On a Side Note...

One thing I haven't missed... Bernie Madoff. Investigators are trying to figure out whether the financial fraud allegedly perpetrated by Bernard L. Madoff was, in fact, the largest Ponzi scheme in history.

The New York home of Bernard Madoff, who's accused in a $50 billion Ponzi scheme.

But for obvious reasons, I'm pretty sick of Bernie, but I would like to cover another question: what is a Ponzi scheme? And why does it bear this name? First, you need to know a little bit about its namesake, Charles Ponzi. Fortunately, CNN covered it for me! So I don't have to write it so much!
Anyone can work a simple swindle, but you have to be a special kind of con man to have your name become synonymous with "fraud." Ponzi pulled it off, though. After arriving in the U.S. from Italy in 1903, Ponzi knocked around in a variety of unskilled jobs that usually ended when he got into trouble for theft or cheating customers.
A few years later, he moved to Canada, where he spent a hitch in prison for passing a forged check. When he eventually drifted back down to the U.S., he needed a way to make some quick cash.
Making money via mail
Ponzi eventually found his way to get rich quick using a vagary of the postal system. At the time, it was common for letters abroad to include an international reply coupon -- a voucher that could be exchanged for minimum postage back to the country from which the letter was sent.
Thus, if you sent your buddy in France a letter, you could include a coupon so he could respond. (This practice still exists but is less common.) As exchange and postal rates fluctuated, though, there was an opportunity to make a profit. You only had to purchase postal reply coupons cheaply in some foreign country, send them back to the U.S. to swap them out for American stamps of a higher value, then sell these stamps.
This arrangement was perfectly legal; it was just cleverly gaming the system. Ponzi started buying and selling postal reply coupons using agents in his native Italy, and he was making a good living doing it.
Unfortunately, whatever defect made Ponzi steal from his employers and pass bad checks prompted him to get greedy here, too. He started to recruit investors into his system with the promise of 50 percent returns in just a few days. Investors would pay their cash in, and sure enough, Ponzi would get them the promised return.
Everyone was happy with the results, and word started to spread about this Italian financial wizard. Within two years, he had employees all over the country recruiting new takers for this foolproof investment strategy.
Ponzi was pocketing millions, and he enjoyed a sumptuous life outside of Boston. At his peak, Ponzi was raking in $250,000 a day, which enabled him to collect such necessities as gold-handled canes. He became a celebrity investor, almost like the Warren Buffett of his day.
The scheme
Why is it hard to think of Ponzi's name without affixing "scheme" to the end of it, then? Ponzi's underlying "business" -- the arbitrage on the postal coupons -- wasn't actually as sound as he claimed. In fact, there wasn't even really a business.
However, since so much money was flowing in from new investors, he could just pay off the returns for the old ones from the new cash. In fact, Ponzi didn't even need to pay off the old investors, since many of them wanted to reinvest their returns in this wonderful business. Ponzi's charms made it easy for him to placate any worried customers, and his con looked unstoppable.
Fuzzy math
Eventually, though, smarter financial heads started looking at Ponzi's business. Clarence Barron, owner of the Wall Street Journal and founder of the financial magazine that bears his name, realized Ponzi must have been a huckster and went on the offensive.
While Barron conceded that there probably was a way for a person to make a small amount of quick cash on the postal reply coupon scheme, he figured that Ponzi would have to be moving 160 million coupons around to raise the cash he needed to support the business. Since there were only 27,000 postal reply coupons circulating in the world, Ponzi's story didn't check out. (Things only got worse when the Postal Service reported that there wasn't a huge flow of the coupons from one country to the other.)
On top of that, Ponzi told newspapers he invested his own cash in real estate, stocks, and bonds like any normal investor. Barron pointed out the obvious question here: if Ponzi had this failsafe scheme in which he could make a 50 percent profit, why was he putting his own money into plain old investment instruments that would give him (maybe) a 5 percent return? Those certainly didn't sound like the actions of a financial genius.
Barron's conclusions ran as front-page news in the Boston Post in July 1920, which would have been damning for most cons. Ponzi was such a charismatic force of nature, though, that many people chose not to believe the paper's report. Few believed that their hero, the man who had "tripled" their life savings, was anything less than 100 percent legitimate.
In fact, the morning that the Post ran Barron's report, investors lined up around the block outside of his office in an attempt to give him more money -- even after they'd been told that they'd been scammed. Ponzi later boasted that he'd taken in a million dollars in new investments the day the report ran.
The unraveling
Things were starting to look less rosy for the scammer, though. Although he'd largely placated his investors after Barron's report, Ponzi must have realized his window of opportunity was closing. He hired a publicist, William McMasters, but the PR man saw through Ponzi's lies and renounced his client in the press. James Walsh reprints part of McMasters' slam of Ponzi in his book, "You Can't Cheat An Honest Man."
Of Ponzi, McMasters said, "The man is a financial idiot. He can hardly add...He sits with his feet on the desk smoking expensive cigars in a diamond holder and talking complete gibberish about postal coupons."
The next month, regulators raided Ponzi's office and discovered that he didn't have a huge quantity of postal reply coupons. Since Ponzi had used the mail to notify his marks of how their "investments" were performing, he faced serious mail fraud charges; in total, the government brought 86 charges against him in two separate indictments. Ponzi pled guilty to one of these charges in exchange for a light sentence of five years.
He served around three and a half years, then got his release to face state charges, for which he received a sentence of nine more years. But before he could go back to jail, he jumped bail and tried to start new scams in Florida and Texas. (You'd think the government would have learned their lesson about trusting this guy.) Eventually, though, his time on the lam ran out, and he served his whole sentence.
Upon his release, Ponzi was deported to Italy and spent the rest of his life in poverty before dying in 1949 in Rio de Janeiro, where he's buried in a pauper's grave.

