Il brutto, il cattivo

Phil "nation of whiners" Gramm and John "small business" McCain. Check out The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999, repealing FDR era banking safeguards. Wendy Lee Gramm, married to Phil, headed the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (in the years 1988-1993, another meltdown period) and "served" as a member of the Enron Corporation Board of Directors. Absolute "deregulation" Pied Pipers, all. Right into the river deep, magic mountain dark.



McCain with Joe Lieberman, former Democratic VP candidate running with Al Gore in 2000. Hard to believe he once debated Dick Cheney. McCain's signage claims "Country First." Lieberman's biggest problem is that he's a United States Senator and "Independent" who supports country first, but only if that country is Israel. A loathsome turncoat.


"I am not scared of al Qaeda, I am scared of . . . al Cracker." -- Chris Rock.

Here they are, then: Conservative Southern Baptist Senator Lindsey Graham, who some wags in South Carolina claim is gay just as they claimed that his predecessor, Strom Thurmond, had a child with a black woman (which turned out to be true -- the daughter's name is Essie Mae Washington-Williams). Conservative hypocrisy would be the watchword a la the homophobic (yet engaging in homosexual "activities") Pastor Ted Haggard. Oh yeah, and G.W. Bush, who like McCain was a piss poor student and roustabout who likes to "talk out of his ass." Maybe they should all read William S. Burroughs' Naked Lunch. I'd like to hear Sarah Palin's audio edition!

Obama won tonight's debate handily. McCain was foolish to mention Herbert Hoover in any context, certainly. At ths point, John McCain should fly back to Panama where he was born and retire. Palin should go somewhere far away, perhaps to a small uninhabited island from which she can "see Russia."

Today's Rune: Partnership.

Buckle Your Seatbelts, Hold on to Your Hats

I found some interesting wartime shots of Detroit from the 1940s courtesy of the US people's library, the Library of Congress. Here's a shuttered Texaco station during WWII. Earlier today (2008), I saw a BP station with 2/3 of its pump handles covered by plastic sacks -- out of those grades of gas.


Downtown Detroit, summer of 1942.



Color photograph, Detroit, 1942.

Hat check (hatcheck) "girl," Detroit, New Year's Eve 1942.

During the Great Depression and the Second World War, a lot of people pulled together. Are we up for anything like this kind of coordinated effort today?

Today's Rune: Journey.

Mergers and Acquisitions III

We're in the midst of a hyper round of mergers and acquisitions, which reminds me: why do banks have such weird names? One of the weirdest must be Fifth Third Bank. You've got to wonder (it provides a clue to earlier mergers, certainly). How about Charter One Bank? That one makes little sense, actually, especially since it really seems to be owned by the Royal Bank of Scotland.

Basic transparent names seem only to match with credit unions. Does anyone else prefer credit unions to commercial banks?

Deteriorating economic conditions helped sink the George Bush, Sr., presidency in the 1992 election. Anyone over age thirty (besides Sarah Palin, perhaps, even though she's 44) will remember Pan Am (Pan American World Airways), and realize it no longer exists except as a cultural memory (as in the defunct logo above), since it went bankrupt in 1991. Would anyone be surprised if one or more major airlines goes under within the next six months? On the ground, how about Chrysler? In any case, don't be surprised if Eastern Air Lines goes under. Oh, wait: they already went under in 1991, too.

The economic crisis endured under Bush I led to a Bill Clinton victory in the 1992 US presidential election; don't be surprised if today's Über-crisis under George Bush II helps inspire a majority of voters help make Barack Obama the next President of the United States. Let's just pray that nothing like Clinton's Monica Lewinsky scandal transgresses in the next four years. Instead, we will need a real Hundred Days of action a la FDR.

Forget about Pan Am and Eastern. The next president is going to have to hit the ground running.

Today's Rune: Defense.

One Life to Live

I figure now's as good a time as ever to delve into books written during or about the Great Depression of the 1930s. I'm now into a book my father lent me (he was given this copy in California, where it's set), John Steinbeck's Cannery Row (1945). The characters are colorful, but more interesting is the relative subtlety of the book's conflicts -- mostly people struggling against the hardships and vagaries of life rather than against a clear "opposition." The microcosm of Cannery Row is implicitly epic and ubiquitous -- and very relevant to today's world, too.

Pictured above is an international front cover for Tortilla Flat (1935), written during the Depression but set just after the First World War.

Today's Rune: Harvest.

As the World Turns

Moments of clarity or obfuscation? Imagine how the American Indians first felt when push came to shove. . . Does "private property" exist, or is it a chimera, a temporary figment of some people's imagination? Depends if you take the short view or the long view, I suppose.

"There are two kinds of people in the world, my friend. Those who have a loaded gun and those who dig." You dig?

Today's Rune: Harvest.

Conservatism Ain't No Easy Job

So folks, substantive realism (Joe Biden) vs. folksy fluff (Sarah Palin)? That's my take, anyway. McCain-Palin seems to be trying to revive the sort of approach Reagan took against Jimmy Carter in 1980. A big difference is this: McCain-Palin are trying to succeed a troubled president from their own party. Barack Obama and Joe Biden are trying to do something a little differently, win outright by offering a different emphasis in political and economic philosophy, and much steadier stewardship. I saw nothing tonight that changed my mind, no specifics about "reform" or "change" from Palin. And though I thought the first debate (i.e. Obama-McCain last Friday) was a draw, tonight Biden won. Why? Because tonight, Biden grasped the issues better, and offered better solutions. He also answered the questions.

Any thoughts out there you'd like to share about this? Glad to see Michigan tilting toward Obama-Biden, by the way. As it should be.


Today's Rune: Journey.

Outside the Trains Don't Run on Time

It's no secret that air travel has gotten increasingly vile over the years, especially since 9/11/2001. It's expensive, usually late, cramped, harassed, and uncool. Cattle car travel.

Which is why I wanted to try Amtrak as an alternative recently. If you're not in a big hurry or traveling on a tight schedule, Amtrak (and any other rail alternative) is more civilized and a lot more fun. Why? For starters, you can walk around, talk with anyone who is game (or not, if you don't want to), hang out in the club or dining car, and overall feel a lot less claustrophobic. You can read, write, and not worry about feeling trapped and helpless as on an airplane, nor worry about driving and spending tons of money on gas for an auto, either.

Not that Amtrak in its current state couldn't use some relatively easy improvements. Starting with internet access like Canadian Via Rail and some trains in the "elite" Northeast Corridor (both of which are comparable to the highly civilized European network). Sprucing up the stations would be good, too. The Detroit station, for instance, has a guard, a ticket counter, a single TV, and rest rooms and that's about it. Snack machines, perhaps? Internet? Basic fixes. Also, realigning the train schedules to more accurately reflect arrival and departure times would be very helpful (apparently, an increase in freight train usage has thrown the current schedules off -- and significantly so, as in a seventeen hour trip becomes a twenty hour trip). Still, though I did hear some complaining among some passengers -- much like people who loudly complain about the Post Office and Public Library while jawing obnoxiously on a cellphone -- it's pretty cool stuff. (More on people watching -- and engaging in a shared social space -- on trains at some point.)

My suggestion: try a short train trip and see what you think. It's not for everyone, but a lot of people would enjoy the experience and see the possibilities for expansion. Note: you can usually get cellphone reception, and people seem a lot more gracious about it then on planes, probably because there are more nooks and crannies to make calls from on a train.

p.s. "Outside the Trains Don't Run on Time" is a cool song by Gang of Four, first released in 1980.

Today's Rune: Fertility.