a few more years to enjoy this event. 

Half way through the morning ritual as the Light brightens chirping birds quiet down temporarily busy with their work. Seeing first light is exemplary.  

eric burdon and elon musk

 eric burdon and elon musk

fiction

edward w pritchard

note for convience words fate and god are enter changeable here

Eric burden sings " i'm just a soul whose intentions are good" and 50 years later Elon Musk speaks and modifies events. Elon how could god have given one person that much money and the power to control events with a few glib utterances?

Mr. Musk please use your influence to pause the war in Ukraine. There is a picture from WW2 shot in London the morning after Nazi bombing of a little boy about 7 holding his stuffed animal amid the rubble of his street being destroyed by last night raids. Similar things are happening now in the Ukraine to children. 

Elon use your influence to pause the war in Ukraine.

Ukrainians and Russians working together for justice

 Ukrainians  and Russians working together for justice

fiction

edward w pritchard

In world war two a prominent Nazi and Christian temporarily "ruled " in the Ukraine and parts of Poland. Erich Koch was a good Nazi and a devoted Christian. He was brutal toward the Ukrainians. Koch is best remembered for declaring " Ukrainian children do not need to attend school "[ he might have meant at this time as they could be indoctrinated into Nazi thought later - writers opinion only]. Rather than list Koch's brutalities toward the Ukrainians let's just say he was a good Nazi.

After ww2 both Poland and Russia demanded that Koch be found and tried by the allies. Eventually found and tried Koch died in Prison of natural causes denied the death penalty for poor health pleading to the end he was good Christian, a good socialist and a friend of the workers.

In bringing justice in the case of Erich Koch the Russians, Ukrainians and Polish worked together. 

-let's stop the war between allies in Russia and Ukraine in the present day where children and good Ukrainian citizens and  Russian soldiers die daily. 

Pretzel Pete of Hardy boy's fame seeks new author

Pretzel Pete of Hardy boys fame seeks a new author

fiction

edward w pritchard

Pretzel Pete of Hardy boys fame seeks a new author we hear.  Pete who works the docks near Bay Port sometime in 1930's America has always been a prime source of information for the Hardy boys Father detective Fenton Hardy. 

America was a different place in the 1930's said Pretzel Pete. " I have seen people nearly kill for a pretzel during the great depression in America" said Pete. -and to be blunt it was because they were staving with no prospects of honest work, a steady job and the basic necessities of life. 

How can Americans living in 2022 America possibly understand what it's like to live in the great depression, or live through fascism in 1930's Germany or survive the siege of Leningrad in Russia in WW2. 

I must find a new author said Pete, " this author Pritchard doesn't have the words to awaken his meager audience." Beware, the times are changing". "Hot pretzels sang Pete, one now and two for your pockets for later".

a thank you for the russians

 a thank you for the Russians

Currently most Americans are down on the Russians. Let us go back to the 1860's with America in civil War and the two most powerful European powers, France and England considering supporting the South in the civil war. Enter the Russians who dock two fleets temporarily in American ports.   Changing the balance of power internationally and allowing the two American sides in the conflict to proceed without foreign involvement ending slavery. 

Currently Russia is the world's whipping boy for their actions in Ukraine. Maybe rightly so. However

my own County permanently has unclean hands for it's treatment of the Native Americans when America was conglomerating into a world power. Most countries of the world have similar pasts. 

As author has written elsewhere The Pope, a Muslim caliphate and other religious leaders should be available and step forward willing to attempt to pause aggrandizement by strong men of the  various world powers. Said world strong men often get into situations where they need to stop fighting with their armies but are afraid to loose face and because of time and circumstance innocent civilians die and their lives are ruined. 

Mr. Putin stop the war in the Ukraine. 

author receives a left handed compliment for his excessive reading

 author receives a left handed compliment for his excessive reading

fiction

edward w pritchard

This author is seldom to be seen without a stack of recently purchased used books to be soon quickly scanned and underlined to fill his free time in his old age. Subjects vary but literature, history, philosophy and Greek and Roman writing, great books, tragedies of the finest play writers and the essays of Montaigne and others of his sort are the usual fare. 

