Yesterday evening, I was just rolling some thoughts around in my mind ala George Carlin.
I was recalling that the deceased Right Rev. Jerry Falwell had attributed the 9-11 attacks on America due to God being displeased with the morality of America including those hot button issues of gay rights, abortion, etc.
I was also recalling that the Right Rev. John Hagee attributed Hurricane Katrina to God being displeased with the city of New Orleans for being a hotbed of immorality. Hagee never explained why God decided to do Hurricane Damage to the Mississippi and Alabama gulf coast. I suppose this was just God's collateral damage.
Now I'm wondering what Hagee would say were God's intentions when he,she or it, (I'm not sure about the gender of God or if it has a gender in the first place) decided to do damage to those good hardworking eople in Iowa, Illinois and Missouri. Is Hagee going to pronounce the intentions of God in flooding heir land and punishing them.
Why these are hardworking, God Fearing midwesterners, unlike those morally challenged people in Louisiana,who elected an immoral hypocritical US senator named David Vitter who frequents prostitutes but who announced publicly that he had a hotline direct to God and God told him he forgave him. It certainly makes me feel good hat God forgave him otherwise Vitter might have been struck down like Tim Russert who Hagee would say ffended God by being a devout Catholic. Hagee preaches against Catholics and calls them evil.
Naturally, it's not evil for Hagee to preach that we need to nuke Iran and destroy every single man, woman and hild. They are all infidels you know.
Surely Hagee could discern God's intentions about this flood since he seems so damn cocksure about Louisiana.
Well, I have a few suggestions as to what God's intentions might have been. Maybe he didn't like all that corn eing made into ethanol to power automobiles instead of being used as food. Maybe he didn't like Iowa voters oing for Obamarama and Illinois and Missouri were just collateral damage. Your guess is as good as mine as he punished bedrock christian prostestants. Guess I should call and ask that moon faced five by fve piece of of blubber otherwise known as John Hagee why.
Now as to all the other zillion catastrophes like earthquakes, fires, volcanos, tornados, etc that occur world wide on a regular basis, I would love for Hagee to give us the intentions of God for each one.
Isn't it ironical that I was in the insurance business for 35 years engaging in that fine art of protecting people gainst those dastardly "Acts of God" listed in the insurance contract. I warned people that we would never now when God would strike next or how he would strike or for what reason he would strike. Forewarned is
forearmed I would say and sign below and give me your check. This piece of glibness worked like a charm.
I think George Carlin would have liked what I wrote above, but would have made it a lot funnier and would have sed his little list of words you can never say and would have referenced the fact that he often stated that he majority of people are just plain stupid and especially the ones who buy into the Hagee, Swaggert and
Ron Parsley crap.
Bob
PS The next time I see in the media where ilk such as Sen. Vitter, Newt Gingrich, Rev. Jimmy Swaggert, Rev. Ted Swaggert and many othres say that God forgave them for their pecadillos, I'm going to puke. It appears there will be a lot of puking going on unfortunately. I wouldn't puke if they weren't such hypocritcal jerks who manipulate a certain segment of society that is rationally challenged.
Bob White
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
A Tale of Turtles and Stocks
As a child growing up in a solidly middle class neighborhood of Baton Rouge, La. that was sheltered by trees that were and still are, so majestically tall, I lived the idyllic life.
Part of my idyllic life was the large lake only one block from my home where I was fortunate enough to always have some kind of small wooden boat with a small outboard motor with the latest I had there being a five horsepower Royal outboard. I knew every inch and cranny of that lake where I also learned to swim, fish and catch turtles.
When the weather hit 75 degrees in the spring, then off would come my shoes and would not be put on again until the Fall when weather hit below 75. Even went to school barefooted. By the time Fall rolled around my soles were like hard leather and I could run on a gravel road. Re-adjusting to shoes was awful.
Springtime was when the baby turtles were hatched and proliferated. That's when I went into action catching five basic types of turtles. They were:
Greenback---about the size of a half dollar with a solid green back and red ears.
Chinese---about the same size but had a variegated yellow and green color.
Brownback--same size but had a light brown back with a sharply raised serrated black ridge running the length of his shell.
Japanese---smaller than the above about the size of a quarter. It had nearly a black shell with an orange reddish streak running down the length of it's shell.
Softshell---sandy colored and bigger and wider and did have a soft pliable shell.
There were several kids in the neighborhood that caught them and all of us kept them in large metal tubs with sand and water. There was plenty of active trading going on. Naturally, the rarer the turtle the more value it had.
Greenbacks were the most plentiful.
Chinese less and a Chinese could be traded for as much as five Greenbacks.
Brownbacks could be traded for as much as five to ten Chinese
and Japanese were the summa bonum.
The most rare and you practically had to acquire one by giving away all of your collection of a hundred or more to get one. I've probably never caught more than about five in all those years. When you had one, you didn't leave it outside in your tub. Likewise with the Brownbacks. You kept it inside your home for fear there would be late night raids on your turtle tubs. There were plenty and I raided a few myself. It was a dog eat dogsituation in the Turtle world.
Post Cereal began putting a coupon on their cereal boxes that stated cut out the coupon and send it inalong with twenty five cents and they would send you a turtle.
The guy working for Post Cereal would come by every Friday and I would sell him only Greenbacks for a nickel each. Pretty good money for a 11 year old. Post must have had many guys scouring all over Louisiana for those Greenbacks. I believe they had that ad program only a short time as they could not get enough turtles.
