Riddle

     "Today I have a new riddle for you, George."
     "Let's hear it, Sam."
     "Listen carefully: the man who invented it doesn't want it; the man who bought it doesn't need it; the man who needs it doesn't know it. What is it?"
     "A coffin."
     "How the hell did you know that?"
     "Sam, you must be losing it. You ask me that same riddle at least once a year."
     "Try another one then. A Catholic, a Protestant and a Jew each owe a dead friend $100. As they stand over the casket in remorse for not having paid the debt while the friend was alive, the Catholic and the Protestant each throw in a $100 bill, saying 'better late than never.' The Jew agrees with the sentiment and tosses in a check for $100. So what's the answer to the riddle?"
     "That's easy. He threw in a check because he knew the dead friend can't cash it."
     "Did I tell you that one before?"
     "No, but any school kid would understand that riddle. Besides, it's more of a joke than a riddle. Give me a real riddle."
     "You want a riddle? Here's a riddle. What happened to Jimmy Hoffa?"
     "Sam, you never asked this one before. But this doesn't seem like a riddle. It's more like a missing person or criminal case."
     "Oh, there's a riddle in this one. James R. Hoffa disappeared in October 1975. He was last seen alive in a restaurant parking lot. They never found his body. The FBI led the investigation and they claimed that Hoffa was rubbed out by mobsters. The FBI didn't have sufficient evidence to prosecute. Hoffa was the former head of the Teamsters Union. Yesterday I was watching TV and I heard a news reporter say that police were looking for his body under a driveway someplace in Michigan."
      "Did they find the body?"
      "No, that was another false alarm. So what happened to Jimmy Hoffa?"
     "Damned if I know. Do I look like a psychic? Your riddle about Hoffa reminds me of the Mad Hatter's riddle in Alice in Wonderland. 'Why is a raven like a writing desk?' Alice answers: 'I think you might do something better with the time than wasting it in asking riddles that have no answer.' Sam, no one knows what happened to Jimmy Hoffa."
     "Well, George, there's still a riddle in it and I can show you where it is. As for Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, as I recall, Lewis Carroll gave an explanation for the Mad Hatter's riddle: 'Why is a raven like a writing desk?' After the book was published, Carroll wrote: 'because it can produce a few notes tho they are very flat; and it is never put with the wrong end in front.'"  
     "Sam, don't tell me you remember that from grade school?"
     "George, I'm not suggesting that I did. I was watching PBS last week and I heard a woman discussing it. By the way, just so you know, Jimmy Hoffa's full name is James Riddle Hoffa."
     "Is that the truth?"
     "It is."
     A young waitress walks by their table with a pot of hot coffee.
     "Miss--a refill, please--regular coffee. Thanks."
     "Same. Thanks." 

 
Reference: Gangsters, Inc.
    

Consistency of Principle

     Last Thursday the Cortland County legislature voted to continue a legal investigation of questionable expenditures at the Public Defender's office. It was a close vote, 10-9. Those who wanted to end the "witch hunt" cited costs of legal fees, conflicting claims, and concerns for constituents who pay taxes to maintain county government. 
     We wish these same people were as concerned with costs and taxes when they voted to spend $14 million* rather than $6 million on an emergency radio system a year ago. The ramifications of that vote, 18-1, have caused a redistribution of sales tax and placed property tax pressure on smaller units of government.
     Obviously, consistency of principle is not every county legislator's rule of thumb. 

* Based on 10 year lease and bond payments. Estimated $24-26 million based on 20 year lease and bond payments.

Billy in the Darbies

     Herman Melville wrote the unfinished novella Billy Budd  before his death in 1891. It was discovered years later by his biographer and published in 1924. Melville scholars suggest that the story was based on an attempted mutiny on the USS Somers. Melville's first cousin, Lt. Guert Ganesvoort, was an officer who served on the USS Somers.
     A poem, originally written for another book titled John Marr and Other Sailors, concludes the story of Billy Budd after the handsome sailor is sentenced to hang.


