REPUBLICANS FOR RENT

There is no more dysfunctional, morally bankrupt political party in America than the Republican party of New York, which having hit bottom somehow manages to wallow in futile irrelevance. It is often said that New York, is after all, a “Democratic” state, which is true on paper in terms of party registration. But the state has often been as likely to elect Republicans in the past to statewide office, be it Governor or Senator, so the party argument doesn’t hold up. It is also suggested that it is a “liberal” state, which is another myth, at least outside of Manhattan and some other city neighborhoods. In fact because the registration is so Democratic there are a large number of conservative Democrats in the state. So there is no reason why Republicans cannot win elections at least some of the time, yet they do not hold a single statewide office at present. They have become irrelevant, largely due to incompetence, mismanagement and stupidity.

I say this as one who once directed the state Republican Policy Committee and struggled to get ideas and solutions in the forefront, but when I persisted the highest elected official at the time told me “You want policy? How much money can you raise? That’s the policy,” and so it was and still is. This is a party that is focused on one thing: money, to fund itself, maintain the party apparatus, and go through the motions of trying to win an election. Thus they have a special soft spot for billionaires or millionaires that are willing to fund their own campaign and a long history of effectively “renting out” the line to whoever comes along with the cash, no matter how inept, politically illiterate, and tone deaf they are. This has happened time and again and will certainly happen in the future. While there rarely  may be a competent dud like Michael Bloomberg, he’s a perfect example of how low this party has sunk. First he was a Democrat who became a “Republican” and rented the line to get elected. Then he left the party and ran as an Independent, but the spurned Republicans gave him the line again anyway. But the typical candidate, if not for their money, would be dismissed as a nonentity, and there are more former Democrats in the pipeline with cash.  

Even at the local level it is a disaster. Suffolk County on Long Island was once the most Republican county in the country. It leaned so much to the right that the Conservative Party of New York used to come in second, outpolling the Democrats. Now Democrats regularly elect the County Executive and Town Supervisors. The apologists will tell you it’s due to a demographic shift, but that is nonsense. The party overplayed its hand, behaving like the corrupt political machines that used to dominate New York City and eventually lost the confidence of the electorate, while the local Democrats wisely ran conservative campaigns. Virtually the entire congressional delegation from Long Island was once Republican. Now there is just one left. 

You would think that given the dismal state of the Republican party that the Conservative Party would rise as it once did in the past and keep the Republicans honest. Instead they have settled for making deals for their endorsement and are overly obsessed with a single issue, abortion, even though there is already a separate “Right to Life” party based solely on that. 

So there’s not much here to give genuine conservatives and remaining Republicans much hope, given the moribund party state and the total lack of effective leadership. Under the present circumstances they are likely to continue to falter and put up dopey candidates, we will hold our noses and vote for these fools, who don’t have a prayer of winning and wouldn’t know what to do, if by some miracle, they did win. Unless and until there is a reform movement that can muster enough support and financing to shake things up, actually stand for something, and field serious, articulate candidates, the New York Republican party will continue to be for rent. 

FASHION CLASSICS MEN SITE FULLY UP

This site is now fully functional so please pay a visit here. This is the last time it will be shown on this blog so if you are interested subscribe on the site to follow.

WHAT IS MEANT BY CLASSIC?

The classic look in fashion (as well as in anything else), is all about proportion and harmony. All components of an outfit should be synchronized in a way that makes pleasant sense to the eye. The cut and color of the shirt should integrate well with the cut and color of the suit. Both the tie and shoes should complement the outfit, that can be completed with details such as a pocket handkerchief and jewelry, i.e. a watch and cufflinks, which embellish the overall look. None of these elements should ever clash in ways that are out of synch with the rest of the outfit, but instead contribute to an overall appealing presence. 

