Why I sold Aurora Cannabis

By Michael Hooper

I recently sold all of my marijuana stocks and put all of the proceeds into Turning Point Brands (TPB). Pot stocks fell 30% after Canadian legalization October 17th, and Turning Point Brands is down just 1% since October 17th.

I think there will be future opportunities in cannabis stocks when they will be much cheaper.

But right now I go with my instinct that there was a bubble. On Oct 17, I felt a similar uneasiness when Bitcoin was at $15,000 in December 2017, and I sold the Bitcoin at $10,000 per coin before the price fell all the way to $6,200. I suffered from Fear Of Losing All My Gains and sold while I still had a nice profit.

When there's over buying and over exuberance there is usually high prices. I saw this in the land market in the Midwest with farm land selling for up to $10,000 per acre in 2012. Land prices later softened due to poor commodity prices.

In the book "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and The Madness of Crowds," the author Charles MacKay talks about some disturbing Trends in the human psyche on a mass scale. His book looks at The South Seas Bubble, The Mississippi Scheme and The Tulip Bubble, the Crusades, Witch Hunts and Alchemy. Let me throw in the 2000 Tech Bubble Crash and the Mortgage Crisis of 2008 that led to a 50% drop in the stock market; the 2017 Bitcoin Run Up to $19,000 and the Pot Market High of 2018.

Crowd hype is cheer leading, it's performed every day in business, sports and politics. Congratulations to the Boston Red Sox for beating the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 2018 World Series, 4-1. 

Hype ebbs and flows with the crowds. Traders that I talked to were expecting a pot stock sell off around October 17th the day recreational cannabis became legal in Canada.

I watched a sell-off occur on October 17th as Canopy Growth hit $59 a share and then quickly retreated and fell into the low 40s and before you know it in a couple of days it was headed even lower, into the 30s. There was panic in the market. On October 22nd, I sold Canopy at 43. I had watched Aurora Cannabis (ACB) climb over $10 per share, but was sliding. I sold Aurora Cannabis at $9.50 per share.

Canopy and Aurora both fell 30% after I sold them. The same day I sold I also bought shares of Turning Point brands at $42.40 per share, the stock recently traded at $41.63, down 1.8%.

Turning Point Brands sells products such a Zig-Zag papers that serve the Cannabis Market but does not sell cannabis. Turning Point Brands is a consumer non-cyclical, my favorite type of company, it sells products like Vapes that people want every day of the year.

A hot seller in the Cannabis Market is cigar wraps. Turning Point Brands Zig-Zag brand sells cigar wraps that are immensely popular among smoking connoisseurs.

Turning Point brands also sells chewing tobacco like Beech-Nut and Stoker's, and Red Cap pipe tobacco and Zig-Zag Cigarillos.

In the electronic vapor Market the company's Vapor Beast and Vaporshark products are sold widely.

Own the Steady-Eddy everyday seller, and you will make money. I've had good luck owning tobacco stocks in the past and this company Turning Point Brands has only an $805 million dollar market cap compared to the market caps of these cannabis stocks like Aurora Cannabis (ACB) at $6 billion.

I like the strategy of Turning Point Brands: "Our growth will be driven by focusing on nurturing and growing our key Brands and sales Platforms in the tobacco, vapor and non-tobacco space, improving the efficiency of our operations, and expanding our capabilities and product breadth through additional Acquisitions and innovation."

Lawrence S. Wexler is president and CEO of Turning Point Brands. He previously worked 21 years for Philip Morris. TPB is a Louisville, Ky., company that can capitalize on this pot Market by selling papers and wraps to smokers.

Aurora Cannabis and Canopy Growth should be around a long time. They are well capitalized and will be growing operations rapidly. I will wait six months to see how the Cannabis sector looks. In the meantime, I have to make capital work for me, and for this, I put the money into Turning Point Brands.

Disclosure: The author owns Turning Point Brands (TPB) and may buy more shares under $40 per share.

Berkshire Hathaway: A Conviction Buy

By Michael Hooper

Looking at Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-A, BRK-B) over the past 25 years, I have paid close attention to its Price/Book Ratio. This is the price of the stock divided by its book value. Most banks trade around book value, which is assets minus liabilities. Berkshire Hathaway is not a bank nor a pure play financial company. It is a conglomerate with 100 different companies in insurance, transportation, energy, aviation, manufacturing and retail, plus a large portfolio of stocks like Apple (AAPL) and Coca-Cola (KO).

