October 28, 2009 by Clair Button.

Oh, unkind fates! Oh, Evil spirits!
While plotting my own corporate raiding and pilfering strategies the other day, and while reading various and sundry economic predictions and pithy stock market blogs, I stumbled upon this incredible revelation, to wit:
“Apparently in light of recent developments, Cramer has shifted his perspective on Lockheed as of Monday night’s show.  Although Lockheed beat estimates, Cramer referred to it as a bad quarter and said that Lockheed is suffering from a priority shift at the Pentagon.”

That evil spirit, the contentious and either beloved or much reviled James “Jim” Cramer, the “Rill O’Beilly” of the CNBC network stock market show, “Mad Money,” dared to abandon the favored military industrial complex stock of the Ockham “Razor’s Edge” anonymous “staff” who wrote the article to which I had been lead by titillating internet linkages. These all-knowing lords of economic wisdom were quite justifiably outraged by Cramer’s callous abandonment of Lockheed’s military and economic prowess in favor of the less well endowed Northrop Grumman corporation, whose missiles were presumably fully extended already and not capable of further growth such as those of Lockheed. – Scumbag! How dare he? they raged.

“This is a clear reversal from his opinion of just two weeks prior, and it is his purgative to change his opinion as more evidence is made available.  While he may be right about the shifting priorities from the Pentagon, we are sure that Lockheed will not be caught unaware with no alternative course of action.  They will continue to compete for contracts same as they always have, and for now we are not overcome with concern for future sales.  From our perspective, he seems to have written off LMT for dead rather quickly (especially considering his bullishness two weeks ago).”

Fickle bullishness indeed! Scoundrel, I say!
Yet, despite being a stock market hobbyist and enthusiast, I find my literary leanings difficult to overcome when reading this kind of stuff.  I found myself compelled to sign in to the blog commentary with a short riposte:

“While it may be Cramer’s prerogative to take a purgative, it is a crappy choice. I just thought I would share that.”

Those scoundrels! Without even acknowledging or allowing my spontaneous quip to post, edited their own words. Oh, to be deprived of my one glorious moment of fame in the economic world. My visions of being cited and revered as a great sage like Warren Buffet were dashed once again.

As Monsieur Poirot was noted to say (on the famously literate Public Broadcasting show) “They have not the humbility.”

Clair Button occasionally posts a bit of questionable humor here.  Hope you have fun with it.

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August 8, 2009 by Clair Button.

East-side Oregonians have many traditions. Last week, we went out to participate in a local tradition, picking huckleberries. The following Tuesday, we intended to set off for the Oregon coast to escape the hundred degree heat of early August. This is also a tradition among the town-folk of eastern Oregon.

It did occur to me that it was my civic duty to wash the dust off of my eastern Oregon pickup truck before heading west. Huckleberry picking necessarily means going long distances on dusty gravel roads through the forest. No need to make those big city tourists think we east-siders are all slovenly low-lifers. So, I went to the local car wash, which luckily, happened to have a 50 gallon drum of “pre-wash” detergent and long-handled brushes to loosen up the dried bugs and what not before entering the high-tech automated spraying barn.

It was the “what not” part of the dried material on my east-side truck that turned out to be more of a problem than I had anticipated. You see, my east-side Oregon neighbors have other traditions. Like, at the end of July, the lowland range pastures are totally dried out, and it is time to either take the cattle to higher elevations, or put them on irrigated pasture for the rest of the summer. Over time, this has created the tradition of the “cattle drive.” For you non-east-siders, this does not mean you put old Bossy in the back seat of your car and take her out for a Sunday drive. Actually it means you do a round-up of four hundred or so nameless cows and push them out onto the highway on foot, or on hooves. You then trail behind them down the highway on horses (or more likely 4-wheelers now) for several miles with the help of a few border collie cowdogs while bewildered town-folk and smiling, pointing tourists try to figure out how to get through the whole mess and resume their high speed adventures into the forest without bumping number 432 in the butt or running over her frightened calf who witlessly dodges in front of their bumper every two minutes.

A cattle drive, while appearing somewhat haphazard and disorganized, is really not a mess. Given the difficulty of convincing the cows not to climb into the cars passing through their midst, it is a fairly well organized process. The mess is what the townfolk and tourists drive on, other than the actual pavement or gravel. It has a tendency to be semi-liquid at the time, loathsome olive-green in color, and fulsome in fresh, organic odor, if you know what I mean.

So, bring the tradition of huckleberry picking and cattle drives back to the car wash. I find that one long handled brush is insufficient to remove the dust and the mess, which together, have dried to an indistinguishable splattering of lumps on the side and underframe of my pickup truck. I take a second brush, and using both at once, discover that the lumpy dust on the side of my pickup becomes a slimy, green-brown mud that no amount of brushing will ever remove. The frame beneath the doors of the truck had significantly larger lumps of stuff, which when knocked apart, turn out to be only partially dried. The wheel-wells of my truck turn out to be indescribable – lucky for you.

