$$$$$$$$$$

HOW TO MAKE LOTS OF MONEY…

1. Know your history and current events.
2. Take one excellent course in micro and macro economics
3. Remember economics is as close to a science as social studies ever got.
4. Learn as much as you can about Black Jack; it is excellent study of investor sentiment.
5. Never use options, hedges or anything too fancy. Universal life insurance is forthose under 18 only. Term life insurance should discarded (if you are NOT near death) by age 50. Annul the word annuity. In GOD you should Trust; however, if possible avoid other types of TRUST. (Lawyers and their kin take a large slice.)
6. There is NO such thing as GOODWILL. There exist only tangible assets that depreciate. (Emergent properties and evolution do not describe any actual events. There are two proper terms for the real processes: adaptation and synergy. Economies of scale exist, but they are as rare as unicorns.
7. YOU need $200,000 to buy individual munis, and you can buy up to four insured AAA bonds.
8. OWNING LAND IS GOOD; owning buildings is bad. UNLESS the buildings on that land are houses or barns in which your family lives in or uses for storage is risky. owning buildings is bad. As a boat is a hole in the sea in which you pour money, commercial real estate is a hole in which you pour even more money.
9. DO NOT INVEST IN YOUR PROFESSION. DO NOT BUY COMPANY STOCK. A PHYSCIAN SHOULD OWN HIS INSTRUMENTS, BUT NOTHING ELSE. DIVERSIFY!
10. TRY FIND INVESTMENTS WHICH ARE LESS DEPENDENT ON PSYCHOLOGY THAN ON TANGIBLE ASSETS.
This is the first time in since the middle 19th century that bonds have beaten stocks. MY view is that this will continue for at least three more years but eight more years is also reasonable ( 1980 to 2014 or 2019). 1981 marked the initial appearance of the devil (REAGAN) and his voodoo economics. Bush the first continued this path as did Clinton. My fortune was built on the errors of these three. Bush the second set back my peers: they lost, I gained, both in a relative and absolute sense. Obama cannot fix any of this: he lacks the will, the economic acumen, and the political base to do it.

The world is not as it was in 1917, nor in 1929, nor in 1974; people have other places to go besides gold or dollars. My dear reader, you need to realize that the defense department is just another welfare state program. I realized that defense spending is no different other transfer payments (e.g., welfare). Sales taxes are regressive. Lotteries are regressive. Social security is a refined Ponzi scheme. I knew all this in 1980. And no, the government of these United States cannot keep printing dollars. (Bill Gross dumped his Treasuries for this very reason). Investors will, at the first sign of late hours at the mint, bail out. Misery loves company; the euro zone, devastated Japan, and bloated China either know or will soon learn the lesson that Iran taught us thirty years ago. Hard currency buys anything that the Koran demands; however, wavering currencies provide nothing except high interest rates. The divine Koran is an excellent economics text.

The nature of God according to Dostoyevsky

The other side of Dostoyevsky: the sinner has a chance to be saved(himself). God allows no evils; man does evil things (sin). Father Zossima exits this part of reality , not through his frail body , but through his faith, his soul. That's why he decays; the body itself is the coffin separating Zossima from God. The paralyzed Locke had faith; MIB choose him for his faith. MIB needed faith. He had none himself. That's why I have maintained that Ben could have destroyed MIB at any time. The danger was Locke's blind determination. ( Remember MIB said of all of the losties, Locke alone had faith). As for Hugo, the very opposite of Alexy: he was born with the power over death. He did not have faith until the last season. He was running from his gift; It is he who walks among us, but is not like us.
Ah! The grand inquisitor: the devil explains the temptation of Christ in most unique manner. You need to know of the influence Spain had over Portugal, the legends of St. James living and dying in Spain, the importance of 1492: genocide in the New World and mass expulsion of the Muslims and the Jews from Iberia. Read it yourself -- the case against God. He is real but worthy alone of a second executiom. Would you burn Him?
In this passage, the reader is asked to make a choice. Dostoyevsky makes a first argument that all things (the way things are now) depend on what Christ did when he was tempted. If you care about religion, it really does not matter. What matters is if you want freedom and knowledge. the author's case is simple: freedom and the ability to learn depend on God's choices, the choices He made in those 40 days in the desert.

