Overheard at Table 3: Parenting and the Apostle Paul

A dad:  You know that part in Romans where Paul is writing about how he always does what he doesn't want to do and doesn't do what he wants to do?    Well, that's just like being a parent of a teenager.   I swear, every single day I go home and I tell myself  "Today I will NOT yell at the kids.   Today I am going to love them and hold them and tell them that they are good kids"  and what happens the instant I walk through the door?   I mean that INSTANT!  

Suddenly I'm yelling at them "why didn't you clean your room?  why in the name of God are you flunking English?  Stop hitting your brother!  Stop talking back to your mom!   whaddaya mean you broke off your sideview mirror backing out of the garage?!"

Fonzie Poster

Every now and then, you just need a picture of the Fonz . . . . Heyyyyy!

Overheard at Booth 4: The Teeth of the SEC

• In class we were talking about whether or not the SEC still has "teeth,"  and in my opinion it once had teeth, but sort of pulled them out itself . . . look, in 2004, who was it that changed their own leverage rules for the five big Wall Street banks?   The SEC.   These guys had a 12-to-1 leverage limit.   2004 - the sky is now the limit.  Do whatever you want.   Go for it.   And they did.   Four years later, BOOM!
  
  I'd say that if the SEC had just kept its "teeth" it would have been a helluva lot harder for those bad boys to play with the US economy like they were some wild-eyed frat boys on a drunken binge in Atlantic City.      But that's just my opinion.

Overread at Table 4: Poem of the Day

3-4-2014

We search for the light of the open day.

We search for words that wrap themselves around us like feral leaves,

We search for the abatement of this constant yearning

for that which we sorely lack: love … luster ... lucre.

 

We search for the answers to questions whose forms elude us.

We search for a definition of the undefined shapes of these

broken-winged birds that we call emotion.

 

We search for the pinprick stars of the soulless night.

We search for the breath of that one other, soft caress on our neck.

We search for the light of the open day.

 

For Song of the Day

Signal Hill

"Los Federales"