WHY DID THE SEA TURTLE CROSS THE FLORIDA KEYS?

To go to the doctor! That is the opening sentence of Miami News article that can be found HERE.

A 73 pound loggerhead sea turtle showed up at the Turtle Hospital, the only licensed veterinary facility in the world that solely treats sea turtles. The loggerhead was suffering from a bacterial infection and has been treated with meds and is recovering in a hospital tank.

While the hospital staff are mystified by the turtle’s behavior, I have a sneaking suspicion our own (O)CT(O)PUS may have had a ummm, hand (tentacle?) in steering the turtle to medical help.

HIT AND RUN POLITICS

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has released this video blaming Republicans and the previous administration for the current economic crisis.  My question: Is this fair criticism? While I may agree in part, is it reasonable to blame everything on Republicans? After all, the repeal of Glass-Steagall was signed into law by former President Clinton on November 12, 1999.



What does this video hope to accomplish? Will shaming Republicans result in more cooperation, or inflame and further polarize our body politic?  Is this a way to make friends and win votes?  Your thoughts ...

A NOTE OF THANKS FROM CANADA

Not that we deserve a note of thanks … considering the Fox News smugly sarcastic "new clear" bomb that offended our neighbors, sullied our reputation, and reinforced our Ugly American image in the eyes of the world.

But sometimes our voices do carry. Voices like our esteemed Captain Fogg and your peevish Octopus who have spoken out against our number one national export - Yankee dumbness. Today, I received this heartwarming note of thanks from friends in Canada who read our blog:

Give [ ... ] a big Canadian hug from us. We (our country) have been in this war going on seven years and maintain peacekeeping missions in long-forgotten places of conflict for decades without any fanfare. That is the Canadian way and why we are known as the ‘gentle and caring nation' by most countries. All of my American friends were outraged by the Fox news-comedy hour segment and fully know that our brave soldiers and their families are doing their all to help the good people of Afghanistan take-out the insurgents while working side by side with our US allies.

Not all Yankees fully comprehend the depth of hurt caused by Fox News. It seems our country is too preoccupied with itself to see how the rest of the world sees us.  Today's Sunday editorial from the OTTAWA CITIZEN explains far better than I possibly can (reproduced in full):

Talking aboot our American cousins

by JANICE KENNEDY

Excruciating, wasn’t it? That Fox News program clip we all watched last week with the guffawing buffoons parading their ignorance? That clip about Canada, the “ridiculous” country with the effete, inactive military and the policemen in red jackets riding horses?

Not that I generally watch Fox News, understand. (Why would I? I don’t consider myself a) a redneck, b) a right-wing fanatic, or c) dumb.) But, like the rest of Canada, I did see this morsel of televised moronism. And all I could think was, yikes, how embarrassing. Do they have any clue how dim-witted they sound?

Judging by their knowledge vacuum, you might conclude that the Fox characters (who also dismissed Mexico as the land of the siesta) were merely simpletons who had crawled out of some backcountry swamp. But that’s the terrible thing. Extreme and tacky, they were nonetheless not unique. In fact, they summed up a chunk of the prevailing American mindset.

Profound American ignorance about Canada is neither new (“I don’t even know what street Canada is on,” said Al Capone) nor confined to Fox. Nor is it the exclusive purview of the right wing or the uneducated. It’s simply an absence in the culture, an empty space where knowledge should be.  And not only about Canada.

When American commentators or comics need a punchline, no matter what their political orientation, they dig into their big bag of international clichés and come up with ready tags for everyone from the Mexicans (siestas), to the French (baguettes and retreating armies), to Canadians — frozen yokels who say “aboot” and are borrrrring. (Unless the bag of clichés belongs to Rush Limbaugh and company. Then we’re Soviet Canuckistan, buncha socialists.)

Besides the recent Fox embarrassment, we’ve also been treated lately to conservative Matthew Vadum’s American Spectator blog, which says Natasha Richardson may have been killed by Canada’s “socialist, government-run healthcare system — similar to the kind that President Obama wants to ram down the throats of Americans.”

At the time of the Iraq invasion, Conan O’Brien noted that “the prime minister of Canada said he’d like to help, but he’s pretty sure that last time he checked, Canada had no army.” Jon Stewart, having been to Canada, has “always gotten the impression that I could take the country over in about two days.” See? It comes from all sides. Nor should we overlook the touching earnestness of Britney Spears, who gushed that one of the coolest things about being famous was the travelling. “I have always wanted to travel across seas, like to Canada and stuff.”

On TV last week, there was a curiously telling line on the sitcom How I Met Your Mother, which includes the running gag of a character with a Canadian past (i.e., endless comic fodder involving hickness, maple syrup, Mounties and snow). When one of her reminiscences makes even sex up here seem boring, another character wails, “Canada … Why? Why do we let you be a country?”

Interesting choice of words, right? Not to get all Freudian or anything, but the joke does reveal something about the American soul — its Americentric worldview, its Manifest Destiny belief that the U.S. is the sun around which all other nations orbit. Or are permitted to orbit.

Only a fool would deny that our superpowerful American cousins are anything other than mighty and crucial to the future of the planet. But the sun? Americans too often are blinded by their own rays, and that’s where the problem lies.

When you can’t see beyond yourselves, you assume there’s not much out there worth seeing anyway. You rely for your knowledge on hoary and absurd stereotypes, recklessly uninformed opinion and gut prejudices based on nothing more substantial than wisps of misunderstood information.

That is ignorance. And that, my American friends, is the core constituent of your collective worldview.

(All you Americans who actually know things about both Canada and the rest of the world? Yes, I know you exist. But you’re a minuscule minority, and your perspective is not what gets airtime, at home or abroad.)

To those of us who live reasonably decent lives without the benefit of citizenship that is starred, striped and stamped with bald eagles, it’s all a bit alarming. Here we have the gigantor of nations, an incredible global hulk capable of alarming rampages, and it doesn’t seem to care what’s out there, and what might get trampled.

I can’t speak for other nations, but I can speak as a Canadian reduced to Made-inAmerica stereotype. Would it help to point out to Americans that a lot of us hate winter? That real socialists would laugh themselves silly at the notion that Canada is socialist? That most Canadians don’t buy real maple syrup because it’s too darned expensive? That health care here may be flawed but does actually work? That many Canadians don’t give a hoot about hockey? That we actually have a fairly lively culture up here in the hinterland? That not one 9/11 hijacker crossed over from Canada? Oh, and that 116 Canadian soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan?

It would not. That’s because Americans, hubristically, just don’t want to know.

Introducing a segment on the public-radio program This American Life, writer-broadcaster Sarah Vowell once observed, “Like most Americans, I don’t particularly care about Canada.”  Or any place else, apparently. That’s the American tragic flaw in a nutshell.

One final word from 8pus:  Ahh hope mahh fella Ahhmerikans finally get the point.

THE FIRST LADY DOING TOO MUCH?

There is an article over at Politico discussing the possibility that First Lady, Michelle Obama may be taking on too much and “spreading herself too thin.”

“Obama’s approach so far is decidedly different from the usual model of the modern first lady — pick a platform of two or three issues and stick to it, by and large, for four years.”

The article goes on:

“She’s become the spokeswoman for all sorts of issues and topics — from fitness, parenting, the environment and women’s rights, to redefining images of black women in American culture and promoting self-esteem for young girls."

