Revolting

If you are in a coma you may have missed the non-stop coverage of Sarah Palin and her "book" over the past few weeks. She has been everywhere, and generally speaking, as impressive as a wet paper bag. I have met a few Sarah Palin's in my life, beautiful, fun, energetic and stupid.

I have no issue with stupid people since they are obviously the ruling majority in America at this point. These are the same idiots who do not support a public healthcare system, although it would save everyone money, it would bring a health wave to the entire country and it would remove profit motives from long term health. These are probably the same people who vote for tax cuts and then cry about the shape of the roads, bridges and power grid. There is something about greed that removes peoples reasoning abilities.

What I like about the Palin followers is that they are hitching their wagons on a seriously defective candidate, on non-candidate if you believe her press. What I do not understand is the inability to strive for better, It is a given that Sarah is a hotty and she spouts platitudes with the best of them, but when questioned, she is an idiot.

She has become the leader of the Tea Bag nutjobs, which is fine, these people are just angry and stupid. They would have voted for any republican candidate no matter what his/her real agenda was. I am certain the majority of these blundering fools would have been angry with any democrat, but my guess is that a black president has just put them over the edge. I am sure in the past these hate filled illiterates sat at home and complained about their petty circumstances, but with a black president, they have banded together and want real change, like more white people in the white house, stuff like that.

They talk openly about a revolt and they get serious press as if this is an option. First, does anyone really want stupid people to again be in charge? The past few presidencies have been over taken with dumb white men, from the Alzheimers presidency to the cowboy with no brain power, we the people have seen it before. They build their dynasties on debt and broken promises and then when adults get elected, instead of a progressive agenda, they have to find ways to steer the country back to basic prosperity.

Obama is no different. He inherited the worst economy in decades, two winless wars and a country in need of a slap in the face. He is incapable of doing much of his real agenda and healthcare will be a disaster because of the spineless wimps in the senate. So, my question to the progressives, why are you not talking about a revolt? Why not get rid of these fat old white men (and women) who sit in the senate and kill anything that offers real change and real hope to the average American? Unlike the tea bagging bozos, progressives could lead a gunless revolt, done in the voting both, cutting lose the likes of Leiberman and the other middle of the roaders who sole goal seems to be to actually accomplish nothing.

It is not enough to vote them out, it may actually be time to vote in people who actually want to vote for a change that will bring the country equality. The country is run now by big monied pimps and the senate is filled with their whores. The tea baggers want to bring violent change to get rid of a black president, with no long term goal except to change the tax policies to allow the very super rich to pay less. If a candidate actually ran on the concept that there are government programs that bring civility to life, like Medicare, and a possibility to bring such a program to everyone, that would be an interesting candidate, Instead, we always have the middle manager losers who want nothing more than to keep the status quo at quo.

Hitting below the belt, thank god

Giving thanks

There are many holidays I do not like, among them Halloween, Valentines Day and generally Christmas. I do like Thanksgiving mostly because I often spend it with people I love.

This year is no different, except for the first time in 18 years my son had to travel to spend the holiday because he is now a college freshman. My fiance, my sons girlfriend, my daughters boyfriend, everyone is here and the house smells like a great meal is cooking.

I like to reflect on a day like this, not to give thanks, but to think about the past year, where things stand, where we are going. This has been a hectic year, but all in all, a great year. I am close to finishing the final edit on the long form documentary on the economy, we have moved into a house that is very much a home, we cut the connections to another in a series of people who use and abuse and everyone is healthy.

It is often amazing what people choose to focus on. Just today I heard from another one of those people who lie and cheat and expect complete forgetfulness or forgiveness, I am not sure which. It really makes my head spin when people come into your life, lie and cheat and expect that with a few months of quiet, all will be forgiven. First off, this seems like a very particular American trait and that may be in part the idea that we as Americans are often reinventing ourselves, so we expect others to somehow forget who we were a few months ago. The short version of the phone call is that this person wanted to make sure I felt responsible for his bad mistakes.

