And I must confess that I  was surprised many years later that I was  a stand in for the wooden Indian himself. I was supposed to wilt or perhaps hang  myself from the nearest chandelier for my lapse in  recognizing my part in the rigamarole.  But more to the point, I recognized well the animus of the wag whom critical acclaim has bypassed.

And then how to explain  that somebody — a reader of this blog— said exactly what he meant instead of what he  had only  meant to say thereby breaking the link. As the Irishman said humor–irony’s little brother–is no laughing matter.

I will be forever dunned when I hear the phrase , Dead Man Walking,  I fear,  for I chaffered pleasantly, ” but he is still breathing.”

I learned  my  lesson though. Never damn an ironist with faint praise.

Historically, this heart has beaten at the steady pace of human reaction and fluctuated to the pressures of real supply and demand leavened by sentiment, fear and hope.  So, why not apply a purely computer controlled pacemaker to this ‘organ’ and make it beat at a rate of thousands of times a minute? WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?

This is precisely what several wall street companies have done with high speed computer algorithm trading. In fact 75% of all trades are now performed by computers running in the basements of 2% of the trading companies.  Every possible piece of information available to shape a market is now absorbed, analyzed and converted into computer algorithms and traded upon within nano seconds – all without any ‘primitive’ human intervention. The average traded position on any particular stock lasts for about 20 seconds before it is resold.

I ask you, with the market beating at thousands of beats a second and basically set to “automatic” what could go wrong? Check out the market action of May 6th 2010!

It is time this crazy market over stimulation was brought under control, and nothing could be more simple to do: A very modest fee per trade that would be unnoticed by genuine traders would immediately reign in this craziness and in the process produce a fabulous fund of income to be used for some positive good, maybe even for humans.

Win their hearts instantly with your grasp of obscure verses of  “America the Beautiful”! or, particularly in Tennessee, that beloved old standard “Davy Crocket”.

The secret of this song book is that no confusing music is included and the verses can be spoken or sung to no particular melody, leaving the room slightly stunned and so impressed that all they can do is look at each other in embarrassed silence (because they obviously don’t know the words!). Works every time and can be repeated as often as required to any room full of morons/voters.

WARNING do not use this song book at cocktail parties or in a room full of “equals” or in front of the obscenely wealthy.  Here a nod or a wink should suffice.

As we watch Arabs launch missiles with cries of “God is Great”, we see  cell phone images of other Arabs blown apart by the same missiles with the same plaintiff but ultimately useless cry on their lips.

If only the uber Godly of all persuasions could find a way of battling it out and ascending or descending, once and for all while still leaving the world intact for the ungodly.

Unfortunately God seems to be on too many sides – Can He really be that Romneyesque?

While austerity measures and other bottom line boosting cost cuts throw more people out of work , bank foreclosures make permanent the capital losses of the disappearing middle class. The mystery of what happened to the customers/job creators is surely there for even the most obtuse to see.  The rich investing class does not ‘create’ anything.

Just think about it guys! Put money back in customers’ pockets and all kinds of business(jobs!) will be created!

Indeed the End Times are upon us! Perhaps the Lord will take all these idiots away to paradise and leave the earth to the rest of us.  Sharing eternity with Michele Bachmann and Marcus would certainly turn paradise into purgatory!

As I watched Mitt confronted on the tube by his own history of reversals in what should have been the friendly setting of GOPTV, I had to clench in sympathy to the rictus smile of the ambushed oligarch. I didn’t sign up for this! No one talks to me like this in my board room – I’m running for President gosh darn it. Why don’t people just like me, I know I do.

Somehow our man got tangled, spun like a top, in strands of licorice, in a too tight  cummerbund and lay immobilized on the floor.   This sort thing is better done  in India where it takes two servants to get the thing on.   For my light entertainments I always travel with long folds of extra commerbund and moskito netting.

One of the hazards of compassion, is that one can cleave to the notion of  corruption and pity without a trace of sentiment.  If you were a convert, you could to. One thing is certain, after pouring myself a glass of pink gin-or is it bitters?

Tomorrow the mortician will be a a shilling or two richer.