President Obama's First Year, Pt 1: From The Bottom of the Pit, The Spirit of South Carolina's Zombie Racism (Red Shirt Vigilantes) Rides Again

Mr Obama's First year was a rocky ride. Racism surfaced, to put it mildly. Town meetings were clouded by gun-carrying, political paramilitary types and some of the the former Dixie states threatened secession. 

The economic collapse was revealed to be far worse than imagined and Wall street behaved as if it is not even part of American soil. 

An overdue proposal to reform American health care was met with outrageous distortions and even bald lying issuing from opposition media and pols. 

And then it appeared the President earned good points on the promise to make his administration a transparent one, but the machinations of Wall Street big banks and moguls were so distasteful and tricky and greedy, that it was almost too much for the mind to bear. 

All in all, one imagined that most new Presidents might rue being elected in such times. But Mr Obama keeps at his goals with diligence, endurance and a kind of Spartan doggedness and grind that shows promise of successfully meeting and overcoming these challenges. 

Personally, while dismayed by the above events and especially the extremes of hate, I can only hope that they allowed America to vent and finally scour clean the last remnants of racial animosity and leftover Civil War resentment. It would seem, hopefully, that such spewing can't occur again after being so exposed. 

I will offer some analyses and opinions on each of the above topics in future blogs. First, with regard to racism, this blogger wants to convey his disgust at the hateful and sometimes extreme utterances from some of the political and media opponents of President Obama during his first year. What was dismaying was that those utterances sometimes received a kind of chuckling support from the media corporations and opposition politicians. 

Along with the racial slurs, there emerged from the swampy muck of the old South, the South Carolina brand of post-reconstruction, vicious prejudice, and hate that peaked almost a century ago in the racially demeaning "Jim Crow" era: discrimination, segregation, and lynchings. Sadly, this hate was also given open and tacit support by some American religious groups and ministers...as is happening against Mr. Obama.

From these and other sources, this first year of Mr. Obama's administration was a time of America showing a racist face that surely frightened and dismayed other countries who have been 'told' about the American dream society of everyone being equal under the Constitution. But, in the light of such regressive cant, how could America hope to maintain an international image of fairness, hope, and democratic success. 

 The hateful speech from some right-wing media persons and politicians was/is apparently a new national buy-in to the media's profits-rationalized argument that hate speech is just entertainment. 

The key to this deception apparently derives from the speakers of such hate pasting on their faces a goofy, lopsided smile and an open-eyed, fake innocence - ala Limbaugh, Beck, Michelle Bachmann, Hannity, Savage, etc - as they spew their poison. 

These personages and their comrades directed such raw, hate-filled utterances on mainstream media, directed personally at the president and sometimes even at his family, that it seemed America had retreated 100 years to the rhetoric of Jim Crow lynch mobs. These racist utterances were deliberately scripted to slander the President and intended to incite a mob reaction. To claim otherwise is grossly cynical. 

Give credit to President Obama, however, that he did not show a reaction and seek revenge or engage in trading insults.

To some of his supporters, the President's patience was seen as too much turning of the cheek. But, one has to remember that a President sits for all citizens, so Mr Obama's patience has been appropriate and shows wisdom. 

Sadly, the hateful utterances undeniably 'call' for killing innocent people. To argue against this conclusion is Satanic. But note well: although the fake-smile routine seems to have stymied American good taste and defied slander laws, several European countries appeared to have learned painful lessons from past demagogues and showed an ability to see through the faked smiles. The big example was that the UK showed no hesitation in seeing Savage, Limbaugh, Beck and company for what they are - callously unconcerned and deliberate wreckers of civil stability - and denied an entry visa to Michael Savage and Fred Phelps, an extremist right-wing minister. 

From these two and others in their group, we hear shouts of "secession" and "states' rights" ... which exposes "States' Rights" for what it really means - a shrill call to the wearing of robes and hoods, and circling the lynching tree. 

Also, the wearing of guns at the President's town meetings and the shouting of "Liar" by the South Carolina Congressman (Joe Wilson) is a strategy first laid down in print in post-Civil War Dixie in 1870 by the Dixie states in their efforts to squelch the voting of newly freed African-Americans by intimidation (showing of guns at town meetings and political rallies) and murder, if intimidation was not effective. Here is an excerpt from a 1876 South Carolina poster giving instructions to the white supremacist vigilante group, the South Carolina Red Shirts, how to intimidate and disrupt town meetings - the similarity with tactics used recently to disrupt Mr Obama's town meeting can't be denied:

2. That a Roster must be made of every white and of every Negro in the Townships and returned immediately to the County Executive Committee. 3. .... be armed with rifles and pistols and such other arms as they may command..... . . . 13. "... soon as their leaders or speakers begin to speak ..., tell them then and there to their faces, that they are liars, thieves and rascals, and are only trying to mislead the ignorant Negroes and if you get a chance get upon the platform and address the Negroes. 14. In speeches to Negroes you must remember that argument has no effect upon them; they can only be influenced by their fears, superstitions and cupidity. . . . Treat them so as to show them, you are the superior race, and that their natural position is that of subordination to the white man. . . . 16. Never threaten a man individually. If he deserves to be threatened, the necessities of the times require that he should die. . . . 29. Every club must be uniformed in a RED SHIRT and they must be sure and wear it upon all public meetings and particularly on the day of election. 30. Secrecy should shroud all of our transactions. Let not your left hand know what your right hand does.

(Source: William A. Sheppard, editor, Red Shirts Remembered: Southern Brigadiers of the Reconstruction Period (Ruralist Press, 1940), pp. 46-50, reprinted in Paul D. Escott, et al, eds., Major Problems in the History of the American South, vol. 2, second ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1999), pp. 37-38.) 

 A final comment on this sub-subject: the opponents of Mr. Obama are well-protected by their Constitutional rights to challenge, debate, and strongly criticize the policies and political philosophies of the election winner; however, it has been crystal clear that Mr. Obama's opponents haven't anything substantial to offer by themselves, and don't want to expose to close scrutiny their shabbily constructed, obsolete, dangerous laissez-faire "economics" and 1840's style States Rights' laments. 

We were offered, jnstead, quick glimpses of shrouds and tatters, dangling in broken windows of Tara, with ghosts of night riders with smoking torches astride skeletal steeds.

2012, A Different View

Rather than the current end-time gloom and doom, the coming 2012 date should be a event for celebration and marvel at the grandeur of the universe and majesty of its great cycles. 2012 comes around only every 26,000 years! And we are here to share this mystical rebirth of times.

Health Care: Insurance vs. Coverage = Apples and Oranges

It occurred to me that it is hard to make sense of the debate on health care because the various points of view are bogged down in the muck trying to compare apples and oranges, to use a good analogy. The debaters indiscriminately refer to "insurance" (apples) and "coverage" (oranges) as if they are the same.....but they are not the same.

Nutshell view: health care INSURANCE is not health COVERAGE!!

More: health care INSURANCE is a PRODUCT not a SERVICE!!

CONSEQUENCE: when the health care insurance businesses "cull" bad risks (get rid of very ill patients and cancel their insurance) they are doing what comes naturally as for-profit businesses by doing what is beneficial to their stockholders, maximizing profits. Insurance businesses survive and grow by this practice, so dont blame them for it...blame Americans-as-a-group short-sightedness and blame the lack of understanding of the english language on the part of the media, politicians and citizens. Everyone with an open mouth is, with only few exceptions, making this mistake.

CONCLUSION: America needs a 100% health care COVERAGE system. This can only come by a one-payer national service. The health care insurance businesses still have a role as sellers of insurance policies for extra-ordinary health emergency/specialist treatments.

Serious stuff: what ever happened to the congressional assistqant staff that would have remembered all of this and been able to distinguish "insurance" from "coverage"? This arm of Congress was apparently disbanded for eithepolitical or economizing reasons, or both. The cost to the nation will greatly exceed the cost of continuing that assistance staff. Also, this paralysis of public policy-making is the result of the nation having bought into, at least subliminally, the ideology of privitization beginning with Reagan. The result is as if every American resource is reduce to equivalency as a market item - citizens as labor, oil and minerals, meat animals, real estate,... everything. America seems to have lost the concept of itself as a nation of people first and above all.

Public Policy Follies, #1: Whence Cometh the Recession and Health Care Crisis

This is written in the spirit of not so much as to be fair-minded, but to express my wonderment at the current wringing of hands and woe-crying from the media and public about the "apparent" causes of the current recession,the health care crisis, and the supposed "greed and excess of business, that I felt the whole picture needed to be discussed and perhaps explained. I am not necessarily pro-business but like to think I am clear minded in some areas, or try to be.

Our business institutions are not parasitic!! In truth, they are staffed by human beings who learn to do their jobs well. As businesses, they are doing what they are supposed to do – maximize profit. They were granted permissions to excess, and freed from common sense regulatory boundaries, by deregulations granted by a series of free-market ideological administrations ... and “voila” here we are deep in the muck of confusion. We've become entrapped in an ideological mire of our own, maybe misguided, making...believing that we can have a "free" market that we can just walk away from and it will govern itself. Wrong! A simple understanding of human nature would tell us, "WRONG". "For-profit", "Privatizing" and de-regulating have naturally given us "health care" INSURANCE institutions that pay most attention to the profit line and least to actual health COVERAGE". De-regulating banking and investment opened the gates to rampant “greed” - profit seeking, searching for regulatory and tax loop holes (“cheating”?), and big rewards – what businesses normally do, and eventual collapse of the economy. What do you expect!!!! Come on.

If you deregulate the business environment for these institutions, you get the plainly obvious - a collection of runaway (but focused) bulls in a china shop. Perhaps more to the point, you can't hope that lions can be made to like oatmeal.