the devil according to dostoyevsky

My former employer gave Faraday my appearance; the music of the spheres that was even worse: Book 5, chapter Smerdyakov with guitar. Three times Dmitri (Sawyer) threatened to kill me (Ben) says Smerdyakov. But I must congratulate my enemy for selecting Chopin, the first of the moderns. Usually it is no one born after the deaf German with his to Ode to Joy, that the Lord of heaven picks. Chopin was a surprise 1 hour ago by Past recaptured
Reply edit history

That's better. No, the other demon, that Lord of the Flies: pig heads and children: those are his calling cards. Me, no, I would give up my craft if I could only do what he does. Mass murder, inquisitions, generations corrupted. Jack, like Ivan, was special. And I lost him in his last few days. Faraday and his puppet Hume, they had lots of help from my "old boss". Then Faraday turned Ben against me. And finally, that Latino lardo, Hugo. My former master made sure I never saw Ben because I am the one who turned him; he would have known far sooner that the unitary spirit who tossed me down to hell was behind it. Reyes, now he would smell me a mile away and laugh at me. That greasy Mexican knew how it would end. I could never get near enough to Jack except when he had escaped. We flew over the Pacific almost a hundred times to convince him that none of what happenned was real. I was close. Then Hume shows up that one day on our last flight together. What they showed you was out of order. Hume got to Jack before 316 (that cursed number). Enough, I have said too much. 5 days ago by Past recaptured
Reply edit history

I have no demons. I am one of two spirits left. The other one gets involved in those silly parties and clownish activities. But I do not. I brought the disease to the island through my clients (that's my term). Read Thomas Mann's Doctor Faustus or Camus' The Plague. I used Ivan's tactics for those people. The tactics worked.
Dostoyevsky is right. My nemeis does not permit evil. His human creations do that. They have choice. I give them the dignity of selecting their fates. That merits respect. Jacob never gave anybody any choices. There is no attempt, on my part to hold people, against their will. As the Rolling Stones sang of me: I am a man (sic) of grace and style. Just as Christ is the seldom seen protagonist of Paradise Lost, I am the spirit behind this novel.I have to stop; I typed the holy name and am not well at this moment. It happens too often. I ought to know better. 5 days ago by Past recaptured
Reply edit history

He just forgot about Dmitri. And I can live with neglect. The neglect of parents drives their children to me. If these progeny get too difficult , I can make them sick . Doctors call it mental illnesses , infections, exposure to radiation. It is all me. I can make this difficult group infertile. If they want to know too much, if they trick me, if they do not live up to their contracts: to paraphrase some old poet -- those I wish to destroy, I first make mad (as in crazy). 5 days ago by Past recaptured
Reply edit

Now you know I am an honest spirit. I am not so demanding as that other Spirit. Begin with the very first chapter. I tolerate both virtue and vice. Read how honestly I describe how old papa K forgot about his 1st son. 5 days ago by Past recaptured
Reply edit

Wait a minute here. This is Alyosha and like Richard (until the End), I never aged. Unlike Richard I never killed any doctors, I was a slave only to GOD. I hardly ever left my little circle of land. But like Richard, I saw everything. When you meet me in this book, I am the same age as Walt. Let me tell you, I do not want to be God or a demon or a person blessed by God with special powers. My ambition is to serve God and die. Let my body rot, Let my soul raise itself by its lightness to heaven. Now I will tell you MiB was right: we are all sinners. Jacob was a fool to believe in redemption without God. Faraday was God's agent, but such a strange choice. He looked like a younger version of a man I saw Ivan with before his fatal illness. I pray for Ivan, for them all. You know your Gospels. You know that thousands of children died because of Herod's decree in the two yearsafter Christ's birth. Walt was the chosen one. Michael had to kill those people, so Walt could take possession of his little circle of the world. You would not believe who told me this story. The incidents of those thousands of years were recounted by the fattest monk I have ever met. He told me he can to settle my doubts. He promised me that God wanted me to be exactly as I am. Brother Hugo told the whole story over days, but only to me. And he brought food. Everyday crates, huge and many: we feed ourselves and the needy for two years. He would appear at dawn standing beside the crates. It was as if they (both Hugo and the food) had fallen from the sky. But that would have been impossible. 6 days ago by Past recaptured
Reply edit history

