Rambling Thru

So many famous people dying these days, regular folk too, though with far less hoopla... People arguing over whether or not the American healthcare system is in need of reform, let alone how any reform might practically be managed... Media eagerly egging on opposition voices to take umbrage that Obama has invoked "Biblical language" to make his point - how, I ask, is contemplating providing for those who are incapable of providing for themselves not a topic for "Biblical" language? Isn't social assistance all about being one's brother's keeper, about extending a loving hand to those less fortunate, those in need? How is such language out of order? How is the concept of caring for others not fundamentally Christian? Eh...

Time Keeps on Slipping

There's a song from my youth that says "Time keeps on slipping slipping slipping into the future..." Hard to argue with that.

This morning was so full of productivity. I thought I had the world on a downhill pull. Funny how quickly the day (and the caffeine fueling one) can slip away... Now as I look at the clock, I realize that I have perhaps spent more time than originally intended on some other blog sites. What's more, this, too, is extruding personal bellybutton fuzz from the ends of my erstwhile fingertips. Ah well...

So... starting up with writing again, even with CNN droning endlessly in the background, doesn't seem to be generating any interesting thoughts for me...

Sure, it's a great tragedy that the Air France FLT #447 went down en route from Brazil to Paris; and yes, it's both interesting and disturbing that images and soundbites of Obama in Buchenwald are being juxtaposed with images and soundbites of Hitler addressing his followers prior to the eruption of the Third Reich on Europe in particular and the world in general, especially in the wake of Obama's speech in Cairo yesterday... and yes, I do still think that Rick Sanchez lacks substance, proud as he is of being the first to conduct a "national conversation", just because he agreed to try out the incorporation of some new technological toys that caught the eye of one of his bosses (was it only last summer?) - he's still way too defensive of perceived slights from other media personalities... Much less riveting to me are the peculiar circumstances under which the corpse of David Carradine was recently discovered hanging in his hotel room in Bangkok, Thailand... Sure, I was just slightly older than the target audience that raptly watched the tv series, Kung Fu, but regardless of age, the appropriation of Bruce Lee's brilliant idea by a haole, and such a disrespectful and talent-free one at that, has always and will forever offend me. Ah well...

So where is the deep end of the pool into which I wish to jump?

Perhaps the most engaging ideas I have encountered today come from Lois McMaster Bujold's MySpace page, wherein she has been reviewing her nonfiction readings. Clearly these are the sorts of things that have been informing her own mental meanderings and underlie her ruminations within the novels I so greatly enjoy reading and rereading. I am in need of mental refreshing, and I need new wells into which to plunge my musty muzzle. Perhaps these suggestions will help. :-)

Sotomayor, et al

In the air there is much ado these days regarding the upward mobility of the educated products of the previously impoverished generations. Rick Sanchez of CNN presents himself as a success story similar to the first Latina candidate to the Supreme Court, and indeed, he is.

What, after all, do those born to privilege expect several generations after the initial egalitarian movements in education? Was there no expectation that the brightest and best of those provided equal opportunity would in the fullness of time rise, like all cream, to "the top"?

Foremost, of course, is the recently elected president of the United States, Barack Obama. Here is a man born of a Kenyan exchange student whose American education began in Hawaii and culminated at Harvard; and a daughter of itinerant entrepreneurs originally from Kansas but whose travels took them to the Northwest and on to Hawaii, the daughter going on to Indonesia before returning to Hawaii. Is it any wonder that their son should continue the family tradition of widely traveling, from Hawaii to the White House and on around the world in search of world peace and national economic prosperity?

Not one to rest on his laurels and gloat over those still on the rise, Obama has reached out to others of the formerly and currently underrepresented to join him in leading our nation. A quick canvass of his Cabinet nominees and administrative appointees provides ample proof of this. Sotomayor is just a very high profile example of this ongoing policy.

Not to be left behind and representative of parallel success stories, Rick Sanchez is now pointing out his own ethnic background and personal professional achievements. Good for him. He is representative of the changing landscape of American leadership.

I do find it fascinating that CNN seems to have been stepping up its advancement and featuring of nonwhite reporters in key anchor positions ever since Obama's increasingly successful campaign, culminating in his election. CNN promotions seem to have coincided with his inauguration. One mustn't be too cynical in the face of warranted success. The doors have opened; may they never reclose.

What's Really Important Today

There's much ado in the news today, but do I care? The only thing that really matters today is that the final episode of Battlestar Galactica, revised for the 21st century, is airing this evening. Fortunately, I am in a time zone that does not need to wait till nightfall. Better still, I am on a schedule that does not mind. See, there can be an upside to lack of gainful employment, onerous as ungainful employment may be...