So what is the problem? Less than well-thought out, though perhaps sincere, privatizations and deregulations have given us the current recession, the current health care problem, and more public policy confusions. The solution? Stop the crying and repair the financial regulatory fences and estqablish a public health care "coverage" through a one-payer system. Then let the business Bulls play to their hearts’ content and restore the economy. We can then watch the show in safety.

MBA Follies Revisited: The Public Still Can't Be Treated as a Labor Pool

This blurb continues from an earlier commentary (MBA Follies #1, Feb 6, 2009) on the folly of business modeling in ignoring the importance of the citizen and the power of the vote, aka the public-as-labor fallacy.

Recently, Paul Krugman and Robert Reich convincingly observethat corporate America appears rosier and seem to be coming out of the Recession, i.e., "business" trends are positive. But they also admit that the big picture, which inludes the good of the public, is not so rosy. Like other economists, they lament that classical Economics' modeling doesn't provide the language to deal with how the public is getting along nor the power behind this lag. This is a truly great weakness in these times because a democratic nation is not just a business. The public can't fired or let drift like a labor pool without putting both business and governments in peril.

Why? Because the public (unlike labor), doesn't just go away to another country or a vague "elsewhere". This is the weakness of classical economics - it ignores the public weal and most importantly, the public vote which is the game changer from management vs. labor to the nation's reason for existence, to further the interests of the citizen..their quality of life, happiness etc. At the end of the day, the vote determines whether the nation's insitutions, government and business, have earned their right to continue, i.e., have they adequately contributed to the national good, the "common weal".

The vote is not just countervailing power that brings public labor into par with business, The vote is the can't-be-ignored economic factor even though it can't be modeled. The vote can dethrone businesses with regulations, and price-profit-salary caps. This is real Stopping Power. The vote is the true reality of American affairs.

It is difficult to model the interests of the citizen because the public weal is not completely measurable, i.e., it can't easily be be quantified. Reich and Krugman hint at this notion, but even tho they are empathetic they are still students of classical economic models. Galbraith, Samuelson?
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The Singularity Cometh: Is Writing Science Fiction Still Possible?

This is a brain spark built on an article in the I09.com site, offering a POV on the anticipated Confluence of new and life-changing technology 25 years or so hence, and the resultant social challenges for us mere humans. The article looks at the problem of the SINGULARITY.

Thesis: how can we now write about the future when the Singularity cometh and will change everything by leaps and bounds?

Is it becoming impossible to write about a relatively near-future that will likely be so different, none or very few current authors (in his or her right mind...hmmm) can even fantasize? By most expectations, this historical threshold of a new human spurt in techno-socio evolution (the Singularity) will happen in a few decades. But apart from literature, what about the real changes themselves? Will our physical bodies become passe’, self-regenerating, unnecessary? So far any changes can only be surmised in terms of magnitude and generality, not specifics. Current writers and thinkers can’t imagine or dream what our lives will be after the Singularity, although some new vocabulary has come to be, e.g. “post-human” and “trans-human”, which suggest ...…what these words try to grapple with, I suppose.

The Singularity? “Wha” you might say? Well, lets educate ourselves broadly. First, to set current context, there are two meanings of “Singularity” floating around the Culture these days and both carry lots of weight, so "Singularity" is a double Meme. For the nerdy-nerds who visit my “other” blog, The Singularity refers to the fearful “Naked Black Hole”, a cosmic-physics predicted artifact in the form of an infinitely small point in space-time with such immense gravity it chug-a-lugs planets, stars and galaxies at a phenomenal rate…and supposedly spits them back out but into a different space-time universe. The NBH has less likelihood of existing in our sector of the universe than a Jack Russell terrier beating all the Vegas and Monte Carlo black jack tables every play, every day for several years…but since the whole universe is so large, such odds are not so bad. Let’s say most scientists are hoping this is one prediction that is not detected in our corner of the universe. Get the point?

But the Singularity about which we speak here is a tamer (maybe)event that is human-significant, tho involving and driven by human technology. This Singularity will affect our culture and how we will live. This Singularity defines and is defined by a sort of threshold in human affairs (cultural history). Human cleverness will finally whole hog get away from us,hopefully just for a while, and we will need all the species intelligence and cooperation we can muster to come out the other side with sanity, though we will be morphed in many ways. But, again maybe we will finally do the Job and just evolve away.

Our Singularity, 20-30 years from now, will be a confluence of several or more major technical advances, already conceptualized and under research, which will pop into being and “presto-whamo” there you are: newness abounding, sentient artificial intelligent machines (AI), DNA tinkering leading to centuries-long life spans, energy surpluses from harnessing fusion, no limits to pretty much everything of consequence even those we can’t now imagine such as a myriad of delightful quantum devices and toys among other things like teleportation (we’ve already demo’d it in the lab over a meter’s distance tho with just molecules).. Our human-made Singularity will challenge us in many exciting and difficult ways.

Our evolved monkey curiosity will have finally confronted us with an unavoidable door opening and consequences of our own making. We will have to step through that door and develop new paradigms for our lives, our social interactions and our vision of the “future”. Our “bodies” will have new meanings in themselves and to us personally. At base level, there will be artificial intelligence (AI): AI will very likely be poly-modal - it will take the forms of being external to us (near- thinking cyber-robots, cyborgs), internal within us (souped up brains, super hearing and vision, etc), and hybrid - e.g., a true organic internet with brain implants, enhanced human bio-traits via more genetic tinkering and further paradigm shifting advances. In short, we might be presented with the choice, for real this time, of keeping, artificially enhancing or just leaving behind our physical bodies. The meaning of being human will change, hence the terms trans-human and post-human.

Perhaps most importantly, what will we do with ourselves? The Hunter-gatherer mode will be gone as a survival need, but it might hang around as a nagging itch. Maybe it will mean we can choose what “life form” suits our fancy. Personalities perhaps can be uploaded into vastly large memory quantum-multibit arrays on a microchip (VLQMA), or confined in a gaseous bubble (possessing infinitely large quantum degeneracies). Anyone for Self-Aware-Plasmoidal-Sentient-Entity? SAPS!!

Although it's argued that since we can't imagine life after The Singularity, it's almost impossible to write about it. On the other hand, some posit, with good reason, that you could bring Socrates forward in time and show him the Singularity World and he would understand!?!?! But then again, imho so would Phillip K. Dick (1968, “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” which was made into the movie “Blade Runner”, 1982). Is it truly becoming impossible to write about the future? The recent sci-fi/cultural-commentary movie, “District 9”, presents an alternative view that ultra-advanced technology might co-exist with unsolved human-life trivialities such as slums, unsolved garbage disposal, prejudice, etc. Message? The road to Nirvana is long and winding. [more recent authors on this topic: C.Stross, The Glasshouse (2006)and Singularity Sky (2003); J.McDevitt is another post singularity thinker.

Post script. For further interest and reading, Forbes presents coverage of the October 3-4,2009, 4th Annual Transhumanist Summit in NYC ("Calling All Transhumanists", Courtney Boyd Meyers). Here is a brief taste of the thinking of the Summit president, Michael Vassar:

Michael Vassar, the president of the institute, gives the Singularity just under a 25% chance of happening by 2040 and a 70% chance by 2060. When we do cross that line, Vassar says nothing will be the same. "Humans living in the post-Singularity world will be as powerless as jellyfish are in today's world," he says. His odds don't take into account the chances of the world plunging into rapid technological decline due to a nuclear war or a worldwide collapse into barbarism.

Vassar's six staffers at the Singularity Institute, including Kurzweil, publish papers with titles such as, "Uncertain Future Project," "Global Catastrophic Risk Project" and "Economics and Machine Intelligence," and have developed software that supposedly predicts technology's trajectories and generates odds on the occurrences of global catastrophes like nuclear war and global warming.

We can expect a flurry of Singularity discussions and conferences as time moves along.

The Personal Lives of Our Kultural Icons - Politicians, Make Us Believe, Please

There is a kultural monster shading us all with its shadow as we "discuss" (gossip, criticise, etc) the extra-marital antics of our political icons. This Golluminous entity is America's idealized personal standards which a politician must appear to meet to get elected (and which no mere human can satisfy). Then of course, we are a most manipulatable people who appear to love to be deceived. We are addicted to the stroking and wooing from our political candidates who belong only to us. Their wives and families we allow to exist as long as they know who's first in the line of favorites of the candidates, and of course the winner of our affections. Further, despite the continued past failures of our political heroes to live up to our standards, and by all reasonable thought processes will continue to fail in the future, we so love the experience of a moment's (maybe the first 100 days) feeling that the One has finally arrived. I am not a psychologist but isn't this kultural neurosis? It's a wonder that the very warped (or at best, disguising) individuals who, naturally, gain our approval to live in the White House or governors' mansions, haven't long ago ruined the nation and states. On the other hand, since America comes close to ruin in predictable cycles, a realistic explanation must link up a matrix of factors including the our American innocence (a tired act), our gullibility and lastly our desire to to be seduced.

Anti-Abortion, American Style: A Full (and Humane) Anti-Abortion Program Might Cost $100 Billion Per Year And Add A Million New People, Annually

Preface: This blogger believes that not long from now global population pressures on our non-renewable resources, and our renewable ones as well, will motivate our leaders to move towards global population planning or a less emotional attitude towards abortion (especially here in America). Along with this will have to come a change in positions of some world religions who currently act as if nothing has changed since several hundred years ago and place strong taboos on abortion, birth control and even sex education; and symbolically diminish the equality of women by excluding women from their priesthood.

Meanwhile, our global population is reaching a level that may soon exceed the capacity of our resources to feed and shelter us; and further, will not allow our resources to renew. This picture is ominously progressing in increasing clarity. For example the global demand on drinkable water is becoming felt and, for the benefit of doubters, there are now even "water" stocks traded globally. Yet, there are those who seemingly don't see the warning signs or for ulterior motives - political opportunism and even cynical monetary gain - furiously deny there is any need to change our habits.