Another customer pulls up behind me, waiting patiently for me to finish. Returning to the drum of ice-blue detergent pre-wash for the sixth time, I find it has turned a dark, muddy, green-brown, and smells more like a barn than detergent. Rinsing the brushes, I make one more attempt to wipe the smears of green from the side of my truck, but notice the detergent water now leaves an equally dubious film on the door panel, and it smells, well, rather bad.

Returning the brushes to the drum, I wave at the lady behind me and pray that she does not get out to use one of the brushes on her own car. I drive in to the automatic wash, thinking it was very smart of me to have paid extra for the “ultimate” wash. I knew it was going to take some serious spraying on the underbody to get my truck clean.

The soak-down cycle with more pre-wash detergent was understandably dingy as it dripped down the outside of my windows. The flashing light sign let me know the regular high-power wash cycle was going to help, and it did. But the rinse cycle still had a distinct olive tinge to it as it drained down off the roof. When the “clear protective coating” light came on, I had second thoughts about spending the extra money. I was thinking that might mean something like a coat of shellac that would permanently attach any remaining green residue to my nice truck. Not a happy thought at all.  However, the final rinse cycle did not obscure the outdoor sunlight with a fog of green, so I figured everything was going to be OK.

The blow-dry cycle did about as much good as a short popcorn fart. I hardly know why they bother. When I got out to use the old chamois skin to dry the truck, I was pleasantly surprised to see that it did not come away stained green, and the truck did have a nice burgundy gleam to it, fairly similar to the original paint-job. However, I did notice the seams around the wheel wells still had some dark green material packed into them. I avoided those.

It was on the trip over the Cascades when we finally found some real rain. I mean, it rained hard for a little while, nothing like that 20 percent chance rain that they keep promising us out in the eastern hinterlands. We happened to stop at a little rest area on the west side of the mountains as we headed down toward the coast, and walking back to the truck, I noticed some very distinct dark olive green racing stripes on the side of my truck. All that west-side rain had loosened up some of that indescribable stuff from the inside of my wheel wells.

Oddly, the olive color didn’t look that bad against the burgundy paint, as long as you didn’t look close enough to see the fibrous nature of the basic material, now welded to the side of my truck with green slime infused with shellac. “Wow, that is a cool paint job with those dark racing stripes,” an escapee from a Salem nuthouse said.

“Yeah,” I replied. “I paid extra for that.”  Funny how those old traditional things are still so popular that even the city folk like them.

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March 15, 2009 by Dave Rama.

There is a quote that goes something like:  “Satan, get thee behind me.”  That may be imprecisely quoted, but it refers to our ability to resist temptation.  A quick review of public figures and ministers may suggest that Satan is still out front, and resistance is low.

The press has reacted with a good deal of moral outrage that the Governor of Illinois has been accused of offering to sell a seat in the United States Senate.  I agree that the Governor has performed a stupid, and probably criminal, act.  The media, of course, also sells elected offices through advertising.  Typically, the candidate who spends the most on advertising wins the election.  The difference is the media offers no guarantee of getting elected, whereas the Governor was going to provide a definite Senatorial position in return for the candidate’s dollars.  Perhaps the media does not like competition.

Truly, neither major political party is holier than the other, because corruption is widespread in both cases.  Usually, the evildoers are caught with one or both hands in the cookie jar, grabbing the money, like the Governor of Illinois, or the Representatives in the House taking bribes from the lobbyists.

The other issue that catches officials with their pants down is they get caught with their pants down.  Sexual indiscretions from the Governor of New York, Presidents Clinton and Kennedy, Senator Hart of Colorado, and former Presidential candidate John Edwards reveal the temptations of available women, of which there is an apparently endless supply.  In our neighboring state of Idaho, there is a slight twist to the longings of Senator Craig, who paraphrased a musical line from Lawrence Welk, “You Set My Foot to Tapping.”  Politicians in Oregon are not necessarily good with temptation, either.  It takes no time at all to recall the sexual harassments offered by Senator Packwood, the Gubernatorial desires for babysitters from Neil Goldschmidt, and the newly elected Mayor of our largest  city, who enjoys kissing teenage boys, but keeps his baser instincts in check until they turn eighteen.

The only group that remains to set a good example for we poor, benighted heathen is conservative religious  leaders like Jim Bakker, Jimmy Swaggert, and Ted Haggard, who have collaborated on an exciting new book, called “Ministers Do More Than Lay People.”  The Catholic brand of Christianity offers their own set of problems, notably the existence of pedophilia in some members of the clergy.  There is a group of religious writers afoot who express how disturbed and saddened they are at the fact that there is declining church membership in both Europe and the  United States.  Gee, I wonder why that is.

I am what my children call “old school.”  At least, I think that is what they’re saying.  I don’t hear everything plainly, so they might be saying “old fool.”  In either event, I am old enough to remember when elected officials and ministers had at least a modicum of character and morality.  Those two diseases have apparently been cured.

Dave Rama, writing on the Ides of March.

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March 14, 2009 by Dave Rama.