Gasp!!!!

So its been established that I moved about two months ago, my friend Chelsea has just bought a house and I moved in with her for the long haul... you know like a year... well about that same time Chelsea started dating Dave.
You guessed it they went and got engaged on me. I get to move again in three months. Maybe sooner... if Chelsea gets her way.

How the Grinch Stole Christmas

So one thing I didn't consider when I was moving was a lack on internet access. Hence the silence from my fabulous blog. But it's pretty slow... people must think it's a holiday or something, so I've got some time at work.
Unfortunately I've missed all the good stuff... Halloween, Thanksgiving... elections, the end of viability of auto makers in the united states.... but that time has passed. So I am going to focus on better things. The good news is I have lots of time to think about what that focus will be... still thinking...
Alright here we go. As you may or may not be aware, my parents had a mishap with their washer and to make a long story short had to replace carpet/kitchen/paint on two floors of the house. This happened back in August and Parents do have insurance but because my mom is... well... Mom, she took the opportunity to remodel, so the main area upstairs now has Brazilian Walnut floors, toasty marshmallow walls, and best of all granite counter tops (They remind me of a billboard that I saw in Spokane everytime I go to parents and I laugh and Laugh and think of Beckee... its a beautiful thing...). As I said, the washing maching blew up in August and the remodel still isn't finished, though the upstairs has been (mostly) reclaimed.
What is the downside to all of this decadence? Christmas in the Johnson home is cancelled. Right down to the Christmas tree, there isn't even a baby train out on those granite counter tops, no stockings hung on the mantle with... I'd say care, but that would be misleading any year. So after 31 years of Great Grinchy Tricks...
my Dad finally scored his ultimate victory.

What I love best about being single...

You may think that this is absolutely sick (and I might agree with you) but I love moving. Barring that stint at my parents house, I have moved at least once a year for the 8 years that I have been considered an adult (I actually average more than that but its a tangent we can avoid).


Obviously I am getting ready to move again or it wouldn't be coming up now, so I guess the first thing I should say is:





Hey guess what, I'm moving .687 miles north of my present location!





When: In two weeks


Why: Because my lease is up ... and I can... and I hate my landlord

That having been said, back to the point, I love moving... it's not like when I was a kid and we had to pack up all of the stuff and it took weeks and you had boxes and boxes that were labeled "miscellaneous crap," (I'm pretty sure those boxes are still sitting in the storage room at Parent's house) and there were things you just hoped would get "lost" but you couldn't actually throw away...





Ok, ok... maybe it isn't my favorite thing about being single, but it's definately in my top ten.





So in the spirit of David Letterman:








Top Ten reasons why Moving yearly while Single doesn't suck.





