This coming February 12 is the 200th birthday of Abraham Lincoln. As absurd as it may sound, that actually makes me feel kind of old. When I was a kid, the Civil War was just about 100 years in the past. Now, to find out that war's central figure is having a Bicentennial! And where exactly does that leave George Washington? All the way back to where the Pilgrims used to be?!
Wondering if I could connect at all with this almost prehistoric figure, I decided to take a look at something Lincoln wrote: The Gettysburg Address. I did this with some trepidation. I was afraid it might read like The Canterbury Tales, or something by Shakespeare: in English, yet you still need a translator. Turns out I didn't. The speech's first, and most famous, sentence is a bit daunting (I wasn't sure what he meant by "score". Was there a game going on? Or had a band played?), but after that it's smooth sailing. It could have been written yesterday (Thank God the Civil War wasn't yesterday. Our military's stretched thin enough as it is.)
So here it is, along with a few of my comments (which Honest Abe may or may not agree with.)
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation...
Less than a hundred years separate George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. I'm not sure if that should make me feel old or not.
...conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
White men, anyway. Lincoln fails to mention his own Emancipation Proclamation, which was significantly more dedicated to that proposition. Of course, as long as the war raged, the emancipation existed only on paper, so maybe that accounts for his modesty.
Now, we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.
The Confederate flag was a campaign issue as recently as 2000.
We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field...
According to some historians, the organizers of this event weren't even going to invite Lincoln. But then they thought, well, he IS President.
...as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live.
3,155 Federal soldiers were killed in action, with 5,365 missing. 2,136 of the 14,529 wounded died. All together, a mortality rate of nearly 15%. As far as the Confederacy goes, estimates range from 2,934 to 5,750 killed or missing.
It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
Sounds here like ol' Abe is just giving lip service.
But, in a larger sense...
Oh, wait. He's got something up his sleeve.
...we can not dedicate--we can not consecrate--we can not hallow--this ground.
According to a recent news story, some developer wants to build a casino near the battlefield.
The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated, far above our poor power to add or detract.
Edward Everett spoke first. His speech contained 13,607 words, and lasted two hours. Lincoln's speech contained 186 words, and lasted a measly two minutes.
The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here...
Edward who?
...but it can never forget what they did here.
Not to take anything away from what they did there, but one reason Gettysburg is more well known than, say, Antietam (where there was an even greater loss of life) is because of what one tall, lanky guy with a beard and stove top hat said there.
It is for us the living, rather...
I knew there was a catch.
...to be dedicated to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be dedicated to the great task remaining before us--that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave their last full measure of devotion--that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain--that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom...
Did those who died at Gettysburg, or on Omaha Beach, or on Iwo Jima, really die for freedom or democracy, or did they actually die for a country that at the time just happened to be free and democratic? After all, people who've lived in dictatorships, or slave-based societies, have fought just as hard, and have died in as many numbers as we Americans. Freedom and democracy should be more than mere synonyms for sovereignty and the homeland. Those high ideals can also be fought and lived for. How exactly do we do that? What are our weapons? Let's see, there's the ballot box, the soap box, the picket sign, the petition, and the letter to the editor. Maybe even blogs.
...and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Despite the best efforts of the all too many fools and scoundrels since Lincoln, it somehow hasn't perished yet.
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Quips and Quotations
I have no color prejudices nor caste prejudices nor creed prejudices. All I care to know is that a man is a human being, and that is enough for me; he can't be any worse.
--Mark Twain
--Mark Twain
Saturday, September 13, 2008
For Vice Sakes!
The Vice-Presidency is not worth a bucket of warm piss.
--John Nance Garner, Vice-President 1933-41
Were it only true, Mr Garner. These days, the vice-presidency is potentially worth the swing states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Wisconsin and Minnesota. It's also worth 20 million or so disaffected Hillary Clinton voters, and working-class and rural folks who fear an African American might be too "elitist".
I know it seems like a long time ago, but I want to go back to the week leading up to the Democratic convention. If you'll remember, Barack Obama, with the help of the news media, was keeping us all guessing as to who is vice-presidential pick would be. Hillary Clinton? Jim Webb? Bill Richardson? Oprah Winfrey? We were all kept in suspense, on the edge of our seats, on tenterhooks, and hanging from a cliff. We bit our nails, and wiped the sweat off our brows. We waited, paced the floor, banged our heads against the walls, and crossed our fingers. And, as the clock slowly, and agonizingly, ticked, we stared at our cell phones, not wanting to miss even one second of that much longed after, much hoped for, much yearned over, and much anticipated magic text message!
Why, exactly?
If I want to be kept in suspense, I'll go out and rent an Alfred Hitchcock movie! As far as the vice-president goes, I want to know when Barack Obama knows! As soon as it pops into his head. Sooner, if possible! This is something that's going to have some affect over all our lives! I don't particularly want to be surprised. I want to know exactly what I'm getting. If a president made farting noises during a State of the Union address, that would be quite a surprise, but I doubt if it would instill us all with confidence.
