Summer Hiatus

Having turned the corner into the summer season, it is now time to put Ken's Kandid Komments to rest for a while. Ken is returning to Canada for a few months and both of his readers are tired of being forced to make regular positive comments. So all three of us are off the hook.

See you in the fall! Maybe!

The Voyage Never Ends!

As everyone knows, I love to travel. Always have and probably always will. I recently stumbled upon a number of travel quotes, some of which I really like, that I’d like to share.

• “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.” - Mark Twain
• “The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.” - St. Augustine
• “There are no foreign lands. It is the traveler only who is foreign.” - Robert Louis Stevenson
• “He who does not travel does not know the value of men.” - Moorish proverb
• “No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow.” - Lin Yutang
• “For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move.” - Robert Louis Stevenson
• “One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.” - Henry Miller
• “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” - Mark Twain
• “All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.” - Martin Buber
• “Tourists don’t know where they’ve been, travelers don’t know where they’re going.” - Paul Theroux
• “There is no moment of delight in any pilgrimage like the beginning of it.” - Charles Dudley Warner
• “A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.” - Lao Tzu
• “Once you have traveled, the voyage never ends, but is played out over and over again in the quietest chambers. The mind can never break off from the journey.” - Pat Conroy
• “Not all those who wander are lost.” - J. R. R. Tolkien
• “Like all great travelers, I have seen more than I remember, and remember more than I have seen.” - Benjamin Disraeli
• “Travel and change of place impart new vigor to the mind.” – Seneca
• “To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries.” - Aldous Huxley
• “The first condition of understanding a foreign country is to smell it.” - Rudyard Kipling
• “When you travel, remember that a foreign country is not designed to make you comfortable. It is designed to make its own people comfortable.” - Clifton Fadiman

Hope that you may have found one or two quotes that you enjoyed!

The Best Things in Life Cost Money

Frank Sinatra used to croon the following lovely song:

The moon belongs to everyone,
The best things in life are free.
The stars belong to everyone,
They gleam there for you and me.
The flowers in spring, the robins that sing,
The moonbeams that shine,
They're yours, they're mine.
And love can come to everyone,
The best things in life are free.

Frank would probably have to rethink the lyrics if he was still alive today. The USA would probably declare ownership of the moon since they have staked their flag on the lunar soil and the ownership of the stars is likely on the agenda of a future G-20 summit. Picking wild flowers in spring is illegal and the robin population is becoming endangered. Moonbeams are a non-profitable resource so no one cares if they are free and love can be purchased by phone, online or in person, globally. So, not much in life is really free any more!

Each day I am impacted by the fact that just about everything now costs money. When I fly, if I pre-select a seat I must pay for the privilege. If I should be bold enough to want to carry baggage I must pay a fee for each suitcase I take. If I pay my baggage fee at the airport, I am charged another fee for that service. If I had paid online there would not have been a charge. How generous! We have now invented a fee, for the privilege of paying a fee!

Times are really becoming desperate. Pretty soon water and air will no longer be free. Come to think of it, a 500 ml bottle of water costs over a dollar and as a result a gallon of drinking water now costs nearly ten dollars – far more than the price of gasoline. And a recent trip to a service station introduced me to an air pump, to fill up my car tire, for only one dollar a shot! So “the best things in life are free” notion has reached its ultimate demise, as we must now pay for air and water. Can a charge for breathing be far away?

Sinatra’s happy ballad needs to be rewritten. Perhaps it might begin with:

Nothing belongs to everyone,
Everything cost some loot,
A bus ride costs two fifty, and
Parking a buck a foot.

The best things in life cost money
Nothing is really free,
The world is getting greedy, and
Overcharging both you and me!

Chorus: Do be do be do
Be do be
Do be do be do!

Like a Walk in The Rainforest

Sometimes the rituals or practices of the Catholic Church baffle me. When I go to Sunday mass it is an opportunity for me to worship, pray and find an hour of tranquility in an otherwise hectic world. Last Sunday that all changed.

For some reason, the church I attended introduced a new practice that was very annoying. After the entrance procession, about six parishioners met with the priest at the main alter. Before the mass began it was decided that the entire congregation would be blessed with holy water. Usually the priest just symbolically sprinkles a little water in the direction of the congregation from the foot of the alter.

Last Sunday a more dramatic blessing was introduced. Each of the six parishioners was given a bowl of water and a rather large tree branch well endowed with leaves. The enthusiastic “sprinklers” gleefully dipped their branches into the water bowl and began to spray the parishioners. With a twinkle in their eyes, they proceeded down the aisles spraying left and right with unrestrained vigor. Water flew like a family of robins splashing in a birdbath.

The congregation tried to remain solemn and composed but they were quickly forced into a defensive mode. Everyone wearing glasses turned their heads away from the possessed sprinklers trying to avoid spotting on their glasses. Everyone on the left jerked their heads to the right and everyone on the right jerked their heads to the left. A Broadway chorus line could not have been choreographed with more precision.

Ladies wearing their Sunday best were paralyzed with the fear that the deluge would ruin their new suede jacket or silk blouse. Some people sitting in the middle of a pew were trapped with assaults from both sides. It was intended to be a solemn moment but it quickly deteriorated into a moment of restrained anxiety. I am not sure how it added to the solemnity of the occasion. By the time all of the wearers of glasses had cleaned their glasses and the children had finished playing in the puddles that had accumulated on the seats, the mass was half over.

If the congregation must be blessed with holy water, I would like to suggest that perhaps a plant mister, like that used to spray houseplants, be utilized instead of a tree branch. I understand the intent of the blessing with water, but my recent experience was more like a walk in a rainforest. Next time I will wear a rain slicker to church!

Team Building is For Twits!

The corporate world has fallen in love with team building activities and exercises. The theory is that the team that plays together, stays together. And by extension, the group becomes more efficient, effective and productive in the workplace. All I can say is “Hogwash!”

Team building activities are usually an expensive way to allow the staff to act silly and get drunk. If the group camps out together in a wilderness setting or goes whitewater rafting or climbs a rugged mountain trail, all that will develop are sore muscles, the start of a cold, and a number of hangovers. Rather than developing a more cohesive and bonded team, the members often become more resentful, disgusted or intolerant of each other. They may have had fun but the “team” is no more built than it was before they started.

In my opinion, a team is built only when the members are focused on the same goals, are committed to those goals and work hard to achieve them. The more that each member recognizes the same commitment, focus and hard work in his team members, the stronger the team will be. Participating in some peripheral activity like golfing together, climbing a high pole or learning to sail has no relation to building a team. The team that plays together just plays, it doesn’t advance the group’s real goals.

I recently read of a new corporate team building activity- playing in a child’s bouncy castle. For $2000 a team of twenty can rent a big inflatable castle for two hours and bounce individually or collectively to their hearts content. Among the activities that you can play in the castle are Follow the Leader, Tag Team Climbing and Kneeling Basketball. Can’t you just visualize the corporate board of General Motors bouncing around trying to solve their financial woes?

I am sure that when the team returns to the staff room at the office it will be hard to keep them from bouncing on the couch and playing tag. And Corporate America spends millions of dollars on these inane team-building activities each year. Has anyone ever done a scientific study on the overall effect of these activities on the team achieving its stated business goals?

If someone has, I would love to read it! Only then will I see this team building nonsense in another light.

I’m Living and Learning Again!

A man’s love of a sport evolves over his lifetime. For example, as a child we played baseball for fun with a stick and a ball. Then we may have played in Little League and become the fan of a professional baseball team. We loved to watch games of TV and attending a real live game was the ultimate treat. As we got older we began to play Fantasy Baseball where we picked our own team of professionals to complete statistically with other old jocks. Fantasy sports are immensely popular today.

Well I have just learned about a new fantasy sport that has grown into an $800 million industry with more than 30 million players in the US and Canada that I have never heard of – fantasy fishing Yes Virginia, there is such a thing as fantasy fishing. And you can win a million dollars. And you don't have to pay an entry fee.

Before each of the six regular-season tournaments on the largest pro bass-fishing circuit in the U.S., you pick 10 anglers at fantasyfishing.com. The better your picks do, the more points you rack up. The winner of each tournament gets $100,000. Whoever piles up the most points over all six tournaments wins the million. That's quite a nice catch. The first tournament each year is held in February on Lake Guntersville in Huntsville, Ala.

Fantasy fishing provides more prize money to people who “play the game” than any other fantasy sport! I find this absolutely mind-boggling. And I have missed out on playing it because I just heard about it. You don’t need to even know anything about the “professional fishermen” because for $10 you can buy the “stats guide” for all the participants, just like buying the program at the racetrack.

I am just going to have to become more vigilant. Opportunities like this might exist in other areas such as fantasy hog calling, fantasy moonshine making or fantasy horseshoes. I think a field trip to the Ozarks might be necessary to do a little advance scouting.

It continues to blow my mind when I think of all the things that I still have to learn! I don’t even know what I don’t even know anymore! Fantasy fishing?

How to be Renewed, Recharged and Reawakened

All of my life I used to think soap was soap and shampoo was shampoo. How wrong I have been. Had I read the labels on some of the shampoos and shower gels on the market I would probably have had magnificent movie star hair and the complexion of a god.

One shampoo is sold as Highlight Activating Moisturizing Shampoo with Light Enhancer. It maintains on the label that it will renew silky texture, recharge parched highlights and reawaken sparkling shine. Can you believe it – renewing, recharging and reawakening all in one shampoo?

After shampooing it might be wise to follow up with Naturalizing Conditioner with Light Enhancer. The container claims that the conditioner will banish distressed hair texture, brighten shimmering highlights and bestow glorious shine. How exciting to know that it will banish, brighten and bestow! Alliteration of benefits seems to be an advertising essential.