The goal is to stand out subtly rather than with a shout, so that you do not stick out like a sore thumb, but instead produce a pleasant reaction in the beholder when you are noticed. This is in contrast to a strained effort to be noticed. That is easy enough to accomplish with overly flashy, loud or inappropriate dress if your goal is to amuse people or otherwise induce a negative response. The right way to be noticed comes from avoiding trying to be noticed. Ideally it results from something rare but attainable with experience, namely an effortless grace in comporting oneself. What I mean by effortless grace is what you see when Fred Astaire dances, hear when Heifetz plays the violin, or experience when an Olympic athlete excels beyond all expectations in a golden moment of flawless perfection. 

In keeping with the purpose of the site the surest way to achieve this kind of impression is through a classic look. Historically the classical ideal was expressed in an elegant symmetry of elements comprising the whole of an object. These were proportionately balanced and harmoniously integrated to produce exquisite form never surpassed, echoing down through the ages. Thus the classic look is also something that has stood the test of time. It is not something that will be fashionable today and out of style tomorrow, but will transcend the vicissitudes of taste (or lack of it). Obviously clothing is not in the same category as say architecture in substance or historical time, but can still have a long life cycle. So for our purposes here a classic is something that will last as long as the garment is wearable.

 A classic look is also the most time-tested way to appeal to the opposite sex, not on a visceral level so much as to enhance that by indicating that you are a man with some class. The guy with the flash or trendy outfit that conforms to what everyone else is wearing may think he’s appealing to women, but he's not. 

There's a reason a guy dressed like Clark Gable gets the girl, apart from his natural appeal. 

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TIME TO DISPOSE OF MARX

On occasion when I tune into professional, i.e. academic discussions in my field I still find the same depressingly monotonous Marxist claptrap I’ve heard for decades. Never mind that Marx has conclusively been proven wrong on just about everything as history has unfolded. His inane “theories” still have a hold on these people, most of whom have never even read him. (As you’ll see below the best antidote to Marx is actually having to read him). Adam Smith, on the other hand was a prescient and authentic genius who has been proven right on just about everything. His work is still quite readable and relevant to our times, but outside of economics departments he is hardly known. 

Marx is not an important “thinker” by any standard. Nor does he rate highly as a philosopher, political economist, or theorist based upon substance, reason and relevance. Nevertheless he has been historically consequential, evidenced by the death and misery caused to hundreds of millions of people in the 20th century at the hands of the Communists. That impact does not, however, warrant placing him in the big leagues of political philosophy alongside Aristotle or Hobbes, where many academics still insist he belongs, despite his mediocrity.

When I was in graduate school in a political theory course it came about that the Professor assigned us to actually read Das Kapital page by page. Naturally all the lefty students were delighted. They were actually going to “read” Marx! Well a day or two into some of the most boring and obscure text ever written the enthusiasm level rapidly declined the more they read, and by the end of that torturous seminar there wasn’t a “Marxist” left in the class. The time to store this charlatan in the dustbin of history is long overdue, and those still clinging to these obsolete concepts should justly meet with derision. 

REMEMBERING PAUL AND DONNA

It was during a summer more than three decades ago while I was staying with my friend Paul Jabara in Hollywood that I met Donna Summer. Being young and foolish and having made the rounds with starlets, I thought I was a Casanova at the time with irresistible charms, so I propositioned her. She, being a good Christian woman, just smiled and said “Honey, I don’t have the time,” and from then on,I'm embarrassed to say, I was labeled as the lover boy. At that point Paul’s song “Enough is Enough” with Donna and Barbra Streisand was in production and subsequently became a huge hit. Paul was the only one in the world who could have pulled that off, for reasons that will become clear. But first I want to say something about Donna. 

