The Three Flavors of Personal Finance Advice

This article was originally published by Technorati on 30 April 2010. To see all my Technorati articles, click Lifestyle in the Contents listing on the sidebar.

U.S. News offers some great money management advice in a recent article called 8 Questions for the Constantly Broke. Advice about money fits generally into three categories: practical, philosophical and spiritual. Most articles like this one focus on the practical without addressing the other two.

Practical Practical financial advice focuses on one question: how can I live within my means? Most, including the U.S. News article, recommend things like skipping daily latte's, buying used cars instead of new and reminding us that we're earning now not just for now but also for future rainy days and retirement. They preach that we should not be stupid with our money, in other words.

Designer Jeans are Extensions of Ego

This article was originally published by Technorati on 27 April 2010. To see all my Technorati articles, click Lifestyle in the Contents listing on the sidebar.

Is this a joke? $345 for a pair of jeans! Some of us are hopelessly out of touch.

In a recent Good Morning America segment, reporter Marysol Castro detailed an extensive scientific, double-blind, peer-reviewed (not) study pitting a $29 pair of jeans from Old Navy against a $200 pair from Sacks Fifth Avenue. We got a glimpse of one price tag that read $345.00.

One woman claimed to have 2000 pairs of jeans in her closet. And later, Elle Magazine's Fashion News Director, Anne Slowey, actually said, "Most people are charging around $200, so you definitely want to get as much value out of that investment as you can."

No, four shares of Wal-mart will run you about $200, that's an investment. Unless you're name is Levi Strauss, denim is not an investment. Does that woman with 2000 pairs of jeans in her closet realize that at a going rate of $200, she's pissed away several pairs of Sex-and-the-City level designer shoes and handbags? Probably not. ($400,000 for those of you keeping score at home.)

After 2 Years Sandwich Board Guy Gets Job-No Problem

This article was originally published by Technorati on 25 April 2010. To see all my Technorati articles, click Lifestyle in the Contents listing on the sidebar.

This is how life is.

Fifty-nine-year-old Paul Nawrocki lost his job in February 2008 and nothing happened. He took to the streets of Manhattan wearing a sandwich board, handing out resumes and nothing happened.

He appeared on over a hundred news and talk shows because America and the world, in the midst of what has been called the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, were interested in this former toy company executive's self-effacing efforts to replace his lost job, and nothing happened.

Lessons Learned from Franklin Graham and the Pentagon's National Day of Prayer

This article was originally published by Technorati on 23 April 2010. To see all my Technorati articles, click Lifestyle in the Contents listing on the sidebar.

Well it looks like the Franklin Graham-Pentagon National Day of Prayer imbroglio is over. After complaints from Muslim participants and a formal objection by a religious rights group, the Pentagon Chaplain's Office disinvited Graham from the May 6th service.

Perhaps the National Day of Prayer Task Force, which organizes the yearly Pentagon event, acted unwisely in selecting as its Honorary Chairman Graham, who has called Islam an "evil and wicked religion"; has said Muslims are "enslaved by their religion"; and has confirmed his opinion yet again that he believe that Islam is "just horrid."

The decision was especially ill-taken, given that the National Day of Prayer is meant to be an ecumenical endeavor.

A Non-imist's Rebuttal to "5 Ways to Become an Optimist"

This article was originally published by Technorati on 18 April 2010. To see all my Technorati articles, click Lifestyle in the Contents listing on the sidebar.

You have your optimists; these are the-glass-is-half-full people. You have your pessimists; these are the-glass-is-half-empty people.

There should be a third category: "non-imists." These are the glass-is-as-it-is people.

A recent USNews.com article directs our attention to a study published in the journal, Psychological Science, extolling the health benefits of optimism--according to the journal, optimists have stronger immune systems--and then offers 5 ways to become one.

As a devout non-imist, I would like to attempt, in reverse order, a point-by-point rebuttal of these 5 ways. Here goes.

Spiritual Clean-up on Aisle Five

This article was originally published by Technorati on 20 February 2010. To see all my Technorati articles, click Lifestyle in the Contents listing on the sidebar.

The Good News Gazette is reporting on a Washington Post story about Rev. Anita Naves, who has taken up shop . . . well . . . inside a shop.

After her ordination, Rev. Naves searched for a proper venue to start up a church. For two years, nothing materialized around her home in Temple Hill, MD, in the Washington, D.C., area.

But as they say, when God closes a door, he opens a produce section.

That's when Naves says she felt God's urging to check out the community room at a new Giant Food store in District Heights, MD. She arranged a meeting with an assistant manager.

Father of Slain Marine a Modern-Day Job

This article was first published by Technorati on 15 April 2010. To see all my Technorati articles, click Lifestyle in the Contents listing on the sidebar.

Albert Snyder, father of Lance Cpl. Matthew A. Snyder (pictured), a slain Marine whose 2006 funeral was picketed by members of the infamous Westboro Baptist Church, is a modern-day Job.