In the end, the surprise wasn't much of a surprise. Joe Biden. Just who everybody expected. Why Joe Biden? Experience, I guess. In light of recent developments, you may have forgotten that John McCain had been making a federal case (well, he IS in the Senate) over Obama's relative lack of experience. But experience in government is different from that in, say, auto repair. Two experienced mechanics will probably come to the same conclusion that your car won't shift in reverse because you put motor oil where the transmission fluid should go. Government is different. There are experienced people who are for the war in Iraq, and equally experienced people against. There are experienced people who believe in some sort of national health care, and those who don't. Until the recent collapse of some of our largest financial institutions, experienced people even disagreed whether such institutions should be regulated. They still disagree as to whether they should be regulated before a collapse, or after (i.e., federal bailouts).
I voted for Barack Obama instead of Hillary Clinton in the Ohio Primary because I wanted someone who was against the Iraq war AT the time of the Iraq war. Would I have preferred an experienced anti-war candidate? Sure. But the Democratic establishment (i.e., the Clinton machine) couldn't bring themselves to provide one. So I took a chance on Obama. And what does he do? He picks as VP not only someone who voted for the war, but as head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at the time, strong armed other Democrats to vote for it. I know, I know. Obama was being "realistic", in the political sense. Well, so was Clinton, Dodd, etc.
On to McCain...
John McCain's VP pick was a surprise. Boy, was it a surprise, the equivalent of making hi-fi stereophonic fart noises during a State of the Union address. McCain apparently met Sarah Palin only once before choosing her. That must have been some meeting. Political expediency at first sight! Sarah Palin is governor of a state-Alaska--with less people than Cuyahoga County, where I'm writing from. In fact, the county could lose the entire population of Cleveland, and it'd STILL have more people!
So, why'd McCain pick her? Well, Obama had been making a federal case (he's in the Senate, too) about the need for change.
The need for change.
The crucial word in the above sentence is not so much "change" as "need". I don't think the people want change because they're, say, bored with Washington. Even if they were, they could always just switch from CNN to Tia Tequila (I've been tempted to do that). If it's change for the sake of change people want, the next president could just paint the White House purple with yellow polka dots (though that might clash with all those cherry blossoms). No. People don't want change because they're bored. They want change because things SUCK. At any rate, given McCain's voting record, the White House might just get painted a whiter shade of pale (apologies to Procol Harum), the only change being a switch from Glidden to Sherwin Williams.
Of course, if the unthinkable happens, and McCain dies in office (I'm being polite. It's not really all that unthinkable. The issue's been raised over and over again the last couple of weeks), Sarah would take over. Would that be change we can count on? If by count you mean body count. In a recent interview, she said it might be necessary to go to war with Russia. She must figure all those nukes collapsed along with communism.
So, where does all that leave us? With an inexperienced presidential candidate and experienced vice-presidential candidate who are both against the war in Iraq (Joe's come around) and believe the government should have some say in the economy, vs an experienced presidential candidate and inexperienced vice-presidential candidate who both support the war in Iraq and believe in laissez-faire.
In other words, Democrat vs Republican. Liberal vs conservative. Left vs Right.
Surprise!
--John Nance Garner, Vice-President 1933-41
Were it only true, Mr Garner. These days, the vice-presidency is potentially worth the swing states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Wisconsin and Minnesota. It's also worth 20 million or so disaffected Hillary Clinton voters, and working-class and rural folks who fear an African American might be too "elitist".
I know it seems like a long time ago, but I want to go back to the week leading up to the Democratic convention. If you'll remember, Barack Obama, with the help of the news media, was keeping us all guessing as to who is vice-presidential pick would be. Hillary Clinton? Jim Webb? Bill Richardson? Oprah Winfrey? We were all kept in suspense, on the edge of our seats, on tenterhooks, and hanging from a cliff. We bit our nails, and wiped the sweat off our brows. We waited, paced the floor, banged our heads against the walls, and crossed our fingers. And, as the clock slowly, and agonizingly, ticked, we stared at our cell phones, not wanting to miss even one second of that much longed after, much hoped for, much yearned over, and much anticipated magic text message!
Why, exactly?
If I want to be kept in suspense, I'll go out and rent an Alfred Hitchcock movie! As far as the vice-president goes, I want to know when Barack Obama knows! As soon as it pops into his head. Sooner, if possible! This is something that's going to have some affect over all our lives! I don't particularly want to be surprised. I want to know exactly what I'm getting. If a president made farting noises during a State of the Union address, that would be quite a surprise, but I doubt if it would instill us all with confidence.
In the end, the surprise wasn't much of a surprise. Joe Biden. Just who everybody expected. Why Joe Biden? Experience, I guess. In light of recent developments, you may have forgotten that John McCain had been making a federal case (well, he IS in the Senate) over Obama's relative lack of experience. But experience in government is different from that in, say, auto repair. Two experienced mechanics will probably come to the same conclusion that your car won't shift in reverse because you put motor oil where the transmission fluid should go. Government is different. There are experienced people who are for the war in Iraq, and equally experienced people against. There are experienced people who believe in some sort of national health care, and those who don't. Until the recent collapse of some of our largest financial institutions, experienced people even disagreed whether such institutions should be regulated. They still disagree as to whether they should be regulated before a collapse, or after (i.e., federal bailouts).
