. . .
[See the “e-ssay” titled “In Memoriam (May 30, 2011).”]
Bumper sticker of the week:
In 1969, the Jets were not a legacy franchise and the Mets were not a likely contender. For a few minutes in 1983, accepting the sinking of the vessel known as the ‘America’s Cup’ was trying, yet America had retained the Cup unfairly; fair competition is fairer. The Loyola ‘Hounds Lax team started the season unranked and ended the season undefeated, when it counted. Tradition giving way to triumph.
. . .
C1 “Eating out will make you eat in. Or lose your appetite. Americans devour too much food and waste too much food. A friend said that he could not go a week in any activity catering to the American appetite because he could not stomach the gross waste of food.”
C2 “Americans put too much on their waists and then waste the rest. They waist food and then waste food.”
C1 “If Bill Shakespeare didn’t document it, Aesop did. The timeless human experience.”
C2 “Bill on burgers, Aesop on arugula?”
C1 “I thought they relayed the ‘Ant and the Grasshopper fable’ to us to teach us to play well with others even if the others played too much. I thought we would be directed to be a good ant and let the grasshopper come in out of the cold. Then she read the ending and said that the ants rebuked and rebuffed the grasshopper when he sought to come in out of the cold.”
C2 “You can’t blame them. The ants saved and gathered all summer while the grasshopper played and partied.”
C1 “But we are all playing and partying. There are not enough ants.”
C2 “Everyone must be an enlightened ant. The grasshoppers are preparing by collecting guns. The few ants must continue to save and gather and . . . collect guns.”
. . .
[See the article “Clean your plate, save the world?: Scientific American.”]
[See the “e-ssays” titled “Beans and Bullets (April 6, 2009),” “On Entitlements (July 19, 2010)” and “Girding For The Going Grid (October 11, 2010).”]
Bumper stickers of the week:
Personal responsibility; fiscal responsibility; legal responsibility
Providence prefers providence
. . .
K “They sound like a bunch of seventh graders snapping their towels in the locker room and squealing at each other.”
J “Seems that the model of adult life as ‘high school writ large’ has degenerated into ‘junior high school writ large.’”
K “Civilization may be on the retrograde as our society slides into collapse. Our national destiny may be heading toward a state of ‘kindergarten writ large.’ Too many of our politicians have problems ‘playing well with others.’ At least at the Fed, the clowns were all playing ‘Ring Around The Rosie’ with each other while disregarding the decline outside.”
J “The Fed should be required to release transcripts every year rather than after five years. What is transpiring and conspiring is too important to wait.”
K “Years ago, the notion of ‘Groupthink’ was trendy. The idea is that a group may be more concerned about maintaining harmony that developing a realistic perception of the situation they confront. You wonder if even one of the Fed economists was writing internal e-mails warning of what was obvious to anyone who looked outside.”
J “And got together after work with a friend over a beer and despaired about the situation.”
. . .
K “Grab a sheet of paper and jot down the names of three individuals, trained as economists or not, who have a clue about what is going on in the economy.”
J “. . . How about two?”
K “Two will do.”
J “. . . I am working on it. . . . How about one?”
K “One is a start.”
J “. . . Can I have until tomorrow?”
K “Take your time. Larry Summers’ statement about women in scientific disciplines may be 180 degrees from the truth.”
J “Summers is reliable because he is reliably wrong especially about the ‘dismal science.’”
K “The only individuals who have a clue in our society about our economic circumstances are women – Brooksley Born, Sheila Bair, Elizabeth Warren, Yves Smith, Nicole Foss, Gretchen Morgenson, Terry Gross, Christine Lagarde, etc.”
J “That is because women care. When you think about it, the forte of our fellow males is starting wars and filling prisons. When you get right down to it, the males who start the wars should fill our prisons.”
K “Talent is a mix of a tutored and sage intellect, personal and intellectual integrity, and good old-fashioned courage. America simply does not have talent at the top. The élite is not élite. And the current feeder system of universities, foundations and fellowships is designed to ferret out the same charlatans and promote them into positions of power in America.”
. . .
