Thoughts provoked by an old house in need of renovation, its garden, a marriage lived within its walls, and of a retired Thoroughbred race horse named Fibs and Flannel.
"Well -- uh --, yes, yes, I have to admit, it's fun being a billionaire." -- Sir Allen Stanford
Hey! I saw this guy on a news program while we were away skiing. They were looking for him to arrest him, and here he is, right on national television, enjoying himself and being a billionaire!
The most talked-about journalism of this week wasn't produced in the New York Times, CNN, Newsweek or NPR. It was Jon Stewart's epic, eight-minute takedown on Wednesday night's Daily Show of CNBC's clueless, in-the-tank reporting of inflatable bubbles and blowhard CEOs as the U.S. and world economies slowly slid into a meltdown. You can quibble about Stewart's motives in undertaking the piece -- after he was spurned for an interview by CNBC's faux populist ranter Rick Santelli -- but you can't argue with the results.
The piece wasn't just the laugh-out-loud funniest thing on TV all week (and this was a week in which NBC rebroadcast the SNL "more cowbell" sketch, so that's saying a lot) but it was exquisitely reported, insightful, and it tapped into America's real anger about the financial crisis in a way that mainstream journalism has found so elusive all these months, in a time when we all need to be tearing down myths. As one commenter on the Romenesko blog noted, "it's simply pathetic that one has to watch a comedy show to see things like this."
But that's not all. The Stewart piece also got the kind of eyeballs that most newsrooms would kill for in this digital age -- planted atop many, many major political, media and business Web sites -- and the kind of water-cooler chatter that journalists would crave in any age. In a time when newspapers are flat-out dying if not dealing with bankruptcy or massive job losses, while other types of news orgs aren't faring much better, the journalistic success of a comedy show rant shouldn't be viewed as a stick in the eye -- but a teachable moment. Why be a curmudgeon about kids today getting all their news from a comedy show, when it's not really that hard to join Stewart in his own idol-smashing game?
Here's how:
1) Great research trumps good access to the powerful: The Stewart piece makes this controversial but critical point in two different ways. For one thing, the story shows how access to the nation's most powerful CEOs -- supposedly the big advantage of a journalistic enterprise like CNBC -- isn't worth a warm bucket of spit when it results in slo-pitch softball questions, for fear of offending the rich and powerful. And so we see Ford's CEO grilled about Kid Rock's performance at the auto show, Ponzi scammer (later revealed) Alan Stanford quizzed on whether it's fun to be a billionaire, and Maria "Money Honey" Bartiromo gushing at how corporate chiefs were still telling her that their companies were doing great, even as the massive iceberg was casting its shadow over the hull of the American economy.
Jon Stewart's act of journalism -- reported, of course, by his ace team of writers -- worked because there were no interviews at all. It all hung instead on meticulous research, dredging up lethal quips of CNBC's stock pumping hosts to hang them with their own undeniable words -- Jim Cramer's "buy buy buy" when the Dow was roughly double what it is today, his touting of Bear Stearns' and Bank of America's doomed stocks. The kind of research that's so hard for most newspapers to do anymore, with downsized staffs and ever-looming deadlines, but which can so often belies the spin from our "accessible" sources.
2) The American public is mad as hell right now, so why isn't the mainstream media? Balanced reporting is important, but a balanced, modulated tone of voice? Not now, not when millions are hurting from lost jobs and under-water mortgages, and many millions more are living in fear of the same fate. People need information but what they so desperately want an outlet that shares their passion -- and, yes, that rage -- and so Jon Stewart gave people what they weren't getting anywhere else.
3) Tear down this wall... of pretending that the media itself isn't a major player in American society, and isn't a factor in most big stories. Sure, there were greedy bankers and their pocketed politicians working in unintended tandem to take the Dow from 14,000 down to 6,600, but these popular TV pundits were there every step of the way, as The Daily Show revealed, and their contribution was consequential. Mainstream media, after all these years, has a hard time understanding that one of the major political forces in this country is mainstream media, something the audience knows all too well.
4) The First Amendment doesn't say anything about not being funny, or not being passionate. I don't know about you, if you actually watched the piece, but I feel like I learned something important -- confirming the cheerleading nature of the nation's most-watched source for business news, even in a moment of oncoming disaster -- but I also busted my gut laughing as I did. And there's nothing wrong with that, informing and entertaining at the same time -- isn't that what newspapers are charging people 75 cents for?.
You know, sometimes people do some crazy stuff when they realize their days are numbered. I don't have the answers to problems facing American journalism -- not my own newsroom, mired in Chapter 11, nor the others that face a possible death sentence. But fighting for life will mean living each day like it was your last, with passion, anger and laughter, the way The Daily Showshined a light on a crevice of the nation's battered economy on Wednesday night.
Oh, and all of us, over here? Those of us not in the United States? We're just great -- those of us whose spouses work for the public health care system, anyway --, so what's Peter Goodman talking about in today's poor, beleaguered New York Times?
A Rising Dollar Lifts the U.S. but Adds to the Crisis Abroad
Oh, right, the panic over the financial crisis that everyone and her brother is talking about. That financial crisis.
As the world is seized with anxiety in the face of a spreading financial crisis, the one place having a considerably easier time attracting money is, perversely enough, the same place that started much of the trouble: the United States.
Try Googling today's world newspapers and let me know what you come up with. They're having a lot of fun.
Can we hear from the disappointed, bitter decent Republicans who feel like, "This is not my Republican party! My God!... what have I done?" Now that all the money's gone.
Same as it ever was.
Same as it ever was.
During the campaign, I wondered if the GOP would rise up, rise up and toss the lunatic fringe overboard, reclaim their party for the fiscally conservative, socially tolerant among you -- there must be some there, no? -- and make the other ones go form their own party, like Jean-Marie Le Pen's Front National in France. A radical, racist, socially conservative, anti-immigration nationalist party merely capable of splintering an election result, not taking over a country as the neocons did for 8 years.
Same as it ever was.
Trust me, George IV did more to make sure that won't happen in France any time soon than Le Pen could dreamed have accomplishing, although he did manage to do a number on those who flirted with fire, showing their frustration with criminality and unemployment by voting for him in round one against Chirac and Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, who should have been in the second round against Chirac.
Perhaps you could take an idea from this country of the Enlightenment philosophy that spawned The United States of America (if you believe it wasn't purely economically motivated; when Enlightenment sheep lie down with the lions of commerce, a great democracy is born) with more than a smidgen of hubris. Ahem.
Believe your principles of social justice, honor your rule of law that protects every citizen from another, maintain a separation of church and state and keep your main political parties aligned with the axis of your constitution and towards the center of the bell-curve of society, rather than out at its screaming extremes.
What's that? The gays are the extreme? When they are asking to marry and raise a family, not have a quickie in the men's room at Minneapolis St.Paul International Airport?
Nah, think again.
Hey, let's look at this together again... then, pst! Do something... sign the petition and send it along before Valentine's Day...
Stick rather, Barack (sorry, we were classmates, so it's hard to get used to calling you "Mr. President" and "President Obama"), to your sense of what is right and wrong and, as Jericho said, talk not to the politicians, but to those who vote for them. Talk straight from your principles, using your considerable oratorical power to reach them. Tell them why what is uncomfortable is yet right, why what is cause of fear is yet worth finding a little courage for. Be a leader and continue to lead us to a better society, a better country, a finer hour in history like you did throughout the campaign. This is no time for compromise when we are on the threshold of a transformation in our society, and you could be the one to lead it, not to betray it in compromise. You don't need to be afraid. We are your lieutenants (unless you betray too many of us, my gay friends and family members on the top of that list).