But wait, you are not yet finished! You may still apply a dab of Luminous Color Glaze shine gloss, which will intensify glossy shine and dramatically smooth texture. And finally, you might wish to use Color Thrive with Fade Lock Technology, “an exciting new system that helps block your hair color from fading, prolonging the life of your hair color.” I didn’t know there were so many things you could do to your hair!

After applying all of the hair treatments it is time to finish your shower. One product advertises itself as Warm Amber Shower Gel – a precious, aromatic and festive soap-free cleanser with moisturizing Community Trade organization organic honey. The manufacturer claims that it is “Made with Passion” and explains it as follows: “Some scents go back years. With aromatic amber, make that hundreds of years. We’ve blended precious amber extract with notes of orange blossom, ginger, sandalwood and myrrh, to create a fragrance that’s festively exotic, spicy and utterly decadent.”

I guess it goes without saying that my years of just reaching for a bar of Zest and a bottle of Head and Shoulders will just not cut it anymore! But we live and learn – don’t we? Good grief!

Random Thoughts and Ramblings

Some days my brain gets away from me. It just takes off without permission and begins to explore issues and questions that some times even surprise me. For example:

• I really wonder if the Goodyear Blimp that hovers above most American sporting events is really necessary. Does anyone really care if they can view Yankee Stadium or a Super Bowl game from a camera a thousand feet in the air? I know I can live without it, can you?

• When you wash dishes do you often find that dried on egg yolk is still stuck to a plate even after a half hour high temperature scrubbing? Why doesn’t someone develop a car paint or house paint that contains egg yolk that would be as durable and permanent as old egg on a plate?

• In a similar vain, everyone has tried to exterminate the indestructible dandelion from their lawns. Without a doubt, the dandelion always prevails. Can some genius botanist not combine the stamina and resilience of the dandelion with useful vegetables like peas and carrots to provide us with a never-ending quantity of these desirable veggies instead of that persistent, aggravating, little yellow weed?

• Canadians love their hockey. All hockey games are officiated by referees who will call penalties for infractions of the rules such as tripping or holding. How come in the hockey playoffs the offences that are not allowed during the season are acceptable in the playoffs? I don’t buy the stupid explanation that in the playoffs there is more at stake. A penalty is a penalty, in October or in May, in my humble opinion. Isn’t it?

• In recent years, airlines have stopped providing meals on most flights. Consequently thousands of employees around the world who prepared, packaged and delivered meals to the thousands of daily flights became unemployed. Does anyone remember any of these workers or companies screaming for a government bailout or exorbitant compensation? I don’t!

• Back to hockey again! Did you know that the random drug testing of players, which is required during the regular season, is not carried out during the hockey playoffs? Can anyone provide a logical explanation? It’s kind of like saying that shoplifting is illegal but on Sunday the store will be open and there will be no staff working. Help yourself if you want, no one is watching!

• And finally, I would like to nominate the spaghetti squash for Vegetable of The Year. It is relatively unknown and is one of Mother Nature’s best-kept secrets. Simply cut it in half, steam it for twenty minutes, scrape out the spaghetti-like interior and you have the best pasta alternative that I know. It provides for a non-carbohydrate Italian dinner in minutes!

If anyone should happen to encounter my mind wandering somewhere in their neighborhood, would you please return it. I sometimes get lonely without it!

Was Chicken Licken An Abused Hen?

The United States produces about 100 billion eggs, with Americans consuming an average of more than 250 eggs a year. The above fact seems harmless and simple doesn’t it? The truth however, is that there is an epidemic of chicken abuse occurring daily to provide you with the main ingredient for your scrambled egg breakfast.

In days of yore when Ma and Pa Kettle were running the farm, the chickens had the run of the roost as well as the living room. They were free-range birds that foraged for themselves and ate at the farmyard buffet as they pleased. Everyone, including the chickens, seemed to be happy. As the world modernized and the demand for eggs increased, our happy little cluckers had to become more disciplined and productive.

Eventually, chicken farms became known as industrial animal agriculture systems. Five or six hens were confined in wire cages called battery cages and fed a diet of carefully selected grains, additives and assorted chemicals. Egg production zoomed and again everyone seemed happy.

Then The Humane Society of the USA disagreed. The president of the society claimed, “Battery cages represent the most intensive form of confinement in factory farming today. The cages are so restrictive that the birds cannot even spread their wings.” The Humane Society argued that the birds were packed in so tightly that they also could not engage in other natural chicken behaviors such as nesting, dust bathing, perching and foraging. I don’t know about you, but these restrictions certainly pull at my heartstrings.

Naturally, it didn’t take long before thousands of animal right’s activists took up the cause of the hapless hens and denounced the factory type of egg production. The movement continues to grow and increasing numbers of people are demanding that stores and restaurants only provide and sell eggs laid by uncaged birds. Chicken Licken must no longer be abused!

I don’t really have any problem with eating eggs that have been laid in the dirt or in a cage. It doesn’t really matter to me. What really strikes me however are the number and strength of animal right’s groups that seem to constantly be making news. It seems they are either, saving the whales, protesting seal hunts, counting whooping cranes or as in this case, uncaging the 280 million hens currently working to provide eggs for your Grand Slam Breakfast at Dennys.

I often feel that there are more people devoted to protecting animal rights than there are to protecting the rights of the homeless, the destitute and so many disadvantaged children! Perhaps the Humane Society also needs to spend a little more time fighting for the humane treatment of humans!

A Lesson on the Tamil Tigers

Today, I finally had to answer my own question of, “Who are the Tamil Tigers really?” Every time I hear the name I conjure up the image of a sports team like the Detroit Lions or the Chicago Bears but I know that I am completely wrong. My research revealed the following information:

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), also known as the Tamil Tigers, are a separatist group in Sri Lanka. They are considered one of the world’s most lethal terrorist groups by 32 other countries.

The Tamils are an ethnic group that lives in southern India and on Sri Lanka, an island of 21 million people off the southern tip of India.

Their Hindu religion and Tamil language set them apart from the four-fifths of Sri Lankans who are Sinhalese—members of a largely Buddhist, Sinhala-speaking ethnic group.

When Sri Lanka (formerly called Ceylon) was ruled by the British, most Sri Lankans regarded the Tamil minority as collaborators with imperial rule and resented that the Tamil's perceived preferential treatment.

But since Sri Lanka became independent in 1948, the Sinhalese majority has dominated the country.

For the past thirty years, the LTTE have been agitating for a homeland for ethnic Tamils, who feel persecuted by Sri Lanka's ethnic majority, the Sinhalese.

The LTTE is notorious for having pioneered the suicide bomb jacket, as well as the use of women in suicide attacks. Members of the LTTE army carry vials of cyanide around their necks in order to commit suicide if captured.

They are blamed for a dozen high-level assassinations, over two hundred suicide attacks, and are engaged in an ongoing civil war in Sri Lanka that has cost more than seventy thousand lives.

The news of the day seems to indicate that this ongoing civil war may soon be over. For the sake of all of the innocents impacted, let us hope so. At least now I understand the entire picture a little better.

Keep It In Perspective, Dingbat!

A recent trip to Calgary again showed me how fickle the weather can be. Although it was near the end of April, we experienced a six-inch fall of snow with temperatures hovering near the freezing mark. The resulting icy road conditions resulted in seven injury accidents and 79 non-injury accidents.

A local newspaper headline screamed, “Icy roads anger drivers.” One angry citizen ranted that the roads were like a skating rink and claimed, “I don’t think there’s any excuse or adequate explanation for the mess.”

Unfortunately, Dingbat there are some very good reasons and explanations for the situation that you are whining about. Firstly, we do not yet control the weather and when it snows, the snow accumulates. When the temperature eases above the freezing mark the snow melts into water and then refreezes into ice if the temperature drops. Thus the roads become icy. I assume that you expect the city to know of your unhappiness and rush to your house immediately with a sanding truck. The other one million residents should stand in line behind you.

This ridiculous situation did not deserve a headline in the paper nor a quote by Mr. Dingbat. The city probably has a couple thousand miles of city streets that they service and maintain. To react to a disgruntled citizen over one icy road that would probably be melted by day’s end is unnecessary. Mr. Cranky Pants get a life!

If Mr. Cranky thinks he is being hard done by because of a little inconvenience, consider the following. In Nassau, where I live, a developer built a 156-lot subdivision in 2005. Houses were built and people moved into the dwellings. As of April 2009, the families have been forced to live without electricity, telephones, water and sewage for the past FOUR YEARS. Everyone involved in the fiasco is pointing fingers in typical blame-someone-else fashion. Now that’s inconvenience!

If you think a little ice on the road for one day is a big problem, consider the residents of Killarney Shores who cannot turn on a light, have a bath, flush a toilet or make a phone call. At least not at home and not for the past four years. So keep it in perspective, Dingbat, and throw a little salt on the ice or stay home and watch cartoons!

I Want To Be An Executive Compensation Consultant!

One of life’s biggest decisions is the choice of a career or profession. In the past the choices were limited to traditional occupations like a teacher, a doctor, a lawyer or an accountant. Today the choices are unlimited, creative and very complex. In fact, I just heard of a great career opportunity – an Executive Compensation Consultant.

If I were searching for a career that is the job I would want. Just imagine! A CEO of a major company is trying to decide how to compensate both himself and his senior officers for a job well done. It would appear to be self serving and probably avaricious to grant oneself a major bonus. The shareholders and the public at large would be up in arms if the executives were to receive a large salary increase. When the economy is declining, stock prices are dropping and the company is losing money the last decision a smart CEO would want to make is increase the compensation package of the company’s executives. Enter the Executive Compensation Consultant.

A consultant is not an employee of the company that is examining executive compensation and is thus considered a neutral third party. The third party examines the financial status of the company in question and then develops a compensation plan that has nothing to do with the financial facts.

