Friday, 8/31

Weather for August

For the second month in a row average monthly temps were above normal — this time more than two degrees above normal. The price, however, was only half the normal rain for the month.  Back to a half-foot deficit for the year.   What besides hurricanes will September bring?

 Movie I Saw

The Invasion.  Because of the bad reviews Marian wasn’t interested in seeing this movie but I decided to go today. Certainly had a lot of star power: Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig (the new 007), Jeremy Northam (Gosford Park) , Roger Rees (West Wing, Gray’s Anatomy).  The director is Oliver Hirschbiegel ( Ein Ganz Gewohnlicher Jude).  Maybe that was the problem. Ably put together but utterly devoid of tension, interest, passion.  The infected people hardly are scary, the transition to spore-slave is uninteresting. I found myself wondering how Kidman avoided tripping over her extremely tight skirts.  The movie is not so much bad as it is bland, uninteresting, uniformly dull.

Ancient Philosophy

My course in ancient philosophy (Thales through Aristotle) started this week.

This is Thales, considered the first real philosopher.  This is what people in the 6th century BCE Asia Minor looked like. I’m the old fart in the class by a long shot, although not quite as old as the people I’m studying. The instructor and I are about the same age but I’m at least a generation older than anyone else.  A sharp bunch — philosophy majors mostly. I’m struggling to keep up with their class discussions.  I’m a little out of practice.

Markets Work But They Are Messy

Market advocates suggest that the best solution for the current housing decline is to allow the market to correct itself.  Of course, the logic of the market got us into this mess and while it may be able to lead us back out the road back to housing health may be long and messy. The Wall Street Journal today ran an informative piece on a tiny corner of the market and how it reacted first to easy credit and then to the bust. Homes in Florida bought by investors during the easy-credit days of 2005 account for one-quarter of all loans in default now.

The article profiles an Information Systems manager in New Jersey who bought $800,000 worth of property in Florida thinking he could flip them on a quick sale. He borrowed 100% of the value of the properties but couldn’t sell them as the market sank. Now he has run through more than $100K of his retirement fund to remain solvent.  Of course, he is just small potatoes in this investment market but his story shows how far down the economic ladder this impulse to hitch a ride penetrated.

Gertrude Stein mocks domestic house scenes in this poem but it does evoke some of the traditional warmish feelings homeowners harbor.

The House was just twinkling in the moon light 

The house was just twinkling in the moon light,
And inside it twinkling with delight,
Is my baby bright.
Twinkling with delight in the house twinkling
with the moonlight,
Bless my baby bless my baby bright,
Bless my baby twinkling with delight,
In the house twinkling in the moon light,
Her hubby dear loves to cheer when he thinks
and he always thinks when he knows and he always
knows that his blessed baby wifey is all here and he
is all hers, and sticks to her like burrs, blessed baby

——————Gertrude Stein, “The house was twinkling in the moon light” from Baby Precious Always Shines: Selected Love Notes Between Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas