John Clark Pro Se Blog

1. Teaching Math in 1970
A logger sells a truckload of timber for $100.
His cost of production is 4/5 of the price.
What is his profit?

2. Teaching Math In 1980
A logger sells a truckload of timber for $100.
His cost of production is 80% of the price.
What is his profit?

3. Teaching Math In 1990
A logger sells a truckload of timber for $100.
His cost of production is $80.
How much was his profit?

4. Teaching Math In 2000
A logger sells a truckload of timber for $100.
His cost of production is $80 and his profit is $20.
Your assignment: Underline the number 20.

5. Teaching Math In 2005
A logger cuts down a beautiful forest because he is selfish and inconsiderate and cares nothing for the habitat of animals or the preservation of our woodlands. Your assignment:  Discuss how the birds and squirrels might feel as the logger cut down their homes for a measly profit of $20.

6. Teaching Math In 2009
A logger is arrested for trying to cut down a tree in case it may be offensive to Muslims or other religious groups not consulted in the procuring of the licence to fell. He is also fined $100 as his chainsaw is in breach of Health and Safety legislation as it is deemed dangerous and could cut something. He has used the chainsaw for over 20 years without incident; however he does not have the correct certificate of competence and is therefore considered to be an habitual criminal. His DNA is sampled and his details circulated throughout all government agencies. He protests and is taken to court and fined another $100 because the judge was upset because he represented himself. When he is released from his 1 day detention, he returns to find gypsies have cut down half his wood to build a camp on his land.  He tries to evict them but is arrested, prosecuted for harassing an ethnic minority, imprisoned and fined a further $500.  While he was in jail, the gypsies cut down the rest of his lumber and sold it on the black market for $100 cash. They also enjoyed a barbecue of squirrel and pheasant, and departed, leaving behind several tons of rubbish and asbestos sheeting. The forester, upon release, is warned that failure to clear the rubbish immediately at his own cost is an offence. He complains, and is arrested for environmental pollution, breach of the peace and invoiced for $12,000 for safe disposal costs by a regulated government contractor.

Your assignment:  How many times is the logger going to have to be arrested and fined before he realizes that he is never going to make $20 profit by hard work, and instead will give up, sign on for public assistance, and live off the state for the rest of his life?

7. Teaching Math In 2010
A logger doesn’t sell a truckload of timber because he can’t get a loan to buy a new truck.  His bank has spent all his - all of their money in fact - on a derivative of securitized debt related to sub-prime mortgages in Alabama. They sold this to Japan, and they and the Japanese have lost the lot, except for some borrowed government money left to pay a few million dollar bonuses to their senior directors, and the traders who made the biggest losses.

The logger struggles to pay the $1,200 road tax on his old truck, however, as it was built in the 1970s, it no longer meets the emissions regulations and he is forced to scrap it.

Some Bulgarian loggers buy the truck from the scrap merchant and put it back on the road. They undercut everyone on price for haulage and send their cash back home, while claiming unemployment for themselves and their relatives. If questioned, they speak no English, and it is easier to deport them at the government's expense. Following a vacation in their homeland, they return to the US with different names and different girls and start again. The logger protests loudly, and is accused in Federal Court of being a racist in violation of U.S. Constitutional law.  Meantime, while awaiting trial, he is forced to pay $1,500 in registration fees, as his name is still on the side of the truck.
The Government is forced to borrow more money in order to pay extra money to the bankers: bonuses are not cheap. Members of Congress in Committee hearings are sore and feel they are missing out on something. They claim the difference on expenses for their second homes, and allowances. Tax paid trips to the Caribbean to study the effects of Global Warming helps them to feel a little better.
(You do the math.)

8. Teaching Math In 2017
   أ المسجل تبيع حموله شاحنة من الخشب من اجل 100 دولار. صا ب تكلفة الانتاج من
 الثمن. ما هو الربح له؟
 

Standup is tough. I know, I've been doing a few open mikes. My subject is Old Age. You have to make it funny. It's the only medium I haven't tried, and it's very challenging, for it requires writing skills as well as performance with a hand mike, and a good sense of humor.

I see that my ex, Lynn Redgrave, just opened a standup show called Rachel and Juliet at the Folger in Washington DC.  She needs to know that some comedy tricks are considered hack, like falling over. Some fans saw it, and put it on their blog.  Here, read about it..

