Brexit is not a cut of beef

Brexit is not a cut of beef

There is a lot of talk about Brexit lately. Nay downright panic. Indeed it went from odd talking point to screaming headline faster than the wind can blow a kilt up (whether I do or do not have personal experience with wind and kilts is inconsequential to the point at hand). With screaming headlines came the inevitable 24 hour news analysis. All of which was arguably frightening and I don’t know about you, but when I have money on the line I do not like frightening. I prefer calm with both wind and kilts and events and money- but we can’t always have what we want can we?

To that end it is worth keeping in mind a few things in order to maintain perspective. First off, those that favor kilts voted to stay in the EU. They seem to really, really want the rest of us to know that. Second there is one driving force in play here that will remain a driving force in play regardless of what the secret, black and midnight governments are doing with their political cauldrons, Macbeth. That force is trade.

Despite what the pundits are telling us Great Britain is not going to suddenly and tragically fall off the map, an international pariah relegated to fending off Viking raids. No. Trade will carry on. Even trade with Europe- especially with Europe. The Chunnel wasn’t built so the French could summer in Glasgow, the allure of fashionable summer kilts notwithstanding. It was built for trade and whether Great Britain is part of the EU or not that trade is going to continue. The East End is going to keep doing what ports do. Heathrow is going to keep accepting planes.

There will be movement. There will be business. There will be supply and demand. There will be trade. The current horror your portfolio is being subjected to will pass and steady because trade will continue and it remains profitable to trade between Europe and Great Britain. All that Brexit has really done has made trade between Europe and Great Britain a little harder, sort of like kilts make going out in public a little harder. Oh sure you could wear pants and have a go of it, but kilts will work just fine. Mind the wind.

The Lord's Name Not in Vain

I have my quirks. One of them is I use the Lord's name in "vain" a lot---or rather I am accused of using His name in vain.


Allow me to clear the record: I don't use the Lord's name in vain. Nope. Not at all. Each time it escapes my lips it is aimed. Targeted. Pointed directly in desperate prayer at the object or event of my frustration that it may be destroyed, thwarted, reinstalled, redirected, unmade. There is nothing vain about it. For instance when a spider jumps at me, a hammer drops onto my foot, or a drunken fool swerves into my lane, I am known to launch into one or two various colorful renderings of His mighty name, and there is in that moment of intense "prayer" the implicit understanding between me and God that what I mean is: Look Lord! There it is Lord! May all the righteous fury of creation rend this offensive thing and remove it from the face of the Earth.There is the thing that is unholy and of the devil and must be smitten! Smite it! Smite! That is not in vain. It is very much meant in the most spiritually productive of ways. I am beseeching the God of Creation in all sincerity for redress of the wrongs imposed upon me by His creation and I acknowledge with great humility that He is the final arbiter of the refund which I seek, that being the reason I call upon Him in such a stressful manner.


It never works.


Karma on the other hand does seem to make an appearance every now and then. Perhaps the Buddhists are on to something. Don't smite me. For *&^ &^%$!

Politicians Are Tools

People get fired up over politics. That is a behavior as old as the hills and I accept it. I laugh at it, however, and the reason why is because it seems to me people are getting fired up over nails and saws, drills and augers, hammers and plungers. Allow me to explain:

What I really think politically is that one size does not fit all. One party platform is not the answer to every problem. I don't think you can apply one political approach to every issue and come away successful every time. Different problems take different solutions and no one has a monopoly on those solutions. Sometimes one group has got it. Sometimes another group. Sometimes neither one.


If I put my support behind one size fits all every time then I am limiting myself and I am limiting my success. I understand why political parties form and I understand why there are different political ideologies, but to fight like cats and dogs over these things to the exclusion of getting things done is unfortunate.


Personal solutions aren't by nature politically oriented things. Neither is personal life. I don't walk around the grocery store thinking I need to shop libertarian. I don't put on my clothes like a conservative. I don't play with my children like a socialist. I don't live politics, because most of the time I don't need them to tackle the normal every day problems of my life.


