TARP

How blessed we are to live next to Richmond Park. And still inside London.

So here's a go-figure for the Republicans: in spite of their sharp criticism of the bank bail-outs, the US Treasury has made serious money from the coupons payable under the troubled asset relief programme funding, most of which has been repaid. For instance, Uncle Sam has earned an annualised return of 23% from its $10B investment in Goldman Sachs under Tarp. It should be more. The US sits on a paper profit of almost $11B on its 34% sharholding in Citigroup, its only direct stake in a large financial institution - US authorities received more that 7 billion shares in Citi at $3.25 apiece, after converting $25B of preferred stock into common last month; since then, Citi's shares have gone to $4.70. This gain more than offsets the paper losses of all other significant state interventions in listed banks. All of this made possible by the FTSE World Banks index up 130% since its lows in March. Do not think for a moment, however, that bail-outs right or without risk: the last thing we need is an instituted bad debt insurance scheme, which could yet leave governments with vast deficits if loan losses end up worse then expected. Still, every little helps.

Urban London And Women In Business

Phone photo from somewhere near Heathrow.

Women, according to a survey of 2,000 women by Tampax, start planning their week-end at 2:47 PM on Monday. Now there is an inflamatory observation if ever there is one. This kind of nonsense unhelpful to the three percent of female Executive Directors at the UK's top 350 companies (source: Co-operative Asset Management) or 34 of the 971 positions. More than 130 of the companies in the FTSE 350 Index do not have one woman on the Board (The Observer) and only four companies have Chairwomen while nine businesses have a female Chief Executive. This disgraceful.

Our family friend Guy brought a law suit against State Farm Insurance in the late 1970s because >99% of State Farm's sales agents male while >60% sales assistants and secretaries female. State Farm argued all the way to the final settlement that women did not want those high-paying jobs, nor qualified for the role. As the case progressed, Guy refused to accept company settlements and insisted on a jury which caused all kinds of internal friction at his law firm, I can imagine. In the end, his class-action the biggest recorded to then or $315 million in penalties against State Farm; Guy enjoys receiving semi-annual updates from State Farm's CEO on gender hiring, as required by the deciding court.

In my brief and humble experience, I worked with a female CEO who I recruited into a business that I started, in part, with Guy's support. She was worse then bad, but let us leave that for there though do feel free to contact me for a reference. Women make up half the world's talent pool and approximately 25% of business school graduates - Columbia, for instance, boasts around 35%, which is at the top of the US MBA schools. Let us assume that our largest corporations global and US business schools training students to run these companies... when I was in grad school in '97, there were over 65,000 MBAs receiving diplomas from accredited schools, up from under 5,000 per year in the 1970s. Taking the elite business schools (Harvard, Stanford, Chicago, Columbia, Wharton, Kellogg, Tuck) which graduate 5,000 per year or about the same rate over 30 years and assume 15% of students female, aprox. 30,000 women own diplomas and careers from these world class institutions. This should provide ample pipeline, even discounting for the less experienced recent graduates, to fill our world's best companies with women CEOs, Board Directors and Executive Directors.

While it is difficult to ascertain what we have lost without a fair representation of women in our senior work force, there is no doubt limiting the pool to men harmful. Same as Guy, My sister trying to change this. Who says one or two committed people cannot make the difference?

PC

Our busy Sunday ends at the pool and frankly I am beat. But this the way it is supposed to be. Kids now watch Harry Potter and Madeleine bursts into tears missing Sonnet, who safely arrives in Santa Fe in time for the "Native American" market. Justin asks me if I can say "Indian" and you know - I am not sure if this politically correct in 2009. When we left the US 13 years ago "Indian" still Ok, but things have changed. This in large part due to my generation that refuses to accept blind stereotypes. We have have learned from the Civil Rights movement and Women's Lib; technology and communication bring it together. I think about this watching AMC's wonderful "Mad Men" which is as much about the early 1960s as Madison Avenue. The drama presents an unattractive world for women - no safe haven for they, including the office, gynecologist, or home. The first episode of Series One gives us new secretary Peggy, who is propositioned by three male superiors just three weeks into the job and sleeps with one of them .. her doctor tells her, mid-vaginal examination, that he will take her off the pill should she become the neighborhood "pump." Yes, our society improves and progress slow but forward. Will our children be in a better place?