Yet in the midst of all those themes, it isn’t yet clear whether her self-described core messages — about military families, volunteerism, and helping working women balance work and family life – are truly breaking through. Some wonder if she’s spreading herself too thin to emerge in the public mind as a leading voice on those topics.”

Then they present these two opposing views:

“I think when she thinks about work-life balance, it’s really broader than simply work and family in the general sense,” said Jocelyn Frye, her policy director. “It’s really thinking about how we make sure our families are healthy, how do we make sure that people eat right and take care of themselves and educate themselves about making good choices.”

“I think it’s fragmented. She stands for so many things right now, she’s doing so many things. She’s in the kitchen at the White House, she’s building houses, she’s digging in the garden. It’s all very nice, but I thought to myself, ‘Why is she planting herbs?’” said Mindy Sabella, director of marketing at Siegel+Gale, which specializes in strategic branding.”

I’m going to go out on a limb here and bet anyone that Mindy has never been a mother. When my four children were young, I worked two jobs, kept the house, did the grocery shopping, was a Cub Scout den mother and volunteered for several different community groups. And then every Sunday, I got everyone out of bed and dressed and the whole tribe went to church where I taught Sunday school.

Did I spread myself too thin? Sometimes, I probably did, but I believed that each of these endeavors were important so I treated them all with the same degree of care, making sure I was prepared and competent.

I believe what we are seeing from Mrs. Obama is just her natural energy and passionate commitment to topics that matter to her, much like the rest of us. But, could Mindy be right? Is our First Lady too fragmented to make a difference?

“Obama’s early moves have shown the topics where her interests run the deepest. During her visit to a struggling high school in a poor D.C. neighborhood she talked about being teased as a young girl by people who said she talked “like a white girl,” but ignoring the taunt and striving for excellence anyhow.”

“I really wanted to write it off as another school visit but I heard the snippets and it was like listening to a woman’s leadership conference. She genuinely wanted to put lift under every chair in that room, and to leave each of them with a picture of possibility that they may or may not have had when they came into that session,” said Sue Hodgkinson, who heads The Personal Brand Company. “She is clear that she has the ability in every exchange to leave that signature behind her, and I was in fact taken by that. She was not just showing up.”

Mrs. Obama has made a believer out of Sue Hodgkinson and she’s made a believer out of me. And I’d say, in the next ten years or so, we’ll be seeing just how many believers she's made out of the children in that classroom.

Mrs. Obama is beautiful, fit, young, active, passionate and intelligent. She is her own woman with her own style and I, for one, think she is doing a great job in her new role and to her detractors…

READING THIS POST WILL SEND YOU TO PRISON

Last week, our venerable Captain Fogg posted this article, Flori-DUH, about proposed legislation making it illegal in the Sunshine State to watch animals having sex. As our esteemed Captain explains here:

Every bit of legislation needs a scare story to justify it and this one demands our immediate attention because -- you guessed it -- someone says if you screw the pooch, you might become a pederast and sexual predator. Correlations are a dangerous thing, of course.

Last month, your wayward Octopus inked the aquarium with this post, CURSES, about proposed legislation in the State of South Chinalina making the use of "bad language" illegal. Last time, I managed to avoid self-incrimination.  Not this time!  I double-dare you:


Why is it legal to read this but forbidden to watch our revered law makers doing this?

Gotcha!  Your devious Octopus has entrapped you ... turned you into a felon in the Sunshine State.  Do we need more dumb laws written by ignorant, impotent sub-primate castrati still messing with their missing parts?

Would you like to see how cephalopods DO IT?

The "Disease" of Aging

I found this post on Digg today. It describes the enormous technological and medical progress being made in the field of aging. The article quotes a Cambridge geneticist, Aubrey de Grey, who says people who are alive today will be able to live to up to 1,000 years of age. Let’s just let that sink in a minute. One thousand…years of age. This man believes that, in the future, there will be 1,000 year old people. A millennium is the length of time this man says people will be able to live for.

While the article notes that Grey’s vision may be a little over the top, there is “a growing number of scientists, doctors, geneticists and nanotech experts” who believe that aging can be significantly slowed or even all-together halted.

Robert Freitas, a nanotech expert at a Palo Alto non-profit, was also quoted as saying, “…in the near future, say the next two to four decades, the disease of ageing [sic] will be cured [emphasis mine].”

A couple of points on this: first, while advancements in genetics and other technology and medicine will undoubtedly lead to longer life-expectancies, I can’t help but think that scientists have a tendency to get ahead of themselves. Human beings are immensely complex, and the likelihood of anti-aging advancements related to each and every aspect of our being progressing such that people are able to live limitlessly – without other, perhaps more substantial, health problems occurring as a result of that immortality – seems slim.

Second, and more importantly, why in the name of all that is holy would we want this? There is a frustrating, even unnerving, belief in our culture that aging is bad. Botox abounds, elders are disrespected, and young people like myself are constantly told that these are the best years of our lives. Freitas’ reference to aging as a “disease” perfectly encapsulates this notion.

But aging is, of course, part of life. Death is part of life. We must be careful that we do not become consumed by our obsession with youth.

This is also not to mention the many other problems with the idea of such drastically extended living. Having people live that long would be an impossible-to-sustain drain on our resources, including space (The Earth is only so big.).

And I for one don’t want to live to be 1,000. Life should be exciting, it should be engaging. If we live long enough, we will very quickly become bored. How many fewer risks would we take if we knew we had centuries to make up for lost time? This all amounts to a sad and, quite frankly, pathetic future.

To the article’s credit, it does recognize some of these latter points (The author quotes one bioethicist as saying, “There is no known social good coming from the conquest of death.”). And the science behind these advancements – and I hesitate to call them “advancements” – is impressive, even thrilling.

But a world desperate for panaceas and ever-lasting youth should be careful what it wishes for.

War with the Newt

"Prophets are always disappointed, dear Nostradamus. That's why new ones are always in the wings updating the catastrophes."

-Andre Codrescu-

One of the reasons that I changed my major away from Psychology many years ago had to do with some films showing real mental patients, including schizophrenics, in the days of straight jackets and padded cells. The mental state of these poor people wasn't what I wanted to be immersed in for the rest of my life. Little did I know. I haven't thought about it for 45 years, but recently, listening to the barking of Newt, St. Rush, Ann, Michelle and Laura, the wild-eyed ravings of hysterical madmen come to mind again.

The latest is from the would-be-relevant Newt Gingrich, who is seeking to fill the power vacuum caused by the collapse of the Bush administration by issuing vacuous proclamations with reckless disregard to what his words mean. Seeking the authority of amplitude, Newt squeals out that Barak Obama, currently disappointing his most liberal supporters by being a centrist and a pragmatist, is leading us toward a dictatorship and "Liberal Fascism."

Analyzing such speech is probably pointless, since only those in a true fugue state need to have the ironic irrationality explained. Of course Newt isn't really schizophrenic and so isn't deserving of sympathy. He's just a witch hunter and like all of them, he invents the witches he uses to elevate himself to the powers he attributes to them.

Of course he'd like to make you think it's all about those vaunted "conservative principles" he pays lip service to while supporting bloated authoritarian government in the pocket of industry, (fascism) but as I've said many times, "principles" are what we call our most unworkable ideas. In the case of Newt, they're not even ideas he believes in. What he does believe in is the Big Lie and the oft repeated lie, knowing that the more outrageous his claim, the more it will be believed and that nothing is too ridiculous, unfounded, impossible or meaningless to be claimed. Hence terms like "liberal fascist" that combine contradictory words, yet even more ridiculous coming from a source that has more successfully promoted incestuous collusion between a military industrial complex and news media using false data, fabricated scenarios, illegal surveillance and other infractions against liberty and the law to promote their goals.

