Trav Trivia

Volume 4, Number 29

October 27, 2008 -- It’s been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, the men are good looking, and all the children are above average … no, wait, that’s Garrison Keillor’s shtick. Let’s revise that. It’s been a quiet week in Foggy Bottom, where all the opinions are strong, the chances of Democrats are good looking, and the rhetoric is above average. It is now a waiting game with but nine days to go, so those Brie-and-Chablis Democrats and multi-millionaire-Joe-six-pack Republicans clustered around the Foggy Bottom Watergate have a lot to discuss while they check on the latest poll results, like the stock brokers that used to be depicted in cartoons standing around ticker tape machines checking the latest numbers (a sentence that would qualify for the old New Yorker Magazine category of “Mixed Metaphors). And what were the topics of discussion? What kept the on-air blowviators, battering ram bloggers, and perpetrators of print pejoratives busy during calm in the eye of the storm?

There is much introspection while we wait. In a remarkable show of force, The New York Times paraded out nine, count ‘em nine, of their regular, top-drawer columnists in Sunday’s OpEd section to make their pronouncements. Maureen Dowd, Nicholas Kristof, David Brooks, Timothy Egan, Thomas Friedman, Gail Collins, Paul Krugman, Judith Warner, and Frank Rich, all on one day! It’s a motherboard overload. If the brain had a hard drive, it would crash. No one topic dominated this week. Just lots of soul searching.

Is our intellectuals unpatriotic? That may be a paraphrase of an oft-quoted George Bush comment, but the question is real in some quarters. Who are “Real” Americans? Got a college degree? Live in a big city? That lets you out, you unpatriotic haters of America and God. In Virginia last week, McCain adviser Nancy Pfotenhauer spoke of a “real Virginia — the part of the state “more Southern in nature.” Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) told Chris Mathews on Hardball that Senator Obama may have "anti-American views" and called for the media to conduct a “penetrating exposé” into alleged anti-American views of members of Congress, which are “pro-American, which are anti-American.” Rep. Robin Hayes (R-NC) proclaimed "Liberals hate real Americans that work and accomplish and achieve and believe in God." As conservative columnist Kathleen Parker put it, “they (Republicans) do not want to vote for a divisive, anti-intellectual ticket.”

Timothy Egan in Sunday’s NY Times wrote about the “peculiar us-and-them parlance of Sarah Palin.” She says the “brightest, most productive communities in the United States are fake American … latte-sipping weenie,” the “brightest, most productive communities in the United States.” These are fake Americans? The GOP has become “the party of small-mindedness.” Since McCain went over to the stupid side he “has turned his “campaign over to the audience of Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity.” You’ve got to admit those latte-sipping intellectuals can get mean when riled.

Choosing Up Sides … when I was a kid before we played a game one team captain gripped a bat with one hand somewhere in the middle, the other team captain then gripped it just above his opponents hand, and they worked their way one hand after another until they reached the top and the last guy to try couldn’t get a grip. That determined who had first choice of players. In our current political version, the reverse is true: the players pick the captain. Endorsements are rolling in.

On the McCain side, he has a couple he could do without, the full support of President Bush, and it is reported on mid-east radio, al Qaeda, who apparently believe a saber rattling McCain is a better recruiting figure than Obama.

On the Democratic side, Obama can open his door and invite a bevy of Republican defectors into to join his party (the event, not his political party). Most notable is Retired General Colin Powell, former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld (R) and former Minnesota Gov. Arne Carlson (R) will vote Obama.

Former Bush Press Secretary Scott McClellan, former Bush adviser and prominent neo-conservative Ken Adelman will do the same. Adelman bases his move on temperament and judgment … “impetuous, inconsistent, and imprudent,” ending up with “just plain weird.” Harvard’s Charles Fried, solicitor general under President Reagan, couldn’t take the choice of Gov. Palin (neither could Colin Powell and others). Conservative Philadelphia talk-show host Michael Smerconish will vote Democratic for the first time in his life. Christopher Buckley, son of Bill F. and Christopher Hitchens are already on board. As is Susan Eisenhower, Dwight’s granddaughter. In addition, at least 27 newspapers that backed President Bush in 2004 have endorsed Obama. It’s almost as though John McCain, or Sarah Palin, had an STD.

