2010_7_16 Inception
Cathy and I saw “Inception” today, deciding to see it, a movie that needed to be seen on the big screen, rather than “I Am Love,” with Tilda Swinton, a film that would be fine to see on DVD. “’Inception” throws so much at you so quickly and unrelentingly for two and a half hours that I was so busy just coping with all the words and material coming at me, sometime in pell-mell fashion, that I had little time to reflect on what I was taking in. There was plenty of violence in the movie but it was incongruous, that is, it was dream-like: there were a lots of noise and bullets flying hither and yon, but rarely was anyone hit and if they are you needed worry because almost everybody wakes up alive. In fact, on the lower levels of dream-work, you wake up by being shot or otherwise shocked. Many of the dying people in the movie are someone else’s projection. There is little blood and it is all dream action, a grinding away with no real harm done. The only exception to this rule is Moll (Marion Cotillard) who is the wifely-succubae who haunts Don Cobb (Leonardo DeCaprio.) She is a specter who taunts and prods him with guilt and a hungry love and longing that won’t quit. He has a few helpers and a man he works for (Ken Watanabe) who wants Cobb to use the ‘inception technique’ to undermine a corporation gaining too much power, which sounds like typical industrial espionage as far as I can see. He means to plant the seed of an idea in someone’s mind which gives an “extractor,” an opportunity to share the dream space and the secret coves in the mind now penetrable and available to outsiders. Ellen Page is the architect, someone who structures the dream context who develops insight into Cobb and his travail with his dead wife. He goes to dream depths, which is risky business, because he wants to get back to his two kids. The industrialist who encounters his dead father in a dream comes out of it saying “He wanted me to do my own thing,” which is not exactly a startling insight. In fact, I thought it was terribly feeble and flat.
As for the technical aspect of the film, it is dazzling and totally gripping. Shit is flying all over the place, via explosions of various sorts, gravity is suspended, people float and fight, streets fold up and fold over other streets, and the human beings in the scenes sit calmly in cafes, as if none of this minute dematerialization of matter and flying shrapnel has anything to do with their sipping of coffee. Much of the illusionary power of the film resides in the skill and convincibility of those scenes, despite their obvious dream character, as the actual dreamer’s silent participation as an acolyte of the “extractor”-- at moments as a partner in crime. The scenarios invented and memories reinvented are large scale and spectacular: two dreamers out run an avalanche, a van plunging toward the river off a bridge and it takes 10 minutes for the vehicle to hit the water and many other risk-laden dream fantasies.
So all and all the movie is fun and quite diverting, but I would question the depth of its message. All the chatter about their dream-travel, understanding, and visitations, and believe me, there is a lot of chatter about confusing ideas, that eventually sounded like sophomoric prattle to me. It made my head swim and my head ache. There is a proliferation of ideas in the narrative and a kind of crossfire format with ideas about time and memory bouncing off each other with only a promise of being something beyond articulated Grand Fantasy.
Charles Krauthammer surprised me today by warning Republicans Obama has accomplished quite a bit in 18 months, including a Health Care Bill that can be built on, which makes his presidency historic right off the bat, which has initiated a massive redistribution of wealth; passed a major financial reform bill which has given the government unprecedented power in the market place; the third biggie is the stimulus bill which neared $1 trillion dollars, which he calls the largest stimulus bill in American history; and a number of smaller scale changes that were the president agenda. He has many critical comments to make to but he does say that Obama “is underappreciated by his own side.” He calls the past 18 months the end of Act One
Act Two will hinge on massive regulation of energy economy, Federalizing higher education, and comprehensive immigration reform. Krauthammer thinks the president doesn’t care about the congressional outcome in November because even if the Republicans gain massively it would help his reelection in 2012. And it is true that Democrats are peeved at Obama because he hasn’t done much to aid democrat’s reelection. I find it hard to believe he would slough off Congress, as if they are not his partners when it comes to passing bills.
Chris Cillizza of the Wash. Post thinks the Republicans could possibly pick up 8 states in contested states. The sure bets are North Dakota and Delaware; and Indiana and Arkansas are in a strong position. The states considered in play are Illinois, Colorado, Pennsylvania and Nevada. Those hard to wrest from the Demos would be California, Connecticut, Washington and Wisconsin, although some GOP prognosticators imagine winning all 12 states, which hasn’t happened since 1980 and Ronald Reagan. But they are dreaming about that. For example, just today indications are that Harry Reid is now 7 points up on Sharon Angle in the Nevada race for the senate. The general public is beginning to understand where her head is at and they aren’t impressed. I think the GOP is overly optimistic about the off-year election. They will make gains but not as many as they think. They are engaging in a lot of wishful thinking.
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
THE TRIUMPH OF THE FRIENDS OF SALANDER
2010_7_05 THE TRIUMPH OF THE FRIENDS OF SALANDER
The third volume of the MILLELLIUM TRILOGY, THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET’S NEST, is mainly devoted to the two sides strategizing on how to outsmart the other; it is filled with endless long conversation about what to do at the upcoming trial of Lisbeth Salander; and by both sides I mean those who seek to put Salander away forever by having her committed permanently to a mental hospital and those who wish to help her by doing whatever is necessary to liberate her from injustices and eventually to see that she is redeemed and declared competent, rectifying the abuse she had suffered as a 13 year old girl by a cabal of authoritarian men. Indeed, the Swedish title of the first novel in the series was actually THE MEN WHO HATED WOMEN. That seems to be the overall theme of the series. There are the controlling men that are arrayed against a platoon of very competent women—Salander, Harriet Vanger, Erica Berger, Monica Figuerola, Sonja Modig, Susanne Linder, and Mikael Blomkvist’s sister, Giannini, Salanger’s lawyer at the trial. They constituted a cadre of Amazons, who weren’t going to take any shit from authoritarian males. In contrast there is Salander’s mother who was beaten into insensibility by her brutish Russian husband and who also tried to kill Lisbeth by shooting her three times, or Isabelle Vanger who did not want to challenge the past, present, or future. They represent the weak women, those too far gone to transform themselves.
The first group was called THE SECTION, or alternately, “The Zalachenko Club,” which was how Blomkvist tagged the group. Zalachenko, besides being Salander’s father, was a Russian defector, formerly a KGB member, who was, at first, the prize of the Secret Police, but then a liability when he got involved with criminal activity and his care and protection was taken over by THE SECTION which became a rogue organization within the SIS or the larger Bureaucratic Secret Police Organization. Salander stood as a threat to their existence because of her hatred of her father, as she had already tried to kill him once for what he had done to her mother. The Russian justified their existence; they were basically obsolete bureaucrats hanging on by their fingernails trying to justify their turf. Ultimately Zalachenko‘s life and death is the key to the group’s final downfall and arrest. The main reason for them being unable to compete with ‘Friends of Salander,’ was they weren’t as adept as the hip, younger crowd when it came to computers, who took full advantage of their superiority.
The Friends of Salander were composed of people from Milton Security where she had been employed as a researcher, some police officers on the case, an elderly Lawyer that had been her first Guardian, people at Millennium, a magazine headed by Blomkvist and Erica Berger, a long-time associate and part time lover of Mikael. They were determined to see she got a fair shake, for they knew she was odd and different but far from incompetent and mentally disturbed; in fact, she was brilliant. (She is probably Larsson’s darker side, his ANIMA, or female side, a PERSONA that he was capable of realizing only in fiction.) Salander was ‘Queen of the Hacker Republic.’ For example, while imprisoned in her hospital room she, using a Palm computer, hacked into some adversary’s computer to find out who was sexually harassing Berger. She did it as a gesture of gratitude to Berger. Susanne Linder strong-armed the twerp who was doing it, a colleague at SWP, the newspaper where Berger was Editor-in-Chief. The Hacker Republic kept the Friends of Salander always a few steps ahead of THE SECTION. Their antagonists had no idea what evidence they had marshaled to throw at them when the trial came around.