                                 
                            BILLY IN THE DARBIES



Good of the chaplain to enter Lone Bay
And down on his marrowbones here and pray
For the likes o'me, Billy Budd.--But, look:
Through the port comes the moonshine astray!
It tips the guard's cutlass and silvers this nook;
But 'twill die in the dawning of Billy's last day.
A jewel-block they'll make of me tomorrow,
Pendant pearl from the yardarm-end
Like the eardrop I gave to Bristol Molly--
O, 'tis me, not the sentence they'll suspend.
Ay, ay, all is up; and I must up too,
Early in the morning, aloft from alow.
On an empty stomach now never it would do.
They'll give me a nibble--bit o'biscuit ere I go.
Sure, a messmate will reach me the last parting cup;
But, turning heads away from the hoist and the belay,
Heaven knows who will have the running of me up!
No pipe to those halyards.--But aren't it all a sham?
A blur's in my eyes; it is dreaming that I am.
A hatchet to my hawser? All adrift to go?
The drum roll to grog, and Billy never know?
But Donald he has promised to stand by the plank;
So I'll shake a friendly hand ere I sink.
But--no! It is dead that I'll be, come to think.
I remember Taff the Welshman when he sank.
And his cheek it was like the budding pink.
But me they'll lash in hammock, drop me deep.
Fathoms down, fathoms down, how I'll dream fast asleep.
I feel it stealing now. Sentry, are you there?
Just ease these darbies at the wrist, and roll me over fair!
I am sleepy, and the oozy weeds about me twist.

Pipe aboard, mate, shake the doldrums, and listen to a "stamp and go" sailor's work song by the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem on You Tube.
Movie clips from Billy Budd on You Tube.

Philip Spencer, Mutineer

 

 

     After an investigation by ward room officers and steerage officers concerning a mutiny attempted on board the USS Somers, a decision was made before noon on November 30, 1842, to execute three prisoners implicated in the plot--Midshipman Philip Spencer, Boatswain's Mate Samuel Cromwell and Seaman Elisha Small.
      At noon, Commander Mackensie ordered hanging ropes called whips to be installed on the main mast yardarms. Two 80 foot whips were set on the starboard main yardarm, and one 80 foot whip was set on the larboard.
     The three prisoners were in chains and under guard since their arrest on November 26, as the ship sailed from Africa to St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands. On December 1, 1842, at 1:30 PM, the crew were called to quarters to witness the executions. There was a moderate breeze and sailing conditions were pleasant. Midshipman Philip Spencer was placed on the starboard outer whip, Seaman Elisha Small on the starboard inner whip, and Boatswain's Mate Samuel Cromwell was placed on the larboard whip. Spencer confessed that he himself was guilty but he had repented, and that Small was innocent. Small and Cromwell shouted that they were innocent and pleaded for their lives.
     At 2:15 PM a signal shot was fired and the prisoners were run up the yard arm. Then the ensign and pendant were hoisted.
     The crew were now called aft and addressed by Commander Mackenzie as to the crimes and punishment of the prisoners, after which "all hands were called to cheer the ship, and three hearty cheers were given to the American flag." At 2:30 PM the crew were called to dinner, and at 3:30 PM the watch was called and the corpses of the deceased were lowered to the gangways to be lain out for burial.
     At 6:30 PM all hands were called to bury the dead. "After the funeral service, the bodies were committed to the deep."
     When the USS Somers returned to its home port in New York, newspapers praised the commander and ridiculed the mutineers. James Fenimore Cooper was less inclined to praise the handling of the mutiny. He wrote a pamphlet condemning Commander Mackenzie's actions at sea. Soon other critics emerged, some with influence and power, including the Secretary of War, who was the father of Philip Spencer.
     On December 28, 1842, a Court of Inquiry convened on board the USS North Carolina at New York to hear testimony and send an opinion of fact to the Secretary of the Navy. The New York Tribune reported the proceedings.
     Commander Mackenzie introduced a detailed report, including the ship's log. He produced a paper which was found in Philip Spencer's cabin. The paper was partially written in Greek characters as code. Translated by another officer, the paper showed a plan of mutiny giving the names of the crew that could be trusted and those not trusted. The three men had planned to take the ship into the Caribbean and rove as a pirate ship. Commander Mackenzie and Lt. Gansevoort (a relative of Herman Melville, author of Billy Budd) testified that the prisoners could not be held as captives and brought to shore because the ship's crew would try to free them and continue the mutiny. At the time of the executions, the ship was about 250 miles from shore.
     Apprentice Seaman George Warner testified that he knew Philip Spencer intended to take over the ship but he thought that Spencer and the other prisoners could have been taken into port safely for court martial.
     On January 21, 1843, the Court of Inquiry found Commander Mackenzie innocent.
     Secretary of War John Canfield Spencer refused to let the case rest, and tried to obtain a civil suit against Commander Mackenzie. Secretary of the Navy Abel Upshur persuaded the Secretary of War to drop the civil suit in favor of a USN court martial, which convened on February 1, 1843. After a long trial with several delays, a verdict of innocence was delivered by 13 Naval officers.
     Philip Spencer was born in Canandaigua, New York, on January 28, 1823. He attended Geneva College--now called Hobart-Smith College--and later he attended Union College. When Philip expressed a strong desire to quit college and go to sea on a merchant marine ship or whaler, his father persuaded him to join the Navy. He was 19 years old when he died.