I kinda made up for this financial loss by selling turtles at schools to Sissies whose mommy's would not dare let their little Johnnys get near the lake. I would come to school with ten or more turtles stuffed in my pants pockets and would have them sold before class started or at least by first recess.
That's where I began to learn about the stockmarket due to the analogy between trading for stocks or turtles.
Money chasing a certain stock drives it up in value and Greenbacks chasing Japanese drove them up in value. Altho' it not exactly analogous due to the scarcity factor in trading turtles, they are similar situations.
The softshell was really not worth much unless it was at least 12 inches across, then I would sell it for a quarteror so to local black people who consider it a favorite delicacy.
On nostalgic moments such as when I'm writing this, I can still conjure up the fecund smell of that lake as if I were a little kid again. The water was a dirty unclear brown. It was loaded with E-Coli bacteria as sewage ran right into it. I swam all over that lake and never got sick. Imagine that happening to some kid today. I recall that there were only a couple of us that swam in it.
I've read about people catching Salmonella from turtles. I must have put hundreds of Greenbacks in my closed mouth and then opening my mouth to shock the girls at school. I never got Salmonella.
There was an island in the lake about fifty years wide. I would take my boat out there at ten years old and pitch a tent and spend the night. My parents were lenient to say the least. From the time that I remembered, I came and went wheneverI wanted to and don't really recall them putting any limitations on me. I suppose they were to involved in their maritalbattle to worry about me.
I've stopped by in the old neighborhood many times over the years and was tempted to go buy a dipnet and catch some turtles. I've asked people in the neighborhood whether or not kids do that anymore and they don't. I feel sorry for them.
Part of my idyllic life was the large lake only one block from my home where I was fortunate enough to always have some kind of small wooden boat with a small outboard motor with the latest I had there being a five horsepower Royal outboard. I knew every inch and cranny of that lake where I also learned to swim, fish and catch turtles.
When the weather hit 75 degrees in the spring, then off would come my shoes and would not be put on again until the Fall when weather hit below 75. Even went to school barefooted. By the time Fall rolled around my soles were like hard leather and I could run on a gravel road. Re-adjusting to shoes was awful.
Springtime was when the baby turtles were hatched and proliferated. That's when I went into action catching five basic types of turtles. They were:
Greenback---about the size of a half dollar with a solid green back and red ears.
Chinese---about the same size but had a variegated yellow and green color.
Brownback--same size but had a light brown back with a sharply raised serrated black ridge running the length of his shell.
Japanese---smaller than the above about the size of a quarter. It had nearly a black shell with an orange reddish streak running down the length of it's shell.
Softshell---sandy colored and bigger and wider and did have a soft pliable shell.
There were several kids in the neighborhood that caught them and all of us kept them in large metal tubs with sand and water. There was plenty of active trading going on. Naturally, the rarer the turtle the more value it had.
Greenbacks were the most plentiful.
Chinese less and a Chinese could be traded for as much as five Greenbacks.
Brownbacks could be traded for as much as five to ten Chinese
and Japanese were the summa bonum.
The most rare and you practically had to acquire one by giving away all of your collection of a hundred or more to get one. I've probably never caught more than about five in all those years. When you had one, you didn't leave it outside in your tub. Likewise with the Brownbacks. You kept it inside your home for fear there would be late night raids on your turtle tubs. There were plenty and I raided a few myself. It was a dog eat dogsituation in the Turtle world.
Post Cereal began putting a coupon on their cereal boxes that stated cut out the coupon and send it inalong with twenty five cents and they would send you a turtle.
The guy working for Post Cereal would come by every Friday and I would sell him only Greenbacks for a nickel each. Pretty good money for a 11 year old. Post must have had many guys scouring all over Louisiana for those Greenbacks. I believe they had that ad program only a short time as they could not get enough turtles.
I kinda made up for this financial loss by selling turtles at schools to Sissies whose mommy's would not dare let their little Johnnys get near the lake. I would come to school with ten or more turtles stuffed in my pants pockets and would have them sold before class started or at least by first recess.
That's where I began to learn about the stockmarket due to the analogy between trading for stocks or turtles.
Money chasing a certain stock drives it up in value and Greenbacks chasing Japanese drove them up in value. Altho' it not exactly analogous due to the scarcity factor in trading turtles, they are similar situations.
The softshell was really not worth much unless it was at least 12 inches across, then I would sell it for a quarteror so to local black people who consider it a favorite delicacy.
On nostalgic moments such as when I'm writing this, I can still conjure up the fecund smell of that lake as if I were a little kid again. The water was a dirty unclear brown. It was loaded with E-Coli bacteria as sewage ran right into it. I swam all over that lake and never got sick. Imagine that happening to some kid today. I recall that there were only a couple of us that swam in it.
I've read about people catching Salmonella from turtles. I must have put hundreds of Greenbacks in my closed mouth and then opening my mouth to shock the girls at school. I never got Salmonella.
There was an island in the lake about fifty years wide. I would take my boat out there at ten years old and pitch a tent and spend the night. My parents were lenient to say the least. From the time that I remembered, I came and went wheneverI wanted to and don't really recall them putting any limitations on me. I suppose they were to involved in their maritalbattle to worry about me.
I've stopped by in the old neighborhood many times over the years and was tempted to go buy a dipnet and catch some turtles. I've asked people in the neighborhood whether or not kids do that anymore and they don't. I feel sorry for them.
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