Picnic

Here is Justin surrounded by it all. He and his family return from August holidays in Corsica, which sounds amazing - certainly more interesting then staying in London but I am not complaining. This a great city and here we are together in Richmond Park on a beautiful late summer's day. Justin et al are bronzed and fit, re-charged for the fall semester which is one of those amazing things about this country: we go to work from September. The weather chills, clocks set back and days short.. and productivity increases in a huge way. While I cannot find data supporting this observation, I see it around me from school to private equity (up) to year end accounting (up up). This contrasts with the states where there is a general even spread across the year, with dips around Thanksgiving and Christmas. Two weeks vacation on average does that - grind, grind, grind.

This morning's yard sale goes off at 9AM sharp and by 10:30AM, or about when I am returning from my long-run (groan) nothing has been shifted. Madeleine puts a hard sell on me and I purchase glass that snows when you shake it. Inside, a mermaid, which I tell Madeleine reminds me of her; says she: "give me my 50p please." In the end, their sales seven pounds and since they sell household junk, the profit equal to the sales. They no dummies, these kids of mine. Most purchasers are neighbors who are intrigued by, or feel sorry for, our Shakepeares. I am happy to see the interactions which are a reward as good as money.

Me: "In one word, describe life."
Eitan: "Health? Sport. Brains."
Madeleine: "Family. Love. Food."
Me: "That's it? Anything else?
Eitan: "No."
Me: "How about ice cream? But that's two words."
Everybody cracks up.

Yard Sale

And here we are in the afternoon, never a change in life. Eitan excited by Manchester United v. Wigan and we plan our day for the action only to be disappointed by Sky, which does not broadcast the game. After near tears, it is the wireless. Madeleine bails to be with Aggie and help with some chores - you know, a girl thing. They hit the Party Palace costume shop where Madeleine blows, er, spends the last of her money on some chattering teeth, a tiny plastic dog and an object that emits a "mooo" when turned up and down (correction from M: "I still have 2o p, but I lost it while we were bike riding."). So otherwise the afternoon spent preparing for tomorrow's yard-sale. The kids collect all their moving-day crap and plop it in the living room to be sold in front of the house tomorrow at .. 9AM. Sunday. I suggest perhaps not the best time? but my Shakespeares have all their life to go to MBA school and learn such things. I don't push. Madeleine applies motivational bonusing: "anybody who spends more than five pounds can have a free Manchester United magazine. No wait -- anybody who buys anything can have the magazine" which, dear reader, from her brother's rejected stash and dates to 2007. Still, it is impossible to question their conviction and I allow them to post hand-written announcements to trees on our block using boxing tap. They will come down before lunch. Items for sale include: "furniture, clothes, toys and movies." Some inside consulting: "And books. And buddies." Eitan: "A lamp. And Match-attacks." It's gonna be a show.

Me, at dinner: "Madeleine, what's your favorite food?"
Madeleine: "Home made pizza."
Me: "Then what?"
Madeleine: "That cold chicken from Waitrose."
(Eitan whispers to her) "Mom's chocolate chip cookie-ice cream sandwiches."