Why? Book 11 : Ivan chapter 8 page 573. If there is no God, all is permitted. Ivan taught Smerdyyakov well. Straight from St. Augustine, this truth justifies the devil's latest strategy. This chapter contains a version is a lie that identifies the true killers, yet everything else is fiction. The truth is Book 12: A Judicial Error in chapters 10, 11,&12. While all of it is important, (and true), chapter 13 speculates on the question of why a mother would murder her children (are you listening Claire, Eli Widmore Hawking Faraday?). Now I, being the the devil, always tell the truth. I know it well. It's my former "employer" that keeps slandering me. This idiot Stephen King, that faker Jack Lewis, all the others: they are liars. I am as described in Book 11, chapter 9, I am a well-dressed spirit of business. The moderator asks for respect for all points of views. Well, let me say, that I deserve respect. I am a self-made entity, tossed out of paradise over some trivial disagreement. I started with nothing (just like Sawyer, Kate, Locke, Ben, Jacob) and imposed my will upon the world. Now just because I killed this Ivan off and took his ideas as my own, you all think I am some kind of monster. (Ben did not lose any fans when he hung Locke; Ben did the honest thing. He could have allowed a fruitless immoral suicide. Instead he made Locke a great martyr to Faith.) My former "employer" keeps painting me as some goated headed creature with a tail. No, I tell you I am an honest being of business. You cannot fault me anymore than you can fault Ben or Charlie Widmore for eliminating the competition. Ivan had to go; I honor his memory by following his plans. Before I go, I have to tell you who really let me down. Ben cheated me. He was as smart they come. He played me like a violin. That last bit with Widmore, I really thought he had come to his senses. No, he goes off and helps this overpraised Deity. Just when you can trust somebody... 6 days ago by Past recaptured
Reply edit history

The Y in Fyodor. Here's the Y 6 days ago by Past recaptured
Reply edit

COWBOYS

Cowboy in Siberia. so what's a landowner's son doing in this place? The police arrested him for subversion. He was facing a firing squad when the Tsar pardoned Fodor. People will tell you that his doctor father (Christian) murdered one of his serfs among other excesses of emotional behavior. After Siberia, there was the army for four years Fodor (perhaps like Desmond) Fodor was unhappy). Freud would say he had a reaction formation. Fodor became a champion of the Tsar and the Orthodox Church ( just as Sayid followed Saddam when it fed his passions). But there were other passion- whores, drinking, gambling (remember Charlie, there are more vices than heroin). There was a conversion reaction. Fodor began to have those seizures (the divine disease of epilepsy) soon after his father died. You know about those. It is like somebody who loses the ability to walk, is locked in wheelchair. The trigger was the father. Fodor had a son; the gossip is that his son died of a seizure disorder. Some people think that the little boy (in this book) who dies is a representation of Fodor's son. Some people do not believe the boy in the novel has anything to do with Fodor's son. He dies at twice the age of Fodor's son. The boy in the book is about Ben's age. Do you remember? Sayid shot Ben. Some people that think Dostoyevsky thought his illness killed his son. ( Of course, the syntax is twisted. Can you draw a straight line?) You could say ( if you were poetic ) that evil within the father killed the son. Or you could think Fodor's father molded the man who was everyman. Yes, Fodor was also a man of many twists. But he had no kingdom, but he confronted many more perils than Odysseus. And they were inside himself. That reminds me of a story about two brothers. One thought that all men were evil. Fodor knew that. The other thought that he would find good persons somewhere if he tested enough people. These good people would redeem themselves. Fodor tried to believe this. However, there were too many temptations, too many memories of the few months when he was playing the nihilist, the rebel, playing He who denies (Goethe's term for the devil). Power, having the power to erase God, there's the only real pleasure. Ask Ben Linus or Charles Widmore or MiB or Jacob. They will tell you. 16 minutes ago by Past recaptured
Reply edit history

from russia with love

Of course Ivan is the main character of The Brothers Karamazov as Jack is the main character in LOST. I have been trashing Jack and Stephen King untilI could figure it out. The IT is what LOST is really about. Most of the mis-information and rudeness on my part has had the single goal of asking for the users to give me clues. The long bit about James the Minor Vs. James the Major was meant to see if anybody knew about Armenian Christianity which provides a different fate for the former. Dostoyevsky is Papa Karamazov and Dmitri. Ivan is a type of character who emerges first in Gogol's Dead Souls. This character is seen in a more "continental" (an insulting term used by both Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky to describe Turgenev). Turgenov presents the nihilist Bazarov in Fathers and Sons. After one has read these authors King's demons are mere puppets. The Grand Inquisitor (the best slam against Catholicism and at the same time the greatest defense of Christ in modern times) would stand unequalled if not for the conferences between the devil and Ivan and Smerdyakov. It gets no better than this unless you read The Idiot or The Devils. Crime and Punishment is Dostoyevsky medium dark. Milton's oxymoron "darkness visible" applies. I'll stop with this. King, CS Lewis, Et alia. are far less impressive than the "comical" protagonist of Dead Souls. Tolkien's Dark Mordor is less frightening than the waiting room where Ivan and the devil have their first little chat. LOST has its main texts the Odyssey, the Revised Standard Bible of Fundamental Christians, and the Brothers Karamazov. The shining light at the end is Solzhenitsyn's First Circle. Ben refusal to enter echoes Pasternak's Dr. Zhivago whose theme is there is no place for the non-political man in the Soviet Union. Irony: the great leader has no politics. MiB and jacob are gone. He has no position. darlton built better than they knew. I thank Just sayin', horrible eyes, balk of fame for their help. 2 seconds ago by Past recaptured
Reply edit