Donna Summer was a stunningly brilliant singer with an astonishing range in octaves and she was very much a part of the whole creative process in her recordings. I believe her collaborations with the German composer Giorgio Moroder are some of the greatest recordings of any kind ever made and all hold up today. I don’t think “I Feel Love” has ever been absent from the dance floor since its inception and you will still probably hear it in any club you walk into. Their work really reached its creative pinnacle with the double album Once Upon A Time, which is still available, like many of her other records. She was the lead singer of what was basically the last creative new wave in popular music. I don’t think there has really been anything at all original since disco (not counting rap, which is more a sort of poetry than music to me) and everything since has basically been recycled. It was on the crest of that last wave that Paul really came into his own.

Paul Jabara had boundless energy and drive and his incredible persistence enabled him to realize whatever ambition he fancied. He was unstoppable.  Indeed hIs mother once told me that Gore Vidal (Paul really got around in his short life) said that no one but Hitler had more ambition than Paul Jabara- or maybe it was the other way around- and that was before he had even really hit it big. He was always like that. During my teenage years, apart from my best friend Geoffrey, no one was closer to me than Paul and we shared countless experiences growing up in Brooklyn. Back then I was kind of gawky, serious, naive, and hopelessly romantic, constantly falling in love from age 13 on, and he was like a squire for me, intervening in one fumbled passionate infatuation after another, while I in turn protected him from getting beat up. I realize now that despite his seemingly childlike innocence at the time, he was shrewd, more mature and knew me better than I knew myself. It was in his basement that I first seriously made out with a girl, and he used to record everything on an old Hitachi tape recorder, including a lot of embarrassing confessionals from me that he surprisingly still had many years later.

He was always obsessed with show business, and had more nerve than anyone I have ever known, being devoid of anything in the way of shame or inhibitions.  He managed to easily work his way backstage to most of the shows on Broadway and make friends with the cast, and later when I started driving at 17 we had a hell of a time in all the hottest nightspots of the era thanks to Paul’s incredible ability not only to get past any barrier but to connect with the biggest stars. He was totally unfazed by celebrities, perhaps because he knew he was going to become one. Back then his focus was on the stage, and curiously there was absolutely no indication that he would become a successful songwriter. While he coached me to improve my style and appearance, I actually gave him piano lessons and tried to teach him to read music, which he never did learn, yet he was still able to produce one hit after another. 

Years later in Hollywood I treated him at various places because, incredible as it seems, despite having an Oscar and a string of hits, he was short of cash and wasn’t making any more money than me at the time, which just shows you how corrupt show business is. But at that point it was also true that he didn’t have to pay at some places. He was at the pinnacle, able to recite an impressive list of stars he wouldn’t take calls from (that being an indication of high status in the weird world of Hollywood), but somehow the financial rewards were eluding him, although royalties eventually did kick in. He was always restless and couldn’t sit still. In a restaurant he would bounce around from one table of show biz types to another, exactly the way he used to when we were kids hanging out in a Bay Ridge ice cream parlor. He was unstoppable, and when he wanted something, resistance was futile. He once locked Donna Summer in a bathroom and refused to let her out until she agreed to sing his song, never able to take no for an answer. That turned out to be fortuitous for both of them, and the rest is history. And so although they are gone their anthems will go on and on. 

FASHION & STYLE SITE IS UP

The new fashion/style site is finally up in a rudimentary form. Still refining layout. Questions welcome.
 Here is the address and first entry:

http://www.fashionclassicsmen.com

INTRODUCTION

The primary purpose of this site is to provide some basic style and fashion information to men based upon standards that have stood the test of time, while remaining free of any commercial biases or interests. This site came about accidentally, as a result of the response I received to a side comment on my main blog, mostly from young women distressed by the cluelessness of their male contemporaries. So the intent here is to lay down some basic principles about classic dress, rather than to go on indefinitely. It will probably make more sense to read this in the order written, which means going back to earlier entries if you come to this subsequently. Questions are always welcome. 

I am far from a fashion maven, and have little interest in ephemeral trendiness, relying rather upon decades of experience and observation of what constitutes a good look over time. At the outset this site will be decidedly simple and without any flash, although subsequently there may be some enhancements and pictures or illustrations to elucidate various points. All of this implies a certain formality, which may be true, but we will also touch on more informal appearance as well, in terms of a relaxed casual elegance instead of looking like a slob. 