Any consultant worthy of the prestigious title knows that his only decision is to determine how much and how elaborate an executive compensation he will recommend. He has nothing to lose by being extravagant and generous. In fact, the more money and perks that he suggests as just and fair compensation for a companies top executives, the larger fee he can probably charge.

You can be sure that the news of an extra generous compensation package will spread like VD to other major CEOs. A consultant, who has no problem making generous awards and bonuses, will be so in demand that he will probably have to develop a compensation package for his own hard work and effort.

In my next life I will become an Executive Compensation Consultant. If your recommendations are extravagant you will be overworked and if your suggestions are too low you will be given a second chance to enhance them. Talk about a win-win job! It’s kind of like being Santa Clause in a business suit!

George W Bushes First 100 Days of Retirement

Recently President Obama marked his first 100 days in office as President of the US. Naturally, former President Bush also completed his first 100 days of retirement during the same period. While Obama’s first days received considerable press, Bushes did not. I feel compelled to file that report.

During his first 100 days of retirement, Former President Bush:

• Finally finished reading 'The Pet Goat', which he had started reading to an elementary class in Florida the morning of the 9/11 attacks. Bush explained, “Once I get my hands on a good book I can’t put it down.” He noted that he had to start the book from the beginning again as he had lost track of the plot over the past seven years.

• Watches the Oliver Stone movie “W” every week, as he loves the character portrayed by Josh Brolin. “That character ‘W’, I think was modeled after my brother Jeb,” former President Bush explains.

• Goes quail hunting on his Crawford, Texas ranch at every opportunity when Dick Chaney is out of the country. “Don’t get me wrong. I like Dick, but I prefer to shoot pool with him, not birds!”

• Spends a couple of hours each day preparing to write his memoirs. He has collected a wide variety of colored inks and fountain pens, along with some lined and monogrammed stationery. He has already finished coloring a lovely cover page for the introduction, which he has cleverly named, “Introduction.”

• Is planning to visit some of the foreign countries that he did not get a chance to visit during his presidency. Laura describes him as positively giddy when he talks about traveling to Wasilla, Alsaska and O-Wah-Hoo, HiWi. “There’s nuthin’ like travlin’ abroad to expand your minds and pick up some neat souvenirs,” George claims!

• Has offered to participate in the reality TV show “Dancing with the Stars” next season. “I bin dancin’ the Washington Two Step, the Iraq Hoedown and the WMD Waltz as well as singin’ out of both sides of my mouth for so long now, I think I would be a natural!” an enthusiastic Bush announced to Tom Bergeron.

• Began his Post-Presidential Speaking Tour by speaking to a group of homeless people in Canada. They had agreed to listen politely to Bush for a half hour, in exchange for a bowl of chowder and a sandwich. As the half hour time limit approached, the crowd rose to its feet in anticipation of a hot meal and a chance to escape to the quiet and sanity of their alleys and dumpsters. Bush retorted, “I have not spoken to such an enthusiastic and appreciative audience in years!”

I find it rather heartwarming to know that former President Bush is adjusting well to retirement and is able to keep constructively busy. Perhaps I will invite him to the Bahamas for a bowl of soup so we can commiserate about the joys of no longer having to struggle with the burdens of employment!

It’s Natural Evolution, Not Disaster!

Today’s news is carefully following the potential failure of the American automobile industry. Automakers are faced with the challenge of major rethinking, redesign, restructuring and reinventing their business or facing a slow death. I am empathetic to the thousands of workers who may become innocent victims of a major industry change, but there are always new opportunities presented during times of upheaval.

The 20th Century has already undergone hundreds of major changes in various industries, businesses and occupations. Change is how we evolve and we must adapt to changing times, conditions and circumstances continually. There are a lot of reasons for hope and optimism.

Consider some of the major changes that occurred during the second half of the past century. The era of the small farm disappeared and the mega-farm and reorganized livestock operations emerged. The one-room schoolhouses that dotted the rural landscape grew into larger, more comprehensive schools in larger centers. Small town doctors, dentists and ministers became a vanishing breed. They did not disappear; they just adapted to the changing circumstances and survived in other settings

Many occupations succeeded in new ways. The services of the door-to-door milkman and ice-deliveryman have relocated to small convenience stores or large supermarkets. Mail delivery and the newspaper may soon be a thing of the past but they will reappear in the form of online computer services. The drive-in movie theater has disappeared but the movie business continues to thrive via the take home DVD. Old jobs or industries adapt and evolve. Only if the challenge to change is not accepted will an industry die.

These opportunities are without a doubt very challenging and stressful. There are no guarantees and no clear blueprints anymore. The most difficult aspect will be developing a new way of thinking or exploring potential prospects. We must break out of some of our traditional ways of thinking and doing things, and become far more creative and inventive.

Two things are certain. The automobile industry will not disappear but it will emerge with a different face and a different structure. The kinds of cars, the size of cars, the operating system of the car and the marketing of cars will all be different in the future. It is a form of natural evolution, not an automatic disaster!

Ken’s Tough Times Investment Tip

The world’s economic plight continues. The housing market continues to fall, the stock market is in yo-yo mode, and a logical investment plan is drastically needed.

I consulted my crystal ball and am ready to unveil my very best investment idea. Most people do not want to risk a lot of money, so they are searching for low cost opportunities. They are avoiding mortgages because of Fanny and Freddie and not borrowing because of bank mismanagement. They are staying away from Wall Street, wary of OPEC and you can’t even get in on the ground floor of a good Ponzi scheme anymore!

I actually learned the basis of my investment strategy from an old man I met from Chicago. He was very down-to-earth and told me that his basic stock portfolio contained only one kind of stock. He believed that the best stocks to buy were those companies that produced commodities that you could eat. No matter how tough times can get, people always need to eat and therefore he only bought food company stocks. His portfolio included such stocks as Kraft, Heinz, Betty Crocker, General Mills and Robin Hood. Not a bad idea when you think about it.

My best investment advice is to invest all that you can in cans – of Campbell’s Soup. Canned soup is the ultimate wise investment. Each week I advise my clients to buy a case of soup from a wholesale food outlet. A basement full of cases of canned soup is your best hedge against hard times, recession and even potential depression.

If we sink into a depression, a can of Campbell’s Tomato Soup will become the equivalent of a gold coin during the Middle Ages. A can of soup can be traded for clothes, firewood, fresh produce or transportation. It will become the most sought after and valued currency of the day. In a real pinch, it can ultimately provide food and what greater need will we possibly have during very hard times. He who has the soup will have the power.

Canned soup also has the advantage of a long shelf life and being easy to prepare. A can opener and a little hot water (think melted snow) and you will be able to carry on during the toughest of hard economic times. If you want to get fancy you could stock up on other canned goods but soup is the key to survival.

Feel free to pass my advice on to friends. I only charge one can of soup for each of your referrals!

Lifelong Learning Comes in Many Different Shapes

The movie Slumdog Millionaire is based upon a very interesting premise. A young uneducated man wins a major quiz show by correctly answering all the questions from a wide variety of categories. The promoters of the show cannot fathom how an unschooled youngster could be an expert on so many diverse topics.

The young man knew all of the answers not because he was a book learner, but because his life experiences had put him into some unique situations that revealed some snippets of information that by chance were the basis for the questions on the quiz show. His life experiences were his teacher.

On reflection, I tried to identify a number of occasions in my own life where I incidentally learned something. As a child I remember playing the card game Authors. By playing this game I became familiar with the key works of such authors as Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, Robert Lewis Stevenson, William Shakespeare, James Fenimore Cooper, Washington Irving, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Sir Walter Scott, Louisa May Alcott, and Edgar Allen Poe. Without really studying them, I can still remember the key works of these authors.

In a similar vain, I was a big fan of Classics Comics as a child. Famous works of fiction were capsulized into a comic format and because of the comics, I became familiar with the plots and characters of dozens of famous books that I probably would have never read in their original form.

One of the real books that fascinated my as a child was an old tattered family atlas. I remember spending hours finding such exotic locales as Timbuktu, Cairo, Rangoon, Bombay and Katmandu. I loved to find strangely named countries such as Borneo, or strange rivers and mountain ranges. Although it is not a particularly practical skill, it probably helped establish a springboard for my passion for travel in later years.

My childhood love of movies and baseball were also the sources of a lot of incidental learning. I knew the winners of all of the Academy Award winning movies and the works of many actors from the post war years. As a huge collector of baseball cards I was familiar with the teams and records of dozens of famous and obscure baseball players from the 50s and 60s. It was all pretty much useless information except when I was forced to play the board game, Trivial Pursuit, or watch the TV-show, Jeopardy.

I am a wizard at trivial information on a lot of topics. If I had been on Who Wants to be A Millionaire and the questions had to do with authors, famous books, geography, movies or baseball I could have been a millionaire too!

On what subjects are you an expert?

How to Vacation For a Year For Free!

If I had really set my mind to it, I could have made millions. Instead I chose to become a teacher and live a simple life with simple pleasures. As a retiree, I am now prepared to share one of my million dollar ideas with friends at no charge.

How would you like to take a year long vacation for free? All you have to do is use Ken’s Klever Share-a-Lease Plan. To begin, I suggest you assemble either four or six couples that have similar interests to yours and love to travel. The group needs to select either four or six North American destinations where they all would like to holiday for an extended period of two or three months each.

To illustrate, let us decide that six couples would all like to visit San Francisco, San Diego, Puerto Vallarta, New York, Boston, and Montreal which form a convenient circle of destinations. Each couple would be charged with leasing a condo or apartment in one of the locations for a year. After two months, the couples would move around the circle to the next condo that has been leased by one of the other couples. Over the course of the year each couple would have access to each of the six condos for a two-month period. Four couples would share four condos for three- month periods.

Since the accommodations are all in North America, couples could travel using their own automobile, so the travel expenses would be minimal. The best part of the plan however is that it can operate at no cost to any of the couples if they are willing to lease out their own home for a year. The revenue from leasing your own home should more or less pay for the cost of a condo lease. Brilliant concept don’t you think?

