Author: A.T.

But first . . .

This press release just in.  Borealis subsidiary WheelTug has received FAA sign-off on its certification plan, as noted yesterday in Aviation Week and AirInsight.  No guarantee of FAA approval, or ultimate commercial success, but an important milestone.  If WheelTug could be capturing $50,000 a year in net profit from installation on 10,000 aircraft six or eight years from now (who would want a jet that can’t back out from the gate on its own?), that would be half a billion in annual profit.  With 5 million shares outstanding, parent Borealis is currently valued at $30 million. As always: a speculation to be made only with money you can truly afford to lose; and — being thinly traded — only with “limit orders.”

And of course . . .

The President’s Farewell Address . . . exactly the grace, wisdom, clarity, inspiration, and dignity we have come to expect.

And the hearings! (I had not known about Jeff Sessions and hitching posts.)

And the news of intel Russia may have on the President-Elect but chose not to share with WikiLeaks.

It looks as though there may be things to write about all month.

But not today.

Today, for those with time to meet him . . .

My Uncle Charley was born on this day, January 11, in 1888 — remarkable for two reasons.  First, how could I possibly have an uncle born 129 years ago?  Second, how could I possibly have so little musical talent?

Charles Previn had dozens of movie credits as composer or music director, 7 Oscar nominations (one win) and more. Wikipedia credits him with overseeing hundreds of films at Universal and notes that he’s not just my uncle (a fact inexplicably overlooked), he’s André Previn‘s uncle.

André — “considered one of the most versatile musicians in the world with his notable contributions to classical music, jazz, and opera” — sports four Oscars and ten Grammys.

I’ve never met my cousin André — let alone had “my dinner with André” — but I sure knew Uncle Charley.  He was crazy about me, and I was pretty crazy about him, when on his occasional trips to New York he’d come for dinner.

He was basically retired (though working on a “grasshopper operetta”) and I was basically in high school. He was filled with enthusiasm, terrible puns, and affection for us all, including his sister, my grandmother.

Only years later did I realize he must have been gay.

That “valet” he traveled with, always assigned an adjacent room?  Well, you get the picture.

So on the occasion of what would have been his 129th birthday, I want you to meet him at a time in his life he hadn’t arrived at Universal or gone on to conduct the orchestra at Radio City Music Hall — yet was already quite well known.

You’ll find him on page 61 of the January 1935 issue of a 10-cent magazine popular then called Radio Stars with the caption: “Charles Previn and the Countess Albani, who sings with his orchestra” under the headline SHOULD BACHELORS HAVE BABIES . . . ?

Find the text below . . . or page through the whole magazine, not least for the ads.  (“Reduce your waist and hips 3 inches in 10 days with the Perfolastic Girdle . . . or it will cost you nothing!”)

How astonished — and pleased — Charley might have been at the way life turned out for his young nephew, and other latter-day bachelors.

SHOULD BACHELORS HAVE BABIES . . . ?
CHARLES PREVIN, SINGLE, WANTS TO BE A DADDY
By Elizabeth Walker

HAVEN’T YOU often read stories about husbandless air divas and screen queens, aspiring to have babies? But do you recall a single instance of an unmarried king of the kilocycles. wanting to be a daddy? Yet Charles Previn, the dashing and debonair orchestra leader of NBC’s Sunday night Silken Strings hour, if he has his way, may soon become radioland’s first bachelor father.

Perhaps, it sounds like a press agent yarn, this story of an A.B. from Cornell, who gave up professoring to pound a piano in Tin Pan Alley, became conductor of a series of Broadway musicals, wielded the baton at St. Louis’ world- famous summer opera for five years and is now searching for a son.  A small boy on whom he may lavish all the love and luxury of which an Ace of the Air is capable. But it isn’t. And I’ll tell you why.

Lunching with him the other day in the stately mid – Victorian dining room of the Medinah Athletic Club in Chicago, where he resides, the conversation veered naturally to a discussion of a story in the morning news-

papers. It was a front page account of how one of the Windy City’s packingtown princesses and her wealthy broker husband were seeking twins to adopt.

“I don’t believe I would want to adopt twins,” thought- fully observed the master melodist.

“No, I wouldn’t think you would either,” a third person at the luncheon table cheerfully jeered. “Even half a twin would be one too many for a bachelor.”