We live in an age where it is no longer possible to tell the rich from the poor by the way they dress. This is a relatively new phenomenon historically, beginning only in the twentieth century. Prior to our own time, the class to which a person belonged was obvious by the way they dressed. From a socioeconomic standpoint this may not be such a bad thing to the extent that the miracles of markets and mass production have enabled billions to be adequately dressed. Nevertheless when you look at fashions over the ages, what you see is only the upper end; rarely do you see ragged people in hovels. Nowadays since it is common for young technology billionaires to dress down, there is no longer that much correspondence between appearance and wealth. But that also means you don’t need to be a millionaire to look good, without dressing down. Today it is not income but good taste that separates the class from the mass. Here we are focused on the former. 

From old photographs we can see how well people in crowds used to dress before going out in public well into the last century. Now we are in a decidedly informal age, and this is about standards and rules in a time without any. So why bother? The first answer is that when there is an overabundance of options there is effectively no real choice as things are too overwhelming. However, if you limit yourself to certain parameters, within those guides you can produce a fine, and still often original look, much in the way that many of the greatest symphonies were written within the constraints of the classical form. 

Second, the reality is that when you are well dressed people take you more seriously and treat you differently. I know this from first hand experience, time and again. To cite one example, I once got a ticket dismissed with a less than solid excuse when the judge clearly reacted to my appearance in room full of people otherwise for the most part poorly dressed. She paid more attention to me and treated me more politely mainly because  was wearing a three piece suit.  So putting yourself together with some thought can pay off. 

Finally, when you dress well you tend to feel better about yourself. Your appearance will often correspond to an uptick rather than a downer in your circumstances or life. I’ve also gone through indifferent, sloppy sweatsuit periods, It doesn’t take all that much time to put yourself together well once you’ve developed some awareness of how you look, and the extra mileage you get is well worth it. Just remember that whatever you are wearing is making a statement about you whether you like it or not, even to people not at all style conscious. Of course there are different looks at different times. A power suit has an impact on men, but most of the time how you’re dressed says something to women, and since most men are attuned to the opposite sex, how you’re dressed is going to govern the impression you make. These are general observations, but this site is concerned with a particular “classic” look, and that is what we will focus on now. 

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POLITICS,EMOTION & POWER

I am tired of political rancor and messages that have a near hysterical urgency that is frequently unwarranted by the facts. It really gets intense in a national election year and things are said and done that are often regrettable. Political passion is seldom rational. Of course there are things that political opposites say and do that are infuriating, (although it is mostly more say than do) but before responding to something with a tirade, especially online, it makes sense to stop and take a breather because whatever you post or send can stick around forever. Just as it is wise not to sign important documents when you are half-asleep or otherwise indisposed, so it is unwise to express yourself on anything important while you are angry. I’ve been there myself and know the routine, but one tends to mellow with age and hopefully grow wiser. 

In politics each side tends to demonize the other assuming they are more formidable than they actually are. Fear of what the Other might do is a big motivator in political life, but that fear often exaggerates the power the other side actually has or can wield. That said I am not suggesting that both sides are equivalent. They are not, and I agree with Bill O’Reilly that the far Left is especially venomous. These are people of the sort who have published the home addresses of individuals they disagree with or have even threateningly visited them. This is the sort that disrupts speeches and attacks people they don’t agree with. I find this particularly unwise because the right, if it chose to be, would be far more formidable in any sort of physical conflict or show of force, but fortunately for these radicals, conservatives are more peaceful, in part because they have greater respect for social constraints, standards of behavior and manners. They also have no equivalent to the evil currency speculator George Soros, who is giving some $100 million to left-wing groups, to among other things, dig up, fabricate, and throw dirt on political opponents. Even the Democratic party has adapted an awful fabrication in actually training people to attack virtually any political position the other side takes as “racist” to try and obscure the substance of things. These tactics are actually based on fear, insecurity, and a feeling of powerlessness, as well as irrationality, but that does not make them any less despicable. 

