The Royal Wedding of the Week

The wedding of Chelsea Clinton to Marc Mezvinsky is a farce on a Hollywood scale. The hullabaloo about it the media's hysteria is reaching a crescendo.

What is so important about this wedding that it should occupy all the newscasts? I personally find it distasteful, arrogant and immoral.

Granted, this is a free country. People can spend their money on whatever they want. But there is spending and there is good taste. The Clinton wedding is anything but good taste.

In today's economy, when there is record unemployment, foreclosures and business closings for someone, a former President to spend five million dollars on his daughter's wedding is just not right. It is spitting into the eyes of the world saying your problems are not my problems: I am exempt.

This President went to Haiti to see the devastation caused by the earthquake, went to Asia to see the devastation caused by the tsunami and then implored people and businesses to contribute to the rebuilding, now squanders away five million dollars on a simple wedding.

That five million could have helped a lot of people Mister Clinton!

I don't think Mike Bloomberg would have done the same lavish happening. Not that he could not afford it, just that he has more class which it seems the Clintons lack.

And all for what?

Chelsea is marrying the son of an ex con. A man who tricked people out of their savings for his own enrichment. People like the Clintons should keep arms length from families like this one.
Their children were raised on moneys stolen from others. O.K he went to jail and served his time. Now he knows better how not to get caught again.

The family is kosher. It means that they are fairly religious, not quite orthodox. What do they believe in? That what's yours is mine and what's mine is mine to keep?

Give me a break. We real Jews have no use for these phony religious people. They pray to God to help them chisel money out of innocent people.

And this is the family Chelsea Clinton moves into.

I wish them all the luck but as precedents go this will not be 'until death do us part'.

May 31, 2010

I had a colleague who worked in Manhattan and lived in Westchester County. Rather than taking public transportation he drove to work every single day. He payed the tolls and the not inexpensive Manhattan parking.

I asked him several times why he never purchased E-Z Pass. With that pass at least the tolls provide some discount plus one does not have to wait in the cash lanes where the lines are always long.

His response was that he didn't want Big Brother to know where he was traveling to. I told him I didn't think Big Brother was much interested in his travelings. His wife might but not Big Brother.

This is typical of the average American's paranoia about invasion of privacy.

Security cameras on the streets, E-Z Pass or any other detection device is accused to be protection of privacy.

Well, I have a huge protection of privacy culprit that nobody seem to complain about.

Google Earth.

I think Google Earth (GE) is a fantastic virtual globe, map and geographic information program. It covers practically the entire globe.

In some areas it is so accurate that one can spot the potholes front of somebody's house.

A friend of mine lives in Australia. I have never been there but I saw the house through GE and I also saw pictures taken from his street at 360˚. It was like if I were there. And this is available at almost everywhere on the Earth.

So how come nobody ever complains about invasion of privacy when GE shows everybody's property, the backyard, the pool, all roads leading to one's place and everything else people are interested about.

I have no answer why the paranoids don't complain. Maybe because Google wouldn't care if people do complain. They would still publish their sites.

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Today is Memorial Day, May 31, 2010. To date I wrote 229 blogs. That's a lot of Blog. I never realized I had so much in me. I know it is not the ginkgo biloba because I was not taking it at the beginning. I guess I just have it.

The summer is starting and I am going to take time off to concentrate on some important things like going to the beach a lot.

So until I get a real hard kick in the behind from a Muse this is my last entry until the end of summer 2010.

I wish everybody a good and healthy Summer. And remember the grass is always greener on the other side.

May 30, 2010

Just to continue yesterday's discussion on the mysteries of languages I would like to make a few observations. These observations refer to the English language as we (Americans) speak it.

I think we create nouns from some verbs by adding the letters er at the end. At least that is the way most of them work.

Look at the word serve. By adding er to the end we just created server. Or cook becomes cooker.
Or somebody occupied with jewels will become a jeweler, and somebody occupied with mountains will become a mountaineer. So far so good.

But what the hell is bucca? I figured it must have meant something since there were buccaneers and they probably did some bucca.