The American anti-abortion position appears to be such a movement of denial. The anti-abortion movement makes no sense because it is incomplete, short-sighted and underneath everything there appears to be an accusative and punitive sentiment borne perhaps of an unhappy and poor childhood; there is a thinly-disguised hate of females and sex and there seems to also be a spirit of unforgiveness and a desire to prove that sex is bad by seeking to ban the tools and techniques and services that make for responible sex. In brief, the anti-abortion movement proposes no abortions but also denies women of their right to avoid unwanted pregnancy, because the same group is also against sex education, birth control and expanded aid to children of working mothers.

As a side note of debate against the anti-abortionist position, there is a growing examination of our social dynamics that indicate allowing abortion appears to solve or certainly provide relief to other of our social problems.

One such examination is the apparent, and unexpected, but after-the-fact common sense consequence that permitting abortion reduces the numbers of children who grow up unwanted, economically disadvantaged, undereducated, undernourished or diet-disadvantaged, i.e. children who are prone to crime. This insight on the subtle aspects of how current econmomics work in abortion and other areas is detailed by the authors of the two -book "Freakonomics" series - Freakonomics, and Super-Freakonomics, Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, who write convincingly (Freakonomics, Harper Perennial, New York, 2009, Chapter 4, principally pages 136-45) that:

"in other words, the very factors that drove millions of Americn women to have an abortion also seem to predict that their children, had they been born would have led unhappy and possibly criminal lives" - Freakonomics, page 139.

With "Freakonomics in mind, in the face of our national dilemma over abortion, there is an easy answer: either we permit counseled abortion after providing access to birth control and sex education , or we have a humane, non-abortion national program with all the attendant costs and support programs for the mothers and children. The American anti-abortionists seem not to have not considered either of these aspects of their preference - they do not have not an idea what is a full and humane program because they neither want nor have proposed any full program. Nor have they considered the cost of a humane program, perhaps $100 Billion annually by estimate here. The prevalent American anti-abortion notion is ultra-simplistic and one expects much more from a modern, ethical and responsible society.

Anti-abortion can't be a simple matter of just outlawing abortion. A "full and humane" abortion program, the only appropriate kind for a modern developed America as explained below, must care for the health of the child from conception through, perhaps, early teens and preferably until "maturity, 18 years old. Costs of a humane anti-abortion program have not been placed before the public. Probably because the costs are formidable, but perhaps the real reason is the anti-abortionists are simply opprotunists who are using a billboard phrase at the expense of unwanted and unsupported children whose lives will have misery and want.

This blogger calculates that the cost of a mature, humane anti-abortion program that nurtures the non-aborted child only through age 8 would add almost a mllion new people to the population each year and entail new expenditures starting from a base of $63 Billion annually, not including secondary infrastructures such as schools, medical facilities and new administration which all could bring the full anti-abortion cost to $85-100 Billion annually at program maturity....permanently! Or, roughly $1 Trillion over 10 years. Or, near 2 Trillion over 18 years. This is a big addition to national expenditures from family and government which I don't feel has been understood, or admitted to, by the anti-abortion, "pro-life" supporters.

This blogger's views on abortion have evolved through various perosnal and media-influenced phases to a current viewpoint that American anti-abortionists have only a limited grasp of the full meaning of their objective. The greatest reason for this incompleteness of their position, it is apparent that many agree with this viewpoint, is that America's views on abortion are dragged to and fro in a religious-political-race-gender tug of war often with little regard for the mother-to-be or the child-to-be, or the child-after-birth. The focus seems instead to be on some kind of idealized icon of the (virgin) mother and child, and a deep fear of preventing a second coming. Consequently, this single focus on the mother-and-babe icon, prevents the pro-life movement from to extending its political concern beyond superficial image (of the pregnant mother, or at best the mother-with-nursing babe) to the reality of child rearing, health care, etc. THe pro-lifers seem not to care what the child's life is to be, quality wise, after birth: there is no agenda how the pro-lifers want to make the child's life one of joy and maximum attainment of potential. There is no follow up to just stopping abortion. No nurturing love is shown for the babe once born. No inclination, nor idea even, of what comes next after committing to birth. No support program to assure a quality of life fitting a highest-echelon developed nation.

American pro-life thinking seems to think the child's care (early childhood nutrition, follow on education and well being through adolescence) is an extraneous, automatic given, i.e., to be taken care of by someone else. Thus the anti-abortion agenda is an idealized, iconized picture where once the child is born, society has done its job ....and instead of nurturing, a kind of predatory, laissez-faire, Darwinian coldness (abandonment?) sets in. Once birth occurs, the anti-abortion view turns nasty and judgmental: the more than probable unsuccessful performance of the mother (because the mother is usually too young, too undereducated, too unemployable) is judged and loaded down with finger pointing and guilt-building because self-sufficency is also the American way. As for the child, it rather immediately has become one of "them" - the poor, the disenfranchised, the non-mainstream racial group, etc. In other words, true love for the child as a social asset to be nurtured into a contributing, well-adjusted adult, is just not there. Shame and blame, the American neurosis.

The anti-abortion movement seems to expect the new child to not only breathe but to take accountability for itself (share in the guilt trap)as if it were an instant adult needing no "special" treatment or services, and deserving none. The new child is expected to survive as best as it can in an overcrowded American society where everyone is increasingly focused on their own survival.

Where did this short focus, this callousness toward children, come from? This blogger, from exposure to studies in european history, from medieval throgh the industrial revolution, believes the "Huddled Masses" that emigrated to America were indeed huddling...from fear, abuse, massacre and murder by autocratic, totalitarian European governments, and from plagues and famine and drought. Given the grimness of these nightmare pasts (and instances of babes on hooks hanging in butcher shops during the Russian and east european famines and political turmoil)it is no wonder the at some core level, America's attitude toward its children is far behind that of an evolved Europe. Mix this history of the American people with the knee-jerk worship of laissez-faire self-sufficiency, the literal angry-deity biblical images, and there we have it - the single-focused, incomplete, abusive anti-abortionist agenda.

IMHO, Anti-abortion agendas must include a full system of pre-and-post-birth child care, society-provided sex education, pre-natal care, free birthing, post birth child care and education. If we are not prepared to provide all these aspects of loving care for the child, we are then indulging in the highest, most sinful, hypocrisy at the expense of the child and mother (who is usually young or teen, kept-innocent by lack of proper sex education, deprived of birth-control mechanisms for religio-political reasons, etc).

What would be the cost of a "full and humane" abortion program? First, there are about 850,000 American abortions annually, 25% of American deaths in 2007. Average American pre-natal costs in 2004 were $7600 (US Dept of Health and Human Services, Agency for Health Care and Quality,CQ HealthBeat): costs for hospital visits, prenatal office visits, prescription medicines and other pre-natal and birth services. The cost of raising the child from birth to age 8 is a little over $9000 annually for a moderate income family(US Dept of Agriculture, Child Raising Calculator, 2007). Supporting a child from birth through age 18 totals around $200,000. On the other hand, a first term abortion averages about $400 which is a minor offset from the $7600 average cost of birthing cited previously.

With these official figures in mind, in a full and humane anti-abortion program at maturity (year 8 say, minimally), the annual cost of birthing 800,000 non-abortions will be $6.3 Billion less the "saved" abortion costs of $320 million, or roughly $6 Billion net cost of birthing the non-abortions. At the 8th year of program operation (maturity), there will be 8 cohort groups with a steady state population of 6.4 million children each requiring an annual $9,000 support, or $57.6 Billion annually for each year thereafter. After adding the annual $6 Billion net birthing cost in the eith year, the annual anti-abortion cost at program maturity onward for birthing and nurturing the close to a million non-aborted children through age 8 will be about $64 Billion. Even with the minor saved expenditure of banned birth control products, the annual cost of a humane anti-abortion agenda would still approach $64 Billion! But, this figure would have to be substantially increased because of the additional children conceived and born if birth control was also banned. Likewise, to be picky, there will be an increment from multiple births, 3% (+25,000 or so); but this will be lessened by mortality rates for infants (-5,600 annually: 0.7%, 7 per 1000) and for children to age 19 (-2300 assuming linear mortality: officially to age 19, 0.065%, or 66 per 100,000). These tend to cancel out or at least contrinnute in the net a minimal change in steady state estimations above. Overall, a picture of approximately A $64 Billion-plus permanent annual expenditure seems reasonable and merits serious thought. Can we bear this? What about additional, and probably substantial, costs - e.g., added child care facilities, schools, health care, etc.? Maybe another 20-40 Billion will be required! So, a possible real figure for a anti-abortion program that covers child nurturing only to age 8 would be $85-100 Billion annually. Can the already stretched resources of the nation meet this challenge? And what if the program were extended to nurture through a more humane 18 years of age? The 18 year, steady state non-aborted child population of nearly 14 million, would cost nearly $150 Billion annually? What about the planet’s capability to sustain the demands of so many more top-consuming Americans? What about a future of severely depleted resources as the global population increases - will all nations have to plan births carefully? The anti-abortion movement does not appear reasoned out or reasonable.

Though this blogger strongly criticises American anti-abortion thinking, he also believes abortion is not simply a female right or self-choice, although a woman's right to her body is paramount. The mother-to-be's decision to abort is vitally important to society and should be exercised after appropriate and unbiased counseling, free from dogma. The saved-from-abortion child is society's child, a national investment and responsibility to care for. But American culture seems to put a twist on things. Our anti-abortion attitude is also shaped by a male-dominated, non-involvement with the physical birth process. Males have never felt, nor ever will feel, the birthing pain, so to American males - clergy, politicians and the just interested - who are so obsessed with preventing abortion, the birth process, and after care, is a distant matter, a non-physical event, a rarely seen video. So what's the big deal, he might say.

