What Does 20,000 Look Like?

Only 347 Shopping Days Left!

In 348 days, I will celebrate my 20,000th day birthday.
Here are some helpful shopping hints.
I wear a size 6 pant and 8 blouse. My colors are "fall." Because I'm short waisted and have long legs, the designers who work best for me are Donna Karan and Dolce and Gabbana. I wear my pants long and my skirts short. Stick with the classics. I'll accessorize, thanks.
My favorite cars are 1957 Chevy, 1957 Mercedez XL Gullwing, and Ferrari (any year).
My new dish pattern is Deruta "Raffaellesco", since my old dish pattern was discontinued. Other DERUTA patterns are fine - mixing patterns is chic.
Want to buy housewares but are unsure? I have a Frank Lloyd Wright rug from the Arizona Biltmore that you can match with designs from his catalogue. Better yet? A gift certificate. See comment about cash below, to determine the amount.
You can never have enough Mikasa champagne flutes, I say.
I love live music featuring Dr. John, Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Henry Butler, Nightcrawlers. Unsure? Ask "Bunny" Mathews at DownBeat Magazine if they're good. Backstage passes show that you may really love me. Limosine service takes away any doubt.
The place I love to stay in New Orleans is www.suitejazz.com Talk to Sylvia.
I use Liquitex acryllic paint (primary colors, raw sienna, Mars black and Titanium white only, please), TONS of Elmer's glue, and always need an array of quality artist brushes.
Maid service is a welcome gift when laundry is also included. Best? When the maid is married to a gardener looking for work!
Some people think cash gifts are tacky. I think people who think cash gifts are tacky, are tacky. Remember, when considering the amount, $1 per day is a good starting point.
I LOVE hand made gifts, but only from people with talent. Unsure if you have talent? Best to stay away from hand made gifts.
That should get you started. You've been given plenty of time to think about this, so I expect something more than that last minute, in the middle of Christmas shopping grab that may have occurred over years.
Here's your big chance.
More to come...

Econ Professor (With Hat)

The Economics of Oral Sex

A Cock-and-Bull Story Explaining the Huge Rise in Teen Oral Sex.
By Tim Harford
Updated Saturday, Sept. 2, 2006, at 8:21 AM ET
"Parents, brace yourselves." With those words, Oprah Winfrey introduced news of a teenage oral-sex craze in the United States. In the Atlantic Monthly, Caitlin Flanagan wrote, "The moms in my set are convinced—they're certain; they know for a fact—that all over the city, in the very best schools, in the nicest families, in the leafiest neighborhoods, 12- and 13-year-old girls are performing oral sex on as many boys as they can."
Are they right? National statistics on teen fellatio have only recently been collected, but the trend seems to be real. Johns Hopkins University Professor Jonathan Zenilman, an expert in sexually transmitted infections (and father of former Slate intern Avi Zenilman), reports that both the adults and the teenagers who come to his clinic are engaging in much more oral sex than in 1990. For men and boys as recipients it's up from about half to 75 to 80 percent; for women and girls, it's risen from about 25 percent to 75 to 80 percent.
In some quarters, that might be regarded as progress, but how you feel about it probably depends on whether you are a teenager or a parent of teenagers. I am more than a decade away from being either and so regard myself as a neutral in this debate. Moreover, as an economist, I feel uniquely qualified to opine on why it is happening.

Now, there is no shortage of explanations: Perhaps everyone just thought that if it was good enough for Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, it was good enough for them. But an economic explanation would instead start with the premise that this is a response to changing incentives. What sort of incentives have changed?
Schoolchildren are now bombarded with information about the risks of sex, particularly HIV/AIDS. Oral sex can be safer than penetrative sex: It dramatically reduces the risk of contracting HIV and reduces the effects of some other sexually transmitted infections (although you can still pick up herpes, warts, and thrush). An infection that might have made a girl infertile instead gives her a sore throat.
The rest is basic economics. When the price of Coca-Cola rises, rational cola-lovers drink more Pepsi. When the price of penetrative sex rises, rational teenagers seek substitutes. Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised that even as the oral-sex epidemic rages, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that the percentage of teenage virgins has risen by more than 15 percent since the beginning of the 1990s. Those who are still having sex have switched to using birth-control methods that will also protect them from sexually transmitted infections. Use of the contraceptive pill is down by nearly a fifth, but use of condoms is up by more than a third. The oral-sex epidemic is a rational response to a rise in the price of the alternative.
Now, this is a glib explanation. A real economist would want a tighter hypothesis and serious data to back it up. That economist might well be Thomas Stratmann, who, with law professor Jonathan Klick, has pushed the idea of the rational teenage sex drive. Their hypothesis is that if teenagers really did think about the consequences of their actions, they would have less risky sex if the cost of risky sex went up. They discovered a very specific source of that higher risk: "In some states, there are abortion-notification or -consent laws, which mean that teenagers can't get an abortion without at least one parent being informed or giving consent." If teenagers are rational, such laws would discourage risky sex among teens, relative to adults.
Klick and Stratmann claim to have found evidence of exactly this. Wherever and whenever abortion-notification laws have been passed, gonorrhoea rates in the teenage and adult populations start to diverge. When it becomes more troublesome to get an abortion, teenagers seem to cut back on unprotected sex.
Economic nerds may be interested to know that the Klick-Stratmann statistical technique owes much to the one used by Steven "Freakonomics" Levitt and John Donohue to show a link between legalized abortion in the 1970s and lower crime in the 1990s.
The rest of us may be wondering what to make of it all. On the one hand, good news: Teenagers are finding safer ways to get their kicks. On the other, it suggests that teenagers believe one of the most serious consequences of an unwanted pregnancy is that their parents will find out. If teenagers are avoiding unsafe sex, it may not be for the best reasons.

