As some of you may know, this region in New Hampshire has been devastated by an ice storm. For thousands of people and hundreds if not thousands of businesses, this storm has been a disaster.
I apologize for letting Contratimes fall into nothingness, but this is the first I've been able to get online in 8 days. I am in a small internet cafe in a tiny neighboring town where I've gotten a chance to access the big world's web.
There is much to learn in all of this. If I could whittle it all down to one fine point, it would be this: Be Prepared.
Peace,
BG
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
How Can It Be?
This morning, when I opened this blog and read the entry I posted last night, I discovered it was so filled with mistakes I worried I might be experiencing some sort of psychological displacement. Hence, after some revisions, I republished the short essay today. For those of you who read last night's "early edition," I beg your forgiveness.
In Doubters' Prison
Questions often make good friends.
Here's a question asked of Barack Obama yesterday after news his state's governor, Rod Blagojevich, tried to solicit bribes for Mr. Obama's recently vacated senate seat:
On November 23, this is what Barack Obama's topmost advisor, David Axelrod, said on Fox News:
Of course, the question that first comes to the mind of any attentive observer of all this intrigue is not necessarily friendly to those committed to managing the Obama image: Is the president-elect competent to stand this trial?
Seriously. Can it be that Barack Obama, this great leader and political thinker, this man deemed shrewd, brilliant, original and fresh in all things political, has not spoken to the person authorized to appoint the successor to his senate seat? Or is this some sort of cynical joke? Could it really be that the man who is on top of all issues, the most ready man in America, has not once discussed succession with the Illinois governor? Not one time? Are they not long-time political allies?
Alas, I find that I am impaled on the horns of a dilemma: Barack Obama is either lying or he is not very attentive. If he is lying, then he is not a great president-elect. But if he is not lying, then he is not very attentive. And if he is not very attentive, then he is not a great president-elect.
But maybe, instead of creating apparently false dilemmas for myself, I should be asking this thoroughly popular question: Aren't there more urgent issues than character and corruption that we should be addressing?
Again, or so it seems, the corruption that we have learned of this week is, to bootleg Barack Obama's almost epigrammatic and always convenient turn of phrase, "just a distraction."
It might be a tad audacious to hope that Mr. Obama does not throw Rod Blagojevich under the now infamous bus. I suspect that Mr. Blagojevich, who seems just a tiny bit self-interested, might have a lot to share during his deposition. Let's just hope the governor doesn't commit suicide.
Peace.
©2008/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.
Here's a question asked of Barack Obama yesterday after news his state's governor, Rod Blagojevich, tried to solicit bribes for Mr. Obama's recently vacated senate seat:
"Were you aware at all of what was happening with your senate seat?"Mr. Obama's answer:
"I had no contact with the governor or his office, and so I was not aware of what was happening."Unfortunately for Mr. Obama, his answer only raises more questions, and one of those, no doubt, is what one means by "contact."
On November 23, this is what Barack Obama's topmost advisor, David Axelrod, said on Fox News:
"I know he's talked to the governor [Blagojevich], and there are a whole range of names [of possible senate replacements], many of which have surfaced, and I think he has a fondness for a lot of them."Of course, faster than you can say, I don't know, "equine excrement," David Axelrod was out yesterday proclaiming that he erred on November 23:
"I was mistaken. ... They did not then or at any time discuss the subject."Such a statement proves at least one thing about Mr. Axelrod: He can no longer be trusted.
Of course, the question that first comes to the mind of any attentive observer of all this intrigue is not necessarily friendly to those committed to managing the Obama image: Is the president-elect competent to stand this trial?
Seriously. Can it be that Barack Obama, this great leader and political thinker, this man deemed shrewd, brilliant, original and fresh in all things political, has not spoken to the person authorized to appoint the successor to his senate seat? Or is this some sort of cynical joke? Could it really be that the man who is on top of all issues, the most ready man in America, has not once discussed succession with the Illinois governor? Not one time? Are they not long-time political allies?
Alas, I find that I am impaled on the horns of a dilemma: Barack Obama is either lying or he is not very attentive. If he is lying, then he is not a great president-elect. But if he is not lying, then he is not very attentive. And if he is not very attentive, then he is not a great president-elect.