I voted for Barack Obama instead of Hillary Clinton in the Ohio Primary because I wanted someone who was against the Iraq war AT the time of the Iraq war. Would I have preferred an experienced anti-war candidate? Sure. But the Democratic establishment (i.e., the Clinton machine) couldn't bring themselves to provide one. So I took a chance on Obama. And what does he do? He picks as VP not only someone who voted for the war, but as head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at the time, strong armed other Democrats to vote for it. I know, I know. Obama was being "realistic", in the political sense. Well, so was Clinton, Dodd, etc.
On to McCain...
John McCain's VP pick was a surprise. Boy, was it a surprise, the equivalent of making hi-fi stereophonic fart noises during a State of the Union address. McCain apparently met Sarah Palin only once before choosing her. That must have been some meeting. Political expediency at first sight! Sarah Palin is governor of a state-Alaska--with less people than Cuyahoga County, where I'm writing from. In fact, the county could lose the entire population of Cleveland, and it'd STILL have more people!
So, why'd McCain pick her? Well, Obama had been making a federal case (he's in the Senate, too) about the need for change.
The need for change.
The crucial word in the above sentence is not so much "change" as "need". I don't think the people want change because they're, say, bored with Washington. Even if they were, they could always just switch from CNN to Tia Tequila (I've been tempted to do that). If it's change for the sake of change people want, the next president could just paint the White House purple with yellow polka dots (though that might clash with all those cherry blossoms). No. People don't want change because they're bored. They want change because things SUCK. At any rate, given McCain's voting record, the White House might just get painted a whiter shade of pale (apologies to Procol Harum), the only change being a switch from Glidden to Sherwin Williams.
Of course, if the unthinkable happens, and McCain dies in office (I'm being polite. It's not really all that unthinkable. The issue's been raised over and over again the last couple of weeks), Sarah would take over. Would that be change we can count on? If by count you mean body count. In a recent interview, she said it might be necessary to go to war with Russia. She must figure all those nukes collapsed along with communism.
So, where does all that leave us? With an inexperienced presidential candidate and experienced vice-presidential candidate who are both against the war in Iraq (Joe's come around) and believe the government should have some say in the economy, vs an experienced presidential candidate and inexperienced vice-presidential candidate who both support the war in Iraq and believe in laissez-faire.
In other words, Democrat vs Republican. Liberal vs conservative. Left vs Right.
Surprise!
Sunday, September 7, 2008
In Memoriam: Bill Melendez 1916-2008
Peanuts animator and voice of Snoopy
"The characters look so simple because they are so simple. The thickness of the line can make a difference."
"The characters look so simple because they are so simple. The thickness of the line can make a difference."
Saturday, August 9, 2008
Sellevision: Safety, Sveltness, and Syncophancy.
Today, I turn my attention to television. Not just any television. Or rather, not just anything on television. Not sitcoms, nor crime dramas, nor soaps, nor talk shows, nor reality shows. I want to go deeper than that. I want to examine the essence of television, it's very soul.
You guessed it, folks. I'm talking about the commercials.
The first commercial I'd like to examine is the most poignant. It's for Liberty Mutual Insurance. It begins with three young boys sitting on bleachers. As they're wearing soccer uniforms, we can assume practice just ended, and they're waiting for their parents. Sure enough, a woman drives up and yells out,
"C'mon! We have to meet your father at the airport!"
Two of the boys, brothers, jump down, and run to the car. To the remaining child, the woman asks,
"Dillion! You need a ride?"
"That's all right," Dillion answers. "My father should be here!"
The woman seems less than satisfied by his reply. Nevertheless, she begins to drive away. As she looks back at Dillion in the mirror, she appears increasingly worried.
Dillion sits alone in the bleachers. It's starting to get dark. Suddenly, a beam of light hits his face. Is it his father? Or some pedophile trolling the soccer fields for little boys? Neither. The woman has returned. The ad ends with her and her two sons sitting in the bleachers, keeping Dillion company. Whew! According to the narrator, "All over the world, people are doing the right thing." Especially when they're scared silly some sicko out there might do a very wrong thing.
I'm not sure what any of this has to do with insurance. Maybe at a premium of, say, $350 every couple of months, they'll make sure a soccer mom keeps your child from ending up in a missing person's report. And do they have a similar policy for Little League baseball and Pee-wee football?
Another question hangs agonizingly over this ad. Where is Dillion's father? Did he get into an accident? Or did he run off with the cashier at the local Hooters? Either event could have tragic implications for such a young boy.
And what about the OTHER father? You know, the one waiting at the airport. I can just imagine him waiting on the curb outside the terminal, looking at his watch and thinking, "WHERE THE HELL IS SHE?"