Along the way Blomkvist manages to fall in love with ‘Wonder Woman,’ the agent from SIS, Monica Figeurola, a muscular gal who worked out every day and ran too. She was also a real asset to the team. Erica sniffs out what was going on between the two and gives her blessing to the love affair. (There is little jealousy in these novels.)
The trial was exciting to read and it comes out well for The Friends of Salander and a disaster for Zalachenko’s Club. Giannini turns out to be a very effective criminal lawyer; she annihilates the pompous Dr. Teleborian who is totally disgrace as a latent pedophile. He was supposed to be the prosecutor’s strongest witness. The big dramatic moment arrives when Giannini shows the clip of the rape scene with Salander’s dirt-bag second guardian. That blows the opposition right out of the water. It is the tipping point that secures Salander’s release. The shrink had insisted the rape was just a fantasy of a schizoid mind.
The end of the book is a little strange, not as strong as other parts of the trilogy. Salander leaves for Gibraltar as soon as she is freed; that is where her stolen money is, administered by some lawyer/stockbroker she pays handsomely to oversee her fortune. He is a homosexual, only the second one in the series. She blows off steam by drinking heavily for a week or so and picking up a fiftyish overweight German businessman for some sexually relief and entertainment. The climax of the book is a confrontation with Lisbeth’s half-brother which brings the family drama to a close. Needless to say she outwits him and leaves him dead.
To reiterate, I think the theme of the series is indeed THE MEN WHO HATED WOMEN who are contrasted with seven very strong female personalities who combined to save the day for Lisbeth Salander, the exemplary rebel and OUTSIDER who enjoys a unique position in this Pantheon of Amazons. She is the Lunar Sister that the others circulate around. They draw strength from her fountain of resources. Mikael Blomkvist is not only the cheerleader for these women; he is their mythic partner, part lover, part trickster, and part brother.
The third volume of the MILLELLIUM TRILOGY, THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET’S NEST, is mainly devoted to the two sides strategizing on how to outsmart the other; it is filled with endless long conversation about what to do at the upcoming trial of Lisbeth Salander; and by both sides I mean those who seek to put Salander away forever by having her committed permanently to a mental hospital and those who wish to help her by doing whatever is necessary to liberate her from injustices and eventually to see that she is redeemed and declared competent, rectifying the abuse she had suffered as a 13 year old girl by a cabal of authoritarian men. Indeed, the Swedish title of the first novel in the series was actually THE MEN WHO HATED WOMEN. That seems to be the overall theme of the series. There are the controlling men that are arrayed against a platoon of very competent women—Salander, Harriet Vanger, Erica Berger, Monica Figuerola, Sonja Modig, Susanne Linder, and Mikael Blomkvist’s sister, Giannini, Salanger’s lawyer at the trial. They constituted a cadre of Amazons, who weren’t going to take any shit from authoritarian males. In contrast there is Salander’s mother who was beaten into insensibility by her brutish Russian husband and who also tried to kill Lisbeth by shooting her three times, or Isabelle Vanger who did not want to challenge the past, present, or future. They represent the weak women, those too far gone to transform themselves.
The first group was called THE SECTION, or alternately, “The Zalachenko Club,” which was how Blomkvist tagged the group. Zalachenko, besides being Salander’s father, was a Russian defector, formerly a KGB member, who was, at first, the prize of the Secret Police, but then a liability when he got involved with criminal activity and his care and protection was taken over by THE SECTION which became a rogue organization within the SIS or the larger Bureaucratic Secret Police Organization. Salander stood as a threat to their existence because of her hatred of her father, as she had already tried to kill him once for what he had done to her mother. The Russian justified their existence; they were basically obsolete bureaucrats hanging on by their fingernails trying to justify their turf. Ultimately Zalachenko‘s life and death is the key to the group’s final downfall and arrest. The main reason for them being unable to compete with ‘Friends of Salander,’ was they weren’t as adept as the hip, younger crowd when it came to computers, who took full advantage of their superiority.