10. If you don't have a place to put it, there's always your parent's basement





9. Its like Christmas, you find things you didn't remember having, (usually discovered at your parent's house...).





8. Your hot guy friends do most/all heavy lifting, though there may be some later baking exchange obligation... depending on what they hold out for





7. All the miscellaneous crap that has accumulated over the past year can actually be thrown away.





6. You never have to clean windows





5. One more year in the same place and you might plant a garden





4. This go around: Love Sac





3. Hardcore furniture rearrangement.





2. There really isn't that much to move (most of your stuff is in Parent's basement already)





1. Answering the question Where does one hang the 20x14 muscle cars/mansion poster in another house full of girls?

This is going to be a little bit of everywhere...

700 Billion Dollar Bailout. Where does the 700 billion dollar number come from, is this like Colin Powell's "overwhelming force" method, pick a number that no person outside the government can fathom and go with it? Were there any numbers run? I don't know, but I'm guessing not, my theory is that someone in the room said let's just make it a really big number and we might not use all of it, but then we'll at least have it... I do the same thing when I go shopping at the outlet malls.
I am inclined to accept this bail out as a necessary evil. Though I must admit I am a little excited to see the Republicans show a some backbone and vote the bill down in the house today, I love gridlock.
For those of you who have been hiding under a rock for the past week, let me provide a brief explanation of the crisis, the credit market is currently frozen. Let's say I have a house (an obvious hypothetical, but I like to pretend sometimes) and I stop making payments, the banks will sieze the property, multipy this by a couple hundred houses, and perhaps the bank can't sell the properties. What happens to this bank? Well, maybe nothing, but it's possible that this bank could fail or that doesn't have enough liquid assets to continue lending money. Let's suppose our hypothetical bank is not able to loan out any more money, and you have a small business who generally take out loans to run your business, the bank doesn't have money to lend so you try the one down the street... this bank is having a similar problem with illiquid assets so there is no one to lend you money. Your business fails, you lose your house, as do your employees... the banks don't really want the property, you can see where I am going with this. Its simplified, but that's where we are banks have illiquid assets and are not lending, freezing the credit markets, which is ultimately bad for small business owners, and small business owners make the world go round. This is what the government is trying to fix... on a larger more complicated scale.
What is an illiquid asset? Simply put, an illiquid asset is something that cannot be sold, and generally they are illiquid for a reason. A 700 billion government buyout of illiquid asset should raise at least one eyebrow. That is not to say that the illiquid asset is a worthless asset the $5,000,000 house sitting vacant on the east bench may not be sold easily but it is certainly not worthless.
While I would rather see the private sector step up and get the ball rolling again, it could be argued that effects of the current credit debacle are so far reaching that the financial sector cannot function. Or that the strain on the financial sector would ultimately put a devastating strain on the average american. I'm pretty sure the government recently seized (that's right seized) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac just a few weeks ago for that very reason. It was either government take over or both companies would fail.
So we the tax payers of this great nation are already it largest mortgage lenders. I am not sure where the public outcry was, but I will take a bailout versus the takeover of the banking industry. I, like Thomas Jefferson, draw the line at national bank. With banks failing left and right it is difficult to say with any degree of confidence that the private sector can shoulder the credit situation as it now stands. I would say that the opposite is true. It is clear that the private sector can't handle it, when companies like Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and Washington Mutual cease to exist, it's at least cause to pause. Lets just hope we're not setting an awful precidence. Wide spread bank failure is bad for everyone.
While I have to agree with the ultimate need for the bailout, and I agree that it needs to be free from golden parachutes (except those literal ones, jumping from a plane at 30,000 feet), taxpayers need to be protected, the fact that there were so many nay votes on both sides of the aisle gives me reason to be concerned. Party leaders can point fingers at each other all they want I don't think Republicans are so petty that they would vote against something because Pelosi is tactless... and Democrats aren't going to withhold their vote because their presidential candidate didn't suspend his campaign to fly back to Washington... I'm sure there are legitimate concerns about a bill that basically throws another zero on the end of the national debt, that was hammered out at 3:00 in the morning the night before. I realize everyone is in a hurry to get home to campaign but I feel like my government is working for me rather than failing me but giving this bill the attention it deserves. 700 billion dollars is not something that you throw around the office for a weekend, and then send it on its way. Give a couple days... I'll say until Thursday, the Whips just need to resolve some concerns, right?

Google Images Tagging

I feel like I'm back in elementary school playing kissing tag with Coleman Ellis at recess... tagged again. Except this time it isn't a hot blonde kid, its Beckee. So it's not really like recess at all...