The Fatal Shore is Australia according to Hughes' history of Australia. There is another fatal shore. It is life itself. The Island, flashforward, flash to the side, Flashback. Ben, the wisest of them, tells the secret (I have no idea if Darlton intended this. Ben says when The Brothers Karamazov is offered, he requests Stephen King. This is the obvious, outfront, not at all subtle key to LOST. I will not be long in my explanation point by point without explanation: daddy problems -- Dostoyevsky and his father, Dostoyevsky and young son; Most of the characters are inverted; however, Locke is Father Zossima,they are corrupted through no fault of their own. Sawyer is Dmitri except he loses his soul but escapes without scratch. Ben is Smerdyakov who chooses life. Ivan is the opposite of Jack. Faraday is the devil; it is he who leads the losties in Dante's First Circle of Hell. Hurley is Alyosha, but he need not strive for perfection. He denies his own perfection. The final twist is that Faraday is God's servant. All of Lost is a series of twists on Dostoyevsky except the daddy problems remain quite the same. 19 hours ago by Past recaptured
Reply edit


In theology (the study of God), immanent: present in the material universe (the universe has 4 parts heaven, hell, purgatory (for some), earth) This belief is widely held (from orthodox Jews to radical Islamists to Catholic to conservative African Anglicans to the Russian orthodox primate). If this does not make sense, read Charles Peirce on how truth is determined. For about 40% of Christians, God made Mary before original sin took place. She was created and died and was assumed physically into heaven. She was created by God, is part of Creation, but she has a special set of properties but is fully human and not divine. In contrast Plato, Aquinas, Spinoza, Kant and plenty of other thinkers use the word Transcendental in the same sense: beyond human experience or knowledge. God (Christ) existed before Creation, is removed from it. he may or may not have assumed human form (completely human, completely divine). GOD is transcendental; he existed before creation; he will exist after creation is gone. But the same groups I listed above (islamic, christian, orthodox and conservative Jews) believe that God created all things. Einstein was working on this assumption for 35 years TOE (theory of everything). Clue: Stone foot missing TOE September 28 by Past recaptured
Reply edit history




no. from New Webter's Dictionary LEXICON publications --1993 immanent: theological definition --actually present through-out the universe page484 col 1.
Transcendental beyond the range of human experience to Kant beyond all possible knowledge bottom 1047, top 1048
transcendental outside the limits of possible human experience, Kant beyond the limits of possible knowledge: bottom of 1047, top of 1048.
For the catholic theologian Mary existed before original sin; she was part of creation (the material universe).
Christ is transcendent because he existed as God before the universe was created. the Immaculate Conception is accepted by catholics, orthodox, high church anglicans and many mainline Protestant sects. in order to have an immaculate concept, the vessel (and this term in most theologic texts) must without sin.
September 28 by Past recaptured
edit history



Of course, I am mad. I believe that unleaven bread and red wine can become the body of God incarnate. I eat human and divine flesh. I believe that God came into this world for unworthy humans such as myself.
If i were not a jungian therapist, I'd be in the laughing academy September 28 by Past recaptured
edit

