The Curse is Broken!

Billy Penn can once again smile down on the city of Brotherly Love. After last night's win, the Phillies are baseball's World Champions. No more need to mention the curse, the over 10,000 losses, the longest championship drought in a city with 4 major sport teams, no more waiting by the chimney with snowballs to barrage Santa. Okay, the last one is a personal thing and I still may do that. Many years ago I wanted a bike for Christmas and got a puzzle map of the United States. Are you kidding me? But I digress. 

The Phillies have quieted the Negadelphians and at least for a while the city can hold it's collective head high. Maybe W.C. Fields really would rather be there right now?- as ever - BB

"I once spent a year in Philadelphia. I think it was on a Sunday." - W.C. Fields

All Hallow's Eve

Halloween is fast approaching. With history tracing back to the ancient Celts, this holiday has gone through several transformations. The celebration as we know it in America begins with the publishing of Dennison's Bogie Book in 1909. Continuing through the 1930s, this book formalized what have become Halloween traditions from carving pumpkins to bobbing for apples. The golden age of American Halloween came with the post-WWII baby boom. Throughout the 50s & 60s, legions of trick-or-treaters laid siege to neighborhoods. Recently, the adult children of these same baby boomers have taken over the holiday. 

October 31, the Celtic Samhain, was a time when the veil between the worlds of the living and the dead was thinnest. The spirits of the departed could transcend into the living world. To keep them at bay, masks and jack-o-lanterns were used to scare away these evil spirits. Now they are appeased with candy and confections. - as ever - BB

From ghosties and ghoulies and long legged beasties, and things that go bump in the night, dear Lord deliver us. - old Scottish prayer

Curses

James Dean's Porsche Spyder, King Tut's tomb, the Hope Diamond...all allegedly cursed items that bestowed doom on their owners. Sports has its share of curses too. Boston's Bambino curse lasted 83 years. In Chicago, the billy goat curse has foiled the Cubs since 1945. The Sports Illustrated cover curse has not focused on any one city or team, but many claim is just as ominous.

As the opening game of the World Series nears, another sport's curse could affect the outcome. That is the curse of Billy Penn. For nearly 100 years, no building was constructed that was higher than his statue perched atop City Hall. Philly's last championship was the 1983 76ers. In 1984, One Liberty Place opened and was taller than Billy Penn. No major sport team has won a championship since despite several opportunities. Will this curse continue? We'll know by Halloween. - as ever BB

A true Philadelphia knows the dark secret of Billy Penn's statue. Do you?

AEIOU

No, it's not a French word, nor a new acronym,, nor a receipt for a debt from an account executive. It's just the list of vowels in the English language. Words in English require a vowel, but our language's exceptions usually outweigh the rules. So, the letter "y" is added as a substitute vowel. Myriad words fall into this category, sky, try, my, fly, but one of the more interesting, larger AEIOU-less words is glyph.

A glyph is a character or symbol. Ancient ideographs compose early written languages i.e. Egyptian hieroglyphs and Mayan pictoglyphs. While less precise than an alphabet, glyphs' artistic interpretations gave creativity and flexibility to early written language. In today's world, computer icons are just modern glyphs. If pictures are worth a thousand words, then glyphs speak volumes. The problem is fitting them into a keyboard.

One last bit of vowel-less trivia is the 1950's basketball star from Temple University, the "Owl without a Vowel" - Bill Mlkvy. Mlkvy also played one season in the NBA with the Philadelphia Warriors.- as ever BB

Partisanship

Last night was the final presidential debate. I have vowed not to take a political stance in this blog. However, airing opposite of the debate was Game 5 of the NLCS. When it comes to the Phillies, I cannot be neutral. Philadelphia is in the World Series for the 6th time in team history. I don't count the Athletics, who after 50 years, left my hometown for Kansas City in 1954.

