Monday, October 27, 2008

Wall Street and the Outrageous U.S. Titanics

1. TITANIC 1: Disgust: Yeap, while we bail them out and the entire world sinks, they are still setting billions aside for their year-end bonus. We need a law,and we need to jail some of those guys, including those from AIG who partied in California and those who kept their bonus, be it $ 6 or 20 million (or much better, of course, how naive of me).

But the machine is nicely oiled: no presidential candidate is going to announce doing the right thing (see above), and Congress gets its money from those guys (and it is a millionaires' club itself anyway), etc., etc... Shameful

2. TITANIC 2: Racism: "what IF indeed Obama's lead narrowed and McCain came back?" Well, yes, racism is alive and about to vote against the "black guy", who is in fact only half-Black, i.e., what we will all be one day: a mixed blood, or mestizo. And what does it matter? (see New Orleans, passablancs, etc.)
Can the person, male or female, do the job, understand, respect, project a vision and brains? Yes? In that case, no problem. If that vision were the same as previous failure or another 100-years' war, well, then, maybe you'd need another vision...

Now, racism itself: of course they'll come out. 1990, Harvey Gantt proved it against Jesse Helms: you can have a 10 % lead, if you are black, you can still lose the real thing by 5 % or better despite those polls.
The only question is: have we changed? Racially? Maturity- and intelligence- wise?
Stay tuned till late November 4th or early November 5th....

Sad! And potentially terrible if we dash hopes and show we have not matured, changed, or acquired brains... And yet, we are less racist in daily life than others can be (French and Germans against their own 'big minorities,' whom they'd rather not hire, and blatantly try not to hire...

3.Final quizzical quandary:
Gift Llama? They say: "don't look a gift horse in the mouth." Ok, so you look at it at the other end???? But then the llama is trickier: it spits on you and so, being that backwards, probably because it is a southern hemisphere animal, do you look a gift llama in the.... rear end? (because it might spit on you? while a horse would relieve hind fluids instead?)
Anyone ever looked at this... quandary up close?

PS: also, because of the Corialis effect, remember to look a gift llama in the derriere COUNTERclockwise!

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Tuesday, October 14, 2008

October

October...
One of the three busiest (worst) months of the year.
Warm days, cool (or even cold) nights (80s and then upper 40s). But the humidity disappears.
When fatigue starts gnawing at you and the BS piles up on your back, and you can feel it on your neck.
When you start worrying again about the money, the mortgages, the illnesses (change of seasons), and it is that feeling that it all begins again when you somehow were still free two months earlier (eons ago by now) and yet in seven months it is summer again (but May is always a blur of long-term exhaustion), although summery weather starts in March around here.
The aches, the heartaches, the routine, the passing of time, the aging, "closer to thee, my God," they'd sing....
Only good thing: a lazy weekend morning in bed, half asleep, when it is cold outside....

Monday, October 06, 2008

our self-destruction

At times you have to wonder if we have not done to ourselves what Bin Laden did not succeed in doing. Greed (even if of a minority but major greed by those--CEOs, etc.), complacency, laziness, tap dancing on the deck of our Titanic, etc., led to our self-destruction by way of banks and the entire economic basis for capitalism. Don't think I am a defeatist, or pro-Osama, or rejoicing, but it's been visible for quite some time (blame also the outrageous advertizing for luxuries and easy credit) and no one did a thing (of course.... With all our millionaires in Congress, did we really expect them to move on to cut the money spigot that kept them there and well fed???? NO!)

That leaves us with re-learning to walk to school, driving as a luxury, and rediscovering the greatness of a beautiful day... Flip side of the debacle, silver lining of the new Great Flood. Welcome to 1929 part II. Only problem: Who will play the Nazis and Hitler now? We have all our polarizing people already busy.... (Osama, Rush Limbaugh, W, 300 million weapons in the US, Russia, Islam, sexism, etc., etc., etc.....