References:

1) U. S. Naval Historical Center website.
2) The Somers Mutiny by Judith A. Nientimp, University of Rochester. U of R library website.
3) Wikipedia

Crony Capitalism--The Anti-Jobs Program

                                          

     Rootstrikers understand how special interest money has corrupted our government. But how many understand how it has corrupted and deprived most citizens of the living standard they would otherwise enjoy?

     A recent article by Steven Pearlstein in the Washington Post dated August 31, 2012, explains how capitalism (with a helping hand from government) has lost its way. A healthy capitalistic system builds, recycles, and redistributes wealth constantly. By its very nature, wealth must be widely distributed or the system breaks down. Clearly, we are headed in the opposite direction (the goal of special interests).

     If wealth is defined as that which can be set aside for the future purchase of goods and services, we can make a distinction between good and worthwhile investments, like education and medical research, and others that will return more wealth. Increased wealth made available for increased investments--not to mention more jobs.

     Crony capitalists block this process by bribing Congress or the Administration for favorable treatment such as tax loopholes, favorable regulation, or protection from competitors. In every case the crony capitalist expects to gain more than he paid in (as much as seven times the amount paid). This ‘return’ is extracted from customers and taxpayers who get no value for their money. A true capitalist would use the money in a way that would be a net gain for the economy; the simplest being to reduce prices resulting in more volume and jobs.

     There are numerous other ways in which special interests pay big money to keep things as they are, wasting our nation’s resources—think of all those prison guards keeping non-violent, black drug users in jail. And how about the lawyers and accountants living off our 8,000 page tax code?

     Studies indicate a clear connection (cause and effect) between corruption and lower GDP, higher income disparity, and increased poverty. The burden of corruption falls most heavily on those least able to afford it and, in our current debt situation, none of us can afford it.

     Our politicians stay up nights trying to think of ways to extract more wealth from the private sector, without reducing jobs, and of ways to ‘stimulate’  the private sector. We are deluged with ‘good’ ideas of how to fix Congress and our economy. In my view, unless we remove the blockage—the root problem—we can’t fix anything. Just email this message to twenty friends and we are on our way.

 

Joe Bakewell 

 

Reference:

Rootstrikers 

John Stossel on Corporate Welfare

 

Aesop Did Not Write This, But A Man Certainly Did

                                               The Fox and the Crow

     A Crow was sitting on a branch of a tree with a piece of cheese in her beak when a Fox observed her and set his wits to work to discover some way of getting the cheese.
     Coming and standing under the tree he looked up and said, "What a noble bird I see above me! Her beauty is without equal, the hue of her plumage exquisite. If only her voice is as sweet as her looks are fair, she ought without doubt to be Queen of the Birds."
     The Crow was hugely flattered by this, and just to show the Fox that she could sing she gave a loud caw. Down came the cheese, of course, and the Fox, snatching it up, said, "You have a voice, madam, I see: what you want is wits.