Recently author received a left handed compliment that if- he could remember everything he reads he would be a genius-. Author did not take offence at said pedantic statement choosing instead to remain silent until this written blog to address " why we should want to read more and more in our old age even though no one is particularly interested in what we have to say about anything.

Starting with Montaigne's essays, study of philosophy in ones old age prepares one to die gracefully. Montaigne also mentions that having an excellent memory is commonly coupled with infirm judgment [ essay 1-9]. and Montaigne implies  in the same essay   "if one has an average memory he will not remember the injuries he has received." 

We have so few true friends as we age. Better to have an average memory so as not to dwell on the sadness the fates  have sent our way. 

Despite the years author always recalls fondly a pretty face. Some people spend time checking their on line phone for wiki's opinion on Montaigne essays or Chekhov's best plays and sometimes other people collect the world's greatest literature to anchor themselves into their last few years of their meager existence straining to remember this or that; using learning as a hobby before the lights go out permanently.  

Should author have occasion to meet Michel de Montaigne I would explain to him about Voyager 1 racing, racing far off into space 14.5 billion miles from earth absolutely alone like us when we are old going who knows where or why. As author writes elsewhere looking, searching for the end of the line for us.

george harrison why didnt you update your philosphy[ for me]

 George Harrison why didn't you update your philosophy [for me]

George I am sorry to admit that my favorite Beatle was John. 

But Now that I am old you are the one who moves me. Your off hand comment that everywhere people are dying but no one does anything about comes to my mind occasionally. It  moves to the top of the thousand books on philosophy I have read.

Why didn't you call me George? I so wanted to discuss philosophy and the end of being with you. 

Did you plan it or did events cause  you to morph into who and what you were?

I enjoyed "while my guitar gently weeps" but also the traveling Wilbury's " runaway". I call your name but your not there. 

How was India really? Did you buy it or was it just "living is easy with eyes closed misunderstanding all you see "?

 

America admires Taras Bulba

 America admires Taras Bulba

fiction

edward w pritchard

Ask to pick a side in the Russian/Ukrainian situation currently in the news a prominent Wall street spokesmen tongue in cheek replied " America admires Taras  Bulba". Later in the business day a literature

professor from Columbia University explained the meaning of the remark by reciting a brief history of the Russian author Gogol's  novel concerning historical Cossack warriors from both countries.

The Dow was up substantially on the remark. 

A pentagon spokesman joining in the spirit of the debate suggested America would send Paul Bunyan and babe the blue Ox to help the Russians and Mike Fink the river boat captain to assist the Ukrainians.  

 

i for one am one american who admires the Russians

 I for one am one american who admires the Russians

fiction

edward w pritchard

It's hard for me to imagine America fighting the Russians. My daughter in law is Russian, As an avid reader 

i feel the best novels were wrote by Russian authors and I always wanted to go the the museum in St Petersburg to see the great art. 

Let's not start a war with Russia.

anything goes part 2

 anything goes part 2

fiction

edward w pritchard

In my last post I asked three world leaders to not start a war over the Ukraine.

Today however I see that America's ally in adverting the war is Germany and our enemy is Russia, how things have changed since world war two when Russia was America's temporarily  stanch friend and Germany our hated enemy. If I recall many Ukrainian's volunteers did not have clean hands in WW2 over their actions toward the Jews.  

War's we all understand they shouldn't be but still they happen because  intelligent  persons are doing their duty to their countries. 

anna mae wong and the american anti miscegenation laws

 anna mae wong and the american miscegenation laws

fiction

edward w pritchard

If only there were no anti miscegnation laws back then in Hollywood Anna Wong could have become a leading lady and Chinese women rather than Black ladies would be shown in commercials now with a white husband buying an expensive new car or sitting in the kitchen of a 2 million dollar house about to prepare a wholesome supper for their 2.2 children and then help them with their homework. 

Putin; will you victories make you happy

 Putin; will your victories make you happy

fiction

edward w pritchard

You honor Mr. Putin will your victories make you happy? Or like the great Warrior of old Asoka will you mourn for the suffering of the victors and vanquished in the Ukraine. Better to not start another War. Work instead on your enlightenment. 

