This page was formerly entitled ”Zap Xebra”, originally published June 20, 2008. It had exactly one page view in the one-year-plus that it existed. The text was “Very cool…now visit the rest of my Web site and VOTE FOR BARACK OBAMA”, with an embedded YouTube video, which can be found here.
I still have my perfect 200 posts.
The Great CNBC Sucks had agreed with John Carney to blog for The Business Insider twice per month. Unfortunately, the process of getting the first article below published was so frustrating that The Great CNBC Sucks deemed the entire endeavor would be a distraction and a waste of time. I had traded emails with CNBC’s Trish Regan (left) to interview her for a later piece for The Business Insider, but I will be telling her to forget I asked. That’s too bad; I was actually going to shoot for a more professional, serious style and content – of which I feel she is deserving – and I think it would have been a great interview and a unique interaction between a CNBC on-air personality and The Great CNBC Sucks.
Following are the article and personal bio which I submitted to Carney that never got published on The Business Insider:
The Great CNBC Sucks Blogs for The Business Insider, Wishes He Were Jewish
by The Great CNBC Sucks, July 26, 2009
The Great CNBC Sucks scores his first major scoop for The Business Insider: Starting today, The Great CNBC Sucks blogs for The Business Insider. The plan is for me to submit an article to Carney for publication on the 1st and 15th of every month. If John somehow manages to slip it past Henry, America gets a literary paycheck, if you will. However, I had the urge to write ahead of schedule, and so we begin the plan with an exception. Call it a surprise literary signing bonus.
Yesterday, I went on my daily four-mile jog. At the end of my run, I rested on a park bench for a few minutes before I was surrounded by a group of Jews who were arriving for a group picnic. I assume the people were Jewish because about one-third of the men were wearing kippot. Having always been fascinated by Jews – I have always been blessed with Jewish best friends, often rejected by Jewish women, and I almost even converted to Judaism until I concluded that a yarmulke was a direct invitation to a bald spot – I decided to vacate the premises for the water fountain but then surreptitiously observed the festivities from afar.
What I saw at the “Jewish picnic” made me wince with Jewish envy. While, of course, some of the men wore their religion on their head, no one seemed to wear their religion on their sleeve. It felt odd to witness a group of people obviously bonded together by a religious heritage enjoy each other’s company without religion being the defining and unifying factor. The people ate, and talked amongst themselves, and played Frisbee, and I got the feeling that Abraham, Moses, or even Yahweh was the farthest thing from these people’s minds. I also developed a deep suspicion that there were some secularists, agnostics, and even atheists present at that “Jewish picnic”.
Now, try including some secularists, agnostics, and atheists at a “Christian picnic”. You can’t. What images come to your mind if I suggested that we go to a “Christian picnic”? Fish symbols? Antiseptic, hypocritical, holier-than-thou company? Awful Christian rock? The very word “Christian” has become defined by the most rabid, fundamentalist, born-again fringe, just as “Republican” has become defined by the most corporatist, militarist, right-wing extreme. While any Jew is a Jew and will always have the privilege of being a Jew, there are many “Christians” who would deny me my “Christianity” merely on the basis that I am Roman Catholic, much less my “un-Christian” beliefs and behavior. And what makes the situation truly bad is that we Americans – collectively high-minded as we are to be careful not to judge other cultures by their fanatics – are often only too willing to surrender essential institutions of our own heritage and let those institutions be defined by the uncompromising few.
The Great CNBC Sucks is a Christian and a Republican, because I was born a Christian and I grew up a Republican. Deal with it, or deal with it not. I refuse to vacate the premises of my heritage just because my personal beliefs do not abide by the current and strictest momentary connotations of those words. And anyone who cares about Christianity would be wise to learn something from what it means to be “Jewish”, and help reclaim a softer edge to what it means to be “Christian”; institutions endure only when they adapt and remain inclusive of their own members. I would like to attend a “Christian picnic” again someday. Would someone please form a group called ‘Secular Christians, Casual Gentiles, and Christmas-and-Easter-Only Catholics”?
Enjoy your Sabbath.
The Great CNBC Sucks’ Bio
The Great CNBC Sucks is widely regarded as the John D. Rockefeller (and not Jr. either) of the global “CNBC sucks” blog industry. While details are sketchy, The Great CNBC Sucks has disclosed publicly that he works in the energy business and has an MBA from a perennial top-five business school (therefore, not MIT or the University of Chicago). One of the best-known registered Republicans in the financial blogosphere due to his obsessive-compulsive rants on Barry Ritholtz’s The Big Picture, The Great CNBC Sucks claims to have defeated CNBC, helped the Democrats, and saved America using Republican tactics during the 2008 election campaign through his initial literary masterpiece, CNBC Sucks. The Great CNBC Sucks has been accused of “channeling” Hunter S. Thompson and James Joyce without actually having read either one’s work or even having stopped to browse the literature section of a Barnes & Noble. Forever the “pre-millionaire”, The Great CNBC Sucks hopes to stay on Henry’s good side long enough to parlay his exposure on The Business Insider into a profitable line of dystopian erotica novels to be sold at airport bookstores everywhere.
Disclosure: The Great CNBC Sucks is a regretful long-term investor in Microsoft and Cisco, has holdings in various index funds, and has somehow managed to accumulate a handful of assorted worthless coins from various international travels.
Contact him at http://cnbcsucks.wordpress.com/contact/
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