Over the past five years, Berkshire Hathaway's price to book ratio has ranged between 1.196 times book value to 1.58 times book value, with the average at 1.4 times book, according to Ycharts.

During the past 13 years, the highest P/B Ratio of Berkshire Hathaway Inc was 1.90. The lowest was 1.03. And the median was 1.35, according to GuruFocus.

Currently the price of Berkshire Hathaway Class A stock is trading around $300,000 per share, and the Class B Shares are $200 per share. The book value per share is $218,350 per class A share or about $145.56 for the B share at end of second quarter 2018.

$300,000/$218,350=1.373
B shares are worth 1/1500 of A share.

During my years of observation, Berkshire stock always seems to be a buy when it is trading around 1.3 times book value, the stock usually recovers to around 1.4 to 1.5 times book. If the stock were to recover to 1.45 times book value, the stock would trade at $316,607 per A share or $211 per B share.

In the Berkshire Hathaway owners manual, Warren Buffett talks about the important measure of book value and how it relates to the intrinsic value of the company. Buffett closely watches the intrinsic value of the company because he believes that is a true representation of the company's value.

He says intrinsic value is the discounted value of the cash that can be taken out of a business during its remaining life. 

Buffett calls the book value figure as a "rough albeit significantly understated tracking measure for Berkshire's intrinsic value." A percentage change in book value in any given year is likely to be reasonably close to that year's change in intrinsic value. Buffett has been able to grow book value of the company at an average annual increase of 19% since he took over management of the company in 1965.

Last summer Berkshire Hathaway made its buy back policy more liberal to buy back shares trading above 1.2 times book value.

It wouldn't surprise me to see Berkshire Hathaway buy back shares below $200 per B share or below $300,000 per share on the A shares.

Third quarter earnings for Berkshire Hathaway will be hampered by hurricane damage, but I expect large gains in railroad, manufacturing, retail and energy.

Keep in mind, Price/Book value is just one way to measure a company. Price/Earnings ratio is a popular way to measure a company.

Currently Berkshire's P/E ratio is about 10.4. J.P. Morgan analyst Sarah DeWitt's B-share Dec. 2019 price target is $250, giving the stock about an 18% upside potential, according to this article at Seeking Alpha.

Disclosure: The author owns shares of Berkshire Hathaway, and recently purchased more shares of the stock, and may buy more below $200 per B share.

Isabella Stewart Gardner: An Obsession In Art

Isabella Stewart Gardner by John Singer Sargent.

By Michael Hooper

Isabella Stewart Gardner was an extraordinary woman for her day and time in America. She cultivated arts, culture and music in Boston during the late 1800s, early 1900s. She loved intelligent educated artistic men like Henry James, John Singer Sargent, F Marion Crawford, the writer. She was a leading American art collector, philanthropist and Patron of the Arts. She was founder of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, on the Fenway.

Isabella Stewart Gardner amassed a huge collection of art, letters and books through the late 1800s early 1900s in Boston. She was born in New York she was educated in Paris and married a wealthy Boston businessman at age 18 in 1860. They traveled extensively to Japan, Cambodia, Jerusalem, Constantinople, and spent much of their time in Venice, where she gathered ideas for her own museum. Heather and I visited her museum in September after I read her biography Mrs Jack by Louise Hall Tharp, which I discovered in a shop bookshelf in July in Pine River Minnesota.

Isabella Stewart was born in New York, April 14th 1840. she was the daughter of a wealthy linen Merchant David Stewart and Adelia Smith Stewart. She claimed her family tree could be traced to Scottish nobles.

Her family attended Grace Church in New York. When she was 16 years old family moved to Paris where Isabella was enrolled in a school for American girls and her classmates included the wealthy Gardner family of Boston. She stayed in contact with Julia Gardner of Boston. In 1857 Isabella was taken to Italy where she saw a collections of Renaissance art. She said at the time if she was ever to inherit some money she would create a similar house for people to enjoy.