On Saturday, thousands marched in the streets of Hollywood (and elsewhere), protesting the continued involvement of the U.S. in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I stand back and watch what happens to members of my old family. This time with astonishment.  What happened shouldn't have happened. SOMEBODY should have been keeping an eye on Natasha. At the age of 45, you don't decide to learn how to ski. It's too late for that kind of risk-taking. Her ski instructor up there in Canada, don't they have a set of rules? Like, "Sorry, you're too old. And even if you don't care, there are many outside of your family who do!" Someone is feeling very guilty right now, whoever it was that encouraged her to take up skiing.  I'm afraid that when you become a celebrity, your life is no longer your own.  I guess I'm lucky, in a way. I chose at an early age to become somewhat invisible.

I first knew Tasha when she was 3 years old, and her sister Joely just 2 years old.  In those days, I wielded a camera (yes, I have some pics, private pics, of them in the bathtub.)   Lynn and I helped their mother over a difficult time, for she was soon to be giving birth to Carlo, and was rather a lot of the time away from home.  I took the above picture of the sisters welcoming their new brother into the family, and released it to the press. 

By then we were starting ours, Benjy in 1968 (he's now a Captain flying for Delta, with 2 kids.), and Kelly in 1970, (now with 3 kids of her own.)

Benjy and Lynn now live a stone's throw from each other and from Liam and his 2 sons, way up in the countryside North of New York.   He will be away filming much of the time.  I hope Lynn and Ben will come to the rescue with some love and sustenance for The Neeson family. And perhaps my youngest daughter Annabel will help them too.

While I'm at it, I want to mention my very youngest son, Zachary, who just turned 18.  The law kept him and me separated for the last 8 years, but I found him at last, and he's in the "gifted child" section of North Hollywood High. He has been thoroughly alienated from me, and doesn't want to meet me or deal with me.  That's his right and privilege of course, but I've made sure he knows where to find me if he changes his mind (and I hope it won't be when I'm having a R.I.P'ing time at Hollywood Forever.)

What am I doing these days? Well, I have this wonderful wife I found on the Internet, and I'm finding a new direction with Stand-up comedy, hope to get back into the acting field again, book-ending my life with the craft, and am writing my memoirs, which are kind of interesting.

Meanwhile, yes, I'm very proud of my family. They have the right genes, and I hope they don't waste them. I feel for the Neeson family. My heart goes out to them.

MORE on Tasha at  Sunday 3/22/2009

An inquest under Quebec law should be requested and held as soon as possible.  Already, witnesses are telling conflicting stories (was she laughing and being playful at first or sitting holding her head? Did she tumble down the Bunny slope or the larger beginners' slope? Why and how did she decline a helmet? What was she wearing, a parka covering her head? How many people were actually with her, and who were they? How about other skiers, what did they see? Was the ground examined where she hit her head? Who dismissed the first ambulance? Who called the second ambulance?)

Keep the lawyers out. They would love to sue. That takes time and "I don't recall" answers. Get the truth out now, while public interest is hot. Here's the site for the Quebec coroner. The coroner can get sworn statements. Already witnesses are saying "My lips are zipped!", afraid of lawsuits. Coroner's hearings and Inquests can be swift and powerful and can get facts that may be useful later if need be.

He's a suicide risk. The authorities are mishandling this situation, just as they did with Lee Harvey Oswald. There, we lost forever the possibility that he would reveal important information.

Same situation here.  We want Madoff to reveal what he did with the money, where it is, how it bloomed under the watchful eye of a government agency, and whether any of it is recoverable. He needs to be in jail, under 24 hour suicide watch.

One explanation is that the government wants him to kill himself, or be available to be killed, ostensibly and believably by some disgruntled investor.  He would take some very tricky questions and answers with him.  Sorry to be so cynical, but monitor this.  Another rumor-fed legend may be in the making, and fifty billion dollars is a lot of money.

Today the New York Times printed an op-ed article with the headline The End of the Financial World as We Know It.

It tells the story of how a gentleman by the name of Harry Markopolos, a savvy expert on the workings of the stock market and hedge funds, an investor himself, and having nothing to gain except perhaps an unwanted label, figured out that the now infamous Bernard Madoff, ex head of NASDAQ, could not possibly claim such consistently high returns for his clients.  The promised profits have revealed themselves to be losses, perhaps as high as fifty billion dollars. But too many people were making money, and nobody seemed interested in helping to bring the good times to an end. Meanwhile, what had been preoccupying the country's legislators in Washington, where regulatory solutions lie, appears to be how best to vote themselves a raise.