We've got your back.
I've got to say, while I am on the subject again, Barack, that I don't agree with Frank Schaeffer when he says that you were right to invite to have Rick Warren to pray at your inauguration. I could start with saying that there is no place for public prayer in government, but tokenism is always wrong. That's like saying, "You were right, Mr. President, for nominating Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to the bench. A little tokenism can't hurt. Might mollify the colored people." You fell there. You never promised equality to gays, but you didn't have to put a man up in front of the nation at the moment of your investiture, and have him pray for their damned, craven souls.
You might have been right in a highly qualified sense to indulge in a little tokenism praying, but led by a person who publicly condemns none.
I want to know, from those who are its members but do not consider themselves at ease with either of these factions of the Republican party, who are cast adrift whether you care, how you identify yourselves right now, what it means to you and what you want. I'd be furious if it were my party, and I don't know if it would be enough for me to content myself with voting with the Democrats and calling myself an Independent.
Are we heading to a real three party system, with the Independents picking up the phlogiston of the Republican conflagration?
Are we going to see the extremes in the Republican party lose their hold in the subsequent congressional and senate election cycles with a host of Independents who feel themselves to be Republicans of a pre-Nixon era taking back their party?
Or, are we going to see a continued rise in the Democratic party as it expresses it principles and aims for the nation in this time?
I think there are a couple tiny mistakes in the first couple paragraphs, but you get the idea...
Dear President Obama: I know that from time to time you read Huffington Post because you've written for it. As a Huffington Post reader you'll know that no one on this web site has more faithfully supported your candidacy and now your presidency than me. As a former lifelong Republican, son of a co-founder of the Religious Right; my late evangelical leader father, Francis Schaeffer, I'm in a unique position to tell you a few things about the Republicans from inside perspective. (As you know I left that movement in the mid 1980s.)
*The lack of cooperation you're getting from the Republican Party will continue. You were right to indulge in a little bit of tokenism when you had to Pastor Rick Warren pray at your inauguration. But if you think that the Republicans in Congress and the Senate are going to do more than their utmost to obstruct everything you are and what you stand for you're dreaming.
As someone who appeared numerous times on the 700 Club with Pat Robertson, as someone for whom Jerry Falwell used to send his private jet to bring me to speak at his college, as an author who had James Dobson giveaway 150,000 copies of my one of my fundamentalist "books" allow me to explain something: the Republican Party is controlled by two ideological groups. First, is the Religious Right. Second, are the neoconservatives. Both groups share one thing in common: they are driven by fear and paranoia. Between them there is no Republican "center" for you to appeal to, just two versions of hate-filled extremes.
The Religious Right supply the kind of people who at McCain and Palin rallies were yelling things such as "kill him" about you. That's the constituency to which your hand was extended when looking for compromise on your financial bailout bill.
There's only one thing that makes sense for you now. Mr. President, you need to forget a bipartisan approach and get on with the business of governing by winning each battle. You will never be able to work with the Republicans because they hate you. Believe me, Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter are the norm not the exception. James Dobson and the rest are praying for you to fail. The neoconservatives are gnashing their teeth and waiting for you to "sell out Israel" or "show weakness" in Afghanistan, whatever, so they can declare you a traitor.
The problem is that when you deal with the Republican Party you're talking to the polished characters in Washington. I wish you could see the hate e-mail's that I have received over the last two years because I supported you, letters calling for God to kill me, telling me that I hate God because I supported you and that I am "an abortionist" and worse a "fag lover" because I've written that I believe that you will be a great president.
What those senators and congressmen are telling you is not what their rabid core constituents are telling them. Their loyalty is to a fundamentalist Christian ideology on the one hand and American exceptionalism of perpetual warfare and hatred and fear of the "other" on the other hand. Between the neoconservatives and evangelical Religious Right Republicans you have no friends.
The good news is that most Americans support you. And if you will just get in the face of the Republican Party and call their bluff you'll be surprised how many individual ordinary Republicans will support you, not to mention the rest of us. America is sick of the Republicans.
The Democratic Party won for a reason: the Republicans failed and have taken us all down with them! You're doing your presidency and America no favor by extending an open hand to the perpetually knotted fist of what has become the embittered lunatic fringe of our country. They would rather go down in flames than "compromise" their ideology.
As you showed us again at your press conference of Feb 9, you are a brilliant, articulate and decent man. Your Republican opponents are not decent people but ideologues bent on destroying you. To quote the biblical adage sir, don't cast your pearls before swine.
Frank Schaeffer is the author of CRAZY FOR GOD-How I Grew Up As One Of The Elect, Helped Found The Religious Right, And Lived To Take All (Or Almost All) Of It Back. Now in paperback.
And I really like this notion. I really, really do --
Taking Stock in America, or the American Stockholder
America’s horror of “nationalization” could be defused by handing out shares to all American households. President Bush used to talk about building an “ownership society.” Well, giving shares in big banks to all American households would be a terrific way to do that.
I just have to include this from Kristof today, too. Thank you, Sir:
Yes, troubled banks might lose good people to hedge funds that can pay more because they’re not bound by these curbs. But that upsets me less than the idea of single mothers working multiple jobs so that their tax dollars can underwrite million-dollar bonuses at companies getting taxpayer assistance.
But, keep those single mothers out of those hedge funds, for everyone's sake.
So, why not look to Sweden for their bank bail-out model, and to France for national health care?
Why not, America? We weren't exactly screaming, "But that's not American, it's French!" when we were borrowing their philosophical principles for our constitution and relying on their military and financial support to get the job done.
Why not, indeed.
....
once in a lifetime
And you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack And you may find yourself in another part of the world And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful Wife And you may ask yourself-well...how did I get here?
Letting the days go by/let the water hold me down Letting the days go by/water flowing underground Into the blue again/after the moneys gone Once in a lifetime/water flowing underground.
And you may ask yourself How do I work this? And you may ask yourself Where is that large automobile? And you may tell yourself This is not my beautiful house! And you may tell yourself This is not my beautiful wife!
Letting the days go by/let the water hold me down Letting the days go by/water flowing underground Into the blue again/after the moneys gone Once in a lifetime/water flowing underground.
Same as it ever was...same as it ever was...same as it ever was... Same as it ever was...same as it ever was...same as it ever was... Same as it ever was...same as it ever was...
Water dissolving...and water removing There is water at the bottom of the ocean Carry the water at the bottom of the ocean Remove the water at the bottom of the ocean!
Letting the days go by/let the water hold me down Letting the days go by/water flowing underground Into the blue again/in the silent water Under the rocks and stones/there is water underground.
Letting the days go by/let the water hold me down Letting the days go by/water flowing underground Into the blue again/after the moneys gone Once in a lifetime/water flowing underground.
And you may ask yourself What is that beautiful house? And you may ask yourself Where does that highway go? And you may ask yourself Am I right? ...am I wrong? And you may tell yourself My god!...what have I done?
Letting the days go by/let the water hold me down Letting the days go by/water flowing underground Into the blue again/in the silent water Under the rocks and stones/there is water underground.