But maybe, instead of creating apparently false dilemmas for myself, I should be asking this thoroughly popular question: Aren't there more urgent issues than character and corruption that we should be addressing?
Again, or so it seems, the corruption that we have learned of this week is, to bootleg Barack Obama's almost epigrammatic and always convenient turn of phrase, "just a distraction."
It might be a tad audacious to hope that Mr. Obama does not throw Rod Blagojevich under the now infamous bus. I suspect that Mr. Blagojevich, who seems just a tiny bit self-interested, might have a lot to share during his deposition. Let's just hope the governor doesn't commit suicide.
Peace.
©2008/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.
Friday, December 05, 2008
A Huge Windfall That Few Are Talking About
Since I am a bit under the weather, I will preemptively absolve myself for any and all absurdities I pen here this evening. With said absolution at hand, I wish to say that the dramatic rending of garments and political posturing in Washington, DC over the current economic crisis and attendant bailouts is insignificant, at least insofar as any economic recovery is concerned.
There, I said it. Permit me to say it differently: This bailout stuff is a joke.
The main reason we are seeing such a downturn in the American economy is that we are finally seeing the effects of high gasoline and oil prices in America. The housing and credit crisis is a different matter; I believe that issue is only tangentially related. But the Big Three crisis in Detroit is directly related: despite Detroit's many internal woes and weaknesses, the domestic automobile industry has been sorely damaged by the high cost of fuel.
Moreover, all sorts of industries have been adversely affected by fuel costs, whether in heating/cooling and production, or in delivery and distribution. The price of fuel has been viciously high, and we are finally seeing the many corrections both in capital and in labor necessary to get by.
Alas, fuel costs have dropped precipitously in just a few short weeks. Merrill Lynch has predicted that a barrel of oil could fall to below $25 in the next 12 months. Amazing, and important.
Why? Because the cost of fuel is the number one recovery dynamic in our economy. That's just my opinion; but we will begin to see a recovery down the road that is rooted in the recent declines in oil prices. By comparison, all the bailout rhetoric and plans and handouts will have a smaller and more delayed effect on the economy; fuel costs trump a bailout plan any day of the week. But Washington WILL take the praise for the economic recovery that is inevitable from today's low fuel costs. (I am not saying that the recovery will be long-lasting, only that it WILL happen, all things remaining relatively equal.)
If what professor Mark Perry claims is true (see here), that every penny decrease in the price of gasoline per gallon saves American consumers at least $1.42 billion a year, then the recent $2.29 drop in gas prices will save American consumers at least $325 billion in the next 12 months. The good news is that if gasoline drops even further, the savings could exceed $500 billion a year. And that is ONLY gasoline. We have not considered what the savings on heating oil suggests numerically.
All this to say that the equivalent of a third- or half-trillion dollar tax break will do wonders for the economy. Hopefully, it will be the sort of tax break that will remain relatively permanent. But who knows? One thing we do know: All sorts of politicians are currently clamoring for the most advantageous position from which they may boast that they have delivered us from economic evil.
Downside: Lower fuel costs keep America dependent on foreign sources of fuel. Now is the time to really wean ourselves from that dependency. We mustn't be lulled into complacency by affordable fuel. And let us not forget the environmental downsides of oil use.
Prediction: If gasoline drops $.25/gallon in the next four weeks, Americans will begin to purchase more cars from Detroit ... especially if Detroit starts building Hondas.
(Fact: At Thanksgiving Dinner with my relatives, I noted 13 cars in the yard. Six were Hondas, two were Toyotas, one was a Hyundai. The remaining four were Detroit products: two Chevys, one Ford, and one Buick. How hard would it be for Detroit to make a car as good as a Honda? Alas, even if they could make one, it may be too late to rescue the Detroit brands' reputation.)
©2008. All Rights Reserved.
There, I said it. Permit me to say it differently: This bailout stuff is a joke.
The main reason we are seeing such a downturn in the American economy is that we are finally seeing the effects of high gasoline and oil prices in America. The housing and credit crisis is a different matter; I believe that issue is only tangentially related. But the Big Three crisis in Detroit is directly related: despite Detroit's many internal woes and weaknesses, the domestic automobile industry has been sorely damaged by the high cost of fuel.