Just Any Old Saturday Morning

Saturday morning. In the background there is packing in anticipation of our 1 September completion date. Our small home littered with big brown boxes stuffed with books and God knows what as Sonnet organises. Madeleine assists and proves herself a thorough, anal and useful packer - go figure. Eitan kicks his football inside tap, tap, tap. Also going on Sonnet's trip to Santa Fe, New Mex, which begins in an hour as she to be picked up then for the airport. So she busies herself with clothes, hair dryer and other travel indispensables. I listen to the Kooks - "See The Sun" right now - which adds some noise while Eitan reviews Barcelona v. Manchester United whose June UEFA Championship replayed on the tele. Madeleine stumbles down the stairs blinkered, holding Doggie and asks for breakfast after getting a squeeze from us. When I suggest a museum today she jerks awake: "No way, dad!" Madeleine pulls up to the table, back hunched and looking out the window while awaiting her food which arrives on a plate: buns with butter and home made plum jam. Yum. Adding to the mix, Aggie arrives in 20 minutes to watch the Shakespeares as I go to yoga. All this and not 9AM.

I ask Madeleine if she would like to comment for this blog and posterity. She: "I am eating breakfast. And I want a dog."

Teeth

So what are we to make of this posting, taken in Wolverhampton on our way from dinner? Sonnet notes aghast: "that is the British attitude towards dental care." The English, we know for sure, have rotten teeth since the NHS does not provide body-to-mouth coverage (only body -to-body). If your mouth rots - so what? I have been in meetings where the fella's Hermes tie £120 and his academic credentials impeccable yet his teeth, like, falling out. And the same for women - one gal who once worked for me had breath so bad I had to tell her rather than suffer the consequences. Now that was one uncomfortable conversation. So I think British teeth are not bad, but irregular - at least by American standards. American middle class children are normally tormented with cosmetic dentistry, including yours truly, to make them look like Stepford wives or a Top Gun - remember Tom Cruise's gams? Any dental individuality regarded as strange in the US'A. An American grade-school friend whose parents resisted this fashion was bullied in at our school for her "bad" teeth, although she does not have a filling in her head at the age of 42 (at least as far as I know). Politicians spend thousands perfecting their pearly whites and like a good pair of Italian shoes, one's boulders suggest the character of the man. Like your watch - not a Patek Phillipe? You're a loser. I stopped wearing a watch becoming tired of dickheads judging me from it. One's teeth are more personal than a watch and should be cherished - yet brushed - no matter how they angle. Eitan will probably have braces but really - so what? He (and Madeleine) are just perfect the way they are.

"Americans may have no identity, but they do have wonderful teeth. "
--Jean Baudrillard

Wolverhampton

So let me see: this week visits five European cities and today .. Wolverhampton which is where the West Midlands pension reserve plan located. To be honest, I am dragging by this morning following a long week and it takes a strong cup of coffee not to be irritated by anything that moves including the good guys across the table who may commit millions of dollars to my client fund. But I warm up following an unusually early start of 8AM and once in stride, I feel the love. Many of the guys I visit are fellows I have known for five years or more in a professional and social context. A nice thing about my job that I select the people I want to be with, or introduce to my investment opportunities. The assholes - and there are plenty - get weeded out. Good bye to them. Today it is Jas, who I recently saw at the French AGM. Jas a Sikh and a bad ass. He is proud of his heritage and while he does not have long hair nor beard, I believe his association gives him confidence and substance. Sikhs, whose historic home the Punjab region, form a small minority in the UK (336,179 people at the time of the 2001 Census) yet play a disproportionate role in the the country's psyche. They were elite soldiers in World War II and anybody who has read Ondaatje's "The English Patient" will recall the Sihks dis-assembling bombs .. they were the body guards of Ghandi. Snapping back to the now: our meeting fine and who knows if we will get the pension's millions but we give our best and have a fair hearing from the decision makers. This really all one can ask for.

Sihk's core philosphy: "There is one supreme eternal reality; the truth; immanent in all things; creator of all things; immanent in creation. Without fear and without hatred; not subject to time; beyond birth and death; self-revealing. Known by the Guru’s grace."

Grand Place

Eitan: "Is that the Chrysler Building?"