We will most likely hear more sirens wailing and more Newts and Cheneys and Limbaughs pumping up the volume and trying to convince us to re-elect the party that has robbed and raped us and left us lying in the ditch. The longer doom eludes us, the more prophets thereof will howl.

CANADA MOURNS - FOX SCORNS

Here is a follow-up to Captain Fog's article, Fox and Hounds, posted earlier this week. What U.S. audiences have not seen thus far are reactions from Canada, specifically how our neighbors to the north feel about this Fox insult.

How low did Fox go?  In the same week Canada mourned four dead soldiers killed in Afganistan on a single day, Fox News belittled and mocked the Canadian military.  Did other cable news channels cover this Fox abomination?  Did Fox News apologize for this outrage?  A begrudging but not widely publicized apology in Canada; nothing broadcast to a U.S. audience.

What a narcissistic, egocentric country we have become to have one of our major cable news networks so dishonor and disrespect Canada’s war dead and not even give more than a half-assed mea culpa.

The Here and the Now of the Land of the Space of Today

Thought I might post a few Jurassic thoughts on our current Finnegans Wake-like national situation....

I think we're all liable now and then to point out the flaws in both political parties – one thing to consider, though, from a somewhat Aristotelian classificatory principle, is that all forms of government have problems "proper" to them. In the case of a republic like ours, certain amounts of short-sightedness, jockeying for position and influence, demagogic nonsense, and insider corruption are part of the beast. We might as well remind ourselves that there's no point in demanding that our pols adhere to impossible ideals of pure and disinterested government. It's good and even necessary to have ideals, but nobody is likely to live up to them anytime soon, if ever. (Wilde said that a map without utopia isn't worth looking at. As usual, "the Oscar" was right.)

It might be prudent to look at our form of government, then, somewhat in the manner of a biologist studying a wild animal – the critter may have some health issues (old wounds, pathologies, and such), but the question is, can said critter function well enough to get by and even thrive? If so, it's doing just fine. What many people seem to find frightening about the present is the possibility that we have indeed come close to the point of our form's demise. The near collapse of the financial system is a potential death blow to democratic rule. You can't have capitalism or democracy without a fair amount of stability, and we have been looking shaky in recent months.

Anyhow, I believe we can remain viable if we begin to deal with the simple facts that 1) we have been acting as if capitalism were a god-sent system rather than an imperfect vehicle for the satisfaction of unending human desire and 2) we want to denounce government and yet receive all sorts of good things from it, for which we expect to pay little or nothing. I'd like to keep the good things and add health care and improved education to their number, but we can't do all of it by borrowing trillions from China and elsewhere for unending decades. The only reason we get away with it, I suspect, is that everybody else is too afraid of us to let us suffer the consequences of our foolishness. (And of course those consequences would hit them, too.) And now we end up having to shell out astonishing amounts to the players in our broken financial sector. It's daunting, but we have tremendous potential and can get through this mess. President Obama's insistence on moving forward with some "big-ticket" initiatives makes a lot of sense: it's part of setting our house in order, arranging our priorities. We need to make our decision for Christ, so to speak, and figure out what really matters to us. If we can do that, the politicians will – after their messy fashion – follow suit.

Those who say that spending our way out of a depression/recession is irresponsible make a little point and miss a much larger one. We are already "through the looking-glass." To suppose that fiscal restraint will spur a return to normalcy is to suppose too much: if "the market" rights itself by its own means, it may do so in a fashion that does fundamental, unsustainable violence to those who are subject to its operations. Systems can be fiendishly viable while millions who depend on them go without: think "private health insurance." Allowing the economy to go into free-fall could yet render all talk about "returning to normalcy" pointless. Evidently, the ultra-conservatives who keep prating about fiscal restraint can't wrap their minds around this danger, mostly because they think whatever the market dictates must be right.

Fox and Hounds

The Impolitic, one of my favorite blogs, asks us why "conservative" humor isn't funny and little more than gleeful gloating at the misfortune of people we secretly feel inferior to: empty mockery based on ignorance or false information. I can't really answer that, but Red Eye, Fox's "Me Too" attempt at cashing in on the trenchant, cynical and wildly popular comedy of Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert, is a cornucopia of examples. Red Eye is little more than a Punch and Judy show for the kind of "conservatives" who at an earlier time attended public whippings and executions in order to enjoy the plight of others being more humiliated than themselves.

In the eyes of Fox Fans, the supply of whipping boys and scapegoats they desire can't fill a Colosseum as large as Fox's and so they have invented and exploited domestic "Liberals" and "elitists" and have tailored cardboard images of foreigners as liberal elitist fodder for wild beasts comedians to tear apart.

Fox, the primary cheerleader for every dubious battle and misbegotten military enterprise needs cardboard cowards and so we have the Fox French and the Fox Canadians to pillory along with any other "surrender Monkeys" who doubted the long disproved reasons for our Iraq war.

The Canadians are easy targets for Greg Gutfeld and his creepy chorus. They're almost French after all. To those who don't know that the Canadians are in fact fighting in Afghanistan, Gutfeld and his monkey house mob must be as funny as a chimpanzee ripping off someones face. But of course the Canadians are there and have lost well over a hundred soldiers. In fact on March 17th, as Gutfeld was calling Canada "a ridiculous country" and another of his "comedians" was saying

"I didn't even know they were in the war. I thought that's where you go when you don't want to fight. Go chill in Canada"

4 more of Canada's brave youth were being brought home in boxes. It's funny - so very funny.
As funny as a bunch of apes sitting on a comfortable couch pretending to be mighty warriors and mocking the brave and the dead.

Of course it caught up with Gutfeld as these things so often do. Of course he gave a sneering "apology" and said, as people like him usually do, that he'd been "misunderstood" which is no apology at all, but an attempt to tell us that the people who misunderstood him need more of his mockery.

Of course Red Eye is a failure in progress. It isn't funny as much as it is creepy, embarrassing and to those with some awareness of reality, infuriating. If there is any humor in it at all, it's only the low and inadvertent humor involved in watching people grasping and gasping and drowning in ignorance and failure and too damned stupid to realize it.

See for yourself:

Same old, same old Party

What's more disgusting than CNN giving copious air time to Florida Representative Connie Mack this morning so that he can continue to demand the firing or resignation of Tim Geithner for reasons of complicity in a no strings attached, unsupervised AIG bailout under Hank Paulson and the Bush administration? Why, it was natty, nasty and nefarious young Connie Mack himself. Representative Mack, in trying to pin the tail on the donkey, seems to have overlooked the fact that it's an elephant's tail and wants us to buy the notion that the AIG bonuses were not only Geithner's fault, but proof of the incompetance of President Obama in fixing the Republican train wreck. The spectacular smugfest of Republicans acting as though oversight of Wall Street was their idea is just that -- spectacular.

Asked pointedly and repeatedly on CNN this morning however, Mack refused to comment on whether Geithner or the Obama administration should attempt to recover the funds, repeating again and again that they never should have been given and asking what Geithner knew and when he knew it.