Anyway, I couldn't sleep and I already wrote a novel on Sarah's blog... so here we go. . . . . What you do is put the answer to the question in a Google Image search and pick a picture from the first 3 pages of results.

My first name: Stefanie

This is Stefanie Powers from Heart to Heart... the similarity is spelling is not a coincidence. (I was just glad she showed up by the 3rd page, I always thought I had a stripper name... now I know it's true)

My Middle Name: Anne

"I can't help flying up on the wings of anticipation. It's as glorious as soaring through a sunset... almost pays for the thud."

My Last Name: Johnson

Tom Johnson (not my baby brother) Imaginary Music. No. 65, "Syncopated Texture"

My Age: 26

A place I would like to visit: St. Thomas

My favorite vacation spot: Southern California

My College Major: Social Science Composite Secondary Education ... would anyone like to pick a peck of snideberries in my snideberry patch?

Where did you grow up: South Jordan -- which is the closest to being translated since it has (almost) two temples. Provo hates us.

Past Pet: Checkers, the dates are a little off, but you get the idea.

First Job: Officially: Payson Fruit Growers... and that is all the IRS ever need know.

My Favorite Treat: Strawberry Shortcake - I feel that two pictures are necessary as I had to get to page three before I actually saw any treats... but haven't you ever wondered what it's like to live in a cake made of strawberries?

My Favorite Food: Wontons -- so good, but so time consuming.

Bad Habit: Procrastination

My mood right now: distracted

Tagged: Sarah and Lindsey consider yourselves "It."

Tagged???

Alright Sarah, you got me. 6 random things about me

1. I have broken all ten toes at least once, but not at once.

2. Tragically, I can't eat chocolate, cheese, or MSG (among other things)

3. I own over 100 pairs of shoes

4. Graduated from college with a degree in history, work in finance.

5. I'm named after my Dad, my Mom, a Brother, a Great Aunt, and an Uncle.

6. I can still sing all the words to the Gummi Bears Theme Song.


And I will tag... Beckee and Andrea.

Randomness

Well, I always suspected that I was irresistable, now it's official. You may or may not remember Jason from Blogs past. And I know what you're thinking "Stefanie, you haven't had anything to say about him for months! I thought we were done with him."
I would agree with you on all counts, right up until Tuesday when I was on my way to institute. Jodi's phone rang so she answers it, not knowing that she would have to play twenty questions to figure out who it was that she was talking to. So apparently Jason (the Australian) is back in town as of this Monday. And he was in his car on the way over to my house while he was calling Jodi, who is in the car with me.
Now this begs two question: why is Jason calling Jodi? And do I need to get one of those peepholes for my door?

I'm not too worried about it, really he's like a plastic sixpack holder to my Exxon Valdez oil spill. But it's kind of annoying when I was pretty sure I took care of this back in April.

So my current plan of action is inaction, but I am interested in additional feedback.
Let's keep in mind that I decidedly do not have any interest in entertaining any further pursuit. I may be willing to still be friends but know that to me that really means just friends with no benefits attached whatsoever, and maybe not even friends. And I still have to be nice to him because I can't be a jerk because a lady just won't do that. And in spite of familial opinions that I have been made aware of recently, I am a lady.

Labor Day

Over Labor Day Weekend I went to Omaha, Nebraska for a fun filled weekend. Now I now what you're thinking, "what in the world could possibly be in Nebraska that could ever make you want to go there?" Well... corn for one and there is plenty to be had, beef, there also appeared to be lots of sunflowers so we can put that some where on the list... but really the coolest two year old alive lives in Nebraska and as an added bonus he comes in a set of four! That's right, Armour, Ender, Solace and the newly arrived Kindle are back in Nebraska, it seems they just can't get enough. And since there really isn't anything better to do, I figured I had better make sure that my place as the fun aunt is firmly established, which means I have to visit.
It was a great visit, even if it did mean a car ride with just me and the parents, which can only be described as an adventure, and we'll leave it at that. Wes and Beckee have a very cute house, complete with backyard and basketball court. My favorite feature has got to be all of the mirrors, they are every where. I'm pretty sure that is what sold Beckee on the house. It's also in a great location! right next to a lake with a funny name and nature trails and a park.... you know everything to keep Wes and the kids busy and Beckee at her wits end.