Because no European road trip can be without a majestic cathedral, here is the the gothic town hall which I snap with my phone camera. The edifice constructed between 1402 and 1455 whose top, at 97 meters, stands St. Michael or the patron of Brussels. David, who I am with this week as he raises capital for his Correlation Ventures, and I have dinner underneath and marvel at the Grand Place, which is surrounded by the pictured pyramid, guild houses, and the Bread House where people used to get .. bread. The square attracts tourists and young people, who sit in its middle and french kiss or smoke cigarettes. They suffer no care in the world nor should they - this is their time. It is a perfect evening with temps around 72-degrees and ideal for being outside and drinking beer and David and I make a pretty good job of it. He's an interesting fellow from Houston whose politics are Republican-flexible and a fiscal conservative. This gives us ample room to throw arguements at each other regarding the country's leadership, health care, the Iraq War, Bush and his incompetency, the state of the Union and so on and so forth. It is spirited and never crosses The Line - despite alcohol, which presents a combustible combination oh boy. In the end, David a moderate and while I would like to consider myself same, I lean left. No doubt. But however I lean, dear reader, I am 100% right.

Eitan: "When I grow up I am going to be a footballer, a swimmer and a paleontoligst."

Madeleine: "Go away. I am playing with my legos."

Terrorist

This the iconic photo of Abdel Baset al-Megrahi who was convicted in 2001 by Scottish judges of 270 counts of murder for his part in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie Scotland in December, 1988. Today, the Scottish Government set him free, returning him to Libya on compassionate grounds for his chronic cancer, which gives him less than three months to live. I listen to the decision on Radio 4 driving to Wolverhampton. Says Scottish Cabinet Secretary for Justice Kenny MacAskill : "Mr Al-Megrahi did not show his victims any comfort or compassion. They were not allowed to return to the bosom of their families to see out their lives, let alone their dying days. No compassion was shown by him to them. But, that alone is not a reason for us to deny compassion to him and his family in his final days." Apparently MacAksill made up his mind yesterday. Al-Megrahi receives a hero's welcome in Tripoli and greeted by Khadafi and cheering - cheering! - in the street. This outrageous. American college students died in the crash. Families destroyed. The murdered cannot re-unite with their families. Why should Al-Megrahi receive such grace? It just makes no sense.

Or does it? The timing of Al-Megrahi occurs the day before Ramadan to begin AND the 40th anniversary of Khadafi, who assumed power on 1 September, 1969. No coincidence here I must assume. Likely there was a horse trade and let us hope that government, some government has saved lives somehow. My guess that Khadafi gave up information on his personal terrorist network in return for Al-Megrahi. Or maybe it is an oil trade - they've got it and we need it+our companies can expoit it. Watching Libyans honk their horns, wave their flags and fire their guns only makes me feel .. hate.

W'Loo

Update: My mobile-phone photo the the top of the 226 stair knoll (I counted) on the site of the battle, and the famous La Butte du Lion. Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington said of it "They have spoiled my Battlefield." But it offers a panoramic view and puts one in the mind of past actions.

I am in Waterloo this morning and ask a receptionist for advise on things to see before the airport. She advises the battlefield and I thank her for her good idea, which is kind of like being told to see the Golden Gate Bridge when in San Francisco. Or Big Ben in London. So there we go to the or about eight miles Southeast of Brussels .

Waterloo marks to the defeat of Napoleon to the Seventh Coalition, including an Anglo-Allied army under the command of the Duke of Wellington and a Prussian Army under Gebhard von Blucher. It was a decisive ass kicking and ended Napoleon's rule as the French emperor, and the end of his Hundred Days post exile. I was reading about this only last week in Patrick O'Brien's 19th book of his Master and Commander series (Captain Jack ecstatic that Napoleon returns giving him his raison d'etre, even if only for a short while).

Upon Napoleon's return to power in 1815, many states that had opposed him formed the Seventh Coalition and began to mobilise armies. Two large forces under Wellington and von Blücher assembled close to the northeastern border of France. Napoleon chose to attack in the hope of destroying them before they could join in a coordinated invasion of France with other members of the Coalition. And so: Waterloo. According to Wellington, the battle was "the nearest-run thing you ever saw in your life."

