Tax-Day Bummer gone? Awesome! Here's CPA David Walker with his Bigger, Better Bummer for y'all.

Chronicle of a journey from youthful
know-it-all to old-fart astonishment.

Glass half-full Shrinks, of which I am one, NEVER EVER "bum out" Clients or Readers! Got it? Not for nothing are we key players in what most of us and a few of y'all call the Helping Professions. Not that I ever said it with a straight-face in 37-years. But all fields have blemishes to mar the careful gloss. It's too late in life to "front,"so lemme say it now: Ron and Nancy made ME feel good!

It may not have been for the same reasons most of America felt good and the times mighta been shorter - LOTS shorter to be truthful - but I liked seeing my late, great dad take his final foreign trip [to Cuba, where else?] and make back probably all the money and more playing the Reaganomic stock market
that he'd lost back in 1929. I'm an only kid, like you couldn't tell, but I truly had no eyes to inherit his dough. Dad was aces, worked his ass off and my dream was him kicking, age 104, leaving total assets of $1.73. Nothing succeeds as as planned.

To come outta Economic DisneyLand once he died in 1988 took a
now-disbarred lady lawyer from Fairfax High, dumb-luck, her ripping off a deaf couple for another $109K and four years. Undeterred, she enrolled at USC and got her Ph.D. in Deaf-Studies. She has since sued a deaf graduate student from another school whose M.A. Thesis on her unfactual and plagiarized Doctoral Dissertation annoyed and embarrassed USC's Graduate School considerably. Some other time, if ever, for this One Woman Crime Wave. Back to David Walker, CPA.

Walker is a good deal more than just another CPA. More to the point he was Comptroller General of the United States until March 12, 2008 Walker didn't resign in order to "spend more time with my family" as did, say, Alberto Gonzales. But Alberto never told Chancellor Cheney much less going on tour of the country to tell anyone who would listen the USA is now $50-trillion [FIFTY-TRILLION DOLLARS] in debt and that's increasing by $3-trillion each year and unless we address it now we're SUNK! But that was after Walker testified before both Senate and House Finance Committee telling the new Democratic majorities the same thing. ONLY NOBODY WAS LISTENING! Paul O'Neill, this White House's Den of Thieves first Treasury Secretary, wrote that when he said something like Walker said, the Chancellor snarled: "Reagan said deficits don't matter!" Walker, exasperated that neither Dems nor GOPs were, are or will be receptive to his message: MEDICARE ENTITLEMENTS ARE MORE DANGEROUS TO THIS COUNTRY THAN OSAMA EVER THOUGHT OF BEING. resigned. Is it true that Americans can't handle the truth? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9FuOXdPtrA&feature=related
Several weeks ago Medicare bought me a new Power Wheelchair. Less than a week ago, Medicare delivered and installed a brand-new Electric Hospital Bed in my home. Are both nice? Bet on it! Could I do without both? Bet on that too! I'm a healthy, tolerably rugged guy, 70 years and Cerebral Palsy not withstanding - and damned fortunate to boot. My previous power-chair is battered but FIXABLE. A Lamborghini bed? Been sleeping great on one of the old beds the twins had as teeny kids. Years ago, me and a buddy hopped the same freight-train Jack Kerouc wrote of in "On The Road." Why? Because we could. The future Dr. Bawb fell asleep on a damn flat-car! Like Walker, though the comparative scale is microscopic in my case, no one listened to my :"I don't need a new chair" It equaled "Low self-esteem." My ass and M.C. Rove's face! Still it's merciful not all 70-year olds, disabled or not, are like me. OTOH U.S. wretched excess is stunning. I don't keep good records but people like David Walker do. It's their Job Description. Here's who Walker works for. Check out the YouTubes on it and DON'T call a Shrink in morning.

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June 27, 2008 by Sarah Williams and Erica Matthews
While most people understand that we have an aging population, the magnitude of the challenge this poses is not as widely understood. PerotCharts puts it into perspective: By 2040, the number of people who are over 65 will have...
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Empowering the Next PresidentApril 2, 2008What if President William Howard Taft and his Congress had written laws that specified how all the government's revenues at the beginning of the 21st century were to be spent? Preposterous? Well, the laws on the books today not only dictate how all revenues collected in 2030 and beyond will be spent, they also predetermine most of the next president's spending.
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In Late-Breaking Brachial-Chop News...