The Friends of Salander were composed of people from Milton Security where she had been employed as a researcher, some police officers on the case, an elderly Lawyer that had been her first Guardian, people at Millennium, a magazine headed by Blomkvist and Erica Berger, a long-time associate and part time lover of Mikael. They were determined to see she got a fair shake, for they knew she was odd and different but far from incompetent and mentally disturbed; in fact, she was brilliant. (She is probably Larsson’s darker side, his ANIMA, or female side, a PERSONA that he was capable of realizing only in fiction.) Salander was ‘Queen of the Hacker Republic.’ For example, while imprisoned in her hospital room she, using a Palm computer, hacked into some adversary’s computer to find out who was sexually harassing Berger. She did it as a gesture of gratitude to Berger. Susanne Linder strong-armed the twerp who was doing it, a colleague at SWP, the newspaper where Berger was Editor-in-Chief. The Hacker Republic kept the Friends of Salander always a few steps ahead of THE SECTION. Their antagonists had no idea what evidence they had marshaled to throw at them when the trial came around.
Along the way Blomkvist manages to fall in love with ‘Wonder Woman,’ the agent from SIS, Monica Figeurola, a muscular gal who worked out every day and ran too. She was also a real asset to the team. Erica sniffs out what was going on between the two and gives her blessing to the love affair. (There is little jealousy in these novels.)
The trial was exciting to read and it comes out well for The Friends of Salander and a disaster for Zalachenko’s Club. Giannini turns out to be a very effective criminal lawyer; she annihilates the pompous Dr. Teleborian who is totally disgrace as a latent pedophile. He was supposed to be the prosecutor’s strongest witness. The big dramatic moment arrives when Giannini shows the clip of the rape scene with Salander’s dirt-bag second guardian. That blows the opposition right out of the water. It is the tipping point that secures Salander’s release. The shrink had insisted the rape was just a fantasy of a schizoid mind.
The end of the book is a little strange, not as strong as other parts of the trilogy. Salander leaves for Gibraltar as soon as she is freed; that is where her stolen money is, administered by some lawyer/stockbroker she pays handsomely to oversee her fortune. He is a homosexual, only the second one in the series. She blows off steam by drinking heavily for a week or so and picking up a fiftyish overweight German businessman for some sexually relief and entertainment. The climax of the book is a confrontation with Lisbeth’s half-brother which brings the family drama to a close. Needless to say she outwits him and leaves him dead.
To reiterate, I think the theme of the series is indeed THE MEN WHO HATED WOMEN who are contrasted with seven very strong female personalities who combined to save the day for Lisbeth Salander, the exemplary rebel and OUTSIDER who enjoys a unique position in this Pantheon of Amazons. She is the Lunar Sister that the others circulate around. They draw strength from her fountain of resources. Mikael Blomkvist is not only the cheerleader for these women; he is their mythic partner, part lover, part trickster, and part brother.
Sunday, July 4, 2010
The Millennnium Trilogy
2010_7_04 THE MILLENNIUM TRILOGY
Dear Mike,
Do you know who Elliott Kastner was? No, he was not my Rabbi. He made movies, of some note too. He made “Harper,” “Rancho Deluxe,” “Where Eagles Dare,” “Angel Heart,” and “Missouri Breaks,” Marlon Brando’s first film as the fat man and wildly eccentric actor. Those are all good films that you have probably seen somewhere down the line. He also made some films based on the novels of Raymond Chandler, “Farewell My Lovely,” and “The Big Sleep,” both with Robert Mitchum. The author Jim Thompson, a pulp fiction specialist, whose best novel, THE KILLER INSIDE ME, which has just been made into a movie, staring Casey Affleck, an up and coming actor playing the psychotic sheriff, had a small part in “Farewell My Lovely,” a kind of tribute to Thompson while he was still alive and not as well known and appreciated as he is today. Anyway, Kastner died last week. He may be a second tier director, but I salute him for the quality films he did.