“Why do you say that ?” demanded Maestro Previn, annoyed, and, before the other could explain, he began giving all sorts of reasons why an unmarried man should phosphoresce among court-made papas.

[You can hear the Melodious Silken Strings program Sundays at 9 p.m. EST on the following NBC stations: WJZ, WBAL, WMAL, WBZ, WBZA, WSYR, WHAM, KDKA, WGAR, WJR, WLW, KWCR, KSO, KWK, WREN, KOIL, WKY, KPRC, WENR, WTAR, WPTF, WRVA, WWNC, WJAX, WIOD, WFLA, WAVE, WSM, WSB, WMC, WJDX, WSMB, WFAA, KTBS, KTHS.]

FINANCIALLY, a bachelor is capable of providing a good home and educational advantages for an adopted child, the college-bred ork leader asserted hotly. With no wife to divert him, he has more time. more thought, more money and more affection to give.  And who doubts, but that an unmarried man, who volunteers for fatherhood, should make a better parent than a married one who has it thrust upon him.

When he paused for breath, the Jeering One observed cautiously : “You seem to have given the matter considerable thought.”

“I have,” replied Maestro Previn quietly. Then he told how for several years he has been on the lookout for a youngster whom he may endow with his name and bring up as his son.

WHY, one wonders, should a well -to -do bachelor with a taste for rare wine, orchidaceous women and world travel, con- sider complicating his easy and eventful life with a Little Stranger? What motives would impel a talented musician, whose work is admittedly his hobby, to disrupt the harmony of his present existence with childhood cries and nursery noises?

Those questions, when put to him across the luncheon table, the impresario of the Silken Strings hour answered simply, directly. “I’ve always been crazy about children,” he said, “Besides, a son would be a great pal.” 

Maestro Previn believes that when he finds the youngster whom he thinks Fate is reserving for him, whether that youngster is wrapped in rags and as bald and blind as the eagle atop our national standard, he’ll know it. And the child’ll know. And there won’t be anything more to it. Nothing, that is, but the thousand and one complications which he understands arise when a bachelor sets out to adopt a child.

Even when that fateful moment arrives, it is doubtful, however, whether ether-land’s most sportive symphonist will act spontaneously. There are still moments, he acknowledged with a deprecating shrug of his sleek tailored shoulders, when he is uncertain whether an unmarried man may rightfully aspire for fatherhood.

“When I think back over my own boy- hood,” he said reminiscently, “and remember how it centered about my mother, I begin to wonder. Have I the right to deprive a child of his chance for a normal home? Will the material things I can give him compensate for the absence of a mother? What do you think?”

I nodded my okay, thinking how easily he could remedy such a domestic abnormality. After all, eligible women willing to mother a man’s children are not scarce. And I couldn’t imagine a romantic riot like Charley Previn running up against a “No” woman, should he ever seek a maternal parent for his foster son.

Mediumly tall, with broad shoulders, dream-swept brown eyes, sun-swarthy skin and dark, wavy hair, his looks would melt any woman. And the majority of them would find him no less irresistable to listen to. His interests encircle the globe like a Dollar Liner, and include everything from the latest Maori colonization scheme in New Zealand and the Tennessee Valley plan, to college football, golf, radio and real estate. He loves good books next to good music. And when he is discussing the latter he is as apt to be talking about his friend, George Gershwin’s “Manhattan Serenade” as Wagner’s “Symphony in C.”  

STILL he’s never been married. He’s never been engaged. To quote him verbatim, he’s “never even proposed to a girl.”

“I’m not saying I’ve never been in love.” A quick shining smile sprang out of his eyes like a silver flash. But I’ve never been able to figure a woman out long enough to ask her to marry me.”

Like so many other modern young men who have worked out their own design for living, he turned down a fat offer to teach prep school boys how to scan French poetry and translate German prose, and embarked upon a job-hunting expedition along Tin Pan Alley. It wasn’t long until he landed a position, playing the piano in a music -factory, for which Earl Carroll was song-plugging. From pounding out the latest jazz he gradually advanced to the more dignified position of song salesman. 

 Then one bright autumn morning the producer of a musical show, playing the southern “sticks,” burst into the music publishing house employing him, and de-manded an orchestra leader. With a sly wink, the manager recommended Charley.

