The Junky Awaits His Fix

No, this isn't about drugs—well, not really. Not literally. This is about the money-changers, and what they're hoping for, and probably won't get ...

From Ben (Bernanke, tomorrow), and then Mario (Draghi, September 12th).

All these free market folks hoping for a little government boost, to help keep their markets (which would otherwise be sinking like bricks) afloat, the price of gold rising (as the dollar and the Euro get further watered down), and to perhaps (for the more earnest) stimulate growth in our otherwise intractably moribund economies.

One thing I agree with the Libertarians on: you can't stimulate growth in a debt-soaked culture by adding more debt to it. As with someone who has already rung up his credit cards to the limit, one can raise the limit to keep him going (and out of your hair, your basement, your wallet) a little longer, but that does not solve the problem. Still, if you don't want him in your basement, or stealing your stuff, and  by raising his limits on a card or two you can keep him at bay for a little while longer, maybe, among a bunch no hope solutions, it isn't the worst.

Still, don't call it a strategy for growth.

And if you're Paul Ryan—a pretty much lifelong employee of the taxpayers, don't forget—don't act like fixing the problem is as simple as telling the guy to live within his means. Especially when you're still insisting that he keep up his bar bill at the place where you tend bar, and keep buying his leased vehicles from your dad's lot, this on a salary that isn't what it once was, and that you have no intention of increasing. Your thinking is pure goofiness, too. You, in particular, should get your head out of your ass and understand that this fellow isn't going to go gently into that good night ... though he could be closer to living in your basement than you might think.

Anyway, back to Ben and Mario ...

Here's what I think: those waiting for Ben to save the day are going to be disappointed, in the near-term, if not the long-. In a mere two months we here in Ben's local economy vote for the next president of that local economy, and Ben Bernanke, given the not terrible situation the economy is in at the moment compared to, say, Europe, or where it was when we were voting for the last president, isn't going to sully his office any further for the moment by doing a solid for the political classes. Moreover, he must be tired of everyone looking to him to solve a situation that he isn't going to be able to solve without a great deal of political (read: fiscal) help of the sort he isn't getting (and let the voters, in November, decide why), and a minimum of another decade of patience from the population he nominally serves (especially if you're a banker), even if certain politicians who may or may not know better would like us to believe otherwise.

But don't get me started.

Mario Draghi, of the European Central Bank, on the other hand, might do something. Timmy Geithner (the Secretary of the Treasury—a position the European Union doesn't have, which, some would say, is a problem) has been seen skulking through Europe lately. Perhaps he and Mario, and some Germans, have talked. Mario doesn't need to worry about a conflict of interest vis-a-vis the upcoming American Presidential Election, he just needs to worry about the Germans, who, if you know anything about the Germans and the Greeks and their history going back to, say, 1940, might give you, as well as Mario, a dispiriting pause.

Still, tough love isn't isn't all it's cracked up to be—especially once you've let the fuck ups in the door. They have their pride, too ... and we've all made our mistakes.

And memories are long.

Still, right now, if I were junky looking for a quick fix, I'd be looking to Mario more than Ben.

Stay tuned!

Akin, Mitt, and How One Gets Legitimately Raped

I know I'm a little late coming to the subject, and frankly, haven't been paying that much attention to the details, but over the years I've found that paying a lot of attention to the details when it comes politics really isn't very helpful. So long as you paid attention for too long at some point in your life, you pretty much know everything you need to know. Many would dispute such a claim, and yet I would maintain that the story with politics is much like the story with soap operas—

"General Hospital," for example. My wife had a little down time the other day and happened to land on GH, which she hadn't checked in on in over a year, she claims, and lo and behold, within a couple of minutes she was gasping: some character who'd done something over a year ago was doing it again, this time with a brunette ...

Anyway, handicapping politics, it's like riding a bike ...

Go back to any of my pre-elections blogs back in 2008. I was right about practically everything. Obama was going to win. He'd beat Hillary Clinton, for Christ's sake! He was going to clean up on John McCain, especially after the financial crisis hit ...

Obvious, and I'm not even that smart, or plugged in, and yet ...

Last January, I predicted that Romney would eventually emerge as the nominee for the Republicans—obviously—and that he would get trounced by Obama in the general election in November. Again, to me, for any number of reasons, this is obvious—as it is obvious to most thinking Republicans, who are privately very concerned that this year's ticket is going to not only lose, but be a flat out disaster for the party.

