BillBakerBlog.com

Haiku Friday - The Week of November 16, 2009

 

Hey! What ever happened to Hillary Clinton? Does she still work for Obama? Does she still live in the U.S.? Is she still alive?

Just a year ago, it seemed like it was All-Hillary, all the time. Today? I'm not 100 percent sure she didn't make my sandwich at Subway yesterday.

Say what you want about the president, but he sure did manage to take her off the scene. (I know - she was on the front page of the New York Times yesterday, but haven't you heard? Nobody reads newspapers anymore.)

Rest assured that if Hillary does anything newsworthy, Haiku Harry will document it on these pages, as he does below with news from the week just passed.

Palin's new memoir
is written with nouns and verbs
and other such things.

Fewer mammograms
for women under 50.
Please - make up your minds.

Barack in Peking.
Meets with murderous despots
who buy all our debt.

Karzai takes the oath.
His government is corrupt,
yet our troops shield him.

Senate to debate
health care reform - finally?
Do not hold your breath.

Oprah is finished!
She is planning to retire,
and count her money.

Next week is Thanksgiving, so Harry will do doubt demand the week off, even though Japan doesn't celebrate the holiday like the rest of the world.

Have a great weekend and don't forget to baste that bird. If it's dry, we're blaming you.

Sarah Palin Burns Her Own Book: "Just kickin' it rogue-style!"

Sarah Palin accidentally burned 10,000 copies of her own book at an "I'm a Real American" book burning bash in Kentwood, Michigan.

The book burning party took place at the beginning of Palin's promotional tour for her new book "Going Rogue".

"I thought it would be, ya know, fun to burn a few of those non-American books at the beginning of my book tour, just to show people that, in America, you have the right to, ya know, burn sh*t that you don't like the way we do in Wasilla," said Palin. "So we picked out copies of things like The Audacity of Hope, Tom Sawyer and the Old Testament and we planned a little bonfire. Somehow, a bunch of my books got thrown in the pile."

Palin remarked that the incident made her seriously consider her position on free speech:

"I now realize that you to have to pay your advance and PR people more than minimum wage if you want the job done right," said Palin. "But don't think for a second that I am in favor of raising the minimum wage because we don't go for that kind of back-assward crap in Wasilla."

A spokesman for Palin's publisher could not be reached for comment, as he was busy celebrating the downward spiral in American reading habits by lighting cigars with $100 bills.

The Financial Crisis One Year Later: The Way We Were

Over the weekend, I read a great excerpt in the new issue of Vanity Fair of Andrew Ross Sorkin's new book - Too Big to Fail -  about the financial meltdown. It made me all weepy and nostalgic for last fall, so I took a stroll down memory lane by looking over some of my blog posts (someone has to) from one year ago as the global financial crisis was blooming in all its horrific splendor. I thought it would be fun (for me, at least) to post a timeline of some of my favorite missives from that oh-so-exciting era, when G.W. Bush was still driving the bus and the Nobel Prize Committee was writing the first draft of President Obama's Peace Prize certificate.

September 2008

September 15, 2008: That's the last time I go on vacation

September 19, 2008: Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley: "No fair short selling OUR stocks!!!"

September 21, 2008: This Just In: Financial Crisis Traced to My Wife!

September 25, 2008: How we know this financial crisis really IS a CRISIS...

September 29, 2008: Financial Fiasco: Blame Sarah Palin

October 2008

October 6, 2008: Separated at birth?

October 8, 2008: The Bush Administration: Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory

October 31, 2008: The scariest thing you'll ever see on Halloween

December 2008

December 3, 2008: Bailing out Detroit: Who pays for MY health insurance?

December 8, 2008: Merrill Lynch's John Thain: My balls are so big, I need a full time personal assistant to carry them for me

December 8, 2008: Bob Lutz: No fair calling it a "bailout"

December 10, 2008: Detroit update: Bad news and worse news

December 11, 2008: I love my country...

December 17, 2008: The Madoff debacle: Congress to the rescue!

Memories like this are precious. If only I could sell them on eBay to cover my inevitable 20 percent health insurance premium increase that is coming any day now.

Hangin' With the Smart Kids (and Hoping Some Rubs off...)

I'm lucky. My life is filled with interesting people. My job keeps me in touch with some of the smartest people in journalism and the technology sector. Friends and family also have interesting lives - from police officers, to graphic designers to mathematicians.

My mother and and father-in-law are both retired math professors. Jerry King, my dad-in-law, just published his latest book called Mathematics in 10 Lessons: The Grand Tour.

He discusses his inspiration for writing the book here. As you can see, he is passionate about his subject matter.

When my wife and I visit, and Jerry starts talking math, he usually loses me right after he asks "So, how was the traffic?"

But that's OK. The book is a great read, in spite of my math handicap. And besides, I still know more than he does about how to fix his computer and the kitchen drain, so if he knows what's good for him, he'll humor me.

Buy This Book, Get Girls and a New Sports Car

I was never one for math. My dad was quite good at it, so it has always escaped me why math escaped me.

My dad was the only person I knew personally who could do math, until I met my dad-in-law. My wife's father - Jerry P. King - is not only a professor of advanced mathematics at Lehigh University (now retired, actually), but he also writes BOOKS about the subject.

As I said, I'm no expert, but I reckon you have to know a sh*tload about math to write an entire book about it. Two books??? Forget about it!!!

Jerry's first book, The Art of Mathematics, came out a few years ago. It's a good read. His second book - Mathematics in 10 Lessons: The Grand Tour - is now available for pre-order on Amazon. I can not say how good it is because when my wife and I visited over the holidays, she was permitted to look at the galleys, but I think Jerry was afraid that I would spill corn pudding on it, so I was kept away.

You should buy this book because:

1.) Like me, you probably haven't done long division in 35 years and could honestly use a refresher;

2.) The stock market meltdown has decimated my retirement plans and I am counting on Jerry tossing a few tokens from book sales in my direction;

3.) He's a sub-3 hour marathoner WHO'S ALSO REALLY GOOD AT MATH! C'mon - that HAS to be enough of a reason right there;

4.) From what I understand, the book cover is one of those deals where if you stare at it long enough, a 3-D image of a dolphin or Pamela Anderson appears;

5.) Big sales = movie rights. I'm hoping that Ashton Kutcher plays me.

So place your orders now and let's totally mess with the New York Times and get it on the best seller list.

Detroit: If it weren't for bad luck, they'd have no luck at all

Wow. Does it get any worse to be Detroit?

- The auto industry is on the brink of collapse
- The Detroit Lions are 0-15 - one loss away from an "0-fer" season
- Its former mayor recently resigned from office in disgrace in a sex scandal involving text-messaging and is now doing time (not making this up)
- Its unemployment rate is at 21 percent(!)

If the auto industry does collapse, one shudders to think what will happen to Detroit. Is it possible for an entire city to just disintegrate?

Let's hope we never find out.