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THE WILD RIDE AHEAD - WITHOUT PRECEDENT, WITHOUT REASON, WITHOUT HOPE?
Well, we may really have gone and done it this time folks. For all of the turgid talk and frantic-frenetic action, it's lookin' more and more like we're starin' down the barrel of a brand new financial paradigm.
And we ain't gonna like it.
As Boris Badenov (and yes; I'm gonna recycle this metaphor even though I just referenced it in my previous post) used to always exclaim a mere nanosecond before the black bomb sphere with the sputtering fuse (that he always seemed to be holding at the wrong time), blew up in his face:
"HOOOO BOYYY!!!"
David Leonhardt's Oct. 7th NY Times blog column titled " Ignoring Reality Has A Price" quoted some interesting (and, somewhat terrifying) figures from the mouth of Fed Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke himself. In perspective, it seems that Mr. Bernanke's statement that it's "a problem of historic proportions" is a woefully huge understatement.
Ben's "scorecard" tally:
30 billion $ to Bear Stearns
85 billion $ for A.I.G.
"Hundreds of billions, here and there, lent to various banks"
So far, chairman B says, we've dumped in about $800 billion. But wait.
He also notes that this does not yet include "the untold sum that the Fed now plans to spend buying short-term debt so that companies can continue to pay for their daily operations". And it doesn’t include any of the money the Treasury Department is laying out, like the $700 billion "bailout" fund or, the $200 billion that will be spent propping up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. And, oh yeah.. there's still that little problem of givin' the US automakers a bunch more billions to "save" them.
Anyway. he then goes on to refer to this as putting "serious money on the line". Geez, Ben - ya think? Total those and you're up to about 70% or so of our current annual budget of $3 trillion.
You and I might state this a bit, um, differently. That's right folks...pardon my French but: we're fucked. We've got a huge deficit to begin with. We've got a huge trade deficit with the world marketplace. We've got a perky but pesky little war that still costs us 10 billion bucks a month or so. The stock market is worth little more than half of what it was a mere couple weeks ago.
But don't worry, the Fed and a number of other central banks around the world announced last night that they're cuttin' interest rates and planning what they call "cash injections". But then, "OOOPS! SHIT!! DANG!!".Today's stock market apparently didn't seem to be reassured... it tanked yet again.
Okay.. so let's see... we're gonna double our annual budget to maybe prop up the world financial market a bit (or, who the Hell knows, maybe not). Other than that, we don't actually have a real understanding let alone a viable, doable 'plan'.
So, I'm'a wonderizin'... Shouldn't we be just a teensy bit concerned that we actually don't have anywhere near that kind of money to begin with? Is anyone (including our next President and his weenie and waning competitor) willing to speculate on just what else that all might cost us? If they are, I sure the heck haven't heard it.
In my newest role here as amateur bigmouth dipshit pandit/pundit, allow me to make a prognostication. All of the scrambling and wailing and hand-wringing so far is NOTHING compared to the "SPLAT" we're gonna hear in the week after the election's finally over when we hear the resounding and sickening dull thuds of how things are really hitting the fan. Hard to imagine that the horrific things we're hearing daily today are actually whitewashing and 'soft-pedaling' just how dire things really are.
Sadly though, odds are, we're still far from seeing the big picture/real impact. And it's likely to be far uglier than any of us can dare to imagine at this particular moment.
And, just for the record, I genuinely hope I'm wrong about that. I am, after all, just an ignorant bystander...
Meanwhile, I guess we wait and see.... Don't worry too much though; your family really doesn't need all those groceries. Think of how glorious all that leisure time will be when your job disappears, all the hobbies you can finally have! And your retirement fund/pension/401K/etc. was really just 'fun money', right?
Don't you think? Or don't you?
(addendum to this post, added Oct. 10, '08)
so... let's see - today the Wall Street "Wheel-of-Fortune-Doom-&-Disaster-Rodeo-Doodah-Ride" took yet another huge & surreal plunge. I shouldn't need to say this but I will anyway. First, let us remember who set the stage for this "horrification continuum" in recent years. OK. But now let us consider that even after all this malarkey that nearly half of the electorate are still considering actually voting for the perpetrators' (perpetraitors?) party's candidate. It could well be that no one person or party has the ability to lead us out of such a mess.
