Category: Persons

People who interest me

What To Drink on 420 Day

Heineken presumably knew what they were letting themselves in for when they put up a half-billion dollars last year to purchase half ownership of Lagunitas Brewing. Tony Magee founded the brewery in Petaluma California. Since then, most non-profit events in Sonoma County featured Lagunitas beer donated by Mr. Magee. The brewery also made headlines with the great marijuana bust of 2005. Lagunitas suffered through a twenty-day license suspension imposed by the state Alcohol Beverage Control Board. Unapologetic, the company periodically releases a seasonal brew labeled “Lagunitas Undercover Investigation on Shutdown or ‘Whatever, We’re Still Here’.” Still here… and there, too. Lagunitas has expanded to Azusa, Chicago, Charleston and Seattle.

So, of course Lagunitas is commemorating 420 day. According to legend, the day’s origins can be traced to high schoolers in San Rafael, just a few miles down Highway 101 in Marin County.

Lagunitas will celebrate – the operative word no doubt will be “celebrate” – twenty-five years of brewing in 2018.

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The Oracle of Omaha

The Chairman of the Board of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. is perennially in the top three of the Forbes magazine list of wealthiest Americans. Warren Buffett’s letter to shareholders in the company’s annual report is must reading for many. The letter has become so popular that it is copyrighted and posted on Berkshire’s web site with access given to everyone. The first letter, written in 1978, discloses information about Blue Chip Stamps, one of Berkshires major holdings. The letters contain an aw-shucks overview of the company’s financial performance and explanations of how their major businesses work, including how to make money in the insurance business. They are filled with criticism of other corporate leaders and their outsized compensation packages, which in the end are not tied to actual financial results.

In his latest letter, as in most, Buffett, with his homespun style, offers his investment advice. Not flashy, but sound strategy for the long run.

“The bottom line: When trillions of dollars are managed by Wall Streeters charging high fees, it will usually be the managers who reap outsized profits, not the clients. Both large and small investors should stick with low-cost index funds.”

“Human behavior won’t change. Wealthy individuals, pension funds, endowments and the like will continue to feel they deserve something “extra” in investment advice. Those advisors who cleverly play to this expectation will get very rich.”

“Over the years, I’ve often been asked for investment advice, and in the process of answering I’ve learned a good deal about human behavior. My regular recommendation has been a low-cost S&P 500 index fund. To their credit, my friends who possess only modest means have usually followed my suggestion.”

The folksy letter finishes with summary of the upcoming shareholders meeting, a three-day bacchanal for the conservative investor. Nearly forty-thousand shareholders will travel to Omaha for the event.

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The Romans and the First Good Friday

Mt. Calvary (Golgotha) today

The Romans occupying Galilee had a preferred remedy for Jewish rabble rousers stirring up the common folk: crucifixion. It was the favored method of executing slaves and enemies of the state. Being crucified was considered the most shameful and disgraceful way to die. Condemned Roman citizens were usually executed by other means. Crucifixion was a slow, painful death, carried out publicly. Corpses of the crucified were typically left on the crosses to decompose and be eaten by birds and animals, a reminder to others under Roman rule about who was in charge.

To the Romans there was nothing special about Jesus of Nazareth; he was just another itinerant prophet roaming the area preaching and performing miracles. Jesus spoke of another kingdom, the kingdom of god that his followers should be striving for. Jesus and others were guilty of sedition and were dealt with quickly and brutally by their Roman occupiers.

(Here is a Top Ten list of fun ways people were executed in the ancient – and not-so-ancient – world.)

Historians and religious scholars have tried to draw a portrait of Jesus of Nazareth from the scant historical evidence apart from any judgment about divinity. It was Reza Aslan, though, who stirred up controversy with the publication of his book Zealot. Aslan’s offense was having the temerity to be a Muslim of Iranian descent. Never mind that he was a religious scholar and a professor at the University of California, Riverside. Take a look at a popular news outlet’s interview with Mr. Aslan.

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The Latest Tourist Destination

You may recall Salinas as the place where Bobby McGee slipped away. It’s also John Steinbeck’s hometown. Salinas was so proud if its native son that they burned his masterpiece The Grapes of Wrath on Main Street. Citizens felt insulted by the roguish characters inhabiting his novels Tortilla Flat, Cannery Row, East of Eden, Of Mice and Men. Many of the picaresque adventures Steinbeck depicted took place in California’s Salinas Valley and Monterey Peninsula.

Over the years, stubborn Steinbeck fans have made pilgrimages to the California coast south of San Francisco to take in the settings and get a feel for the moods of Steinbeck’s novels. As the fortunes of the city of Salinas waned, and commerce moved away from the downtown core, the city leaders struggled with how to revive the local economy. The shiny new National Steinbeck Center opened in 1998 at 1 Main Street. The multi-media museum includes among its features “Rocinante,” the GMC pickup and camper namesake of Don Quixote’s horse that was Steinbeck’s traveling home as he toured the U.S. for Travels with Charley, his attempt to illuminate the soul of America. The facility’s archives contain original manuscripts of the author’s work, correspondence and video interviews.

The Center, and its annual Steinbeck Festival (May 5-7 this year) brings tens of thousands of visitors to the otherwise drab farming town. Restaurants and other tourist-oriented business on and around Main Street are thriving. Travel writers are spreading the word about Salinas as a vacation destination.

The National Steinbeck Center on its own is worth the trip. Only a short distance away is the Monterey Bay Aquarium. You will need more than one day to experience both.

Culinary note: If you like donuts, real donuts, not the fancy four-dollar “gourmet” kind, or the hipster Voo-Doo experience, go to Red’s Donuts in downtown Monterey. You will be satisfied.

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