homer and hero

It is Telemachus who is the obvious hero. james joyce refers over and over to his alter-ego Stephen as Stephen-Hero. But there is nowhere for either Stephen or Telemachus to go. If you put Daniel Boorstin's chapter 4 of The Creators(which explains Homer's place in Greek culture along side the complementary place occupied by Hesiod side by side with chapter 68 on Joyce himself. Stephen is Telemachus. They ended directly opposed. Stephen becomes the eternal exile, just as Joyce becomes. Telemachus becomes the king of Ithaca, wanders no more, achieves his identity. Jack achieves his maturity, finds his destiny. How does he does he do this? He has His Mentor (the godlike Hurley) and he has his father, Locke, to become king you must have a dead father. Of course, there is the other Telemachus, Ben, the man who needed no mentor, no teacher. he is the natural heir of Odysseus. Yet he chooses exile. Like Stephen, he deserts the Odysseus of Joyce's creation. Why? From the time we see Ben with Joyce's novel, we know that strange incarnation of Zeus that is Faraday is at work.. if you look at Zeus' parents and compare them to Daniel's, you might catch some similiarities. Then there is someone manipulating the LA flash sideways. There is pushing Ben one way and Jack the other. He has crew, chiefly Desmond,but also Minkowski, the world's most resourceful driver. He drives Desmond to the lotus eater, Charlie. He returns Desmond to Faraday. then Desmond becomes a demi-god, a Hermes with messages, powers, the final blow to Ben and the arbiter of the contest between the dutiful Jack and his possessed spiritual father. Locke made him a man of faith as did Desmond, Sawyer Faraday and Hurley. The final act of jack's life before dying is to kill the body of the person who began his salvation and relight the flame (Jack is much closer to Virgil's Aeneas at this point (see book 8 of Virgil's poem).
The saddest words are might have been. Ben chose prudence over courage. He should have faced MiB as soon as he he killed Jacob. Sad moment n.2: Ben was reluctant to kill Jacob. Ben knew from flight 316 onward, how things would end. Flashsideways was as much about preventing Ben from acting as about preparing Hurley and Jack for their fates. Jin, Sun, Sayid, Jack, many others would have survived. Ben would have surely died a horrible death, revenge from the higher power which I call Zeus.
Michael did what was required of him. The fact that he could not kill himself until his death was necessary to correct Ben's killing of Kreamy. The Zeus of LOST aint the Christian god. In the last episodes, Michael gave Hurley a push when he needed it. It was Zeus' will that Walt take command. Zeus makes the rules, and he tries to put the blame on humans

LOST RESOLVED2

1. Aeneas has several love affairs, but his is with Dido, queen of carthage. As commanded by Jove, he must leave Dido to go to Italy. Like Juilet, she perishes as a suicide in a fiery pyre. but in lost Dido ( who is Vergil's Penelope) and jack becomes more and more like Aeneas are set by faraday's sacrifice on their Journey. 2)One of the great scenes in the aeneid is the death at sea of Aeneas' pilot, he dies like Charlie drowning to atone for the error of the chosen ones (the surviving Trojans)3) the Hades of Vergil is much like the hall of mirrors that jack destroys. jack is not ready yet. He is not yet able to accept his mission. 4)The shields of Achilles, Aeneas, and Jack all show all the aspects of life. So where is jack's shield? This answer requires a very obscure response. Odysseus is awarded all of Achilles' armour including the shield. Who made these shields It was the blacksmith of the gods. who is lost's Blacksmith? our very own mib! And who turns the wheel most often. It is the man of many twists, Ben. 5) The engagement ordained by heaven is that between Penny and Desmond. Exactly the opposite of Vergil: the Queen (Eli Hawking) tells Desmond to leave Penny alone. The King has already tried to stop him. But Desmond assuming the role of Odysseus (Not the pious destiny of Jack, but the sailor separated from his constant love.) He cleverly captures his Penelope both in "reality" and through the direction of Zeus/Faraday in Flashsideways. And who has been rejected by Juilet (the Major Penelope) but loses the treasure of Widmore's empire. Surprise, once again it is the man of many twists, Ben. Desmond plays both Odysseus and Hermes. 6)Just as Jack turns into Aeneas, not Odysseus, and sacrifices everything for God. This is what they all died for. In virgil, it is the founding of Rome. In Lost, it for the sake of ordered pious universe. In the Odyssey, they did by the thousands to show the supremacy of the man of many twists. 7)But at very end of the Odyssey, there is a sign. It is a bit like the Church scene in that it ends all possibility of further action. But the poets from Homer onward never let the king of Ithaca rest. 8)Not even darlton allows the man of many twists any rest. He is Joyce's wondering middle manager and then Ben becomes the man of my twists to another Telemachus named Walt. Hurley gets the role of Mentor (the divine athena). 9)Ben will not be redeemed for long, Odysseus will never cease his voyages. when you get to the end of the Odyssey, you see that my endless fascination with two characters is the direct result of how the Odyssey ends. The end of Lost resembles Virgil's world. But the epilogue opens the door that Homer never imagined: a fictional character immortal as God Himself.