Like Snyder, the sons and daughters of the biblical Job were killed by a mighty wind. Like the biblical Job, Snyder has enjoyed the company of a set of "friends" who give him unwise counsel as to why travesty has befallen him.

In Snyder's case, these "friends" are a slightly deranged, thoroughly unconscious group of people who wish to advise him that his son's death came as the result of national tolerance of homosexuality. This message is not so much offensive as a shock to the collective faculty of logic, since the two are so utterly disconnected, especially while "Don't ask, don't tell" still holds sway.

Vatican Makes Peace with The Beatles-Folly or Genius?

This article was originally published by Technorati on 12 April 2010. To see all my Technorati articles, click Lifestyle in the Contents listing on the sidebar.

"I read the news today, oh boy!"

The news seems to keep getting worse for the Vatican in terms of its PR posture. First and most important is the on-going child abuse scandal.

Adding to its woes, the editor of the Vatican's weekly newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, has decided it's time to make peace with The Beatles.

From the weekend edition: "It's true, they took drugs; swept up by their success, they lived dissolute and uninhibited lives. They even said they were more famous than Jesus. But, listening to their songs, all of this seems distant and meaningless."

Fake Fake Things? Coffee Cup a Concession to Ugly Post-Modern World

This article was originally published by Technorati on 11 February 2010. To see all my Technorati articles, click Lifestyle in the Contents listing on the sidebar.

Are you kidding me? Has the world fallen in on itself? Something's gone haywire here.

The Daily Grommet has come up with a to go cup . . . that isn't. Called the I'm Not a Paper Cup and produced by Decor Craft, the ladies in a video posted to Shine on Yahoo! are fawning over this double-insulated porcelain replica of something you throw away as if it's just darling.

Mindy McCready Sex Tape and the PR Stunt

This article was first published by Technorati on 11 April 2010. To see all my Technorati articles, click Lifestyle in the Contents listing on the sidebar.

Here we go again. Another CD release, another sex tape faux-scandal publicity campaign. And Fox News has taken the bait with an exclusive story.

Troubled country starlet Mindy McCready is attempting to mount a comeback in conjunction with the release of her first CD in 8 years. The comeback comes on the heels of a well-timed sex tape that happens to have fallen into the hands of a porn production company.

McCready is the former mistress of retired pitcher Roger Clemens. So her sex tape is aptly titled Baseball Mistress--the porn industry has never been subtle with its titles, but this one lacks the humor value of most.

Vatican Publicists Could Learn from Their Hollywood Peers

This article was originally published by Technorati on 6 April 2010. To see all my Technorati articles, click Lifestyle in the Contents listing on the sidebar.

The AP is reporting that the Vatican has launched a counter-offensive against what it sees as wrongful accusations alleging that Pope Benedict XVI was in some way complicit in cases of sex abuse by priests in Ireland, the United States and elsewhere.

Through Vatican Radio and surrogates, high-ranking members of the College of Cardinals, the Pontiff has decided to fight fire with fire, countering what he sees as an orchestrated media campaign with one of his own, linking the calls of cover up with the Catholic stance against abortion and same-sex marriage.

Millionaire Gives Away Fortune, Keeps Next to Nothing

This article was originally published by Technorati on 11 February 2010. Well worth a second look. To see all my Technorati articles, click Lifestyle in the Contents listing on the sidebar.

Austrian millionaire Karl Rabeder has decided to give away all of the $6.7 million fortune he amassed in the furniture business because he said it made him miserable.

"My idea is to have nothing left. Absolutely nothing," he said in an interview with The Daily Telegraph. "Money is counterproductive – it prevents happiness to come."

Top Ten Signs You May Be Over-Identified With Your Team

The article that started it all . . .

This article was originally published by Technorati on 2 February 2010. To see all my Technorati articles, click Lifestyle in the Contents listing on the sidebar.

The AP has reported for years on a Minnesota farmer who has vowed he won't shave until the Vikings win the Super Bowl. 97-year-old Emmet Pearson's beard remains in place and 36-years long. He made the vow in 1974, the last time the Vikings made it to the big game.

While Mr. Pearson's stick-to-it-iveness is laudable--people these days don't keep vows like they used to--and funny, it points up the sort of identification with groups like sports teams that Eckhart Tolle in his seminal book on spirituality A New Earth says is one from the ego's playbook.

"One of the ways in which the ego attempts to escape the unsatisfactoriness of personal selfhood," Tolle writes, "is to enlarge and strengthen its sense of self by identifying with a group--a nation, political party, corporation, institution, sect, club, gang, football team."

Bingo! Isn't that Farmer Pearson in a nutshell? This list takes in a lot of us.

What sports teams accomplish or fail to accomplish really has nothing whatsoever to do with us. And yet we behave as if it does.

Here are ten signs you may be over-identifying with your team this Super Bowl:

Anna Paquin's Bisexuality Is Revealing

This article was originally published by Technorati on 2 April 2010. To see all my Technorati articles, click Lifestyle in the Contents listing on the sidebar.