"Quite simply, the Timothy Geithner experience has been a disaster."

said Mack last Wednesday. Once again, CNN missed the opportunity to ask whether the huge disaster of the last 8 years was anyone outside the current administration's responsibility and whether the 8 years of mismanagement could reasonably be expected to have been rectified in a matter of weeks without the waste of a hundredth of a percent. Are we to have forgotten that the kind of oversight that would have prevented the mess was the devil himself to every Republican of the last several decades?

I have to recall however that the Republicans waited two months longer to declare the Obama Administration a failure and disaster than they did when Bill Clinton was elected. Some couldn't wait for him to actually take office to begin the disinformation, investigation and sabotage and what can we call this but sabotage as they offer no practical alternative other than to attack, attack and attack?

One can never hope for contrition from any Republican it seems, nor can anyone expect their cooperation in any attempt to deal with their failures and misdeeds. It's just the Same Old Party and the Same Old Excuses.

Mail order science

One might think that I would be on the side of the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board in opposing Texas House Bill 2800. It's effect would be to exempt any private non-profit institution from the need to be accredited by and receive a certificate of authority from the state. The entire idea is of course to establish "universities" that give science degrees without any requirement to study science. Normally attempts to Push the Christianist agenda by equating legend with science earn my contemptuous wrath and of course so does this one to a degree, but wait, there's more.

If, as would happen should this act of insanity be passed, one could simply dream up any curriculum and award degrees of any sort, the value of any Texas institution's degree program not funded by the State would be suspect. Of course the Libertarian in me might be inclined to ask why Acme Bible College shouldn't be able to confer a Doctor of Divinity on anyone they please according to their organized delusions, but not Bachelor, or Master or Doctor of Science. Thinking back to the mid 19th century however, when one could attend Acme Medical College with an unregulated, unexamined course of study and emerge with black bag and scalpel to treat the unsuspecting populace, I have to take pause.

What would the result really be if any charlatan could establish a school and anoint its graduates with advanced degrees in science with no other education but a literal interpretation of Bible Stories for Children? An extra headache for those institutions and companies hiring physicists, geologists and such perhaps. An opportunity for me.

Fogg University of Christian Knowledge. It has a certain acronymical appeal, you have to admit, although Fogg U would be shorter and easier to remember for the kind of students it might attract. Prerequisites? What are you, some kind of Commieliberal intrusive government type?

Let market forces determine the value of unaccredited education, but for you, if you call in the next ten minutes, you can call yourself a Master of Science for $49.95 plus shipping, handling and framing charges. But wait, there's more -- the first 50 callers get a free Sham-Wow with the logo of our sham university on it. You getting this, camera guy?

Engaging A Future Generation

Our dear SWASHZONE tends to be more than a little angst ridden on most days (& lord knows my own posts contribute to this!) so I thought I would post a feel-good post - yes - me! - Squid.

So the gist of this post is that I adore my students - or, at least, most of them. I truly do. They give me fits sometimes, sending me into head-clutching fits of despair, but through it all - I am genuinely very fond of them. Some of them cause me from time to time to ponder nervously the future of the world when it is run by people INCAPABLE of following simple directions or turning assignments in on time . . . but underneath all their slackery they are good-hearted delinquents - so perhaps the world will survive their air-headed slackness. And they are balanced by my wonderful students who put these slackers to shame - students who always go the extra mile towards academic achievement. Please may they be our future leaders!

Curiously - some of my personally favorite students tend to be the ones I give miserable grades to. At this point in the semester they start ducking into corners when they see me coming down the corridor - knowing that they are going to get an earful from me about their latest academic transgression. But they've learned to take my cussing at them as genuine concern and, to their credit, none of the students with whom I have developed a personal rapport has ever been fool enough to think that this meant they were going to receive preferential treatment. And this is to their credit. For the most part - they take responsibility for their abysmally low grades.

There are of course those for whom personal responsibility means nothing & everything is everyone else's fault & how dare I presume to think that I call the shots etc. - but in all honesty - these students are in the minority.

And on a final note - I find it fascinating sometimes to learn about how people 20 years or so younger than myself view the same world that we all inhabit. Their point of view is often fascinating (& scary!) but always important to consider. I consider myself privileged to be able to converse on a daily basis with our future. And hopefully they learn a bit from we old fogies as well. (I remember in a class discussion once about a piece of literature that contained sex one of my students making a comment about people over 40 not being interested in sex anymore - it was SO HARD to keep a straight face!) Yes their view of the universe is staggering sometimes.

Mine is such a terrific profession.

FIRST DAY OF SPRING

Enjoy!

Flori-DUH

JESUS IS LORD AT
SHEFFIELD’S FAMILY DINING
ALL YOU CAN EAT CATFISH DINNER

Declares the peeling, sun damaged roadside sign to highway travelers in the Sunshine State. I've never been tempted to stop and ask whether Yahweh is on the staff as well, perhaps, despite their not being Kosher, filleting catfish back in the kitchen.

I guess even the Godstruck of Florida have to admit there are places where exception is taken and of course you don't have to drive too many more miles to encounter billboards announcing your approach to Cafe Risque where we are enthusiastically assured that "They bare all." I doubt Jesus is even a busboy at Cafe Risque.

Despite the massive and daily influx of New Jersey exiles looking for the cheap life, Florida is still Florida, particularly in it's chewy, nut filled center. Whether it involves writing laws making it a felony to watch animals having sex ( only if you find it arousing of course) or making sure you don't kiss your spouse in the wrong places; Florida is still Florida no matter which lords are leaping at Sheffields and Florida still writes bills and passes laws the way the National Enquirer ( a Florida based tabloid) writes articles.

According to some legal experts, Florida is a state where you can wear a bathing suit to a restaurant, but only if you don't sing. It's a state in which by law one may not do anything "unnatural" which to anyone of a cynical bent would suggest that magic and miracle are illegal, but extra-Biblical sexual acts, being natural enough in the animal kingdom, are not. In fact it appears that taking your clothes off in order to shower might earn you a fine, should anyone notice. Thank God I have a bath tub and that my bedroom is on the second floor.

SUNDAY SPACE SHUTTLE LAUNCH

Goodbye, Faux News.  Goodbye, AIG. Goodbye, Dick Cheney, Rush Limbaugh and the Congressional Republicans. Octopus is hitching a ride on the space shuttle in search of inhabitable exo-planets.  The cephalopods are massing; the Octocalypse is near!

Here is today’s question:  A gaggle of geese, a school of fish, a pod of dolphins … what do you call a ____________________ of humans?

Guillotine! Guillotine!

It is the best of times. It is the worst of times. They report, you decide.

One doesn't expect the spokesmen for conservative interests to be using the French Revolution as a model for future action. Of course I'm no kind of cynic and so all the calls for blood, all the evocations of victims carted off to some public square to be guillotined or of some Supreme Court Justice bleeding to death in his bathtub like Marat aren't at all hilarious to me when I watch Fox News.

"Whether it’s terrorism, international crises, domestic crime or, in this case, excessive corporate greed, some conservatives seem unable to see problems as anything other than a nail for which the only solution is a hammer."

says Think Progress. Fox's solution is a Krauthammer.

Charles Krauthammer, who like so many Fox denizens looks like he's overdone the Botox, told us all yesterday that we should hold public executions for AIG executives whose contracts include a bonus.