“Have you ever had any experience ?” the producer demanded.

THE college-bred Paderewski said he had.

But he forgot to add that the orchestra he had conducted was composed of Cornell students who volunteered their services for the University’s annual men’s musical show. Even so he got the job.

In the same way he won his first chance at stage directing. The manager of a light opera company whose orchestra he was conducting went a.w.o.l. and the owner of the production turned, distraught, to Charley. “Previn,” he groaned, “have you ever put on a musical show ?”

Again the A.B. from Cornell answered “Yes,” without bothering to explain that the musical show in question was one whose lyrics he had composed and which had been written and acted by his classmates at college. And for the second time, he won and held the job.

But Maestro Previn was not satisfied to go on wielding his baton in the back blocks. He wanted to be something more than a hinterland virtuoso. So he found himself a playhouse on Broadway and a play, and before he knew it, he was standing in the wings, watching his first operetta go into production. At last he was nearing his goal.

A five -year engagement with St. Louis’ world famous summer opera company was the turning point. From the Missouri metropolis, he went to New York’s Roxy Theatre. And, as anyone familiar with the airlines will tell you, from there it is only a step to Radio City.

He made his mike debut over NBC as master of the Camel Cigarette hour. During those sixty minute intervals, he not only produced radioland’s first revue, but widened the acquaintance of the dial-twisting public by. introducing it to such stage and screen stars as Mary Garden and Maurice Chevalier. Later he supplied the musical background for Count Von Luckner’s breath-taking sagas of the sea, and became one of NBC’s most popular sustaining artists. Last winter he organized his Silken Strings Ensemble.

Now that he has realized his boy-hood ambition, persons knowing him as one of those men who, once he charts a course, never wavers, are wondering aloud: “How long will it be until Charley Previn’s manhood dream comes true. and he becomes one, if not radio’s first, bachelor father?”

He never did.

I doubt the Ku Klux Klan Crusader did much to elect Trump, but the only large publication to endorse him, the National Enquirer, surely did. And continues to be his outlet. Its headlines are seen by the entire subset of Americans — not a small one — who buy food.

Click here.

It would be amusing if it were not real life.

This is a little unfair — but not much.  Click here and see if you agree:

Joe gets up at 6 a.m. and fills his coffeepot with water to prepare his morning coffee. The water is clean and good because some tree-hugging liberal fought for minimum water-quality standards.

With his first swallow, he takes his daily medication. His medications are safe to take because some stupid commie liberal fought to ensure their safety and that they work as advertised.

All but $10 of his medications are paid for by his employer’s medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance – now Joe gets it too. . . .

And it goes on from there.  How much of it do you agree with?

Zac Bissonnette quotes Lincoln . . .

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

And then — “150 years of investment in education and social progress later” — President-Elect Donald Trump:

Wow, the ratings are in and Arnold Schwarzenegger got “swamped” (or destroyed) by comparison to the ratings machine, DJT. So much for being a movie star – and that was season 1 compared to season 14. Now compare him to my season 1. But who cares, he supported Kasich & Hillary.

November 8 was a great victory for Vladimir Putin, clearly.  Less so, Trump voters may come to realize, for the rest of us.

Indivisible: A Practical Guide for Resisting the Trump Agenda — updated.

Oh!  And good news: wages are up 2.9% year over year, as private sector job growth continues its 6-year record streak.

Our last ill-qualified president ignored CIA warnings delivered to him days before his inauguration that Bin Laden was a “tremendous” “immediate” threat to our security . . . and then an August 2001 intelligence briefing titled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US.”

Trump is even less qualified and not only ignores but mocks the intelligence community . . . not least for its having to delay his “hacking” briefing until today.  (Except that it was in fact scheduled for today all along.)

The only thing longer than his list of outrages is this list of Obama’s achievements.

(Actually, that’s not true.  The first list has 230 items; the second, just 50.)

But unless you’re truly bored or masochistic, ignore the first list. The things Republicans have said about him are all too true. No need to review; we seem to be getting fresh examples every day.

It’s the second list that’s worth reading.

Imagine how much longer it could have been if the Republican Congress had not made it their game plan from Day One to block virtually everything he tried to do, even if they had previously proposed it themselves.  (E.g., the deficit reduction commission they co-sponsored — but filibustered once he signed on.)