Nothing infuriates me more than the abuse of power by those who have it over those who don’t.  Liberals like to think of themselves as great opponents of such activity, but they are often the ones doing the abusing. Take the odious editor of Vogue pressuring people to design for the Democratic Presidential campaign. What designer will say no? Newhouse should be held accountable for this. It is the same in show business. Most actors or performers are too self-involved to be particularly political, yet you see many of them line up in support of candidates or fundraisers. There is no doubt that if they are at all political they tend to be on the left, but their participation is often due to pressure from studio executives and agents who hold great power over them and are monotonously liberal, as well as peer pressure. After all what sense does it make to alienate at least half of your audience unnecessarily?

Over the course of my life whenever I held any kind of power I’m happy to say that I never used it to compel anyone to do anything they didn’t want to do. Instead I usually found myself banging up against the powerful. I paid a steep price throughout my life for political views I never hid, starting in graduate school, where I endured considerable mental anguish and was completely alone, as symbolized one time when I was sitting in the cafeteria when someone announced that busses were coming to take people to a demonstration. The place completely cleared out and I was literally alone. In those days there were no support structures around at all like the conservative think tanks, organizations, and media that exist today. Actually, if I think about it, it began in high school, where I was a favorite of an honors class history teacher until she found out I was supporting a Republican (Rockefeller at the time, not even a conservative). Ironically in a class exercise of a mock election campaign she prevailed upon me to advocate the candidacy of George Wallace just to cover all the candidates because no one wanted to do it, this being Brooklyn, NY. So when the time came I got up and spoke with a mock southern accent (which wasn’t hard for me having family from the South, i.e. my aunt owned the Robert E. Lee hotel in Jackson, Mississippi), had friends acting as cheerleaders and there was hysterical laughter in the class. When the time came to vote, the class actually elected Wallace based on my performance, not his politics. Well the teacher went ballistic and freaked out, outraged and furious that the majority of her honors class would actually vote the way they did, and refused to submit the election results to the larger school tally. Notwithstanding the fact that she prevailed on me to do something I really didn't want to do, she never spoke to me again after that and my grades subsequently took a dive, as a result of typical liberal tolerance. So it went on in life in since I was frequently in fields controlled by the left. Often when I inconveniently turned out to be more articulate than them while what they viewed as the "wrong" position," I was the subject of particular hatred. 

So when it comes to power, although leftists like to portray themselves as struggling nobly against sinister forces for truth and justice, in my experience they are the ones who have consistently abused power for political purposes. In fact I have yet to come across a liberal with anything like a heroic streak no matter how they may romanticize themselves. When you look around at people who have actually performed heroic deeds, they are almost always conservative, if they are anything politically. The noticeable lack of liberals is not surprising; these are the people who invented the anti-hero, after all. Just think of who is more likely to perform selfless acts, or even give to charity. The evidence clearly shows it is conservatives. 

There was a time when I was bitter about my encounters with the left, but it is long gone now, and as I’ve indicated, the wise course is to avoid getting obsessively angry about anything political. In the larger scheme of things they are a bitter minority motivated by fear of the Other that doesn’t actually exist. So rather than respond in-kind and attack them, at this point I’m decidedly more oriented towards persuading them as to the error of their ways. 