For the past two weeks I have been concentrated on THE MILLENNIUM TRILOGY written by crusading left wing Swedish journalist, Stieg Larsson, who wrote the three novels as a form of self-entertainment, with no thought to publishing the books, which I find a little hard to believe, considering the passion and care he put into his narrative. Be that as it may, they all got published after he died of a heart attack at age 50, probably by his long time girl friend. It’s disturbing to think he didn’t live to enjoy the fruits of his labors. But life—and death—are that way, indiscriminate and indifferent to timing and age. He was an individual who was hell-bent on attacking the Neo-Nazis and other far right groups in his native land. He was so caught up with this campaign, he did not take good care of himself, chain-smoking cigarettes and living on junk food and not seeming to care about his physical health. None of his close friends were too surprised by his sudden death. But the books are luminous, written with a sure hand, and he easily handles complexity of plot and narrative, framing a coherent pattern with scores of characters and complicated action that weaves through the dense core of all three novels. They also show a mastery of several disciplines, especially computer knowledge, journalism, police procedures and government protocols. It should go without saying; all three are real page turners, very much like Henning Mankell, Mike Connelly and Dan Brown. And each novel is between 500 and 600 pages.
The driving forces through all three novels are the two main characters, Mikael Blomkvist and Lizbeth Salander. Blomkvist is Larsson’s stand in, for he is a crusading journalist and part owner of a magazine called MILLENNIUM, which is stamped with his social and political beliefs and his investigative passions, He’s a casual sort of guy, a loyal friend, and something of a ladies’ man. If he has you in his sites he’s liable to bring you down, so sure-footed and relentless is he. Lizbeth is a Mighty Mouse of a kick-ass female, a 25 year old woman who dresses like a black-clad Goth female, with rings in her nose and eyebrows, possibly autistic as she has trouble relating to people, physically adept despite her diminutive stature, 4’11” and 90 lbs, a world class hacker and computer expert, without going to college, and the target of a government conspiracy to put her in a nuthouse forever so she’ll be of no bother to them for the rest of her life. The two of them combine to unravel a cold case in the first novel, THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, which includes some outstanding investigative work to uncover the corruptions of a wealthy Swedish family and then on to further sleuthing involving new characters and criminal activity in a government bureau polluted with corruption and lies, which is the tenor of both the second novel in the series, THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE and the first part of the third book, THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET’S NEST, which deals with her recovery from gunshot wounds and her being brought to trial by those who want her out their hair. I am at page 280 of the third novel and I can’t wait to finish it.
If you like Mystery stories, and I do, these are top drawer novels. HORNET’S NEST is currently the best selling hard back in the country, and the other books are one and two in trade-size paperback best sellers. It is no fluke that worldwide sales are 27 million books sold. Larsson is not what you would call an elegant writer or a witty one, like Raymond Chandler or Robert Parker, but if you like a pile-driving narrative pace, Larsson is your man. His three novels are timely stories with relevant characters. Lizbeth Salander is a fabulous creation and a prototypical OUTSIDER. She has won me over completely. She is my role model in the war against big shots, inauthentic shrinks who do the bidding of the Ruling Class, and governmental activity that is more for the benefit of officials then for the people they were elected to protect and serve. Wow, doesn’t that sound familiar?
Cheers,
JWP
Dear Mike,
Do you know who Elliott Kastner was? No, he was not my Rabbi. He made movies, of some note too. He made “Harper,” “Rancho Deluxe,” “Where Eagles Dare,” “Angel Heart,” and “Missouri Breaks,” Marlon Brando’s first film as the fat man and wildly eccentric actor. Those are all good films that you have probably seen somewhere down the line. He also made some films based on the novels of Raymond Chandler, “Farewell My Lovely,” and “The Big Sleep,” both with Robert Mitchum. The author Jim Thompson, a pulp fiction specialist, whose best novel, THE KILLER INSIDE ME, which has just been made into a movie, staring Casey Affleck, an up and coming actor playing the psychotic sheriff, had a small part in “Farewell My Lovely,” a kind of tribute to Thompson while he was still alive and not as well known and appreciated as he is today. Anyway, Kastner died last week. He may be a second tier director, but I salute him for the quality films he did.
