Guns!  Have you noticed how many have killed so many people lately?  Schools, drive bys, people going "postal."  It appears that our politicians haven't had enough deaths yet to do anything about it.  Yet handguns kill more people than AIDS and may be on a par with heart attacks.  A modest suggestion: Stop the sale of hand guns, automatic weapons and all military type weapons.  Weapons like that 50 caliber sniper rifle I keep seeing in the news.  Imagine a 150 pound deer getting shot by one of those.   Sportsmen don't need them.  In fact in seems to me that hunters should revert back to black powder rifles in order to be more sporting.  But that is another subject.  

I keep hearing about rights under the 2nd Amendment.  Yes if one is in a "well regulated Militia".  A bunch of gun traders does not appear to me to be well regulated.  Oh yes, and that old saw about "if people were allowed to carry guns most of those killings wouldn't happen" is just such crap.  Guns carried by kids in schools?  Give a kid a car AND a GUN is the logical extension of that stupid argument.  Can you imagine that scenario?  

Constancy, that is what makes us feel secure.  I see that one enduring product is still out there.  This is the 60th anniversary of the French Deux Cheveux, or two horses, auto that puts along on it's two little lungs.  What a great car.  I understand that it was designed in the 1930's and originally called "toute petite voiture" or "very small car".  

Artists can breathe more easily today after the London auctions.  I see a Francis Bacon triptych sold for $52M and a Franz Marc for $24.3M.  Unfortunately all the buyers seemed to be Russians. One would have to assume that not only are our companies being bought up by outsiders but also the art that we bought up from Europe and Asia in the good times past.  It reminds me of my old friend, Vojtec Blau, a Czechoslovakian Jew, who came to the US in the late 60's with $500 in his pocket and a knowledge of Oriental rugs.  I loaned him some money from the bank I worked at in NYCity and he went to Europe and bought rugs from estates and "poor rich-folk".  He made a fortune here.  I wonder if he is buying them up now and taking them to Moscow and Shanghai?

Interesting article in the NYTimes today about Silicone Valley in Seattle.  Actually it is in Fremont, a community just north of Lake Union where the statue of Lenin resides.  The new start-ups are being called "Little Bills", after Bill Gates, "Little Jeffs" after Jeff Bezos of Amazon and "Little Sergeys", after Sergey Brin of Google.  It seems to be thriving.  We used to like this former sleepy community for the coffee shops and a couple restaurants.  

Thursday evening, 2/7/08

My friend, Paul Dietrich, sent me a book, Desert Wisdom, Sayings from the Desert Fathers, by Yushi Nomura, about the hermits of the 2nd, 3rd and 4th centuries AD in Egypt.  They sound so much like the hermits of China, some of whom I met on my trip through China with Bill Porter. What interesting folk hermits are.  

To purposely withdraw from society for a year, ten years or a lifetime, in order to think, to delve more deeply into one's self so as to be a better follower of an idea, faith or god is truly extraordinary.  The hermit finds his or her own place, high in the mountains, deep in the country, away from society, yet not so far as to be gone.  They need seed for gardens, acolytes to teach, other hermits to commune with.  Yet they need hours and hours of solitude in which to meditate on their breath, their bodies and their center.   Bill said that Buddhist monks become hermits as a sort of graduate program.  They need that couple of years or more in order to find their center, their "present", the emptiness they seek.  

In the book Paul sent I found some sayings by various monks that could just as well have come from China.  Here are a few:

"It was said about Abba (father) Agathon that for three years he carried a pebble around in his mouth until he learned to be silent."

"Abba Silvanus said: Woe to the person whose reputation is greater than his work."

"An old man said: If you have words, but no work, you are like a tree with leaves but no fruit.  But just as a tree bearing fruit is also leafy, a person who has good work comes up with good words."

And finally, in this time of the Bear Market are these words:

"An old man said: If you have lost gold or silver, you can find something in place of what you lost.  However, if you lose time you cannot replace what you lost."

Ciao