Snarkyworld

To e is easy. To e truthfully, divine. I have dipped my toe so gingerly into a writer-oriented site, and see it as interactive light, as Episcopal is to Catholic.
Comments are careful, correct, encouraging and gregarious.
I am not fooled. I was a bartender. I heard what the guys said when the girls were in the restroom.
These people are not likely what they appear to be. They do get mad, jealous; they whine. But you never see it. Like Christian saints with halos radiating golden light, they tread gingerly on the e-commume.
The problem is, you begin to believe that what they sound like is what they are like, and as with any being plopped on a pedestal, they’re earthbound with a vengeance when true colors deaden the golden glow of the halo.
It’s not lying. It’s worse.
It’s bullshit.
I wouldn’t mind so much if the persona created in this hackosphere were interesting. But, it isn’t. Who on earth wants to be around a constant cheerleader? Who on earth wants to be one? I had two cheerleading friends in real life, both affable, a bit loud, eager to please. Neither are my friends now - and one is likely dead from the growing addiction he used to deaden the pain he ignored when talking too much and too loud.
Both were welcoming friends from the very beginning, telling the most personal, intimate details of his life. Both overate and talked incessantly. Both were always “on.” Both looked happy and optimistic, but were actually terrified and sad. Both made constant lists, and often resolved that, from now on, he was going to... Both were extremely talented, but only marginally successful because they called business associates “friends” with whom they made deals that were at less than fair value. Unsure of themselves, both undersold or ignored their talent. Both blamed “them” - management, the “man,” always someone else - for their lot in life, ignored any opportunity that would change their circumstance, and offered constant assistance to others while their lives were coming apart.
Somehow, they were comfortably ensconced where they were, and treated those who tried to help them with disdain.
Though I knew them in the non-e world, they sounded suspiciously like e-people. So, e-people scare me.
I’m comfortable with snarky banter with some witty sorts, where expressing oneself honestly is applauded. A safe haven, if you will (or if you won’t) from politically correct, melted down, meaningless arms length human contact.
I wonder if that’s possible.

Agwe, Spirit of the Sea

Fish on Sunday

Jonah and the Whale

Richard "Lord" Buckley, 1906-1960

My lords and ladies of the royal court.
The religious fantasy of Jonah and the Whale.

Now the Great Lord was sittin' in his rosy rockin' chair one halleluyah morning
and he looked down and observed by a great body of water,
a little mortal about five foot two.

And the Lord dug the mortal and he called for Gabriel.

And Gabe put down his horn and swung with the book.
And the Lord flipped the pages.

A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J... And it was Jonah gettin' his kicks on the beach.

"Sho' is crazy out here on this here beach!
Man's got a lot of room to groove in the sunshine,
and everything is melody and fine!"

Now, when the Great Lord has something he must have done upon the earth,
he calls upon his favorite children to do it.
So the Great Lord put the sound on Jonah.
He says, "I dig you, Jonah! I dig you, Jonah!
I dig you, Jonah, cause Jonah is the Lord's sweet boy!"

And Jonah says, "Man where is all that jazz music comin' from, anyway?
Sounds like seventy-two jazz bands is jumpin' off here,
man, makes me want to dig it and wiggle. Whoooo ooo!,"

Says, "I know them seagulls ain't wailin' up no breeze like that,"

Says, "The Whooperwills and the canaries gonna carry on,"
say, "I got the craziest feelin' all over my body!"

"OOOOOooooohhhh! Feel like I want to stretch my wings and
OOOOOOOooooooooeeeeeee! Good mornin', Lord!"

And the Lord said, "Good mornin', Jonah." Said, "Jonah, I got a little favor I'd like..."

Jonah say, "Ain't that crazy, out of the six million cats
for the Lord to put his finger on,
and to say he like Jonah. Ain't that groovey!"

And the Great Lord said, "Jonah, I'd like you to cross the Red Sea
and put the mesage on the Israelites. They're squarin' up over there!"

And Jonah said, "Man, you don't mean this here big pool do you, Lord?"


( Wwhhhooom - Boom! )
"Man, look at them whales!"


( Wshhhooom - Boom! )
He said, "You must mean some little Jonah-sized pool, don't ya, Lord?"

And The Great Lord said, "Jonah, put your nose into the wind
and the message will come to you."