We also went out to the game preserve near Lincoln, we actually saw the wolves as they were being fed, I don't think we saw them the last time I was there. The kids couldn't get close enough. Anyway here are some of the pictures I took, it was a good trip. for more antics visit Beckee's blog :0

What's the difference between beautiful and most beautiful?

Answer: Slippery Teeth.

My braces came off today, I almost cried I was so happy! Really I still am. But I don't have much of a story to go along with the pictures. I know, its disappointing and uncharacteristic. If you can take your eyes off of the perfect smile. Its ok you can go back, I just want you to note what pretty color my hair is. I colored it about a couple weeks ago but I haven't posted any pictures and its a lot darker than usual.

Alright back to the smile. I will have to have Solace/Armour take some pictures of me when I go to Nebraska when my makeup/hair are done :)

Olympics Part II

As a follow up to my previous blog, I mentioned that the United States was behind in the all important medal count. I am happy to report that wrong has been righted the good ol' US of A is back in the lead with 46 medals. More importantly, I can go back to being happy about the lack of medal in men's synchronized diving.

The official count as of yesterday night is:

China
26 gold
9 silver
6 bronze
41 total

United States
14 gold
13 silver
19 bronze
46 total

Way to go Nastia for taking gold in women's all around gymnastics. And Shawn for keeping the Chinese from getting the silver.

And Ryan Lochte for picking up the bronze in the 200 meter im 26 minutes after setting a new world record in the 200 meter back stroke.

How hot is he? seriously, this is the face that should be plastered everywhere!

And Michael for snagging another gold, and setting another world record 6 for 6

Too much time on my hands?

I kind of feel bad about the fact that I haven't posted anything for about a week, but you have to understand I am quite literally a shut in these days and I really have nothing to report. But I have been watching a lot of TV.... A LOT... and you know what I realized, I really do love the Olympics.
And while China may be winning the medal count and have twice as many gold medals as the United States, it does my capitalist heart good to know that my country's gold medals look like this:










and NOT like this:

























I mean that's communism if ever I saw it! It's almost a tribute to the western hemesphere that the US didn't medal, but that fact puts us behind in the medal count and I can't abide that. And if you're wondering if I purposefully chose synchronized diving because I find it to be a non sport the answer is yes. I mean it is a sport, and it looks to be an impossible sport that requires children to be snatched from the cradle and trained for this one chance to claime honor and glory for family and country. But where does it exist outside the olympics and why can't we replace it with a crowd pleaser like... surfing....




See I even replaced it with another water sport! I am so progressive! But in all seriousness, surfing should be an olympic event, even if the great communist conspirosy of sychronized diving remains.




Speaking of communist/Chinese conspirasies... are you aware that all three gymnastics gold medals awarded thus far have been given to the Chinese? It's true! Both men's and women's team medals and the men's all around. You know what is even crazier than that? they totally deserved it. Yeah! Communist precision wins again. But the craziest thing was that in the men's all around the silver medalist (Hiroyuki Tomita from Japan) fell off the rings on his dismount and still took second! The fall was grizzly.... take a look...





http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLuBUemWgc0&eurl=http://neswsports.com/2008/08/13/hiroyuki-tomita-japanese-gymnast-falls-off-rings-video/

and no, I haven't figured out how to just put my youtube videos on my blog like normal people do... so I guess I don't have too much time on my hands! I'm still looking for Fabian Hambuechen falling off the high bar so if you find that one, let me know. Gymnastics is dangerous! no wonder the chinese have to lie about the age of their girl's team! They are all broken before they reach the 16 year age requirement! ("Women's" would be a misnomer!)

But I really am catching the olympic spirit. I even have an olympic dream... I'd like this french guy to whack his head on some part of the pool. I was thinking the bottom, but the side or platform may have better odds.

"The Americans? We're going to smash them. That's what we came here for," Alian Bernard

Well... guess I'll have to settle for Jason Lezak making an amazing comeback and swimming a 46.06 100 meters (faster than he ever has before) to win the gold in the 400 meter relay. And hand Bernard his sorry french ass the silver. I just wish Lezak would have beat him again in the individual 100 meter swim. Lezak did take bronze in that race though, and that is his first individual medal ever so nice work there. I think it's totally lame that a man has the race of his life and all the interviewing reporter/newspapers/news anchors/media in general can say is, "How does it feel to know that you were able to keep Michael Phelp's hope of eight gold medals alive?" What the hell is that!?!?! The man just had an "olympic moment!!!" Give him his moment, he might deserve two. And I'm pretty sure he didn't win it for Phelps.

