Notes from the Cafe Fiasco

Smudgy

The cat's been sick for the past week. Very sick. Sick, as in, "may not make it" sick. This has been hard to deal with logistically and very upsetting emotionally since he's been my best friend for going on eight years now. And I don't accumulate friends at a rate that I can afford to lose any of them - especially one that happily greets me at the door every night and then sits in my lap and purrs because he's so happy to see me.

He's not out of the woods yet, but he seems to be getting better slowly (mainly through the focussed and dedicated work of Dr. Kathleen Leavy at City Cats in Arlington), but he's aged much more than even his 15 years in the past week. If he pulls out of the slide this time, this is still a reminder that, at age 15, I'm probably not going to have him around for much longer.

And that's hard to deal with. I lost old best friend Bill Irving years ago on this coming weekend. I hope that I don't lose another best friend as well.

Fundamentals

"The fundamentals of our economy are strong"  -- John McCain

No, John, they aren't. In fact, they suck. And they've sucked for a long time. You and the rest of the feeding frenzy boys that have been enjoying the financail fruits of this Administration may have missed it, but all those people in Michigan haven't.

Fact is, that America has given up it's manufacturing base to the Asians (the making of real things) and has only grown economically in the area of making of symbols (much like this blog). American TV and movies still dominate the TV sets and movies houses of the world (making for charges of cultural imperialism and an inflated idea of our rapidly shrinking prominence in the world), but we've given up the field of making things that add to and sustain life (our life and those in other countries). This is now coming back to haunt us.

And then there's exporting 700 billion dollars out of the country for oil every year and a half a trillion bucks that we've spent on a tarbaby war for the past five years. And the prevailing ideology that "The Market" will sort it all out. Well, The Market always does - but anyone who knows anything about economic history will tell you that the usual way that The Market does this is through "overshoot" followed closely by Depression. Sound familiar, John?

You don't have to be Adam Smith of figure out that all this can't go on forever and it won't. The only question is whether Bush and the Boys have so ruined the country that it can't really be repaired by the new people coming in. Looking at how you've suddenly become Mr. Mainline Republican since winning the nomination, I wouldn't want to put money on your ability to do much if you win the Presidency since you're going to have pay back the people who put you there. And, unfortunately, these are the very people who got us into this mess to begin with. And more of the same will only lead us down the slippery slope quicker.

So, John, you're mistaken. You may want to believe that statements like this are "leadership," since leadership is the main thing that you want to sell all of us these days, but you should be reminded that leading people over a cliff is not really leadership, it's stupidity.

Synchronicity?

I've noticed that people are starting to put up their Halloween decorations a bit early this year.  Perhaps this has something to do with the Presidential campaign?

Sarah Palin: Two Points

1)  Four words:  "Women's Movement Gone Bad."

2)  When I was a lad, I studied stage magic. I learned that one of the main parts of all magic tricks was something called "misdirection" where the magician directs the attention of the audience to someplace other than where he was really pulling something off.

The longer people obsess about Palin, the longer the corporate interests behind John McCain (and all the Republicans) have to hide behind her.  And it's not all that long until the election.

Let's remember that she's not running for President, John McCain is.

Current Fiction

"You just can't make stuff up."  -- Barack Obama

Oh yes, they can (or, to borrow a phrase -  "Yes, We Can") Barack, even during a Presidential Campaign with everyone watching. This is due to at least two factors:

1)  The American Public has an attention span of approximately 34 seconds (and dropping) therefore making everything ahistorical and without context, and 

2)  The Republican Party has had a great deal of success over the past 8 years making stuff up and getting people to believe what they say (e.g., Weapons of Mass Destruction, Link Between Saddam and Al Qaida, "You did a hell of a job, Brownie," drilling for oil that won't come on-line for ten years will help us now, etc.). Damn, they're good at this. At least 20% of the American public will believe anything that they say.

So why should they stop now?

Come on, Barack.  Did you really believe that this was all about the truth?

Satellite Parking

I do have to say that MIT is the first place that I've worked where when they talk about satellite parking you're not immediately sure what they're talking about.

Sarah Palin's Expanding Family

Talk about your shotgun wedding.  And, if you're the guy, your new Mother-in-Law may end up being the Vice President of the United States.  Talk about doing what Mom wants.  The last person who held this position shot someone in the face.