Chronicle of a journey from youthful
know-it-all to old-fart astonishment.

My friend Joe O'Shaugnessy, a Chicago cop, is teaching a move I'd give... well, not years off my life to master. In my own, or anyone elses, 70th year that offer becomes sure fire Point-and-Laugh material. Joe went to New Orleans immediately following Katrina to help out. These days he and his family return to work with Habitat For Humanity as did
one former Prez and one Prez hopeful. No names please. Because, as still another former Prez put it: "That would be WRONG!"

Joe writes that he "lives for this [Brachial-Chop move]." 35-years of mostly South Central LA Shrinkery plus CA-mandated
Continuing Ed. courses suggests to me that a Happy Teacher is a Good Teacher. Living far from "ChicagoLand," not having been there in decades plus being well disposed towards Joe and his family I've not personally seen his methods. I'm an emperical kinda Shrink
and got tout-suite fed-effing-up with the Carriage-Trade's "I KNOW my problem now, Doctor! And that's half the battle, right?" > and so moodied on back forever to the 'hood. Joe's Blog is http://sprawlingramshacklecompound.blogspot.com/2006/06/i-never-get-tired-of-this.html Anyway here's that move as done elsewhere:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoDG3k5cPZw

Enough to make an ancient By-His-Fingernails Jew-Boy muse on a Faustian Bargain http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0016847/mediaindex

Let's Look At The "Good Side" Of Natural Disasters and Genocides.

Chronicle of a journey from youthful
know-it-all to old-fart astonishment.

Lady Bird Johnson's monument as First Lady is, or was, making the national highway system more scenic. Former First Lady, now First Mother, Barbara Bush told America`about the good side of Hurricaine Katrina for refugees from New Orleans' Ward Nine who then were huddled in the Houston SuperDome. Mike Kelly of Arcata, CA, took the unretouched picture [above] of the Lavendar Sun which would be impossible without the vast forest fires blazing away now in Northern CA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0FT3OtmbZc&feature=related AND http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yV8vcpMPPPA&NR=1 AND http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/individual.php?db_date=2008-06-29
Readers of this Blawg know Dr. Bawb as a Half-Full Glass kinda Shrink - to which label: "Damn straight I be!" The great Satchel Paige's rule [one of them] is equally, if not more, of use: "Never look back. Something might be gaining on you!" This applauds Kevin Phillips' "American Dynasty" and refutes InterNet rumors that Barbara Bush's father was Aleister Crowley. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satchel_Paige
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleister_Crowley

"What I'm hearing which is sort of scary is that they all want to stay in Texas. Everybody is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the area here, you know, were underpriviliged anyway so [CHUCKLE] this is working out very well for them." Sept 5, 2005

Sail on, sail on, Great Mother of State! say I in paraphrase of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's immortal poem. Before being overcome by desire to paraphrase the best line in the unintentionally funniest flick ever, "Youngblood Hawke" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058764/
and ask aloud: "Should we call you 'Longy' or 'Bloody'?" here are Longfellow's exact words. Laissaz bon temps roulez!


O Ship of State

Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State! Sail on, O Union, strong and great! Humanity with all its fears, With all the hopes of future years, Is hanging breathless on thy fate! We know what Master laid thy keel, What Workmen wrought thy ribs of steel, Who made each mast, and sail, and rope, What anvils rang, what hammers beat, In what a forge and what a heat Were shaped the anchors of thy hope! Fear not each sudden sound and shock, 'Tis of the wave and not the rock; 'Tis but the flapping of the sail, And not a rent made by the gale! In spite of rock and tempest's roar, In spite of false lights on the shore, Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea! Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee. Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears, Our faith triumphant o'er our fears, Are all with thee, -are all with thee! Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

News From The "Who Cares?" Desk: A Barely-Known Good Flick

Chronicle of a journey from youthful
know-it-all to old-fart astonishment.

That's unsolved-murder writer James Ellroy on the right, looking like he does in "James Ellroy's Feast of Death" which I saw last night after severing my last tie to the Democratic Party ["WHAT!" you say. "Quit now when there's real hope on the way?" Exactly, and this too shall be shortly explained].

I've read five or six Ellroy books, saw the quite good "LA Confidential" when it came out a few years ago. "Blood Feast" was a pleasant surprise. It's a documentary about Ellroy's life, generally based upon "My Dark Places," his autobiography. Turns out Ellroy and Dr. Bawb not only went to the same high-school, Fairfax in L.A. but also to "JB" - aka John Burroughs Junior High though I was about nine-years ahead of Ellroy.

