Blogging for HuffPost's Weird News has given me a totally new outlook on life on "the planet, " -- a phrase I find as offensive as calling New York "the city," as though there is no other of either in our expanding universe. Thanks to my new calling, I see the world through new eyes. Everything I see, touch, hear or read is now weird, starting with this morning's headlines, which are especially weird.
What makes an event headline worthy? Obviously different strokes work for different editors. In the New York Post, Lea Michele's thigh dominated the space which it shared with Tom Brady Talking Trash -- I had no idea he was interested in waste management -- and Mighty Mitt pulling ahead of the unfortunately named Newt in the Florida primaries. Only the cruelest parents would name their son after an animal whose eye was the prime ingredient of Shakespeare's Weird Sister's -- gotcha! -- spell to conjure up ghosts. If you, like I, have wondered what a lower case newt is, it's a salamander, but it's also an element of a medicinal herb that resembles an actual eye of a newt and would be used in politically correct spells to appease PETA members who are concerned about both newts and Newts becoming an endangered species.
The front page of the New York Times -- towards whom I harbor an eternal grudge for judging my first book among the news that wasn't fit to print -- caught my eye with their feature about the re-emergence of the radio search for extraterrestrial intelligence along with -- so what else is new? -- the even greater and equally persistent search for funding. Why did I find this noteworthy? My daughter-in-law is an astronomiss [sic] employed by NASA. I'm going to tell her to stay away from Hat Creek, CA lest she find her paycheck compromised...
The Wall Street Journal, however. had the most alarming headlines -- that millions from MF -- I can only presume what that stands for -- Global were feared gone. How much has vanished? Only 1.2 billion bucks. A pittance compared to the 20 billion bucks that slipped into and through Madoff's digits. As in the Madoff mess, probers believe that the missing customer funds are kaput -- their phrase is "has vaporized" -- as a result of the chaotic trading of MF Global during the week before it filed bankruptcy. My conclusion is that we must suspend all wire transfers of amounts in excess of $40 and go back to buying by barter or coin. Try making 4.8 million quarters or 12 million dimes disappear. Even Houdini couldn't pull off that stunt. If my multiplication is somewhat amiss, know that I had the same math teacher as John Corzine, the man who saw no transfers, heard no transfers, and directed no transfers, but whose market "savvy" and bad bets created the shortfall situation that had underlings covering his tracks.
Will Corzine go to jail? Inquiring minds don't seem to think so. Corzine might give classes on how to get your hands on millions, mismanage them and turn into Helen Keller. We all know how competitive Corzine is. I guess Madoff's headlines made him do it. Hopefully they'll end up as cellmates at Rikers. Yeh, yeh.