All of this boils down to America's sometimes immature, distant, male-dominated, religio-mythologizing of pregnancy and birth-at-whatever-the-consequences. You say this is not about what the anti-abortion movement is for? Well then, we would have to then admit that caring for, rearing, and educating the child afterwards just miraculously occurs.... doesn't it?.

Of course, a full and humane anti-abortion program would be a tremendous social commitment. But can it really be done? Realistically it can't be done humanely because real-world budget constraints would constantly exert pressures on legislators to trim the the program's funding.

GOP redux: Palin, Bachman, LimbicGuy, (Sanford et al), are Posited as Post Moderns? (That and More, I fear)

RJ Eskow wrote July 6, 2009, a very stimulating and enlightening piece for HuffingtonPost re the most recent of Sarah Palin's feints, dukes, swerves, and dives into empty swimming pools which, if one thinks not very hard about, usually results in instant if not very painful death. Eskow makes a nice case for describing Palin's resignation from Alaska governorship as a post-modern piece of recent, GOP political theater events and utterances where all is acted out with outrageous flair, and nothing is taken seriously - as if the Alaska voters' wish and expectation (not implied but by actual vote count)that Palin serve as governor for a full term is taken in the same way Boston drivers regard red traffic lights as some kind of annoying advisory. CIGA ("Can I get an Amen!", for future ref.).

I like Eskow's treatment of Palin's, and the rest of the GOP menagery's actions. Yes, in my opinion, "Post-modern" seems to fit just as well or better than any descriptor proposed to date to describe what appears to be going on with GOP. Plus, it seems every week, GOP shows us one more better-than-before move. Like restless leg syndrome, GOP can't keep itself under control. The strangest feeling one gets, me for sure, is we observors aren't the only ones laughing. GOP is also laughing as if they are in the next theater seats with tears-rolling-down, watching their own antics - giggling (Bachman), slithering-scales-dragging (Limbofoisteduponus), strange gurgling (Beck), verbal-diarhetic (Sanford). Sometimes it seems they in the audience are being watched and laughed at by their very own watched-stage-dopplegangs...so on and on in mind bending iterations. What a show...in the round. Adolescent boys the world over have a very apt term for this kind of inanity,..begins with "circle..". CIGA.

W... is going ON!!! One idea... Clue - recall how it feels when the walls have closed in and there is no way out? The brain gives up, then the body follows and all is serene and eventually everything has turned into such a hoot...there is nothing more to fret, "Dont worry..MON". Ever been at the bottom of a eight guy football pile on and heard the bursting forth of escatic laughter and shouting, by everyone, when the tangle can't be untangled quickly..you just have to wait it out??!!! QED.

Even as an indie-demo (post-modern political analogy of a lo-cal, Cap, one spritz caramel, half-americano....etc), I feel drawn to the Nuvo-Greek comic-tragedy that GOP is putting on. The troubling but fascinating aspect of this GOP theater is how delightedly GOP play all parts - audience and actors, hero and tyrant, miscreant and judge, buffoon and king, winners and losers, booers and cheerers, dead and survivors...all with equal joviality and dont-give-a-damn self-applause. Agree with Eskow - this is sure some kind of quirky drama. Palin-Bachmann as the post-modern, post-material 80's Madonna twins? But GOP has taken it further...GOP seem to reach such peaks of delight at self immolation (e.g.,the smiling not-enigmatic, I-sure-am-nutty-Ha Bachmann, Limbaugh, Beck, even smirky-half-leer-smack-lip Palin, et al). Ahhh, got it! Is GOP en masse turning to performance Zen?

Are we all at a BYO cookout where most of us bring franks and beans and similar stuff, while GOP with great gusto and guffaws offer up their souls, self respect and futures?

We dont exactly know, but from stage rear, do we hear faint but dark strains of "...what's troubling you is the nature of my game?"

Yes, "troubling" sure comes to mind, but, see, it looks like there actually is no "game", as a sane person might understand. GOP looks more to be a random walk under a full moon. Loony tunes. And Betcha more GOP 'fun n games' comes a'shufflin along. Yup, troubling but its your rear-end, GOP

GOP Tales from the Other Side: SC Gov. Sanford - 2

Well, couldn't even dream up this one - a long-term mistress in Argentina? A tearful press conference-confessional - however, one that started out with the Appalachian Trail lie but segued into the truth (confession)? Regarding the publication of his and her personal love-emails to each other, this is my opinion about reading them, based on my Huffington Post comment from June 25, 2009 (there will be more - hard to leave this issue):

Will not read Sanford's emails. Crosses the boundary between news and just plain nosiness.

Rather, am very concerned about what might be the real tragedy: how did an adult (man) who appeared to be presidential material fall so tragically and so far from a beginning with just emails? Isn't this a juvenile syndrome? And he appeared so contrite and guiless about it. The man began this folly by falling in love with words!

A bigger picture: isn't Sanford's fall another warning about our disassociated culture? Angst in a disassociated, power-worshipping but kulturally-unempowering age? And what about male-delayed-maturing syndrome under a rich mama-wife. Probably a big "Yes" to both.

The whole pain is his, but each of us owns a piece of it. Leave the emails to those who need to feed on another's failure, no matter how bloody. Tho I feel his pain, I hope Sanford will not relapse from his newly found confessional liberation and become another Rethug, McCain-clone loser...sorry, user...sorry, just sorry. Aaah! Sad. Sincerely hope the family, especially the kids, come out of this ok.

Sagas of the Real GOP: Governor Sanford (SC) in Argentina

So he EVENTUALLY wound up, or stopped off, in Argentina (media should verify this)..on his way to...from..where again? Hmmmm....anonymous departure....anonymous return (attempted)? A subtle, wafting, aroma. Toto?

Just saying, but ya know former presidents carry weight with quick fix visa approval.

Passport at hand, just for whimsy of course. Visa? No luggage? Don't all airport customs offices have American and foreign VIP lists and wouldn't a sitting US governor be on that list...and be logged in... or should be..under normal conditions?

Well, Gov.Sanford just had his dead dogma belief system ripped apart when the SC legislature and supreme court over-ruled his refusal of Stimulus finds, but is that his excuse? Is he really expected to spend Fathers' Day in the company of a warm and caring family? Then go back to work with a bunch of good ole boys who just want to get along and go huntin and fishin? Are you kidding? Buenos Aires bound (to tune of "Alabamy Bound").

GOP : A Lesson of Non-Survival from the Past - the Ruin of the Roman Empire because of Too Much Looking Back for Answers to the Present

James J. O'Donnell (Provost, Georgetown University) writes that in the sixth century the Roman Empire failed largely by not being able to keep up with change both inside the empire and in the world outside. Instead of coming up with new ideas and policies, Rome adopted a conservative outlook and blindly held on to beliefs and policies (ideologies) of the past (James J. O'Donnell, The Ruin of the Roman Empire: HarperCollins e-books, 2008). Professor O'Donnell describes, in Rome's moment of crisis, the empire's leaders desparately needed to understand how Rome was changing and how Rome might adapt to new nations and rivals. Instead, Rome chose to be true to its past ambitions and accomplishments, with catastropic consequences and the end of the empire. Dr. O'Donnell writes:

Old errors are easy to reenact—as fading empires, bereft of self-awareness,struggle again to use their old power to preserve themselves, and in so doing risk weakening beyond repair; as religious communities mistake their faith for destiny and find pretexts for behavior that goes beyond even the unconscionable and the imaginable...[and generate] a noisy anxiety of those who would transform — that is, ruin — what they do not understand.

Dr. O'Donnell advises a current path for America: calmness, pragmatism and putting aside fear of the future.

However, the GOP appears to be repeating the demise of 500AD Rome. GOP is so out of touch it can only dig in its heels at every intellectual or policy challenge facing America that calls out for change and say "No".

To be sure, the world and America are undergoing rapid changes. But to many Americans, the quickened pace and new directions are exciting challenges because they point to welcomed "Change" by providing opportunities for new ideas and policies. While the majority of Americans and the world are putting their shoulders to the wheel and helping to dig out solutions, the GOP seems without a clue except to vainly, desparately do absolutely nothing and to block all forward movement. The best the GOP seems capable of is to plaintively invoke the old shibboleth of "Reaganism".

The plight of GOP spokespersons is clear: they appear empty-minded and lacking new ideas that are appropriate for current times. Sadly, also, the GOP have perfected the art of embarassingly bad-behavior such as making adolescent, racist jokes at awkward and ill-timed moments(Limbaugh, Beck, Bachman, Hannity, et al). The GOP show is so ragged it is hard to look at. Are GOP truly that bereft of ideas, honor, maturity, self-respect? 'Fraid so. But,.... the tickets are free to those of us watching the clown in center ring.

Should Obama Lay A Wreath at the Confederate War Memorial? No Easy Answer!! (Some Background on Ole Dixie Might Help)

Pericles21 also posted this blog at the Daily Beast, but the blog has evolved.

The President will find it hard to win on this one. Whether he appears or not at the confederate war memorial, he will have opponents unless he finds a path to speak the truth about the confederacy (a slave system) while at the same time finding the words that heal. He should not omit mention of the slavery-based foundation of the confederacy - such omission would self-condemn him since he, as a person of color, could never be President under the confederate flag. At first glance, the issue is so full of ifs and buts, pros and cons, one is moved to just shout, "watch your step, Mr President!"

There is a background to Ole Dixie, a reality at the core of this issue, that makes a possible Obama appearance difficult. These truths hold no ambivalences, and no relativistic interpretations (read as: "constitutional rights to property", i.e., to own slaves, and so called "states rights").