Ah, yes: "With honor and service, our watch-words now to thee/ True to your colors, our hearts will ever be!/Fairest and dearest, John Burroughs Junior High!" went the final chorus of that three-year horror school's Alma mater.
Out of a student body of 2000, all with Raging Hormones, I was the Lone Spastic. Further my chainsaw stutter theatened to drown in a near-drooling 24/7/365 state of grimacing muteness. Bad eh? Ellroy's three years TKO's mine two-minutes into Round One: A year before "JB," the body of his mother a nurse and enthusiastic Bar Fly was found raped, strangled and partially dismembered by some Little Leaguers. The "perp" remains unknown through today. Mazel tov, Jim! Your JB story kicks the crap outta mine. No wonder you're weirder than I ever thought of being. No wonder you wrote the hell outta the 1947 Elizabeth Short Black Dahlia case. Which, until I saw you and a half-dozen of your buddies of the LAPD murder police kicking back at the Pacific Dining Car, one of LA's truly great steak houses [The "Baseball Steak" above], also remained unsolved. Omitted forgiveably from the movie version of your Auto-Bio "My Dark Places" was your shrewd plan to get expelled from then-mostly Jewish Fairfax High by wearing a Swastika arm-band. Nothing personal: My dad showed up to face down Fairfax's then-Principal, a fine broth of a Jew-hater, who refused to seat Weird Young Me on the Student Council. No one messed with my pissed-off dad! We do what we gotta do. That Swastika shtick coulda got you what you wanted anywhere. Good show! Again, as one Weirdo to another, Mazel tov!

In truth, my admiration of Ellroy goes much further than his splendid plotting and writing. Spend a long enough time in the Shrink dodge and one wonders [at least I do] how a kid as bleeped-up as Ellroy was can [A] Survive and [B] Become, then sustain, productiveness on his/her own terms. One need not "approve" of the manner and style of those who emerge intact from unspeakable beginnings. Given my "druthers," I prefer never to meet James Ellroy. I've had my fill of Ellroy's "mannerism wannabes." "Real articles" remind me of catastrophes I've dodged and how it otherwise could have been. He and I are fortunate.

In 2006 a glint of Democratic Party Future prompted the excellent Anonymous Liberal to write of David Addington thusly: http www.anonymousliberal.com/2006/06/look-out-david-addingtons-head-just.html. Yesterday, 6/27/2008, smirk intact, Addington and side-kick John Yoo gave the Middle-Finger Salute for three-hours to the U.S. Congress generally, earnest, moderately annoyed Democrats more specifically and the US Constitution in particular. Having suspected 98% of all elected Democrats are 100% invertebrate, this was no bulletin. What made me spatter the screen of this 'puter [Why in THE hell watch grown-ups try and fail to lance a pair of putrescent, throbbing carbuncles on the neck of decency?] was Chairman John Conyers thanking both for "arranging your time to appear before this committee." Say WHAT??? So it's a Pro forma courtesy! So Conyers DIDN'T break off a bottle and jump both mocking ass-wipes like Ernest Borgnine as Sgt Fatso Judson came at Sinatra in From Here To Eternity! http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0045793/

Damn! My 70th year; One week as Grandfather of Jayden Robert Starr; Awards up the yang and I STILL demand justice! Maybe, like Professor Kingsfield said in "The Paper Chase" http://www.imdb.com/find?s=all&q=the+paper+chase&x=14&y=3
I shoulda applied to the School of Theology.

"Roll Over Ivan Pavlov and tell James Dobson the news!"

Chronicle of a journey from youthful
Know-It-All to old-fart astonishment.

You CAN'T be "So fed up with James Dobson you could shit!" my late mother The Shrinkette would say [but Mommie Dearest never ever said "shit"]."You're just jealous, Mister Ph.D!!!" First, while
Mommie was alive I didn't know Jimbo nor care enough about him to be jealous - which is the way it is now. That "Mister Ph.D!" is how she'd get her general
disdain for everyone and everything off her chest. Survive 'mommie' and you have nothing left to fear. FDR told a broken nation in 1933 much the same thing a few years before I was born. Any of my three kids can and will enumerate
Poppa's faults. Among their big breaks [aside from not doping nor boozing] was never having met Gramma Dearest. Her memory is
a Michelin Guide for how not to be.
Bright woman, big waste, nuf said.
Back to Author/Psychologist James Dobson.