Shortly after returning to New York her former classmate Julia Gardner invited her to Boston where she met Julia's brother John Lowell Jack Gardner. He was the son of John L and Catherine E Peabody Gardner, and one of Boston's most eligible bachelors. They married in Grace Church on April 10th 1860 and then lived in a house that Isabella's father gave them as a wedding gift at 152 Beacon Street in Boston they would reside there for the rest of Jack's life. They also had homes in Brookline and Beverly outside of Boston.

Jack and Isabella had one son but he died about 2 years later. She had a miscarriage and was told that she could not bear any more children. This development sank her into a depression. On the advice of her doctors she and Jack traveled to Europe in 1867. The couple spent almost a year traveling, visiting Scandinavia and Russia but spending most of their time in Paris. The trip was sort of a turning point in her life long habit of keeping scrapbooks of our travels. On page 49 we see Bella Gardner Illustrated her journal with watercolor sketches many of them remarkably good in all of them credible. She wrote in her journal during many a peaceful hour and sometimes watched Palm Groves in the early Moonlight letting her thoughts fly away with the mini white sailed caiques the floated out into the fading light. Coincidentally Jack Gardner also kept a diary. His was more of a record of places they saw and things they did. 

In 1874 they travel to Egypt and saw the pyramids. They also traveled to Palestine and Jerusalem and saw the Dead Sea. Mrs. Jack drank from the River Jordan and filled a bottle with river water, this she took home with her as a sacred Relic along with some desert sand from Egypt.They're also traveled to Beirut and Greece and Constantinople

.

While in Paris she shopped for the latest fashions, some were a bit risque for Boston Society, her neckline was a bit low for the uppity crowd. Page 134 John Gardner overheard a story that was going around in the Men's Clubs, 'Sargent had painted Mrs. Gardner all the way down to Crawford's notch.'' She loved the painting and said it was the best thing he ever did. She paid him $3,000 for it. She rejected his depiction of her face several times before he finally got it right. Sargent had hoped to exhibit it at the next Paris Salon but Mr. Gardner refused and decreed that the portrait should never again be publicly exhibited and it never was during his lifetime. She continued to say it was the best thing Sargent  ever did. The painting was exhibited at Boston's Saint Botolph. Today it hangs in the gothic room at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

The Gardner's kept a large house in Beacon Street but also had a house in Beverly outside of Boston. There they did horseback riding and had a large garden.

She she helped raise three nephews and saw to it that they got a good education. The nephew's often lived with them. She read to them several Charles Dickens' books, including Pickwick Papers, Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, David Copperfield and A Tale of Two Cities.

Isabella Gardner was not the most beautiful woman in the world she perhaps was the most fashionable in Boston. She wore diamonds in her hair crafted by Tiffany. Maud Howe Elliott, writing from Rome to the Boston Transcript, said Mrs. Jack Gardner wore wonderful costumes from Paris and such furs, sables and chinchillas.

Perhaps one of the most amazing contributions to come out of her life was the idea of sponsoring artists and writers. No doubt she seemed fond of young Harvard Men, but she genuinely was curious and willing to sponsor intelligent intellectuals and artists.

By 1894 the Gardners had established a pattern of spending alternate summers in Europe. 

The Gardners often sponsored artists and writers and Young students at Harvard. Bernard Berenson was one such a fellow. On page 129 he wants to win the Parker traveling fellowship at Harvard his marks were high especially in languages and he knew that he and only one other student were being considered the other Man won. But some of Berenson's professors and a few friends raised several hundred dollars to give Berenson a traveling fellowship. The Gardners were among them. Over time Berenson would prove to be a valuable resource in helping Isabella Gardner acquire art in Europe.

One George Proctor, a budding musician, seemed to attract her attention. She sponsored him so he could study in Vienna. A total of $7,000 in 1892 so he could study under Leschetizky (page 159). He wrote letters to Mrs. Jack. These letters encouraged her. She invited him to join the Gardners in Venice in 1893.

Venice at this time would have been amazing. George met with musicians in the Palazzo Barbaro. He was treated like an honored guest. Page 180, he gushed about how great this experience was for him.

She took guests in a big gondola and hired a piano and musicians and loaded them all onto other boats and had them follow her and play music along the Grand Canal. Fireworks could be seen every night. (page 182).