As a lifelong Philadelphia sports fan, I have endured more than my share of heartache and a lot of criticism about our sportsmanship. Yes, snowballs were thrown at Santa, but that was a symbolic gesture against team ownership, not St. Nick. Okay, other things have been thrown at Ronald McDonald, the Hamburgler, Kite Man, the Dallas Cowboys, et.al. And then there was the Easter Egg hunt before a Phillies game in which the kiddies were booed for not finding the eggs fast enough. But, hey, you buy your ticket, you have the right to boo innocent children. What's wrong with that?

Maybe you only understand that logic if you were weaned on cheese steaks, hoagies, soft pretzels, tasty kakes, Ortliebs and know the secret of Billy Penn.  as ever - BB

"You know what they (Phillie fans) do when the game's rained out? They go to the airport and boo landings." - Bob Uecker

Fall Back

We will soon fall out of daylight saving time. "Saving" not "savings" is the proper spelling. The Energy Policy Act of 2005, changed the springing &  forwarding dates, so the important clock turning occurs 2am, Sunday, November 2. 

Many sources note Benjamin Franklin as an early proponent of DST. Not really. During his time in France, Franklin noticed his hosts' penchant for sleeping late into the day. Ever the prankster, he wrote a satirical bagatelle entitled "An Economical Project".  In it, he suggested laws to mandate the ringing of church bells and the firing of cannons to wake Parisians at dawn. He touted the saving of candle tallow as just one of the myriad benefits. How would ole Ben feel now seeing this bit of whimsy as law in his native land? Whether this exercise actually saves any energy is open to debate. 

So prepare for our semi-annual time shift and check the batteries in your smoke-detector. The state of Arizona is the only continental state  that does not adhere to DST.  When do they change their batteries? as ever - BB

"All human situations have their inconveniences. We feel those of the present, but neither see nor feel those of the future; and hence we often make troublesome changes without amendment and frequently for the worse." - Ben Franklin

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall

As the financial markets imitate a yo-yo, investors turn to the experts. They examine trends, bond markets, commodities, etc., to uncover successful investment options. With computers, algorithms and fiscal acumen, they predict models which open windows into our money's future.

Despite all the technological advancements, are these experts any more insightful than the seers of yore? Is logging onto the latest stock market site a better prognosticator than reading the entrails of a pigeon?

How would the Oracle of Delphi, the Persian astrologer Al-Farabi, or Ptolemy of Alexandria guide today's investor. It may sound absurd, but look back a year, two, five, and read the economic forecasts of these modern soothsayers. Could studying the dregs of a teacup, or looking for celestial signs be any worse for the investor? 

In the end, it is all guesswork. The trappings of the modern world give modern predictions a more reliable appearance, but the future remains a mystery. At least if you rely on the offal of a sacrificial lamb to foresee your financial future, you'll have something leftover for dinner - as ever - BB

"An economist's guess is liable to be as good as anybody else's." - Will Rogers

Metaphorically Speaking

From the Greek for "to transfer", metaphors give concepts physical feelings, make communication more effective and embellish our language. A recent Wall Street Journal article focused on the torrent of metaphors spouting forth from  politicians describing the nation's financial dilemma. 

"Bail Out", "Perfect Storm", "unclog those financial arteries", "Little Orphan Annie propping up Daddy Warbucks"...it's almost impossible to read anything about the issue without stumbling over this figure of speech. 

But then politicians are mavens of the metaphor. Pork barrel, sunset clause, dark horse, muckraking, grassroots, lame duck, and many more phrases have sprung from the political arena. Prior to the age of electronic transmissions, most speeches were crafted for the print medium. While a rabble-rousing orator could bring a crowd to a frenzy, that frenzy only affected those within earshot. The introduction of radio and later television shifted focus from the written to the spoken word; giving birth to the sound bite.  The metaphor proved itself ruler of whatever medium was thrown its way. 

However, today's instant access culture has tarnished the poetic lilt of the political metaphor. So we have "lipstick on a pig" as opposed to "the better angels of our nature". as ever - BB

"Under democracy one party devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule - and both commonly succeed, and are right." - H.L. Mencken