My personal philosophy is that people who take advantage and lie for a living should never expect much from the people who see them for who they really are. What is ironic is how many times in life we all run into the users and how often they follow the same pattern. One thing I have learned is that we all need dealbreakers, something that we will just not tolerate. I do understand that everyone gets to define what a deal breaker is, but in my world the ultimate deal breaker is a liar. I just won't tolerate it, so when one stumbles across my path, I pay attention. In this past year I had to cut off two such scumbags, the one who called today was the easiest because I kind of knew going in he and his business was sketchy. The other, a slovenly and untidy little human had wormed his way into our lives and was, all in all, just as sleazy and scummy as the other.

Again, once you know the character of the person, and that character is something intolerable, it is quite easy to just shut the door, as long as no one starts stalking, threatening or screaming on the phone.

A good reason to be thankful is that neither is in our lives. I like simplicity in most everything and certainly in business relationships. Honesty in life is something to cherish, strive for and love friends for having.

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Highs and lows

A new report finds more people are falling behind on the mortgages and more and more and falling into foreclosure. How can this be since the recession is over? Because it's not.

Duh.

The problem with government people who read financial reports is that they often have their own motivations to weed through. If the people at the Fed continued to report on a daily basis how bad it actually is out in the country side, people would panic and go back to saving money, instead of spending wildly on things they just don't need.

What is remarkable is how easily the business reporting class accepts the reports from the Fed and the other reporting agencies in the government. Sure, Goldman Sachs is making money and paying obscene bonuses to the idiots who almost caused the worst depression in history, but how is the downtown core of merchants? How are small banks doing? How about new business? I can answer all those questions, small business is suffering, small banks are failing at record numbers and new business is not being developed.

The sad part of this is Sarah Palin. This airhead Barbie is storming the country, talking to anyone with a microphone and reminding the people who blindly support stupidity that they have a new leader and insulting those who think that adults should make adult type decisions, not morons with scripted, meaningless catch phrases. Lower taxes? Sure, why not, will a gajillion dollar deficit. Cut the welfare programs? Genius, especially since so many people need them right now. Anti-abortion? Of course, because everyone knows that women get abortions because they build self esteem.

What Palin accomplishes is the ability for the news media to report on her every movement and stop covering that depressing old economy. Sure, more and more houses are being foreclosed and sold in short sales, more people are unemployed, or my favorite, under employed. But hey, Sarah is speaking at a Wal-Mart in Michigan.

There are never going to be easy answers, although I did see a recent blog post where the author thought it might be time for IQ tests for everything from driving to voting, and that is a thought I sometimes say to my friends, who always agree and quickly say it sounds like something Hitler would think of. I hate when Hitler is always used to shut people up. Hitler ruined everything.

I wonder what Adolph would think of Sarah P. I am sure he would admire her cult of plastic personality. The rabid crowds, the mindless support, the lack of understanding anything of depth and her ability, as a multi-millionare "author" to connect with the under educated and poor. I wonder if Sarah would support an IQ test for voting.

More stupid white people

Stupid white people

Lawyers

I know it's always fashionable to hate lawyers, but yesterday I again witnessed the wonderful atmosphere of a room filled with well dressed lawyers doing what lawyers do.

You know what I like best? They are respectful and smart. They also are well dressed. You spend a day in a room filled with lawyers in nice suits, then you walk outside and the obese smokers cluttering the sidewalks sure does make you wonder. Why can't people smoking ever dress just a little better? Is there a link between smoking and choice of attire?

Anyway, while I dislike the concept of lawyering up, I also know how necessary it is. Imagine if there were no lawyers when you drink just a tad little too much before testing out the car to see what maximum speed it is capable of? Or getting unmarried and needing someone who has proven themselves to be untrustworthy? Lawyers come in handy, plus they generally dress a lot nicer than you and me.

Why judge on dress codes? Mostly because we are quickly becoming a society of white trash nut cases. Need proof, stop reading and walk into any Wal-Mart. I had never been in a Wal-Mart for many years, until I moved to New York a few years ago and the only local store was a Wal-Mart. My lord those people were the worst. Fat, ugly, unhealthy, loud and disgusting examples of what happens when you feed people bad TV and a diet of garbage. I thought it was just that singular Wal-Mart. I was wrong.

There is something to be said for civility, nice clothes, the ability to speak coherently, the general idea that people should speak and listen and be gentle to one another, even where disagree. Try that in a general setting almost anywhere in America. If the empire is failing I blame Wal-Mart and the generation of fat slobs it supports with cheap crap and pre-packaged food.

