| 
View
 

msb-0384 School's Almost Here

Page history last edited by Charles-A. Rovira 15 years, 4 months ago

 

 

The CADDi by BabCo

 


Visit Disability resource exchange

The Disability Resource Exchange with Rudy Sims

 

Support independent publishing: Buy this book on Lulu.

Buy the paperback of

"Episodes: The story of an MSer and of MSB's Podcast"

 

Support independent publishing: Buy this book on Lulu.

Buy the hardcover of

"Episodes: The story of an MSer and of MSB's Podcast"

 

Episode Sponsor's banner (This could be YOU!)

 

MSBPodcast Shows

 

Episode Name: msb-0384 School's Almost Here

 

Direct Link to episode -> http://media.libsyn.com/media/msb/msb-0384_Schools_Almost_Here.m4a

 

YouTube Video(s):

 

"School's Out" by: "Alice Cooper & The Muppets"

. YouTube plugin error .

 

Alice Cooper Staples Commercial

. YouTube plugin error .

 

Intro

 


Disclaimer! Disclaimer! Disclaimer!

 


Survey

 


FeedBack comes first, so...

 

I'm too busy this week to reply to any feedback that's not related to my book.

 

I'm trying to do some promotion and its turning out to be quite a chore.

 

I may be coming to a book store in or near your town soon.

 

I'll be the exhausted George Carlin look-alike long-haired dude with a red cane sitting at a table at the back of the Borders or the Barnes & Nobles near you.

 

I'll post up the dates and the locations as I book them.

 

In the meantime, I am trying out the new schedule and stuff I thought was only going to happen next year I'm trying out today, Sunday, August 16, 2009.

 

This will be the new regular schedule for MSB's Podcast.

 

The WSPC Disability Show will be happening on  Mondays at 17:00 (5PM).

 

The WSPC ThymeWarp will be happening on Wednesday's at 17:00 (5PM).

 

---- "Dead Bodies in the Schoolyard" by: "Thin Acid Angel" http://www.thinacidangel.com/

 


FeedForward

 

----

 

This rightfully belongs in the Feed Forward segment.

 

I am starting to expand msbpodcast.com into an actual web radio station.

 

Starting in January 2010, msbpodcast will have an interactive component which will be called MS Web Radio [ http;//www.MSWebRadio.com ]

 

Right now its not operative and its only a repeater to bring people to the msbpodcast.com site but I'm going to retool the web site to handle the web radio component.

 

It will also be podcast so if you don't get to it, it will still be available after the airing.

 

MS Web Radio will be held for a half an hour every Sunday afternoon at 3PM (15:00) my time.

 

I will be taking my definitely, uh, unusual show and opening it up to everybody.

 

I'll keep you posted on my progress as it happens.

 

---- "Cigarette Schoolgirl" by: "Nino Tirez" http://www.myspace.com/ninotirez

 


FeedMe 

 

I now have THREE sponsors. Success breeds success.

 

It you're listening on this podcast through iTunes or through a web browser, just click on the image for the sponsor and I'll take you right to the appropriate web page.

 

If you're on an iPhone or an iPod touch, you should be good to go too.

 

----

 

The first sponsor, you should be all familiar with and maybe even have bought some t-shirts.[ http://www.artoshirt.net/servlet/the-MS-Artists/Categories ] (whispers) That's the whole idea.

 

I'm a big T-Shirt wearer since losing my job and giving up the monkey suits.

 

I'm wearing one of the many shirts right now. The one that says: "Guitarded". I've even got a compliment on it on the boulevard around the corner from my apartment.

 

----

 

The second sponsor is the CADDi by BARBCO. [ http://barbco.biz ]

 

The picture of the CADDi in use sort of says it all.

 

BarbCo is very generously giving a dollar of  from every order they process to a bunch of causes and YOU select the cause.

[ http://barbco.biz/MultipleSclerosis.htm ]

 

----

 

The third sponsor is someone by the name of Rudy Sims who has a web site for people who are disabled in some way or other to exchange their information and other resources. [ http://www.disabilityresourceexchange.com/ ]

 

Join him in making friends among the disabled community and in sharing the resources and information we all need to live better.

 

----

 

I'm angling after a fourth sponsor.

 

That's all I'm going to say for now.

 

----

 

Well except for this...

 

I woiked like a dawg a couple of weeks ago.

 

Whew...

 

But...

 

My Book is out!

 

Its got:

• a frontispiece

• a Dedication.

• a Table of Contents

• Some History,

• Some Biography,

• Some Technology,

• Some Evolution,

• Some Episodes, (40 choice ones,)

• Some Parting Thoughts,

• URLs & references, a list of

• Books and one heck of an

• Index

 

Its awesome.