Or somebody who was a plum became a plumber.

And it is obvious that somebody who was a carpent became a carpenter, and someone who dealt with butches turned out to be a butcher.

But I still don't know what bucca, plum and carpent meant.

However, I do know that someone who comes from Somalia will become a sommelier.

Other thing.

Why the names of foreign cities are translated to different languages? Why they can not remain the same as their original name?

I can not accept that Hispanic people call New York Nueva York. That is not our name. I'm sure they would be insulted if we would call San Juan (Puerto Rico) Saint John and Puerto Rico the Rich Port island.

Moscow in Russian is called Moskva, Wien (Austria) in English is called Vienna. Saint Petersburg in Russian is called Sankt-Peterburg. Warsaw in Polish is called Warszawa and Belgrade the capital of Serbia is called Beograd in Serb. Venezia is renamed to Venice. What is wrong with Venezia?

And there are many, many more such changes. Why these names had to be changed from their original version? But this does not apply to English alone. Many other languages change city names to their own versions but leave others intact.

Paris stayed Paris, London stayed London (at least for us here), Madrid remained Madrid. And probably just as many as were changed remained with their original names.

This is another one of those mysteries of life.

May 29, 2010

Today is May 29. The beginning of the Memorial Day weekend. It is the unofficial start of Summer but right now we are having pretty crummy weather.

Anybody who spends money on arrangements for an away weekend for this particular time is taking just as much of a chance as we are all taking on the stock market.

It is interesting that the further away we are from this weekend the nicer the forecast is. Then as it closes in reality strikes. I think it is is totally irresponsible from weather forecasters to do what they are and were always doing. But they are the same as economists. Have no clue.

I realized why I am so bright and witty. About a month ago my ear doctor suggested that I start to take ginkgo biloba pills. According to the description on the bottle it promotes brain functions. There, the mystery is solved!

Now, I don't have to suffer through sleepless nights wondering where all my smarts come from. I'm so relieved.

Here is another interesting (to me) thing.

When I was growing up I my mother tongue was Hungarian. I learned and also heard other languages spoken in those years, but I never thought another language could be as natural as one's mother tongue.

When I left Hungary I did come across people who spoke Hungarian and other foreign language with equal ease and I was very surprised and amazed. Never thought it could happen to me.

Now, living here in the US for the major part of my life I can confidently say that speaking the two languages, English and Hungarian, with equal ease is not impossible.

Actually I am pretty proud of my accomplishment. And I did it without the help of ginkgo biloba. Naturally, a UN simultaneous translator is far above of my abilities as far as the language goes but I am content with what I achieved.

I remember that years ago when we were trying to learn the language very intensively somebody said that he thought he succeeded because he dreamed in English. I think I dream in both languages. It depends on the subject.

A friend once said that when she knew the word rainbow her knowledge of the English language was absolute.

P.S.: The weather turned out to be pretty good for the rest of the day. When I started to write this blog in the morning it was really crappy, but it changed slowly.

I just wanted to add this to get the records straight.

May 28, 2010

Living throughout the years I could not help but collect things. If I lived in a house I probably would have collected more useless things as I did living in an apartment.

When my Mother passed away in 1977 in Budapest I inherited the task of cleaning out the apartment. Getting rid if furniture, art and clothing was not as difficult as getting rid of personal mementos.

Even though the war interfered with our lives, still there were photographs and other personal memorabilia from my parents', grandparents' and my life.

My mother saved stuff from my childhood and from my school years. There were assignment books, school documents, letters and a million and one other items I had to sift through and decide what to throw out and what to save.

It was not an easy task. I would have liked to save everything but naturally it was impossible. Therefore, I saved a lot of photographs and a few odds and ends that are here with me. The rest of the memories are in my heart.

That is the problem we immigrants face. Our past is in our mind and heart. Everything that happened before coming to this country is just memories.

And for that I envy the ones born here. As big as this country is they still have their childhood friends, their families and their relatives.

I am not implying that we lived like transplanted orphans. We also have some friends and a few relatives but it is not the same.