Have a great weekend.

Yesterday, if you missed it (posted late on account of three kinds of margaritas with increasingly unpronounceable names), I offered a Borealis update and — more important — an editorial explaining why corporate CEOs will help the President-Elect distort the truth about his “unbelievable success” bringing back jobs.

Today, I offer these two Bernie Sanders segments: here and then here.

I was neutral in the Democratic primary — I didn’t even cast my superdelegate vote — admiring both candidates very much.  Had the KGB and FBI and 30 years of Republican disinformation not managed to give her opponent his otherwise legitimate Electoral College victory, Hillary would have made an outstanding president. It’s tragic (and outrageous) what happened. But Bernie’s clarity and moral force are also most welcome as he helps to lead the way forward.  Watch.

But first, for those long-suffering shareholders in Borealis: the latest annual report (covering 18 months) and information circular showing how many shares of each of its subsidiaries the company owns.  There is a lot of information here — and even more in the annual reports of the subsidiaries, ChorusMotors, WheelTug, Power Chips, Cool Chips, and the others.

The biggest takeaways — to me: (a) this is actually a serious effort, whether or not it ever actually pays off; (b) WheelTug’s FAA application has been filed.

The current stock price values the entire company at $25 million (5 million shares at about $5 each).  As noted here ad nauseam, paintings have sold for ten times as much. And dozens of (I would argue) equally speculative companies routinely command market caps more like $500 million, on the chance (for example) the drug they’re developing may turn out to work.  If Borealis were given the same valuation — a gambler’s $500 million bet that maybe one day it will be worth five or ten times as much — the stock would be $100, not $5.

(A tidbit in the Cool Chips report: “We are now funded with the purchase of 36,000 shares of WheelTug plc at the then market price of US$126/share. WheelTug plc has gotten most of the Borealis Family’s attention and most all of its funding. This share sale was for the benefit of all the companies in the family and we expect sales to be made at ever-increasing share prices. The first sale point will be a few shares at US$270/share, and we expect within a couple of years to see 4-figure sale prices, as long as WheelTug plc progresses as expected.”  If 36,000 shares of WheelTug really sold for $126 a share, and if any are ever sold at $270, that would be another suggestion that Borealis shares — controlling roughly one WheelTug share each — are worth more than $5.  That said, the last decade’s experience with this stock suggests potential investors should not get carried away.  Buy shares, if at all, with money you can truly afford to lose; and always use “limit orders” when buying, as the stock is very thinly traded.)

And now a word about the “unbelievable success” top Trump spokesman Sean Spicer told ABC’s Jonathan Karl the President Elect has already had bringing 6,000 jobs back to the U.S. (which he arguably did not do — see below — and which, in any event, should be seen in the context of the 39 million net new private sector jobs created under the Clinton and Obama administrations, versus the fewer than one million created under the most recent 12 years of Republican administrations).

From the New York Times:

President-elect Donald Trump would like everybody to believe that his election is energizing the economy by forcing businesses to create thousands of jobs in the United States. And companies like Sprint seem perfectly happy to go along with this fiction because they know they can profit handsomely by cozying up to Mr. Trump.

On Wednesday, Mr. Trump said Sprint’s top executive had told him the company would add 5,000 jobs “because of what’s happening and the spirit and the hope.” But it turns out that the jobs are part of a previous commitment by Sprint’s parent company, SoftBank, whose chief executive said at Trump Tower in December that it would invest $50 billion and create 50,000 jobs in the United States. And even that promise was part of a $100 billion technology fund that SoftBank announced in October, before the election. In sum, Mr. Trump’s statement was hot air, just like his tweet in which he thanked himself for an increase in a consumer confidence index last month. . . .

The whole thing is worth reading. And if you believe we need a strong press now more than ever, subscribe to the New York Times and Washington Post yourself.

Finally, my post for tomorrow will be these Bernie Sanders clips: here and then here.  But just in case you can’t wait . . . I say, “right on.”

Amazing. Two minutes. Enjoy.  (Thanks, Mel!) If you have any idea how he does it, do tell!

Eight minutes with Bill Maher on Donald Trump. I’m sorry for the blue language, but otherwise spot on.  He says we should start by combining the Dakotas — why on earth should they have 4 senators when his home state of California, with 25 times as many people, has just 2?