 

It comes as a

 

• 240 pages, 6" x 9", jacket-hardcover binding, cream interior paper (50# weight), black and white interior ink, white exterior paper (100# weight), full-color exterior ink, (ISBN 978-0-557-09127-0 )

 

or as a

 

• 274 pages, 4.25" x 6.88", perfect binding, white interior paper (60# weight), black and white interior ink, white exterior paper (100# weight), full-color exterior ink, ISBN 978-0-557-09052-5)

 

Its even got nice covers, pictures, a blurb on the jacket and I'm getting some people to write little reviews and things.

 

If you'd like to support me in my various nefarious endeavors you'll head to Lulu.com and purchase a copy of "Episodes: The story of an MSer and of MSB's Podcast".

 

The link is "live" on the podcast. [ http://www.lulu.com/category/books/biographies_memoirs/2?fSearchFamily=0&fSearch=podcasting&fSubmitSearch=Go&showingSubPanels=&fSort=relevance_desc ]

 

Lulu.com is a victim of its own success.

 

If the page is a bit slow to load, wait, its worth it. :-)

 

If the page only shows one book, try reloading the page and wait some more.

 

The hardcover is beautiful but it IS a bit expensive for a single copy; they're cheaper if you buy lots of them; its eBook is $6.25.

 

The paperback is a pocketable version and better looking than most but it IS still a bit expensive for a single copy; they're cheaper if you buy lots of them; its eBook is $6.25.

 

The trade price, which Amazon would pay for ordering large quantities, goes down to about half of that but I'm practically eating my own shorts at that kind of ROI.

 

I need the money to live. Have some pity folks.

 

Buy which ever you want. (But wouldn't you have a nice hard cover? [Or, are you sure I couldn't talk you into a paperback edition? {I really "need" the dough... :-}])  

 

Oh all right.

 

Its the eBook then? [ sigh ]

 

Oh and thanks for asking JP.

 

The cover image was shot during the run of the "Christo and Jeanne-Claude" project called "The Gates" [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gates ] in Central Park, New York, on February 26th, 2005.

 

Yes, that is me, and that is my red cane.

 

It was cold that day which explains the black things on my hands. They're called winter gloves and, man, I needed them.

 

It wasn't very windy but the air was very damp and threatening with snow. That's the kind of weather that chills you to the bones.

 

I've been in Ottawa in sunny -40° weather and it wasn't that cold.

 

---- "Schools Out" by: "Fire Underground" http://www.fireunderground.com/

 


Thesis:

 

I've been reading the book "Animal Spirits" by "George A. Akerlof and Robert J. Shiller" (ISBN 978-0-691-14233-3 ) and its, uh, quite interesting.

 

There is a behavior which I haven't seen mentioned yet (it IS mentioned later in chapter 10, but I'm not there yet [okay, I have done a quick scan and the mention that I was hoping I would see ... I'm not seeing.])

 

Hmm... Could it be I made an original observation?

 

---- "Peaked in Highschool" by: "Jeff Mallon" http://www.jeffmallon.com/

 


Synthesis:

 

The savings rate in the United States is frankly pathetic and I think this may be another "animal spirit" as exemplified by "La Cigale" the "Grasshopper" in "Les Fables De LaFontaine" known to my Anglophone audience as "Aesop's Fables" [ http://aesopfables.com/ ]

 

There seems to be a natural "animus" that we humans tend to be profligate in good times and to crash and die along with our economies when times are lean, and right now, times are lean.

 

Almost every species does this, so we're hardly unique in this respect.

 

But we're supposed to be better at planning than an elk or a tiger or every other species out there (well "almost" every other species out there, insects have us beat. :-)

 

Millions of people are out of work and most of them are crashing right along with the economy.

 

With unwilling and unprepared for  unemployment over 10%, the toll on citizens of this country is truly savage and getting desperate.

 

After 9/11 I was one of the "Gold Card Homeless" and was able to buy some shelter while my home, across the street from the World Trade center, was unreachable and the air around there was unbreathable.

 

Unlike a lot of my neighbors, I paid for my shelter out of my savings because I "had" some.

 

When I was able to return to work, I did, but not before.

 

That's the luxury of having squirreled away some savings.

 

Granted they were just about exhausted by then, but I'd had some, instead of coming back too soon, being a head-case and suffering from PTSD.

 

That's what my savings bought me,  the time to work through it.

 

When most of my fellow workers who consult for the banking industry are wishing they could find employment flipping burgers, I am able to spend my time now going to school and bettering myself by returning to college while I am currently unemployed, because I managed my savings wisely the last time I *was* employed.