After Jack died, she started working on her museum. She hired an architect who went through extraordinary efforts to keep her satisfied. He hired workers from Italy to build her museum. Disgusted with their performance, she would often show them exactly how she wanted things done. She fired them but the architect would hire them back.

Her Museum is unique because she curated the entire thing she picked all of the art for the every room and the art is incredible dating all the way back to the time of Christ. She has art stones dating to the Phoenicians, she has art from the Romans and the Greeks, and she had many pieces by prominent artists like Rembrandt and Raphael. Many of these pieces she purchased at rock bottom prices from Nobles who were broke and needed cash.

When Heather and I visited the museum, we noticed it had changed considerably. It was located near the Massachusetts College of Art and Design and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Supporters of the Gardner museum added an entirely new wing to the museum to support a gift shop, library, conference rooms and cafeteria. All of those support services used to be in the original museum.

Some disturbing things happened over time. In the 1970s, a director of the museum sold the large Buddha that had been part of a Chinese Asian art collection.

In the original agreement for the museum, she said that if anyone tried to sell the contents of the museum, the entire collection is to be sold and proceeds given to Harvard.

I asked two different people in the museum if an Isabella Stewart Gardner could exist today. One man said no, because she was a product of her times. Another woman, however, said yes, a woman could indeed accomplish all that Gardner had done. There are certainly wealthy women today, but how many actually speak English and French and have read Dante and spent a lifetime corresponding with artists and writers who were as significant as her friends?

I tend to believe she was anomaly, unique in her upbringing, with finishing school in Paris and an aptitude for the arts. Her own journals were full of watercolors and drawings and descriptions of the places and people she met around the world. I can only think of Peggy Guggenheim as a similar force in a later era.

The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is making a lasting difference. The day we were there, I saw hundreds of people. I met a young man from Italy who was studying economics at MIT, he was totally enamored with the museum.

Revenge's Greatest Thrill

Sitting here thinking
of the novel I'll write.

About a teen-ager sent away to a group home

where home boys strip off his clothes in a cattle pin

and shove him into a pile of shit. His abusers laugh. 

Seething with anger and tears, he showers for hours, but he can't get clean, his revenge is to live well, much better than those mother fuckers.

He earns his college degree and lands a job covering school boards, crime and business. The small town newspaper seems to make him a hero. Jacko the sign painter is his drinking companion at the bar.

He walks daily on the beach of Antiparos, a Greek island. The expatriate plays backgammon with John Pierre, shares a Spleef and listens to The Doors' Riders on the Storm.

The Bitcoin trader buys it cheap and watches it go up 1O0 times, now he's rich living the High Life. He drives a Ferrari on Highway 101 at Laguna Beach, California.

Looking for meaning, he devours art and creativity. He lives intensely, connecting with humanity, nature and the universe.

He works in Yellowstone National Park, where he joins a group of naturalists who bath in the hot pots. They climb Electric Peak. Reaching the top, they jump up and touch 11,000 feet above sea level. He sees far away the Teton Mountains, their shimming purple peaks in the clouds.

He reads poems with friends on the river side, with a little wine and cheese, they dance by moonlight and see the Aurora Borealis rise in the northern sky. Revenge's greatest thrill.

A better way to live, thoughtful, balanced, minimalist. Work faster, make more money, breathe in the oxygen, it's free. The golfer swings easy, the ball goes farther, go figure.

For decades he buries the secret of his past at the boys home. Then one day he looks up his abuser's name Matthew Downing. It turns out Downing raped his probation officer, spent his life in jail. And died. Who is laughing now? 

The author and his wife raise two children. They reunite with his cousins in Puerto Rico, they see Paris together, they go to Yellowstone. They celebrate their love for each other.

The cold winter leaves him depressed, feeling a loss of energy, he curls under his blanket and watches the flames of fire dance in the fireplace.

Spring clouds disappear as the sun bakes his face. He shouts "I am alive." And spreads his arms into the sky. "This is all that I am and that is enough." Revenge's greatest thrill.

--Michael Hooper, Oct. 23, 2018

CBD Sales Boom In Kansas

CBD product sold by Quiet Trees, Lawrence, Kansas.

