A Deathbed Scene

Imagine a cinematic deathbed scene with friends and loved ones gathered around. The dying person asks: "Can I check Facebook one more time?"; and is given a laptop, and types: "... is shuffling off this mortal coil." Eyes then close for the last time.

Church You Can Believe In

Rumor has it that on Sunday, October 3rd, Christine O'Donnell is going to suspend her campaign for the Delaware senate seat for one day so that she can appear at this Gnostic Mass and lead the gospel choir in a spirited rendition of "Satan Is Just All Right With Me".

"The Islamic Community Center Should Be Built Because:" -- "I Miss J-Lo's Butt!!"

Limitless

"Nothing frightens me more/Than religion at my door..."

- John Cale ("Hanky Panky Nohow")

A Family of Blobs

The image features the face of Benito Mussolini set against the backdrop of the Twin Towers.

No Masque

This was, I believe, penned by a student who majored in formal logic and minored in spelling at Glen Beck "University". Although, who knows, given the location -- a building site on the corner of 4th Avenue and 10th Street -- it could have been done by an NYU student. What I suppose he -- I'm guessing it's a "he" -- doesn't know is that the art of the masque died out after the Puritans closed the London theaters in 1642, and had been in decline since arguably the greatest practitioner in the English-speaking world, Sir Philip Sidney, died in 1586.

Invest Your Own Fucking Money!

The title of this posting is the title of another one of my blogs. That blog, which I plan to revive, has been inactive since last November. It's purpose is to provide information about the financial markets to people who want to rely on themselves rather than brokers or other financial advisors when making investment decisions.

I put together the reading list below for a twenty-five year old acquaintance who wants to learn about finance and economics.

These two books will provide you with a historical background:

The Drunkard’s Walk (Leonard Mlodinow)

Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk (Peter Bernstein)

This one is an enjoyable comic novel:

A Tenured Professor (John Kenneth Galbraith)

These four will explain about how different segments of the markets crashed and burned (or didn’t) over different portions of the past twenty-five years:

The Myth of the Rational Market (Justin Fox)

Mr. Market Miscalculates (James Grant)

Fooled By Randomness (Nicholas Nassim Taleb)

The Black Swan (Nicholas Nassim Taleb)

This is a left-wing critique (which I rather like) that explains how so many American corporations become the unfortunate creatures they are today:

One Market Under God: Extreme Capitalism, Market Populism, and the End of Economic Democracy (Thomas Frank)

And this is a novel from the 1970s by (in my opinion) the greatest American novelist of the 20^th century; it’s about a 9-year old boy who puts together a huge industrial conglomerate:

JR (William Gaddis)