Napoleon delayed giving battle until noon to allow the ground to dry. Wellington's army, positioned across the Brussels road on the Mont St Jean escarpment, withstood repeated attacks by the French, until, in the evening, the Prussians arrived in force and broke through Napoleon's right flank. At that moment, Wellington's Anglo-allied army counter-attacked and drove the French army in disorder from the field. Pursuing Coalition forces entered France and restored Louis XVIII to the French throne. Napoleon abdicated, surrendered to the British, and was exiled to Saint Helena, where he died in 1821.

"All I want to know is where I am going to die so I will never go there."

--Warren Buffet

Greetings From Wherever

Well, here I am, looking at the Brussels skyline and watching the Love Boat. In French. This is the one where Captain Stubing's neice turns 18 and wants to lose her viriginity to Doc. Doc, ever the Gentleman, avoids temptation and tells her "the first time a grave moment" (serious=grave en francais but I think somehow the more correct - and ridiculous - tone the show chases). She tells Doc she is scared and he replies "when you are not scared, you know you are truly in love." She, eyes tearing and looking up to her commander: "You are a true instructor" then they together with the Captain, Julie, Isaac and Gopher who sing her "happy birthday." Wonderful stuff. Viewing Love Boat for the first time in like 20 years, the "props" stand out: there is the mustachiod guy leaning onto a wall talking to a broad while holding something on the rocks. The hairy-chested dude in tight trunks chats up Barbie nestled on the pool ridge. And the bottoms - the beautiful bottoms everywhere - whose wiggle serves the perfect seguay between scenes. Genius. And there is the Captain, pictured - what is up with his shorts and black bow-tie? It's not quite captainly, I might suggest. Still, black Isaac serves up the cockatails with a sprig of jive, Gopher adds the comic relief and Julie .. well, Julie's longing for the shore and her true love makes every voyage a veritable romance. In short, the perfect Saturday night team, who I often joined in the late 1970s pre-car and pre-dating. With Fantasy Island following, the perfect double-header. They just don't make TV like this anymore.

So I am in Brussels and this morning Bad Homborg and before that Amsterdam. Yes, I am on the hot trail of investor dollars. I share the ride with fund manager David who is going for the Big Bucks to invest in his quant driven strategy. David has spent considerable resources and time assembling the largest venture data set I or anybody has seen before - according to Dow Jones, 98% of all venture financings encapsulated. Using multiple regressions, he "scores" investments and increases odds on betting the winners. So far, my friends intrigued and the next step their commitments. Our week BTW off to a traumatic start as we miss our outward flight thanks to Heathrow where I cannot find the pre-paid parking bay. Don't ask. Analysing our late-night options, we drive to Luton Airport for our morning connection, requiring a 4AM wake-up call for a 6AM flight and 9AM arrival in another city in another country. We make it with five minutes to spare, our meeting never the wiser.

"You know how they got the name Merrill Stubing? I said "why did you pick a name like Merrill Stubing?" He said, "I'm a baseball fan, and there was a great ballplayer named Merrill Stubing that nobody's ever heard of from many, many years ago.""
--Gavin Macleod (aka Captain Merrill Stubing)

9.58

Usain Bolt - wow. We sit around the television, kids up well past their Sunday bedtime, to watch the show. Following his Olympics, Bolt now the 100-meters World Champion also besting the World Record by .9 seconds. Tyson Grey runs the second fastest race in history in 9.71 yet loses by two meters for silver. 20 years ago, Maurice Greene ran 9.79 and 20 years before that Jim Hines went 9.95 which took 15 years to break. Bolt is a wonderful hero for Jamaica and every young kid in sports. He clowns, he goofs. He has fun. This very different from the mind-games and intimidations racers usually pursue at this level. Not surprisingly, Bolt draws the crowds and tonight's Berline Olympic stadium filled despite tomorrow's work day. I have come off athletics following Marion Jones who duped me into believing her magic which later turned out to be doped. My interest returns now that we have a bona fide hero whose WR may be one for the ages, or at least until he gets serious about breaking it next. Bolt is 22.