Moreover, all sorts of industries have been adversely affected by fuel costs, whether in heating/cooling and production, or in delivery and distribution. The price of fuel has been viciously high, and we are finally seeing the many corrections both in capital and in labor necessary to get by.
Alas, fuel costs have dropped precipitously in just a few short weeks. Merrill Lynch has predicted that a barrel of oil could fall to below $25 in the next 12 months. Amazing, and important.
Why? Because the cost of fuel is the number one recovery dynamic in our economy. That's just my opinion; but we will begin to see a recovery down the road that is rooted in the recent declines in oil prices. By comparison, all the bailout rhetoric and plans and handouts will have a smaller and more delayed effect on the economy; fuel costs trump a bailout plan any day of the week. But Washington WILL take the praise for the economic recovery that is inevitable from today's low fuel costs. (I am not saying that the recovery will be long-lasting, only that it WILL happen, all things remaining relatively equal.)
If what professor Mark Perry claims is true (see here), that every penny decrease in the price of gasoline per gallon saves American consumers at least $1.42 billion a year, then the recent $2.29 drop in gas prices will save American consumers at least $325 billion in the next 12 months. The good news is that if gasoline drops even further, the savings could exceed $500 billion a year. And that is ONLY gasoline. We have not considered what the savings on heating oil suggests numerically.
All this to say that the equivalent of a third- or half-trillion dollar tax break will do wonders for the economy. Hopefully, it will be the sort of tax break that will remain relatively permanent. But who knows? One thing we do know: All sorts of politicians are currently clamoring for the most advantageous position from which they may boast that they have delivered us from economic evil.
Downside: Lower fuel costs keep America dependent on foreign sources of fuel. Now is the time to really wean ourselves from that dependency. We mustn't be lulled into complacency by affordable fuel. And let us not forget the environmental downsides of oil use.
Prediction: If gasoline drops $.25/gallon in the next four weeks, Americans will begin to purchase more cars from Detroit ... especially if Detroit starts building Hondas.
(Fact: At Thanksgiving Dinner with my relatives, I noted 13 cars in the yard. Six were Hondas, two were Toyotas, one was a Hyundai. The remaining four were Detroit products: two Chevys, one Ford, and one Buick. How hard would it be for Detroit to make a car as good as a Honda? Alas, even if they could make one, it may be too late to rescue the Detroit brands' reputation.)
©2008. All Rights Reserved.
Rerun
Because I have been sick at home all week (save Wednesday, when I attended a funeral), I have not been inclined to write. Suffice it to say that I have not been my best.
While rather nonchalantly reviewing a few of my older posts, I landed on "Oscar Wilde, Seinfeld, And Peace That Eludes." I decided that I liked it. I hope you don't mind if I rerun it here.
Several weeks back I noted in the local paper that a group of concerned citizens was hoping to erect a "peace pole" in the local park. In the article, at least one person was quoted expressing some bemusement at the idea, unsure what the pole would actually represent. Well, the essay that follows speaks to that bemusement and uncertainty rather well, I think.
OSCAR WILDE, SEINFELD, AND PEACE THAT ELUDES
While rather nonchalantly reviewing a few of my older posts, I landed on "Oscar Wilde, Seinfeld, And Peace That Eludes." I decided that I liked it. I hope you don't mind if I rerun it here.
Several weeks back I noted in the local paper that a group of concerned citizens was hoping to erect a "peace pole" in the local park. In the article, at least one person was quoted expressing some bemusement at the idea, unsure what the pole would actually represent. Well, the essay that follows speaks to that bemusement and uncertainty rather well, I think.
OSCAR WILDE, SEINFELD, AND PEACE THAT ELUDES
A belated Happy Thanksgiving to you all, at least to each of you American readers out there.
I had a truly outstanding conversation the other night, as my wife and I were driving homeward. It was about getting to know people, whether we really ever want to know a person, what he or she really thinks, what he or she really believes. My wife suggested that we don't, for true understanding and intimacy are too difficult, carrying with them responsibilities and obligations. She even suggested that we are afraid to really know another person because then we are forced to choose whether we really like, love, or at least respect that person. It is easy to be superficial, we agreed, because the surface is always safe. Are we not after all afraid of drowning below the fine line between sky and sea?