"Have it in Times Square, invite Madame DuFarge. You borrow a guillotine from the French and we could have a party. If that’s what it takes to maintain popular support, let’s do it."

Conservative Mort Kondrake just wants to boil them in oil.

Ok, so it's hyperbole although with paralyzed faces like these guys have, one has to make some guesses as to what they really mean. But inflammatory rhetoric in such times as these is like flicking your Bic with gasoline all over the floor. Put them together with Ann Coulter who has advocated poisoning judges and with Rush who would rather have the country collapse than accept any offense to his "principles" and we have not only an assemblage of rogues but a perfect example of people who are not conservatives any more than were the Parisian mobs cheering as heads rolled in the Place de la Concorde in 1793.

It's a Doocy, all right

I think we'd all feel better if we stopped fretting about things and realized that the world we live in is no more than a huge, slowly revolving madhouse with no walls. It's the notion that things and people ought to make sense that drives us crazy -- because they don't. You only have to tune in the news for all the evidence you might need. Take Fox, for instance: any one of those shows with giggling night of the living dead zombies batting fallacies, conjectures, hypertrophied hyperbole and lies back and forth like a game of three-way badminton.

CNN is a communist organization says Steve Doocy on Fox and friends. Like "Liberal" It's a term without fixed meaning, used often enough on Fox that it really means little else than that the victim doesn't have rabies and doesn't preach abject obedience to Fox approved authority and doesn't exhibit a Pavlovian rage response on cue. That certainly describes CNN, who sometimes actually does indulge in honest reportage rather than to derive stories from the Ouija board used by Fox and Friends. But anyway they are all Commies - perhaps some of the few left in the real world and they don't need to tell you why or how. All the proof you need is that a former CNN employee, Mauricio Funes, has been elected President of El Salvador. Elected, not installed by a military insurgency or people's revolution or quasi legal action by the courts. Elected by popular vote. Elected as in Democracy.

So anyway, by the law of sympathetic magic, or perhaps something even more arcane; because he isn't Augusto Pinochet or any of the other murderous, fascistic, peasant slaughtering, protester torturing, nun raping, drug money laundering anti-communist Generalissimos the US traditionally supports and supplies, he's a communist and CNN is the "Communist News Network." What's more, the liberal party he belongs to has, according to Mr. Doocy "allegedly ties to Caesar Chavez," a man that those without heads spinning from Fox Poisoning will remember is long dead. Of course Doocy's duezy was not only to confuse Hugo with Caesar, but to confuse a baseless, irresponsible, malicious and speculative accusation with fact. That's Fox. That's what Fox is about: the voices from Neptune for a mad, mad, mad world.

I happened to be perusing an auction catalog over coffee, early this afternoon; thinking about the things I might have been bidding on if George Bush's irregulars hadn't stolen everyone's money and there were a couple of lots of antique Chinese opium pipes and accessories. That's right, drug paraphernalia and legitimately so because you really can't smoke anything legal in an opium pipe.

Of course the water pipes Tommy Chong once manufactured worked quite well with tobacco, that highly addictive, highly toxic and legal drug, yet Tommy went to prison and lost nearly everything he had. What's the difference between selling legal drug paraphernalia and illegal drug paraphernalia? Nothing beyond the personality involved. We have all sorts of laws enforced only to advance the careers of law enforcement, because, just like the traditional, criminally repressive generalissimos we traditionally support in Latin America, our Justice Department Buccaneers can make an honest man into a criminal as easily as Fox News can make Thomas Jefferson into a Communist and Jesus into Attila the Hun.

If you care about this insanity, you can't expect to survive intact and so I try very hard not to. Sure, I lost almost 80% of my net worth and the people who made that possible are fighting against any attempt to restore order; screaming like demons about Commies and Liberals and Witches and welfare queens but although I can still pay my bills, I can't afford to care. I've still got my house and my boat and a big ocean to float it in and as of today, I can even blog while afloat, hiding in my escape capsule from the madness of the world.

THE STIMULUS MANIFESTO

While commenters on the “Let’s Have A Revolution” series presented here at the Swash Zone and on parallel posts at Thinking Out Loud have had varying opinions, it is heartening to note we have found some common ground. I thought it would be helpful to summarize the series.

On The Economy:

Many of us agree a refund is a poor way to stimulate the economy and could be better spent creating jobs. Bringing back business and providing low cost loans for new business creation by those with a solid business plan.
Include investments in agriculture to produce cleaner, cheaper, better foods.

Fair trade agreements that are ACTUALLY FAIR to US businesses.

Improve the infrastructure and improve transportation methods, including developing new modes such as a high speed rail system. Include the improvement and development of greener, more abundant energy sources.

On Healthcare:

This topic proved to be more volatile with widely divergent ideas on how best to tackle healthcare reform.

While some would like to see some sort of personal health accounts, others lean more toward a national health insurance. TAO provided a good example of a compromise program used by Switzerland whereby every citizen is required to pay a mandatory deduction that provides a basic healthcare package. Citizens can then purchase more comprehensive supplemental policies if they so desire.

Another idea presented was establishing state review boards to separate frivolous lawsuits from those with merit, much like a Grand Jury. This could help keep down malpractice insurance costs while not penalizing a truly injured party.

And we mostly agree that we think Americans must be more involved in directing their care and keeping costs down by using the system appropriately.

On Education:

We seem to all agree education is an important aspect of continued economic growth.

Basic skills seem to be lacking among students such as simple math, history, English grammar and spelling and geography.

We would also like to see a curriculum includes courses in goal orientation and achievement and finances, including balancing a checkbook, creating a budget and understanding how credit works and what it costs.

Students and their parents need to be more responsible and teachers need to be supported.

And many support providing scholarships to anyone with the grades and desire for higher education who can’t afford to go otherwise. And why not require some community service in return so they actually earn their education.

We are facing many challenges, both individually and as a nation, but I hope that most of us “every day people” will overcome the obstacles and flourish.

The dissection of Jim Cramer

When there shall be no more lies and all the words of falsehood put to shame

-Scroll of community rules-

What do Tomas de Torquemada, Judge Judy and King Solomon have in common with Jon Stewart? Not a lot. As judges, inquisitors and arbitrators of justice, they are clumsy louts. Forensic surgeon Stewart can have your bowels in a bucket before you can ask for a second opinion and you'll probably grin and shake his hand for it. Not only can Stewart stop a flotilla of excuses and denials, he does it with a smile and so skilfully that the newly disemboweled has to smile at the abject humiliation along with him.

Perhaps, like me, you've been following the feud between the Daily Show host and CNBC's Jim Cramer. Stewart has been serving up the sins and failures, misstatements and disastrous recommendations of Cramer all week like a roast pheasant on a silver platter, prompting Cramer to dissemble, dissimulate, deny and attack like a politician. Last night however was the end of it.

For those who haven't seen it, here it is from Raw Story It's long, too long to post here, but worth your time and we may never see such skill in action again.

LET'S HAVE A REVOLUTION! (Part 3)

EDUCATION

I have arrived at the third and final post of how I’d like to see the stimulus money used to stimulate the economy. Why education? Because in an ever changing, increasing complex technological environment we need to be sure we can provide a competent workforce to retain and expand business.

So, how best to accomplish this? How about first, we abandon “No Child Left Behind?” Our students would be better served by finding ways to attract intelligent, effective, enthusiastic people to teaching. Also, ensuring they all have had breakfast and that each school has adequate supplies of paper, pens, computers, etc.