Two of the leading vixens of the 1970's, Valerie Bertinelli and Marie Osmond, have been doing weight-loss ads for NutriSystem and Jenny Craig, respectively. Or is that Jenny Craig and Nutrisystem, respectively? Whatever, they both lost weight. Career wise, they were both so far off the celebrity radar screen for awhile there, I doubt if most people even knew they'd gain weight in the first place. Heck, I doubt if even the National Enquirer knew. But they're back in the spotlight now. Valerie's on the best sellers' list, and Marie's hit the dance floor. Literally.
Both these ads have "before" pictures. In Valerie's, it's kind of hard to tell just how much weight she'd gained. She's wearing something formless and baggy, a la Rhoda Morgenstern during the first couple of years of the Mary Tyler Moore Show. Like that earlier Valerie, you're not sure whether she should lose the pounds, or just the polyester.
Marie "I'm losing it!" Osmond is another matter. This woman has spent her career looking for ways to be sexy without violating any Mormon tenets. Back in the '70s she accomplished this by eschewing cleavage, and instead wearing costumes just tight enough to make you think, "Ah, yes, she has reached puberty!" A couple of decades later, when this "before" picture was shot, this had become a bit trickier. Here, she's seems to be wearing a black slip-like dress, slinky without the actual slink. She's wearing a see-through blouse, brightly decorated to keep you from actually seeing through. It's all offset by a wild mane of black hair, as if she'd blow dried it in a wind tunnel. Is she a little bit country, or a little bit '80s metal?
Both ladies are now as thin as they were in the '70s. They also look as YOUNG as they looked in the '70s. Are Botox commercials next?
Now, on to an oldie but goodie. The Xerox Color Copier commercial. It first ran about two years ago, and I caught it again just the other night. Some one's buying those copiers. This funny ad begins with an office drone, who looks a little like Paul Simon, sitting next to a copy machine, looking a bit distressed.
"She's going to kill me!" Paul says to a co-worker.
As the copy is in color, he's afraid it cost too much.
"Don't worry," replies the co-worker (whose name we later learn is Dave). "With the Xerox Color Copier, we save pennies on the dollar!"
Act II takes place in a conference room. Somebody on the phone--a client, maybe--sounds elated.
"Great color! I'm shocked!"
A woman wearing glasses--the boss--replies, "Glad you liked it, sir!"
Paul Simon smiles. She's not going to kill him, after all.
The boss then presses a mute button, and gleefully yells into the phone: "You're shocked?! We're shocked you even get it, pal!" She's suddenly distracted. "Dave! What are you doing here?"
Poking his head in the door, Dave (apparently not important enough to be in this meeting) replies, "I came to fix the mute button."
The boss looks down at the phone. There's a clicking sound.
Some guy nearby who looks like he's straight out of the Far Side comic strip says, "Bye, bye, bonus."
HAHAHAHA! Pretty funny stuff! So funny I feel like going out and buying a, um, what's this commercial selling again? Let me think. The punch line involved a mute button. Oh, yeah. I remember. So funny it makes me want to go out and buy a Xerox Mute Button.
You guessed it, folks. I'm talking about the commercials.
The first commercial I'd like to examine is the most poignant. It's for Liberty Mutual Insurance. It begins with three young boys sitting on bleachers. As they're wearing soccer uniforms, we can assume practice just ended, and they're waiting for their parents. Sure enough, a woman drives up and yells out,
"C'mon! We have to meet your father at the airport!"
Two of the boys, brothers, jump down, and run to the car. To the remaining child, the woman asks,
"Dillion! You need a ride?"
"That's all right," Dillion answers. "My father should be here!"
The woman seems less than satisfied by his reply. Nevertheless, she begins to drive away. As she looks back at Dillion in the mirror, she appears increasingly worried.
Dillion sits alone in the bleachers. It's starting to get dark. Suddenly, a beam of light hits his face. Is it his father? Or some pedophile trolling the soccer fields for little boys? Neither. The woman has returned. The ad ends with her and her two sons sitting in the bleachers, keeping Dillion company. Whew! According to the narrator, "All over the world, people are doing the right thing." Especially when they're scared silly some sicko out there might do a very wrong thing.
I'm not sure what any of this has to do with insurance. Maybe at a premium of, say, $350 every couple of months, they'll make sure a soccer mom keeps your child from ending up in a missing person's report. And do they have a similar policy for Little League baseball and Pee-wee football?
Another question hangs agonizingly over this ad. Where is Dillion's father? Did he get into an accident? Or did he run off with the cashier at the local Hooters? Either event could have tragic implications for such a young boy.
And what about the OTHER father? You know, the one waiting at the airport. I can just imagine him waiting on the curb outside the terminal, looking at his watch and thinking, "WHERE THE HELL IS SHE?"