The question of only being out of the country for six months, like most snowbirds, is not an issue. There is a provision through Alberta Health Care that allows a person to be absent for up to two years, without forfeiting AHC coverage, for the purpose of travel. Most people do not know of this provision but we have been using it for years.

If you are a BIG thinker just imagine the possibilities. How about a year in Europe with two months in London, Paris, Vienna, Prague, Rome and Madrid? Or if you are a GIANT thinker, consider the world as your oyster – Seattle, Honolulu, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Istanbul and London? The options are endless and a round-the-world airfare can be less than $3000!

So there you have it. One year of excitement and travel, and all it will cost you is a dram of courage and the commitment to say, “Count me in!” Interested?

Prevent Cruelty to Children – Ban Figure Skating

There are some sports that I would not encourage children to participate in at a competitive level. It is no problem if they play them for fun or with their peers in the schoolyard or gymnasium, but they shouldn’t play them professionally.

I am referring to the sports that do not have an objective scoring system. Sports that can easily determine a winner by the number of goals scored, the fastest time recorded, the distance jumped or that can be measured in some clear concise fashion are fine. Sports like baseball, tennis, golf, hockey, javelin, rowing, or Tiddleywinks can be scored objectively. Play them to your hearts content.

But for your sanity and the sake of your children’s egos and self-esteem, avoid the sports scored by some subjective means. At all costs avoid figure skating, competitive diving, gymnastics and synchronized swimming. The loosey-goosey means of scoring will raise the blood pressure of parents and decrease the feeling of worth in the child. Non-objective scoring by its nature is unfair and faulty. Why would you subject your child to the whim of a prejudiced or marginally competent judge?

Don’t get me wrong. I admire the dedication and commitment of the many Olympic athletes who participate in these later sports. I remember watching a former World Champion figure skater practicing slowly skating the figure eight over and over to try to perfect this portion of the old compulsory program. He must have done it a million times before he was a champion and yet when he competed he was at the mercy of a number of judges trying to assess the perfection of his technique in a fraction of a second. I would hate to see years of hard work, sacrifice and dedication left to be judged by the physical abilities of a group of elderly mortals.

Competitive diving, gymnastics and synchronized swimming all suffer from the same problem. To try to promote some sense of fairness these sports all try to objectively determine “the degree of difficulty” of a jump, a dive or a routine. I think this only makes it harder to compare the performance of athletes who execute different routines. If one diver performs a less challenging dive well, is that better than a diver who performs a more challenging dive less well? How can you tell?

Needless to say I am not taking up diving, figure skating or gymnastics for just this reason. I don’t want to dedicate years of my life to perfecting a five-minute figure skating program and have some judge, who is suffering a hangover or who has just been refused a Canadian residency permit, evaluate my years of effort. I would rather take up bowling because I know that counting the number of pins I knock down is not subject to interpretation.

So help prevent cruelty to children. Let them play water polo not take synchronized swimming, learn lacrosse not the parallel bars, and learn how to high jump not make a triple toe loop! You will be thankful you did.

Gandhi vs. Einstein – You Decide

Two of the most quoted men of the 20th Century have been Mohandas Gandhi and Albert Einstein. I have always loved their use of language and the provocative nature of many of their ideas and beliefs.

Some of my favorite quotations by Gandhi include:
-I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.
-Speak only if it improves upon the silence.
-Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.
-There are many causes I would die for. There is not a single cause I would kill for.
-You should be the change that you want to see in the world.
-An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind.
-To believe in something, and not live it, is dishonest.
-First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
-Seven social sins: politics without principles, wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, and worship without sacrifice.

Some of my favorite quotations by Einstein include:
-Try to become not a man of success, but try rather to become a man of value.
-Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution.
-Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.
-Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.
-Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.
-Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage - to move in the opposite direction.
-As our circle of knowledge expands, so does the circumference of darkness surrounding it.
-I live in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in the years of maturity.

Who do you enjoy more – Mohandas or Albert?

Straightening Out the Big Three Automakers Mess

I have been requested by President Obama to help save the US automobile industry. Of course I told him I would do my best and try to offer some proposals that would help the industry, as well as deal with the global energy and environmental crises.

My ten recommendations for the future include:

Car making companies can only make five kinds of vehicles – a compact car, an intermediate car, a large car, a van and a truck. There is no need for the dozens and dozens of models that only confuse the buyer. Five types are enough.

Each year will only provide three, color choices. 2010 models will be black, tan or red, 2011 models will be gold, white or blue, and 2012 models will be grey, silver or green. The colors will recycle every three years. Nine colors to chose from are enough.

Every vehicle will possess a four or six cylinder engine and the V8 engine will only be a memory. In an energy conscious environment, a small engine is more than adequate for 99% of drivers. The other 1% can vicariously increase their engines power by vocally chanting “Vroom, vroom, vroom!”

Beginning in 2012 ALL vehicles must be hybrids and in 2014 an electric option will be available as well. Every other option will be a standard feature with no additional costs beyond the sticker price.

Cars will only be assembled to fill an order. Just as many books are now only published upon demand, there is no need for hundreds of thousands of cars to sit in lots waiting to be sold. Dealerships will not need huge car storage lots and money will not be tied up in inventory. Plan ahead, order your car and then wait until it is delivered.

A selection of assembly line workers and supervisors will determine the salary that is fair for performing each task on an automobile assembly line. Since most tasks are automated, workers will not be paid as if they were skilled, educated engineers when their job involves tightening three nuts on three bolts. If workers don’t like the new salary scale, fill out a job application at Wal-Mart.

The maximum salary of any automobile executive cannot exceed the salary of the President of the United States. Any executive, who wishes to make a case for a higher salary, is invited to do so at his or her own peril.

The prices of all vehicles will decrease to reflect the lower cost of fewer models, fewer color and option choices, less need for large inventories and lower salaries of many employees of the automobile industry. Pass the savings on to the buyer, not the CEO.

New car owners will be provided with a five-year warrantee that will cost the owner only $200 for minor and $500 for major repairs. Auto companies will be forced to ensure that their work is of a high quality or be required to assume the cost of shoddy workmanship.

At year’s end, automobile company executives may be awarded bonuses. In the next year, however, the price of the company’s automobiles must be reduced by the same percentage, as the executive’s bonus was a percentage of his or her salary. What’s sauce for the goose is probably going to make the gander happy as well!

Mr. President, I have been glad to be able to help. If you need any help with bankers or mortgage lenders just give me a call!

Interesting Income Tax Exemption!

Income tax time is not usually considered a fun time for most of us. It is often a boring, repetitive and uninteresting exercise. That changed this year, however, when I stumbled upon the following information package

Topic 357 - Tax Information for Parents of Kidnapped Children

You may claim a kidnapped child as your dependent if the following requirements are met:

1. The child must be presumed by law enforcement to have been kidnapped by someone who is not a member of your family or a member of the child's family, and
2. The child had, for the taxable year in which the kidnapping occurred, the same principal place of abode as the taxpayer for more than one-half of the portion of such year before the date of kidnapping.

If both of these requirements are met, the child may meet the requirements for purposes of determining:

* The dependency exemption
* The child tax credit, and
* Head of household or qualifying widow(er) with dependent child filing status.

This tax treatment will cease to apply as of your first tax year beginning after the calendar year in which either there is a determination that the child is dead or the child would have reached age 18, whichever occurs first.

For more information, refer to Publication 501, Exemptions, Standard Deduction, and Filing Information.

Of course I did a double take when I read it. I thought for sure that someone was scamming me and had made up the entire article.

I did a triple take when I searched the US Internal Revenue site and found that, in fact, the above is a completely legitimate exemption. You can claim any of your kidnapped children as an income tax exemption!

Had I known this thirty years ago, my two sons would certainly have some interesting stories to tell today!

Michelle Obama – You’re Way Out of Line!

Today, Michelle Obama has stepped way out of line! Until today I very much admired her for her intelligence, her common sense, and her role modeling as a mother and homemaker. Her decision to plant a vegetable garden in the back yard of the White House has changed my mind.

She has gone far beyond the mandate of the First Lady. Her decision to plant a vegetable garden to teach her children and others the benefits of growing and eating fresh produce will have immense ramifications. I know she thinks it is a good idea, but she has no idea of the repercussions.

Now every wife and mother in North America will want (her husband) to make and plant a garden. Since most yards are covered in lawn, the first step will be to dig up huge sections of grass, dispose of the waste and haul in fresh loam and topsoil. And you can bet your subscription of Horticulture Humor, that the husband will be commandeered to do the manual labor.

Once the man of the house has planned out and dug the garden, the wife and children will take over. With photojournalists from around the world recording the historic event, Michelle and the girls in their latest Old Navy garden wear will be shown carefully dropping little peas into freshly watered troughs. They will be smiling and excitedly awaiting the first crop.

After the first few seeds have been buried, that is the last that you will see of the kids and the wife for a while. The daily watering, the weed picking, the plant thinning and the application of pesticides and fertilizer will be left to the man of the house. I hope Barack has the time! Maybe he can skip the next round of Middle East peace talks cuz he’ll be needed in the pea patch!

At the first sign of the harvest, the photojournalists will be back. And for the first time in months, so will the kids and the wife. The baskets of fresh peas and green lettuce will complement the lovely red dresses the children are wearing for the photo shoot. The White House vegetable garden venture will be a smashing success!

Every man in American, including Barack, will be singing the praises of the fresh produce readily available in the local supermarkets, but to no avail. Nothing tastes as good as vegetables fresh from the family garden. The blood, sweat, toil, and tears of the thousands of husbands who were forced to become happy little suburban gardeners will not be mentioned.