Pot day

Boxers or Briefs? from Pot Psychology on Vimeo.

"Honey, we need to talk..."

Anyone who has ever had a long term relationship knows the feeling when things are no longer working and there comes a need to have "the talk". The talk takes all sorts of styles and incarnations. Sometimes it is just a realization that the relationship has run its course and the breakup is inevitable. Sometimes there is agreement and talk of making everything work again.

How do you ever get to the point where the talk becomes necessary? It's really quite easy, because life keeps chugging ahead no matter what you are doing. Sometimes jobs take more time than they used to, or kids or the sex just becomes boring. One thing is certain, there are always warning signs, but there is also a decent possibility that everyone hates to look at the obvious warning signs.

What got me thinking about shoddy relationships on the skids? This line from Time Magazine, "Regulators shut down two banks in Florida and one in California on Friday, boosting to 123 the number of U.S. bank failures this year as loan defaults rise in the worst financial climate in decades."

It got me to thinking. What is the average number of bank failures when the economy and the nation is not slowing dying? Well, in 1999 there were less than 10. There were 6 in 1995. There were no bank failures in 2005. That's OK, we are more than making up for it now. There were 25 last year and for 2009 we are on a run.

Bank failures and bad relationships have a lot in common. The writing has been on the wall for a long time and yet we just kept thinking that things would naturally work themselves out. This never happens in our personal relationships and these 123 bank failures for this year is clear proof that it will not easily work out on a financial scale either. As with failing relationships, talk will only make things worse.

In my experience, when it comes time to end a relationship and you instead go to therapy, it buys you time, but not much. The concept of allowing failing banks to hold on by using bailouts and other federal programs is the exact same thing. The dying relationship needs to be killed off as soon as it is on its last legs. The same is true for a failing bank.

For the most part a bank failure often comes back to the brains of the operation, same as a relationship. If you do not change the bank leadership, which never happens, then the bank is dead on arrival. Even banks who have survived threats of insolvency this past year, Citibank and Bank of America and AIG (not a bank I know) did not do the bright thing, which is a brain transplant. If brain transplants were possible, I would still be married. If regulators had the balls and the laws, they would move to kill off some of these banks and others would just lose the management who drove the bank into the ground.

What has been appalling during this past year of economic chaos is the unwillingness to remove the leadership of financial institutions that by corruption and incompetence drove their once profitable businesses into the netherworld. None lost their jobs. None were sent to jail. None were just let go. How can this happen?

I have a friend who has been "happily" married for 15 years. The day before his wedding he tried to talk me into picking up some "easy women" (prostitutes). That was the day before he got married. Whenever I saw him over the last 15 years he was alone, his wife at home. He was on the prowl, always in search of something new. In my mind the relationship was doomed from day one, but they remain married, in their own way. Bank leadership is as mystifying to me as his marriage is. It seems from almost any rationale point of view to be ruined, damaged and built on lies. His marriage continues and the leadership of most failed or failing banks have hung on, thinking everything would work out if you could just get one more shot.

All relationships are strange to me. I have no clue how some work and some do not and many are just built on a need to not be alone and thus flawed from day one. Banks? I have no clue why imbeciles and idiots continue to wear nice suits to work, only to lose millions more. Sometimes you have to man up and call it a day. Does no one have shame anymore?

Dates

Real change

Anyone paying attention can sense there are somethings things in the air here in America. Part of it is the economy refuses to get chugging, part of it we remain at war and no one seems able to justify any of them anymore. There is also that fat America attitude that all should be well because we are slow and getting stupid, but still, it's the way it always has been.

Except it's not. We were not always proud just for the fact we were Americans, we were proud of what we had accomplished in a relatively short time. We were proud because we led the world on so many fronts, from trains to technology, if it was going to used in an amazing way, Americans were probably going to show the world how it was done.

And then we started to psychoanalyze everything thing we did. We started to numb great numbers of thinking, productive people with drugs that slow down thinking and get rid of passionate choice. We became boring and fat.