Letting the days go by/let the water hold me down Letting the days go by/water flowing underground Into the blue again/after the moneys gone Once in a lifetime/water flowing underground.
Same as it ever was...same as it ever was...same as it ever was... Same as it ever was...same as it ever was...same as it ever was... Same as it ever was...same as it ever was...
I'm going out to work in the garden and do some thinking. I got lucky this time. I already didn't have a job, and my husband has one he can't lose.
I remember, though.
....
Unemployment benefits
yeah.
I remember losing my job at KPF in June 1990 and finding out that I was pregnant for Sam the following February, while I was still temping for some company on the Upper West Side in a brownstone with a woman named Nancy and an administrative assistant who snapped her gum, wore leopard prints anywhere cloth can be applied to a human body and the brightest pink lipstick, and did a decent job. Above all, she was a really sweet person.
Nancy and I thought that we were doing her a big favor by taking her aside and explaining that to get ahead in the workplace, it is preferable not to dress or make herself us like she did, and to drop the gum. Being an especially generous and courageous person, I took this upon myself. She looked happily expectant as I sat down with her, and the change in the look on her face when I got just a little bit into my ill-prepared and worse-placed explanation of how to dress to succeed, as she realized what I was trying to say, shamed me. I realized how incredibly stupid and unintentionally mean I was. I'll never forget.
So, did I stop and just apologize? No, of course not. I couldn't think a way fast enough out of the predicament. I tried to look even more well-intentioned and plowed along. The building alarm didn't suddenly start ringing, I didn't suffer a sudden sneezing fit, the phone didn't ring, announcing an emergency requiring my immediate attention. I don't even remember what I did in that company or what the company did, only that the owners were a Barnard grad from a class well before mine and her British husband by the name of Robyn, so there couldn't possibly have been anything important enough to spare either of us my exceedingly embarrassing explanation of how white people dress and how she should, too, to do herself justice in the workplace. It was indecent. I just gagged through long enough to justify my having started it in the first place.
Nancy observed my failure from a distance.
"So, how'd it go? How'd she take it? Do you think it will help?" she asked when I returned to my work at her side.
"Oh, sure. Certainly. She took it really well."
I needed to be hit by a taxi and receive whatever that wonderful thing is that they give you to relax you before surgery.
I signed up for a temporary agency and answered phones with aplomb. How many stupid things can you say when you can't possibly feel responsible for anything weighter than making your employers' proud of the way you handled their clients on the phone? I froze under a series of air conditioning ducts from midtown to Jersey City, until I ended up rescuing a graphic design firm from 180-day arrears under Sam's supervision as he grew from a bump under my dress to a good size baby in the portacrib next to my desk, until the day I thought I was fired by my fashionable and well-regarded employer, a single mother in Manhattan herself, who resented deeply my unwillingness to move back to the city from Fairfield County, and swore at the moving guys like the worst among them, who, in turn, looked to us to see if we were as shocked by our boss' behavior as they were. Oh yeah, we were.
Only, see, she claimed I wasn't fired. Maybe it was just wishful thinking on my part, anything to get away from this wonderful woman who could turn into Cruella DeVille in a 180° pirouette on the polished floorboards of our Flatiron district building, but, next thing I knew, I was confessing to my alcoholic hairdresser landlord, who wished I would invite him to remove his bathrobe when he invited himself into my studio apartment over his home and bedroom and sat down on the end of my bed, while I tried to look like this was perfectly normal (I learned to compartmentalize as well as Bill Clinton), that I had lost my job, was ineligible for unemployment because my employer fought me all the way to the unemployment court and won, and wouldn't be able to continue to pay my rent.
"Listen, apply for AFDC," he said with real kindness and sympathy. "There's no shame in taking help when you need it." I wasn't evicted. I could go on walking through his front door, up the stairs past his bedroom to my studio under the eaves, until he eventually built an outside staircase to a door he installed on the landing of the attic steps, safely behind the door to his second floor hall that I tried to never use again and keep locked at all times.
I had to go through the alphabet before I could come up with what AFDC meant, but I understood: welfare. I nodded my assent there by that columned porch with painted wicker furniture behind the Old Greenwich white picket fence, where my landlord demonstrated that my former employer wasn't the only contradiction in terms, and people are just that complex.
The ladies at the AFDC office in Stamford -- or was it Norwalk? -- were every bit as nice as the ones I met when the employer who had originally had to lay me off at the very beginning of the downturn told me that my COBRA didn't cover prenatal care (it turned out they were wrong, and I eventually gave birth at NYU Medical Center), and I ended up at the public clinic at St. Vincent's Hospital, being told by a kind black woman that there was no shame in applying for the WIC benefits to which my situation entitled me all those months of answering one company's phones after another with two Ivy League diplomas. Having my groceries examined at the check-out at the Washington Square Village neighborhood grocery stores for compliance with the terms of the WIC benefits prepared me for pulling out my Food Stamps at Poricelli's Food Market, next to the women whose husbands' year-end bonuses and investment portfolios entitled them to membership at the local country, yacht and beach clubs, while I learned to smile in the face of their pity.
This was most definitely not how my upbringing and Barnard had taught me that the world was supposed to work.
When I needed a break from needing every ounce of my own pride, I went to the A&P on the Post Road and to join anyone else who might be needing to pay for their kids' dinner with those brown and beige slips.
My break came in the form of a backroom job with a hedgefund company on the Stamford Marina. Really kind neighbors who wished better for Sam and me helped me get the interview. I was hired, I later realized, so that the owner could make sport of me, his favorite prey: a "lesbian, liberal, animal-loving Democrat."
He got two out of three right, he also came that close to going to jail the day he nearly burst a vessel in his pulsing crimson brow, having the worst temper tantrum I had witnessed to that fateful moment, when he deemed it necessary to throw me out of the office because my "superior" was on vacation, there was a snag in the programming to which I was not given access to the code, and the margin was all calculated at double the real numbers owed. I had figured that out before he did, and I was already busy recalculating it all by hand to call the right numbers into the backroom at his buddies' bank, Bear Stearns, when he came surging into my tiny room, screaming. Silence in the trading room behind us. I knew they were with me, like they knew we were with them when it was one of their turns. Cowards.
The police informed him, when he refused to provide the written proof that he had fired me at their instruction -- see? I learned quickly -- after he called them to have me removed without it, while I waited patiently in the reception area, as I informed him that I would until I had it in hand, that they would only be too happy to take him "in". I just had to peek at his shame then. It was so gratifying to see him with his back to the wall.
"Did you fire this woman as she states?" He was nearly inarticulate now at the height of the passion of his rage.
"Yes!"
"Have you given her written notice of her firing?"
"I will do no such thing," he screamed.
"Sir, the law states that you owe her written notice. We are not leaving here until she has it."
"I don't have any paper to write it on," he smirked, sure he had them, or that he had at least proved that he was the biggest asshole in the room.
The officer looked around the office, and let his eyes stop pointedly on the receptionist's desk before returning to rest on Jon's purple brow, pulsing regularly and determinedly, proof of his greater danger. Smirking helped him bring his blood pressure back down. I thought about his blond wife and kids, and wondered how embarrassed she felt to be married to him for membership to whatever Darien Club had admitted them for his money, since he wasn't the right religion. Then I watched him realize he wasn't going to be able to wisecrack or bully his way out of it.