[See the article and comments in “The Washington Post” discussing the delusions at the Federal Reserve Bank six years ago at http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/greenspan-image-tarnished-by-newly-released-documents/2012/01/12/gIQAvh0mtP_story.html.]
[See the “Frontline” program titled “The Warning” discussing the shenanigans of Greenspan, Summers, Rubin and their ilk and the courage of Brooksley Born at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/warning/.]
[See the “e-ssay” uploaded exactly six years ago to the minute titled “Greenspan’s Legacy – Apres moi, Le Meltdown (January 30, 2006).”]
Bumper stickers of the week:
The nerds won, but not the smart or courageous ones.
What clothes is the Emperor not wearing today?
Plus ca change . . .
. . .
P “Another holiday season and consumers are consumed with consumption. They say that seventy percent of our economy is or has been driven by consumer spending. They also say that something that cannot go on forever will not go on forever. And it can’t go on forever.”
L “It can’t. The consumers have not paid for their past consumption. The Chinese have provided the goods and the money to get the goods and deferred payment but not forgiven the debt. The American consumer is becoming an afterthought in the world market.”
P “They say that saving is up in the aggregate, yet only very slim sliver of individuals who actually have money, distrust the stock market and seek to protect principle are saving.”
L “Consumption is an addiction. Advertising provides the shallow inducements and exploits deep fears and anxieties. Economic health warnings should be added to all advertisements. ‘Purchasing this product may be dangerous to your economic health.’”
P “For so many today, keeping up with the Jones is not adequate. Vanquishing the Jones is the goal.”
L “And the Jones cannot afford to keep up with let alone vanquish their neighbors. From another perspective, the parvenu of the last few decades are a sign of a society with upward economic mobility. The economic mobility has reversed direction and is rapidly moving down. Few are arriving.”
P “Too many individuals are gullible. There are too many iPhones, iPads, iPeds, iPods, iBooks, iMacs, iMeMines.”
L “Individuals must take more responsibility. If you circumnavigate the grocery store and only acquire goods from the shelves and refrigerated cases along the outside perimeter, you will find a variety of tasty and nutritional foods. The junk food is piled in the middle of the store. The market works if you understand the layout of the market.”
. . .
[See the “e-ssay” titled “Consume, Don’t Invest? (Nov. 9, 2009)”]
Bumper stickers of the week:
He who dies (having played in a responsible way) with the most toys wins
Live simply so that others may simply live
Trade in a credit card for a library card
Bernays was right on the money
Plan B Is Part Of Plan A
. . .
A “At least the processed junk.”
B “That is the way to celebrate National Food Day. Prepare and enjoy one healthy meal and let it become habit forming.”
A “We ingest so much junk in such massive quantities. We commit slow suicide every day and haul far more weight around on our musculoskeletal system than its design capacity. We need to secure our food closer to the farm and the field and consume it in smaller quantities.”
B “That may require fundamental lifestyle changes. Families, when they exist, are fractured and eat at different times on the run from a bag in the car. Eating is most efficient and enjoyable when a meal is prepared for a group and shared over conversation.”
A “Slow food poisoning, I tell you. Meat is the big killer. Too many resources are devoured supplying us with meat. Some meat, maybe, but in much smaller quantities.”
B “Go green; eat plants.”
. . .
Bumper stickers of the week:
“Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” Michael Pollan
Eat less meat; enjoy more plants.
Exercise your mouth less and your feet more.
Get your food close to the farm and the field.
. . .
a “They will only tolerate it as long as they regard it as harmless. When they regard it as a threat to their domination, they will do harm.”
A “Another inevitable repeat of history. But when the Chicago police rioted in ’68 outside the Democratic National Convention and beat and tear gassed the populace, at least they only used night sticks and tear gas as weapons.”
a “There are videos you can download to your tube with a few clicks. You can see that the police even beat the press. Back then, the press got it and got in the way and got it from the police.”