The imbalance between schools in wealthier areas as opposed to poorer areas needs to be corrected. The federal government needs to establish a minimum standard for every school in the country that must be met by states that want federal funding. Too often, wealthier districts receive a share of the money that they don’t really need thereby reducing what is available to poorer districts.

I’m going to invent a new word here; no, I am not a socialist, I am a societalist. I want to see ALL Americans living their dreams and I don’t want a single child to have to continue living in a nightmare.

Safety in schools has become a real issue and we need to talk to those on the ground to find out what THEY think would be most effective. The answers might surprise us all.

Scholarships for those who cannot afford to go to college without it. Too often it is NOT our best and brightest continuing their education but simply those whose family can afford to send them. Current programs don’t go far enough. We need to be able to walk into the poorest school in the most dismal area of any city and tell a child even if you graduate high school with one pair of pants and no shoes, if you have the grades and the desire, you will go to college. Because the most important thing we can do for the future of our country is to ensure that the best minds are at work on all the challenges our country may face.

And to those who will now argue about the cost, I give you these thoughts. We have the stimulus so we use that to get started. Certain federal tax monies goes back to the states annually even now. Many states have an education lottery so there is that money. And, if we have a healthy economy and educated people getting good jobs, we can have an annual scholarship fund drive. Attach it to the IRS form where the political donation block is already. I’m betting with the right kind of campaign explaining the scholarship program, many Americans will gladly contribute.

Let’s ask for something in return; pay for a doctor’s education and then have him/her work in one of the critical areas of the country for four years. Kind of a domestic Peace Corp. I’m sure we could find other areas in need for graduates in other fields to serve.

I know we have some educators who contribute/visit here at the Swash Zone and I’d be very interested to hear their ideas.

So, what do YOU think about education and the stimulus package?

LET'S HAVE A REVOLUTION! (Part 2)

HEALTHCARE

So, how will healthcare impact the economy and why should it be included in the stimulus package? If we are going to attract and retain businesses, we need to have a healthy workforce and access to health insurance that doesn’t break the bank, either for the individual or the employer.

The problem with throwing out some ideas and solutions is that this one issue is probably the most complex and intertwined with other aspects of the economy.

There are those who believe that illegals, medicaide and frivolous lawsuits are placing such a burden on the system that it is driving up costs for all of us. And they have a point but when dealing with these issues we must also consider the illegal immigration problem in general, welfare and entitlements and legal reforms.

Finding ways to encourage illegals to stay home, work for welfare programs and some sort of tort reform may go a long way to easing these burdens. So, what else could we do?

Of course we have people who don’t want more government involvement and given the federal government’s dismal track record, I can understand their reluctance. But, in being realistic, I do not see how we can bring about any meaningful changes without SOME government oversight and intervention.

There are people who really understand the working of healthcare and advocate some sort of personal account system which, on the surface, sounds like it could be a workable plan in that is promotes consumer responsibility by rewarding them for saving money.

Another interesting plan was commented on by TAO at another blog which is the Swiss model. All Swiss citizens must purchase a government sponsored minimum health insurance plan. It can be deducted from your paycheck like any other deduction. If you want more coverage and can afford it, you are free to purchase it. The one thing this system allows for is the right of a medical facility to refuse treatment to anyone without insurance. While this does relieve the burden currently borne by facilities compelled to treat the noninsured, it also means we would be at greater risk of illegals in this country developing and spreading communicable diseases so how to solve the burgeoning population can’t be ignored.

The cost of medications is another thorny issue that must be addressed as more of the poor and elderly have to decide between the electric bill and their pills. Why do we pay so much more for medications than even our closest neighbors in Canada? I’ve heard many explanations but the one that seems most plausible is this; while drug company medications enjoy a protected patent period in the US, no such agreements exist in other countries. If they want to sell their wares abroad, they must negotiate the pricing or the other countries simply threaten to produce a generic. The drug companies claim that the higher prices they can get here and not in other countries go toward funding research. Seems like we can find a way to help fund some research, let the drug companies pony up a little and stop this protection racket that has broken our backs. I don’t mind paying for medication and even a little more to go toward research but we have carried the whole load for far too long.

So, what would YOU like to see happen in healthcare reform?

INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY 2009

Yesterday (March 8, 2009) was International Women's Day. In the spirit of starting a new tradition, let us honor the women of the Swash Zone, including our contributors Maleeper, Rockync, and Squid; our daughters, mothers, sisters, and wives; and our friends across the blogosphere, Cara, Interrobang, Jennifer, Libby, and Lindsay, and others too numerous to mention.

In 1975, International Women’s Day won official recognition by the United Nations and is now a national holiday in 16 countries including Canada, China, Armenia, Russia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bulgaria, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia, Moldova, Mongolia, Tajikistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan and Vietnam … but sadly not the United States.

Below are some of the global United Nation themes used in past International Women's Day commemerations:

- 2008: Investing in Women and Girls
- 2007: Ending Impunity for Violence against Women and Girls
- 2006: Women in decision-making
- 2005: Gender Equality Beyond 2005: Building a More Secure Future
- 2004: Women and HIV/AIDS
- 2003: Gender Equality and the Millennium Development Goals
- 2002: Afghan Women Today: Realities and Opportunities
- 2001: Women and Peace: Women Managing Conflicts
- 2000: Women Uniting for Peace
- 1999: World Free of Violence against Women
- 1998: Women and Human Rights
- 1997: Women at the Peace Table
- 1996: Celebrating the Past, Planning for the Future

The question for today: What would be an appropriate theme for International Women's Day 2009?

Questioning Profanity

This is a post about the word F*** & the increasing inability of our world to imaginatively & sensitively communicate. So those of you with sensitive eyes might want to stop reading.

I’m old enough to remember a time when to say the word “F***” was considered oh so crude & boorish. Down right offensive even. And for those of us of the female persuasion – tantamount to creating a small scandal.

But no more. The word “F***” is now freely & boldly used by both genders & by people of all classes, creeds, religions, etc, etc, etc. For we on the western side of the Atlantic this is a fairly recent development. We are still swaggeringly making use of this word to sound oh so daringly cool. But then there are the Brits who seem to use the word so often (for so long) that I’m not entirely sure what they actually think it means anymore. As for the rest of the world – my feeble impression is that it is similarly following us all down the road of rhetorical despair.

(Lord only knows what F*** sounds like in other languages.)

Now – speaking HONESTLY for myself – if anyone were to hear what I say under my breath, muttering to myself throughout the day, one would hear the word “F***” uttered freely, with great frequency & often with gusto. Somehow it just seems to fit so many different moods & situations. However – I try to limit my use of the word “in public” or out loud for all to hear. When I do so slip it sends a message to the hearer – "gee . . . Squid is really worked up about such & so or Squid is passionate about such & so . . . . . . or . . . . . don’t mess with Squid ‘cause she’s having a moment."

Now I try not to ever cause offense & genuinely am extremely careful about whom I allow to hear me say THE word. My parents would keel over whilst swooning if ever they heard “F***” escape their daughter’s lips. My poor mother cringes whenever she hears me use the word “sucks” – an absolutely favorite word of mine. Suits more situations even than "F***." It would never occur to me to use the “F-word” in a professional context. I would also never aim the word at anyone in the manner of “F*** you!” – nope – that’s too offensive for me to say to anyone no matter how angry I may be.