For the past two weeks I have been concentrated on THE MILLENNIUM TRILOGY written by crusading left wing Swedish journalist, Stieg Larsson, who wrote the three novels as a form of self-entertainment, with no thought to publishing the books, which I find a little hard to believe, considering the passion and care he put into his narrative. Be that as it may, they all got published after he died of a heart attack at age 50, probably by his long time girl friend. It’s disturbing to think he didn’t live to enjoy the fruits of his labors. But life—and death—are that way, indiscriminate and indifferent to timing and age. He was an individual who was hell-bent on attacking the Neo-Nazis and other far right groups in his native land. He was so caught up with this campaign, he did not take good care of himself, chain-smoking cigarettes and living on junk food and not seeming to care about his physical health. None of his close friends were too surprised by his sudden death. But the books are luminous, written with a sure hand, and he easily handles complexity of plot and narrative, framing a coherent pattern with scores of characters and complicated action that weaves through the dense core of all three novels. They also show a mastery of several disciplines, especially computer knowledge, journalism, police procedures and government protocols. It should go without saying; all three are real page turners, very much like Henning Mankell, Mike Connelly and Dan Brown. And each novel is between 500 and 600 pages.
The driving forces through all three novels are the two main characters, Mikael Blomkvist and Lizbeth Salander. Blomkvist is Larsson’s stand in, for he is a crusading journalist and part owner of a magazine called MILLENNIUM, which is stamped with his social and political beliefs and his investigative passions, He’s a casual sort of guy, a loyal friend, and something of a ladies’ man. If he has you in his sites he’s liable to bring you down, so sure-footed and relentless is he. Lizbeth is a Mighty Mouse of a kick-ass female, a 25 year old woman who dresses like a black-clad Goth female, with rings in her nose and eyebrows, possibly autistic as she has trouble relating to people, physically adept despite her diminutive stature, 4’11” and 90 lbs, a world class hacker and computer expert, without going to college, and the target of a government conspiracy to put her in a nuthouse forever so she’ll be of no bother to them for the rest of her life. The two of them combine to unravel a cold case in the first novel, THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, which includes some outstanding investigative work to uncover the corruptions of a wealthy Swedish family and then on to further sleuthing involving new characters and criminal activity in a government bureau polluted with corruption and lies, which is the tenor of both the second novel in the series, THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE and the first part of the third book, THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET’S NEST, which deals with her recovery from gunshot wounds and her being brought to trial by those who want her out their hair. I am at page 280 of the third novel and I can’t wait to finish it.
If you like Mystery stories, and I do, these are top drawer novels. HORNET’S NEST is currently the best selling hard back in the country, and the other books are one and two in trade-size paperback best sellers. It is no fluke that worldwide sales are 27 million books sold. Larsson is not what you would call an elegant writer or a witty one, like Raymond Chandler or Robert Parker, but if you like a pile-driving narrative pace, Larsson is your man. His three novels are timely stories with relevant characters. Lizbeth Salander is a fabulous creation and a prototypical OUTSIDER. She has won me over completely. She is my role model in the war against big shots, inauthentic shrinks who do the bidding of the Ruling Class, and governmental activity that is more for the benefit of officials then for the people they were elected to protect and serve. Wow, doesn’t that sound familiar?
Cheers,
JWP
Saturday, July 3, 2010
The 74th day of the oil spill in the Gulf
2010_7_02 Today marks the 74th day of the oil spill in the gulf
In his Wednesday column Paul Krugman said we are in the early stages of the nation’s third Depression, which he termed a “Long Depression” rather than a Great Depression. The dynamic of what we are experiencing is slump, improvement, relapses. There will be an immense cost due to a failure of policy and because the G20 are obsessing about inflation and belt-tightening. PK said that the real threat is from deflation and inadequate spending. The recession brought on in 2008 and 2009 by the financial crisis caused by Wall Street caused in turn the catastrophic unemployment which has ravaged the working and middle classes, now in the grips of long term unemployment, while the rich continue to get richer due to their preeminence and predominance in the country’s financial structure which has been protected by the policies of a naïve and not-aggressive-enough Obama administration. The unemployment situation shows no sign of truly abating or being remedied. According to Les Leopold 30 million people are unemployed or stuck with part time work. The Old Time Religion is in force right now—hard money and balanced budget orthodoxy—and Obama and his cohorts don’t seem able to cope with it.