I am often amazed how thin the line is between civility and incivility. Propriety, mores, etiquette; these are often a cheap veneer concealing real animosity, even, sadly, real hatred. I have attended symposia that give lip service to community and understanding and peace, only to discover that such lip service means getting a fat lip should one question the agenda that drives toward said peace. What is peace, anyway, but a veneer, even an abstraction?
Two Friday nights ago, I attended a concert and poetry reading on the human cost of war. It was a peace vigil, of sorts, complete with a chamber choir that managed to achieve the supernal glory of angels. That the event took place in a Unitarian church full of people that would disagree with me on nearly everything hardly mattered: I thanked the performers and the conductor (a man who had injured me greatly) with all my heart. They achieved something wonderful; and I made my peace with a man who once wounded me deeply.
But in that event I heard two things about peace, two poetic images: One was of a soldier who suggested that each fighter on the battlefied instead should be home cuddling with a loved one beneath silk sheets; the other was a soldier's contemplation of the songs of birds on the edge of the battlefield. Odd that both images, in fact, all images of peace such as these, should bother me. Why? Because they are vapid and untrue. For surely not all men can cuddle beneath silk sheets, since such sheets are the privilege of the wealthy. Besides, not only does some poor sap need to make those sheets, not all men can be coddled, for someone needs to do the coddling. The image of the sheets in fact might be the very sort of image that causes wars, wars between those who have, and those who don't; between the coddled and the coddler; between master and slave. Indeed, I know metaphor, and the metaphor of silk bedding fails to evoke the proper sense of real peace, simply because it neglects the facts of life.
The second image, that of the bucolic and pastoral; of the plangent peel of bells, the lambent light of moon, or the swaying softness of long grasses in the wind; these and many images like them are invoked to elicit a peaceful heart. Look! There is no war in poppy fields, no struggle in winter's solace, no fighting on the edges of heather downs and sylvan streams. Look at the deer, the rabbit, the undulating flight of the pileated across the sun-stained sky!
Alas, any person with a smattering of knowledge knows that there is no peace in a meadow; there is no ease of life for the bird or bloom in the grasses. A deer is rife with stress; even its cousin, the moose, may have in its hocks the leeching mandibles of ten thousand ticks. The struggle of life, of prey and predator, of host and parasite, of disease and cold and wet and heat, that plays out in every single square inch of this planet gives no room for the romanticization of peace. An eagle on a branch is not a symbol of peace, nor is the owl hooting in the night wind. They are looking for victims, and are trying not to be victims themselves. Whatever one might say about the earth, peace is not one of its fundamental qualities. There is not a cell or fleck of soil that is not at war with something.
What then is peace but an abstraction of the mind? Why reify, why make concrete what is forever abstract? Why do we see peace in a calm sea, when we know that the ocean's surface conceals a violent surge of fin and fang?
***I had a truly outstanding conversation the other night, as my wife and I were driving homeward. It was about getting to know people, whether we really ever want to know a person, what he or she really thinks, what he or she really believes. My wife suggested that we don't, for true understanding and intimacy are too difficult, carrying with them responsibilities and obligations. She even suggested that we are afraid to really know another person because then we are forced to choose whether we really like, love, or at least respect that person. It is easy to be superficial, we agreed, because the surface is always safe. Are we not after all afraid of drowning below the fine line between sky and sea?
I am often amazed how thin the line is between civility and incivility. Propriety, mores, etiquette; these are often a cheap veneer concealing real animosity, even, sadly, real hatred. I have attended symposia that give lip service to community and understanding and peace, only to discover that such lip service means getting a fat lip should one question the agenda that drives toward said peace. What is peace, anyway, but a veneer, even an abstraction?
Two Friday nights ago, I attended a concert and poetry reading on the human cost of war. It was a peace vigil, of sorts, complete with a chamber choir that managed to achieve the supernal glory of angels. That the event took place in a Unitarian church full of people that would disagree with me on nearly everything hardly mattered: I thanked the performers and the conductor (a man who had injured me greatly) with all my heart. They achieved something wonderful; and I made my peace with a man who once wounded me deeply.