Note well, some apologists for the Old South try to defend slavery and its abuses by using relativisms such as so-called constitutional-legal-writ "property rights" that supposedly excuse the immorality of slavery. This is an underhanded illogic that has, however, been engeniously taken up by some of the most evil government systems in modern history, notably South African Apartheid and Hitler's Nazi death programs against the Jews. Nazis and South African Apartheidists both used the American slavery system as a model to justify their own horrors. Both these systems copied in part from the American slavery system and following-on Jim Crow segregation practices, and used a plan that began with a bible-based inferiority hierarchy, deprivation of civil rights such as business ownership (with property confiscation), social isolation, separate but equal public facilities (drinking fountains, restrooms, schools and churches), ad-hoc poll-tests and taxes, and if all else did not succeed then use of physical supression and intimidation groups such as the KKK (Nazi Brown Shirts!), un-punished lynching, and other forms of police-tolerated terror, intimidation and on to guilt-free slave labor, starvation, and mass murder. All familiar stuff to survivors of Nazi "life-style", and as well to such true freedom fighters as Nelson Mandela who spent 26 years in prison for challenging South Africa's racial Apartheid system..

Robert Bronner writes that Hitler was an enthusiastic fan of the confederate "Lost Cause" largely as the result of the movie, "Gone With The Wind" ("Confederate Racialism and The Anticipation of Nazi Evil", a chapter in The Problem of Evil: Slavery, Freedom, and the Ambiguities of American Reform, Mintz and Stauffer, ed.s, U. Mass. Press, 2007, 115-124). Bronner says Hitler lamented the Union defeat of the confederacy as:

"the destruction of...a great social order based on the principle of slavery and inequality."

Hitler saw the defeated confederacy as:

"a real Herren-class [masters]..that would have swept away all falsities of liberty and equality."

Bronner also states:

"Adolph Hitler...admired the confederacy, arguing that it anticipated his goal of creating a society that rested on racial hierarchy and slave labor."

In raw truth, the confederate "Lost Cause" was a non-romantic, inglorious, evil and totalitarian slave system that intimidated and punished all challengers (even if non-slaves), and engaged in a high level of self-denial and rationalization: at first slavery was a necessary evil, then even this half-facing the truth was abandoned around 1840 to be replaced simply by a bible-based racial inferiority delusion. Further, the reality of the pre-civil War South begins with big agri-business (plantations)owning the labor (share cropping), if not the actual persons (slaves), of both Black and White poor. Very few poor Whites, much less Blacks, even got near to the plantation houses that appear in Hollywood movies. And there was constant white surveillance and fear of those "ungrateful, always-disatisfied" slaves. Since the Dixie plantation owners could not rationalze away the immorality of slavery, that it was wrong to own humans, they, like the Nazis resorted to focusing not on the actual sin of slavery but on the problems of non-cooperation (natural, non-acceptance) by slaves of their enslavement. Hence, a slave who appeared dissatisfied or angry was not God-entitled to freedom, but a socially disruptive element deserving to be whipped, hamstrung, or placed in isolation in a cage until broken of spirit.

The other truths facing any Obama gesture to the confederacy on Memorial Day:(1) there was and is no morally relative rationale for the pro-slavery, rebel cause; (2) the rebels are not heroes, they supported overthrow of the Union and lost (hmm, how about 911 terrorists?); (3) the rebel cause was destined to die - they were on the wrong side of moral and world political changes, (4) the least economically developed, and most under-educated region in the US continues to be the pro-slavery core of the former confederate South. And even now, in 2009, southern politicians seem to want to keep the current white people of the former, pro-slavery, southern confederate (dixie) states dumb, superstitious, living in the past, AND RACIST.

More than all of these truths, is that Obama (representing how far ahead the rest of the US has moved from 1861) would look pretty silly lamenting a Southern philosophy of slavery and in-humanity that would make it a crime for him (a piece of property) to learn to read, would rip him from his mother's arms to sell him, would brand his mother for her interracial relationship, would castrate and hang his father for looking at a white woman in the eye, and then done to Obama and his folk (and friends)several other inventive punishments dreamed up by the noble Rhett's and Beauregard's of the old South. Then, since it would be a crime for any white person to have helped President Obama to learn to read, these white people would suffer as well (exactly as was done in Apartheid South Africa, and in Nazi Germany)! If Obama had the drive and ambition to continue to want to be President he would not have lived long, and both his white and black friends would have been punished along with him.

This is the raw truth of the confederate "cause" ...nothing is noble about any of this. The "Lost Cause" is not romantic except in the movies.

Runaway and angry slaves, or fear of such, were constant nightmares to slave owners... we wonder why? Could it have been displaced guilt? If slavery was so beneficial, why was the South obsessed with perceived threats from the slaves who simply did their tasks and did not smile a lot? Why the Underground Railroad?

If slavery was so wonderfully fulfilling, why wasn't there a mass exodus of whie northerners to become slaves in the South? Why didn't white southerners volunteer for slavery and arm wrestle slaves out of their slave status? Such a mystery!

Would current white celebrants of Old South Ways have voluntarily worn chains, and sang Epicopalian (or Lutheran) gospels every evening at the steps of the plantation houses? I truly doubt this would have happened. So why is it so difficult for Southern dixiecrats to understand that lot of people are happy with the passing of Ole Dixie, and don't like seeing the confederate flag. Slavery was not voluntary and THE CONFEDRATE FLAG IS AN AUTOMATIC REMINDER OF AMERICAN SLAVERY, AND HISTORY'S INVOLUNTARY SERVITUDE SYSTEMS SUCH AS HITLER'S NAZI REGIME.

And Ole Dixie was abetted by the dumb foolishness (gullibility and exploitation) of poor, uneducated, whites who swallowed the manipulative lie about defending a Southern "way" which was actually a system of economic impoverishment for all the poor (Black and White) in the service of big agribusiness (white aristocratic plantation owners).

Obama is walking a razor's edge this Memorial Day. If he even hints at support or praise for the confederacy, he will appear laughable and risk being reviled for trying to copy-cat the manipulations of the trickiest dixie politician.

It is time to bury the confederacy for good and move on. The confederate "cause" was not noble, it's cause did not inspire an equivalent of the french revolution but was intended to suppress freedom, it was Satanlike in its brutality of slaves, and in its economic exploitation of poor Whites by the sharecrop system, then later by the Appalachian coal monopolies, etc. The confederacy spawned the continuing sham of "states rights" that every duplicitous southern politician plays like "auld land synge" whenever forward looking southern folk (black and white)want to progress.

Last, if we lament the confederate deaths out of a misplaced romanticism for this evil regime, then shouldn't we also lament, or respect, the grieving mothers and families of the 911 "rebels". And if the confederate flag is shown, why not the Swastika flag of Hitlers Nazism?

Maybe Obama should give a speech at the Lincoln Memorial and put closure to the Civil War. Maybe he ought to give a prayer for the fallen of both sides and pray that the souls of all the fallen soldiers stand together with the living nation, and go forward in unity.

Along with this prayer by Obama, there should be no more rebel flags in offical grounds flying next to America's official flag. Individuals can fly the rebel flag in their homes. On lawns...?...would that imply support for the destruction of the union? (Sighhhhh - it can go round and round, can't it.)

Global Air Traffic: Satellite View

How technologically extended is our civilization? We are just ants surfing the planet in our petrol fueled metal cocoons. Look at the film in this link. The nest is crowded,...almost ready to expand outward - new horizons and all.

The Banks Are Not Lending, Oh My!

While one wishes the banks would be more motivated to ease credit (and they aren't), what does one expect? Hungry lions dont choose salad and brie on crackers from the menu. Banks who have been near to failure plus been reamed pretty good by the Feds and media should be expected to return to what we expected of them all along - rigorous, by-the-book lending. Lamentable, but what else could happen from the banks? As usual, there are larger questions such as the nature of business institutions and national loyalty, the cooperation of business institutions with national interests (let's say, national survival), the boundaries between a democracy and facism, and the old bugaboo, the role and powers of transnational corporations.

Not the least in this list of questions one is compelled to look at the definition of business ethics relative to the behavior expected from a real person: imho, they are not the same. Business ethics and cooperation-with-government is a subject that bears thinking about and this blogger will do so and blog about his "discoveries".

GOP Update - April 20, 2009

IMHO. The GOP appears to have settled down somewhat. The sideshows have lessened in intensity and wierdness: Steele, Bachmann, Limbaugh, Beck et al have shot their best it seems and have quieted a good deal. GOP steady heads are openly facing Limbaugh and are naming him for what he really is - an entertainer. Interestingly, the younger generation in the form of Megan McCain are presenting the most credible and appealing GOP face. Megan is urging the GOP to become current and in tune with current issues (gay and lesbian lifestyle, global warming). Realistically, it is important that the GOP get with it - the American two party system is a good one, and DEMS will not be in power forever. So, it is important to feel the GOP will be a sensible party with realistic ideas.

America Tortures: Participation of Medical and Health Professionals, and absolving the Abu Ghraib Guards

April 18, Jacob Heilbrun, a HuffingtonPost analyst (Psycho: Bush's Willing Medical Torturers), covered a Warrick and Finn article (Washington Post) that examine the ethics of American legal and health care agents who have participated in alleged torture of captured and imprisoned Al al Qaeda suspects. Readers of this blog can go to the original sources and form their own opinions. But, personally, I see a dilemma here for the President who appears to want both a graceful distance from the alleged acts of torture, and not make formal charges against American lawyers and doctors, but at the same time POTUS wants to get close enough to the acts to examine them and gain clarification for a consistent future policy.

While I agree with POTUS' wish not to punish in the current case, this position seems to create a dillemma: what about precedent events where America has judged and punished torturers, even its own citizens? For example, what about Nazi war criminals and the American guards involved in the Abu Ghraib mess? Are we to retroactively pardon them if we give a pass to the current torture agents? Doesn't seem we can post-humously resurrect Nazi war criminals. And wasn't this and other war crimes and torture issues were long ago clarified -torture is criminal - medical [professionals] and even military in general are expected to obey conscience and ethics when it comes to causing superfluous pain and suffering, i.e. torture. Why else were the American guards at Abu Ghraib imprisoned? But what exactly is the official, current policy? Is there a current ethical standard?

