Spring is in the air.  The birds are singing and the tweets are waking up to business.  Some tweets are regrouping from injury, others are spreading their wings to nest in the promise of a new day.

 

It all depends which side of the aisle you are on.  Bride's side, full of hope.  Groom's side, you wonder how long the euphoria will last.

 

It's Spring in America, and in our busy lives something always stands out in the calendar, year in and year out. 

 

We have some serious horse racing to do.

 

Spring always takes my mind back to a very special horse that lifted the spirits of a nation in a time of great trouble.  A time when the economy was tanking, a very unpopular war was ending, and the country suspected the government was totally corrupt.

 

Sound familiar?

 

I was a kid in 1973.  Before I knew what the word Watergate meant, I knew a horse named Secretariat. 

 

My Father loved horses.  In his salad days, he was a runner for a bookie in the old neighbourhood.  A runner would carry bets and money between the bookie and the gambler.  This was a time before Alexander Graham Bell had made headway into the working class market.  A story that was retold in my family had my ethnic Grandmother, with her thick accent, acting confused with the cops at the door, saying, "Hobby Horse!  Hobby Horse!"  No, we aren't of Italian descent, but considering Cleveland was all mobbed up at the time, no doubt there were members of my family working for somebody who looked like Al Pacino.

 

Back to Secretariat.

 

Here was a horse who started the race running dead last.  He ran the entire race on the outside.  He not only won the race, but set a Kentucky Derby record that still stands today. 

 

Sounds a bit like Rocky.

 

It is, and I will tell you why.

 

Secretariat is the epitome of the American Dream.

 

Secretariat came out of the gate as the underdog of the Kentucky Derby by virtue of running dead last.  His original owner got him by losing a coin toss.  He came out of the womb and out of the gate second best.

 

But he had grit.  He had determination.  He had heart.

 

And in the process, he reminded America what it's all about.

 

Barack is in London for the G20.  He has just met the Queen and given her a few gifts. 

 

One of those gifts was an iPod that contained video of her 2007 visit to America.

 

President Obama, did you pay attention to her interest in the Kentucky Derby during that visit?  Or did some minion of yours load the video onto the iPod without briefing you on the content?

 

I suspect the latter.

 

I wish you would get over the idea that you just have to show up and everyone will wave palms.

 

You would have really impressed the Queen if you showed some knowledge of her interests.  She likes horse racing.  For all your bleating on how Americans should learn more about the world, you don't give the appearance to this travelled Yank that you have any clue how other people in the world live their lives. 

 

And with your insistence that Americans need help, you don't give the appearance of having a clue what really motivates us.

 

Secretariat sparked the hope of a nation.  Not because Secretariat got bailed out, but because he succeeded against all odds.  Somehow, I don't think Secretariat would have meant as much if .gov was deciding how much money he could make, who could ride him or who could own him.  Somehow, I suspect you would have fired Ron Turcotte. Yes, you are older than me, but I have a sneaking suspicion that you would have to google Ron Turcotte.

 

You made a to-do during your press conference about not having any knowledge of "European football," but you couldn't even talk horses with the Queen. (By the way, President Obama, football, or "soccer", is very popular in Latin America.  Perhaps you weren't briefed on that, either.)

 

Horse racing is an American sport.  It's a British sport, too. 

 

You droped the ball. 

 

Next time you give the Queen an iPod, try gifting her with the best of American horse racing.

 

You totally missed the significance of horse racing in America and Britain.

 

And you totally miss the significance of Secretariat.   

 

 

 

 

Thoroughbred horses are unique creatures.  They are born and bred to run.  Animals usually compete for food, territory or sex.  But a thoroughbred horse is one of the few creatures that ache to competitively race.

 

Boaz Weinstein is such a horse.

 

Weinstein was a top Wall Street trader for Deutsche Bank AG.  I say was, because his operations at Deutsche ground to a halt and he has left the building.  He is off to start his own hedge fund.