Those of you who still use Managing Your Money for DOS — orphaned 23 years ago but still better than Quicken (if you ask me), much as Sanskrit may be better than English (i.e., sure, maybe — but it wouldn’t make a lot of sense to switch from English to Sanskrit now) — may be pleased to know Mike Starkey has discovered it runs better under the free DOS emulator  vDOS than DOSBox, and should be sharing settings and tips in the next week or two . . . but even more intrigued to know he’s begun running it himself on this Lenovo stick, a tiny $100 Windows 10 computer you can essentially stick in your pocket.  More on that forthcoming from Mike this month, I hope, too.  Hurray for 2017!

The year just ending had more than a few bright spots.  As a happy-gene guy, I loved this report from CNN.com.

Here’s a to a better-than-expected 2017.

I appreciate your readership.

Gray Chang: “Why would someone pay $5.95 for one of your e-books when they can get the hardcover for $0.01 (plus $3.99 shipping)?”

☞ Ah, well.  To save even that penny (and the $3.99 shipping), get them free through Kindle Unlimited and the Kindle Lending Library.  (Here and here.)

My friend Ira offers this Practical Guide for Resisting the Trump Agenda. Having watched Republicans block much of President Obama’s agenda, the authors see lessons for thwarting the worst of Trump’s initiatives and appointments.

Ira also offers this ingenious extension you can install in Chrome or Firefox that fact-checks Trump’s tweets.  Even if you don’t tweet, you’ll find it of interest.

If you have 30 seconds to support Senator Elizabeth Warren’s request to audit Trump’s finances, Ira has discovered that “the way to make sure your support counts is to email administrators Katherine Siggerud and Timothy Minnelli.”  Something along these lines:

Subject:  Audit for President-Elect Trump’s financial concerns

Dear Ms. Siggerud and Mr. Minnelli:

I’m writing in support of Senator Elizabeth Warren’s request for an audit of our incoming President’s finances, to prohibit conflicts of interest that would prevent him from carrying out the responsibilities of the office without corrupt influence.  His tax returns almost must be disclosed.

Sincerely . . .

And finally — thank you for all this, Ira! — he offers this protest music video featuring his friend Harry Belafonte.

So good.

Yesterday I linked to billionaire Nick Hanauer’s famous TED Talk wherein he explains why the rich are not the job creators.

Today, his subsequent talk (or transcript).

. . . I see pitchforks, as in angry mobs with pitchforks, because while people like us plutocrats are living beyond the dreams of avarice, the other 99 percent of our fellow citizens are falling farther and farther behind. . . .

[T]he problem isn’t that we have some inequality. Some inequality is necessary for a high-functioning capitalist democracy. The problem is that inequality is at historic highs today and it’s getting worse every day. And if wealth, power, and income continue to concentrate at the very tippy top, our society will change from a capitalist democracy to a neo-feudalist rentier society like 18th-century France. That was France before the revolution and the mobs with the pitchforks.

So I have a message for my fellow plutocrats and zillionaires and for anyone who lives in a gated bubble world: Wake up. Wake up. It cannot last. Because if we do not do something to fix the glaring economic inequities in our society, the pitchforks will come for us, for no free and open society can long sustain this kind of rising economic inequality. It has never happened. There are no examples. You show me a highly unequal society, and I will show you a police state or an uprising. The pitchforks will come for us if we do not address this. It’s not a matter of if, it’s when. And it will be terrible when they come for everyone, but particularly for us plutocrats. . . .

At the rate we’re going, he notes, the top 1% of Americans — who earned 8% of all national income in 1980 and now earn 20% — will earn 30%. Leaving the bottom 50% of us — who earned 18% of the nation’s income in 1980 — to earn just 6%.

As Donald Trump and the Republican Congress seek to eliminate the estate tax on billionheirs . . . and to slash taxes yet further on the wealthy (like himself) . . . while blocking hikes in the minimum wage and killing the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau . . . they should listen to or read Nick’s full argument. It’s not just the threat of pitchforks; it’s that rising inequality is terrible for business as well.

Read his argument.  Share it with everyone on your list.  Especially with the Republicans who represent you in Congress and your state legislature.

(Or do they more faithfully represent the Koch brothers, and the other funders of the REDMAP project that put so many of them there?)