"Sir, we'd be only too happy to take you in." None of the guys had come to watch. They sat glued to their places, listening to every word, witnessing the one humiliation they couldn't cover for him with their own denial from the safety of their desks and the work they pretended to be doing still, especially the managing director, who was an acquaintance of the friends who had approached him about getting me the interview. What, I wondered, was going through his mind?
Jon, always the master of disdain and a loaded gesture, swore and grabbed a scrap of paper from the recycling bin he mocked me for maintaining, sitting just inside the supply room and kitchen, scribbled a note on it while the officer watched, making sure he wrote what was required.
"You may go to your car now," his partner informed me, turning to nod a little solidarity with me and let me get out of there. "Wait there for us."
When they walked through the doors a few minutes later, and saw me standing there, shivering next to my little white Honda Civic, wondering what I was going to do next and how it was that such a man could have everything I needed and parade that in front of me for months, behave that way and not be smote instantly, while I tried to make it look like it was just fine for a mother to raise her baby in an attic studio apartment and wear the cast-offs of a woman over on the other side of town years younger than I was, who was herself made to feel that she didn't belong because she was terribly young, the South American bride of a wealthy South American man, taken for the children's well-dressed, polite and quiet nanny, while he mocked me for paying the taxes on my income insufficient to live on, much less shelter in the Bahamas.
That is why nothing happening today surprises me in the least.
And it only gets better.
....
today's papers
Geithner Bombs Coming-Out Party
By Daniel Politi Posted Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2009, at 6:51 AM ET
The much-anticipated announcement turned out to be a big letdown. The New York Timeshighlights that the administration's plan to rescue the nation's financial system that was unveiled by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner "is far bigger than anyone predicted and envisions a far greater government role in markets and banks than at any time since the 1930s." The administration said it's committed to spending as much as $2.5 trillion in the effort. But Wall Street quickly gave the plan "a resounding thumbs down," as USA Todayputs it, because it was short on some very key details that made clear the plan is very much a work in progress. The Wall Street Journal points out that the markets experienced the worst sell-off since President Obama moved into the White House as stocks plunged nearly 5 percent sending the market "to its lowest level since Nov. 20."
Investors weren't alone in their unhappiness with the plan. Lawmakers were also quick to criticize Geithner for failing to provide more details on how the administration plans to deal with the ongoing mess. "What they did is over-promise and under-deliver," the head of a private investment firm tells the Washington Post. "They said there was going to be a plan, so everybody expected a plan. And there was nothing." The Los Angeles Timessays that the lack of details in the announcement "reflects a double bind for the Obama administration." It's become clear that the problems in the financial system are bigger than expected and could require more money to fix, but at the same time Congress has grown even angrier at Wall Street, which makes it highly unlikely that lawmakers would approve more funding for the effort. To continue reading, click here. ....
Sen. Robert Bennett (R-Utah) (Center), Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma), Sen. Roger Wicker (R- Mississippi), and Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Alabama) hold a press conference on the stimulus package. (Photo: Getty Images)
Why are Senate Republicans (all, that is, except the lonely moderates Collins, Snowe, and Specter) nixing the stimulus package, as House Republicans did? Not because Obama failed to compromise - he gave them the tax breaks they wanted, included a whopper for business. Not because Senate Democrats failed to bend - they agreed to trim more than $100 billion out of a previous version of the bill. Not because Senate Republicans are doctrinally opposed to deficit spending - many of them happily voted for Bush spending and tax cuts that doubled the federal debt.
The reason has to do with the timing of the economic recovery. If everything goes as well as possible and the stimulus and next round of bank bailouts work perfectly, a turnaround could begin as early as mid-2010. But even under this rosy scenario, employers wouldn't start rehiring until late 2010 because they'll want to be sure the upturn is for real (employment typically lags in a recovery). This means that under the best of circumstances - assuming the stimulus is big enough to jump-start the economy and the next bank bailout big enough to get credit moving - most Americans won't feel much better than they do now by November, 2010. Unemployment could easily be hovering close to 8 percent; underemployment, close to 14 percent; and many other indicators, still in the doldrums.
That's if all goes extremely well. But what if the stimulus isn't big enough? (I fear it won't be, given the large and growing gap between what the economy can produce at near full-employment and the meager demand coming from consumers and businesses.) And what if the bailout doesn't quite work? (It may not, given that the banking system is collapsing and many banks are actually insolvent.) The economy in November of 2010 may be worse than it is now, with no turnaround in sight.
Which brings us to the midterm elections of 2010.
Yesterday, while sitting across from Newt Gingrich on George Stephanopoulos's Sunday morning television show, 1994 came roaring back into my head. Gingrich, you remember, turned that midterm election into a national referendum about Bill Clinton's leadership. (No one today remembers what was in Gingrich's "Contract with America," but almost no one did then, either.) Because Clinton's presidency had had a rough start and because House and Senate Republicans had kept remarkable unity in opposing him at almost every turn, Gingrich in the election of 1994 could claim that and the Republican Party offered a clear alternative, and had earned the chance to control Congress.
Fast forward to today and listen to Senate Republicans referring to the stimulus: "This is neither bipartisan nor is it a compromise," said Sen. John McCain this morning. "It is ... generational theft" that will increase the role of government and provide no mechanism for paying back the money. Sen. Mike Enzi said the package "spends everything we've got on nothing we're sure about. I'm supposed to be giddy that we're only spending $827 billion. Frankly, I've had enough of this bailout baloney." Sen. Tom Coburn's office released a list of projects that he calls earmarks and pork, totalling more than $55 billion. And so it went today.
Last week, House Republicans were equally vitriolic.
And wait until they hear about the next stage of the bank bailout. I'd be surprised if more than a handful of House or Senate Republicans support it.
Republicans don't want their fingerprints on the stimulus bill or the next bank bailout because they plan to make the midterm election of 2010 a national referendum on Barack Obama's handling of the economy. They know that by then the economy will still appear sufficiently weak that they can dub the entire Obama effort a failure - even if the economy would have been far worse without it, even if the economy is beginning to turn around. They'll say "he wanted more government spending, and we said no, but we didn't have the votes. Elect us and we'll turn the economy around by cutting taxes and getting government out of the private sector."
Obama believes Republicans will eventually embrace bipartisanship. I hope he's right but I fear he's wrong. They want to take back Congress the way Newt Gingrich retook the House (and helped Republicans retake the Senate) in 1994 - with hellfire and brimstone. Once in control of Congress, they'll be able to block Obama's big initiatives on health care and the environment, stop any Supreme Court nominees, and set up their own candidate for the White House in 2012.
....
Which is why someone else -- *now who was it? -- was also saying today that this moment looks an awful lot like the beginning of the Clinton years and the rise of Gingrich and his loudmouthpiece and "honorary member" of the house of representatives, Rush Limbaugh, and their Republican Revolution Contract for America, or whatever it was called.
You've got to love these guys for sticking to their principles.
To hell with it. I am going to (finally) prune my lavender plants in the February afternoon sun before it disappears in the creeping, enveloping miasma of Republican pettiness and smallness of mind emanating from the United States along with economic ruin, and hope Serena wins her match without me.
* Found it...
During a closed-door speech at the House Republican retreat last month, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said that "with George W. Bush, Karl Rove and Tom DeLay out of the picture," voters would embrace Republicans again. One lawmaker in the room later called Gingrich's singling out of other Republicans "gratuitous." Gingrich's office refused to "confirm or deny the comments attributed to the ex-Speaker."