 

Too bad for Deutsche.

 

These days, it's too easy to brand everyone on Wall Street a Gordon Gekko.

 

That is dangerous thinking.

 

Sure, those of us outside the financial world reel with the billions lost in our 401K's and the billions of our taxpayer dollars spent to prop up failing banks, et al.  We get angry at the expensive resorts visited by those now on the dole.  We wonder why we are expected to prop up banks when they attempt to buy new corporate jets.

 

All of that anger is righteous.

 

But be careful of that righteous anger, before your emotions take over and you do something you'll regret.

 

Our capitalist system is under threat by the government.  Since the government has decided to be a major player on Wall Street with big wads of sweaty taxpayer money, they have positioned themselves to be the jockeys riding the thoroughbreds.

 

Thoroughbreds like Weinstein.

 

Weinstein was a chess master at the age of 16.  He once was challenged by a fellow employee at Deutsche to play a game "blindfolded."  100 employees watched as Weinstein sat with his back to the board and beat his Russian colleague in roughly two hours.

 

Weinstein also likes to play poker and blackjack.  After Friday closing, he and his colleagues could be found in one of the boardrooms at Deutsche playing high-stakes poker into the night.  He would occassionally travel to Las Vegas with some MIT grads and work the blackjack tables. 

 

He knew how to keep count.  Blindfolded.

 

This is a man, by all accounts, who loves taking high-stake financial risks.  He is good at it.  He made billions doing what he loves to do.  And when things came crashing down, he put on his best poker face and tried to figure it all out.

 

Of course, that wasn't easy when .gov decided to step in and save the day.  Well, save some days, but not others.  Rescue Bear Stearns, but let Lehman Brothers fail.  And so it goes with .gov.

 

Boaz Weinstein was a top-notch trader, but he just couldn't figure out the rules anymore.  And Deutsche Bank AG didn't feel like waiting.

 

Our capitalist society needs people like Boaz Weinstein fiercely running towards the finish line, without .gov as his jockey.

 

We all know .gov doesn't know anything about thoroughbred horse racing.

 

And when thoroughbreds like Boaz Weinstein win, we all win.  People like him put the money in our 401K's.

 

Don't forget that.

 

 

I find global warming/climate change/climate chaos people to be amazingly amusing in their Madoffesque ability to continue to sell their green ponzi scheme while jetting around in their private planes and sitting in their overheated Oval Office.

 

It would seem President Obama, who has said the middle class needs to sacrifice and refrain from turning up the heat to 72 degrees, is doing precisely what he is telling us not to do.

 

I say middle class, because he gives those who can fly a private jet into DC for the Presidential Inauguration a big pass as they can afford carbon offsets. 

 

Carbon offsets are modern day indulgences for the rich.  It washes away the liberal guilt of carbon sin.

 

Yes, it's gotten that ridiculous.

 

Middle class people do not tootle around in private jets.  Our budgets can't handle the extravagance.

 

I laugh at the perversity of those who would lecture us on global warming/climate change/climate chaos yet cannot bear to mingle with the "common people" on a commercial flight. 

 

Back to that hot house commonly known as the White House.  Obama's aids expect Americans to excuse his hypocrisy because, after all, he was born in Hawaii.  "He likes it warm," his aids say.

 

Wait a minute.  Did I just not hear Obama giving DC schools short shrift for closing on a snow day?

 

“We’re going to have to try to apply some flinty Chicago toughness to this,” he said. “I’m saying, when it comes to the weather, folks in Washington don’t seem to be able to handle things.”

 

In Cleveland, people shovel their own snow and don't dare turn their thermostat up past 68 degrees.  It's not some boogeyman called global warming/climate change/climate chaos that keeps the temperature down.  It's $400. a month heating bills.  

 

I like it warm, too, which is why I am sitting at my computer with two blankets wrapped around my legs.

 

I am quite over people who bleat on and on about how the earth is going to end if we don't all live in igloos. 

