Yahoo stock, 2006

Last year, Yahoo! CEO Terry Semel pulled in 108 million bucks while his company missed its milestones and bled stock price and market share:

Now that’s ’screw-you money’

It estimated Mr. Semel’s total pay during the year at $107.5 million… Mr. Semel has realized gains of about $451 million from options and other pay since he joined Yahoo… [Link]

Now that is one centered guy. His chakras and shekels are in total alignment. So what do you get the CEO who has everything? How about a way to hit the golf course and build up good karma anyway?

That’s the theme of Gita on the Green, a silly tome which tries to explain the Bhagavad Gita through a mawkish Hollywood movie:

If you saw the Robert Redford-directed film The Legend of Bagger Vance… [starring] Matt Damon as a dispirited golf champion and Will Smith as his enigmatic spiritual guide — you probably didn’t realize the story was inspired by the ancient Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita…

… the despondent golfer’s name, Rannulph Junnah, or “R. Junnah,” is a clever transliteration of Arjuna… Junah’s mystical caddy bears a similarly resonant name: “Bagger Vance” is just a slight stretch from Bhagavan, a term for God…

… [Like golf terminology,] “yoga means ‘to link’”… [Link]

I am become Damon, destroyer of clubs.