By Michael Hooper


A multimillion-dollar cannabidiol market has emerged in Kansas. A dozen stores selling CDB quickly opened in Lawrence and Topeka after CBD sales was approved on May 14, 2018. Insiders of this market say business is booming with sale of CBD products such as tinctures of oil and vapes. Some stores are generating $20,000 in sales of CBD oil per month in northeast Kansas. Retailers are selling CBD oil made with hemp from California, Oregon, Colorado and Kentucky. The quick response shows just how hungry consumers are for CBD in Kansas.

CBD oil is generated from hemp, the cannabis sativa plant that has virtually no THC.

Most of the hemp fiber is imported in Kansas and most of the CBD is domestic. Kansas has ideal growing conditions for hemp.

There is a lot of red tape for Kansas farmers to raise hemp through a research bill that passed in 2018, said Chris Brunin, CEO of Quiet Trees, a wholesaler of CBD products in Lawrence, Kan. The regulations for operating under the new hemp law are expected to be published by year's end.

Brunin said he wants to collaborate and consult with Kansas farmers who would like to grow hemp.

"With the climate, soil, and ingenuity of farmers, hemp could have a very bright future in Kansas," he said.

About 25 people gathered Monday, Oct. 15, 2018, in a room at the Jayhawk Theatre to talk about hemp in Kansas and the world.

Kansas has an opportunity to be a part of this hemp industry, said Rick Trojan, a lobbyist for the hemp industry. Trojan grows hemp in Colorado. He showed a movie of his Hemp Road Trip.

Industrial Hemp production was an important crop in Kansas in the late 1800s early 1900s. In 1863, Kansas led the nation in hemp bushels per acre. However, the hemp industry got wiped out with the passage of laws against marijuana, even though hemp has virtually no THC and cannot get you high.

Hemp can be manufactured into clothing, construction products, automobile and airline parts, health care products, food and energy. Depending on the strain of hemp, the plant can have 8% to 22% CBD, with virtually no THC, said Chris Brunin.

Brunin said it's difficult to tell how big the CBD Market will be in Kansas but it is quickly becoming a multimillion-dollar industry. There are dozens of places in Kansas already selling thousands of dollars worth of CBD oil per month.

Quiet Trees offers products through its website and wholesales product to retailers in Lawrence and elsewhere. CBD oil is sold in popular shops like Third Planet and Sacred Leaf in Lawrence. In Topeka, CBD American Shaman, CBD Healing Co are among the retailers of CBD.

CBD can be used to treat anxiety, epilepsy, pain and cancer side effects.

Industrial Hemp sales in the United States last year was about $820 million, according to Hemp Business Journal estimates.

Based on what he's seen so far in Kansas, Brunin estimated that the Hemp Market in Kansas is already worth $10 million in annual sales, but the sad part is the hemp is imported. Kansas farmers could easily grow hemp if regulations are not intrusive and expensive, said Brunin. He said there was a proposal to adopt a Kentucky-modeled piece of legislation for hemp in Kansas, but was not successful. The legislation adopted here has an application that is expected to be lengthy and intrusive, Brunin said.

I believe legislators need to create a free market in order for the hemp market to develop and prosper. With any new industry it is best to let the free market run.

Kentucky has been growing hemp since 1774. After many years of prohibition, Hemp was legalized for production with the stipulation hemp could not have more than 0.3% THC. The first 500-acre commercial crop was planted in Harrison County, Kentucky, in 2017, and research permits were issued for over 12,000 acres that year

Quiet Trees in Lawrence is a small operation yet it is growing quite rapidly selling CBD products including bottles of oil, vapes and tea. Last month the company did about $20,000 in wholesales. Brunin said sales have been growing 10% to 20% month-over-month since startup.

"This is exciting for me," Brunin said. "We've developed this product in house, it's really awesome, it looks very promising."

Even though drug enforcement agencies tried to eradicate hemp in Kansas, somehow the weed survived. It's resilient, the plant wants to be a part of the Kansas ecosystem, and Kansas could use it.

Intertextuality Is The Library Of The Mind

       Flowers in the Bon Bon Garden, Lawrence, Kansas

By Michael Hooper

Good prose is colorful, alive and meaningful. The use of intertextuality provides layers of meaning and connections in literature and art.