Rest easy, because the giant militia we all worried about when that white idiot blew up the building in Oklahoma City is back and guess what? They hate negroes. Check this out:

"As for you, why… you’ll be shocked because you didn’t see it coming. And eventually you’ll be saddened when you see that we have truly lost the way of life with which you grew up. You’ll be saddened that your children and grandchildren live in a socialist, government-controlled gulag where their every movement from cradle to grave is tracked by the government. But most of all, you’ll be saddened by the death of friends and relatives who are brave enough to fight and die for something they believe in.
You know, McCain wasn’t much of a candidate. I’ll give you that. He was the lesser of two evils for most of us. I don’t blame you for not voting for him since, at the time, you didn’t know what we all know now. But at least John McCain was an American."

That is from an anti-Obama website called The Betrayal.

Again, it seems like this is the last gasp from the aging right wing, realizing their country is falling apart, they want to blame everyone from the gays to liberals to people dumb enough to elect Obama. Again, I am going to guess these are the same badly dressed white people who protest at abortion clinics and have, of late, been causing trouble at congressional town hall meetings. These people do passionately believe in freedom of speech they will yell just loud enough to drown out other options.

The older white undereducated masses are not a majority, even in the republican party. My sense is that these are the dimwits who are seeing change in the country and only envisioning someone foreclosing on their trailer. What happens when you are a squeaky wheel is you do get a lot of attention, but only once, maybe twice.

Threaten a revolution though, and that may get some people to look you over. What I don't understand is this. When President Bush was about to send innocent soldiers to do his dirty work in Iraq and millions of people protested in most major cities, the media seemed to write these protests off as stupid hippies, too high to understand the impending threat from Saddam. Did the stoned hippies threaten to start a revolution? No, they protested, and made cut masks and danced in the street in that weird whirly Grateful Dead style that still makes me kind of ill when I think about it. But they did not threaten to kill anyone.

When the right wingers threaten to kill and maim to return America back to a time, one that I have never witnessed, they not only have a voice and demand attention, but something in my soul says they may be serious. A lot has changed for the right wing nutcases, first, they are as far from real power as I have ever seen them. Second, no one with a functioning brain takes them seriously and third, they have a shit load of weapons.

What should be done about these hicks? Nothing really, because you can't get to worked up over words and second, this is America, we react quite well, but don't like planning ahead. If 9-11 showed us anything it is this, after a bunch of terrorists walk through the airport with razor blades, what we really need to do is frisk old ladies and throw out bottles of water.

If inbred angry white people want to revolt, we should wait till they are marching on the capitol with guns drawn and meth fueled insanity.

Better to fail

“If you set your goals ridiculously high and it’s a failure, you will fail above everyone else’s success.”
James Cameron, film director

I know artists who have great success and some that have not made any money doing their art. I know people who took jobs to make money and have stayed there for decades, becoming boring robots, with retirement accounts and no passion. I know a few people who have started successful businesses and some who lost everything.

It is interesting to think about the choices we make and where they lead us.

Learning to park

Beer bellied losers rejoice

Well, my favorite interview avoiding economist has hit the nail on the head, again. Paul Krugman, he of the almost bankrupt New York Times, rails against the republican party being taken over by the far right, tea bagging crazies. He basically calls the party on its real leadership, the Palin, Beck, Limbaugh threesome of everyones nightmares.

It is the party of fear, paranoia and idiots. Like this is news, right? Krugman points out the obvious, that while the KKKristians of the country have always hated progress, blacks and most comedy, they rarely have a say in anything of substance. Think about it, every republican running for president in the last 40 years has included on their platform, a plan to outlaw abortions. There have been a slew of republicans elected president in that time and none have done a damn thing about it.

Now though, it looks like the real crazy right wingers ARE actually making their lilly white voices heard and after getting completely cornholed in the last election, the republican party will do just about anything to have friends.

I have often noted that it seems like the same older white pasty men who protest at abortion clinics are the same guys who carry the God Hates Fags placards outside of funerals for soldiers. I never paid them much attention because they reminded me of the other crazies, the ones I would see in New York City, walking around, talking to themselves, screaming at no one in particular and just flat out insane. Has anyone ever seen a hot woman at an anti-abortion rally? Or a black person? Think about it.