I see politics as something useful to tackle things too large for personal solutions. Politics is an artificial construct created to organize like minded people into managing problems too large for any one person. That's good. It's a good tool for that. In any job, however, if the tool isn't working you use another one and that is how politics should be approached.


If you ask me to pick a political side simply to label me on a political side I'll tell you you are using the tool of politics the wrong way. On the other hand if you tell me there is a problem and this side has this solution I will tell you I either agree or I don't. I try to get behind good solutions to problems I care about, not over arching political ideologies. That may make me seem politically wishy washy and as far as supporting one ideology or the other, I am. I'm not focused on the party however. I am focused on the best way to get a lot of people to get together to solve big problems. That's what politics is for.


Well that and taking over the world, but that's another problem. Next week: when politics tries to take over the world and 7 sugar free recipes for Fall family fun! Plus I'll knit a sweater! In the closet. Sugar free.

Cha ching

Smoking is kind of dumb. It's been around a long time. A long time indeed. Oh sure people think they've gone and shut the whole industry down and made things smoke free, and for the most part they have. Compare smoking in the 2010's to smoking in the 1970's. Big difference. But dumb carries on and smoking right along with it.


Revenge is kind of dumb too. It's been around a long time as well. A long time indeed. For the most part duels and such have ended and good riddance. Yet how many Alexander Hamiltons and Evariste Galois did we have to kill in order to end that foolishness? But dumb carries on and revenge right along with it.


When smoking and revenge intersect dumb sets up shop and sells to both of them. I know because I stand at that intersection and can testify. Now if smokers are dumb and those set on revenge are dumb and I don't smoke then I must be the latter. Yes, I do have frequent need of revenge against smokers and therefore accept my own particular brand of stupid in this matter. Allow me to explain. You see, I have found a simple form of revenge against bad smokers that I am not necessarily proud of, yet which makes me so undeniably satisfied I think it may be genius: I invest in tobacco companies.


That's right. I am an activist investor. No not that kind. I long ago realized that trying to buy up a controlling number of shares to change a company will not actually change the world, regardless of what George Soros thinks, bless his little heart. No, I am the kind of investor that derives great satisfaction in bringing my knowledge of investing to bear against the numbskulls that cause me and everyone else so much angst out in public. I'm not talking about polite smokers. They're fine. God bless em! I have no problem with them.You guys care about other people. You get it. Smoke and enjoy my friends!


No, I am talking about the impolite smokers. We all know the type: young, stupid, think the whole world is against them, just smoking in the parking lot between stints in jail or juvenile. Or worse the older ones that ought to know better, but for whatever reason think tattoos, menthols, and sagging cleavage make them look cool at age 60.Young and old, they smoke in front of the doors at Target. They blow smoke on you and your baby as you walk by. They get off the train and light up right on the platform, smoking laws and second hand smoke be damned. You know what they are thinking, and it isn't nice. You ignore them or you confront them. Either way there isn't much satisfaction in it.


However, I have found a solution to them that is better than either ignoring them or confronting them. It brings me satisfaction. Since they insist on blowing their smoke in my face I simply smile big, and think to myself CHA CHING! Thank you for paying me for your idiocy and rudeness. I appreciate it. Your dumb habit puts money into my pocket in the form of quarterly dividends and long term share appreciation. Thank you for smoking you Neanderthal.


Yes I know. It's not very nice of me. Or ethical. But it is revenge. Revenge for their particular drag on me and society at large. Revenge for the asinine way they live and the way they force me to partake of it anytime we come in contact. Cha ching captain idiot. I hope you get a clue sometime, but until you do cha ching. Cha ching. Cha ching. Cha ching.