In his column today PK was equally pessimistic and super-critical. He said he and some other economists have watched in amazement and horror as a policy of fiscal austerity has come out on top, rather than an expansionary policy of spending and stimulus. It is the result of conventional wisdom that has no relation to facts; he equates it with a fairy tale, with a channeling of Herbert Hoover. So the western countries remain mired in a deep Recession. He calls the counties we have borrowed from “Bond Vigilantes,” and our fear is they will call in our debt. There is a puritanical foundation to this conventional wisdom and fear, a paranoid worry that the other guy, who is so different then we are, will take us over, and that applies to Islomofacism as well as Saudi Arabia and China, the main Bond Vigilantes. Conventional wisdom argues that austerity will create confidence and economic growth, which is why we must appease the Bond Vigilantes. Alan Greenspan calls these worries “the canary in the mines.” He ends his column with this advice: “ The next time you hear serious-sounding people explaining the need for fiscal austerity…you’ll discover that what sounds like hardheaded realism actually rests on a foundation of fantasy, on the belief that invisible vigilantes will punish us it we are bad and the confidence fairy will reward us if we we’re good. And real-world policy—policy that will blight the lives of working families—is being built on that foundation.”
Naomi Wolf writes that innocent individuals are being punished for a crisis created by the derivative traders and absentee regulators. She also has recently pointed out that the G 20 was founded by Paul Martin of France and Larry Summers who allowed bank consolidation and refused to regulate derivatives. They were taking care of their own kind.
Christopher Hitchens has esophageal cancer and has cancelled his schedule for the rest of the summer to seek chemo treatment for his affliction.
The paradox for Republicans is this: They want to regain control of the government in November when they hate it with a passion and want only to make it dysfunctional and ineffective. The only thing it is good for is building up out military and our number one status in the world. The rest of the government they want to “drown in a bathtub.”
CNN has lost 7 anchors this year;
1.) Larry King…He is retiring from his show which has been falling in the ratings. There is a rumor that Ryan Seacrest will take King’s place. He is a juvenile delinquent who will probably have a naked lady Gaga as his first guest. Larry King had stiff competition once Rachel Maddow showed up on MSNBC,
2.) Campbell Brown…Another victim of poor ratings, as she was up against the popular Keith Olbermann on MSNBC. So far she hasn’t shown up any place else,
3.) Christiane Amanpour…She decided to move over to ABC where she was offered THIS WEEK, their thriving Sunday show. She’s a good journalist and I am glad to see she found a good spot to operate from.
4.) Lou Dodds…He has dreams of running for president or being Black Bart on the border.
5.) Gerri Willis…Their Finance adviser (Went to Fox Business Channel)
6.) Erica Hill…Daytime anchor (Went to the EARLY SHOW on CBS)
7.) Betty Nguyen…Saturday Morning Anchor (Now a CBS Correspondent)
Eliot Spitzer and Kathlene Parker are going to team together in the slot previously occupied by Campbell Brown. Spitzer, the disgraced ex-Governor of New York, is in the midst of a comeback, which is a good thing because he is a bright, talented man whose positive contributions can’t be ignored. Parker is a syndicated columnist who I rarely read, so I can’t say much about her. But I suspect Spitzer will be the heavyweight of the pairing.
ABC EVENING News showed a picture of an Alabama beach tonight from one year ago and the beach was crawling with people, in the water and out. Today, the 74th day of the BP oil spill, there was nary a soul on that beach.