Nevertheless, "regime change" is our ONLY option bearing ANY hope. You know what to do.... so now, let's make sure we do our best to let everyone else in on it too.Ya wanna see even the slightest glimmer of hope? It's simple AND obvious as all get out - we need a landslide in the election. A close race would be both an insult AND a tragedy - if we screw that up, just how the Hell many more chances do ya think we're gonna get?
FROM THE ARCHIVES
(an excerpt from Admiral Pluto Krozabeeep's 2002 "State of the Kosmos" address...)
"All we really have, when it comes right down to it, is our integrity, our compassion, and our capacity to love each other. While we're continually presented with many tempting teachings, numerous poignant lessons, buckets n'barrels of cataclysmic calls for change, and the lure of many fragrant paths to help us understand this, it's something we already know internally and wholly instinctually. Reallynoshitreally.
Our ability to grasp any of this intellectually is secondary at best, in fact almost superficial or, in any case, beside the point . Sometimes, some of us ask angels to sweep down to our sides to assist the process... sometimes we pray... Or we begin yet another spiritual vision-quest-rodeo-doodah fest... An' sometimes, we just throw up our hands and go "huh?".
In any event, we're really just asking ourselves to do what is needed. Yet, somehow, by externally morphing these manifestations into various sundry hoodoo-holographic quasi-deified pantheistic polyglots o' exogenarian ectoplasmicplastic divinelight fat-free party favors, we feel the comfort of aid and can accept it because we asked for it and it arrived. And, yeah, often even, the help really does come.
Yet if we were to believe this was actually coming from within ourselves, we'd likely be unable to accept its veracity nor would we have the wherewithal to ask for it in the first place. As Boris Badenov used t'say, just a nanosecond before the sphericaloid black bomb he was holding in his hand always blew up in his face: "HOOO - BOYYY!!!"
And then there's this; just as we must be self-responsible for all that transpires in our lives, the good and the bad, we must also remain mindful that others may not always be doing the same at the same time we are. We're not all of us always on the same page at the same time, y'know. So be it I guess. "HOOO - BOYYY!!!" Again (and indeed!) And, for that matter, "So what?" we might say again.
Okay, since ya's asked, I'll tellyas what... we still gotta do it anyway. Acceptin' resonsibility fer our own stuff is in our job description as practicin' human beans. It's how we grow; the means by which we transcend the challenges that always present themselves and by which we try our resolve to live better in the first place. It ain't rocket science. It ain't quantum physics (Oops... actually it is quantum physics, now that I think about it!!). Be that as it may, our toolboxes already got what we need in 'em, but, as we know only too well, sometimes our tools get scattered, misplaced, or sometimes left out in the rain t'rust. It might be good to remember that now n'again.
Anyway, before ya think old Krozabeeep's goin' soft in his senile dementia, oh, heck, never mind...maybe I am. Or not! Guess I'll haveta leave ya's guessin' on THAT one. For now, anyway. Stay tuned n'pruned fer my next outburst t'see..."
liar-liar-pantz-on-fire alert
I meen really now.... Every time I hear "I'm John McCain and I approved this message." I want to fucking scream. Okay, I admit I can be somewhat naive at times. But I do "get" how the "spin" game is played. I also recognize that Mr. McCain employs disciples of metamonster Karl Rove to design his campaign and we've seen plenty of that kind of shameful (But highly effective!) "spin" in the service of the Bush-Boy campaigns (need I remind any of us where THAT has gotten us??).
But every fucking McCain campaign commercial I've seen or heard in the last couple weeks is far worse than mere creative manipulation of facts or wildly-whirled factoids.... Every single one is comprised almost completely of out-and-out bald-faced LIES.
And yet, here's Johnboy McCain, Mister "Hero" smirkily stating that he "approves it"; that all of those lies are just motherfucking okeydoke fine an' goddamdandy by him. All the while smugly assuming that enough of us will buy it at face value and just give him our vote. And the kicker is, that he's probably right; many will do just that!
I'm not going to recap any of those lies for you here. We both have better things to do with our time. But, if you have even a smidgin of doubt about what I'm saying here then please do us all a favor and listen to the next McCain commercial you hear; doesn't matter which one. Pluck any two or three statements he makes about his opponent Mr. Obama. Then, spend 3 or 4 minutes online and check 'em out for accuracy/veracity.
Isn't it already bad enough that he's put us at risk of having the absurd and dangerous Ms. Palin become president at a moment's notice (a sufficiently irresponsible and contemptuous act in it's own right)? And now we're being asked to elect as our next president, a proven and guiltless liar (let alone an avowed Bush bootlicker who wouldn't understand the meaning of actual change if it bit him in his sorry, saggy ass).