It seems unfair to prosecute only the human tools who find themselves, by threat of punishment for disobeying orders or policy, without also punishing their superiors. For this reason, I feel the punishments given to the American cell guards at Abu Ghraib are unfair. What were they supposed to do in the face of pressure and example from special (Blackwater) contractors to whom part of the Iraqi war had been outsourced? It seems if punishment was to happen, it should have started at the very top of the command chain and then proceeded downward with equal punishments for all. Likewise, if top command were not sent to jail, then no one should have been gone to jail.

In the case at hand, if the actual torturers at Gitmo and elsewhere are to receive absolution, then the Abu Ghraib imprisoned/censured personnel should immediately be freed and/or their military records cleared of wrong doing, and they receive honorable discharges with any back pay due. If this is not done, there are Abu Ghraib sentences yet to be handed out to top ranks.

Military Technology Advancement:: Gadgetry, Video Warring, New Pyschological Casualties

Picture: american military is bogged down in a romantic, over-estimation of military gadgetry. We expect our laboratory military gear to miraculously topple over our adversaries so we can go home to Mom and apple pie. Our increasing reliance on video-guided and controlled-from-afar drone technology to erase "enemies" in a puff of hi-definition screen mayhem that is not exactly real but not exactly fake. Soon there will be self-guided bullets (Wired, April 13, '09). But, all this advancement in killing technology along with the removal of the killers from negative feedback" will have perhaps unyet realized psychological problems. Even though we know real people are being killed, we don't hear them scream nor smell burning bodies. One should not expect this warring-from-afar to leave desk jockeys unaffected.

Pirate Shooting in Somalia - The Vampire Press and Post-Killing Morbidness

While one is relieved the American captain is safe, and impressed with the President Obama's measured contemplation and final use of American military, the American media is exhibiting a (expected?) morbid fascination with the killing - the tools, the strike delivered unknown to the pirates, the absoluteness of the quick and deadly. One thinks: are these media heads wishing they could be on the receiving end of such quick and deadly lightning from heaven? Is that coming next - interviews with the newly dead pirates assisted by well-known Mediums and clairvoyants? Imagine this conversation from some media center - "Hey there, Mr. Pirate, tell us how you feel about leaving this orb so unexpectedly? Did it hurt? What'd you have for lunch that day? How are you being treated now? How many, exactly, virgins are in your quarters right now? What's the scoop on Gabriel? How 'bout them Seals, huh?"

Seriously, dialog was offered but rejected by the pirates, and unfortunately for the pirates deterrent force was used. Plus the pirates sought to illegally profit in the worst way from food and supplies going to help their own folk. The lesson given here is how the new Administration (President Obama) will operate - an open door for discussion, but please take advisement - don't act out and push matters causing the President to bring in the Marines, Seals, etc.

Hope the Navy Seals don't succumb to media pressures to join this circus and be interviewed - interviews are so un-Seal-like and cover-blowing. Killing is not something to be proud of - prayers for the dead pirates and their families. Hope the blowback from the pirates will not make us regret this action. But, "thanks" Seals for rescuing an innocent American ship captain. SF.

TARP, and Bailed-Out-But-Still-Gaming-Us-All, Dreaming-and-Scheming Banks

The American banking system is like an intransigent child prankster: never giving up, constantly dreaming and scheming. Now the banks' schemes have to do with extreme (usery) rates and fees, and come-on gimmicks (false advertising and hidden small print traps) to bilk the public...who (us) expected cooperation from the banks after we (us) saved their rear ends. Our government, supposedly, is asking what's up with all this (Consumerist, April 13, 2009: ). The usual culprit banks are busily at work cheating the public, and being investigated, in this time of economic distress - Bank of America, CitiBank, Wells Fargo, etc.

The TARP system seems not to have anticipated these practices. But why not? After all, the whole TARP program was/is to rescue the public, and the bank system itself, from unregulated greed and shady practices. Time to get this issue of extreme fees under control.

The GOP Today - Resigned, Near-Dead, But Still Tea Bagging...So, It Isn't all Bad, Right?

In the past month or so, the GOP world seems to this blogger to have settled down, and actually a good bit settled. But "settled" has a special meaning when describing the GOP: the GOP circus has not only lost some of its appearance of clowns on tricycles, but the GOP has largely disappeared from view. The GOP is simply moribund, gone, kaput, worn out...and all those descriptors of a group gone underground from embarassment and with nothing to say that is relevant, helpful or connecting with the public. The GOP congressional faction has seemingly resigned from participating in national government; but even that gesture has been futile with nearly universal mutiny of the ranks from the GOP line urging rejection of Stimulus help. A core of GOP governors, interestingly the poorest states in the union, even tried to resign from the Stimulus Program but their state legislators voted against such idiocy given the especially dire economic condition of the sedition-inclined GOP states. This association of the GOP stronghold with the poorest states is nothing to be proud of, but we can see the GOP trying even to make hay of that mal-linkage at the expense of poor people.

There is truly a perception that the GOP is working against itself despite all its effort to get things together. Charles Homan ("Culture Shock" in the conservative movement, Washington Monthly)aptly describes the spinning, out of control misfirings of the GOP as a mishapen version of former conservative elegance ala William Buckley:

"Operating forever in the shadow of National Review founder William F. Buckley Jr., they had spent half a century honing their rhetorical chops on the romantic notion that an argument, framed eloquently and forcefully enough, could change the course of history. Worse, these arguments tended to be advanced in right-wing publications that made little effort to attract a general audience, devolving into an exercise of limited interest to anyone not already locked inside the echo chamber."

I prefer less coddling words: the GOP is lost in a kind of political "mannerism" where they remember the postures but have lost any idea of the meanings and contexts of their awkaward and jerky mimicry of conservativeness. The result is the derangment of Limbaugh, the Innanity of Hannity, the Dreck of Beck, and Michelle Bachmann's stupid utterances accompanied with her really strange, vapid and pat-on-back-expecting-look-at-me-daddy false smiles. The GOP sputterings are not down-to-earth, nurturing oatmeal but dry sawdust and dull nails.

Right now,the only GOP action is a half-hearted call to insurrection, the New Tea Party movement. But as usual with the GOP these days, their knack for stepping ankle deep in nasty stuff and then gladly, gleefully, as if they are doing something terribly witty, shoving said covered foot deep into mouth, saw them lose all seriousness with the GOP talking head labeling of their own movement as "TEA BAG" event!!! OH MY!!! A reaching of new and atmospheric heights of silliness and cultural disconnect. OH MY, twice said!

(On second thought, for a sec, at least the GOP can claim they didn't know what TEA BAGGING means; but really... what occured was a kind of Freudian brain-fart, a confession of having perused rather risque material without a clue to what was going on. One can only imagine what other misinterpretations the GOP is guilty of. Maybe we were treated to an insight on the major problem with the GOP - they see really kinky stuff as normal, and interpret good stuff as the devil's work. This is terribly embarassing for them. It all adds up to a dischordant, disconnect with reality. A stumbling along with incoherent mutterings and occasional references to glassy eye of newt, bad unicorn horn and unpleasant dragon's breath. OH MY, again! And a "help them, Lord." (And help us get out from their insanity, too, while YOU are at it, please, and thank YOU.)

However, this Ship of Fools (GOP) must sail on; maybe they will eventually realize they are dead in the water because they forgot to raise anchor. Until then the GOP rows furiously only pausing their Sysiphian efforts to pat themselves on the back as the GOP vessel sits smiling at rest, dead in the water.

American Auto Makers: Failure of GM - Old Muscle Cars, Old Ideas, Old Guys

GM is stuck in the muck or what? Seems current GM leadership has no real clue about what to do. Instead of developing a real contingency makeover when Toyota, Honda and Nissan came on the scene 25 years ago, GM seems to given up immediately and decided go out of business when the old cow ran out of milk. Now is the time for GM to unchain the young turk engineers and designers from the GM cellars. Hope it isn't too late.

It is understandable that Washington was not impressed with GM's requested makeover plan. Last week, GM announced its idea of a "new look" in TV ads that gave us...get this...a new breed of muscle cars. As if America needs more of these old dinosaurs! Looks like GM tried to get by with a put-together job, because they thought Washington was going to be as easy to trick as selling a country rube the oldest clunker used car from the back of the lot. What a mind set! How out-of-touch can you get. Did GM think they could milk old engineering forever? Without ever renovating?

Seems current GM leadership has no real clue about what to do.

Mr. Geitner Revealed, More - March 30, '09

Hmmmm. The mystery of who/what exactly is Secretary (Treasury) Geitner is somewhat clarified: he appears to be mostly a very focused, careful, hard working, not-care-about-what-others-think kind of guy who is doing the job. To amateur personality assessors Mr. Geitner might show signs of being..a wonk,nerd,or maybe a weenie... in other words, again, doing the job. (He is not a Geek..he dresses well, has a haircut, wears matching shoes and socks,...). THe President and Secretary Geitner seem to share a mental mindset. Two of a kind?, why not considering the depth of trouble the economy is in. Hmmmmm.

Pres. Obama Cautions CEO's "Excess is Out of Fashion" : The Time is Right for "LAGOM" , A Life Style of Moderation for Post-Recession America

This recession hasn't finished teaching uof Fashion" : The Time is Right for "LAGOM" , A Life Style of Moders that the 30 year American idol of Darwinian-capitalist pursuit of riches, where a neighbor in difficulty automatically becomes a "loser" to be put out of mind and forgotten, just doesn't cut it when "we" are in danger of becoming one of "them". President Obama's recent caution to corporate CEO's that "excess is out of fashion" underlines America's need for a less showy of living and a more realistic way we value ourselves. Suggested here is a new valuation scale and life style incorporating the Swedish concept of "LAGOM" , which translates to living in moderation, suitability and balance.