So, Michelle dear, next time you get a good idea like remodeling a White House bathroom as a do-it-yourself project, please consult with me first. Neither Barack nor I have the time or inclination to rip out tile, remove cabinetry or repaint a bathroom. The baseball season starts soon and my free time will be at a premium. Especially if I have to weed the garden too!

The Five Porches of Deliverance Centre Apostolic Tabernacle Church?

The Bahamas is a country blessed with an incredible number of different churches. It seems as though there is a church, temple, cathedral or revival tent on almost every other corner. The names of many of these small churches have caught my eye since we arrived in the islands.

My experience as a Roman Catholic has led me to believe that most churches had rather simple names. Many Catholic churches were named after the Holy Family or the saints – St. Andrew, St. Bernard, St. Cecelia, St. Dominic and so on. Short and sweet, and clearly named.

The churches in the Bahamas have far more interesting names. I have seen the following:

Church of God of Prophecy
Cousin McPhee Cathedral
Final Hours Ministries
God’s Temple of Praise
Mt Pleasant Green Baptist Church International
Abundant Life Bible Church
Living Word Church of God
Living Water Church of God
Soul Winning Church of God in Christ
Breath of Life Unity Church
Walking Church of God Ministry
Free in Jesus Miracle Deliverance Temple
Oasis of Love Ministries ---and my personal favorite
Five Porches of Deliverance Centre Apostolic Tabernacle Church.

I find the church names very interesting, but I have a hard time really differentiating how they may differ. Because of the stiff competition to save souls, each name seems to be more of a marketing strategy than a clear explanation of the churches denomination or basic beliefs.

The Baptist Churches have tried to attract members by using the adjective “new” to name many of their churches. For example we have:

New Beginning Jubilee Baptist Church
New Destiny Baptist Church
New Hope Missionary Baptist Church
New Covenant Baptist Church
New Free Community Holiness Baptist Church
New Testament Independent Baptist Church
New Lively Hope Baptist Church
New Wine Kingdom Ministries

It makes me thankful that I am not a new arrival to Nassau looking to find a suitable place of worship. I’d have a hard time choosing between a church that has wine, hope, green, cousin, winning or oasis of love built into its name.

I will just continue to go to St. Francis Xavier Cathedral where a Mass breaks out every Sunday, right in the middle of a high-spirited Gospel music concert!

Bathroom Redesign is Essential

Every main bathroom in today’s homes needs to be totally redesigned. There needs to be a woman’s portion and a man’s section. Their needs are totally different.

A man’s part of the bathroom can be a small drawer for his bath and body essentials, one towel hook and one towel. The single drawer must be able to accommodate a toothbrush and toothpaste, a razor and shaving cream, a stick of deodorant and a bottle of men’s cologne. That’s it.

A woman’s bathroom portion must be able to store a far wider range of lotions and potions, makeup, and enhancements for her body, her hair and her skin. She could have a small drawer for the same contents as a man, but she would also need to have a place for the following:

- face cream, neck cream, eye cream, thigh cream, foot cream, day cream, night cream, cold cream, wrinkle remover and makeup remover.
- hand lotions, body lotions, bath oils, bath beads, shower gels, bubble baths, scented baths, perfumes, colognes and toilet water.
- cleansers, toners, foundation, blush, face powder, lip stick lip gloss, lip liner, eyeliner, eye shadow, eyebrow pencil, mascara, nail polish, nail polish remover, fake fingernails, fake eyelashes…
- shampoos, conditioners, bleaches dyes, rinses, tints, perms, straighteners, wigs, falls, rats, extensions, combs, barrettes, bobby pins, hairpins, hairnets, hair curlers, scrunchies, ribbons, bows, tiebacks, headbands…
- astringents, moisturizers, emulsions, exfoliants, peels, scrubs, depilatories, body wraps, facial masks …
- supplies and tools for, streaking, frosting, teasing, spraying, moussing, blow drying, cutting, layering, curling, eyelash curling, eyebrow plucking, armpit shaving, leg shaving, crotch shaving, leg waxing, eyebrow waxing…

I know this is only a cursory list as I am not very knowledgeable on female cosmetics and beauty supplies. This partial list however does emphasize the need for new bathroom design.

The bathroom of the future should consist of a drawer and towel hanger for the men and an additional walk-in room complete with wall-to-wall Ikea storage units for the ladies. There will also need to be room for the wash cloths, hand towels, bath towels, beach towels, bath sheets, decorative towels, hair towels, slippers, house coats, moisturizing mittens and socks, floor mats, toilet covers, toilet seat covers, toilet drip mats…

If necessary, I would be willing to share my bathroom drawer, if more storage space is needed!

150-Year Jail Sentences Don’t Impress Me!

Financier Bernie Madoff, 72 years of age, faces the possibility of 150 years in jail for his illicit financial transactions. Madoff swindled 50-60 billion dollars from trusting investors over the past thirty years. When he has finished serving his jail sentence he will be 222 years old.

Of course, the above scenario is preposterous. It does however illustrate the meaningless nature of the sentences rendered in the court system. Why not simply sentence the guilty to a definite, but realistic number of years. Is the ridiculous number “150” designed to provide some comfort to the victims of the crime or to show that the judicial system really means business? Either way, these kind of dramatic sentences serve no real purpose.

Often the courts seem to relish imposing stern sentences. A criminal can be sentenced to two life terms to be served consecutively or concurrently. What is the point? Others have been sentenced to twenty or thirty or forty years in jail with no parole. Invariably, however, we read of long-term inmates being paroled before half their sentence has been served. Why not just sentence them to ten or fifteen or twenty years to begin with, and mean it?

The court system needs to reexamine their sentencing practices. As they exist today, most sentences mean nothing. They are arbitrary and seldom does the person charged ever serve their full sentence. In the case of Madoff most of his clients who have lost fortunes would just be happy to see him go to jail. At his age, the length of the sentence is quite immaterial.

Or perhaps, it might be more acceptable for Madoff to be made to do charitable or community service with strict supervision. The courts could impound any personal finances he still has and he would have to find a cheap place to live and would have to work to survive. If he could not survive on his own skills and abilities he would be forced to join the ranks of the homeless and destitute.

Wouldn’t that be a more suitable punishment than incarceration in a warm facility that provides for his basic needs of food, shelter and clothing? I certainly think so!

A Little More bin Laden

I have more and more trouble trying to come to grips with the news that we are fed through the media about Osama bin Laden. I really wonder how much is truth and how much is fabricated to serve another purpose.

First of all, we know that bin Laden is a man who is personally wealthy and is well funded by sympathizers. He does not have to live in poverty and struggle to make ends meet. He's intelligent, cunning and financially solvent

One of the things that bothers me is that the authenticity of his videos and audiotapes that are released are always subject to question. We are shown a video or listen to an audio and told that the validity of the tapes is still being confirmed. With all of the sophisticated technology that we possess, an easily verifiable voiceprint of bin Laden must be on file with most intelligence agencies. Likewise, it is fairly easy for today’s scientists to determine if a video is authentic, tampered with or fabricated. Have you ever read that a supposed bin Laden audio was a fraud fabricated by a DJ from Montreal? So why do we always have to include this little charade every time a tape is released?

My other regular question has to do with the location of bin Laden. The American media is forever intimating that Osama lives in some kind of underground fortress or a cave that was once inhabited by wild animals. I find this a little hard to swallow. With the financial resources at his disposal and the support of the Taliban and hill tribes of Afghanistan and Pakistan I would think that his living accommodations would be a little more upscale than a Fred Flintstone bomb shelter. If he does live underground, I would imagine that some very modern amenities would be included like a flat screen television, a hydro-spa and air conditioning. I could also be completely wrong!

Given the large Muslin populations in so many parts of the world, perhaps he is really living in Indonesia, Bangladesh or Nigeria. Since there has been no confirmation of an actual sighting of bin Laden for several years, he might be living in a safe house in Jakarta, with a different hairstyle, a shorter beard and wearing an Indonesian sarong. His money would provide for first-rate protection and security and he might prefer the warmth and sun of Southeast Asia to the snow and freezing winter temperatures of Afghanistan or Pakistan. My wealth has allowed me to flee the winters of Alberta for the tropical climate of the Caribbean and I am not even trying to hide!

Come to think of it, I saw a tall slim, elderly gentleman with a beard who looked remarkably like a Saudi at the casino the other night! Hmmm. This merits investigation!

Let’s Play, “Who Am I?”

“He was brought up with good manners. He matured as an extremely humble and very generous person. He insists on joining his comrades in every act. Very frequently he cooks for them and serves them. He lives a simple life in a small flat or in a shed and insists that his family eat simply and dress simply. Guess #1?

He is known to be strictly truthful and would never lie, but he is politically conscious and believes there is a room for political involvement even if you are a devout person. Despite being shy he has a dominating personality. He speaks very little and looks serious most of the time. He often appears with a soft smile but he seldom laughs. His followers see an aura about him and show great respect to him although is not really charismatic. He is not known for giving distinguished speeches, and there are very few audio or video recordings of him. Guess #2?

He is very educated (as an engineer and in business administration) and spends a good deal of time reading. He is fond of media monitoring and information gathering and research. There is always a data management team with him wherever he goes. Guess #3?

One of his outstanding features is his courage. More than once he has needed treatment in hospital for injuries resulting from bombings and explosions. Despite his courage he is very cautious person. He will not keep any electronic instrument close to his vicinity. He even avoids wearing a simple watch because he believes this might help in targeting him.” Final guess?

I’m sure by now that you will have guessed that the above is a description of Osama bin Laden, written by a journalist. When I first read this brief description of Osama the person, I found it rather hard to reconcile it with my perception of the world’s number one terrorist.

Before becoming Public Enemy Number One in much of the western world, bin Laden was a self-made multimillionaire. He was a construction company owner and his net worth was believed to be between $200-300 million.