For an earlier take on this topic go to: http://www.georgesarant.com/2010/09/political-passion.html 

SOCIAL MEDIA

I’ve been trying to catch up on things backed up in social media, like Twitter, Facebook, and lately Linked In. I used to ignore or trash requests for the latter as I initially thought it was only for career advancement, job prospects and connections which I didn’t need, but I’ve come to realize that this is the only one that actually pretty accurately “suggests” people you actually know or have a lot in common with, unlike say, Facebook. If you’ve read what I’ve written previously about the latter you know I don’t think much of its long-term prospects or IPO. Facebook basically does what AOL did much better more than a dozen years ago, without some of the inane juvenile rules. Back then people were much more reticent about posting their personal information or pictures (which also wasn’t that easy to share at the time) and usually went by screen names, But at the same time it was a lot easier to find and organize common interests, groups, and discussions.


However AOL was a closed system in its heyday. It all happened within the network, and when the Internet started to boom people left for the larger universe and AOL stumbled, missing the boat when people eventually contracted again into another closed system with Facebook. Before that there was MySpace, which lost out because it allowed pages that blasted music and loaded ever so slowly due to a lot of graphics and had a cumbersome linking system, and by the time it corrected all of that people had moved on to Facebook with its simple interface (at least until it started imposing those awful timelines). But history shows that closed systems don’t last, and people will break out again to something else. This has been true going all the way back to old Compuserve in the pre-Internet era. In those days you had to sign up with one out of several mutually exclusive competing systems and it was costly because you paid by the hour. 

Now everyone’s on Facebook, because... everyone’s on Facebook. But it isn’t the Internet, and sooner or later people will break out again when something else comes along that allows greater freedom and there’s not a smarmy kid somewhere sanctioning you for doing something wrong with your account. For the moment it has displaced a large number of other services, like say Classmates. Why bother when everyone’s on Facebook? But trust me, that won’t last. You can already see that with something like Linked In, which serves a particular purpose well (although it can be kind of funny when you see the things  that some people are “CEO” of, or who insist on headlining themselves as “Visionary” and are serious about it). But as soon as someone comes up with a simple way for people to have their own URLs or equivalent on the Internet the exodus will begin again.

WHERE THIS BLOG IS GOING

I had an unexpected, surprising reaction to what was basically an aside I wrote recently about fashion classics, particularly from chic young women regarding clueless young men today. I am far from a fashion maven (indeed in some ways you could consider that piece anti-fashion, at least in terms of ephemera). But what I do have is some intimate knowledge and experience over the years with time-tested, classic men’s clothing, which consistently weathers the vicissitudes of change, so I’ve decided to do a limited spin-off blog on that subject, which in the longer term won’t be ongoing but will lay down some basics, since it appears that some guys really are in the dark. 

That will join a couple of others that reflect my more esoteric interests, as I doubt many people would share all of them. Another has to do with vintage electronic synthesizer instruments, and another on a topic I call rational conservatism, which I’m writing a book about. I’ll list the links when they are fully up. 

As far as this blog goes it will continue, although my interest is more in overall political philosophy rather than day to day events at this point, which are either ephemeral or involve ongoing issues that aren’t going anywhere soon. Everyone else writes about current events and the day’s headlines, so I don’t see much point in repeating what is already ubiquitous. Furthermore, now that we are in an election year in the US I don’t really want to be part of that. I’ve been through too many, and you can see things already heating up even though the election is still six months away. I continue to maintain that we have a really lousy system for picking a President as I wrote here, given the endless campaigning we are subject to all the time. Don’t get me wrong. This will be a critical election in terms of the future of this country and if things don’t change we are headed for disaster. But as far as I’m concerned November is too far off to be engaged at this point.  

DOWNTOWN TRANSFORMATIONS

Lower Manhattan has changed considerably in the years since I had an office there. From my window you could see the World Trade Center, and its destruction is at the root of the transformation. For one thing the area is swarming with tourists, where in the past there was never that many downtown. Whenever I used to get frustrated I'd take a walk down to Wall St to see George- that is George Washington's statue in front of Federal Hall, where there were few visitors. Now poor George is surrounded by tourists taking pictures of each other next to or in front of him. But at the same time security has been greatly heightened. You can't drive there any more; the streets are full of barriers, and it's a nuisance trying to wade through the crowds if you have business in the area. Back up by City Hall there is now so much iron surrounding it citizens no longer have the easy access they once had, where you used to be able to drive and park in front on business. Police headquarters is even worse. There are so many barriers and iron gates it is like a fortress, and the nearby underground municipal parking garage is gone for security reasons. I don't understand this siege mentality at all; it is not like the police are a vulnerable target. Whatever the case,  it makes walking around a nuisance as well as an unpleasant experience.

