Great news. My office isn’t going to be closed! I’ve suspected this for several months, especially after we got new computers in January. I’m going to continue taking classes though, because I don’t ever want to feel occupationally vulnerable again.

You with the sad eyes don’t be discouraged
I realize it’s hard to take courage
In a world full of people, you can lose sight of it all
And the darkness inside you can make you feel so small
But I see your true colors shining through
I see your true colors and that’s why I love you
Lyric from Cyndi Lauper, True Colors

I got my cast taken off last week. Actually, I took it off myself. I was tired of wearing it.

When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary.
Quotation from Thomas Paine

The economy is stuck in an unvirtuous cycle.
Quotation from Mark Vitner, Wells Fargo Bank economist

This is probably the coldest summer on record for San Francisco and the surrounding bay area. Our famous layer of marine air– which provides natural air conditioning to California’s coast– is unusually persistent this year. On some days, the sun barely peeks through the fog by noon.
The best time to view the meteor showers is between midnight and 5am. But by midnight, the sky is already shrouded by thick fog; I cannot see any shooting stars.

Perseids Meteor Shower and Viewing Tips (If you see a falling star, don’t forget to make a wish)

The header photo of abandoned budget motels was taken in Reno, Nevada across the street from the Silver Legacy Casino.

I can’t do it alone. The poor can’t, the rich can’t. What’s needed is universal agreement on basic needs such as education, healthcare, housing, justice, resource management, fairness and human rights. We can no longer afford the hatreds of war, racism, sexism, intolerance and other inequities. It has been 65 years since the formation of the United Nations to promote economic development, social progress and world peace. Nothing of cooperative substance has happened since. Perhaps it is time to move the United Nations from New York City to East Jerusalem, making Jerusalem an international city accessable to all. If we put our minds together, even the most vexxing world problems could be solved.

“Freedom from fear” could be said to sum up the whole philosophy of human rights.
Quotation from Dag Hammarskjold

The tragic oil “spill” in the Gulf of Mexico continues. BP CEO Tony Hayward’s congressional hearing this week was a disappointment. I wanted him to tell Congress that BP takes every precaution to prevent accidents like this. I wanted to hear that safety and protecting the environment is as important to him as profits. After all, Mr. Hayward was appointed in 2007 to “clean up” BP after the Texas City refinery fire of 2005 and the Prudhoe Bay pipeline spills that occured the following year. But instead of changing the penny-pinching corporate culture of BP, he cut expenses and eliminated 7,500 jobs.

Does America’s rightous indignation make you feel uncomfortable? It does me. Two months ago, we were angry at Goldman Sachs. BP is just the villain du jour. The underlying problem is we– as a society– tolerate expediency over having to make difficult choices. Too many of us think it’s ok to use torture as a tool in the war against terrorism. Why do Republicans and Democrats point fingers at each other rather than fix the health care system or Social Security? Where is the indignation over having 300,000 homeless children in California?
Doing the right thing proactively is always less costly and painful than damage control after something bad happens.

Far From Gulf, a Spill Scourge 5 Decades Old (The New York Times) “The Niger Delta, where the wealth underground is out of all proportion with the poverty on the surface, has endured the equivalent of the Exxon Valdez spill every year for 50 years.”

Be inspired by: The Excitement is Building (on Habitat for Humanity) “Everyone is pretty ordinary. No divas or superstars. But together we make a very big difference.”

Not everything is fixable. I don’t now which is worse- knowing something can’t be fixed, or knowing it can be fixed and doing nothing about it. Either way, it translates into feelings of uselessness and inadequacy. And why is it so easy to put off important things until tomorrow, when fixing them today would be much less painless.

“Procrastination” Tales Of Mere Existence (YouTube)

Procrastination is, hands down, our favorite form of self-sabotage.
Quotation from Alyce P. Cornyn-Selby

Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task.
Quotation from William James

“What’s in the cookie batter?” she wanted to know. “Lots of sugar,” he said. “Just remember I’m not responsible if you don’t like them.”

Goldman Sachs charged with fraud by SEC “These charges are far more severe than anyone had imagined,” and suggest Goldman teamed with “the leading short-seller in the industry to design a portfolio of securities that would crash,” said John Coffee, a securities law professor at Columbia Law School in New York. (Reuters)

Abacus Allowed Goldman to Shuffle Mortgage Risk Like Beads “The SEC said that Goldman Sachs created and sold Abacus 2007-AC1 without disclosing that hedge fund Paulson & Co. helped pick the underlying securities and also bet the CDO would default. Paulson was proved correct, and his hedge fund eventually turned a $1 billion profit and CDO investors lost a similar amount, according to the SEC.” (Bloomberg)

The product was new and complex but the deception and conflicts are old and simple. Goldman wrongly permitted a client that was betting against the mortgage market to heavily influence which mortgage securities to include in an investment portfolio, while telling other investors that the securities were selected by an independent, objective third party.
Quotation from SEC Enforcement Director Robert Khuzami

Here’s my plan: I want to be practical. I want to work in the writing/photography/graphics field, but my background is in banking/economics/finance. I need to be completely honest with myself, but I’m torn. Do I make the risky choice or the safe choice? Tell me– What should I do?

Don’t compromise yourself. You are all you’ve got.
Quotation from Janis Joplin

I have been struggling for many years in pursuit of a career in opera and am finding that it’s the people who have money behind them who are getting places, whether or not they have the best voices… So, yes, I’d marry for money at this point. After all, having the career would make me happy.
Quotation from “pvlstar” on iVillage.com

While $1 million or $2 million may sound like a lot to people making $30,000, it’s hardly enough to transform someone’s life or make them “rich” by contemporary billionaire standards.
Quotation from Robert Frank, Marrying for Love of Money

I’ve been flying by the seat of my pants. It has been a month since I’ve been told my department will be shutting down in six to twelve months, so time is precious. I’ve decided to take the Series 66 Registered Investment Advisor examination. I don’t know if that’s really what I want to do, but it gives me another option to pursue careerwise. And that means my updates to Encore Seraphine (and my time online) will be less frequent for a few weeks to a month.
Yes, I’m doing this on purpose. I love you all, and thank you for understanding.

Happy were she could finish forth her fate
In some unhaunted desert, where, obscure
From all society, from love and hate
Of worldly folk; then might she sleep secure.
Poem from Robert Devereux, A Passion of my Lord of Essex

Everyone thinks they know themselves. After all, we live in the back alleys of our minds smelling the same soup every day. But how self-aware are we really? Are we like my Uncle Clem who seems mindless that his house smells like dog urine? Do we get so used to ourselves that we can’t smell what is obvious to everyone else?

While Washington poured billions into propping up the banks and financial institutions that brought our economy to its knees, the Chinese spent their stimulus billions on an epic 19,000 miles of new railroad track. Nearly half of that total will go towards completing a web of more than 42 inter-province hyperspeed rail lines that will link almost every major city in the country. The fastest of the new trains travel at 229 miles per hour. So China comes out of the economic crisis with a rail system that will be the envy of the world.
Quotation from Graydon Carter, Wild on the Street, Vanity Fair