From a Center for Progressive Policy email yesterday.
Speaking of Serena...
....
Newsflash!
Serena Williams just bought an apartment in Paris in the 6th!
I love Serena Williams. Venus, too.
She just had the stupidest interview I have ever seen given. Speculation that she has grandes ambitions près de la Porte d'Auteuil ce mois de juin.
empty packs of Marlboros floating in the can collecting rainwater under the roof gutter
Walking to the garage in the half-frozen rain falling rather despondently from the gray sky onto the soaked brown landscape of our garden and what lies beyond it, a sorry view today, to get a roll of paper towel to clean up the drippings of the garbage bag that only I can see when I take a dust thing of dog hair and sand, the mountainous recolte of my administrations with the broom -- as every time, more than once a day --, to the garbage, my eye spies again the empty packs of Marlboro cigarettes, discarded and trampled into what was a lawn, bare now, again, of grass and sporting clumps of moss, both growing there and fallen from the roof of the petit maison.
Entering the house, I see the guts of a mouse, all that's left of a new kill by one of the cats, between the doormat and the door.
I am utterly deflated. I can go to Paris and chat with my friends over a bowl of potage and an entrecôte, saignant, a glass of wine in a bistro where even the house wine in a pichet is good, but even with these friends I met through our mutual enthusiastic support of Barack Obama and the Change to come, there is more of the bitterness of which we are not supposed to allow ourselves the taste, chastised for losing site of the Great forest for the trees. But, I am seated across the bistro table from one such tree, and he asks, with a sense of having been deceived or betrayed, "What happened to the Separation of church and state? Would Lyndon Johnson have asked a segregationist to say the benediction? He casts us onto the heap."
What are we supposed to say to console what can't and shouldn't be consoled? There now, hush, one liberation, one vindication at a time, my friend, one redemption for themselves at a time, because that is all the American people, any People can support. Yours will come.
Why wonder that France is his chosen home when their next president could be Bertrand Delanoë, the Mayor of this city, himself a publicly gay man and and free to enjoy full privileges in his society, with the exception of marriage in this historically Catholic country, not quite ready to let the last remnant of a faith they have otherwise largely, although not wholly, not all of them, for there remain a number who practice with as great a faith as always, discarded. If he cannot marry, he can become a legal partner, declared in his own mairie, and receive all the same benefits of a legally married couple.
I have, as anyone who has read this journal since its inception, or knew me before, knows, worked so hard on that lawn, trying to make grass not only sprout and grow, but thrive. I have worked hours that can't be counted without admitting to a reasonable plea of unreasonableness excused only by insanity, or deliberately unacknowledged desperation. Then, the workers come, smoke their cigarettes and leave their empty packages behind, along with their unstowed and unprotected tools and dribbled sand, bits of masonry and chaux, scattered everywhere, what's left of the grass and weeds, smashed flat under their -- and our -- feet into the ground that can't now possibly give life to yet another lawn this spring, and I wonder who enjoys control over what?
Careless. Without care.
Mary asked, forwarding the Paul Krugman OpEd of yesterday's post, "Who is in charge in DC?" There was so much anger and accusation in those six words, "Recall or fire them all," "repugs and media are trying to stir controversy on the hill... as though the economy alone isn't enough... why is this not being taken seriously? My god, this is our economic future, jobs retirements, everything..." The sentence leaving you to call the everything to mind for yourself. Your everything.
And why aren't they taking this seriously?
I do not even need to struggle to find the words, since I just found them this morning and marked them in my book with an unopened envelope containing a recent statement of my investment accounts, worth something as a marker of the True sentiments that mark their cause, the author of which is Octavian Nothing, soldier in Lord Dunmore's Royal Ethiopian Regiment, "Liberty to Slaves" embroidered onto the shirt of his Loyalist uniform:
"It is in fact easily discernible that governments are instituted to commit the crimes that their citizens require for gain, but cannot countenance committing privately."
I intervened in this piece of charming youthful désespoir, countering that some philosophers say governments were instituted to protect the natural rights of the citizen; to which Octavian said that nature recognizes no rights. "Our rights are unnatural, or we should need no government to defend them." I protested; he insisted. "Look abroad in the fields," he said. "What may kill, kills, what may eat, eats. All things are born unequal, and there is no law but that inequality."
I did not disagree, but I was uneasy at the savagery in his address. "You would say yourself," I reminded him, "'Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.'"
"And you would say yourself," he replied, "'The world is the house of the strong.'" Thus ended our protreptic discourse.
-- The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing: Traitor to the Nation, Volume II, The Kingdom on the Waves, M.T. Anderson
Who are the strong, upon what do they depend, and what does it take to make them recognize Justice? They will only change place with others, once brought low. And we will continue to fight amongst ourselves, making some True friends, brothers and sisters along the way. ....
I am a little embarrassed about this post (Dolores Palin, Sarah Umbridge) because somehow I had no idea others (including, it seems, although I can't find any video online to prove it, besides his mentioning the name of Dolores Umbridge yesterday, Keith Olbermann) had also thought of the Umbridge/Palin parallel way back in the first week of September. Just Google "sarah palin dolores umbridge" and start reading. It's okay, though, because I am merely chronicling now for myself. You are welcome to read along.
As (you pick the adjective) as Sarah Palin is, it shocked me more that a political party thought she is a politically viable choice to advance their ticket to govern The United States of America.
It said to me how very, very far things have gone, and how very, very closely reality can resemble the invented world of stories because -- well-written or not, sophisticated or simple, for children or adults, literature or pulp for the grand public -- they tell the story of the human heart, and it's not always a Hallmark Valentine.
I thought if Palin sounds so very much like Dolores Umbridge, then who is John McCain. Voldemort was the easy answer, but it didn't fit because he is not the source, he is not the one they serve. He is a servant in the system of emptiness and evil. He is not a mastermind. He is the interesting character, in a way. His was a special brand of snake oil. Someone recently said that maybe his truest desire is to destroy, the Republican party by failing, to smash it to bits. If that is true, why? Did he or did he not serve it? Did he or did he not act as they did? Almost everything you can think of to say about his claims can be turned upside down and inside out when you do a little digging, from earmarks, to lobbyists to service. How much of John McCain was a projection of what John McCain wished and not what John McCain would, much less did. No, he's not Voldemort.
I reserved that for Rove. Rove has been acting in the Republican political establishment since his college days. I don't know Rove as a child. I don't know the inside of his heart and mind, but I do know that he was born politically in the midst of Watergate, from the inside the Nixon machine. I cam across the footage from the CBS Evening News that is in the middle of the page. Be patient. You will see him, not yet bloated. He is a subject for the biographers.
While Keith Olbermann is comparing Palin to Addie Polk, the 90-year-old who shot herself in the chest when they tried to evict her from her Akron home after her mortgage was foreclosed after 38 years, saying that both are caught up in something bigger than they are, over their heads,
"In much the same way we, America, in the corporate persona of Fannie Mae, have forgiven poor Addie Polk of Akron, Ohio, we, America, also need to forgive poor Sarah Palin of Wasilla, Alaska. They are both in situations that are beyond their ability to cope, they are both stuck in a crucible caused by forces they cannot comprehend, they are both unable to understand what they are doing."