"Lagom" is similar to the Middle Path in Eastern philosophy, and to Aristotle's "golden mean" of moderation in Western philosophy. "Lagom" places value on "just enough" as contrasted to "more is better". "Lagom" values quality over quantity, and favors "sustainable" to the hoarding extremes of consumerism. "Lagom" is modesty and avoiding extremes...to value "just enough" as contrasted to "more is better".

This recession is marked by the frightening prospect of overnight crash from 'plush to bust' that can reach all levels, just ask Bernie Madoff's "clients". But even in better times, most of us have felt the anxiety of not meeting material standards (not having a flat screen tv, not having the most computer memory, and no backyard pool, etc.),]and of being second (the "loser") when we are safe, clean, not hungry and comfortable. Many of us intuited this anxiety didn't make sense or certainly was some kind of monkey best to be gotten off our backs, but who had the time to contemplate when we were so driven to materially excel and garner more than our neighbor in the race to see who next would be the winner, or loser, i.e., the 'rat race'. The rat race to be king of the hill, or certainly not the loser, applies especially to our current form of economic capitalism which has led the recession, to bubbles abd busts in the past, all from a national pusuit of gross accumulation of wealth at all costs - by cheatng corruption, market manipulation, and more ugliness.

The lesson of this recession is that wild frontier, free-market capitalism (theoretically self-regulated, but really NOT!) ala Ayn Rand is just a dream, and worse, a dangerous nightmare of false theater with false fronts, and actors in false face, where "dollars are the ultimate". Time after time all of these falsities come tumbling down killing the fortunes and hopes of too many people, families, countries. However, America can make something good from the current recession by moving to a higher level of maturity - adopting a life style of "LAGOM".

Cultural happiness can be summarized by the following observation about purely economic success (which seems to be the current way America values itself):

"For all its prominence, GDP is only one yardstick of economic performance and it is no guide to social progress. It simply indicates the market value of all goods and services produced in an economy. It takes no account of how income is shared out, or of how it is generated. Few would celebrate a boom in costly divorce cases – but it would be great for GDP."

America can benefit from a new way of living and valuing life, than by valuing soley material accumulations.

So, let's try "Lagom". This does not mean the end of capitalism, just the form we have allowed to become grossly unregulated, out of control and socially irresponsible. Let's have "Lagom" meals; "Lagomish" houses, cars, and apply "Lagom" generally to our lives.

The Recovery: Geitner and Regulatory Reform - March 26, '09

The Financial Issues, to date: as the fog clears we see a morass of stink and entangled interests. The interests are dominated by self-serving rationalizations that benefit the "Masters of the Universe" who worship only the great god,"Profit". Let's hope this market collapse will lead to a renewed regulatory structure that will define the fences within which the bulls can run and which will protect the good and honest citizens who toil outside the bull pen. ...Something like that.

We find that GOP presidents and Congresses have, over the past three decades, systematically stripped away financial sector regulatory safe-guards that were put in place during the Depression, Further, the stripping away has been rationalized by the ideological belief that a unfettered (free) market will regulate itself to optimize operations and lead to better profits. This belief is not honest naivete, but is gross, cynical, BS of course.

And, of course, the free market model does not consider the human greed and cheating factors that have caused the market to regularly bubble and burst (junk bonds, savings and loan, subprime, Enron,...).

Perhaps, if we are fortunate, Mr. Geitner will champion regulatory reform. This process should be interesting to watch.

Geitner, Again: Puppet Plays the Puppeteer, Maybe , (PPIP, What?)

Hmmmm... with half-lidded smirk. So who, or what, is Mr. Geitner ..exactly. "Exactly" may never be known. Mr. Geitner, according to some,is best simulated as something sloozing from under yon rock.

PerchedEye sees the whole matter as a truth revealed: Wall Street's nature is to smell the easiest path to the money...screw elegant, long lifed systems approaches. "Give me the $, now and let's get with it."

The point? Geitner's toxic asset purchase plan, the Public-Private Investment Program (PPIP), will probably work since it promises a most juicy bait to attract Wall Street to end its hibernation and come forth for spring feeding.

Mr. Geitner is Crowned, and the Regicide is On

After a good lunch, I have it all figured out - Mr. Geitner is the fall guy. Not the scapegoat, note well, but the fall guy - the deception, the red herring. This is a grand, high drama, shell game...and everyone is about to fall for it. Geitner gets fired, everyone is satisfied that somebody got punished, move on to something else, and the fix is in. A trillion doled out, maybe more.

What is the NUB of all this? A clue: systemic dysfunction of Wall Street - insufficient regulation, excessive compensation of executives, personal hubris.

But Wall Street's illness can be catching...or, better, persuasive. As E. Robinson writes in TruthDig (Mar 19, '09)

"...[what] Geithner doesn’t seem to understand, though, is how and why appearances matter. There has been a steady flow of news indicating that Wall Street doesn’t realize that the Era of Excess is over,..."

BTW, are the new regulatory policies drafted yet? Hope they haven't been forgotten in all the chills and thrills of the AIG-bonus thing.

AIG Bonuses - Miscalculation, Geitner OK

The probable truth about AIG bonuses is the administration (Treasury) focused on the urgent need to get the near trillion Stimulus passed and felt the Snowe-Wyden bonus cap was insignificant and not worth stopping the whole show. This was an honest miscalculation of public reaction. In management perspective, focusing on the big picture was the right thing to do.

The AIG bonus mess can be quickly fixed by taxing the bonuses to whatever level Congress wants. So let Congress mend the AIG mess, then let's move on.

Might help, though, if Geitner admits his decision and makes time to explain to us these times are extraordinary and require inventing new cures from scratch. Which in the bigger picture, Mr. Geitner appears to be doing well. So far, we haven't all gone under - moneys are already in the hands of states, companies and institutions, and shovel-ready jobs are underway. Glitches like AIG will happen.

Absoving Mr. Geitner: The game,

It's odd that Mr. Geitner is being pummeled hard, yet he is on the home team, has not committed a crime, but is not defending himself.

Hmmm. Good man....

New Vocabulary for the Times: SLOOZING

"Sloozing". Just the sound makes the mouth turn down, the taste buds retract into their protected pores, the brain turn away. Sloozing" combines the animalness of a slouched mutant beast with the vision of a greenish-brown ooze of unknown but, for sure, murky and slimy ingredients, perhaps very ripe garbage and beetle grubs. Example of use: "AIG bonuses sloozed their way into the minds of Congress and the new administration".

The AIG Bonus Shell Game & The Ghost of Section 8: Paulson at Point, Geitner and Congress in the Dark:...and Something This Way Comes

We shouldn't be surprised by the AIG bonus issue oozing forth these days. Last September (Feb 6, 19 -this blog), Section 8 of Secretary Paulson's first TARP draft gave us a big tip off that something strange was afoot about the financial relief planned by the former administration: messiness of some kind was rumbling down the tube, a huge power-money grab was taking shape right before our eyes, and more than any of these frightful vibrations there was a pervading sense that a naked, blatant gaming was about to be perpetrated on everyone outside of the previous administration. All we had to do was buy into Section 8's outrageous set up. And there will more AIG-like shenanigans to come - secretive, outrageous money giveaways, and feigned innocence the perps didn't realize what they were about to do, or did, was wrong, distasteful or unconstitutional.

Section 8 of Secretary Paulsons ONE PAGE draft of TARP 1 was adventuresome to put it mildly because it proposed to give Mr. Paulson complete, unquestionned, personal power over all relief funds, with exclusive confidentiality. All this power was to be unchecked and unmonitored. This would be unprecedented and truly dangerous for the future of our constitutional principles of checks and balances.

Section 8 should have set off alarms that there was a panicked need TO HIDE SOMETHING BIG. Plus, Section 8 was a statement of the methods and intentions of those who wanted to do the hiding.

Big Question: how possibly could Mr. Paulson and his masters imagine the Section 8 scheme would work? Answer: imho, though Section 8 violated the most rudimentary principles of constitutional checks and balances, Section 8 is routine corporate CEO-ese - total, unquestionned power held and exercised by one person - and Paulson lost it he was so panicked about something; so, as a former CEO of Goldman Sachs, he gambled for a miracle - the possible miracle that the Congress, press, public and Obama team would swallow the Section 8 chocker.

Note: TARP 1 was A ONE PAGE draft! To disburse a trillion dollars, maybe more???!!

Although Section 8 did not survive, not many reacted with the outrage that should have been heard. Despite that Section 8 hinted at things to come.

Exactly who and what was behind Section 8's attempted cover up? That answer might come out...or it might not. Instead it might be swept somewhere to be ignored as the short attention span of media and public drift elsewhere.