Two of the leading vixens of the 1970's, Valerie Bertinelli and Marie Osmond, have been doing weight-loss ads for NutriSystem and Jenny Craig, respectively. Or is that Jenny Craig and Nutrisystem, respectively? Whatever, they both lost weight. Career wise, they were both so far off the celebrity radar screen for awhile there, I doubt if most people even knew they'd gain weight in the first place. Heck, I doubt if even the National Enquirer knew. But they're back in the spotlight now. Valerie's on the best sellers' list, and Marie's hit the dance floor. Literally.
Both these ads have "before" pictures. In Valerie's, it's kind of hard to tell just how much weight she'd gained. She's wearing something formless and baggy, a la Rhoda Morgenstern during the first couple of years of the Mary Tyler Moore Show. Like that earlier Valerie, you're not sure whether she should lose the pounds, or just the polyester.
Marie "I'm losing it!" Osmond is another matter. This woman has spent her career looking for ways to be sexy without violating any Mormon tenets. Back in the '70s she accomplished this by eschewing cleavage, and instead wearing costumes just tight enough to make you think, "Ah, yes, she has reached puberty!" A couple of decades later, when this "before" picture was shot, this had become a bit trickier. Here, she's seems to be wearing a black slip-like dress, slinky without the actual slink. She's wearing a see-through blouse, brightly decorated to keep you from actually seeing through. It's all offset by a wild mane of black hair, as if she'd blow dried it in a wind tunnel. Is she a little bit country, or a little bit '80s metal?
Both ladies are now as thin as they were in the '70s. They also look as YOUNG as they looked in the '70s. Are Botox commercials next?
Now, on to an oldie but goodie. The Xerox Color Copier commercial. It first ran about two years ago, and I caught it again just the other night. Some one's buying those copiers. This funny ad begins with an office drone, who looks a little like Paul Simon, sitting next to a copy machine, looking a bit distressed.
"She's going to kill me!" Paul says to a co-worker.
As the copy is in color, he's afraid it cost too much.
"Don't worry," replies the co-worker (whose name we later learn is Dave). "With the Xerox Color Copier, we save pennies on the dollar!"
Act II takes place in a conference room. Somebody on the phone--a client, maybe--sounds elated.
"Great color! I'm shocked!"
A woman wearing glasses--the boss--replies, "Glad you liked it, sir!"
Paul Simon smiles. She's not going to kill him, after all.
The boss then presses a mute button, and gleefully yells into the phone: "You're shocked?! We're shocked you even get it, pal!" She's suddenly distracted. "Dave! What are you doing here?"
Poking his head in the door, Dave (apparently not important enough to be in this meeting) replies, "I came to fix the mute button."
The boss looks down at the phone. There's a clicking sound.
Some guy nearby who looks like he's straight out of the Far Side comic strip says, "Bye, bye, bonus."
HAHAHAHA! Pretty funny stuff! So funny I feel like going out and buying a, um, what's this commercial selling again? Let me think. The punch line involved a mute button. Oh, yeah. I remember. So funny it makes me want to go out and buy a Xerox Mute Button.
Saturday, July 12, 2008
Crude and Unusual Punishment
If you're too young to remember the Energy Crises of the 1970s, or are old enough but have blocked that traumatic event from your mind, here's a brief recap. OPEC, long lines at the pump, thermostats turned down, sweaters over sweaters, diesel cars, siphoned gas, siphoned gas poisoning, moral equivalent of war. Things were bad. Then things got worse, and worse, and WORSE , and WORSE , until...it was the 1980s, and the Energy Crises had gone the way of pet rocks and Leo Sayer.
The new fad was the oil glut. People now drove more, mowed more, flew more, snowmobiled more, motor boated more, and even accidentally spilled more at the pump. It was cheap; why be careful? Cars beget minivans, minivans beget SUVs, SUVs beget Hummers. Things got better, and better, and BETTER, and BETTER, until...well, until now.
As soon as he took office, President George W. Bush appointed an energy task force, with Dick Cheney in charge. This energy task force's task was to force energy to be more, um, plentiful? Cheap? Energizing? Among the groups this task force met with was, well, we don't know. Dick Cheney won't tell us. He's claiming Executive Privilege. Isn't having your own chauffeur, and your own bodyguards, and your very own hiding place in case of another terrorist attack privilege enough? No, he also wants the privilege of dancing up and down Pennsylvania Avenue singing, "I know a secret and you don't. Ha, ha, ha," Word did get out that the task force included several Enron executives. It was later revealed that Enron was doing all it could to make energy less plentiful. At least in California. Off the record, but on a recording (like Nixon, they taped themselves), Enron executives joked about engineering blackouts that left little old ladies in the dark. A year later, when their company collapsed, they themselves were left in the dark. A dark jail cell.