A good e-mail friend, Betsy Shaw, sent a response by theologian Jim Wallis to Dobson's screed this week about Barack Obama's "fruit-cake interpretation of the US Constitution" among much else.

http://www.oneplace.com/ministries/Focus_on_the_Family/archives.asp?bcd=2008-6-24 What up Dobs? (as we say in the 'hood). I was goofing off at USC grad school during obligatory Constitutional-Law-For-Future-Shrinks? Was Barack woofing all those years while he taught Constitutional Law at U. of Chicago? Gawd! Maybe I'll plead "dumb-ass" and return all my awards. Nah - I'm a born show-off. Let's get on with it!

James Dobson's act is 100% based upon AMBIGUITY. I'll base the premise on Nobel Prize Winner Ivan Pavlov's work on the effects of Perceptual Ambiguity. Dobson, like any psychology graduate student at top flight graduate schools, is familiar with Pavlovian Learning Theory. This is especially true in "child psychology," Dobson's professed specialty. Pavlov, a 19th and 20th c. Russian physiologist, founded what became the cornerstone of all learning theories in all experimental psychology. From the 1930s through the 1970s Muzafer Sherif used Pavlov's pioneering experiments work to expand upon

causes of individual and group dispute and resolution/agreement by use of "Perceptual

Ambiguities. While Pavlov's methodology used dogs, Sherif's research utilized individual men and women plus groups of people. See Pavlov

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1904/pavlov-bio.html :and Sherif

http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/sherif.htm.

gs think Dobson IS a Theologian despite"Aw shucks!" denials. The folksy act works every time.
Dobson learned the same Ivan Pavlov I did. We learned Experimental Ambiguity made Dr. Pavlov's dogs so neurotic they REFUSED FRESH MEAT PLACED IN PLAIN SIGHT AND SCENT! How?

One group of dogs was Conditioned ("Rewarded") with meat for choosing a path marked by a SQUARE. The other group was Conditioned to choose a path marked by a CIRCLE. Both groups had been given a very mild electric shock for making incorrect choices IN ADDITION TO NO "MEAT REWARD."

Pavlov began to gradually make the SQUARES more CIRCULAR. Pavlov also made the CIRCLES more SQUARE. There was no choice difficulty for either group at first. Both CIRCLE and SQUARE dogs learned equally well. Pavlov gradually made the square more circular and gradually made the circle more square. He thus increased the "choice difficulty" for both groups. As SQUARE and CIRCLES became more similar, dog from both groups whined, barked and hesitated more. Choice-Of-Path Errors increased. So did the frequency of electric shocks (or Aversive Consequences) from the floor. Both Square-conditioned and Circle-conditioned dog groups became hungry (or food-deprived.)

Once visual cues were indistinguishable from each other, Pavlov removed all the experimental apparatus, placed fresh meat in front of each dog and left the room. But the dogs were now so "neurotic" that ALL refused food in order to avoid the electric shock. Hungry as each dog was for food all fought and snapped at their trainers when forcibly dragged toward the meat! Both groups of dogs eventually ate only when returned to their familiar kennels

The inference should be obvious: Everyday life gives enough "aversive experience" without Dr. Pavlov around to oversee everything. Groups of otherwise bright people will trust an avuncular Psychologist who quotes Scripture. When the same Shrink says he's no theologian but is merely "following the Word of God," who cares if he's not ordained? Dobson's advice, wrong-headed or not, is comforting. To paraphrase Gimme That Old-Time Religion, whatever Dobson says is plenty good enough for the Focus On The Family flock. Speaking from a multitude of pulpits increases its effectiveness. It's great theater. Think 1935 Nuremberg Rally. Dr. Phil's not half so slick.


In a message dated 06/26/08 23:48:49 Pacific Daylight Time, Treetops38 writes:
Butwhy should America care about how a child psychologist votes?

Doctor Dobson's Fatwa On "Fruitcake Christianity."

Chronicle of a Journey from Youthful
Know-It-All to Old-Fart Astonishment.

Give some credit my professional colleague and fellow USC Trojan Alumnus already!
The Author/Psychologist Dobson didn't call Barack Obama an undercover Agent and Mole for Osama bin Laden and Islam. Not so far anyway.

