Speaking of beginnings and endings

Thoughts at large:

Who’d have thought that banking — a business where you collect money from everyone else — would be the worst business in America?

Remember the good old days when a 300-point market swing was not a biweekly event?

CEOs and superstar athletes are the only folks I know who make millions when batting .160.

I just don’t think God meant for us to build houses on stilts on beaches.

If this were 1740, half of Wall Street would be in stocks in the public square.

Meg Ryan, who is back to trashing ex Dennis Quaid for having cheated — and “made” her then cheat with Russell Crowe — needs to move on.

And is it just me, or do women air far more dirty laundry than men?

Even though the print is half-blurry, I sometimes refuse to use magnifiers because I’m not ready to admit defeat.

Can’t they make a hot-water heater that doesn’t flood the furnace room when it breaks?

Sarah Palin has accomplished a lot in her life, but picking her for vice president is like putting a youth-football star in the NFL.

While boarding a nine-seat commuter plane from Martha’s Vineyard to New Bedford, in Massachusetts, I saw huge private jets that seat 20-plus and asked the pilot about them. Often, he said, they carry only one passenger. He added: “Usually, it’s a woman and a dog.”

I’m thinking it’s ironic when Rush Limbaugh, of all people, mocks Barack Obama for being too full of himself.

Come on; even if you like Rush, you can’t tell me he’s modest.

Missing the ’roids

The home-run race is not as interesting without steroids.

PETA now wants Ben and Jerry’s to spare cows and use human breast milk. Udderly ridiculous.

If Bill Clinton isn’t on the John McCain campaign payroll, he should be.

I knew gas prices were high, but now I read people are playing less Keno so they can fill their tanks. That’s bad.

It’s been so long I can’t be sure, but I have this vague memory that once, houses actually increased in value.

I hear Johnny Depp may play Tonto in a Lone Ranger movie opposite George Clooney. If the movie is updated for our times, Tonto will be a casino tycoon and the Lone Ranger his pit boss.

I’m still waiting to be cast opposite Clooney in a big-screen thriller about a columnist who does lists like this one.

But if that happens, I’ll definitely make my subsequent project an indie film to maintain my street cred.

To borrow a phrase, the McCain campaign’s muzzling of Sarah Palin is the soft bigotry of low expectations.

In a presidential campaign, I think the phrase “I’m setting politics aside” means “I’m not setting politics aside.”

Is it a bad sign that I see lots of lawyers now advertising bankruptcy services?

As much as extremist Muslims don’t like us, Iraq’s Sunni-Shiite mess is a reminder that many of them don’t like each other even more.

There are a thousand great Paul Newman lines to remember him by, but I’d pick this one from “Hud” since it doesn’t get the airtime it deserves: “The only question I ever ask any woman is, ’What time is your husband coming home?’ “

Finally, let’s end with a prescient question from a financial analyst: “Is this the beginning of the end or the end of the beginning?”

X Mark Patinkin writes for the Providence Journal. Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service.