In his Wednesday column Paul Krugman said we are in the early stages of the nation’s third Depression, which he termed a “Long Depression” rather than a Great Depression. The dynamic of what we are experiencing is slump, improvement, relapses. There will be an immense cost due to a failure of policy and because the G20 are obsessing about inflation and belt-tightening. PK said that the real threat is from deflation and inadequate spending. The recession brought on in 2008 and 2009 by the financial crisis caused by Wall Street caused in turn the catastrophic unemployment which has ravaged the working and middle classes, now in the grips of long term unemployment, while the rich continue to get richer due to their preeminence and predominance in the country’s financial structure which has been protected by the policies of a naïve and not-aggressive-enough Obama administration. The unemployment situation shows no sign of truly abating or being remedied. According to Les Leopold 30 million people are unemployed or stuck with part time work. The Old Time Religion is in force right now—hard money and balanced budget orthodoxy—and Obama and his cohorts don’t seem able to cope with it.
In his column today PK was equally pessimistic and super-critical. He said he and some other economists have watched in amazement and horror as a policy of fiscal austerity has come out on top, rather than an expansionary policy of spending and stimulus. It is the result of conventional wisdom that has no relation to facts; he equates it with a fairy tale, with a channeling of Herbert Hoover. So the western countries remain mired in a deep Recession. He calls the counties we have borrowed from “Bond Vigilantes,” and our fear is they will call in our debt. There is a puritanical foundation to this conventional wisdom and fear, a paranoid worry that the other guy, who is so different then we are, will take us over, and that applies to Islomofacism as well as Saudi Arabia and China, the main Bond Vigilantes. Conventional wisdom argues that austerity will create confidence and economic growth, which is why we must appease the Bond Vigilantes. Alan Greenspan calls these worries “the canary in the mines.” He ends his column with this advice: “ The next time you hear serious-sounding people explaining the need for fiscal austerity…you’ll discover that what sounds like hardheaded realism actually rests on a foundation of fantasy, on the belief that invisible vigilantes will punish us it we are bad and the confidence fairy will reward us if we we’re good. And real-world policy—policy that will blight the lives of working families—is being built on that foundation.”
Naomi Wolf writes that innocent individuals are being punished for a crisis created by the derivative traders and absentee regulators. She also has recently pointed out that the G 20 was founded by Paul Martin of France and Larry Summers who allowed bank consolidation and refused to regulate derivatives. They were taking care of their own kind.
Christopher Hitchens has esophageal cancer and has cancelled his schedule for the rest of the summer to seek chemo treatment for his affliction.
The paradox for Republicans is this: They want to regain control of the government in November when they hate it with a passion and want only to make it dysfunctional and ineffective. The only thing it is good for is building up out military and our number one status in the world. The rest of the government they want to “drown in a bathtub.”
CNN has lost 7 anchors this year;
1.) Larry King…He is retiring from his show which has been falling in the ratings. There is a rumor that Ryan Seacrest will take King’s place. He is a juvenile delinquent who will probably have a naked lady Gaga as his first guest. Larry King had stiff competition once Rachel Maddow showed up on MSNBC,
2.) Campbell Brown…Another victim of poor ratings, as she was up against the popular Keith Olbermann on MSNBC. So far she hasn’t shown up any place else,
3.) Christiane Amanpour…She decided to move over to ABC where she was offered THIS WEEK, their thriving Sunday show. She’s a good journalist and I am glad to see she found a good spot to operate from.
4.) Lou Dodds…He has dreams of running for president or being Black Bart on the border.
5.) Gerri Willis…Their Finance adviser (Went to Fox Business Channel)
6.) Erica Hill…Daytime anchor (Went to the EARLY SHOW on CBS)
7.) Betty Nguyen…Saturday Morning Anchor (Now a CBS Correspondent)
Eliot Spitzer and Kathlene Parker are going to team together in the slot previously occupied by Campbell Brown. Spitzer, the disgraced ex-Governor of New York, is in the midst of a comeback, which is a good thing because he is a bright, talented man whose positive contributions can’t be ignored. Parker is a syndicated columnist who I rarely read, so I can’t say much about her. But I suspect Spitzer will be the heavyweight of the pairing.
ABC EVENING News showed a picture of an Alabama beach tonight from one year ago and the beach was crawling with people, in the water and out. Today, the 74th day of the BP oil spill, there was nary a soul on that beach.
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