Look, it's June. The "totally unacceptable" presumptive GOP nominee might repent. Then suck-up to Dobson so abysmally that the Ayatollah of Colorado Springs may call upon his Divisions of Evangelical Lemmings to get out and vote! Votes with Noses Held count just like the Enthusiastic kind. The deal, as always, will come down to what Jim Dobson can get John "The Maverick" McCain to give him.

Mighty visions of the late, sainted Richard Daley were beheld by each of them! Even though a recent Pew national poll reveals 83% of all Americans believe in an afterlife of some sort, they also believe that no one form of religious faith has "The Answer" to the truth. If my memories of Auther/Psychologist Dobson serve (As previously noted in this Blog, Dobs was two-years ahead of me at USC Grad School. Our interactions then
are best be described as "The Cue-Ball glancing off the Eight-Ball.") hard-core American Theocrats will be happy with a Dobson-fueled McCain administration. Even that's gonna last as long as the average bubble http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/religion/stories/062408dnrelpewstudy.2f6d9020.html from your kid's plastic Bubble-Maker.

Rumors of McCain pleading health and dropping out persist. Any notion of Straight-Talk taking a dive for the Party seems lifted from Pulp Fiction
with Ving Rhames and Bruce Willis Marsellus: In the fifth, your ass goes down. Say it. Butch: In the fifth, my ass goes down. Not hardly, I say.
http //www.boxofficetrailer.com/Crime/Pulp- Fiction.html. But I also said no way Karl Rove doesn't do time for perjury in the Valerie Plame Case. In Pat Fitzgerald's dreams! And mine. Who figures Vivica Novak (no relation to Crazy Bob) tips off Turd-Blossom's lawyer accidentally. A Ronald Reagan-style memory cramp ensues. Rove skates away, easy as a Dick Button toe loop. A Double Toe Loop is a spin done in a spiral or arabesque position, where the free leg is vertical to the ice. In a toe loop, the skater jumps from the forward toe position, changes feet, and spins on the other leg in a back toe loop. Performing a Toe Loop is thrilling for a skater. Pat Fitzgerald is a stronger, better human being than I for his ability to just walk away from that snake-pit without screaming nor saying any word I know of about Dick Cheney's US jurisprudence. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viveca_Novak.

So John McCain's this out-of-control blow-top Senator who boinked a Cindy McCain look-alike during 2000. Whose temper fits scare the BeJeebus outta the Joint Chiefs of Staff should his fingers ever get near the Red Phone.

Scuse me if I don't buy into the Huffington Post's
inside dope about about McCain's drop-out in favor of some Cotton Mather wannabe cut more to James Dobson's or John Hagee's jib. I'd compare McCain's style or lack thereof to 1950s heavyweight champ Rocky Marciano. Rock never weighed 200-lbs
had no style, short arms, wasn't pretty and punched like a sledge with either fist. In 42 fights Rock won them all by KO or TKO. He quit undefeated, was a paranoid miser with umpteen bank accounts in false names. Decades after his plane crash death they're
still being found. Got the idea about McCain now?

What's comforting to me is not all pro-Obama writers think Barack is a slam-dunk. Or McCain being "cast-out" by James Dobson is just the Fruit-Cake apparitif. I'd be damn worried. But that's me.

George Carlin, H. L. Mencken and Falling Out Of "Like" With Obama.

Chronicle of a Journey from Youthful
Know-It-All to Old Fart Astonishment.

George Carlin auditioned yesterday at the Great Comedy Store. http://www.biography.com/search/article.do?id=9542307&page=print. He was 71, lived hard, fast and went out quick and pretty close to the way all of us must. "Too soon" is an academic term and depends entirely on one's point of view. Carlin often said. Absent stand-up comedy, he would like to have taught Linguistics at some university. His course woulda been "SRO" too. George mighta guest lectured at, say, UC Berkley's Journalism School or presented at the Peabody Journalism Awards where he'd surely have given his opinions on the sorry state of Investigative Reporting and "Headless Torso in Topless Bar!" news. Dhaljit Dalawa (right) amiably complained about that very headline on PBS a few years ago. She said Americans don't get nearly enough news, especially news about foreign countries. But as Rupert Murdoch's FoxNews holoids remind us 24/7/365 The USA and GOP are #1!http://gothamist.com/2007/07/02/daljit_dhaliwal.php.