But in that event I heard two things about peace, two poetic images: One was of a soldier who suggested that each fighter on the battlefied instead should be home cuddling with a loved one beneath silk sheets; the other was a soldier's contemplation of the songs of birds on the edge of the battlefield. Odd that both images, in fact, all images of peace such as these, should bother me. Why? Because they are vapid and untrue. For surely not all men can cuddle beneath silk sheets, since such sheets are the privilege of the wealthy. Besides, not only does some poor sap need to make those sheets, not all men can be coddled, for someone needs to do the coddling. The image of the sheets in fact might be the very sort of image that causes wars, wars between those who have, and those who don't; between the coddled and the coddler; between master and slave. Indeed, I know metaphor, and the metaphor of silk bedding fails to evoke the proper sense of real peace, simply because it neglects the facts of life.
The second image, that of the bucolic and pastoral; of the plangent peel of bells, the lambent light of moon, or the swaying softness of long grasses in the wind; these and many images like them are invoked to elicit a peaceful heart. Look! There is no war in poppy fields, no struggle in winter's solace, no fighting on the edges of heather downs and sylvan streams. Look at the deer, the rabbit, the undulating flight of the pileated across the sun-stained sky!
Alas, any person with a smattering of knowledge knows that there is no peace in a meadow; there is no ease of life for the bird or bloom in the grasses. A deer is rife with stress; even its cousin, the moose, may have in its hocks the leeching mandibles of ten thousand ticks. The struggle of life, of prey and predator, of host and parasite, of disease and cold and wet and heat, that plays out in every single square inch of this planet gives no room for the romanticization of peace. An eagle on a branch is not a symbol of peace, nor is the owl hooting in the night wind. They are looking for victims, and are trying not to be victims themselves. Whatever one might say about the earth, peace is not one of its fundamental qualities. There is not a cell or fleck of soil that is not at war with something.
What then is peace but an abstraction of the mind? Why reify, why make concrete what is forever abstract? Why do we see peace in a calm sea, when we know that the ocean's surface conceals a violent surge of fin and fang?
You might recall a Seinfeld episode in which Jerry has a transformation, a sort of born-again experience. He is the new Jerry, the good Jerry. At one point, the new Jerry and George, his best friend, sit down for a heart-to-heart, with Jerry urging George to open up, to be vulnerable with his feelings. Later, when the camera returns to the scene, we find George on the edge of grateful tears and Jerry on the far edge of the couch, a look of horror on his face. He stands up, backs away, and says "Well, good luck with all that." In a moment of honest confession, Jerry gets to know his friend as he truly is, and he rejects him, put off by the enormity of the responsibility of intimacy: George's struggles would weigh him down, and Jerry is scared straight back into superficiality.
Oscar Wilde, a man imprisoned for his homosexuality and one of my emerging literary heroes (though not for that reason), wrote from Reading Gaol (where he served his sentence) that the "supreme vice is shallowness." Is he right? I think he might be. For we humans are shallow about what peace is, what it looks like, where it's found. We are shallow even about love, what it means, what it requires: sacrifice, grace, understanding, the carrying of burdens and the confronting of sin and its consequences, and the confronting of the sinful machinations erected to conceal human brokenness and guilt. It is easier if there is no sin, no guilt, no deep dark unknown beneath the veneer of our daily lives. It is easier for us if a loved one who ignores our warnings crashes to the ground and bounces up, like so many little children do, and declares "I'm alright!" It is easier particularly when we know that our loved one is not alright at all.
Someday, somewhere, I will learn how to live below the surfaces I polish daily.
Peace.
©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.
Oscar Wilde, a man imprisoned for his homosexuality and one of my emerging literary heroes (though not for that reason), wrote from Reading Gaol (where he served his sentence) that the "supreme vice is shallowness." Is he right? I think he might be. For we humans are shallow about what peace is, what it looks like, where it's found. We are shallow even about love, what it means, what it requires: sacrifice, grace, understanding, the carrying of burdens and the confronting of sin and its consequences, and the confronting of the sinful machinations erected to conceal human brokenness and guilt. It is easier if there is no sin, no guilt, no deep dark unknown beneath the veneer of our daily lives. It is easier for us if a loved one who ignores our warnings crashes to the ground and bounces up, like so many little children do, and declares "I'm alright!" It is easier particularly when we know that our loved one is not alright at all.
Someday, somewhere, I will learn how to live below the surfaces I polish daily.
Peace.
©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.
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