Krugman links the republican crazies to a dangerous possibility for the country, that these know nothing wingers will elect some of their own, who, while having no real power in congress, will find ways to gum up the system and cause a complete breakdown in our system of government. Maybe Dr. Krugman doesn't have a TV at his palatial estate in Princeton, but he may want to find someone to show him how the Google thing works and check out the "debate" over healthcare. Republicans bitched and moaned and did everything they could to bring any debate to an end. It was like watching children, loud, polyester, spray tanned children.

One of the things I like about the New York Times is the comment section, because quite honestly, you have to be able to read to like the Times and that usually means you are able to understand concepts and quite naturally, you then can write informed comments. After reading Krugmans column I clicked the link to comments and this was the first one up:

"NO DOUBT ABOUT IT! But, Professor Krugman, I have more faith in our young people and their voting intelligence than perhaps you do! The really crazy right-wing whackjobs I see (wielding Obama-as-Hitler signs and yelling about Government taking away their healthcare) are mostly middle-aged, beer-bellied, depressed looking losers! I have looked closely, and notice only a few young people--mostly with older people, presumably parents!

I think the "tea-party" types are, in the main, a bunch of not-so-bright, easily manipulated folks who are in a snit about all of the terrible things happening in our country about which we are all in a snit! They just have a more obnoxious way of expressing it--and follow psychopathic "leaders" and corporate lobbyists who enable them! And, let's face it, there is more than a little RACISM involved here!!!!

Call me a cockeyed optimist, but I think the Democrats will win big in the 2010 elections--and hopefully there will be more progressives among them! What I am worried about now, even more than the likelihood of a watered down healthcare bill, is the probablity that Obama will send many, many more troops to the wasteland of Afghanistan--and we will be pouring more money and lives down the BLACKHOLE OF WAR!!!! This scares and saddens me beyond belief!!!"

Admirable.

Post it

The New York Times, by some estimates, on it's last legs as a print dinosaur, has an interesting and incredibly sad story this morning. The bad news, The New York Post is ailing. The good news, the New York Post is ailing. The story is here.

When just a young college student, I spent a year or so out of college and living in New York City. One of the joys of that time was subsisting completely on carrot cake. Every morning would be spent eating a large slice of cake, looking for a job, jogging down to Wall Street and spending the subway ride home reading copies of New York Post stories that fellow riders would leave behind.

At the time I was completely unaware that the Post had a political agenda, but what I liked was the ability to tell a story in language that was both entertaining and flowery. What could be better than body parts found in dance clubs? Maybe shocked reporting that kittens can survive falls from 10 stories or more.

When I started to cover crime for a freelance news business I would sometimes end up at a bridge where a depressed person was perched, suicidal and talking with police. Almost inevitably a New York Post reporter would show up, get some cameras out of a chained car trunk and look through the telephoto lense, then his watch and then scream out, "jump, I got to get to the office."

Over the years the Post has been something I could rely on, not for news coverage, but for something to talk about. The post has never pretended to be above it all, reporting facts and just the facts. No, the Post becomes a part of the story, using terse language and photos to enhance the story they want to tell. It's almost like a drunk friend who comes up to you at a party and wants to tell you what a bitch the hostess is, in a loud voice for all the hear. The Post is that drunk friend.

I know newspapers in general don't seem to have a clue how to survive in the new media world. All of them are suffering and for good reason. The days of ink stained fingers are history and for a newspaper to survive it has to quit the newspaper concept and come up with something that will work online. It is that simple. The Post may yet survive because in many ways the type of sloppy work they do so well will always be needed, in the new media format it will flourish.

What will be sad is riding a subway someday and not having a Post to pick up and read while I wait for my station. Then again, I can always find something to read on my Iphone.

Fear based idiocy

After 8 years of an administration that gave away billions in no-bid contracts to corrupt and dangerous defense associated groups, and using patriotism as a ploy to keep their power and denigrate opposition, all I can think of during the on-going health care debate is that this country is sinking fast and the Republicans are insane.

The country is staggering under it's own short sighted drunken decision making. For many decades this country has survived on fear mongering and stupidity. The hate and short sighted policies of the republicans is just filled with the type of argument that leads one to either blindly believe and follow, or stand aside and wonder what the hell these people are injecting.

I am sick from listening to the debate.

Bring back slavery

Want a solution to all the economic woes? Let the voters decide of slave ownership might help.