A “Today, the authorities are armed with far more dangerous armaments and arsenals. Even toll booth operators and beach patrols sport their own SWAT (Special Weapons And Tactics) Teams equipped with grenade launchers and flame throwers. In an old black and white tv show, Barney Fife, a deputy sheriff in a small North Carolina town, carried one bullet, probably a .38, in his shirt pocket and was required to ask Andy, the sheriff, before he could even chamber it. Different times.”
a “Not many police officers realize that the kids are trying to protect the police union while the governor is trying to kill it. When the federal government begins providing Homeland Security grants to allow local libraries to acquire armed drones, will anyone care or comment.”
A “Not to worry, they are closing the libraries. It might be Oak Park, it might be Oakland, it might occur on some other park or land that will become part of our national lore.”
a “Even if the kids keep their heads, the authorities are going to bust them. The problem is that one person may make a threatening comment that will provide the police with a pretext. An undercover police officer could make a threatening comment to one of his colleagues and provide the pretext for a police riot.”
A “A few young Boomers got their heads busted and then when older busted a booming economy. Now the Boomers will bust some concerned youngsters’ heads – the youngsters who must endure the long bust but will never experience a lingering boom.”
. . .
[See the “e-ssay” titled “Ohio – Not Forgettin’ Ohio; The Battleground State Battles On (May 2, 2005)” and the “e-ssay” titled “The Residue of Unrelenting Fear: PTSD Afflicts The Populace (August 28, 2006).”]
Bumper stickers of the week:
Do you want the kids to be activists or pacifists?
Occupy Mayberry, R.F.D.
Kids (and older kids) who know and care are doing something
The kids are alright
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” – John F. Kennedy
. . .
A “Commentators are having a hard time because there isn’t one spokesperson to interview nor one manifesto to mine.”
a “Most commentators don’t understand what has happened in America over the last decade, so I don’t expect them to understand what is going on today. I am aware enough to know that something’s clearly wrong, yet it is hard to describe. What I do know is that I don’t have a future.”
A “It’s simple and obvious. The ruling class is strip mining the middle class. And then accusing those who dare to point out the obvious truth that the astute observer is instigating class warfare.”
a “They are clearcutting the kids. They are not allowing a college grad let alone the ordinary Joe to immanentize the eschaton, although they are immanentizing the eschaton in a big way at my expense. I really don’t have much hope of improvement or advancement.”
A “Listen carefully. That may be the big difference this time – an underlying absence of hope and a more pronounced sense of desperation.”
a “Hope died a few years ago. Hope is so 2008. Yet what do you have if you don’t have hope.”
A “When hope totally disappears, an individual who can’t take it often takes one of three paths. At the extreme, he takes his life, takes someone else’s life, or takes someone else’s life and then takes his life.”
a “Someone sure took the life of the American Dream.”
. . .
[See the “e-ssay” titled “Boycott Big Banks (February 1, 2010).”]
Bumper stickers of the week:
Occupy Wall Street; Occupy Our America
You don’t need a sportscaster to know which way the ball bounces.
. . .
2 “So you’re suggesting that Bill Shakespeare is sleeping off a bender on someone’s davenport. We just need to give him a few more hours to resurface.”
1 “Bill is dead. And alive. In a way. Mortal and immortal. Not breathing but still singing.”
. . .
2 “So you say that a jour-nalist doesn’t quite achieve immortality, yet a jour-nalist adds, like, seven years to the actuarials.”
1 “As long as they don’t drink and smoke. Jour-nalists contribute too.”
2 “Could they just drink or just smoke? They are jour-nalists, they do need a smoke or an adult beverage or two. Or at least a bad habit or two.”
. . .
2 “What if you write for a weekly or a monthly? What if you are more than a jour-nalist yet less that a novelist?”
. . .
1 “The grim reaper has been on the back swing since we skidded across the maternity room floor. Yet, the good song can reverberate long after we sign off and move on.”
. . .
Bumper stickers of the week:
“After publication of [Magnum Opus], [Celebrated Writer] achieved immortality for all time and died seventeen years later.”
“Unknown during his life, [Writer’s] three unpublished manuscripts found among his papers three years after his death establish his immortality among his peers.”
Mortality does stink; immortality would stink.
. . .
P “Know thyself.”
B “To thine own self be true.”
. . .
Bumper sticker of the week:
Dissent is Patriotic