I bring this up because there's been speculation that speculators are behind the spectacular rise in gas prices. This didn't make sense to me at first. Why speculate about oil? What do you think that black, gooey substance is, syrup of ipecac? Then I did a little research. See, there's something called a "futures market" What kind of futures are they marketing? Star Trek? The Jetsons? Nope. Those were fiction. This is real. A future is what a commodity, such as oil, will cost in the future, assuming you buy it in the, uh, present. Mathematically, this is expressed as F={S-PV (Div) (1+r)(T-t) (let's see THAT on the Jetsons!) Apparently, what you do--"you" being either a humongous financial institution that buys and sells a commodity, such as oil, or a humongous financial institution that buys and sells pieces of paper that represents a commodity, such as oil--is agree to buy the future sometimes in the future, and hope that the future in the future is more expensive than the future was in the past, and then resell that future in the present, which was the future in the past, and that's how you make your profit (come to think of it, maybe this is like an episode of Star Trek. Remember the one with Joan Collins?) Now, all this buying and selling the future use to be regulated. You could buy only so much of the future. You only could buy the future with the money you had in the present. You couldn't pretend you had less future than you did. These regulations were repealed because--well, I've searched the Internet for some other explanation than "political favor", but to no avail. Enron first took advantage of this new freedom. Boldly going where no humongous financial institution had gone before, they bought a lot of the future (electricity) with money they didn't have in the present, and then pretended they had less of the future, now the present, than they did. In short, they shut down a few power plants, causing the aforementioned blackouts. Are oil speculators the new Enrons, leaving old ladies, if not in the dark, than in the red? (No, it's not like Star Trek, after all. Captain Kirk let Joan Collins get hit by a truck so as to keep Hitler from winning World War Two, and he didn't even make any money off it!)
That's just one theory on the current spike in gas prices. There are others. Ones that don't involve the future. Such as, oil executives, in the present, are screwing us over, in the present, in order to make a big pile of money, in the present.
You may get the impression from reading all of the above that I don't believe there's an actual shortage of oil. You'd be wrong. I genuinely believe that overpopulation, combined with mass consumerism, combined with globalization, combined with our corporate masters' need for this quarter's profit to be bigger than last quarter's profit which were bigger than the quarter before, will eventually cause us to run out of everything from oil to food to water to the very ground beneath us, and we'll all have to walk, hungry and thirsty, on the Earth's molten core.
But what I just don't get is this twenty year lull between energy crises. It's like some one's on their death bed, surrounded by his loved ones, with a priest delivering the Last Rites. The guy doesn't die, however. The very next day, he plays a couple rounds of golf, takes in a game of tennis, goes jogging, shoots a couple of hoops, does some laps around the pool, plays horseshoes, and, at night, goes bowling. The day after that he's back on his death bed, his loved ones are all looking at their watches, and the priest is reminding everyone he gets paid by the hour.
Then there's that other problem--global warming. It made all the headlines last year, but lately it's been pushed toward the back somewhere between Goren Bridge and the crossword puzzle. It'll come back. In fact, during that twenty year lull (and this is why I think the shortage can't be entirely fake), we had the two hottest decades in history. Until this decade, that is. We shouldn't be surprised that energy shortages and environmental destruction should coincide with each other. They're both caused by the same thing: using too much fuel. To paraphrase Frank Sinatra, the two problems go together like a horse and carriage (which may soon be our principle means of transportation.)
While we're pointing fingers at oil speculators and oil executives, how about We, The People? Are we to blame? Well, Pogo's dictum still holds: "We have met the enemy and he is us!" First, though, we have to be introduced.
You may have heard it said that Americans are addicted to oil. Well, let's compare it to other addictions. Most addicts don't start out as addicts. You don't smoke, then you have that first cigarette. You don't drink, then you have that first beer. You don't do drugs, than you have that first toke, snort, or fix. Where petroleum's concerned you have to go back almost 100 years, to the horse-and-buggy era. At first, that was all people knew. It was all they ever knew. Then came the automobile. At first, it was intimidating. As intimidating as the personal computer was to a later generation (at least this particular blogger.) Then they got behind the wheel. Goodbye, horse. Goodbye, carriage. It was their first smoke, first drink, first toke, first snort, first fix.
Those people are most likely all gone by now, but they left behind their addiction, the car culture we all grew up on. We, The People are not just addicts, we're crack babies.
Actually, I may be jumping ahead a bit. If you watch old movies from the '30s and '40s, yes, there are cars, but they also take trains and buses. And they walk. Even in the big city. Especially in the big city. At all hours of the night, in the poorest neighborhoods, without the slightest fear of getting mugged (even in the gangster films it's safe, as long as you stay the hell away from Edgar G. Robinson.) Then came the suburbs, and that's where we get to the crux of the problem.
No trains came to the suburbs. Busses came maybe twice a day, not twice a minute like in the big city. You could walk in the suburbs, but where. One development led to another, identical development. You'd find yourself walking in circles, or in cul-de-sacs. You needed a car. It's a lot easier driving in circles than walking.
I grew up in the suburbs, but my parents didn't. They grew up in the big city. So did the parents of the kids next door. And the kids across the street. And all the kids on the block. And all the kids at school. I never met a single kid whose parents grew up in the suburbs. How could they? There was no suburbs for them to grow up in. We kids were first generation suburbanites.