Somehow, the man described above and the man who is portrayed in our media seems more like Jekyl and Hyde, than the same person. I guess personal attributes are often buried so far below the surface of the public persona or media portrait that we don’t ever think of words such as humble, generous and shy to describe a man like bin Laden!

I know I guessed wrong to the question of “Who Am I?”

ET Will Soon Be Coming Back!

The aliens are coming! The aliens are coming! The time for a close encounter of the third kind is getting nearer and nearer. For years mankind has speculated about another species similar to man, living on another planet somewhere in the universe. As each year passes that dream is closer to becoming a real possibility.

Most people are not getting as excited as I am, but I just found out that there are now over 300 new planets that have been discovered in the past twelve years. They are not planets in our solar system but they are planets in other systems in the galaxy called exoplanets.

For most of my life I was taught there were only nine planets. Mars, Venus, Mercury, Saturn and Jupiter have been know since classical times as they are visible to the naked eye. The invention of the telescope uncovered Uranus and Neptune and for about eighty years we welcomed Pluto into the club. Pluto has since had its membership revoked but we have been discovering new planets outside of our solar system at a rate of twenty or thirty a year.

About 330 exoplanets have been discovered thus far. Most of these new planets however have been very different in their composition than Earth. This January the COROT space telescope found a unique planet 390 light years away from Earth with many similarities to Earth. It has been appropriately christened COROT-Exo-7b.

In March 2009, NASA will launch the Kepler telescope designed to focus on searching for planets in habitable zones of space where the temperatures on the planet might support liquid water and where it might be possible to sustain life. The search for another life form is getting very focused, very quickly!

For the past two or three thousand years we have been stuck with only eight known planets, but in the past twelve years we are now aware of over 300. How long can it be before someone hits the jackpot and discovers a planet similar to our Earth with the possibility of sustaining a life form?

It won’t be long before someone starts selling tickets for the First Alien Encounter Barbecue and Dance!

Not a Chick Magnet But a Noise Magnet

Everybody has the ability to attract others into their life space. Some guys are chick magnets and some guys attract animals as though they were human milk bones. Some people just seem to pull interesting people towards them and others repel friends and acquaintances like a smelly diaper. But we all have some capability to affect others.

Unfortunately, for some reason, I attract the loud and noisy into my sphere. As the poem Desiderata proposes, “Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexatious to the spirit.” Somehow, no matter where I am, if there is someone with a big mouth, a loud voice or an irritating cackle they manage to invade my world.

On a recent flight home, we found our way into the waiting lounge about an hour before the flight. The seating area was sparsely populated and I chose a seat away from the television screens so that I could quietly read my book. Within five minutes, two young couples sat in the row next to us and began to chat. One of the men had an incredibly irritating voice and he proceeded to tell all within a five-mile radius about his holiday adventures. We learned of his favorite drinks, his excessive consumption and the resulting vomiting and heaving. I gave thanks that he did not sit near me on the plane or I would have been forced to gag him.

The same thing often happens in restaurants as well. In the booth next to us Joe Yapper expounds on his golf score, his best shot and the miraculous putt on the seventh hole for all to hear. To punctuate his dismal story he has a hilarious laugh and uses it to mark the end of every sentence. Even changing tables would not remove the piercing prattle from my ears.

One of my biggest vexations is the person who must chat in a movie. No matter how quietly they are explaining the last scene to their companion, it always pre-empts the dialogue on the screen. Today’s movies are not that intricate or complex that they need explanation or commentary, but that does not deter the movie mouth. I’m sure that if I were the only one in the theater, hiding in a front row seat, the next customer would sit behind me and talk even if he had no companion. I just attract the yappy, the chatterers and the vocally irritating.

What happened to the sanctity of personal space? What happened to respecting the rights and comfort of others? What happened to being seen and not heard? Perhaps I need to go on the offensive. I should develop a bellicose, braggadocio persona full of verbal diarrhea with a belly laugh and an end of statement snort! Come to think of it, that may not be a bad idea! Har-de-har, yuck-yuck, yabber-yabber, snort!

Sir Elton – I Doubly Resent Him Now!

I don’t like to be taken advantage of and I don’t like to be misinformed. I think Sir Elton John has done both.

Earlier I wrote a commentary on the fact that if I wanted to attend an Elton John concert, I was being blackmailed into contributing to his charity. It was only a dollar but I resented it. If I paid $80+ for a ticket and a $10 handling fee and a credit card interest charge, then I still was required to pay an extra one-dollar to support The Elton John AIDS Foundation.

Again, I was opposed to the principle of the extra dollar, not the money. Sir Elton can select his favorite charities and I should have the same right to select my favorite charities.

The resentment of my charitable contribution to The Elton John AIDS Foundation doubled today. I assumed, wrongly as it turned out, that the money would be used to combat AIDS in some fashion. In today’s paper, there was a list of contributors to the Bill Clinton Foundation. Many of the gifts were from large corporations, individual billionaires and countries such as Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Oman. A contributor of $1 – 5 million that caught my eye was the Elton John AIDS Foundation.

I am a little confused as to why the Elton John AIDS Foundation should be contributing to the Bill Clinton Foundation, whose primary function is to fund the Bill Clinton Library. My one-dollar, that I was assured was helping to combat AIDS, was being donated to help build a library. It all sounded like a case of classic misdirection.

On further investigation, I was reminded that Bill Clinton also uses some of his foundation’s funds to address the global AIDS problem. So I guess I could assume that my one dollar was carefully passed from Elton John to Bill Clinton and then I am sure to a hospital for AIDS survivors in Botswana or Kampala. Or was it? If one foundation donates to a parallel foundation can I assume the later foundation is more effective and efficient? It would be far simpler if there were only ONE foundation that was focusing on AIDS, one on cancer, one on diabetes etc.

Having been blackmailed into contributing to some AIDS benefit, I want to be assured that my dollar has not been frittered away by inter-foundation ping-pong!

Brontosaurus Balls!

Making mistakes are an integral part of life. People usually try to do their best but on occasion something can go wrong. For example, a dry cleaning company in Washington DC, somehow lost a pair of pants that had been dropped off for cleaning. An unfortunate error, but not a reason to believe that the end of the world was near!

A local state-appointed judge dropped his favorite pair of pants at the dry cleaners for cleaning and was furious when they were reported missing. I am sure that the dry cleaner made some offer of compensation, as I am sure he carried some kind of business insurance for such occasions. The judge would not hear of it and decided to sue the dry cleaner as the judge maintained, that the “satisfaction guaranteed” slogan of the company could not replace his favorite slacks.

The judge, whose entire vocation was to try to resolve disputes reasonably and equitably, was going to teach the businessman a lesson. If I had been a judge, I would have found a claim of $500 to $1000 a more than fair restitution for one pair of trousers. The state judge, however felt that a $34 million lawsuit would be far more reasonable.

Without a doubt the judge had Brontosaurus balls! A multi -million dollar lawsuit was filed over one lost pair of pants! To consider this kind of greed as absurd is a mega-understatement. Perhaps, I have been anatomically misdirected in my description of the judge’s endowments. Rather than monster cajones, he may have been bequeathed a Brontosaurus brain – the size of a walnut!

Apparently, the fates intervened and the story ended fairly happily. Unfortunately the dry cleaner went out of business but I am sure was resilient enough to get back on his feet. After two years of appeals and more appeals, three different courts dismissed the lawsuit. The really good news, however, is that the poor trouser-less judge was not offered another contract as a state judge and became unemployed.

Occasionally justice prevails, and the greedy and insensitive are beaten by the very system that they were supposed to uphold. How sweet it is!

Life Sometimes Gets Things Backwards!

Sometimes our lives seem to be backwards in many ways. A current movie, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”, seems to support that contention. I have not seen the movie but have read that it is a story about a man who is born “old” and then, as time passes, he gets younger and younger! He ages backwards.

I have always maintained that there is another aspect of life that is basically backwards. When we are young and in our twenties we usually have a lot of time and not too much money. We are generally healthy, possess more energy, a wealth of interests and are continually seeking excitement and action. Our pursuit of the many earthly pleasures such as travel, good food, hot cars and extravagant toys and gadgets are often far beyond the limits of our income.

As our life unfolds and we graduate into our fifties and sixties, we find ourselves in just the opposite situation – we have more money than we can often spend, but we do not seem to have the time, nor inclination, to do so. Our physical selves have become worn like an older car – our tires have less tread, our engine is getting clogged with sludge and our body is suffering from the dents and scrapes of numerous encounters with life. We aren’t as interested or capable of nonstop travel, rich food and drink and a hectic and demanding life style. We are more content with an afternoon nap, Kraft dinner for lunch and an exciting evening reading a new bestseller.

Perhaps there is a way of realigning our financial resources with our needs. A man’s earnings over a lifetime can be projected. I am sure that actuaries can determine the total salary, including performance bonuses and cost of living changes, for any profession over a 35 to 40 year period. For example, a starting teacher will make $35,000 in year one and a $135,000 a year, forty years into the future. Salary gradually increases with time. A teacher should be able to make about $3- 4 million over a forty year career.

I propose that the lifetime salary of any profession be redistributed, with more salary paid during the first twenty years and progressively less over the last twenty years. Our highest salaries should occur during the period of our life when we are more ready, willing, and in need of greater resources. As we get older, our needs and generally our wants decline substantially. We basically need less money in our senior years.

Why not align these two factors more appropriately? Life got it backwards originally and it’s now time to correct that little error.

George W Bush, Super Sports Agent

Retirement poses a problem for many. People invariably are often uncertain as to what they are going to do with their lives when they quit working. President George W Bush is no exception. What can an ex-president do after retirement? Recently, however, President Bush’s problem was solved.