Enough is enough. Make sure that everyone you know also knows what this sociopath is up to. It's up to us. Remember, we already know that half the country is gullible enough, lazy enough and ignorant enough to simply believe him.
And then, even if we do succeed in keeping him out of the White House, let's not let the ball drop there. We need to follow up and see that he stands trial for reckless slander and perjury and does hard time for it too. Oh wait...that can't happen, now can it? Perjury charges are for lying under oath and, in order to nail him for slander, someone would have to sue him... So, are we to just let him get away with this? Do we really want to be subjected to his whims and lies after he's under the BIG oath..the oath of the Presidency??
I hope not.
Regardless of what one may think of Mr. Obama, we really don't have a choice here folks. If ANYTHING is to ever change even an iota or two, it's going to require at the very least, a Democratic Congress AND president working in tandem.
If the past two weeks' financial meltdown haven't shown us what kind of leadership we've been suffering under, if the travesty of our trillion dollar "OOPS" war hasn't given us a clue, if we "get" that we cannot continue on this sort of path then please.....
Let's not fuck this up
I'm Magilla Gorilla and I approve this message - Just say "NO!" to McNocchio and his lies.... (paid for by people who don't wanna go to hell inna tugboat).
In the first two 'graphs from his August 29th NYT story about John McCain's choice of running mate, Governor Palin of Alaska, political analyst, Peter Baker writes:
"Senator John McCain spent the summer arguing that a 40-something candidate with four years in major office and no significant foreign policy experience was not ready to be president.And then on Friday he picked as his running mate a 40-something candidate with two years in major office and no significant foreign policy experience."
Really? Duh, no shit, Sherlock. Okay, it's a clever enough opener for his less-than-astute "analysis" and certainly a true enough observation. And it's surely no surprise to any of us that po-mo lives on blindly and blissfully in the self-important narcissistic realm of journalism.(oops, better not follow THAT particular tangent here.. not to worry though; I'll post one of my famous screedrants on that dodgy topic in a separate post to this blog soon enough...).
Anyway, we should hardly be surprised by such an obviously contrived maneuver from Senator McCain; it just seems to be more of his classically narcoleptic lack of both style and sensibility. As he sleepwalks through the remaining weeks of the campaign he will, time and again, stumble into a semi-awake state and suddenly blurt out his latest 'brainstorm', I'm sure we can expect to see plenty more of this scurrilous neo-logic before election day.
As I pointed out in a previous post on this blog, his own party doesn't even like him. And as most sensible people recognize, if he gets elected we're in for only more of the same "contempt for the electorate" as we've had in the last eight years and, the ever-worsening cumulative effects thereof.
But let's not kid ourselves, folks. We might see the transparency of such maneuvers in the here and now. We might even find such a miscalculated yet desperate attempt at half-assed pandering to an ignorant electorate be mildly amusing. Okay, let's have our chuckle and then move on; and we'd best put some hustle in our step while we're at it.
Because, we've had eight long and ugly years of of travesty, tragedy and heartbreak, and, nearly equally on all fronts too. we can't afford any more and we're already damned to a long and painful struggle to recapture any bits and chunks of what's always made this country both a great place to be and, respected by the rest of the world.
Let's make this brief. We cannot let down our guard and allow another series of errors and missteps to allow such a shortsighted and dangerous man to take over the helm. None of us can afford it and we sure the hell won't survive it.
Many of you who'll read this might say to me "No shit, Sherlock". Let's not forget though, that obvious as this all might seem, there is still somewhere damn near half of the electorate who might actually be a) stupid enough, b) paranoid enough, c) racist or bigoted enough, d) psychotically sadistic enough to actually cast their vote for this guy.
we might also be thinking "Yeah, but unlike last time, we have a viable candidate in Mr. Obama; we needn't be concerned; McCain can't possibly win".
Don't you believe it for a second....
(if we do screw this up and McCain does somehow get elected, at the very least, we'd all damn well better have our passports up to snuff...and I'll seeya's at the airport...)
As many of you know, ThirdStone's primary business over the past thirteen years, has been the selling of art. Um, well, I mean that's still my primary biz? Isn't it? Huh? What's that you say - ThirdStone is now merely an "entertainment" business? Bullshit!
Oh, but wait; yes, I do have to agree that under the pummeling of our current economic trauma, art sales have, for most of the general public, and throughout much of the country, been rendered more-or-less irrelevant in their daily scheme of things.