I've been reading two wonderful books about Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, two writers who used intertextuality in their works. The author of these two books is Robert D. Richardson Jr.

Intertextuality is the relationship between texts, especially literary ones. It can be said that every text is a product of intertextuality. An example of intertextuality is when a writer takes an old storyline like Homer's Odyssey and creates a new story with references and metaphors to the old story. 

It takes a tremendous memory and a good reader to recall on the fly useful references, allusions, symbols and lyrics from other authors and poets. I like to think of intertextuality as the Library of the Mind. It is all of these works that I've read over the years buried in my memory and subconscious. Arlen Lazaroff spoke in lyrics with other poets and artists. In the same thought he might quote Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds by the Beatles and White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane. Then Arlen would create new poems on the fly, using the texts of these hypnotic psychedelic songs. 

Intertextuality is hyper-consciousness, it's the state of being connected to multiple texts at the same time. It's rummaging through the library of your mind rather than going to Google to come up with answers and responses. Intertextuality lives. Tap this resource and you will see increased use of the right word.

So you master this artful literary technique but what do you use it for? To educate, to persuade, to be bombastic, to be evil, dictatorial? Or do you try to be an entertainer? The comedian. I think laughter is probably the most convenient way to persuade people because it's easy for the masses to digest. 

Donald Trump knows that fact. He recently called the Federal Reserve members crazy for raising interest rates. He was upset that the stock market fell 5%. Yet members of the Federal Reserve are not really crazy. He's just trying to get them to reverse course and stop raising interest rates. Raising interest rates gives value to the dollar and incentivizes people to save. But rising rates can drag down the stock market. And Donald Trump does not want to see the stock market decline during his term, nor the wealthy poorer at the end of his term.

Donald Trump knows how to capture an audience. Using hyperbole to make a point is necessary in a society with a short attention span. Too many people want to be fed information rather than research it out for themselves. I'm reminded of the song by George Harrison, Think for Yourself. I know some young people who grew up in the digital age and never learned how to read a physical map, they depend on GPS to get them where they want to go. That's fine until your phone dies.

The dead brain without Google will wander aimlessly, and be easily persuaded. The brain with a library of texts, guides and proverbs will digest, analyze and judge a matter with wisdom.

I think this word intertextuality can also be applied to other things in our lives and I'm thinking about artwork. Art without a story is meaningless. Blankness, emptiness and nihilism are conditions of a mind controlled by clickbait on the Internet.

Art with a story line is powerful. Think of The Garden of Earthly Delights by Bosch. I saw this painting in Madrid. it has countless story lines going through it. The three-segment painting begins with the birth of life in the first segment; the middle segment is full of decadence, and the third segment is full of death and dying. There are symbols of biblical narratives. The middle section is full of orgies. I'm in awe of this painting, I stood there for hours looking at all these people.

The best art reminds me of people in their joys, sufferings, cries, triumphs and defeat. With that in mind my wife and I recently went through a huge transformation of artwork in our house. We took down some paintings that have lost their luster and started over with a blank slate and recreated something that has intertextual visual power for us, each piece has layers of meaning to us, many of these pieces are  family members, old portraits, my dad with his dog, my mother as a Young Beauty. My father-in-law at Ponto Lake.  My mother-in-law with her three daughters. My daughter, my son, my beloved.

There's a drawing of John Lennon, who believed we should give peace a chance. And there's the picture of Jesus wearing the crown of thorns, agony in his face, yet looking up hopeful. There's the philosopher by artist Mary Huntoon, he looks sensitive and sad.

It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to go to the house of feasting: for that is the end of all men; and the living will take it to heart. Sorrow is better than laughter: for by a sad countenance the heart is made better. So says the author of Ecclesiastics. 

I have a lot of art by artists I know personally, there's layers of meaning in their art, I was a part of their lives, we had some great conversations, wonderful memories.

We moved three times in three years before we moved to Topeka. When we found our house here, I said I'm staying here till I die, I'm not moving again. The airport's only an hour away, if I want to escape this place. But I found that living is like a tree. The deeper our roots the broader our span. I dug deep where I am and searched out thinking people, lovely people, a vast array of colors, from people all over the world living here in my very neighborhood.