Chinese premier Xi Jinging avoid foreign entanglements. Stay out of squabbles half a world away. 

President Biden avoid the war in Ukraine. Take your dogs for a walk instead. 

World leaders as Aristotle said "the natural state of things is rest. Don't start a war in the Ukraine. 

glib author makes a retraction on global warming

 glib author makes a retraction on global warming

fiction

edward w pritchard

Glib author makes a retraction on global warming.  Forgive me for making light on the subject of global warming as author suggests in the previous writing on " the little ice age" by Brian Fagan.

Upon further reading in Fagan's book in chapter 6 " the specter of hunger" I find that Fagan had more than scientific curiousity on the issue of starvation among humans living in times pre- three meals a day eating habits among modern Americans. 

Fagan states he spent time observing subsistence agriculture in modern Africa. Where he learned to appreciate "... how devastating  a cycle of drought or heavy rainfall or unusual cold or warmth can be. "[ among people dependent on subsistent farming [ or hunting] my paraphrasing.

How often do I preach to my grand kids who are vegans in a wealthy household not to waste food. 

My credentials to preach was dictated in my childhood. For a variety of family specific issues our family had once meal per day of prepared food from our parents. The one meal consisted of one large pot of spaghetti, Spanish rice with hamburger, or Mac and cheese. You could eat all you wanted but that was it for the day. There was little other food in the refrigerator or shelves. Eat it or fend for yourself regardless of your age or situation. 

Later as a boy scout I recall when we camped in tents at a Klondike derby event when it was ten below zero.  Because of extreme weather there was not enough brought food to fortify us boys after pulling a Alaskan  style dog sled sans dogs for ten or so hours in the cold, After a couple days of starvation we broke the rules and  convinced an older eagle scout to drive to a store and buy us $20. of junk food [ in 1964 dollars]. 

Hiking fifteen years ago on the Appalachian trail was the other time I didn't get enough food to keep me going when I was sleeping each night on the trail platform open air shelters and preparing what food i had in my back pack over a small camp fire. Tired and hungry one develops a calorie deficit. Eventually I took to sleeping in the car after driving to the nearest town for a restaurant meal. Later  along with the restaurant I took to sleeping in a cheap hotel after my ten to fifteen mile walk through the woods. It's difficult to be hungry and cold no matter the reason. 

For those who will proceed me please take global warming seriously. I believe we have a bit of folk knowledge of our ancestors cold hungry and starving.    

anything goes; endless stock market channel

 anything goes; endless stock market channel

fiction

edward w pritchard

Never have I viewed the Broadway musical of "Anything goes". The plot is simple; a pretty boy assumes an alias becomes a stowaway on a European bound ocean line in 1935, courts and marries an heiress  and every one lives happily thereafter as there were no sneaky Nazi U boat plot device sinking's staged in the original plot.  Cole Porter's song "anything goes" is the highlight of the play and Sutton Foster does the best modern version of the  extended song and dance number although Ella Fitzgerald 's musical recording of " anything goes is memorable. ''  

"Anything goes" re-staged today would have to contain a verse about the stock market channel endlessly touting the genius of sneaky billionaires inventing imaginary meta verses and martian colonies, highly paid football coaches suing the NFL owners who made them rich, and major league baseball players demanding each year more and more money for playing in fewer and fewer games. 

" Times have changed" "anything goes".

global warming at the end of your life

 global warming at the end of your life

fiction

edward w pritchard

As a teenager among many other dreams once I thought to be a weather person forecasting climate changes. 

I spent a year in high school in a ROTC class toward that end [ one hour a day] where I learned to march, learned I was officer material,  and decided I did not want to fight in the VietNam war. 

Jump forward fifty two years and I decided to read a little on global warming. Keep in mind I read a little of about fifteen books a week and often throw them away, donate them to catholic charity [ sneak into a church and leave a book on the shelf where churchgoers pick up programs for Sunday services] or try to give them away for somebodies need to know something whether they want to or not. 

This week I found a book by Brian Fagan on " the little ice age". It's a good first read on a very general over view of climate change and history. I paid 40 cents for a nearly new copy at the bins at the goodwill so it was a good value. 