 

I wrote my book, and I will flog it, because I was able to write it and because I am able to do the promotion.

 

My savings gave me the option of doing so.

 

Unlike the guys out there at the end of their rope, thinking about suckin' on the business-end of a magnum, I "will" survive.

 

I will outlast this recession, and probably the next one too, because investors are idiots and  I don't see the FTC having the balls to bitch-slap the weak-minded vulture capitalists out there at any time soon.

 

The United States is NO place to be if you're "sans le sou", "without two cents to rub together."

 

But seriously, if buy the book and you'll keep me traveling to a book fair near you, (or should that read FAR from you. :-)

 

I'm already thinking about the next book on podcasting and the disabled and other minority groups.

 

---- "Residential School" by: "SOL 3" http://www.myspace.com/sol3canada

 


Conclusion:

 

I've been told that being unnaturally cheerful and optimistic is a symptom of MS.

 

But I keep going back to 'La Cigalle et la Fourmie".

 

I'm no economist, (or is that behaviorist?) but it seems that the necessary instinct to thrift is exactly backward in humans and other mammals.

 

We spend freely when times are good and we "tighten up the money supply" when times are bad, when that is 180° from the way we "should" be doing it.

 

The profligate way leads to cycles of glut and privation, booms and crashes.

 

The thrifty way leads to the smoothing out of the road.

 

The crashes of the 1890, the 1930s, the 1970s, the 2000s, the minor recessions in between and this current crisis all show the same pattern.

 

The triggers for the recessions-slash-depressions may all be different but the cause for the crashes are all the same, people don't save any money when they have it, to serve as a buffer when its not coming in.

 

I'm sorry but I 'm just a man who thinks that its not a good idea to let greedy children run with scissors, specially when the children have a demonstrated and well documented history of self-inflicted economic injuries to themselves and to everyone else with their irrational exuberance [  ] ...

 

 

We must enforce thrift, not just encourage it, so this kind of crap doesn't cover the landscape again, like feces spraying around from the back end of a hippopotamus, wagging its short, fat tail furiously to aid in ensuring its wide messy and smelly dispersal.

 

As it is, I'm only asking that my listeners buy my book, a real object, not a bunch of empty promises, some hand-waving, smoke and mirrors. 

 

---- "Charity Case" by: "MC Frontalot" http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?id=80895957&s=143441

  

Outro

 

 

The difference between Lamborghini or Ferrari and Chrysler or GM is that, wait for it, the luxury car companies didn't over-extend themselves.

 

 

The recession just lopped off some of the waiting list. The factories are as busy as ever.

 

 

This seems to be a generalized malaise endemic of the atitude that kills car companies or wipes out entire populations, and causes extinctions of both corporations and fauna.

   

Lets hope we grow at least as smart as other nations' governments, like Argentina's which mandated that everybody "must" be saving for their retirement, and as a result, is weathering the financial crisis far better than us.

  

In several countries, there is a mandatory percentage of  your salary that must be saved for your retirement.

  

Those are the countries who loaned the US Government the nearly one trillion dollars that the US Government now finds itself on the hook for. (And it may be the US Government that took out the loan but its the U.S. Citizens who have to pay every cent of it back.)

 

Theme and 'incidental music' from:

"msb_theme",

 by: "Guy David",

 http://www.guydavid.com/

 no album,

 via personal contract

 

YouTube video list:

"School's Out"

 by: "Alice Cooper & The Muppets"

 

Alice Cooper Staples Commercial

 

Song list:

 

"Dead Bodies in the Schoolyard" 

 by: "Thin Acid Angel" 

 http://www.thinacidangel.com/ 

 album: "none" 

 via: music.podshow.com

 

"Cigarette Schoolgirl" 

 by: "Nino Tirez" 

 http://www.myspace.com/ninotirez 

 album: "none" 

 via: music.podshow.com"

 

"Schools Out" 

 by: "Fire Underground" 

 http://www.fireunderground.com/ 

 album: "none" 

 via: music.podshow.com

 

"Peaked in Highschool" 

 by: "Jeff Mallon" 

 http://www.jeffmallon.com/ 

 album: "none" 

 via: music.podshow.com

 

"Residential School" 

 by: "SOL 3" 

 http://www.myspace.com/sol3canada 

 album: "none" 

 via: music.podshow.com

 

"Charity Case" 

 by: "MC Frontalot" 

 http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?id=80895957&s=143441 

 album: "none" 

 via: music.podshow.com  

 


PhotoCredits:

 

 All images, synchronized with the songs, are of the artists and come via music.podshow.com except when they aren't. :-)

 


BookRecommendations

 


Links:

Comments (0)

You don't have permission to comment on this page.