FoxNews' Gresham's Law ("Bad Drives Out Good!") gave a new form of Trench Mouth to the Democratic opposition as personified now by Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton. This form is worse than Carlin's famous "Seven Dirty Words You Can't Say On Radio or TV" in that both Spine and Words quickly become terminally infected. http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/06/21/obama/print.html

Obama endorsed Bush's FISA compromise. This sent liberal talk-jocks into "WTFITS?" mode. It should! Clinton, his opponent for the party nomination started earlier. But she's older and way preferable to FoxNews' stalking horse. To pick a fairly recent example from an embarrassment of riches, Clinton condemned video game Grand Theft Auto-IV "We need to treat violent video games the way we treat tobacco or alcohol," Clinton declared. http://chronicle.com/temp/reprint.php?id=gg9fp99q42q3t8djnsxxcllxqx616h9n "No one," as jounalist H. L. Menken wrote after the Scopes Monkey Trial ever went broke betting against the intelligence of the American people." To paraphrase the article above: Play GTA-IV for a few hours. Then go out at night. Look at a few parked cars. When you find an appealing one, see if you feel an overwhelming urge to carjack it. Ditto any neighborhood hookers. Take a kid with you for the sake of Scientific Validity. Point? I wonder whether Clinton or Obama might have come down against Scopes, Clarence Darrow and Mencken and for God and Tennessee if it meant winning the 2008
election. You can damn well guess where the opposition stands.

Hey Look! A Potentially USEFUL Blog Entry! And a "P.C." Apology!

Chronicle of a journey from youthful
know-it-all to old-fart astonishment.

You bet that's Mantan Moreland and Benson Fong pictured there! When I was a kid Benson portrayed the inscrutable Chinese Detective Charlie Chan's #1 Son. Mantan was kept busy chauffuring Charlie and/or others in the family's gasoline guzzling LaSalle limosine with lines expected from a superstitious, intellectually challanged black supporting actor. Like: "Mist' Chan! Mist' Chan! Ah knows an' you knows but do de Ghos' know?" And: Feets! Do yo' stuff!" Nor did a Chinese ever play Charliehttp://www.charliechan.net/mainmenu.html .Oh the days when we ALL knew our places.

Relax! This isn't gonna be a tedious sermonette plea for "Tolerance" as they called it then. Yeah that's a power wheelchair like mine. But mine doesn't have Pittsburgh Steeler rims like Timmy's. Team logo Wheelchair Rims aren't yet part the overpriced made in Guatemala crap the NFL hustles. Think I'll rant about a fake TV character like Bush Veep Dan
Quayle ranted about Candice Bergin's single mom character? Mama mia!You make-a da beeg-a joke on-a poor Doctor Bawb, Mister Soprano! I'm a elderly Blue Collar Shrink with an equal-opportunity tasteless mockery blog. According to Truthiness Enyclopedia, "Murphy Brown" also served as an aide to Vice-President Quayle.
http://www.wikiality.com/Candice_Bergen

Anyway I promised a "Useful Entry" and so here's that part: a Blog ago I introduced Jayden Robert Starr, my first grand-kid who came home yesterday.

My amazing next-door neighbors the Woods been by with great stuff that I either got outta USC Grad School textbooks, then "winged it" with our own three. Sharon now heads what now is
USC's on-campus facility for really teeny kids. And three-weeks early, Jayden qualifies as "teeny." It's all a bit foreign to Doctor Bawb's mental map. Plus LA's been in a king-hell heat wave lately. Following is a long distance Cyber-Colloquy between a terrific friend in Hawaii, Claudia Woodward-Rice and me.

Claudia was as concerned as I re the possible adverse effects of a NON-AIR-CONDITIONED HOUSE (OURS) ON LITTLE JAYDEN. Frankly, so was I!! If even I could "get it," y'all will have no problem. It might even help someone else out there. Bon chance!

We're fine, Claudia.

Sharon and Tim from next door have been helping out from jump. Their house and mine are the two places WITHOUT A/C - but here's what I've learned so far: Sharon has had three kids and now takes care of teeny kids at USC full-time. According to her no A/C is no "biggie." Believe me, they can easily afford it. Newborns like Jayden PREFER WARMTH! She taught Asenath how to swaddle the kid [which word was just a word til yesterday].