And Jonah put his great nose into the North Wind.

Wwwhhhiissshhhh!

It was not there.

He put in in the East Wind.

Wwwhhhiissshhh!

It was not there.

He put it into The West Wind.

Wwwhhhiissshhh!

It was not there.

But, when he put it into the halleluyah South Wind.

Whhewww!

It was there!

So he travelled for twenty-two days and fifteen minutes
and came to a great cathedral-like group of trees,
liftin' their glorious arms up to heaven in supplication of the master.

And down at the bottom of these giant sequoias
Jonah saw growing a strange green vine.
And he said, just like Bringham Young,
(foot stomp) "This is it!!"

And he sat down beside it and he observed of it.
And he admired of it.
And he plucked from it.
And he rolled of it.
And he selected of it.
And he swung of it.

And he said, "Where is that full pool The Lord wanted me to dig?
Look out, here come Jonah and he ready as the day is long!"

NNNNNnnnnn - BOOM!

He cut a gigantic V right through the breast of the waves.

And suddenly fatique hit Jonah in the back of his soul
and he lay his great body back in the water.

And he lulling in the waves and Morpheus was goofin' on his eyebrows.
And sleep came to Johan.
And he slept for twelve hours and fifteen seconds.

When he woke, what did he see?

I'll tell you what he saw: He saw The Whale!

And what did he say when he saw The Whale?

He said, "Get me from this scene immediately!"

And The Whale say, "Ha, ha, man, every time I stick my nose up out of this pool
I sure see some crazy jazz! Hee, hee, this is the bendin' end!"

Say, "What you mean, the bendin' end, Mr. Whale?"

He say, "Look at that, he talk, too! What do you know about that?"

Say, "Course I talk, Mr. Whale!" Say, "Don't you dig the Marine News?
Ain't you hip to what's goin' down right on these here waters?"

Say, "Wait a minute here, take it easy now."

He say, "Ain't no takin' it easy, Mr. Whale."
He say, "It's a big pool. You groove your way, I'll groove mine.
I'll swoop the scene and dig you later!"

Say, "Lookit here. Here's a little bit of nothin' to me and miles from noplace.
You gonna hip me, The King of the Dip, what the lick is?"
He says, "I got a good mind to gobble you up!"

Jonah said, "Don't you do that, Mr. Whale.
Cause if you do I'm gonna knock you in your most delicate gear!"

The Whale say, "That do it!" Brrruudummm! And he swallowed Jonah.

And here was Jonah slippin' and slidin'
from one side of this great sea mammel to another.
Fear and terror inside.
He couldn't go outthe front end and he was afraid to go out the back end.
And all of a sudden he fell down on these great bigblubbery rugs
and a piteous sound came from Jonah.

He said, "Lord! Lord! Can you dig me in this here fish?"

And The Lord said, "I got you covered, Jonah."

And Jonah say (laughing), say, "Lord's sure got a crazy sense of humor!
Maybe that's thereason I dig the cat so much! Tells me he got me covered.
He's got me surrounded!"

And The Great Lord said, "Jonah! Reach in your water-tight pocketbook
and take from there some of the cigarettes you got fromthe great tree.
And courage will return to you!"

And Jonah did.

And we see Johan inside this giant whale.
Smokin' this strange cigarette.
Watchin' the pistons pound, drivin' that POOM,
pushin' on the gret valve, 'spandin' an' expandin'.

And finally the Whale say, "Uuuuhhhh, Jonah?"

And Jonah say, "Ppfffffffttt. What is it, Fish?"

And The Whale say, " 'What is it, Fish?'?!?"

Say, "You got a new captain on this here mass mess now, Mr. Fish."
He say, "I'm not outside no more. I'm INSIDE now!"

The Whale say, "Jonah, what in the world is you smokin' in there?
I thought I was off the flippity islands.
Here I is two minutes fom the Panama Canal!
This jazz got to go."

Jonah say, "What do you care what I'm smokin' in here?
I'm the captain of this mass mess I done 'splained to you before."

He say, "Jonah, what are you doin' stompin' all over the engine room like that for, boy? Why don't you sit down someplace and cool yourself? You gettin' the ride for nothin'."

Jonah say, "I'll stomp all over this here engine room as long as I want, say, what is this wheel?"

Say, "Look out there, boy, you messin' with my wheel there, Jonah, look out, man! Don't be messin' with that equipment like that here."

Jonah say, "What is this here lever here?"

He say, "Look out, Jonah! Jonah, Jonah, boy.
Boy, look out what you doin', you got my full speed ahead lever.
Jonah, lok out for therock on theright. Look off on the right, Jonah."

"Cooool!" he say.

"It ain't cool at all! We in the shallow water!"

Jonah say, "That's all I want to know."

And, phallam!, he hit the whale's big sneezin' meter and,
fffsheeww!,
blew him out on the cool groovey sands of serenity.

Which only goes to prove, as Confushi said,
"If you get to it, and you can't do it....?
There you jolly well are, aren't you!"