Photo from Guardian.

"When I was young, I didn’t really think about anything other than sports"
--Usain Bolt

"I just saw something I thought I would never be able to see. I am in awe, like everybody else out here."
--Maurice Greene, from the track

Bournemouth-On-Chanel

Sonnet takes the kids to Bournemouth for a British seaside week end and I do some running recovery following months of pounding. We haven't had a holiday in August, this very dead month, as our focus on buying a house. Needless to say, the Shakespeares bored silly as we ever were in our grade school summers. How our parents survived three months back then beyond me. Well done, Moe and Grace. Any ways, Bournemouth located in Dorsett or about 2-3 hours drive Southwest from London. Think Santa Cruz without the Boardwalk. Or Capatola. It is kind of awful, in my opinion, retaining a 1950s flava when the Brits used to vacation in their own country. There is a cheesy peer (pictured), many Chanel-facing hotels with thick carpets and non-cabled television. Yes, four terrestrial stations to choose from - did we once suffer this? Each hotel with a bar where large crowds booze it up and of course the morning buffet with its full English breakfast. For champions. Ah, England in all her glory. Still, on a sunny day the beaches with warm white sand and the Isle of White visible at a distance, and beyond that France. This is cool. The kids could care less about the quality of their surroundings - their ambition water time, TV and sausages which they receive with love and abundance.

And check this out: In a 2007 survey by First Direct Bank, Bournemouth the happiest place in Britain with 82% of people questioned saying they were happy with their life. So who am I to be so snotty?

Photo from the Bournemouth tourist association.

Update: Sonnet home with kids, who are happy with their week-end having won two stuffed "buddies." Eitan confirms that he has the Full English+Coco Sugar Pops, which he sprinkles with sugar "though mom didn't know." I'll bet.

Golden Guy

Roger at Spring Woods High School, Houston, probably 1984 (isn't facebook grand)? I met Roger the next year at Brown - I think he was like the second or third face I saw since he was my Residential Counselor in Poland House in the Keeny Quad. His lovely crown already falling away, poor kid, but it certainly did not prevent him from being a popular fellow on Brown's campus. Roger always a serious guy and concentrating in Computer Sciences and Engineering consistent with his nature - because just engineering not enough. He and I slugged it out in the library the first several years of college as I attempted my own silly double: Neural physiology and pre-med. Unlike Roger, I came to my senses and gave up the 13th floor of the Sciences Library (known as "Sci Li") where the serious academic dudes hung out, studying or not. That was not the life for me. After college, we have come together then apart and together: we shared a flat near Central Park on the Upper West Side when he back from the Peace Corp and working for Morgan Stanley while I at First Boston; he then cut tail for San Francisco and when I returned to Berkeley several years later we were the Bay Bridge apart. He was the Best Man at my wedding during that beautiful time. Now Roger is in Seattle and I am here. We connect by phone or Internets but unfortunately WA not an easy visit. One day I promise him we will live by the beach somewhere with Eric and whoever wants to join us, scratching our backs with a long stick and being the good life.

Roger, at "the triangle" in San Francisco and one of the few times I have seen him drunk, running amok trailing a stolen hose: "I'm a rat! I'm a rat!"

Random Walk

After seeing Dana et al last Saturday in Primrose Hill, we stop by our old stomping grounds for a drink at the Warrington Hotel, which is a hotel in name only. Built in 1859 and refurbished in 1999, it was once a hotel in the late 1800's and rumoured to be a brothel, which must have worried the Church of England, who were its owners at the time. Pardieu. Gordon Ramsey bought the place several years ago and now has a restaurant on the second floor above the bar area (it used to be a Thai restaurant). The downstairs way cool and adorned with original features like marble pillars, ornately carved and turned in dark wood. Art Nouveau friezes - naked women! - embellish the horseshoe shaped bar, with its stained glass, tulip-shaped lamps and an illuminated alcove. The large marble fireplace remains untouched from another era. A thick oak divider, once separating the main room from side areas when the sexes parted for their tipple, remains in place, if ignored. Superb.