Who Am I? (Number 12)

     I was born in Paris on October 24, 1868. In early childhood I demonstrated a lifelong penchant for adventure and travel. At age five, I ran away from home. The police found me in the woods of Vincennes and my mother took me back home. She said I was a restless and inquisitive child and most likely thought that I was foolish too.
     When I was six years old my family moved to Belgium. I spent my formative years in Belgium. Of course, as each opportunity presented itself, I continued to run away from home. In 1883 I travelled to England alone, and returned home after spending all my money. A few years later, at age seventeen, I boarded a train to Switzerland and crossed into Italy on foot. I sent my mother a telegraph message when I ran out of money. My mother found me at Lake Maggiore and took me home.
     In 1886, without a word to anyone, I left home on my bicycle. I carried my scant belongings with me on my way to Spain. On the way, I detoured through the French Riviera. This was my declaration of independence. 
     In 1889 I moved to Paris where I studied Asian languages, philosophy, music and voice. I performed on stage, and joined secret societies including the Free Masons. I wrote an anarchist treatise, but publishers refused to publish it.
     While in Paris I spent many hours at the library of the Guimet Museum. "Vocations are born, and mine was born there."
     In 1890-91 I travelled to India and explored many of the religious and historical places.
     In 1895-97 I toured with a French opera company in Vietnam. I performed at the Hanoi Opera House.
     In 1900, I travelled to Tunis, Tunisia, where I met a wonderful person and fell in love. We were married in 1904.
     Home life was too routine and boring, and I grew restless after a few years. In summer of 1911, I travelled briefly to England and then set sail for Sikkim. My marriage was subordinated to my fiercely independent and adventuresome personality.
     While in Sikkim, I visited most of the Buddhist monasteries and holy places. My quest for spirituality blossomed. I met the 13th Dalai Lama in 1912.
     In 1914 I met a fifteen year old native of Sikkim and we became inseparable companions for life. We lived together in a cave near the Tibetan border from 1914 to 1916. I later adopted this person.
     My studies of Buddhism impelled me to visit Tibet, which was forbidden to a foreigner. In 1916 I crossed the border and I visited Jigatze in southern Tibet. I met the Pachen Lama in my travels. The ruler of Sikkim was told about my illegal adventure, and I was expelled from Sikkim. So my young companion and I travelled to India and then to Japan.
     In Japan I met a philosopher monk who told me that he had disguised himself as a Chinese monk and spent eighteen months at Lhasa, Tibet. That revelation gave me new hope for a return to Tibet. My young travel companion and I sailed for Korea and crossed China from east to west. We travelled through the Gobi desert and Mongolia. We stopped at Kum-Bum near the border of Tibet, where I studied Buddhism for three more years.
     Disguised as a beggar and a monk, my companion and I crossed the border into Tibet and arrived at Lhasa in 1924. I was fifty-four years old. I visited the Potala, and nearby monasteries for two months. I was 'discovered' while washing clothes in a river, and I and my companion were expelled from Tibet by the governor of Lhasa.
     In 1925 I returned to France with my young companion. I separated amicably from my spouse, who continued to communicate with me.  I tried to settle down in France, but adventure and spirituality were pushing me. 
     In 1937, my companion and I travelled again to Tibet. We lived there until the end of World War 2. I was absorbed in Buddhism. I completed circumambulation of the sacred mountain known as Amnye Mache.
     My companion and I returned to France in 1946. I was seventy-eight years old. My companion died in 1955. I lived for 100 years and passed away on  September 8, 1969.
     I am Alexandra David-Neel, author and adventurer.

References:
1) Alexandra David-Neel official website. (highly recommended)
2) My Journey to Lhasa, Alexandra David-Neel. Google books, My Journey to Lhasa
3) Alexandra David-Neel, Wikipedia.