Now there is messy confusion about AIG bonuses, timing of same, why the taxpayer should be expected to pay the bonuses; but even more...why don't the banks, CEOs, traders and whoever else understand something is not right about receiving bonuses in a year when their companies went broke. Hmmmmm. So I have some questions,
(first, the broad context is the common sense view that a broke business enterprise should be helpless and in a position, by definition, of being totally vulnerable to renegotiate with creditors and contractual obligations):

1 Did Secretary Paulson know details about AIG's financial trouble last June 2008, uncluding bonus contracts, recipients, amoiunts?
2 At the very least, as a former investment house CEO (Goldman Sachs), wasn't Secretary Paulson knowledgable in principle about bonuses before Sept 8, TARP 1 (and Section 8); and wasn't he therefore able to conceptualize the detailed nature of collateral obligations carried by the relief targets?
3 Was Section 8, of TARP 1, designed to prevent Congressional due diligence inquiry and prevent Congressional examination of all future bailout funds?
4. What was particularly at threat by revealing details to be hidden by Section 8, and subsequently de facto hidden in Tarp 1?
5. Didn't Mr. Geitner, a former Wall Streeter, foresee in detail the landscape of all this - what institutions, their in-house contractual obligations, etc? His prior WStreet experience and expertise was the reason he was appointed Treasury Secretary.
6. By virtue of his WStreet experience, couldn't Mr. Geitner have anticipated problem issues that he then could have springboarded into prepared positions, drafts etc to be used by the Obama team as they cam into power?
7. Did Mr. Geitner discuss Section 8 with anyone? Why did Section 8 disappear after Tarp 1?
8. Did Mr. Geitner discuss with Mr. Paulson the transmittal by verbal or written means, Paulson-Bush administration agreements, understandings and obligations with Wall Street and the Federal Reserve?
9. Did Mr. Paulson consider, or have, informal discussions with Congressional committees regarding the information or insights he had about the crisis?
10. Finally, was/is Congress savvy enough to have anticipate the gist of Section 8? If so, why was there not an issue made right then?

The implications seem dire re the Paulson legacy: Section 8, the ghost of Section 8, the AIG bonus mess, the continuation of shields erected between the TARP targets and Congress and the Obama team..... Whatever is to come, you bet it will look like the AIG bonus mess.

The Bailout, the Bankers Who Hustle and Con, ...and the Kid Geitner

Mr. Geitner's reticence in the face of bank bullying is a mystery. Just hope it is worth it for him, as the front man for the new administration, to keep taking it (ok, on the chin) from the bankers. It's like we've gone back to the era of big bucks and Taft.

The bank CEOs are colluding and bullying Mr. Geitner like he is a junior go-fer.

Mr. Geitner increasingly comes off as a fresh-faced kid. Where is Mr. Geitner's backbone, expertise and, supposed, professional insight in all this? One surely hopes he is holding some trump cards.

The banks are essentially kaput yet acting as if entitled to the bailouts. They continue to carve bonuses out of bailout finds as if nothing has happened. They apparently regard Mr. Geitner like a Carnie flattie drools when a curious mark comes to the booth. Sharks and minnows.

PS: The paying out of bonuses earlier than their normal payout date to make it appear the bonuses are acts prior to bailout, is transparent deception and should be treated as crimes. What is going on with Geitner, IRS, SEC, Obama ? Many web sites are questioning this, notably Huffingtonpost in their series,"
Tim Geithner, CNBC, and the Second Coming of Known Unknowns"

America and the Globe in Transformation - Update

America is tranforming. Six weeks! In only six weeks, Obama has brought Congress to the world of Twitter and Facebook. Makeover is here. It's happening. It's now! Your ticket for this ride comes with citizenship, so don't get left behind. There is a new President, and a new Congress. There are new infrastructure programs that are not just dreams; they are real and for once, funded. There is a new capitalism; note that capitalism is not dead, it is being repaired and readied to proceed with new freshness and vigor in a better, more coherent, global economic context with an updated American insfrastructure and new industries.

Despite what anyone might say against President Obama, he is very much on the job. Obama is taking care of business no matter what kind of off-the-wall cant comes from the GOP. New Financial Rules are on the way. There has been a heavy investment of energy and time and it is already brnging benefits.

Six weeks! Even Sen. McCain, who last November could not press the buttons on a Blackberry, is now tweating. The weatherization of America is underway. Green Energy programs are starting. The country is changed and emerging from a long tunnel of complacency, self-neglect, lack of innovation and paralysis to a new era.

Joaquin Phoenix

The Kulture, the Kulture.

The Recession, Human Greed and Economic Models

My own, amateur, view of the current recession is that human greed was all important as a primary cause, but greed was much aided by a lack of regulatory oversight and accounting rules were missing, or finessed (ignored), for reporting the actions of hedge funds. There was also an unwise and unquestioning knee-bending to the ideological ideal (vastly unworkable) of the free-market. It was inevitable these factors would bring everything crashing down.

Consequently, I find it remarkable how remarkable and shocking many observers, not all amateur like me, find this recession to be. Why the surprise, I ask, when it seems so clear that the free market capitalism model (aka "the big dream") neglects, or better, can't handle greed and other mysteries of the human psyche. These human "qualities" are so controlling of economic models because of their uncontrollable and unquantifiable nature, so it should seem to any one with common sense.

But there were historical warnings about greed. During the Big Depression of the '30's, John Keynes' wrote about the "dark animal spirits" that served to spoil the nice, clean economic (capitalist) model of Adam Smith (Wealth of Nations, 1776). Keynes posited "animal spirits" as the model-blitzing human factors that put the kibosh on Adam Smith and kin, (Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, 1936). Keynes' notions about economies falling prey to human weakness/spirits are most recently expanded in another book, Animal Spirits (Akerlof and Okun, 2009). Prof. Okun gives a current overview of the Keynes-Okun-Akerlof evolution in the new Financial Times series on the future of capitalism.

Although Professors Akerlof and Okun are owed gratitude for their new book, it is curious that from 1936 (Keynes) through 2009 (Okun and Akerlof) there haven't been more of major investigations into the human-contributed weaknesses of free-market modeling. Maybe there have been, but there has certainly not been major insights that could have prevented idealist, free-market capitalism from becoming the destructive false-god leading to the binge and bust market cycles (junk bonds, savings and loan, dot-com, hedge funds through subprimes) over the past decade and more.

Prof. Okun aptly summarizes about the current recession:

"The idea that unfettered, unregulated capitalism would invariably produce the good outcomes was a wrong economic theory regarding how capitalist societies behave and what causes their crises. That wrong economic theory fails to take account of how the animal spirits affect economic behaviour. It fails to take into account the roles of confidence, stories and snake oil in economic fluctuation".

.

Personally, I would add: "Good luck, Drs. Okun and Akerlof, because luck is the only chance you will have trying to model human nature. And no matter how hard you try, I betcha the human psyche has many more twists, tweaks, and tricks that will rise from the dark and outwit you. Ahh, the genius of the mind." (Attributed to me!)

Solution? Obvious - hard regulatory boundaries then let the bulls run.

Medicine for a Sick Stock Market

The Pill: ban short selling --- until the Dow hits 8500?

Bail out money is being sucked down a bottomless pit created by stock market manipulators (short sellers).

HuffingtonPost reports on the short sell manipulations of one hedge fund manager who amazingly says:

"What's important when you are in that hedge fund mode is to not be doing anything that is remotely truthful, because the truth is so against your view - it is important to create a new truth to develop a fiction,.."

Obama and team should take care of this problem soon.

Limbaugh: the Dem Quandry

I first came aross Russ Limbaugh some years ago. My still fresh mind was struck by the distortions, twists of facts and outright lies coming from this person. It seemed impossible to me that someone could say these things over the public airways without control, or not be sued for libel, incitement to public sedition or simply tossed off the air.

But over a couple of months of RL, my astonishment changed to mild amusement. The distortions and twisting of reality carried a kind of iconoclastic thrill. But it never left me that RL's message was a kind of radio circus - empty vocalizations with no purpose or meaning except for their shock.

I felt RL was not called to account because actually he fits into the role of medieval fool, an often physically handicapped, or mentally challenged person historically tolerated because his only reason to exist was to make people laugh.

In time, though, the utterances of RL returned to their original impact on me but they were sounding even more distasteful than at first. As his audience increased in size, and became regionalized I began to see how destructive RL's vocalizations were becoming. I saw no difference bewteen his "exaggerated distortions" and the urgings and shouting of historical demagogues who spawned really bad consequences.

It did not surpise me that Russ Limbaugh was eventually revealed to have a pharmaceutical addiction. Something had to have been afflicting him.

I still find it fascinating that RL can vent such lies and distortions without check or serious blowback. I think one big reason is that very few Dems can stand even to mention his name. There are reasoned counters to RL: Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow , but maybe the most willing, and exceptionally able, to go down into Limbaugh's snake hole and smoke him out is Randi Rhodes (imho). Randi takes no prisoners when it comes to RL.

Behind the Recession: MBA Follies #3

Many fingers are pointed at the collapse of the subprime market as the reason for the world global recession. Question: why was so much faith put on the subprime mortgage market when by very definition the word "subprime" denotes shaky, high risk. The answer is that subprimes were combined with other investment assets in hopes to lessen the risk, Hedges. So were created a new type of esoteric investment that no one really understood or could predict about where they would lead.

A smart mathematician, not necessarily a businessman, developed an equation that at first seemed to make it possible to simplify the economics of packaging and selling subprimes. Of course it turns out that the initial enthusiasm for the equation was unfortunately premature, i.e. empty.

The reason why the equation does not work is a very human weakness for letting the promise of great riches overshadow common sense. In the case of subprimes, the very esoteric mathematics assumed that housing prices would increase FOREVER!. Hmmmm.

Worse, it did not occur to anyone at first that just for the giggles, why not see what the mathematics would predict if housing prices did not increase forever. The answer would have been easily obtained and quite clear - everything would collapse along with the housing prices, ergo the recession. ["Recipe for Disaster: The Formula That Killed Wall Street", Wired online, 17:03].

One of the interesting new business science concepts is a whole new study field, "financial engineering" (aka computational finance), which is an attempt to package for our comprehension the new world of exotic (read incomprehensible to ordinary folk) financial devices such as derivatives, e.g. hedge funds. These new wrinkles in high finance are almost impossible to understand even for professional auditors. However, it should be noted that the most famous (or infamous) example of this new field is the subprime equation mentioned above. Will all this lead nowhere? Depends on whether really smart people can hold on to their common sense...which could be diificult when one is functioning in the rarified air of higher learning.