Nothing can substitute for ones home.

I am not homesick by any means. I have no clue how my life would have turned out had I stayed in Hungary. Actually, I am pretty sure it would have not turned out as well as it did here in the US.

And I am also pretty sure that none of my friends could or would have succeeded as they did had they stayed there.

Now back to collecting things. As I said earlier I hate to throw out anything but sometimes I must.

But I do have an old 35mm camera that is totally non-automatic with a hand held light meter. And amazingly they both are in good working condition.

I also have a super8 movie projector that I am afraid to use because if anything happens to it it can not be fixed. I also have about one million feet of super8 film that I can not view for obvious reasons.

I have a few 35mm cameras, some for underwater photography, that I am not using since I have a digital camera and using that is easier than anything.

I also have a few old wind-up wrist watches (some of them still work) simply because I love to wind them up every day.

The way I see it there is nothing wrong with being old fashioned and sticking to old things as long as one also accepts the advantages of the modern age.

Let's be realistic, my car does have automatic transmission, I have GPS and climate control, too. And, don't forget the moon roof!

How much more modern one can get?

May 27, 2010

I never realized that there was a lack of American actors. It is good to know that in today's bad economy there is a field that suffers from acute manpower shortage.

That must be the only reasonable explanation behind the fact that many popular TV shows feature main American English speaking characters who off camera revert to their British or Australian dialect.

Why they have to teach a non-American speaking performer to learn to speak American instead hiring American actors?

Take for instance the thankfully canceled TV show called Flash Forward. Its main character is FBI agent Mark Benford aptly played by Joseph Fiennes. The dialect is as American as can be. But I heard Mr. Fiennes being interviewed and he does speak with heavy British pronunciation.

It was a mediocre show with a mediocre cast. Couldn't they find an American actor to play that role?

In Lost the role of Sayid a supposed former Iraqi soldier was played by Naveen Andrews a British actor who spoke more American than British. When interviewed after the final show he did speak nice British.

In the crime drama Law & Order the Manhattan Assistant District Attorney is played by Linus Roache an English actor. In the show he speaks real New York but off the show he speaks the king's English.

I should be the last to complain about giving immigrants an opportunity but this is just plain ridiculous. This country has more aspiring actors and actresses looking for work than the rest of the world combined. And some of them are even talented.

Why in the world they have to bring people in from the outside and let them use phony dialects?

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In college when one aspires to become an economist he has to learn to forecast, to be able to see the financial future of a company, of a municipality, country or whatever field he chooses to work in.

Forecasts were usually made for a fiscal year or for longer periods depending upon the entity they were forecasted for. But that was the past.

The way the market is yo-yo-ing around and the way business news is conveyed to the public economists now have to forecast only for same day afternoon or the next day morning.

This is obvious since one morning the economy looks dreary and the same afternoon suddenly the sun is shining.

May 26, 2010

I can just see the end of the world around the corner.

First that Icelandic volcano will spew out so much ash in the air that it will completely block the sun. The end result will be colder weather and eventually changing the entire environment. Global warming will stop and a new ice age will begin.

OK, maybe for us skiers it might not be such a bad deal but there will be other bad things coming.

The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico will not be stopped and it will spread around the globe. The end result will be that all sea life will die. Due to the oil coating in the oceans all marine transport will cease to exist.

There will be no food, no industry and what's even worse is that I won't be able to get spare parts for my car.

So what all this means, the end of the world is just around the corner.

Those Mayas were no dummies when they indicated that the world will end in 2012. They probably already knew about BP, the oil and the Eyjafjallajokull volcano. I'm sure they also knew the names already.

I wouldn't be surprised to see that when they drill down in that oil hole in the Gulf they would come out in the Icelandic volcano. Instead the China Syndrome this would be known as the Icelandic Syndrome.

It's a funny yet scary world we live in.

Yesterday they awarded the 2014 Super Bowl to New York. What good will it do when the world will end in 2012? On that note I would award the Olympics, the World Series and the World Cup to New York since there will be nobody around to see it.

I would even give New York the French Open.