Happy Halloween!

OK, I stole this photo of Brynn from Claire's Facebook page. The Sheean-Valentines sure know how to celebrate Halloween - go here for Claire's fabulous carved 'Obama pumpkin'.

Happy Halloween, everyone!

"Monty Python Could Have Written This"...

The Vet who Did Not Vet

Thanks to Bill Hurlbut for putting this on his Facebook Wall:



Don't forget to vote on Tuesday!

A Wish Come True for Matt Franceschini

As many of you know, one of Don's activities for the last few years has been tutoring kids from Ridgefield High School who - for one reason or another - are unable to attend classes. A lot of these kids have medical conditions of one sort or another, and they struggle with trying to keep up in school and get well at the same time.

None has been more inspiring to us, perhaps, than Matt Franceschini, who has Hodgkins lymphoma and has been battling the disease through radiation and chemotherapy for many months. Nevertheless, Matt is a dedicated student, he works hard and has been doing biology and geometry with Don last year and this year chemistry and algebra.

Recently, Matt was given a chance to realize a childhood wish - to see his favorite football team, the Tennessee Titans play - by the Make a Wish Foundation. Here's a nice article on the team website about Matt's visit. We're so glad to know this inspiring young man!!

Googly Eyes Halloween Treats

Remember the flying spaghetti monster? Well, I ran across this post on the Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories blog (their tag line is "Making the world a better place, one evil mad scientist at a time") that shows how to make an 'edible' FSM, including 'one hundred percent edible googly eyes'. Just in time for Halloween treats, although the substitution of Ramen noodles for more traditional Rice Krispies is, I'm guessing, questionable. Unless you have a lot of Pastafarians in your neighborhood. You gotta admit, its pretty cute!

Why How Matters

Here's another recent article by Thomas Friedman, whose wisdom I am beginning to revere. Tom says:



"I have a friend who regularly reminds me that if you jump off the top of an 80-story building, for 79 stories you can actually think you’re flying. It’s the sudden stop at the end that always gets you.
When I think of the financial-services boom, bubble and bust that America has just gone through, I often think about that image. We thought we were flying. Well, we just met the sudden stop at the end. The laws of gravity, it turns out, still apply. You cannot tell tens of thousands of people that they can have the American dream — a home, for no money down and nothing to pay for two years — without that eventually catching up to you. The Puritan ethic of hard work and saving still matters. I just hate the idea that such an ethic is more alive today in China than in America."



The article goes on to talk about the ethics of business and closes with:



"Charles Mackay wrote a classic history of financial crises called “Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds,” first published in London in 1841. “Money ... has often been a cause of the delusion of multitudes. Sober nations have all at once become desperate gamblers, and risked almost their existence upon the turn of a piece of paper. To trace the history of the most prominent of these delusions is the object of the present pages. Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.”
And so it must be with us. We need to get back to collaborating the old-fashioned way. That is, people making decisions based on business judgment, experience, prudence, clarity of communications and thinking about how — not just how much. "



I have now had several colleagues in the financial sector - titans of industry all, masters of the universe, and, yes, wealthy beyond belief - who have said to me, "Carol, this was just all about greed." One said, "Carol, I'm an Ayn-Rand style capitalist, totally in favor of free markets, but this was just too much. How much is enough?" Now the conservatives are bashing Barack Obama, for suggesting that wealth in this country is not equitably distributed. And maybe we should do a little more for those who have a little less. How bad could that be? I have to respect those who made their piles - and then gave them away. OK, they kept a lot for themselves, but they knew the answer to 'how much is enough' - Gates, Buffett and Carnegie before them. Maybe our legacy is not that we died with the most toys, but that we died with the most schools and libraries and institutions of good works for all that bear our names. OK, sorry for getting preachy.

What's in a name? - or at least, the letters of a name!

Here's a wacky article I found in - of all places! - the New York Times. Seems there is a theory around that people like the letters of their own names (and especially their initials) better than any other letters, and this influences all kinds of things - who they work for, where they live, who they marry and how they vote! Here's part of the article:

"Johnsons are more likely to wed Johnsons, women named Virginia are more likely to live in (and move to) Virginia, and people whose surname is Lane tend to have addresses that include the word “lane,” not “street.” During the 2000 presidential campaign, people whose surnames began with B were more likely to contribute to George Bush, while those whose surnames began with G were more likely to contribute to Al Gore."

Let's see....C..A..K - worked for I...B..M, voting for B....O, married to D...H...V, lives in R...C -well, we finally got one! Must be true!

Who is Sarah Palin?

An old Texas farmer is talking to his new neighbor who just moved out from the city. They get to talking about politics and the younger man asks the farmer what he thinks about Sarah Palin.

"Well", he drawls, "I think she's pretty much like a post turtle".

"What's a post turtle?" the younger man asks, "I've never heard of that."

"Well," says the farmer, "every once in a while, I'm drivin' down the road in my pickup and I see a big ole turtle sittin' up on a fencepost. Now that turtle doesn't belong up there, he has no idea how to get down. And I always wonder, what the hell kind of jackass put him up there in the first place."