Climate change won't matter much to me soon but I do like to understand the big issues of our times. I assume you don't have an advanced degree in climate-tology but " the little ice age 1300 to 1850" is a good place to get a few ideas on the topic. As for myself about the most important thing so far I have learned from Fagan's book is westerly winds and westerly currents flow in opposite directions. [ on the ocean that is].

angel baby a cover

 angel baby a cover

fiction

There are many covers of Rosie and the originals "angel baby" including the Beatles but the best is by Jeanette Jenardo from the film " my family" . Everybody needs a platonic form of the ideal love interest to remember after the embers are extinguished. 

another picture I saw at the national gallery in London

 another picture I saw at the national gallery in London

fiction

edward w pritchard

Another picture I saw at the national gallery on my trip to London was Titian's Pope Julius the second. It's hard for us in the era of near perfect media reproductions to appreciate Titian's genius in his rendering  of Pope Julius in his old age. Look at the picture on google images. It's worth five minutes of your time. Have you ever seen a more realistic picture? He lived and now he is gone. Who will immortalize me or you?

ps watch for another story of my trip to the London National gallery which includes a reference to my prurient  interest in  a recently deceased porn star . 

the Magdalen reading

the Magdalen reading

fiction

edward w pritchard

One of my favorite authors and pictures is "the Magdalen reading" by Rogier van der  Weyden at the National gallery in London. As a reader myself it's like the Platonic  form of Reading a book. How we take reading for granted. Over the last two thousand years since Mary Magdalen died how many persons could afford books before the invention of the printing press in Europe [ 1440 AD]. I saw the picture in London and I wouldn't take the money spent twenty five years ago on the trip to London to see the art among other things even if the money spent to fly to London and stay in expensive hotels could have grown at 12% interest and I now had the money stashed in my mattress .  I suppose I could certainly use the money however.  

Mary Magdalen is an interesting character.  Often  I wonder if there was any truth in the story of her and how many desperate woman in the past followed her profession because of circumstance. Currently I am reading "Crime and Punishment" by Dostoevsky and in chapter two Sonia the drunks daughter becomes a prostitute in St Petersburg Russia to escape abject poverty and a life with no way out. A similar situation in modern America would be Dakota Skye working as a porn star to survive. I wrote about Dakota Skye before and I surely wish  should Jesus have been around he could have rescued Dakota Skye although like others I took prurient interest from her work. 

I would venture that 40% of Americans are two months paychecks from poverty should they loose their job, social security and all government benefits cease and new jobs become unavailable for a year or two. Don't look down on people in the bottom third in America; taking a historical perspective poverty often  happens to people if they are lucky enough to live a longer life. Currently medical bills in America are spiraling at a uncontrollable rate. and The fabric of America ideals is tearing as more and more persons act in non accord with the Bill of rights, constitution and our inherited British system of order, the Rule of Law and fair play. 

In addition to reading to understand persons and places of the past I often look at great Art to study past civilizations and ideas and ideals of those before us. My hope for my grand children is that America will stop the worship of material things and follow something similar to early christian ideals concerning the purpose of our existence.  

woe to us bag holders

 woe to us bag holders

fiction

edward w pritchard

 

Horace the Roman said " anger is short madness. Today the bag holders that's us America citizens begin to understand that our economic system is a bit of a facade . 

Yesterday someone or something manipulated a miraculous turn around in the stock markets. Will markets be orderly over the next few months? Horace the Roman again wrote " Nil Desperandum". That's don't despair. As the song writer W.C. Handy said '"I hate to see the evening sun go down."

Me who can  only watch in confusion, it's all beyond my understanding at this point. Who can understand bit coins and the meta investments. I hope it doesn't hit my investments, that's a social security check each month. Seneca another Roman said " I was ship wrecked before I got aboard."

At times like these I pull out my copy of John Kenneth Galbraith's " the great crash [of} 1929" his little blue book about the October 1929 stock market crash that in about one month dropped the Times a convenient average of the general stock market back then 50% in four weeks. After, in the next month or two an investigation of how short sellers had wrecked the market was initiated and later shelved, to be looked at again during the prolonged great depression of the 1930's.  