I have a ceiling fan that does me fine. Sharon and Tim have em in every Second Floor room where her 97-y.o. mom was staying so, again: no A/C, no foul! I bought a BIG floor-model fan since their room DOESN'T HAVE one on the ceiling. "Not necessary" said both Asenath and Sharon. Heat-wave breaks tomorrow. Whole new world........an' 'at.

Chronicle of a journey from youthful Know-It-All to Old Fart astonishment.

At the end of the last post I promised to relate the adventures of the Hedge-Fund Manager who got way rich at the expense of the National Foreclosure Derby that's now playing in a town near you. Or on the block near you as in my case. Or, worst of all, maybe to you or yours. No joke at all if so. Then my first Grandson, Jayden Robert [above], was born and got home this afternoon. What can I say: "Things change?" Damn straight they change! Everything changes all the time by the way. Isaac Newton http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton figured this out in 1687. The day Oprah's "bookers" called Dr. Phil was the day Phil figured out how to turn Newton's idea into big dough. I'm not that smart but neither was Isaac Newton. I'm just glad to be here to keep my promise about writing what I promised y'all I'd write. Anything else after this is pure Giblet Gravy.

Most of you have never heard of a Hedge-Fund Manager named John Paulson. A month ago, neither had I. Last tax-year, 2007, Paulson made over Four-Billion - with a "B" Dollars. This tax year, 2008, I'll bet he makes at least as much. Maybe more. Paulson became the 163rd richest American according to Fortune Magazine. Like 1970s sit-com The Jeffersons, Paulson's "Movin' On Up." Social mobility and Theme-Song aside, Loiuse and George Jefferson have as much in common with John Paulson as I have with Sir Isaac Newton. Only I'm better off than Sir Isaac: After Philosophica Principia Naturalis Mathmatica in 1647 he spent 40-years trying to turn Lead into Gold http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophi%C3%A6_Naturalis_Principia_Mathematica. George Jefferson and Dr. Phil probably aren't that greedy but who knows.
Anyway you'd think Paulson would be one real happy guy by now. He's not. A little background here: Paulson's NOT the guy who's putting my neighbors and yours outta their houses! Just when your New Second Floor or Dream Kitchen or Wet Bar or Backyard Spa plus all the remodeling, rewiring, painting and Construction Permit misery has begun to fade into just another really hideously awful memory. Paulson's no sweetheart either.
Paulson couldn't care less whether you, me and the Sisters of the Poor are homeless. Trust a Shrink just this once [Since I've used the phrase before I promise not to write "Just This Once" again]. While President Irrelevant urged every American to "Take your families to Disney World!" Paulson, while a contributor to the re-election of the Free World's Leader began using Galileo's gravity principle whether or not Paulson realized it. Namely, what goes up must come down. A few years later after some
really furious King-Hell calculations, Paulson's Hedge-Fund began to bet that Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan's prime-interest rate cuts would end the Sub-Prime Mortgage Rate bubble. Like the same guy under a different President burst 'Dot-Com' dreams of yuppies who `KNEW Alan was Ronald Reagan's
"Shining City on the Hill" guy. So a speechwriter cribbed one of Reagan's memorable phrases
from John Winthrop, Puritan head honcho of the Massachusetts Bay Colony? BFD! So Winthrop most famous act was banishing Anne Hathaway forever as a Heretic Witch? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Hutchinson. History's BIG fun!!

So why is John Paulson, the Four-Billion Dollars in 2007 Man, an unhappy guy? The money he got last year could pay the Boston Celtics Big Three's salaries outta petty cash. It's legal too! Enter A Matter Of [gasp!] HONOR. A WSJ story dated 1/15/2008 by Gregory Zuckerman indicates Paulson, a "previously little-known Hedge-Fund Manager got the biggest one
year pay in Wall Street history." But what's apparently stuck in Paulson's craw is he confided in a once-good friend by the name of Jeff Greene. According to Paulson, Greene an LA Real Estate hustler, up and made - ready for this? - $36-Billion [with a "B"] Dollars in 2007 AFTER PROMISING NOT TO USE PAULSON'S METHOD UNTIL PAULSON'S HEDGE-FUND WAS READY.
"He never said not to use it," smiled Greene to the WSJ. Their friendship is reportedly strained. Here's Paulson's story:

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB120036645057290423.html

Here's Greene's.

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB120036645057290423.html

And here's Greene's. Moral? You're on you're own.

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