I wish to annoounce the completion of my sixty-fifth annual trip around the sun.   This milestone made me notice the significant landmarks being celebrated this month.  On the twelfth of February, we note that it has been two hundred years since the birth of Abraham Lincoln.   Also on the twelfth, we can note that the NAACP turned 100 years old.  On the fourteenth of February, comes St. Valentine’s Day, a landmark for lovers and elementary school students, a date set aside for remembering love.  The fourteenth is also the date that marks the existence of the state of Oregon for a sprightly one hundred fifty years.  Despite the fact that I share a birth month with Oregon, there is no truth to the idle talk that I was an eyewitness to statehood.

In this month we also recognize President’s Day,Groundhog Day, the Daytona 500, and the day we clean out the woodburning stove, Ash Wednesday.  We should also remember the birthday of George Washington in February, on either the eleventh or the twenty-second.  A new and improved calendar  came into use during George’s lifetime.  He was born on the twenty-second, but if he had been born on the new calendar, his birthday would have been the eleventh.  That is a fact from my store of trivial information that is difficult to work into the conversation.

Those born in late January and early February are said to be born under the sign of Aquarius,  If you translate the months from English back to Latin, you get Januarius and Februarius, and then things will rhyme.  There is a term in astrology called the age of Aquarius which refers to a spiritual awakening, and age of brotherhood.  I think most of us would like to live in this period.  As food for thought for you true believers, the cusp of the aquarian sign is January 20th.  That is correct-Inauguration Day.

I found slightly more than 200,000 websites to answer any question that came to mind about the topic of astrology.  I learned astrology is very big on the use of adjectives.  The positives read very much like the Boy Scout Law–friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent.  Aquarians are identified as practicers of practical idealism, which sounds like an oxymoron.  My favorite description, though, was ethereal.  The term sent me to Webster’s to learn it means airy.  Also tenuous and delicate.  I have been called a lot of things in my life,  but never delicate, and only rarely has anyone suggested I might be airy.  When I applied these words to Abe and George, I fail to discern their ethereal side either.  Far be it from me to contradict an astrologer, but I can’t see anyone referring to George Washington as airy.  The website did say Aquarians have a DARK side, harboring characteristics like fanatical eccentricity, wayward egotism, and TEMPER in capital letters.

I would like to reinforce the point that February is a bland month by pointing out that the single most entertaining television event of the month is the Westminster Kennel Club dog show.  Enjoy!!

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March 14, 2009 by Dave Rama.

The world is a colorful and beautiful place. I have experienced an assortment of colors in the places we have lived over the years. In the Great Plains, you get to see that great dome of sky unequaled anywhere, with the shifting shades of blue, and the brilliant colors of God’s light show when the thunderstorms blossom. We have lived in Iowa, where the summer green of the cornfields is muted by the humid haze, and in the fall, the changing leaves of the hardwoods generate great calendar pictures. We have lived in the Southwest,where the earth tones are spectacular, and you get the electric flash of turquoise jewelry which is so commonly worn by men, women, and children. The gem’s brilliance creates its own definition of blue. During our time in the southwest, we lived in the southern reaches of the Rocky Mountains. Thirteen thousand foot peaks give a special meaning to “purple mountain’s majesty.”

We are currently settled in the high desert of eastern Oregon. Here we gaze upon tall brown hills, with ranges of deep blue mountains in our line of sight, and various shades of green and gray in the sagebrush. The pine forests lend their own verdant colors, and in autumn, there is the contrasting yellow of the Western Larch. The summer sky here is a milky shade of blue on the best of sunny days, with haze caused by high atmospheric pressure and the occasional forest fire.

This January we are experiencing a phenomenon that was not common in any of our previous homes, but is a regular wintertime occurence here-an inversion. An inversion occurs when warm air rides up over the top of cold air and holds it in place. There are two results. One is that foggy conditions occur. In a world that uses the term High Definition to excess, the fog takes the edge off any structure, blurs the line of sight, and causes some items to disappear completely. The fog also causes hoarfrost to form on every available weed, tree, and power line. If that is not enough, we saw a small group of deer breakfasting on the neighbor’s lawn, and they were frosted from antler tine to tail. The effect of the hoarfrost, for the first day or two, is to cause people to grab their cameras and start snapping pictures, because the scene is one of God’s truly dazzling works. The second effect happens when an inversion lasts more than two or three days. Because the fog is everywhere, the world no longer seems to be in color. Winter appears to be in living black and white.

People fall into two distinct groups regarding this weather situation. One group of folks, like me, get crabby and owly and are not much fun to be around until the sun returns, which it always does. The other group sets forth a cheerful philosophy which is “You don’t have to shovel the fog.” My wife falls in that category. In an attempt to save the cheerful from the crabs, we should all join hands and sing, “Heaven Help Us, It’s an Uncloudy day.” If, as some proclaim, God could send us a Son, surely it would be a small matter to send us some sun. A toast to all who are willing to share their warmth and brilliance. Here’s to you, sunshine!

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