My Democratic friends, on the other hand, are mostly doing what they always do: wring their hands and worry that over half the voting population is going vote for someone like Mitt Romney. This despite the fact that Mitt Romney, not to mention the earnest Ayn Rand disciple who voted for nearly all of Dubya's budget busting policies back when it was popular to do so, Paul Ryan, are even poorer candidates than McCain and Palin were—which is to say that more gaffes, and yet not as fun, or funny, is a bad follow-up to 2008, and is going to lead to a result, regardless of what the economy does, that is going to cause some soul-searching in the Republican Party.

At least it should.

But hey, we were going to talk about rape, right? Not listen to me pontificate about politics.

Fine. So here's one reason (bear with me) why Romney, from a political standpoint, isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer: after being for a woman's right to decide what kinds of things happen or don't happen in her  womb before he was against it, he is now, according to my Twitter feed, straight from the convention, supposedly, in favor of women having a limited amount of say over what happens or doesn't happen in their wombs, but only in the case of rape and incest.

A much more reasonable stand, supposedly, than that radical right-winger Ryan, who thinks, and is on the record as saying, that abortion should be outlawed categorically. Never mind if Uncle Ned had relations with your 15-year-old daughter, whether he raped her, legimately or illegitimately ...

And here is where, I'm sorry, we have to pause, briefly—again—to define some terms that even if you had paid a great deal of attention to politics and pundits of late, you might still be confused on just what constitutes legitimate rape as opposed to the other kind.

Thus, so we are clear, legitimate rape is the kind that involves people like Freddie Krueger (is that how it's spelled?), which is to say, real monsters, killers, forcing themselves on you. In fact, most women who are legitimately raped either die or are left for dead afterwards, and that's how you know they were legitimately raped. Kind of like with the witches in Salem: if they didn't drown, they must be witches.

Which brings us to illegitimate rape. Which is basically the kind of rape that happens when you survive it and can still talk coherently and don't have any cuts or bruises or serious amounts of blood running out of somewhere. For instance, let's say you meet a big professional athlete for the first time and you think he's kind of cute, and therefore, since you didn't spit in his face or tell him to fuck off right away when he started chatting you up, you probably led him on, and then, well, he doesn't just want to have sex with you in the one hole, but all the others, too—and he's fucking huge, right? Well, unfortunately, that's still illegitimate rape, and he doesn't go to jail, and still gets to play his sport and make millions and be well thought of again, because, let's face it, you tried to kill yourself a couple of times in the past, over totally unrelated issues, but still ... if he'd really raped you, he'd have probably strangled you too, so you wouldn't tell anyone, right?

Or here's another example: let's say Biff and Muffy—Biff is a college freshman, and Muffy, say, is a high school senior—really like each other A LOT, and really want to do it, but unfortunately Muffy's parents, rather than buying her a horse, or sending her to a convent, bought her a pretty expensive promise ring, with diamonds and her birth stone, with the idea that if they bought her this ring she wouldn't have sex with anyone until she was married, and practically passed out after the reception ... and well, she could fuck then but not before.

Anyway, turns out the two one night when Mom and Dad are out having sushi, or maybe off in a hotel somewhere fucking themselves, can't control the rage of their young hormones, and then the condom breaks, and holy moly, lo and behold, in a couple of months they've got a situation on their hands. And Mommy and Daddy are pissed. Especially Daddy. And let's say, for the sake of argument, that this is off in the future, and that contrary to all my smug predictions, Romney and Ryan end up in the White House, and they appoint a couple more anti-abortion judges, who overrule Roe vs. Wade, and now we're back to either flying Muffy to Europe, or Canada, or to the Bahamas or Bermuda, or getting out the hanger, or ... Muffy taking a pass on her first year at Princeton to have a baby that would one day grow up to know that he or she came about because the condom broke, and Dad—Biff—well, he lost interest, funny how that works, or ... Muffy could come to understand, after significant pressure is applied by both her mother and father, but especially by her father, who has made a lot of fucking sacrifices and saved a lot of fucking money so she could go to Princeton and not be raising a kid straight out of high school, in their house, that Biff in fact raped her.