It changes nothing really, but it makes me feel better about them. The dregs of society. Always there dregging around or whatever it is they do between muggings. Mugging us on the street. Mugging our taxes. Mugging our nation. Big tobacco allows us to mug them back almost to a man. I'm not sure what that says about corporations, or society, or me, but when I desperately need a way to respond to the moron in leather laughing at me and smoking in my children's' faces I gotta tell ya, hardly anything beats it. It is beautifully, wickedly satisfying revenge. I accept my stupidity in this matter. Cha ching.

Christmas Cards in July

It's almost Christmas time and what better way to celebrate the commercial Christmas creep than by getting your Christmas cards in order! In Summer. This is something I never do. Not even in November.


Don't get me wrong. I mean to send out Christmas cards. I painstakingly arrange address lists. I check them once. I check them twice. I decide which people I know are naughty or nice. Because, you know, Santa Claus. He's coming to town. I even buy stamps. That's usually as far as I get.


The next step involves buying cards, addressing envelopes, licking them and sending them. Let's ignore the fact that America was made aware of the dangers of licking too many envelopes by the good folks at Seinfeld a few years back. I mean that's bad enough. Instead let's focus on buying cards.


Once upon a time in my Texas high school art class the teacher informed us that we the students, would be designing the school district's Christmas card for the year. It had to be indicative of rural Texas. It had to be religiously and culturally benign (since Christmas is all about religious and cultural benignedness....), and it had to showcase the talent of the students in the district. Fair enough.


I set about drawing up a nice card with candles on it. Nice candles. Pretty candles. The kind of candles Yankee Candle later made into a thriving business. I worked hard.

A week later the entries were all in and the administration had flat out denied all offerings. The teacher was incensed. Christmas potpourri incensed! I distinctly remember her sitting on her desk and going through each card and berating us for not stepping it up. Most of the cards earned a nope. No. Not even! They didn't even look at this one! Nada. My card earned a "they considered this one but discarded it as not enough what they were looking for". They being the grinches on the board.


Eventually my art teacher got one of the senior students to come up with a nice bucolic rural Texas scene of a dilapidated barn. It wasn't even covered in snow. Merry Christmas. Err Happy Holidays. Joyous whatever.


As a result of this "trauma" I have a hard time picking out Christmas cards. Do I get the beautiful ones with the Star of Bethlehem shining down on poor Mary sitting on a camel? How about that nice one with the Chistmas Tree all lit up and covered in bugles? I like the pastoral scenes of sleds dashing through the snow and children walking with their dog though Old Man Witherby's nicely manicured snow lawn in fictional New England/Wisconsin/Minnesota. Those are nice. Grandma Moses meets Thomas Kinkade and they all have hot chocolate and sing carols. Seasonal!


But here I am pawing through the offerings in my local Target getting in the way of young mother's and excited kids and I can't find anything with a rural Texas barn sans snow on it. What I am thinking is, sure! This Christmasy gobbedly gook is all well and fine for a major American retailer but not fine enough for a tiny Texas town in the 80's??? I'll show you! Grinch! Scrooge! Bah! Humbug! grrr ahhh!!! I might have been foaming at the mouth. There might have been some ripping and such. Some say a nice ornament display got knocked over. There are some kids that might have been alarmed and a baby might have cried.


In the end I was on my knees in front of a plastic manger with the remains of Christmas cards and wrapping paper everywhere. Some poor lady was comforting her baby. Her husband was helping me up. He was wearing a hoodie. I thanked him, backed awkwardly into a plastic camel, and gave him the package of mints I had meant to buy. He told me the checkout counter was a mad house. No room at the registers. Then the scene cleared and I woke up.


I didn't buy any cards last year. Post Traumatic Seasonal Adolescence Memory Disorder. Maybe I'll try again next year. Online. You can't shoot your eye out online can you?