He's right. We do not need so much to be afraid of telegenic, winkin', Golly-gee-whillikers Sarah Palin; there are tens of thousands of her out there. We need to face who put her there, who picked her out of a crowd of Sarah Palins and made her the TV face for their social and economic political agenda. The difficulty, it seems to me, is that in reality, there is not one villain, there is not one Voldemort with his helpers that the hero and his helpers can confront and eliminate. In fact, literature even seems to recognize that one story told is prelude to others to come. That is the way it is.
My early education taught me, inadvertently, I imagine now, to believe that the US having defeated the uber-villain, who did monstrous things through his rise to power in Germany, was the great hero. That evil vanquished was vanquished. That humans everywhere had to understand this as an aberration of the human spirit that could not happen again. I now believe that it is as universal and present as any part of good in humans, and that the Republicans have long understood this. They used it, and in channeling the visceral power of fear and control, rather than courage and cooperative action, they have brought it to America.
I read the other day that the original definition of fascism is a relationship between corporations and government, and that this was fascism as Mussolini practiced it, but that in 1968, the definition changed in the dictionaries.
Not having a good English dictionary at my disposal here (gift idea), I resort to Dictionary.com. Here is the definition the American Heritage Dictionary gives:
fas·cism (fāsh'ĭz'əm) n.
1. often Fascism a. A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism. b. A political philosophy or movement based on or advocating such a system of government.
2. Oppressive, dictatorial control.
[Italian fascismo, from fascio, group, from Late Latin fascium, from Latin fascis, bundle.]
Word History: It is fitting that the name of an authoritarian political movement like Fascism, founded in 1919 by Benito Mussolini, should come from the name of a symbol of authority. The Italian name of the movement, fascismo, is derived from fascio, "bundle, (political) group," but also refers to the movement's emblem, the fasces, a bundle of rods bound around a projecting axe-head that was carried before an ancient Roman magistrate by an attendant as a symbol of authority and power. The name of Mussolini's group of revolutionaries was soon used for similar nationalistic movements in other countries that sought to gain power through violence and ruthlessness, such as National Socialism.
The American Heritage New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition, provides this discussion:
fascism [(fash-iz-uhm)]
A system of government that flourished in Europe from the 1920s to the end of World War II. Germany under Adolf Hitler, Italy under Mussolini, and Spain under Franco were all fascist states. As a rule, fascist governments are dominated by a dictator, who usually possesses a magnetic personality, wears a showy uniform, and rallies his followers by mass parades; appeals to strident nationalism; and promotes suspicion or hatred of both foreigners and “impure” people within his own nation, such as the Jews in Germany. Although both communism and fascism are forms of totalitarianism, fascism does not demand state ownership of the means of production, nor is fascism committed to the achievement of economic equality. In theory, communism opposes the identification of government with a single charismatic leader (the “cult of personality”), which is the cornerstone of fascism. Whereas communists are considered left-wing, fascists are usually described as right-wing.
Note: Today, the term fascist is used loosely to refer to military dictatorships, as well as governments or individuals that profess racism and that act in an arbitrary, high-handed manner.
Note this last.
The American Heritage New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition makes reference to the historic associations of fascism with socioeconomic control -- the Dictionary.com Unabridged version 1.1 makes it clearer in their definition:
(sometimes initial capital letter) a governmental system led by a dictator having complete power, forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism, regimenting all industry, commerce, etc., and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism and often racism -- suppression of opposition through censorship and controls, and a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism, but today, it is "loosely" understood as nothing more than "military dictatorships".
It strikes me that the neutering of the term fascism to make it a meme for something that appears impossible in US democracy has been a ruse of genius. Fascism has been unbundled for an American sensibility, the association with commerce, with social control -- that was what the Soviet Union did, not the United States government --, racism and nationalism stripped away from the bundle.
Our military, we say, fights wars for its people; it is great and good; its soldiers are just and honorable; our wars the more so. We made ourselves infallible in our eyes, and in those of an older generation of world citizens who still remember the USA for D-day and the liberation of Europe from fascism, but in the 60 years since, other eyes have opened on the fascism that has been nutured in the USA, as racists fumed against the advancement of colored people (I am thinking of the mission of the NAACP), as the controllers of the nation's great wealth on Wall Street and in the corporate boardrooms of the US sought political advantage to deregulate their businesses and allow them access to even more spectacular profits, handed in out in astronomical CEO salaries and year-end bonuses, safe from taxation in the off-shore accounts for which the US Tax Code provided with a nudge and a wink.
Power concentrated in the hands of ever fewer, ever more fearful of a population that would rage if it bothered to finally understand in what it had been complicit.
And not everyone agrees that the Jews did not "deserve" what "they got", nor that Muslims do not deserve the same. The right has been sure to keep those coals stirred. Sarah Palin's Christianity decries mine, and those of more ecumenical pastors and priests. Fundamentalist extremism carries many passports, including that of the United States of America.
It's possible to get too close to the evil, to spend too much time thinking about it. I had a nightmare. I dreamed that my hair salon was closed. In its place was an array of cubicles with low-walls, filled with banks of communications equipment, dials and screens. Everything was black and white. No one sat at those desks. The few people at the reception desk would say nothing. I felt panic. What had happened? Where had it gone? There were other women and men asking the same, but no one would answer. There was no face to tell us.
"But what a terrible thing, and Bonne Marché just across the street? What will happen?"
Don't ask it to make sense. It is a dream. It's our job to make sense of it. I am overdue for a hair cut and color, so of course I have that on the brain, but it is also expensive, a luxury. So is everything sold inside Bonne Marché. Creative people who drive Vespas covered with stickers from world cities and have fascinating tattoos, jewelry and points of view work inside, alongside people from just about every rung of society, from the shampoo boys and girls, to the receptionists, to the hipper stylists who work in that salon. It is a sort of luxury crossroads, and it was gone.
That's my fear talking in my dream. Luxury and individual expression -- the luxury of individual expression? -- gone, replaced by listening and recording equipment, while we are so powerless as to only discover that and feel shock.
Our world changed between appointments.
Look at the contortions through which our society has gone, from Civil Rights to Voting Rights and Women's Rights. Anger and fear were born of those movements on the part of those who felt threatened enough to kill its leaders. It is a cultural war. It isn't over. A half black, half white child of that time has come of age to ask to lead us as our president, and the majority of us desire this. We are ready. We asked for those changes in society, we supported them, some organized and fought for them. Others fought against them. While bills were signed into law by LBJ, the right prepared to fight the only way left to them, to confound and constrain those who would attempt to benefit by that rule of law.
They have worked around the law, in contempt of the law, and still, we haven't acted. We say, "Let us elect Senator Obama, and then there will be time to identify the criminals and punish them." What, put Bush and Cheney and Rove in jail? I doubt it.
They say, "Let us pass this emergency bail-out legislation to save our economy, and then there will be time for the hearings to identify the wrong-doers and punish them." What, put Wall Street, corporate America and Congress in jail? I don't see it.
What will get in the way of doing the right thing next? This economic crisis that was the child of the great Republican (mostly) power and money grab? You betcha'.
Our country is full Americans chanting "YOU ESS-AY!! YOU ESS-AY!!" -- at home and abroad -- and sporting their flag pins and bumper stickers.
The right is full of fascists yelling "Communists!" at the left during Palin rallies.