The original series aired during my first years out of college, when I was beginning my great adventure also known as independent adulthood; hence, I was able to watch what I would. As such, I chose to fritter away my time on that first series, waiting hopefully for the promise of the premise that never quite materialized. Now, on the other side of my work experiences, I find myself without quite the same ease of access to indiscriminate programming selections, even as the re-envisioned series has finally found writers worthy of its promised premise. Tonight the series will end as it should have the first time around, instead of spinning off from ponderous to ludicrous, although I did just see an ad threatening a prequel series... But I digress (as usual)

This is a most excellent time to be alive, global economy notwithstanding. After all, the first series also emerged in a time of economic recession. Coincidence? Hm... Anyway, now is a time when reruns are readily available, when cable channels regularly hold series fests preceding finales (or just to entice holiday viewing), when catching up with missed episodes can be done online, when episodes are available both on dvd and for downloading from online distributors. So coming to the series even as it is ending is not a problem, aside from trying to grasp the scope before tonight's big sendoff.

It's all good: I regularly play catch-up with series after they become popular, either midstream or just as they are about to close out their original runs. Most recently there were the collected works of Roger Zelazny, the Harry Potter series, and now this. That's the epimethean in me.

My Turn for Cynicism

The news is abuzz today with talk of righteous indignation over the awarding of incentive rewards, a.k.a. unmerited bonuses, to AIG, the insurance company that was allowed to grow too big for anyone's britches, anti-monopoly laws well circumvented (as they weren't the only kids on the block screwing every available pooch in the increasingly complicated global financial neighborhood). Truly we are long overdue for an overhaul of regulations, legislations, and governance last updated before too many of us were even a glimmer in anyone's eye.

But I digress (as usual)...

My cynicism today comes at the "breaking news" that the Obama administration knew about the awarding of the protested incentive payments last week, at least a weekend before Monday's official protestations of outrage. Some news anchors were almost wetting their pants with excitement as field reporters eagerly sought the source of the disavowed clause that provides the loophole by which AIG was able to cut the checks that distributed the disputed "bonuses" in the first place. One of my hypotheses was that some ambitious clerk had slipped the clause into the formal write-up of the legislation after the final draft was submitted for preparation of publication. Then came word that the Executive branch had foreknowledge. This, of course, supports my faith that someone there actually read the final copy before signing, just as several earnest reporters did in feverish preparation for the official signing following a three-day weekend.

Now, however, I have another theory, one that I don't really believe but which makes for interesting speculation and possible fodder for post-term publication: what if the Administration knowingly let AIG cut the checks precisely because it anticipated the public outrage? The checks had to be distributed in order to fulfill the letter of the law and prevent potential civil suits. Now, however, public opinion is available to coerce the return of at least some of those funds, while the financial giant that has dipped so irksomely into public resources is offered up as a cautionary scapegoat for all others in the financial world who have been sitting on funds and toying with creatively self-serving ideas. And who has wielded the sword of public opinion as effectively in the last half century as our very own fearless leader? Or is someone else hoping to wield him? Hm...

I gotta get a life...

Just No Pleasing Some Folks

Listening to the news incessantly can be irritating. Yes, stating the obvious does seem foolish, but there you have it.

When Obama was running for office, critics said he was inexperienced and naive. When he took office, nay sayers continued to criticize both what he hadn't gotten to yet and what he proposed; that continues. Evidently the courtship was so intense that they've no desire to await any sort of honeymoon period.

Then there are those in Congress for whom no concessions will suffice. Cooperation is a word they understand they need to use, but matching action seems beyond their reach, and always will be, much like fruit and drink to the Greek Tantalus. They prefer to offer themselves up as impediments, their only proffered resolutions to be the lack thereof...

Then there's the afternoon tv critic who simply refuses to be pleased. Evidently the government is not tough enough on criminals and illegal aliens, not adequately staffed or supplied, too involved in job creation, too bureaucratic. The economy is recovering too slowly because investors don't trust what they're hearing and seeing, yet when investors step forward, interested in the creation of energy alternatives, they are unwelcome because they are not American - you know, those sitting on the fence, feeling the pinch, wiped out by recent events...

Nothing's ever right, no one's good enough, nothing's gonna get better...

Okay, Pollyanna isn't what I'm advocating here, but would a little more even-handedness be so terrible? Probably, for such critics' ratings, anyway...

Who's cynical?

Big Brother for Sale

Who among us hasn't read George Orwell's 1984, either in high school or in college? One of my earliest recollections of the text is of wondering how the government managed to install so many devices in so many private locales and at what cost. Well, now I have my answer.

Just saw a commercial advertising the increasingly ubiquitous home security equipment now available for purchase and installation by concerned families. There is a distinct sense that we live in an embattled society wherein one's abode is, indeed, a fortress, or should be. What right-thinking parent would dare to leave their loved ones and valuables unprotected for even an instant? The need for 24-hour surveillance equipment should be self-evident, or should it?

Am I, in fact, as naive as Cheney believes the newly elected President to be? Is the threat of physical danger so imminent and all-pervasive that failure to take preemptive measures dooms those still foolish enough to trust in common decency as the rule rather than the exception? Is only might able to make right, and not vice versa? After all, King Arthur and his Round Table not only fell, they have disappeared into the mists of legend...