Lo, these many years later, it's quite different. Not only have the average suburban kid's parents also grown up in the suburbs, but in some cases, so have their grandparents . Not always the same suburbs, of course. First, there was just suburbs, which we now call inner ring suburbs. Followed, naturally, by outer ring suburbs. Now, there's exurbs. What's next? Inner and outer ring exurbs, I suppose. After that, who knows? Extraexurbs? Meanwhile, the abandoned big city is turning into Greenfield Village, but without the tour guides.
Suburbs, superhighways, shopping centers, and parking lots. It's all we know. It's all we've ever known. Not only are We, The People crack babies, but crack babies abandoned on the doorstep of the Columbia drug cartel. And just who abandoned us? Just our politicians, business leaders, advertisers, developers, editorial writers, even our educators, when they all sold us on the Good Life. Of course, we bought it. What do you want, a Bad Death?
Please don't think from reading all this that I'm anti-car or anti-driving. Nope. I absolutely, positively love to drive. Or I did until I got into one wreck too many. Still, it beats walking 20 miles to work in the morning. And it's a way of getting out of the house on a Saturday night. What I absolutely, positively don't like, however, is being sold a bill of goods.
But that's all in the past. We've got the future (but not the kind you buy and sell) to think about. We need to free ourselves from foreign oil. Maybe oil, period. We need green technologies (see Kermit? That color's in now.) We need to develop alternative (punk? grunge? new wave?) sources of fuel. We need renewables, such as wind or solar (I hope the sun's renewable. I'd hate to see two moons in a permanently dark sky.) We need an Apollo-like program for energy independence ("One small spin around the block for man, one giant cross-country trip to the Grand Canyon for mankind!")
Do all that, or even begin to do all that, and we'll see which drops faster: the price of gas, or an oil executive's shit.
The new fad was the oil glut. People now drove more, mowed more, flew more, snowmobiled more, motor boated more, and even accidentally spilled more at the pump. It was cheap; why be careful? Cars beget minivans, minivans beget SUVs, SUVs beget Hummers. Things got better, and better, and BETTER, and BETTER, until...well, until now.
As soon as he took office, President George W. Bush appointed an energy task force, with Dick Cheney in charge. This energy task force's task was to force energy to be more, um, plentiful? Cheap? Energizing? Among the groups this task force met with was, well, we don't know. Dick Cheney won't tell us. He's claiming Executive Privilege. Isn't having your own chauffeur, and your own bodyguards, and your very own hiding place in case of another terrorist attack privilege enough? No, he also wants the privilege of dancing up and down Pennsylvania Avenue singing, "I know a secret and you don't. Ha, ha, ha," Word did get out that the task force included several Enron executives. It was later revealed that Enron was doing all it could to make energy less plentiful. At least in California. Off the record, but on a recording (like Nixon, they taped themselves), Enron executives joked about engineering blackouts that left little old ladies in the dark. A year later, when their company collapsed, they themselves were left in the dark. A dark jail cell.
I bring this up because there's been speculation that speculators are behind the spectacular rise in gas prices. This didn't make sense to me at first. Why speculate about oil? What do you think that black, gooey substance is, syrup of ipecac? Then I did a little research. See, there's something called a "futures market" What kind of futures are they marketing? Star Trek? The Jetsons? Nope. Those were fiction. This is real. A future is what a commodity, such as oil, will cost in the future, assuming you buy it in the, uh, present. Mathematically, this is expressed as F={S-PV (Div) (1+r)(T-t) (let's see THAT on the Jetsons!) Apparently, what you do--"you" being either a humongous financial institution that buys and sells a commodity, such as oil, or a humongous financial institution that buys and sells pieces of paper that represents a commodity, such as oil--is agree to buy the future sometimes in the future, and hope that the future in the future is more expensive than the future was in the past, and then resell that future in the present, which was the future in the past, and that's how you make your profit (come to think of it, maybe this is like an episode of Star Trek. Remember the one with Joan Collins?) Now, all this buying and selling the future use to be regulated. You could buy only so much of the future. You only could buy the future with the money you had in the present. You couldn't pretend you had less future than you did. These regulations were repealed because--well, I've searched the Internet for some other explanation than "political favor", but to no avail. Enron first took advantage of this new freedom. Boldly going where no humongous financial institution had gone before, they bought a lot of the future (electricity) with money they didn't have in the present, and then pretended they had less of the future, now the present, than they did. In short, they shut down a few power plants, causing the aforementioned blackouts. Are oil speculators the new Enrons, leaving old ladies, if not in the dark, than in the red? (No, it's not like Star Trek, after all. Captain Kirk let Joan Collins get hit by a truck so as to keep Hitler from winning World War Two, and he didn't even make any money off it!)
That's just one theory on the current spike in gas prices. There are others. Ones that don't involve the future. Such as, oil executives, in the present, are screwing us over, in the present, in order to make a big pile of money, in the present.