Eat Silver Bernard! Go cry to your Socialist President Sarkosy!

Lezak... here is your second moment... on my blog... you deserve more but its all I have.

All the Things I'm Not

Yesterday in Relief Society I had an epiphany. I didn't share it then, so I thought I'd share it now. My RS President was giving a lesson on becoming perfect, or become the person that God intends us to be. There are two analogies that she used that I liked a lot and I think that they are good enough to repeat.

We are all like origami paper which can be folded into just about anything, provided the person folding the paper knows what the end result should be and has the paper-folding skills to be successful. Fortunately our "folder" is our Heavenly Father, so we don't have to worry about getting crumpled up and thrown in the garbage. We just have to remember that it takes different folds to bring about different things. And while we may want to be folded into a swan, it just well may be that we are supposed to be frogs.

It takes different folds to make a frog, so don't get all bent out of shape.

The second, and therefore more important point of my moment of enlightment came when the President was talking about the "ingredients" that go into making a person with all their talents, weaknesses, etc.
This got me thinking on all the wonderful talents that I have been given, and I have been given a few. I am very thankful for the gifts I have been given but sadly, there are a lot of things I am not, and may never be. I was feeling a bit overwhelmed at the prospect of the "folding" to come to get me to where I need to be. Then the thought occurred to me, the individual (that's me) is not the basic unit of society or eternity, that family is. (this is where the epiphany came in)

That got me thinking about my family, and we may not be perfect, but when I think of myself in the context of my contribution to my family rather than me as an individual I feel all warm and fuzzy rather than overwhelmed and scared. This is the strength I see in my family:

My dad is the rock that I lean on (I'm sure its not just me). He works so hard for his family, even when times were really tough I knew that I never had to worry because I knew my dad loved me and that everything would be alright. Looking back I don't think that I ever really fully grasped how precarious our situation was because my dad always had a smile on his face and some amusing anecdote to tell. He has always been a faithful priesthood holder and taught us to do good. He knows the right thing to say, he makes me coachable.

There is nothing my mom wouldn't do for her kids. I don't know that its always the best thing, but she has our best interest at heart. My mom puts others needs before her own, I don't know how many times I've watched my mom running around trying to help someone in the family, the ward, or coworker and then have her get hurt or be laid up the day after, only to go out and do it again when someone asks. She always tries to find a way to say yes. My mom is teaching me to look outside myself and be a disciple of Christ through service to others.

Wesley is my other rock. Wesley brings out the best in people, he has always encouraged me to be better than I think I am. He has always been supportive and will talk me through anything. Wes sees the best in people and then helps them catch his vision.

Tyson is the tender-hearted one. He is the one I go to when I take myself altogether too seriously. Tyson loves people as they come and doesn't judge (unrighteous judgement). He always makes the best of a situation.

Ashley achieves peaceful resolutions. In the midst of all the stormy personalities in our family (mine) Ashley somehow manages to be a shelter in that storm. She has faith in others and always strives to be the best person she can be even in times of uncertainty.

Jessica gives everything she has to make people happy. She takes the time to understand a situation and will ask for help when she needs it. Jessica sees the best in most situations and maintains an optimistic outlook on the future.

Tom stands up for righteousness. He restores my faith in our generations ability to push forward with faith and (eventually) lead the church. Tom holds himself to a high standard and meets that standard.

I love my family, they are the greatest blessing in my life. I wouldn't be where I am today without them.

1 Corinthians 12: 12-25 -- it's not just for the "Body of the Church" anymore!

For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ.
For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit.
For the body is not one member, but many.
If the foot shall say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body?
And if the ear shall say, Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body?
If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling?
But now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him.
And if they were all one member, where were the body?
But now are they many members, yet but one body.
And the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee: nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you.
Nay, much more those members of the body, which seem to be more feeble, are necessary:
And those members of the body, which we think to be less honourable, upon these we bestow more abundant honour; and our uncomely parts have more abundant comeliness.
For our comely parts have no need: but God hath tempered the body together, having given more abundant honour to that part which lacked:
That there should be no schism in the body; but that the members should have the same care one for another.