And from there ... Mother and Father and Muffy take the case to the newly established, tax-payer funded, Abortion Tribunals, where it would be decided based on standards hammered out after a great many committee meetings, by a select group of experts appointed by someone who may or may not have a womb or a vagina, and who, themselves, may or may not have either, or agendas, or be having a particularly good day for that matter, whether or not the accused—Biff—did in fact legitimately rape Muffy, thereby, possibly, allowing her to go off with a signed, notarized document allowing her to get a legal abortion done right here in the United States, if not necessarily at Planned Parenthood.

Which is why I like Ryan's approach better. If it's all about killing and love of the unborn, then you have to love Uncle Ned's fetus, too—and Biff's.

Even Freddie's.

And if you aren't willing to tell your daughter to suck it up and remind her that she after all shouldn't have had sex in the first place, let alone let Ned anywhere near her, or Biff play with her boobies (which she ought to know leads to other things), that she should have been more careful not to be in the wrong place at the wrong time with monsters and condoms that don't break, without pepper spray or a .357 magnum ... and really, if she wouldn't have been born a girl in the first place none of this would be happening, she could lose interest, maybe write a check or two and walk away all the way to Princeton if she was lucky, but ... unfortunately, the law's the law, and too bad for you, Muffy ...

Seems fair, right? Consequences, baby. Tough love!

Still, while I can't say I'm an expert on the matter, and don't follow the subject as passionately as many do, while I'm busy raising boys, not girls, I'm inclined to think—in fact, go figure, it seems obvious to me—that if you aren't willing to look some young frightened girl in the eyes and make such pronouncements, that you ought to keep your mouth shut when it comes to someone else's young frightened girl ... and to women generally.

But what do I know? I haven't check my Twitter feed for hours ...

And wasn't Ayn Rand an atheist? All that Christian nonsense getting people to care for people they shouldn't and making a mess of things? Didn't I read that somewhere, back when I was paying more attention?

Politics, and Other Things Americans Hate

There's an article below the fold on the front page of today's Denver Post, that begins: "Americans already hate politics ..."

Yes, and we hate violence, too.

This is why we have an election cycle that is nearly as ongoing as the painting and maintenance of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Because we hate politics.

This is why, days after breaking our previous record here in Colorado for people slaughtered and otherwise shot up in a single building at more or less a single moment, we are wondering, if just wondering, whether or not it is particularly unusual for a young man ostensibly interested in the neurosciences (rather than, say, the commandant of the local wing of the National Guard) to have purchased and kept 6,000 rounds of ammunition in his apartment. Many who don't hate violence like we do might just assume that owning 6,000 rounds of ammunition if you're not, say, a Russian in Stalingrad in 1942, or a German soldier stuck in a pillbox on Normandy Beach in 1944, isn't anymore crazy, necessarily, that buying and stacking up in your home 6,000 rolls of toilet paper, or 6,000 cans of dog food, or Spaghettios, or 6,000 condoms (assuming you're not an Olympic athlete).

But we wonder, and we wonder hard. Because we hate violence.

Yet ... we don't jump to conclusions. We shake our heads and sigh. We consider the damage that might be done to individual liberties, not to mention our "well-regulated militia" that, along with Homeland Security, the Army, the Navy, the Marines, the Air Force, the Coast Guard, the National Guard, the FBI, the CIA, the NSA, as well as our various local and regional police forces, guards our way of life (that, unfortunately, for whatever reason, seems to include the occasional random slaughter of persons in the wrong place at the wrong time by someone frequently deranged and armed to the teeth), the slippery slope we might be descending were we to let the government tell us, willy-nilly, that we can no longer order 6,000 rounds of ammo, to put in clips as big as a hat box, over the internet, or even a counter at some store.

After all, what are they going say we can't have next?

Best, perhaps, despite our hatred of violence, to leave well enough alone, for fear of unwittingly making our already deflationary economy worse. Gun merchants need to make living, too. Just like the owners of diners in Iowa and New Hampshire. Journalists ... imagine what would happen to those already beleaguered souls if we decided to wrap up our hateful politics in a few weeks, like they do in Canada? Where they pay higher taxes than we do, but don't complain as much about them, even though they have socialized medicine run by the government, because basically Canadians are too nice and polite to complain, much less be flat out hateful, like Americans ...

Who hate paying taxes, and hate politics. But don't take anything our taxes pay for, or our guns and ammo, away, or you'll know what real wrath looks like.