A half block from the Warrington our flat on Lauderdale Mansions (pictured), a tree lined block that makes me think of London from the '40s. Red brownstones, working women with fake hose and German planes flying overhead and the V2 rocket but everybody getting on with it - stiff upper lip, and all that. It's my little fantasy so why not? This Eitan and Madeleine's first home, and it seems like yesterday I was bringing each home thinking: "what next?" The building overlooks the second largest private garden in London and our bedroom faced a grassy field and treeline, blocking out other buildings - and yet ten minutes to Oxford Street on the No. 9 "route-master," an iconic double-decker red bus replaced some five years in Livington's attempt to modernise this great city. Sir Alec Guinness lived in the mansion and Alan Turing around the corner. Two NHS doctors upstairs partied like it was 1999 and neighbor Martin, a taxi driver tough in black leather jacket, bangs on the door to see if I am interested in "putting out the racket." I quietly passed. Those were mixed times from tech boom to bust then recreation but happily life moves forward and from that epoque I have Sonnet and family, some true friends and two healthy Shakespeares. What more could one ask for ever in life?

Lauderdale Road Synagogue

The synagogue, pictured, in Maida Vale where we lived before moving to Richmond, blends into the neighborhood with similar red brickstone. This particular synagogue a place of worship for the Spanish and Portguguese Jews' Congregation of London, which traces its origins to a famous petition presented to Oliver Cromwell in 1656 by Rabbi Menasseh Ben Israel, from Holland, and six of the 'secret Jews' (Marranos) living in London. Cromwell enabled Jews to live and worship openly in England for the firs time since the expulsion in 1290. The first synagogue established in a rented house in Creechurch Lane in the City and leased land in Mile End, Stepney, for a burial ground. The Congregation grew steadily and eventually built a large new synagogue in 1701 - the beautiful Bevis Marks Synagogue also in the City, which remains in regular use today. Increasing migration of members of the Congregation from the East End to the west and north-west of London led to the establishment of a branch congregation, at first in Wigmore Street, Cavendish Square in 1853, from 1861 in a purpose-built synagogue in Lauderdale Road or pictured.

Spanish and Portguese Jews are otherwise a distinctive sub-group of Sephardim who have their main ethnic origins within the crypto-Jewish communities of the Iberian peninsula and who shaped communities mainly in Western Europe and the Americas from the late 16th century on.

Me: "Are you going to get a hair cut?"
Eitan: "Why would I do that?"
Me: "Well, how about if we at least wash it this month?"
Eitan: "Madeleine actually saw a lady bird in my hair yesterday."
Me:

Longfellow

Pictured, my 6th grade room sent to me by classmate Julia via Facebook. I am in yellow and red. Incredible to think of us all together for this brief moment in time. Like being on an airplane - a population never to be re-assembled. Our teacher was the wonderful Mrs. Riles who I went to visit some fifteen years ago but alas she was gone. Probably long gone. Check out the number of black kids. In sixth grade, these were my best friends and it did not matter black, yellow, pink or white. We were all the same little dudes, playing stink-ball or daring each other to hyper-ventilate via strangulation. Yes, we did this. By Junior High for some unexplained reason we went to our separate corners of the school ground and rarely mixed. We also got clickee stratifying by socio-economic background but who and how could judge? Why so suddenly this self-awareness? It remains a mystery.