Too much manipulation into markets is dangerous and un-American. Should the government intervene in markets to keep the merry go round turning faster and faster. As another Roman said " No one should be the Judge in his own case". Or as anonymous said " the greatest griefs are those we cause our selves". 

Admit it, aren't we all, us bag holders,  a bit of a voyeur at such times? Didn't P.J. O'Rourke say " Eat the Rich"? Nil Desperandum. 

raise high the roofbeams carpenters [ or workmen]

 raise high the roofbeams carpenters [ or workmen]

fiction

edward w pritchard

What was Sappho trying to say when she wrote [ raise high the roofbeams carpenters] . I don't know and Boo Boo at the wedding never explained it to me. Boo Boo Glass is [ JD Salinger's very minor female character]. Boo Boo references Sappho in a work of fiction. 

I  enjoy Sappho's poetry even if it's possible that a mere woman wasn't capable of such beautiful lyrics and it is unknown but possible that Alexander Pope didn't secretly write some of Sappho's  poems. But that would be an anachronism beyond a man's understanding. 

Some folks like to do home improvements and some men like to view all girl movies with occasional references to Sappho or Shakespeare to side step the supreme court case " memoirs of a woman of pleasure" v Massachusetts  I suppose. Obscenity is in the eye of the beholder perhaps. 

Live and let live. I like Author Miller's character, Charley's speech at Willie's demise after the main character Willie Loman passed where Charlie says  in "death of a salesman"... Willie was a salesman. And for a salesman there is no rock bottom to life. 

I was a salesman once. Nasty business. Hard to have faith in the future and all. Hard to do home improvements. All I can say is why did Sappho have to die and why can't we just live on and on or at least live on in our writings. Sappho was a great poet. I'll look her up in the by and by if it's not an imaginary place. Like Boo Boo is an imaginary character who gets all the references and nuances just right, like Alexander Pope, the diminutive hunchback.    

stock market foretells the future

 stock market foretells the future

fiction

edward w pritchard

Why wasn't CEO Trevor Milton jailed after he was indicted for fraud at Nikola the company that was going to have all the garbage trucks in the USA run on a secret energy source which turned out to be; "have all the garbage trucks get a push down hill and then run for a while on gravity until the hill ran out. "??

As they say in America " nothing succeeds like success." Speaking of the musical "nothing succeeds like success" I never saw the play but I often thought of the high school girl dancing about in their white boots scene. 

Rich Americans have been guilty of many civil atrocities in the stock market over the last fifteen years. Too bad they all were not just guilty of thinking of girls they used to know dancing about in mid calf white boots a long long time ago. 

Case in point the stock of Peliton the company which sold you a magic mirror which if you stood in  front of  it in your bedroom while you exercised then it would keep  you perpetually young . Peliton is  crashing now too and surprise all the executives over the last year legally sold off their shares just in the nick of time, a few weeks before the downgrades and realization by stock holders [ bag holders] that the venture was a chimera.  

Better at 2am to contemplate the  dance scene in " nothing succeeds like success I suppose. "America the beautiful and all. 

Stock markets about too crash again. Get out of the market for a while to shelter your precious funds. and don't do too many home improvement projects ; as the stock market goes so goes the housing market.

from the curmudgeon

 

ain't nobodies business if I do

 ain't nobodies business if I do

fiction

 at the bottom one calls Lord, lord lord

ain't nobodies business what I do

judge us not

the countries going to hell

and someday someone will write about the fall

get paid to read

 get paid to read

fiction

edward w pritchard

Of the 7 billion or so people in the world how many tonight are reading about Rome's first Punic War. Perhaps someone  could split up a certain amount of funds for being the only group to be reading about Rome's important Punic wars at this specific time.

Get paid to read. It could happen. It's sorta like investing in bit coins or the metaverse. Imaginary but getting paid in real money. We will take cash please. 

stretch yourself to understand

 stretch yourself to understand

fiction

edward w pritchard

Caveat- there is no money in this. Only understanding.

Reading " Christ stopped at Eboli by Carlo Levi helps me to understand Dante and his Inferno. You must concentrate and step outside yourself and your place in space where you abide. 

Read a little now and then, that's about it.