Where once there was a law to prevent black people from living here on my street (before the Civil Rights movement), there is now multiple black people and Native Americans, Gay and Jewish and Puerto Rican all living on my street. What an honor and a privilege to be around such an Eclectic group. They add layers of intertextuality to my life, by sharing and listening to them, I am connecting with them, I am richer for it. Their stories enlarge my universe. 

I recently saw my neighbors to the north of me at a local coffee shop. They shared their story of a recent journey through Minnesota, Wyoming, Montana and Yellowstone. I told them about a trip to California. Emerson went on a trip to California by train near the end of his life, upon seeing it, he said, a young person would never leave. Which gets me back to my point. This labyrinth of beautiful people in my neighborhood inspire me.

There is a majestic nature here. Amplified by my participation in two book clubs, my blog, and the newspaper The Oakland Express, Blackbird Coffee Shop, The Dutch Goose, The Bourgeois Pig. We have our own literary salon, with these hyper conscious people. We have rational discourse of equal, similar and opposite ideas. There is the NOTO Arts District in Topeka and the Cider Gallery in Lawrence. There are multiple studios and working artists sharing a common thing, a passion for creativity.  

The secret to useful intertextualization is to read deeply and connect the knowledge to your real life, in your literature, your communications, your speeches, your artworks, your poetry.

Use metaphors, myths and stories to amplify your message.

Intertextuality takes work. But I think it's rewarding. Connecting to multiple layers of literature is one reason Emerson's work is so timeless. It is the literature of achievement and activism. It is transformative. Transcendental.

We can be timeless, too. We can create art works that will be hung on museums 100 years from now. We can write works that will be read 100 years from now. Hopefully these works reflect something better than our folly. I hope that some day our literature and art reflect our ability to create intelligent operating systems, that improve all peoples, the Earth and the universe. Perhaps some day these intelligent operating systems will connect with life on other planets in the universe. Perhaps we already are connecting with alien life now but don't even know it.

Poet November Evelyn Wilde contributed ideas for this essay.

Rebalance Now, Buy Evergy Post Merger

By Michael Hooper

It's a good time to rebalance your stock portfolio while U.S. stock markets are near record highs.

I recently sold my losers and bought more of my winners and also entered into some new positions, including Evergy (EVRG), Nintendo (NTDOY), Canopy Growth (CGC), and Turning Point Brands (TPB).

I had purchased an overweight position in Eversource (ES) at 54 per share and then sold at 60.50 per share and used the proceeds to buy other stocks.

I took advantage of the run-up in Canadian cannabis stocks and sold some of my poor performing assets including Emerald Health (EMHTF) and Beleave (BLEVF).

Cannabis assets may be at all time highs but over the next several years may go even higher. So with assets trading at high multiples in the Canadian cannabis market, I took advantage of those prices and sold poor performing shares and then put the money into what I think will be better assets long-term.

Evergy (EVRG) is a combination of Westar Energy in Kansas and Great Plains Energy (Kansas City Light & Power) of Missouri. The merger closed on June 4, 2018. Now the companies are focusing on merger integration and rebalancing the capital structure. 

The merger integration plan includes shutting down some operations in Kansas and Missouri.

Evergy recently issued its second quarter 2018 earnings report.

The company says it has targeted earnings per share growth from $2.43 annually in 2016 to a range $3.25 to $3.57 by 2021, with a compound annual growth rate of 6% to 8%.

Evergy says it's targeted dividend growth is expected to be from $1.84 to a range of $2.19 to $2.32 by 2021, a compound annual growth rate of 6% to 8%.

The company expects to repurchase up to 60 million shares of common stock or 22% outstanding by mid-year 2020.

Think about it, the company is going to remove 1/5th of all shares from the public. That Buy-Back and the projected growth in earnings should drive the Evergy share price higher.

Financially, the merger of Westar and Great Plains Energy will be profitable for shareholders overtime. Most of the job cuts are coming through attrition, when people retire the company is not replacing those people. Some people are getting buyout packages as well but not most of the reductions in staff.

I don't want to be left behind on this. So I picked up some EVRG shares at $55.31.