It never made sense, and it still doesn't now. Hitler first justified the murder of Jews for their communist, or leftist, anti-commerce ideas, or just another way of framing racist German social nationalism in her hour of post World War I humiliation to make it more palatable -- and yet the Jews were historically persecuted in Europe for their wealth and "sinfulness", stemming from their understanding and development of international finance, having been given that role by a Church that told its adherents that to profit from the exchange of money was sinful, and so, therefore, the Jews were sinners, whose wealth must be confiscated for the good of society. This is why it is frowned upon to focus on the making of money and talk about one's salary in certain upper circles, descended from the deposed aristocracy in Europe. They don't even realize why.
We're still fighting the same war.
But as these huge banks go down, their directors and CEOs asking for the salvation of the state to shore up the caving cliff of America's former economic might, undermined by their greed, their chosen political leaders' wars for a greater share of control of the world's oil, the whipping up of anti-Islamic sentiment to gain support from Christian fundamentalists so inclined to go their way, and American's passion for acquisition that has resulted in an unprecedented individual debt, what are the executives doing?
You're asking the fox to watch over the hen house, my friends in Congress, unless you mean it when you promise hearings and punishments. They seek to make fools of those who still believe in Great Principles.
"What he lacked in experience, he's made up in fight." from Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Where, oh where, is Mr. Smith in America's hour of need? We stand for peace, we stand for social justice, we stand for the protection of sustainable capitalism and renewable energy, we stand with Obama, and they throw us Palin, the ruin of the global economy, and, if you listen to the whispers, perhaps the North American Union Army to quell post-election civil unrest in the event the Republicans declare victory and martial law.
And so it goes.
Ah, Kurt, ya died too soon.
I am going to rejoin my fellow supporters of democracy watching the Obama sign and out for freedom of expression for all of us. ....
So, I found this video this afternoon, looking for something entirely different (video of Sarah Palin's Pensacola, Florida rally October 6th). It is an echo of a conversation I had with Cowtown and some others this morning on CHAOS. Actually, it was a conversation that turned into my performing a rant, which turned out to be me expressing my inner Paul Krugman.
I guess I have been listening to him more carefully than I imagined, to have been able to get so many of his points.
This should encourage us all to give up our lives and becomes student of politics and economics. We might actually eventually learn enough to grasp what the pundits are saying, before they say it.
If you don't believe me, ask Cow.
The following is a transcript of Krugman's answers, for you cut and paste pleasure.
Rachel Maddow began by asking if the the bailout worked. Would it have been worse with it, or without it. Krugman laughed wryly and said, "Both." He went on to say:
Krugman: A lot of people are looking at the Dow, and it gets them really scared, but the professionals are lookng at the credit markets and that has them even more scared. The truth is what happened to the stock market is not that important. It's just kind of an imperfect reflection of the platonic truth of what is happening in the credit markets, which is really bad. They are completely frozen. The passing of the bailout didn't do anything.
Maddow then asks what are the indicators that we non ecnomists should be looking at to determine how things are going.
Krugman: Well, you know, there are, it's getting a little, ah, we're all kind of scrambling now beause it's hard, we are not used to tracking this stuff. I look at a lot of the interest rates on short term US government debt, 1 month, 3 month Treasury bills, the lower they are the worse things are. If people are piling into these things because nothing else looks safe to them, then this is a bad sign, and they are very low, they are about as low as they were in the worst of the crisis last week, so that's really, really bad. You kook at, I'm going to get too technical here, but there are a bunch of indicators, and they all failed to improve after the bailout was passed, so I thought we would be back to the drawing board in a couple of months, and now I am wondering if that's more like a couple of weeks, or maybe a couple of days.
Maddow then asked, "Should the bailout have given more confidence to the credit market? Should it have worked better?"
Krugman: Well the trouble with the bailout plan was it never really made sense, and they never really explained why it would work but the story was, "Trust us, this will work, and people will believe in it, and it will be a self-fulfilling prophecy," and none of that happned. Um, Some kind of bailout is needed. I think what they really need to do is go back to the drawing board. But, uh, this is a bad scheme and, erf [he actually shivered], it, I'm pretty angry because it was clear from day one, when this thing started being discussed, that they did not have a clear view of why this thing was supposed to help, and they stuck us with it, and it would have been very dangerous not to pass it in on Friday because who woud have known what would have happened?
How, Maddow asked, would the next bill be different:
Krugman: Well, this grant, this was "We're going to buy some of this toxic waste off the banks, and that's somehow going to solve the problem", and it wasn't clear why that would help. Uh, what we really need is, we need, well, capital, we need to put money in the system and, in effect, what always happens in a financial crisis is a partial nationalization, partial and temporary nationalization of the financial system, and that is, I, you know, I predict with almost 100% confidence that is how it will end, ah, but the Paulsen Treasury wasn't willing to talk about that. So that, something which puts money in, something where the US government is providing cash and taking partial ownership shares in return, is the wasy it's going to have to go, and the question is how long before they are willing to do that, and at the rate things are going, it might not be very long.
Maddow finished by asking how long it will be before political reality catches up with economic historical reality.
So here I got it a little wrong. I said Obama would essentially govern, from immediately after the election, through the congress; Krugman sees his team moving right into the treasury. I'm good with that:
Krugman: You know, I am having fantasies right now [so am I! so are we all!] that as soon as the election is over, we can't wait until January 20th, we might have to have, in effect, the incoming Obama team move into the Treasury and start coordinating the rescue because this is going to be a very bad transition if we don't do anything until we have a new administration.
From the sage's mouth.
Maddow wasn't down off the ceiling, but it helped a little to hear about a new team in the Treasury. ....
Last evening, minun aviomies returned home from the hospital well after dark (it will soon be time to change the clocks back an hour) and asked, "Alors, qu'est-ce qu'ils ont fait aujourd'hui?"
Oh, that I could have shown him!
I took him by the hand and led him out into the pitch dark (the lamp has been down since they removed all the old stucco), no moon even.
"Ils ont fait le premier essai?" Yes, they made the first chaux sample, "mais tu ne pouras pas le voir."
He pulled out his keys and flicked on his tiny little flashlight thing. The ochre turned a ghostly, ghastly blue-ish green-ish shade. I pushed his hand down and laughed, "You can't look at it with that!"
I suppose he stopped to look at it on his way out this morning. I didn't hear a yelp of horror, so either he liked it, or I was already out like a light again. I am returning from living American and French hours simultaneously. I can't make any promises, but it might hold. You know how it is, when you are happy, you don't feel the fatigue.
....
Bouche-trou
Today, they returned to mix more unpigmented chaux to fill the holes along the street facade. The put up a galvanized lath over the wood timber with galvanized nails to hold it in place.
Georges is mixing the chaux out on the sidewalk, and José is trowelling it on [trans: Georges prépare la chaux et José l'applique à la taloche].
They had to remove everything behind the old stucco that was loose to provide a solid surface. Don't want the new chaux falling off, and this left holes, especially at the exposed beam ends and sides, where they just appled the stucco directly to the wood.
Once all of the holes are filled, they can begin to cover the walls in lath.
Moving right along.
Tomorrow, they're back to the window preparation (inside if the weather is poor) and Joachim is due back sometimes soon to make a couple more samples for me.
....
CHAOS family affairs
"So, it's come to that!"