Both buildings I used to have offices in are now residential, as are many others in the area as businesses vacate either for midtown or out-of-town, due to the onerous tax burden in NY City. The result is there isn't much of what people think of when they say "Wall Street" left on the actual Wall St.  The area where the Trade Center was has gone through many transformations. Once Cortlandt Street was known for electronics stores, and I remember shopping there for tape recorders at a very young age. Not far away on Washington Street there was a produce market from  where wholesalers would supply restaurants and other customers. I used to send orders there when I was in the shipping business when the offices of shipowners were located way downtown.  Then there was St. Nicholas church, where I was married, which was turned to rubble when the Trade Center was destroyed. There were years before that event when I had a parking space right next to the WTC due, I'm ashamed to say now, to a government connection.

Just across from what is now known as Ground Zero is Century 21 department store, which got its start in the Brooklyn neighborhood I grew up in, Bay Ridge, or Fort Hamilton as part of the area is also known. The downtown store is now always crowded with foreign,  mostly European tourists, who oddly enough are there to buy European designer clothes, if you can figure that one out. There are long lines at the checkouts everywhere, and their arms are full of apparel to take back home with them.  That brings me to the subject of

 FASHION CLASSICS

 I prefer a classic look in clothing, which has a timeless sophistication about it, as opposed to the ephemeral trendiness of fashions that, especially when executed in the extreme, quickly go out of style. I used to buy some of the Italian designer stuff I like at Century, but not any more. I  was quite taken aback to find virtually all of the men's suit and jacket section  full of garments with very narrow lapels. It's as though they've flipped out over the Mad Men tv show. But given the cost of many of these clothes, notwithstanding their lack of particularly fine fabrics, you have to be crazy to spend good money on them. It won't be long before these look as silly as the extremely wide lapels of the 1970s. To make matters worse, many of these jackets are cut so short that it leaves the distinct impression of a poor fit rather than anything attractive. Couple this with ties that are proportionately much wider and you look ridiculous, yet this is the look you are now seeing in many garment ads, at least for much younger people, but then the young always look ridiculous. Put that jacket over baggy pants perched on the behind and it is a very clear statement of very poor taste. It takes years to get passed the youthful impulse towards trendy conformity, but the sooner that happens the better off we always are.  At the same time I must note that the traditional men's clothing stores nearby were pretty empty by comparison. But that's where people who work buy their clothes and they aren't likely to be out shopping in the middle of the day.

I'm no expert on women's clothes, but one day I glanced through a style magazine my wife had that was full of various celebrity actresses in outfits that failed to impress. Then I came across an advertisement that had a full page picture of Audrey Hepburn in an elegant outfit, and that image just put all the contemporary women featured to shame. There was such a timeless beauty about it that the only way I can describe it is "classic." Again, you can't beat a well proportioned classic look.

REFLECTIONS ON A DEAD APPLE

Apple may be the most valuable company in the world today, but in my view this is, ironically, despite its computer business. Awhile back the screen died suddenly on my MacBookPro one day and I found myself staring at 17 inches of  darkness wondering what to do. To make a long story short, after some frantic calls it turned out that the computer was unrepairable since the graphics chip was part of the motherboard and couldn’t be replaced. After mulling things over it occurred to me that the hard disk was probably okay, so I had no choice but to buy yet another computer, transfer whatever I had on my last Time Machine backup,  (an Apple device of course), and then remove the hard disk from the “old” computer and rig up something to connect it to the new computer, to retrieve the rest of my work, which I eventually did successfully. But I decided I was not going to buy another MacBookPro, because there’s talk of a new version in the spring and I’m not going to get stuck with suddenly obsolete stuff this time, if I can help it. 