Anna Paquin, winner at age 11 of the Best Supporting Actress award at the 1994 Oscars, now 27 and staring in True Blood, revealed yesterday she's bisexual in a public service announcement for Cyndi Lauper's "Give a Damn" campaign against sexual-orientation discrimination.

Let's see, she's been in Hollywood since age 11? Perhaps more interesting news would have been that she's straight.

It defies credulity to suggest that such women are the object of discrimination. Based on an abundance of movies, sitcoms, men's magazines, women's magazines, teen magazine's, talk shows, websites, porn sites, and idle male conversation, civilizations from other galaxies have long since decided that such women rule our world.

Indeed, men on every planet from here to Andromeda are high-fiving Paquin's True Blood co-star and fiancee Stephen Moyer on what should shape up to be a very happy coupling.

There But For the Grace of God?

This article was originally published by Technorati on 29 March 2010. To see all my Technorati articles, click Lifestyle in the Contents listing on the sidebar.

According to a New York Times report, Times Square is down to its last homeless person.

Homelessness has risen in other parts of the Big Apple. But Times Square, one of the many flagships of the NYC brand, has made major inroads towards cleaning up its act, a trend that began back in the early nineties under then Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

Tactics in the war on homelessness have changed over the years in New York. While in the past the emphasis may have been on the stick, today the carrot is more in vogue. Social workers have courted the lone holdout, an African-American man who goes by the handle Heavy (see photo). While their daily offers of free housing have fallen on deaf ears in Heavy's case, he is the last of seven hardcore street people who held out until just last summer.

But Heavy appears to be well respected by the long-time locals around Times Square. He's polite, well-groomed, adequately-dressed, finds coffee to drink, cigarettes to smoke, food to eat, a little spending money from generous strangers. Heavy even has a mission: he says he's "a protector of the neighborhood." And who's to say that he isn't?

Black Marriage Day A Celebration of Suffering

This article was originally published by Technorati on 26 March 2010. To see all my Technorati articles, click Lifestyle in the Contents listing on the sidebar.

Black Marriage Day is the 28th of March. What to wear? What to wear? Though I'm neither black nor married (with no prospects even), I'm pretty excited about it.

Some 300 communities across the country will celebrate the joys of marriage with various events, such as vow renewal ceremonies, marriage workshops, black tie galas and the premier of two marriage-related movies, You Saved Me and Why Did I Get Married Too?.

See the trailers . . .

No Role for Wisdom in American Jurisprudence

An edited portion of this article was published by Technorati on 25 March 2010. To see all my Technorati articles, click Lifestyle in the Contents listing on the sidebar.

Back in Solomon's day, judges were lauded for their wisdom. Not so today.

Take the lesbian prom case out of Itawamba County, Mississippi, for example. School officials canceled this years soiree when they learned that lesbian Constance McMillen and her girlfriend intended to attend as a couple.

The Spiritual Implications of Fad Diets

This article was originally published by Technorati on 23 March 2010. To see all my Technorati articles, click Lifestyle in the Contents listing on the sidebar.

Lot's of weight-loss diets out there promise to "beat the street," so to speak, in terms of taking off the weight. Shine from Yahoo! has identified five diets that don't perform as advertised.

Fads like grapefruit, maple syrup, apple vinegar, juice and cabbage soup diets will always be around so long as people seek to defy the conventional wisdom, that weight loss results from eating less and exercising more.

Application of this conventional wisdom will yield time-honored results, but when we find ourselves with unwanted pounds, why not take the opportunity to explore the spiritual implications of the situation? It might just aid us in our efforts to turn back the dial on the scale and change our lives for the better at the same time.

Some would even argue that spiritual awakening is our body's soul function. Indeed, there's no better example of a "come to Jesus" moment than the struggle to lose weight.

Will Miley Succumb to the Child Actor Curse?

This article was originally published by Technorati on 20 March 2010. To see all my Technorati articles, click Lifestyle in the Contents listing on the sidebar.

Is Miley Cyrus the next great child star waiting to flame out? All signs point to no.

In a recent Parade interview, she gave some insight into her own spirituality as well as her spiritual heritage.

With over $1 billion in earnings and a net worth of $50 million, Miley, unlike many other children of Hollywood who seem to have no foundation in faith of any sort, has her feet well-planted on the ground of another world.

Enlightened Billionaire Warren Buffett

This article was originally published by Technorati on 18 March 2010. To see all my Technorati articles, click Lifestyle in the Contents listing on the sidebar.

Warren Buffett may be rich and famous, but that doesn't mean he's resting on his laurels.

At a point in his career when most other rockers flame out with alcohol and drugs, Buffett continues to enjoy the creative process. He's out there making music as if he were still that skinny kid from Indiana struggling to make it in the LA music scene of the mid-1980s as frontman of a little known rock band that will one day become the legendary Guns and . . .

Wait a minute. No, sorry, that was Axl Rose. Who's this Buffett fellow again?