You may get the impression from reading all of the above that I don't believe there's an actual shortage of oil. You'd be wrong. I genuinely believe that overpopulation, combined with mass consumerism, combined with globalization, combined with our corporate masters' need for this quarter's profit to be bigger than last quarter's profit which were bigger than the quarter before, will eventually cause us to run out of everything from oil to food to water to the very ground beneath us, and we'll all have to walk, hungry and thirsty, on the Earth's molten core.
But what I just don't get is this twenty year lull between energy crises. It's like some one's on their death bed, surrounded by his loved ones, with a priest delivering the Last Rites. The guy doesn't die, however. The very next day, he plays a couple rounds of golf, takes in a game of tennis, goes jogging, shoots a couple of hoops, does some laps around the pool, plays horseshoes, and, at night, goes bowling. The day after that he's back on his death bed, his loved ones are all looking at their watches, and the priest is reminding everyone he gets paid by the hour.
Then there's that other problem--global warming. It made all the headlines last year, but lately it's been pushed toward the back somewhere between Goren Bridge and the crossword puzzle. It'll come back. In fact, during that twenty year lull (and this is why I think the shortage can't be entirely fake), we had the two hottest decades in history. Until this decade, that is. We shouldn't be surprised that energy shortages and environmental destruction should coincide with each other. They're both caused by the same thing: using too much fuel. To paraphrase Frank Sinatra, the two problems go together like a horse and carriage (which may soon be our principle means of transportation.)
While we're pointing fingers at oil speculators and oil executives, how about We, The People? Are we to blame? Well, Pogo's dictum still holds: "We have met the enemy and he is us!" First, though, we have to be introduced.
You may have heard it said that Americans are addicted to oil. Well, let's compare it to other addictions. Most addicts don't start out as addicts. You don't smoke, then you have that first cigarette. You don't drink, then you have that first beer. You don't do drugs, than you have that first toke, snort, or fix. Where petroleum's concerned you have to go back almost 100 years, to the horse-and-buggy era. At first, that was all people knew. It was all they ever knew. Then came the automobile. At first, it was intimidating. As intimidating as the personal computer was to a later generation (at least this particular blogger.) Then they got behind the wheel. Goodbye, horse. Goodbye, carriage. It was their first smoke, first drink, first toke, first snort, first fix.
Those people are most likely all gone by now, but they left behind their addiction, the car culture we all grew up on. We, The People are not just addicts, we're crack babies.
Actually, I may be jumping ahead a bit. If you watch old movies from the '30s and '40s, yes, there are cars, but they also take trains and buses. And they walk. Even in the big city. Especially in the big city. At all hours of the night, in the poorest neighborhoods, without the slightest fear of getting mugged (even in the gangster films it's safe, as long as you stay the hell away from Edgar G. Robinson.) Then came the suburbs, and that's where we get to the crux of the problem.
No trains came to the suburbs. Busses came maybe twice a day, not twice a minute like in the big city. You could walk in the suburbs, but where. One development led to another, identical development. You'd find yourself walking in circles, or in cul-de-sacs. You needed a car. It's a lot easier driving in circles than walking.
I grew up in the suburbs, but my parents didn't. They grew up in the big city. So did the parents of the kids next door. And the kids across the street. And all the kids on the block. And all the kids at school. I never met a single kid whose parents grew up in the suburbs. How could they? There was no suburbs for them to grow up in. We kids were first generation suburbanites.
Lo, these many years later, it's quite different. Not only have the average suburban kid's parents also grown up in the suburbs, but in some cases, so have their grandparents . Not always the same suburbs, of course. First, there was just suburbs, which we now call inner ring suburbs. Followed, naturally, by outer ring suburbs. Now, there's exurbs. What's next? Inner and outer ring exurbs, I suppose. After that, who knows? Extraexurbs? Meanwhile, the abandoned big city is turning into Greenfield Village, but without the tour guides.
Suburbs, superhighways, shopping centers, and parking lots. It's all we know. It's all we've ever known. Not only are We, The People crack babies, but crack babies abandoned on the doorstep of the Columbia drug cartel. And just who abandoned us? Just our politicians, business leaders, advertisers, developers, editorial writers, even our educators, when they all sold us on the Good Life. Of course, we bought it. What do you want, a Bad Death?
Please don't think from reading all this that I'm anti-car or anti-driving. Nope. I absolutely, positively love to drive. Or I did until I got into one wreck too many. Still, it beats walking 20 miles to work in the morning. And it's a way of getting out of the house on a Saturday night. What I absolutely, positively don't like, however, is being sold a bill of goods.
But that's all in the past. We've got the future (but not the kind you buy and sell) to think about. We need to free ourselves from foreign oil. Maybe oil, period. We need green technologies (see Kermit? That color's in now.) We need to develop alternative (punk? grunge? new wave?) sources of fuel. We need renewables, such as wind or solar (I hope the sun's renewable. I'd hate to see two moons in a permanently dark sky.) We need an Apollo-like program for energy independence ("One small spin around the block for man, one giant cross-country trip to the Grand Canyon for mankind!")
Do all that, or even begin to do all that, and we'll see which drops faster: the price of gas, or an oil executive's shit.
Monday, June 30, 2008
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