This problem in some ways contributed to my hiatus from here for awhile, as I attempted to try working on my IPad with a bluetooth keyboard, (that being a nearly new IPad2 which of course lately has been replaced with a new version).  But trying to do any kind of serious writing on an IPad, even with an external keyboard, is sheer torture, so apart from some usefulness with Email when traveling, for me at least it is, mostly an expensive reader. Yet I still seem to go for their latest gizmo, as jaded as I am. (By the way, as I’m typing I notice that Apple’s own word processor, Pages, has a spell checker that doesn’t recognize the name of its own product).

Just like my previous model, the MacBookPro died shortly after three years, just when the Extended Warranty I bought expired. I won’t do that again because these things are apparently built to last three years anyway. I don’t remember how many laptops I’ve been through, but it goes back to the original. For that matter I can’t count how many computers I’ve been through since the first Apple II, but let’s just take the Mac. The first one came out with only 128k of memory, replaced a few months later by a 512k version (yes that’s kilobytes), but since the thing was sealed there wasn’t much you could do about it if you had the first one. Worse, when they did come out with versions that were more or less “upgradeable” they used a proprietary bussing system for internal boards you could insert, so that when they periodically would suddenly change to a new bussing system you would be stuck with a truckload of obsolete peripherals. Nevertheless I got snookered by Apple so many years ago that I’ve got too much invested in software to even think about changing. How about the first of the IPods? That was another very expensive turkey, and you’d laugh if you saw it now.  Until very recently Apple survived mainly by maintaining a user base of suckers like me that would keep shelling out for their stuff. The moral of the story is that you should never buy the first version of an Apple product.  

Sure things keep changing due to progress and improvements, at least sometimes, and three years is a long time in computer terms, but not for a product that costs what these things do. There was very little functional difference between my prior titanium laptop and this one, or the one before that. All of them did the identical things and the improvements were totally under the hood, and nominal, so there is no reason why such a device should not last longer, even with heavy use, like say, a television or refrigerator. 

This is not a total screed against Apple. But while waiting for the next MacBookPro to come out, instead of going for the highest end model this time I bought the lowest, a Mac Mini, at about 1/6th of the cost, threw out the Apple memory and installed 8gb (not from Apple). I figure to eventually use this as a media server when I get a new laptop because I hate having a desktop computer screen in my library. The memory isn’t overkill because its cheap and I need the power at the moment. I’ve had it on continuously and frankly I’m amazed at how much I am able to do with it. It runs cool and quiet and at this point is a definite bargain if you’re looking at one. 

Finally, I recently completed a project that may require a fairly large batch of touchscreen computers, based on porting over particular software. I quickly needed a document for service partnerships. I called HP and spent half a day getting told “it’s not my department without providing any other useful information from several different employees, all of whom had the almost sullen, indifferent attitude of many government bureaucrats. Then I called Apple. One person in I got a cheery “sure no problem” response. I guess that comes with the territory of a company riding high as the world’s most popular brand at the moment, though not because of of computers but rather all their other gizmos. So Apple may be “cool,” but don’t spend too much money, and again never buy the first version of an Apple product!

UPDATE: I did it again. I subsequently bought another MacBookPro for a lot of money, but not the latest retina version, which to me is just an expensive Macbook Air. Since that didn't come with the 17" screen I'm used to now, I bought the last version of the 17" model. In addition it is apparently also the last model with a Firewire 800 port, for various peripherals Apple made us invest in the first place. I then bought a Solid State drive and took out the Apple hard drive, and took out the memory and put in 16 GB, so they thing is super powerful. Yes, I like it, but not the cost.