And yet, as much as I love cool tech toys, I cannot bring myself to actively participate in this widespread paranoia. I cannot and will not actually pay to invite Big Brother into my personal living spaces. Like Underdog, he's far too truly everywhere these days as it is (and I liked Underdog; BB not so much).

A Better Take

The news article linked here, , finally reports John McCain acting the hero he has been attempting to portray himself over the course of this campaign. He once said, "Better to lose a war than a campaign"; now it seems he finally realizes that it is better to lose a campaign than one's honor, which surely has been more than adequately besmirched in recent days and weeks by increasingly rabid radical supporters. Those who see McCain as representative of demagoguery and hate mongering do their idol a disservice. Perhaps McCain reclaims his honor too late for this campaign, but it is never too late to do so for the man himself.

Seriously, if McCain had actually gone to Washington and fought the bailout bill instead of desperately flailing before attempting to assist in its passage, if he had called out the hate mongers when they first surfaced, if he had resisted the easy path of turning GOP young guns loose on his campaign when his numbers first floundered, I might have thought him enough of a leader to respect and at least consider.

Now at least, I am once more willing to consider the merits of the man who has actually contributed much to the legislation some of us take for granted today.

Still not good enough for president when reflex responses matter so much more, but an honorable legislator, truly.

Monday Freefall Part Next

It's the first Monday in October, but instead of leading off with stories about the Supreme Court opening a new round of sessions, the news is full of more freefall on Wall Street and its counterparts around the globe. It's good to be able to go global, isn't it?

In case anyone is confused, the legislation so urgently demanded by Bush and supported by both presidential candidates is intended to assist the lending industry, a different beast than the Wall Street that so many citizens were so eager to assure their spooked Representatives they did not want to help bail out. Now while I'm all for helping to alleviate credit debt, I remain leery of anything recommended by G.W., especially anything urgently recommended by G.W....

And it's good to know that both Democrat and Republican candidates are adamantly for change and for blowing off lobbyists, as long as said folk bow out gracefully while still leaving their ample donations at the door on their ways out...

So where was all this vaunted leadership when that lovely bill was being crafted? Where is there evidence of direct assistance to the financially distressed in the streets (literally), as opposed to continuing to rely on the theory of trickle down economics, which seems to be at the heart of the idea of buying up bad debt? And why are we only now hearing about the private companies that will be serving as "economic experts" who will be doing the actually buying and processing of said bad debts?

Personally, I'm sick and tired of having my perfectly good credit card debts being sold to increasingly rapacious holders who have consistently raised the interest rates on outstanding debt. I've given up on seeing any end in sight, aside from the promised lighted tunnel, after which I won't care anyway. But enough and too much about me -

Now that the national election campaigns are entering the final month, the rainy season is beginning and mud is flying. As a teacher I used to sit in conferences with parents of children who had been reprimanded for fighting, only to hear said parents averring that while they had taught their children not to start fights, they had also personally taught their children to make sure at least to bloody if not outright knock down and out anyone who attacked them first, either verbally or physically. Now I hear the same from an otherwise high-minded sounding candidate. All I can say is grrrrrrrr

Of course, I realize that turning the other cheek, while Christ-like, is believed to have cost at least two or three previous candidates the presidency, which I guess is why true Christians make such poor and unsuccessful politicians. Equally disturbing is the observation that those most vocally professing to be followers of Christ are the ones leading the character assassinations. IMHO, they give true believers a bad name. Of course, that's nothing new: the Roman Emperor Nero is credited with being the first high profile fellow to villify Christians, while his successors managed to do so from within the Church. Ah well...

Jesus said, "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, and unto God that which is God's." That doesn't seem to invite political activism on any level, certainly not in His name. That's my story and I'm sticking to it (as Steve Kerr famously said in a Chicago park back in the early 90s).

Again, Already

It's the Saturday ending the wildest economic roller coaster ride this country has experienced in my lifetime, culminating in what can only be called the nationalizing (read socializing) of three major financial institutions, and already members of Congress are passing about accusations and innuendo about politicking over rapid passage of the sweeping proposal presented them. As I read the aforelinked article, I could not help but be glad that someone is pausing to read and think before signing off ahead of the drying ink. Seriously, would you rubber stamp a proposal (and with such rapidity) that has emerged from the office of the one we have for too long called simply, G. W.? Is this proposal, in fact, the salvation of our American economy and way of life as we know it, or is it just another grab for power in an opportune moment such as has happened repeatedly in this land of exploitation at every opportunity? The term, "sweeping powers" sends shivers up and down my spine. I cannot but approve a closer scrutiny of conditions that will quite possibly protect those who sought to benefit at the expense of the majority, and who evidently still do...

And....

Does anyone besides those directly affected remember that we began the week facing the monumental task of picking up the pieces after the devastation of Hurricane Ike, that monster storm that has cut a wide swath across the nation, not just the impressive devastation through Texas? That was the promise of a whopping bill as well. What are those in D.C. thinking these days? Are they? Or are they experiencing more knee-jerk reactions such as those in evidence following the 9/11/01 attacks?

Cynical? Who me?