A main reason my parents, post Peace Corps, chose Berkeley was the public school system - the Berkeley Unified School District crossed neighborhoods and bussed us kids to class creating an inter-racial environment. There was also a vague connection to UC Berkeley and in the later years those competent students could take classes at Cal. Katie, I do believe, did so when she maxed out on all her advanced placement coursework (yours, truly, had no idea what an AP class was). Berkeley was a grand experiment and attracted the East Bay's upper income liberals who wanted more for their children then the class and race generic privates. Ok, rich and white. There, I said it. Most of my peers ended up on the East Coast at private institutions, many in the Ivy League or Amherst and Wesleyan and the like. I was once told by an Admissions Officer that the elite schools liked Berkeley kids, who "are unusual and add diversity" which I think coding for what? Being a hippie? Ethnically diverse?

So today I have many dear friendships from my youth forged from Switzerland, sports or school. Of the later, most gelled in seventh grade and many are from the North Berkeley hills or Claremont area (code: upper income). Many are not. Yet however I cut the deck, my circle now nothing like the Longfellow school photo where my best pals were James "Jabber" Wilson, Eric Robinson, Tanya, Mitchelle, Laural Carter and George Banks (voted "cutest couple"), Awad and Laurence ("class clown"). All black and all gone. I feel this loss, a very big loss indeed.

Burnt

Sonnet forgets the kids sun lotion and Madeleine returns from soccer camp with a red face. I admonish the children to wear sun block - it is not our job to ensure the little rats lathered up - and we have like three tubes at the door including an aerosol spray. Madeleine has fair skin and freckles so she needs to be extra cautious while Eitan has olive skin that seems to get more Mediterranean every summer day, lucky boy. This on my mind since Cancer Research UK reports that sunbeds, which mimic the sun's UV, damage skin cell DNA and can cause skin cancer. Sunbeds are estimated kill 100 bathers from melanoma every year in the UK with many thousands of cases. In fact, Ministers are preparing to clamp down on the cosmetic tanning industry indicating sunbeds belong in the same category of carcinogenic risk as tobacco smoke. Bummer, dude.

When I was a youngster, Coppertone set the benchmark - remember that cute lttle girl getting her white ass exposed by the mischievous puppy? Paedophiles were loving that era. Be scared. Be scared. Coppertone offered sunblock grades from one to three to seven .. now there's protection. Kinda like using using a condom from the the 1970s. Back then, we all got sun burnt on purpose and then it faded or peeled into the perfect, beautiful summer tan just right with a white La Coste and Sperry canvas topsiders. When I was in college I even used cooking oil, you know - for cooking - then fried it up in our back-yard. Every college kid on the East Coast had to return bronzed especially if you were lucky enough to be from California. The mythology and all that. While strangely I spent every summer in Providence, RI, I did go home for a couple of weeks or so before the fall semester and boy did I lap up the sunshine and pssst sometimes a tanning bed. It would have gone against the image to do anything otherwise.

I show Eitan and Madeleine ghastly images of skin caner sourced from Google. I tell them it is a horrible way to die. Photo from the WWW.

Sigh

Sarah jumping into something she knows nothing about, again. This time it is the Obama health care plan and she blogs: "death panel"for the sick or elderly or whomever. Sadly, many dip-shits seem to believe her, just as these same citizens believe that Obama does not have a birth-certificate, a rumour that the Conservatives just kick around and around though it discredits their Republican party. It is not like anything new - remember those unpatriotic pricks Swift Boat Veterans For Truth? What worries me is the President - if a substantial minority of citizens - mostly BTW in the South - feel their elected leader not American, what does this say for his security? Dr George Tiller murdered last month by a nut job pumped full of Bill O'Reilly, who surely has blood on his hands ("Dr Killer" he called Tiller; words count Mr. O'Reilly). But, really, I get away from the main point of this blog. Sarah Palin is hot! Here she is, courtesy of Runner's World, look'n like a babe! Check out the lovely curves, shiny flesh, her fecundity. Of course we want to hear her, talk about her, blog her, and twitter her. Billy Crystal no dummy - we are absorbed with Sarah Palin and who cares what the else? We get what we deserve, after all.

"The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s “death panel” so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their “level of productivity in society,” whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.”
--Sarah Palin, posted on her blog