As Mitt and Paul, I suspect, will soon find out. If they don't already know ...

Did I mention that the story below the fold came out of Dubuque, Iowa? Probably someone who owns a diner ... who's had it with the politicos, all the grousing, the vicious attacks and lies. So different than the previous elections, when the candidates couldn't have been nicer, and the expense accounts were bigger.

Away in Nova Scotia

We're back now, after spending the last ten days in one of my favorite places. My wife grew up in Cape Breton, and for two idyllic years—1996 and 1997— we lived in a flat on the first floor of an old house within walking distance of practically everything worth walking to in Halifax. In those days I drove a 1986 Toyota pickup that I may have started three times a month. In those days I lived like my idea of king on thirty thousand dollars a year; I learned to scuba dive, bicycled the Cabot Trail, wrote for six hours every day, read all of Dostoevsky one winter and all of Tolstoy the next. Donna, in those days, waited tables, and would come home shortly before midnight and I'd have a fire going and we'd watch old reruns of "Law & Order" (Michael Moriarty lived in town in those days, got kicked out of so many bars that he had to move), and then she'd go to bed and I'd stay up until 3:00, reading, sleep, wake up around 10:00, have coffee, eat, write, work out, walk the dog, head down to the pub where I had my own stein waiting, have some dinner, listen to some music ...

We tend remember things better than they were, but those were good, well above average days. After living in the midwest all my life, I didn't find the winters to be that cold (and I had a toasty warm LL Bean parka for the cold, blustery days). The summers were short, but beautiful—memorable and rich in the way of things that end up being short. I liked the foghorns in the harbor late at night, the wind blowing so long as I was inside by the fire ... the rain, the green, the water, all of it ... it didn't matter, I grew up in Iowa, weather doesn't make or break my day.

There are a lot of reasons I could come up with for why we don't live in Nova Scotia. Family is an argument for and against it, to what degree depends on the day, and my mood. Most notably, it would be harder, and a lot more expensive, to go back with what we have now than it was to come here with what we had then. Moreover, we live, by improbable fortune, in a community in Colorado—Louisville, not full of itself yet but getting there one has to think—that is not only one of the best places in the country to raise a family but, increasingly, a cool, cat's meow kind of place to hang out as well (with many years still before it becomes the thing it never wanted to become). The school system is great, and so are our doctors, our dentists, our insurance agent, the people we buy coffee from, our karate school; we live in a great neighborhood that we joke (though not by much) has a waiting list to get into, have great neighbors, a great house that's too big for us now that we're down to four, and that I wish I could hire a maid to help clean, a handyman to fix, a butler to keep organized, but still ... a great place, by any reasonable measure.

And yet year after year, visit upon visit, I continue to miss Halifax and the Maritime Mode ...

Probably (I tell myself) because life hasn't been anywhere near that free of strain since. There's no living like a king on thirty thousand a year anymore. No reading until three in the morning. No scuba diving off the shore in cold, bracing water, followed by pints and cigars at Tom's Little Havana (where one can't smoke anymore, not there, not anywhere). I look back and think I could have gone forever writing on thirty thousand a year, but not when the need was ninety, not for as long as we had to with everything that happened. A smart guy, I keep thinking, would have known that, and accepted it, a lot sooner, and found something more financially sensible to do with his life rather than stubbornly persisting with a novel in nearly impossible conditions, in a civilization that has largely given up on novels, where the fashion is more to push oneself to the limit physically than to, say, read a challenging book (or even one like mine) in one's spare time—that is, if one has spare time, if one is that divorced from the fashion of the times (here in America at least) and still has that thing we used to call spare time.

But one may as well cry over spilt milk ... over his lost hair and the new ones growing out his nose and ears, over that May/September romance with the girl who really wasn't that special by conventional measures but that for some reason you've never been able to get out of your mind.

Halifax ...

Would it be quite a lot different now? Would a smart guy conclude that we're better off leaving our memories of that sweet life long ago alone, and focus rather on being thankful for the many fortunes we have right before us? Probably. Almost certainly. I suspect so ... and yet I suspect I'll always wonder, and continue to miss those late night fires, the cigars, lugging that diving gear over the rocks and into the cold salty water, the foghorns off the harbor as I closed my eyes and fell asleep.