It's much like the U.S. Civil Justice system, which is what this site attempts to probe, where the public can't afford to hire a lawyer.  Conflicts of Interest are similarly embedded in a system where supposedly neutral judges are drawn from the ranks of highly biased and profit-motivated lawyers. Again, the ol' boys network.  It's time a sea change took place there too. Judges are judges and lawyers are lawyers, they have different mind-sets, and they should be kept apart and trained differently from the very beginning of their careers. Judicial regulation is lacking there too. And again, the Chief Justice in Washington's preoccupation appears to be how best to vote raises for judges.

Peter Bart, that wise old owl who sits atop Variety, nails it this week when he leads off his column with this resonating world view:

    "Clearly we are not witnessing a 'normal' recession.  This downturn is global and gut-wrenching. It's as though the bountiful 1920s have just collapsed and we've all been plunged yet again into the grim '30s.  That upheaval took a decade to unravel.  Also a world war.

    The emotional response to the present economic debacle varies by generation.  The 20 and 30-year-olds tend to be in total denial. They've never gone through anything like this and can't believe it's happening.

    The baby boomers are in disbelief for another reason:  Most smugly believed that governments were too smart and that the science of economics was too sophisticated to permit a disaster like this.  Globalism would save us:  The Arabs and Chinese would prove resilient: The Russians would kick in their energy billions.

    Now all of us are standing at the abyss asking:  Whatever happened to the survival instincts of the CEOs?  Why do the gurus of fiscal and monetary policy suddenly look shell-shocked?

    The kids still believe that somehow, somewhere, Big Daddy will save us. He will - if anyone can find him."

By Andreas Hippin, Globe & Mail, Canada

   November 20 (Bloomberg) -- The Somali pirates, renegade Somalis known for hijacking ships for ransom in the Gulf of Aden, are negotiating a purchase of Citigroup.

   The pirates would buy Citigroup with new debt and their existing cash stockpiles, earned most recently from hijacking numerous ships, including most recently a $200 million Saudi Arabian oil tanker. The Somali pirates are offering up to $0.10 per share for Citigroup, pirate spokesman Sugule Ali said earlier today. The negotiations have entered the final stage, Ali said.

   "You may not like our price, but we do not usually pay anything.  Be happy we are in the mood to
offer the shareholders something," said Ali.

   The pirates will finance part of the purchase by selling new Pirate Ransom Backed Securities.  The PRBS's are backed by the cash flows from future ransom payments from hijackings in the Gulf of Aden.  Moody's and S&P have already issued their top investment grade ratings for the PRBS's.

   Head pirate, Ubu Kalid Shandu, said: "We need a bank so that we have a place to keep all of our ransom money. Thankfully, the dislocations in the capital markets has allowed us to purchase Citigroup at an attractive valuation and to take advantage of TARP capital to grow the business even faster."

   Shandu added, "Furthermore, we don't call ourselves pirates. We are coastguards and this will allow us to guard our coasts better."

*CITI IN TALKS WITH SOMALI PIRATES FOR POSSIBLE CAPITAL INFUSION

*WILL REQUIRE ALL CITI EMPLOYEES TO WEAR PATCH OVER ONE EYE

*SOMALIAN PIRATES APPLY TO BECOME BANK TO ACCESS TARP

*PAULSON: TARP PIRATE EQUITY IS AN `INVESTMENT,' WILL PAY OFF

*KASHKARI SAYS `SOMALI PIRATES ARE 'FUNDAMENTALLY SOUND' '

*HUD SAYS SOMALI DHOW FORECLOSURE PROGRAM HAD `VERY LOW'  PARTICIPATION                                                
         
*FED OFFICIALS: AGGRESSIVE EASING WOULD CUT SOMALI PIRATE RISK

* FED AGREED OCT. 29 TO TAKE `WHATEVER STEPS' NEEDED FOR SOMALI PIRATES

I'm still trying to figure out how they get on board the pirated vessels without any help.  My merchant navy days taught me that the only way to climb aboard while at sea was up a Jacob's Ladder, thrown by a crew member.  If grappling hooks are used, well, a heavy squirt from a fire hose would take care of that.  Or boiling oil if all else fails.

As it is, the answer may be to travel in convoy, and pray that the enemy doesn't go submersible.  North Atlantic all over again?  Where's Winston when you need him!