OK – so now that I have confessed to my own rhetorical transgressions . . . there are times when I am acutely aware of the over use of this word – increasingly so – in my world – and I am not just referring to the sound of “bleeping” on TV reality shows . Is the tossing off of this word becoming so acceptable that it is beginning to lose its bite, its radical-ness, its bluntness – or whatever mystique it has ever laid claim to? And if so, what does this mean? Are we becoming such a boorish culture that we have lost the ability to express ourselves in any more creative of a fashion? Are we now so devoid of sensitivity that we do not care who we offend? And – if we keep using the word so much that we completely desensitize ourselves to its actual meaning (which in truth, is quite offensive depending on how the word is used – Mother-f***** is extremely offensive I think) then what will we do next? What word in our language can top "F***?" Is there such a word? The “C-word” is also rising in popularity (much to my utter dismay) though its gendered specificity makes it even more offensive – another discussion for another day perhaps. “F***" is a much more egalitarian word – I’ll give it that much!

Any my final ULTIMATE question – to what extent does our use of language define us as individuals? And as a culture? As a society? Honestly holding myself up to scrutiny - What does it say about Squid that she frequently declares that things "suck" & curses "F***" under her breath?

So those are my rhetorical thoughts for the day. Even we on-line folk, it occurs to me, have an abbreviation for it – do we not? “WTF?” Comments are welcome, but please tread carefully – let’s not cause offense to anyone. OK?

LET'S HAVE A REVOLUTION! (Part One)

I made a comment about having a new revolution, somewhat tongue in cheek, in the comment section of Shaw’s blog, Progressive Eruptions. I’ve also been engaged in dialog over at Jenn’s Thinking Out Loud about how would WE want to see our tax dollars spent and the seed of an idea was formed…

We are not so unlike those radical rascals back in 1776 who became increasing dissatisfied with an unresponsive government and finally decided to take matters into their own hands, which started a grassroots movement, which started a revolution, which formed a country.

Myself, I have been increasing dissatisfied and frustrated by progressive administrations and congresses since 1970. Somewhere along the way, there was a total disconnect from the actual PEOPLE who, in fact, ARE America.

While I still believe President Obama sincerely has this country’s best interests at heart, I’m disappointed with the stimulus package. It seems to me a lot of money is being strewn all over the ground with no real strategy as to how it will all come together to stop the bleeding and reverse the depression. While I think programs like tattoo removal for gang members wishing to improve their lot in life is admirable and that STD treatment and education is a big plus, do they belong in the stimulus package?

Here’s another example: My own state of North Carolina plans on using part of the money to rehab a low income housing project that has fallen into shameful disrepair from years of neglect by the state. Yes, short term, it will provide some jobs and after viewing the pictures, the place seriously needs attention, but is that the best use of the stimulus money? Should the state be able to use stimulus money to make up for their irresponsibility? Don’t get me wrong, I want them to improve that housing complex because no child should have to come home to that, but it should be state funds paying for the work.

OK, Rocky, so how do YOU think we should be using the stimulus? Let me first acknowledge that I have no special experience or education in economics, a little in finance and none whatsoever in politics, but it seems to me first you need a list of priorities:

Create jobs, bring in businesses – why can’t the money be used to bring back manufacturers with low interest loans and other incentives, but only those willing to commit contractually to staying in the US. And there are a lot of bright, young minds with great ideas and no cash. Why not pair them with experienced business owners to develop their ideas, create a business plan and a financial strategy and, if their plans look viable and profitable, give them loans with a grace period so they can build their business. More business, more workers, more consumers. Put money into R&D and into market development. And let’s make sure agriculture is included under “industry.” We need cleaner, cheaper, better food production and we need to support research into alternative growing methods, etc.

How about getting a fair trade agreement on the table that’s actually fair to US businesses so they can compete. Bring Canada to the table because they are our closest neighbor and we would progress much further with them as our ally. Once the economy is on an upsweep, we can work on other problems.

Forget wasting money on border walls, etc. Want to solve the illegal immigration problem? Make it more economically feasible for them to stay home! Once we build a solid industry, why not work with Mexico on agreements to allow certain manufacturing processes to go south of the border. Cooperative agreements that are a two way street and benefit everyone. Mexico will have to clean up its act and its streets and improve their infrastructure. We need to start looking at a cooperative union of the Americas much like the EU because that is the future in this globalized society. (I’m sure that’s going to raise some blood pressures!) But I think we can form a mutually beneficial consortium without sacrificing our respective national identities and it may just help to stem the burgeoning illegal immigration problem.

Don’t think my ideas will work? Good, go to the comments and tell me so, but include in your comments why not and what YOU think would work! I want this one post to be constructive and interactive, so please, try to keep the snark to a minimum. But, if you had control over the stimulus money, what would you do with it?

Twinkle, twinkle, evil Starr,

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Ken Starr, the man who thought you should go to jail for using the word "breast" on the internet even in conjunction with words like cancer and mammography, yet led the taxpayer funded multi-million dollar investigation into the President's sex life and published it on the internet in lurid and pornographic detail, is still alive. Yes, it's amazing, but some reptiles do live a long time.

Starr, the sex-obsessed fighter against dirty pictures and swear words, hasn't changed much, he's just picking on another obsession of his - homosexuals. Ken somehow obtained a law degree and was admitted into the bar somewhere, but really he's a preacher of a puritanical bent and of the sort our founding fathers loathed so much that they eloquently and passionately expressed that loathing in word and deed. One of those deeds and words was the the declaration of independence; that manifesto of the natural and inalienable nature of human rights.

Ken Starr will have none of it. We have no rights but what the government allows and what the government allows, the government can disallow. That may have been a bit much even for George III, but in any event it's at odds with the entire philosophy from which the United States grew and a worldwide quest for freedom from religious and secular tyranny emerged.

Kenn Starr will have none of it. Ken, whose resemblance to a circumcised penis is striking, has the ill nature to go along with his appearance and so is arguing to uphold California's outrageous proposition 8. A majority he says, can simply remove the rights of a minority and so there's no real reason we couldn't restore slavery, expulsion of Chinese citizens and remove the voting rights of women and non white males.

Did I mention that Ken is a Republican? When we put the puzzle piece that is Ken Starr together with other pieces from the Bush Justice Department, we start to see a picture of America that resembles the great tyrannies of the past and present; and America that has been tricked into going not only back to the nations under God we broke from, where the ruler's right came from God and yours, if you had any, were at the grace and whim of that ruler.

How close we are to the precipice -- it's no wonder that we hear such bellowing and howling from the greedy devils. We have come so close, they have made a tower of slime almost tall enough to reach our liberty. They can almost taste our soul.

Obama's bear market

"No thanks, that lifeboat has more equipment than I think it needs, Who could have expected the Liberals to put that iceberg there ( doesn't iceberg sound Jewish?) and besides there's no first class section where my Gucci shoes won't get wet . I think we should all go down with the ship."

Back When George W. Bush set in motion the auto-destruct cycle for our economy, it was customary for the professional blowhards to explain that he had inherited a recession and so it wasn't really fair or proper to call it Bush's recession and since the bubble began to inflate, perhaps we shouldn't call it a recession at all. ( Dow's up, don't bitch that your income isn't.)

Now of course Bush's Debacle is Obama's Bear according to Bloomberg and we can be sure the Republicans at Fox News will explain to us just how he caused it all with his socialist machinations. The recent losses are, says Fox, the market voting against Obama. Let's not dwell on the election they lost when the people voted against Bush.