In the land where all men are created equal, that equality ends when the act of procreation is over. No one is really equal, which is one reason people do not support a state run health care law. We just don't like all our other citizens and god knows, most don't deserve health care.

There was a tiny election yesterday and experts are digging through the results to find some interesting tidbits of information, like this, the Republicans are back. They won a couple of governors races and so some of the talking heads in the news business are saying Obama is done. Of course, in an election with national attention, the 23rd congressional seat in Upstate New York, the republican (super conservative) lost. The talking heads are not saying that on a national level Obama appears to be strong. How strong? The New York congressional seat has been in republican hands pretty much since Lincoln was president. Now that a democrat wins it, it is just not that big of a deal.

Most importantly, people continue to worry about the economy and I am with them. Which is why the super smart voters should be given the chance to decide on slavery, just one more time. Over the past few years judges and elected officials in quite a few states have passed gay marriage laws. Whenever these laws are voted on by regular people, they almost always lose, I think 31 times now. The electorate have spoken, other than health care for everyone, we are united in our fear that fags and lezzies will marry and ruin everything.

So, it is with the logic of allowing Joe Sixpack to decide who should get married that I say, let's let these wise people decide other issues, starting with slavery. Why slavery? Why now? The economy could use some cheap workers and trust me on this, no one works cheaper than slave labor, don't believe me? Ask China.

Having been in a terrible boring marriage, all I can say is that the gays don't know how good they have it. That said, they, like every other human being, deserves the right to say I do in front of family and friends.

Men in motels

Last year, when I was deeply in search of employment, I was often teased with job possibilities that almost always involved working as a company rep of some sort, with only one constant. Let's call it the 1099 counter culture.

Here is what I found and what I see an awful lot of. Jobs from marketing, delivering all kinds of stuff to digital television installation and all of these jobs did not offer salaries, did not offer benefits, and many offered only cursory training. They hire people as independent contractors, working under the 1099 tax switch. In case you have never 1099er, basically you get paid by piece work, whether that is installing electronics or preparing taxes, you get the pay, but you have to pay your own taxes, have no health insurance or retirement possibilities and no real future.

It's not quite an invisible revolution, but what it does offer for employers is having people out in the field, without the expense of having a fulltime employee. Some of these jobs pay well, some not so much. In a time of deep recession, everyone one of these sorts of jobs that gets posted on Craigslist gets at least 100 applications in most cities. People are hungry to make money and these going nowhere jobs will fit the bill for many desperate people.

I knew the culture was churning out these new jobs because I applied for a few and interviewed for some. I was offered one in June, gave it some time and found every aspect of it to be lacking. It was a technical job, but they sent a moron to train me. We spent two weeks together, or 8 hours, depending on how you look at it. He was dumb and unprepared.

When I was a teenager I went skiing for the first time with some friends. All had skied before and on my first trip up the mountain, an athletic friend said all I needed to do was follow him. So I crashed and rolled and basically bruised my way down the hill. It was the best example of my life of stupid things friends were able to get me to do.

This neanderthal that flew out to train me was even worse. He did not know how to communicate, so he was going to show me "out in the field" how things got done. Expect we only went out in the field three times. I was left to meet with clients without any serious idea of what I was doing. You mix bad training with incompetent management and then top it off with sporadic pay periods and you feel abused from most angles. When I quit all I wanted to do was tell these people every step they took to make a worthless job even more pathetic.

Lately I have been finding myself in hotels around the eastern United States. Tonight I noticed something interesting. As I was walking down a hallway, I could hear voiced inside rooms, men speaking loudly. Some on cell phones, some seeming to host football parties. I did not hear any women's voices. On my way back from the ice machine, a few doors were opening, men on their way to dinner, getting into work trucks and panel vans. These were the men I was becoming. Working for some company, probably as a 1099 employee. No benefits and dragged away from their families, as winter lurks around the corner. Life was about to get funky and yet, as I tuned into conversations and watched the interactions, the men seemed to be kind happy. Smiling, joking and speaking loudly. Maybe it was that they were happy to be working and getting paid no matter what. That, and the idea that, sometimes it's kind of nice to be on the road, focused on a job and not worrying about dinner or if the wife thought she looked fat in her new Wal-Mart pants.