 

Well, if the middle class doesn't live in igloos. 

 

The liberal elite will still be flying around in those private jets and turning up their heat to suit their comfort.

 

And still telling the rest of us what to do.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 A young woman in Southern California birthed eight babies last week.

 

Humans were never meant to have litters, but that is just what happened in fantasy land.

 

The story gets curiouser and curiouser. 

 

She is 33 years old and already has six children, the oldest seven, the youngest two.  She lives with her parents in a two or three bedroom house.  She has no evidence of a husband or boyfriend.  There is no evidence this woman currently has a job.

 

What shook the earth on the Left Coast to the point that someone thought this was a good idea?

 

Miss Suleman and her parents insist that this is a wonderful thing, a blessed thing.  Of course, this is after her mother indiscreetly told the media that she was exasperated with her children-obsessed daughter. 

 

Now Miss Suleman's father is telling the media that they have a huge house somewhere else, someplace the media will never find them. 

 

Amazing, considering the grandparents who will house 15 children (including the infantile mother) were reported to be in dire financial straights recently, having declared bankruptcy and walked away from a home.

 

Walked away from a house.  Does that mean they defaulted on their mortgage?

 

As I shake my head, I try to determine who will pay for it all. 

 

Well, Governor Schwarzenegger already has his hand out, begging on the steps of the Dome.  His state wants to build a bullet train connecting Anaheim, Los Angeles, Fresno and San Francisco, and eventually including Sacramento, San Diego and Oakland.

 

We will call this Amtrack II, The Boondoggle Returns.

 

Arnie's state also uses taxpayer funds for stem cell research.  That's all in a state's perrogative, but when Calfornia comes knocking at my door, asking me for money, I want to kick the Terminator all the way back to his sandy beaches.

 

In the end, I suspect Congress will fill Arnie's coffers until they runneth over. 

 

What else is to be expected from a gaggle of botoxed politicians, who after giving billions of taxpayer dollars away to anyone with a hard luck story and a tin cup, gave each and every one of themselves a raise of $4,700 for fiscal year 2009?

 

What else is to be expected when we have a Treasury Secretary, Tim Geithner, who tells us he cannot follow directions on a tax software programme designed to complete tax returns?  I really chuckled over that one.  I've been using Turbo Tax for years.  I have no master’s in international economics and East Asian studies from Johns Hopkins University.  I was able to follow directions very well.  I have to wonder what went so awry with Geithner that he could not get online help to resolve any questions he may have had regarding his tax liability, when the software programme prompted him every step of the way and the IMF repeatedly told their employees they would have to pay all taxes on their own. 

 

I guess Turbo Tax is only for dummies.  People with an elite education in economics can't seem to figure it out.

 

But, hey!  It was a mistake!  Anyone could have done it!  Had anyone other than Geithner done it, the IRS would have been on him like the plague.  But a few mea culpas and Geithner gets the job running a department who will, in turn, leave a taxpayer who owes the IRS with nothing but a cardboard box and a toga once they are done with them.

 

What a great segue into our next stellar appointment, Tim Daschle, the man who missed paying close to $250,000 in back taxes.  He's expected to receive the nomination for Health and Human Secretary.

 

The new morality states that anything that was wrong in the Bush Administration must be made right in the Obama Administration.

 

Right now, it would seem the new morality is no morality at all.  The new morality looks away when they see something immoral, and play their part to help pretend it was never a problem in the first place.

 

Brings me back to Miss Suleman and those 14 kids in an alleged two, possibly three bedroom home.

 

I'd really like to know who is paying for all those diapers, formulas, pins, teething rings x8, and all those clothes and food that growing childen need to become strong.  Not only the infants, but the other six children ages two to seven.

 

I'll keep up with this story.  I want to see what Obama's Hope and Change holds in store for her and her family.

 

In the meantime, I have to wonder....

 

How much is this new morality going to cost the rest of us?