BarrelMcRaven: morning, SK. Teachkids: SK, where are the Toshiba power cords? [for those of you unfamiliar with CHAOS, Teach is SK's mother, and yes, they do live in the same house. This took place before school hours.] ... [indicates miscellaneous, unreported chat] Fleur_de_Paris: you have to talk to him here? Fleur_de_Paris: Pots, they have a computer in every room, too! Pots: Even they can't get outta here. ... Teachkids: I'm lazy. Teachkids: SK, what? .... Fleur_de_Paris: be quiet everyone, Teach is trying to talk to SK. ... Signkid: lol Teachkids: OK Teachkids: Watch your quotes young man [SK had just typed the Obama line, "It's not that John McCain doesn't get it, it's that he just doesn't care."] Fleur_de_Paris: lol Signkid: What?! Fleur_de_Paris: told off on chat by your mom KiwiMisty: he's giving good quote teach :-) BarrelMcRaven: *whispers* Morning, Teach Fleur_de_Paris: that's a new one Teachkids: I spoke too soon Fleur_de_Paris: lol barrel Mergatroyd: Yes, Barack says McCain doesn't get it TeachKids: So, SK, I need the power cords. Where are they? Signkid: Okay Fleur_de_Paris: lol Signkid: For what? [what mother hasn't hear that?] Pots: lol Teach Mergatroyd: Yeah, where are the power cords! TeachKids: the PC laptop Fleur_de_Paris: I thought he told you! Skeinchug: lol TeachKids: I missed it. Pots: he didn't Fleur_de_Paris: SK, go see your mother! KiwiMisty: I think this is the Internet version of a mom yelling down the stairs to her son :-) Signkid: one is sitting in front of me Belgian: LOL Signkid: I don't know about the other one Fleur_de_Paris: oh my god [laughing so hard picturing this she was nearly prevented from breathing -- home with the Fosbacks!] Pots: See how hard this is Teach??? TeachKids: I only need one. Fleur_de_Paris: this is a great sketch BarrelMcRaven: Obama balls [referring to Rotterdam's recipe for meatballs] Signkid: Okay, cool Pots: We need better pay to watch the sign Signkid: let's meet in the kitchen Signkid: it's more neutral Signkid: lol [cracks himself up] Pots: lol [cracks Pots -- Protector of The Sign -- up] BelgianCHAOS: LOL! [really cracks Belgian up... I am too busy taking notes, now to laugh] TeachKids: Sounds good. You can unload the dishwasher. Skeinchug: Oh dear, it's come to this LOLOL
...
The advertising space on the window
SK added ad space for sale I assume proceeds will go to the Obama campaign! it's a joke
Pots: I thought you were working? Watcha doing? Fleur_de_Paris: I am. Working on my blog and the drawings. Fleur_de_Paris: not that either is worth my time [well, the drawings, if I ever get them done, will be] catgirl: what drawings? Fleur_de_Paris: for the renovation of the house Pots: advertise Fleur Fleur_de_Paris: I don't think anyone would pay me for that space Fleur_de_Paris: oh, you mean me Pots: yes Fleur_de_Paris: then I'd be big for my britches [when I saw SK's new ad space offer, I said he was getting big for his] Pots: I'm gonna sell humidifiers there [I think he meant on the Fosback's den window] ... Fleur_de_Paris: They are getting funnier and funnier Fleur_de_Paris: quite the pair Fleur_de_Paris: my son is a little too cool for that Pots: lol Fleur_de_Paris: you can advertise on my site for free, Pots ... Pots: I can't sell to Europe signvoyeur: Fleur... are you can expat living near Paris? Your English is very good. Fleur_de_Paris: I am read in the US, too. Fleur_de_Paris: we can add a disclaimer. Fleur_de_Paris: or pass the orders through my mother [whoops, that won't work... she's in the US. OK, my mother-in-law] Pots: we can do that. Fleur_de_Paris: Mais merci, mon chou, voyeur! Fleur_de_Paris: I am bi [OK, that was deliberately... what is the word? Ambiguous?] Pots: What? Pots: Fleur... sassiewas: come again? Pots: lol catgirl: lingual? sassiewas: :-) BarrelMcRaven: rotfl
Daily KOS, "Updated: CHAOS breaks out over Obama yard signs", October 3 (not first piece)
Jezebel, What a Stolen Obama Sign Teaches Us About Humanity, Sept. 30, 2008
WSJ, "In Sign of the Times, Global Village Gathers to Watch a Sign", Christopher Rhoads, Sept. 29, 2008
Huff Post, "Hey! Don't Steal That Obama Sign, The World is Watching", Pat Lawson-Black, Sept. 22, 2008
The Oregonian's Orgeon Live, "Tired of thieves, Portland woman lets the world watch her Obama sign", Joseph Rose, Sept. 22, 2008
For the Portland Evening News TV segment, click here.
And KGW 11PM news:
And, for Signkid and CHAOS memorabilia, don't miss Zazzle.com.
....
Obama HQ Chicago calling
Watch this:
I thought this was why a lovely woman, older and white as far as her voice could say, called from the campaign headquarters, not to ask me for a donation -- oh! they don't need to do that! -- but to ask me for my passport number.
Yeah, my passport number. Proof of my US citizenship. I was surprised, to say the least. She tried to put a positive spin on it.
"Well, the Obama campaign wants to be sure they are in strict compliance with US campaign law!" I heard that exclamation point. I did. I didn't buy it. If they did, there was a reason.
"My goodness, I have never been asked for that before, and I have made numerous contributions to other US campaigns since I moved abroad, and I have never been asked for that."
"Well -- do you have that passport number?" They don't want to say it.
Thank you, Katherine for pointing me to the answer from Chris Matthews.
It's true, folks. They're checking inside the campaign so they can return any money that might be used against them.
I gave her my passport number.
If you have 11 minutes and 42 seconds more to spare, watch the segment with Peggy Noonan and The Washington Post's Eugene Robinson, in which Chris Matthews says that he sees a pattern in the recent Palin appearances -- an attempt to lilnk 3 points together: Barack Obama's associations, his middle name, and his list of donors.
Accidental or intentional? That's Chris Matthew's question.
"But with only 30 days out, what does it say that this is the topic. It says something weird -- it says that they're avoiding, it's almost as if history will look back and say "Look at the point we were at, and this is the point they were talking about?" -- Peggy Noonan
Just listen to Palin dripping with sarcasm in her speech. Her smile and "Oops! I don't know anything!" tone full of her anger and derision, from "golly gee wizz" direct to the below-the-belt for the KO. You're looking at the new face of the KKK.
Let's hope the Republicans are trounced so their go find themselves some new supporters.
To wash that bad taste out of your mouth, just take a look at these numbers for Joe Biden and Sarah Palin:
Whoo-hoo! You go, Joe.
"Oh, say it ain't so, Joe," she whimpers into her pillow at night, "I'll get that Joe Biden, I'll get that Barack HUSSEIN Obama." Just like Yosemite Sam.
....
The financial meltdown, or a teacup to bailout the Titanic
For my most recent opinion, see the update at the top of this post from Friday the 3rd, Bailout Day.
Let us say that we are still not convinced, even if we think there are some really nice and caring people in congress who mean very well and who act from the finest motivations.
What we need is real change and real leadership for a change.
Wait, that was repetitive.
....
My own kid just came home from school depressed. Worst yet this year. Worse still, he's too old to want me to come up and try to cheer him up, or lecture him. Lessons to learn, he has.
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