The Flat Belly Press & The Post It Note Diet

I love browsing the magazine stands, especially the men's section. They all promise to give you rock-hard abs...a belly built like a six pack etc. The only guy I ever knew who subscribed to Men's Health was grossly overweight and resembled the character in Smilin' Jack who was always popping a shirt button. Can you read yourself into a flat belly? I couldn't. I do 60 sit ups a day on a contraption called the Ab Roller. It works and I have a belly I'm not ashamed of. As for diets there is no end to them so they must not work very well. I haven't seen The Darfur Diet yet but it's coming I'm sure. Publishing isn't wisdom, it's an ad industry with a regular schedule and predictable content. For women it's always "Seven signs your mate is having an affair". For readers of The Economist it's always "India is at a crossroads". For Entrepreneurs it's "How I made millions from lint". Want the real skinny? Get the smallest post it note and write on it: "Eat less. Exercize more. Live longer". Pass it on.

Give us this day our daily scandal

We have resurrected the Three Stooges in the form of three holier--than-thou Republicans: 2 Governors and 1 Senator. I have written about the Governor of my state of Nevada (see The Gentleman is a Dope) but he has been upstaged by our junior senator John Ensign and the Gov. of South Carolina Mark Sanford. All three have been caught with their pants down and the media have obligingly pushed custard pies in their faces. It might be different if they were lovable rascals like Errol Flynn or smooth charmers like Cary Grant but they are dreary, very ordinary guys who are not very smart and heap ridicule on us mere citizens. Will they resign? Of course not. They may have left their mistresses but they still have time to screw their constituents.
Back in the 1960's when this happened, comedian Mort Sahl used to roll his eyes, shake his head and say, "Our leaders!"

The kind of driver I'm looking for.

Or more often the kind of driver I'm looking out for here in rural Nevada. Whenever a see a guy in a truck with a beard and a baseball cap (and often a dog in the back)I know I have to watch out. Why, because I know he thinks he can break the law and drive as he pleases. He might be drunk, or on meth or just plain mad at the world. He will never use his turn signal or turn on his lights when it would improve safety (he probably doesn't even believe in safety) and he might even be smoking or eating or texting. I must quote from a Louise Bogan (1897-1970) poem titled: Several voices out of a cloud: "Come, drunkards and drug takers; come perverts unnerved" and later "Get the hell out of the way".

My team...win or lose.

I became a Detroit Red Wings fan in 1949 when I would have needed to find the city on a map. But those posters in the barber shops in Vancouver with the team photo in the all red uniforms (Wayne Gretzky said were the best ever) did win me over. Fifteen years later I was working in Detroit and going to the games in the old Olympia and watching Gordie Howe and Bobby Hull skate like the wind and collide with each other like a thunderclap. Embedded in the ice at the new arena is the new motto: Hockeytown USA" and from the rafters hangs a large emblematic octopus. Why an octopus? Because in the days of the original 6 teams you had to win 8 games to win the Stanley Cup and some ingenious fan back then would throw a baby octopus on the ice. Today it has to be two octopi. By the way, here's the answer to my blog question. Who are the members of the famed Production Line? Ted Lindsey, Syd Abel and Gordie Howe. The top three scorers in the NHL in 1949. GM may be broke but the Wings are healthier than ever.

The best investment decision you can make today

Here it is: invest in yourself. This is an economic theory I got from a professor in Toronto in 1962. And it worked. While all the other up and coming young men were buying mutual funds and bonds and penny stock from other young up and comers I was buying my wife her first dishwasher, new furniture, toys for the kids, books a car and other real goods. I may not have had a portfolio but I had things I could use everyday and was not going to be bamboozled (that great transitive verb from the 18th century). I've pretty well stuck to this theory and missed the Lehman Bros and AIG debacles. I even know a wealthy woman and her son who both lost $3 million in AIG. That could have bought a lot of cakes and ale. I'm still surprised to see the ads and commercials for the brokerages as if nothing has changed. There is one good headline for Bessemer Trust that states,"Why should you believe anything we say?" And in a reverse Churchillian line, "Rarely in history have so many been so violated by so few." As George Soros says, under no circumstances believe that your broker is your friend. I hate to resort to Ayn Rand for wisdom but she was correct when said, "You must reach your own conclusions". So, it's your money and your life. Enjoy them both. For all his economic wisdom, John Maynard Keynes last words were, "I should have ordered more champagne."