Unfortunately the Republicans won't go down with this ship. They'll be trying to climb on our shoulders. screaming about "principles" while we drown.

THE FINANCIAL CRISIS EXPLAINED IN SIMPLE TERMS

This is contributed by one of my Octopod offspring:

Heidi is the proprietor of a bar in Berlin. In order to increase sales, she decides to allow her loyal customers - most of whom are unemployed alcoholics - to drink now but pay later. She keeps track of the drinks consumed on a ledger (thereby granting the customers loans).

Word gets around and, as a result, increasing numbers of customers flood Into Heidi's bar. Taking advantage of her customers' freedom from immediate payment constraints, Heidi increases her prices for wine and beer, the most-consumed beverages. Her sales volume increases massively.

A young and dynamic customer service consultant at the local bank recognizes these customer debts as valuable future assets and increases Heidi's borrowing limit.

He sees no reason for undue concern since he has the debts of the alcoholics as collateral (and can purchase credit default insurance from a triple A-rated company like AiG).

At the bank's corporate headquarters, expert bankers transform these customer assets into DRINKBONDS, ALKBONDS and PUKEBONDS. These securities are then traded on markets worldwide. No one really understands what these abbreviations
mean and how the securities are guaranteed.

Nevertheless, as their prices continuously climb, the securities become top-selling items.

One day, although the prices are still climbing, a risk manager (subsequently fired due his negativity) of the bank decides that slowly the time has come to demand payment of the debts incurred by the drinkers at Heidi's bar.

However they cannot pay back the debts.

Heidi cannot fulfill her loan obligations and claims bankruptcy.

DRINKBOND and ALKBOND drop in price by 95%. PUKEBOND performs better, stabilizing in price after dropping by 80%.

The suppliers of Heidi's bar, having granted her generous payment due dates and having invested in the securities, are faced with a new situation.

Her wine supplier claims bankruptcy; her beer supplier is taken over by a competitor.

The bank is saved by the Government following dramatic round-the-clock consultations by leaders from the governing political parties.

The funds required for this purpose are obtained by a tax levied on non-drinkers.

My only caveat: All satires tend to over-simplify a complex situation. This one blames borrowers as if they were deadbeat drunks.  In fact, there were also cowboy lenders who sold sub-prime mortgages that, over time, doubled monthly payments to borrowers.

After the housing bubble burst, mortgaged properties entered a deflationary phase.  As borrowers lost equity in their homes, mortgage debt far exceeded the collateral value of the properties.  As borrowers lost jobs, they could no longer keep up the payments on their homes. All in all, a very sad situation.

So how deep does this crisis go?  The total market for credit default swaps (a form of insurance on these derivatives) is $55 trillion.   Not exactly chump change!

UPDATE: Our contributor, Brian Krenz, has posted a more accurate and detailed account of the credit crisis in the form of a short animatic video.  Have a look here.

About that mystery project I am working on, the tentatively tentacled title is: Broken Pensions - American Dreams Stolen.

Out of touch, off base and irrelevant

Well of course I'm a demented, deranged, hair-on-fire, crazy Liberal Kike, personally responsible for the economic debacle -- at least that's what some Rush Limbaugh supporters tell me and who am I to argue? I'm obviously "out of touch, off base, and irrelevant" in my displeasure with the Republicans -- just like a two thirds majority of America.

The Democrat, liberal, immigrant loving, freedom hating big spenders are taking the country straight to hell now that my fringe element minority of 65% has removed the thrifty, honest and morally upright Republican majority from control -- that is if the "terrorists" don't take over DesMoines and kill us all with flouride first.

Yes, that's right, Republicans stand for limited government, but not just yet, and markets so free they're lawless. They're all for the unlimited freedom to obey, for massive military spending without oversight, for massive transfers of wealth to offshore corporations -- without oversight; and so much do they believe in it, they are happy to listen to your phone calls, read your mail, intercept your e-mails and faxes and peek in your windows to make sure you're happy about it.

What are we going to do, now that they're gone? And how sad it is just when they were about to turn the Democrat sabotaged economy around with even more borrowing, spending and tax cuts for billionaires.

So anyway, when you read John Yoo's memo to Bush in Newsweek asserting that "First Amendment speech and press rights may also be subordinated to the overriding need to wage war successfully," you can be sure it's only the Jew-bastard Liberals lying through their long noses. Even so, unlimited power for the President is only another way of looking at limited government. Ask Rush to explain it to you.

Don't Rush me

Thinking back to the dear dead days of Father Coughlin and the childhood of right wing hate radio, it seems like neither active opposition nor the deliberate ignoring of their brand of theater is as effective as allowing their own success to put them outside the pale of justification for or acceptance of their propaganda. Coughlin whose bigotry and anti-Semitism trapped him when Hitler became an enemy, had his network taken away after he became an embarrassment to the Church and indeed to the country.

Nobody outside of the lunatic fringe can really, if they are honest, think Rush Limbaugh's bombast has been anything other than full support for all that's torpedoed America, from his apparent acceptance of torture, to his steadfast denial of the growing sickness of our economy; from denying the dishonest origins of the Iraq war to the dishonest, scabrous, sleazy and relentless attacks on those who opposed the outrages of the George Bush presidency. He has become identified with the vicious kind of campaign that helped sink the Palin/McCain candidacy by making Obama seem all the more a man of integrity. I don't think I'm being fatuously optimistic to think he may go down with the ship he helped sink.

"I think a lot of people like to hear what he’s saying but I think it’s also a little bit polarizing and confrontational"

said Ron Paul in an uncharacteristic understatement during a telephone interview with CNN's John Roberts this morning.

" I guess the Democrats think its to their advantage if he’s leading the charge.”

I would add that it's to the world's advantage, but that's just my opinion. If I were a Republican, even a more characteristic Republican than Paul, like Michael Steele for instance, who said on CNN Saturday:

“Rush Limbaugh, his whole thing is entertainment. Yes it’s incendiary, yes it’s ugly.”

I would have to agree that it sure as hell is and yes, his dirty, nasty, mean spirited and unencumbered by honesty rhetoric is just the kind of thing to associate him with the party people rightly associate with bringing down a prosperous economy, putting our country in danger and protecting crooks and tyrants in their quest to make a mockery of liberty and the institutions that protect it.

"some of us would like to see an approach that would emphasize personal liberties, civil liberties, looking at the drug war… It’s really the old Republican Party because even Limbaugh was a big supporter of Bush so he doesn’t have anything new either when it comes to bringing our troops home, not expanding the war in Afghanistan."

said Congressman Paul. Some of us of course have been saying that for a number of years -- Democrats to be specific -- and we do remember being called traitors for agreeing with what the "new" GOP now seems to be trying to be seen saying. We remember being called traitors, loonies, dementia sufferers, Marxists and a long list of epithets of unrestrained hyperbole by Limbaugh and his fellow polemicists.

Although as a habitual Democrat, I wouldn't mind seeing Limbaugh go down with his leaky, worm eaten ship of shame, it would be far better for us all if there really were a new Republican Party that really did believe a bit more along Libertarian lines and particularly if it were led by someone who is capable of maintaining a dialog rather than hiding larcenous demagoguery behind a smokescreen of war and pretended patriotism. So far no one but Mr. Paul comes to mind.