Bush’s last visit to Iraq provided an experience, which opened his eyes in more ways than one. His news conference in Baghdad was interrupted by an Iraqi journalist who shouted in Arabic — “This is a gift from the Iraqis; this is the farewell kiss, you dog” — and threw one of his shoes at the president, who ducked and narrowly avoided being struck. As chaos ensued, the perpetrator threw his other shoe, shouting, “This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq.” The second shoe also narrowly missed Mr. Bush as Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki stuck out a hand in front of the president’s face to help shield him. Both thrown shoes zoomed harmlessly past President Bush.

Immediately after the attack, Bush signed the shoe-hurling journalist to a personal services contract. President Bush, who previously owned the Texas Rangers Baseball Club, excitedly exclaimed that the man had an incredible arm. “The first pitch was like a rising fast ball with a lot of movement and the second showed knuckleball action,” Bush stated after the attack. “This guy demonstrated phenomenal potential as a major league relief pitcher. He needs to work on his control, but his poise and his smooth overhand delivery reminded me of Hall of Famer, Nolan Ryan.”

President Bush recognized his post-presidential career as a sports agent immediately after the second shoe whizzed near his right ear. “It came to me in a flash, that representing athletes would utilize the negotiating skills that I developed as president. If Sabathia is worth $161 million to the Yankees, I can hardly wait to determine the value of my new phenom in the next couple of months. I am sure I will be as successful a sports agent as I have been a well respected and effective president.”

President Bush reluctantly rejected Iraqi Prime Minister al-Maliki’s request to represent him as well. Bush indicated that he was not impressed with al-Maliki as he waved his hand futilely at the flying shoes. “He doesn’t have very soft hands and his reactions are not up to major league standards,” responded an ecstatic Bush as he initiated his new retirement profession!

Within minutes of Bush’s declaration that he was transitioning into the sports agency business, both Nike and Adidas inquired about a possible sponsorship agreement with Bush’s first client. Who would have guessed – George W Bush, super sports agent?

Which Are Your Favorite Days of the Year?

Dave Letterman has always highlighted his Top Ten Lists on his show. I like the idea and am going to inaugurate Ken’s Top Seven List, because at my age, I am only operating at 70% of my full mental capacity.

My first Top Seven List is “My Favorite Days of the Year.”

Groundhogs Day has always been one of my favorites. It pays special tribute to an unsung mammal which performs no action worthy of recognition and yet receives global recognition for just seeing or not seeing its own shadow. That kind of a scam deserves special acknowledgement.

Christmas Day. Although I have soured somewhat on the commercialization of the Christmas season, I still have a special place in my heart for my childhood Christmas memories. I also love the joy of sharing Christmas in a home with small children, who make Christmas so magical and exciting.

May 21. Most of the Western World, as well as the countries of Turkey and Poland, knows that May 21 is my wife’s birthday. It is celebrated in more countries than Washington’s Birthday and thus deserves a special place of honor on my list. (Besides, if I didn’t include it, she would kill me.)

The First Day of School. As a former teacher, the first day of school (17 as a student and 34 as a teacher) has always had a special place in my life. Every new school year was filled with excitement and positive anticipation. Each year was a new beginning, with new friends, new challenges and new life shaping experiences.

July 1. The first of July was always my official start to the summer holidays no matter what the last day of school was. Summer holidays meant sleeping in, no work, visiting family in other cities, traveling, and basically abandoning the clock and the calendar for two months. You were free to do what you wanted, when you wanted, if you wanted.

The First Day of the Baseball Season. I love baseball. My daily life is enriched and excited from the first day of the season to the last day of the World Series. I look so forward to following my Indians, watching games on TV, reading the box scores and now following every game in detail through the Internet. The four months between seasons are an eternity.

December 21. The first day of winter is my favorite day of the year, not because I love cold, snow and darkness, but because it is the day the sun makes a U-Turn at the Tropic of Capricorn and starts to head north towards North America. Starting tomorrow the days will get longer and longer by a couple of minutes a day and summer will get closer and closer. No day actually makes me happier.

So there you have it, Ken’s Top Seven Favorite Days of the Year! Now it’s your turn!

A Headline Event in 2011

During the next couple of years we can expect some very big celebrations and major news events. The Winter Olympics are scheduled for next year and a potential Royal Wedding is probably in the works. But nothing will eclipse the news that was just released today!

A glittering opera about Anna Nicole Smith, including her final days in the Bahamas, is to be performed at the Royal Opera House in London in 2011. I have been absolutely giddy since the news was announced. The opera is being written by Richard Thomas, the man who gave the world “Jerry Springer – The Opera”, a controversial depiction of modern American life, which offended many Christian groups. How could we possibly ask for more?

The press release indicated that the story would include all of the major events in Ms Smith’s life. It will cover her teenage years, her marriage to the billionaire oilman 63 years her senior, her son Daniel’s tragic death and her own accidental overdose in 2007.

The opera’s director stressed that the opera will not be “tawdry” but will be “witty, clever, thoughtful and sad.” She added that the opera would be a parable about celebrity, tell “universal truths” about human frailty and be intellectually searching! I know that sounds like a challenge but I am sure they can pull it off.

The wait until opening night will be long and painful. Some people, I am sure, will scoff and ridicule the idea but they are certainly in the minority. The inhabitants of the Chicken Ranch outside Las Vegas, Hefner’s Playboy Mansion and the dozens of "actresses" in Amsterdam’s Street of Madams are all holding their breath awaiting the first casting call.

I know the opera announcement made my day. I am positively atwitter with excitement!

I’m Suffering From Information Supersaturation!

Today’s communication technology has inundated us with more information than we can possibly need or want. All day news TV channels, Internet websites and chat rooms, and hundreds of specialized papers, magazines and journals provide us with more information in a day than we could ingest in a lifetime.

I feel so buried under the constant barrage of detailed information that I am prepared to enter a monastery just to escape. I can’t handle it anymore. I am more than full of information; I am supersaturated! There is no room for even one more tabloid headline or one special news report or one more eBay bargain.

A television weather report can be overwhelming. A satellite photo can show me the cloud cover over North America and a rotating globe can inform me instantly of the weather in Perth, Paris or Pittsburg. I know where the jet steam is flowing and can get constant hurricane and typhoon updates in a split second. I can go to the Internet and find the temperature, humidity, time of sunrise and sunset, barometric pressure and wind speed in any city in the world from my home. I don’t need to know all of that. I just want to know if it is going to be nice tomorrow or if it is going to rain.

If I watch a baseball game on TV or on my computer, the nonstop chatter of the color commentators brutally assaults me. All I want to know is the batter’s batting average and perhaps how many home runs he has hit this year. Instead, I will be informed that Billy Ballbanger is batting .256 if he is playing a day game on natural turf and using a maple bat, but his average is .286 if the pitcher is left handed, can throw a 86mph slider and likes to eat lasagna before the game. Sports statistics have become so picayune that they bury the listener in so much minutia that he often does not even know the score of the game. Enough already!

News from the entertainment world is equally meaningless and irrelevant. I don’t care if Jennifer Aniston has been dating Ryan Seaweed or if Tom Cruise’s latest movie grossed three billion dollars more in the first week than Mission Impossible or not. I don’t care if Madonna is going to call her next child Mustard or Fuzzy. The totally insignificant information that leaks, spills or is dumped out of Hollywood is about as important as the name of George W’s barber. Abolish Hollywood gossip and speculation!

The Golden Garbage Can Award for total overkill in the Information Supersaturation Services goes to every political program and commentator. The recent US election coverage divulged more useless information, such as the voting habits of illegal aliens from Mexico, than anyone could possible fathom. Most television political commentators create an impression that their comments are based on a rich academic background relative to the topic under discussion. In fact, many of them are simply television creations whose job is to sell controversy and increase the number of viewers by becoming despicable ‘homers’ or opinionated snobs.

I basically need to know if tomorrow will be nice weather, if my Cleveland Indians won, and if there is a major ‘new’ world or local event of which I should be aware. I need this information once a day and it shouldn’t take more than a minute of my time. My supersaturated mind, although it has been regularly blown apart, just can’t take it any more!

How about you?

So You Think You’ve Got Problems!

So you think that you have problems! You’ve lost your job, the bank is foreclosing on your mortgage, your teenage daughter is pregnant with twins and your wife has hemorrhoids. Your car needs a new transmission, you are suffering from an ulcer and each of your four cats is expecting a litter any day.

Well let me tell you, you should be counting your blessings, compared to the problem of Ms. Rider of Jerome Avenue, Nassau. Ms. Rider has been complaining, according to the local newspaper, for more than two years about her Haitian neighbors who hang their laundry out to dry in clear view of the main road! Now that’s classified as a real problem!

Ms. Rider explains that she has spoken to the neighbors and they just rudely turn her away. “Their clothes lines are filled with every thing in the world,” according to Ms. Rider. “Every day the line is full of clothes, even large washable diapers and old lady’s bloomers are hung out for everyone to see from the main road. They are ruining the neighborhood and pushing property values down. There was a good looking gentleman looking to rent an apartment on Jerome Avenue and when he looked around and saw all the clothes flashing on the line, he said he must be in the wrong place and drove off.”

Ms. Rider said that she is so annoyed that she has complained to both Environmental Health and the Ministry of Works and nothing has been done. “Environmental Health persons came around about nine months ago and promised to do something but never returned,” Ms. Rider said.

I present Ms. Rider’s plight so that you have a benchmark against which to measure your own miserable problems. Her problems involve plunging property values, environmental impact, complex health issues, broken promises and the loss of a potential hot male suitor for Ms. Rider.

I maintain the severity of all problems is relative. Compare your plunging stock portfolio, threatened pension fund and the threat of a major economic depression against Ms. Rider’s clothesline conundrum and you will start to feel a lot better really quickly!

What Color is a Mistake?

An Australian report recently indicated that teachers using red pen to mark students' work could be harming their psyche, as the color red is too aggressive. It is part of a government initiative that is attempting to address the problem of adolescent depression and suicide. Apparently, 14% of Australian children are suffering from some sort of mental illness.