My Hovercraft is Full of Eels

Recently the Welsh government was asked some serious questions about UFOs and what they intended to do about them and they answered as brilliantly as anyone could possibly imagine: in Klingon.

http://www.newsweek.com/welsh-government-replies-klingon-serious-ufo-questions-353619


There are several things that spring to mind from this exchange:


1. I wasn't aware that there were serious UFO questions. I mean I hold out the possibility of there being such questions, but until they start getting asked seriously by serious people that practice serious personal hygiene and have serious jobs it's hard to fall in line behind the idea. Seriously.


2. I wasn't aware that there were any members of the Welsh government that knew Klingon. It is an astounding thing. Then you begin looking into the Welsh language and you realize maybe this isn't such a stretch after all. Klingon must be easy to learn in comparison. The Welsh probably wake up every day thinking, "I know Welsh! Nothing worse could possibly happen to me for the rest of the day!" eich bod yn croesawu!  (Welsh for you're welcome!).


3. The Welsh have an excellent sense of humor. Who knew? Not Edward I, but then he was busy conquering them.

4. Klingons do NOT have an excellent sense of humor as all trekkies know.  quay'be' (Klingon for you're welcome!).

Now I personally do not know Klingon. Or Welsh. I have not translated either of these two excellent devices of torture into a helpful phrase such as "My Hovercraft is Full of Eels." (Monty Python started it. Don't blame me!). What I know is I can look it up on the internet, which is arguably more handy. Unless you're in Wales. Or a Star Trek convention. Although come to think of it, having the ability to look things up on the internet at such venues is still arguably more handy than knowing either Welsh or Klingon.

I digress, however. The main thing I wish to point out is that this is the first time an official government correspondence has been made in Wales, in Klingon. Frankly I would think that it is the first time an official government correspondence has been made in Klingon anywhere on the planet. This planet.

It gives me hope. I expect next we will be hearing a government official somewhere respond to a line of questioning in Cardassian. The Kardashians don't count. They're Klingons.

Gardening at Night

I am considering using reverse psychology on my lawn. It works on kids. I bet it works on grass too. The thing is my grass, much like my kids, won't do what it is supposed to do -like grow lush and green in the lawn. Witness the brown spots, the yellow wilted places, the vast swaths given over to dandelions and clover. But boy oh boy howdy! will it sprout enthusiastically anywhere I don't need grass! Like the flowerbed, or the window well, or the driveway covered completely in three inch concrete.

I walk out of my house and am greeted with the prospect of mowing my driveway. I go to weed the flowerbeds and find foot high grass happily choking out the alyssum. I don't know whether to weed whack, trim, or run about dropping fertilizer and exclaiming in a cheery plaid shirted bearded Scottish accent "Fedd yor lawn! FEDD IT!"


So, to that end I am considering torching the lawn and installing concrete. For the driveway I will mow and mulch and lovingly apply lawn feed. I figure within a few months the grass won't know where it is supposed to grow. There will be a time of great instability. For seven watering cycles famine will reign in Egypt and all that groweth green and leafy will weep and wail and perish under the wrath of a displeased God! (Smite yor lawn! SMITE IT! Muahahahahahah) Then lo! There will be a space of stillness in the yard. And it shall come to pass that they who were once green and haughty and did refuse to grow in the lush land which I did give unto them shall bow down and be humbled, and I will have mercy on them and allow them to find rest and pasture in the new land which I have prepared, yea even a land of milk and nitrogen, yea even a land of promise -as in if you do not grow green and leafy here I promise I will destroy you!

If that doesn't work then I got nothing. The wreck of my pathetic yard will be the cautionary tale of the neighborhood. It will become a hiss and a byword. People will shuffle by it silently on their morning jog averting their eyes. They will cross the street when they walk by with their children. Look honey! That's where Mr. Dobson destroyed his lawn! We don't want to be like Mr. Dobson do we? No Mommy we don't!

I might try gardening at night where no one can see me. As long as no one thinks I am burying bodies or something. Awkward. How hard is it to dig through concrete anyway?