Nor can I loftily proclaim their "importance" just because that happens to be my main business and source of income. Certainly not when nearly everyone I talk to has at least something to say about the astronomic costs of, not just fuel, but basic truly essential things like feeding their families and a variety of other crucial needs. And no surprise of course that buying art is rarely, if ever, on most people's needs of "basics"...
So while there are surely a few 'high horses' I could yet saddle up and mount, what's the point? Besides, truth be told, feeding those particular 'horses' is a budget strain I can't currently afford. (Hey, I mean, I like groceries too, y'know!)
I know it's been difficult for the wonderfully talented artists I represent to stand by and see plenty of excited visitors pass thru the portals of ThirdStone (in fact, seemingly more than ever) to be amazed and amused and thrilled by what they see and then realize that those same folks are so often leaving emptyhanded. Since I know most of the artists well, I know they're as economically challenged as the rest of us and often, even more so.
So what's my point here then with alla this whinyprattle?
Okay, here it is... Artmaking is fine. The art that's being made is finer than ever. The "market" is not. And won't be fine for some time to come. So will artists then cease making art? The good ones won't.
And then what does that mean for purveyors of art? The good ones, the ones who actually believe in the intrinsic value of what they show, will struggle to keep on keepin' on. and then do it some more.
And the rest of 'em? Do we actually care much?
special post-april-fool's day edition
WHY YOU NITWITS!!! I OUGHTTA...
(Barack "Moe"bama, "Curley" McCain & Hil"Larry" Clinton in a
rare public appearance together this week)
(illustration courtesy of David Dees. see http://deesillustration.com/).
Okay, here's the deal, folks. I'm askeered. If we take into account the levels of ludicrosity, rancor and absurdity we've seen so far (and it is only April after all), imagine if you dare where things are headed from here.
Yup. The phrase "To Hell inna tugboat" may barely cover it.
It should be obvious that there's no way we can possibly elect "Curley" McCain. Aside from the fact that even his own party doesn't like or trust him, he's made it clear that continuing to spend gazillions in Iraq is okeydoke. Besides, we just simply cannot and will not abide another Republican in the White House at this time.
As for Ms. Hil-"Larry" Clinton, I dunno. Early on, I had her pegged for the "Great White Hope" (and yes, before anyone gets any ideas, the "racial" pun IS intended). In recent months she's compromised her positions on various whatevers, her campaigners have played some dirty pool, and she's no longer demonstrating her genuine intelligence. I admit I was infatuated primarily with the notion of finally having a woman for president but, for a significant chunk of time, I also believed she had the grace and poise AND intelligence to present us with an irresistible no-brainer type of choice; I believed she could fit the bill. Yes, she's still intelligent. But we need more; we require strong vision coupled with strong leadership AND absolute integrity. In recent weeks her marks are slipping and her slips are showing
That brings us to Barack "Moe"bama. Basically I like the guy or at least want to. He too is obviously highly intelligent. So far, his integrity remains reasonably intact (though, there are a number of months before we'll see how well that holds up). We like his apparently genuine passion and we all resonate with a call for significant change. Before we can embrace that concept though, we're going to need to know quite a bit more about what the specifics of that sweeping wave of change actually promise. And then, we'll still need to determine what it can actually manifest. Still a tough call as I see it.
So.... "where the heck DOES that all lead us then?? " we might ask.
And I might answer "at the present moment, damned if I know, Buckaroos!"
Guess we'll have to wait it out a few weeks or so and then revisit this when (or IF) the time comes when we can better discern what the kids have been up to 'twixt now and then. Stay Tuna-ed - itza gonna be an interesting (and likely plenty smelly) kettle of fish.
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Yup; apparently so.
In a recent post to this blog, I cited an excerpt of a conversation in which I tried to explain what I refer to as my "Meanderthal-ish" traits.
And now, according to a just-published article, "Mess For Success" (http://www.hermanmiller.com/CDA/juggle/0,,155,00.html)by writer Debra Wierenga on Jugglezine), "meanderthalism" is at least one of the components of how creative productivity can often be fueled by a certain amount of "non-linearity" or, what some might refer to as disorder or even dysfunction.
Ahh, sweet vindication at last... "Amen", I say to thee, brethren. (And thanks, Debra).
"If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure" - Telpo Lendolotoproj
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THE WILD RIDE AHEAD - WITHOUT PRECEDENT, WITHOUT REASON, WITHOUT HOPE?