I laud any attempt to deal with the serious problems of depression and youthful anxiety, but I am a little chagrined that teachers are actually being urged not to use a red pen to highlight or indicate student errors.

The argument that ‘red’ is too aggressive a color is nonsense in my opinion. Teachers have been using red pens for a century to mark student papers because it stands out from the blue and black pens that are usually used in written schoolwork. Many red pen marks indicate many mistakes. This is a simple reality. The red pen has become the scapegoat, rather than addressing the real issue –namely, poor spelling, bad grammar, or marginal student effort. Good students who do not experience many red marks on their work are also susceptible to mental illness and stress. Many students who experience problems with learning may get a lot of red marks and not develop depressions or anxiety. The color is not the problem; school success or failure is the underlying issue. If teachers had used yellow pens for a century to indicate errors, I would assume that yellow would be banned because it was too aggressive a color!

These kinds of recommendations do education more harm than good. People who are not educators will ridicule the notion of outlawing the red pen and not be amenable to other more relevant educational reforms or initiatives. They will remember the bizarre notions and not pay favorable attention to more valid practices such as positive reinforcement, educational counseling and student therapy. The red pen issue is really a red herring issue!

Perhaps there is a market for a rainbow pen that will leave a multicolored rainbow mark. Who could be offended by a rainbow?

Bulges Are The Mother of Invention!

A principal rule for any author is to stick to a topic that they know something about. Today, I am going to break that rule and discuss the importance of bodily bulges.

I have just read an interesting article about the invention of the Bra Smart. The Bra Smart consists of a plastic base containing two molded conical shapes attached to a hanger. It is designed to allow brassieres to dry while maintaining their shape. I didn’t realize that drying a washed bra was such a serious problem.

Most women, I am informed, dry their bras either by laying them flat or hanging them on a clothes line so that one cup hangs on either side of the line. Apparently, this doesn’t work too well as the bra loses its shape, wrinkles and the wrinkles then show under their sweater or shirt. The inventor of the Bra Smart not only solved the problem, but sells about 100 a day, for $14.95 each, on the Internet. Now that’s performance!

The success of this novel feminine bulge enhancer ignited my curiosity. If a female’s curves could be made more attractive was there a male equivalent that needed to be invented? The answer is, of course!

Most men do not pay any particular attention to how they wash their under shorts. They simply toss then into the washing machine along with their socks, shirts, blue jeans, garage rags and bedding. They do not give them any special treatment. The time to pay more attention to washing men’s shorts is at hand. And my patent is pending.

The Mister Man, as I have christened it, is a hollow plastic mold that can be filled with starch and inserted into the crotch of any man’s shorts. As the under shorts are washed small amounts of starch spread into the fabric surrounding the crotch and the material stiffens when it becomes dry. The resulting added bulge provides an equal opportunity bulge enhancement to the male, just as the Bra Smart does to the female.

I am thinking that perhaps I will also sell it on the Internet and charge the same price as the Bra Smart. In fact, I might consider a partnership with the other inventor and sell a Mister Man and a Bra Smart as a package set, in time for Valentine’s Day!

Your advance orders can be sent to misterman@hotmail.com. To avoid any embarrassment, all purchases will be shipped in a plain brown wrapper, without any bulges!

More Modern Day Pirate Stories

The pirates off the coast of Somalia are not the only pirates operating in our world. In fact, there are illegal activities that occur in our country that we probably all participate in.

One of the most familiar examples of pirating occurs in the world of music and movie DVDs. We have probably all purchased a copy of one of our favorite recording artists or new movies that we know have been illegally copied and sold. People simply do not see paying five dollars to a street vendor as breaking the law or a violation of copyright. The truth is, copyright infringement in Canada is subject to a one million dollar fine or five years in jail or both. Lawbreakers are seldom charged and as a result purchasing pirated DVDs is considered a “minor” and unimportant offense.

In the Bahamas, the local video store sells two kinds of pirated videos. If it is a preview copy of a studio produced film it sells for six dollars: if it is a copy made with a hand held video recorder, often disturbed by shadows of people walking in front of the camera, it is discounted to five dollars. On one of my recent trips to pick up a video (for a friend) the customer ahead of me was a uniformed police officer buying his weekend movie selections. So much for law enforcement!

Another big pirate industry today involves ladies designer handbags. Some very expert copies of purses by Gucci, Matt and Nat, Coach, Bentleys, or Dooney and Bourke are found in abundance in the local straw markets. They all look quite authentic, are very inexpensive and may last one season before the color fades and the handle pulls off. But you get what you pay for and pirated purse designs are big business.

I learned of the most unusual pirate activity when I lived in Turkey. In Turkey there are twenty TFZs – Trade Free Zones, in which foreign investors help set up a local factory, using local raw materials and local workers. The company gets many tax breaks as they provide the local economy with jobs, and a large cash infusion.

I am aware of an American company that was making Hilfiger brand clothing in the Turkish city of Ismir. Every item brandished the famous logo and possessed a label that read “Made in the USA”. I find it hard to understand how a clothing line make with Turkish cotton, by Turkish workers, in a Turkish factory and then exported to America can carry a “Made in America” label. If this is not a blatant example of dishonesty and a kind of piracy I don’t know what is.

When Billy Bumpkin, a conservative banker in Idaho, buys his next Hilfiger dress shirt carrying the Made in USA label, he might think he is Buying American, but he is not. And this dishonesty is not only completely legal but it is a very profitable business practice.

It helps me justify buying my latest pirated movies for five dollars!

Piracy- A New Growth Industry During Tough Times

More and more frequently we are hearing stories of Somali pirates capturing another commercial ship somewhere in the Gulf of Aden. My mind immediately conjures up an old galleon, complete with the Jolly Roger hoisted high, and Captain Jack Sparrow or Blackbeard waving their unsheathed sword at the helpless victims.

Apparently, my Hollywood-shaped view of piracy and the truth are worlds apart. Today most of the pirates are not just scallywags in search of adventure and riches; they are often the destitute in search of basic survival needs. There are thousands of men left homeless, country less and desperate by years of oppression and tribal conflicts in the desert countries in the Horn of Africa. They are easy prey for the warlords and bandits who have decimated their country and are willing to do anything to make a living – even piracy.

This past year there have been over 70 pirate attacks off the coast of Somalia and there are currently 17 ships in Somali ports awaiting ransom payments. The Saudi tanker, Sirius, containing over one hundred million dollars worth of crude oil is being ransomed for a paltry $25 million. (They were recently paid $3 million). As crude oil prices continue to plummet the oil companies are losing money by the second. Most of the ransom money is used to purchase more weapons and seaworthy vessels to expand the buccaneer business, as well as provide money for the pirates and their families. It is a rather bizarre approach to making ends meet, by a group of men who are desperate and have nothing else to lose.

I often wondered how a ragtag group of modern day pirates could capture a monster supertanker. Pulling alongside in a ‘pirate tanker’ and swinging from the dozens of ropes, like they do in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, is not how it is done, apparently. The pirates often are afloat in the shipping routes on an old trawler and appear to be harmless and unthreatening. As a potential victim tanker or cruise ship approaches, the pirates use a number of speedboats to race to the larger vessel and with ropes and hooks manage to board. The pirates are heavily armed and most cargo and passenger ships are basically unarmed. A small group of determined and armed warriors can easily intimidate and capture a larger vessel with ease.

It doesn’t seem right somehow that today’s pirate vessels possess no skull and crossbones, no one legged captain with a parrot on his shoulder and no plank to walk. Who would have ever guessed that high seas piracy would be a growth industry in the early 21st Century?

My Unique Solution to the Gaza Conflict!

As soon as President Obama has comfortably assumed office, I am going to forward to him my plan to help resolve the Gaza Strip conflict. Most solutions of complex political and religious conflicts are very intricate. My first step solution is really quite simple.

I have recently become aware that the Gaza Strip and the island of New Providence in the Bahamas, where we currently live, are about the same size. Both parcels of land are about 20 miles by 7 miles. The Gaza population is about 1.5 million and the Bahamas population is about 200 thousand.

I propose that for a year the two populations be exchanged. The idea of population swaps occurred in the 1920s between the Turks and the Greeks and a similar swap would be the first step towards a Middle East peace.

It is almost impossible to resolve the existing Israeli Palestinian conflict when both parties are living in such close quarters. The sporadic rocket assaults from Gaza into Israel and the subsequent retaliation cannot occur if one of the parties is not home. The year the Gazans are on their Caribbean sojourn will provide a time for calm, stability and for Israeli reflection on the present situation.

The Palestinians, who are a very industrious and focused people, will enjoy the life style of the islands. They will be surrounded by warm tropical water, and enjoy a mild and sun filled climate without the presence of walls, checkpoints and the fear of Israeli bombs or air strikes. They will have a chance to experience a peaceful lifestyle and develop new farming and fishing industries to provide for their people.

The Bahamians will probably be in for quite a shock waking up in Gaza. They will be forced to live in a war torn country that is walled in and surrounded by Israelis. While this may appear to be harsh and unjust, it may just be the kind of motivation the Bahamians need to wake up and smell the coffee. They have probably taken their laid back, easy, island life style for granted and will find that most of the world’s people need to be productive and contribute to the development of their own economy. They will no longer just be able to sit back and feed off tourist dollars because there are none in Gaza.

Without a doubt the exchange of countries has the potential for some very positive changes in the lives of all concerned. After a year, both Bahamians and Gazans will have the option of returning to their homelands. Perhaps enough of the Palestinians may chose to remain in the Bahamas and say to hell with fighting with the Israelis. You never know!

I am sure President Obama will be inviting me to join his administration after he hears of my First Step Middle East Peace Proposal. I have dozens of other wonderful creative solutions to world issues that I know he would love to hear!