Mathew Dowd, a political consultant and chief strategist for George W. Bush’s reelection campaign, also has a take the choice of Sarah Palin. “[McCain] knows, in his gut, that he put somebody unqualified on the ballot. He knows that in his gut, and when this race is over that is something he will have to live with… He put somebody unqualified on that ballot and he put the country at risk, he knows that.”

Here is Saturday Night Live’s take on a McCain endorsement:

http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/clips/update-thursday-bush-endorsement/783981/

What it costs to introduce a new product ... when you figure Coca-Cola spent $2.6 billion to advertise their product in 2006, the $150,000 the RNC spent on clothes and accessories at high-end stores like Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue for the woman nicknamed “Caribou Barbie,” Sarah Palin, doesn’t seem like much. There may be a little problem for her to accept such gifts under the Alaska Ethics Law, but she has already been found guilty of violating that anyway (Palin and the campaign now say they are going to donate them to charity). Money spent on the three daughters totaled $21.012. Then there was the makeup artist who was paid $22,800 for the first two weeks of October (a little hard to give to charity), the highest-paid individual on the campaign. Add to that about ten grand for a hair stylist, plus a voice coach. That lady is former New York stage and screen actress Pricilla Shanks. According to Robert Draper in Sunday’s New York Times Magazine, the expense for Ms. Shanks was listed under Operating Expenditures and Get-Out-The-Vote consulting in finance reports. Columnist Maureen Dowd wrote: “She is so naturally good-looking, there is no need to gild the Last Frontier lily.” Eat your heart out, Maureen. A clothes feeding frenzy, the closest thing to penis envy. It is hard to fit this to the picture of the frugal hockey mom who shops at Wal-Mart. No wonder when asked if she would join the ticket she said “You Betcha.”

As if a re-run of an old Saturday Night Live show, “Never Mind.” … Former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, SEC chairman Christopher Cox, and former Treasury secretary John Snow appeared before a Congressional committee last week and admitted mistakes were made. Even Greenspan agrees now that regulations are in order. But as late as last December a Federal Reserve Governor, Edward Gramlich, urged Fed examiners to investigate mortgage lenders affiliated with national banks, but was rebuffed by Alan Greenspan. And Greenspan now says in effect “We Blew It.” Well, O.K. then, you apologized. We may be in for another Great Depression, but we all make a little mistake now and then.

Shuffling the wealth around … the Bush Administration pulled off the biggest redistribution of wealth in modern history, but John McCain is sure that the Obama tax plans are “socialism,” even though it mainly puts taxes back like they were before the Bush tax changes that McCain originally opposed came into being, the ones that moved wealth up the ladder. As the New York Observer noted “Progressive taxation is a tradition of Western economics that dates back considerably further than Marx and the Communist manifesto.” Adam Smith in 1776: “The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state.” Senator McCain, are you suggesting Adam Smith, author of “The Wealth of Nations,” was a socialist?”

It takes one to know one … Governor Palin continues to claim Obama palls around with terrorists, but who is a terrorist? In interviews she will not label a man who bombs abortion clinics, killing and maiming people, a terrorist. She talks about “real patriotic Americans” but to go over old ground, how can she get away with it since she and her husband, Todd, at one time belonged to the Alaska Independence Party whose founder, Joe Volger, stated "I'm an Alaskan, not an American. I've got no use for America or her damned institutions … The fires of Hell are glaciers compared to my hate for the American government." I don’t know how she gets away with this, even repackaged in designer clothes. Eight more days before votes are in. Will she go back to Alaska then? Some observers say if they lose, she will be in a strong position to run for the presidency in 2012. McCain has created a monster.

I voted early so I’m done, but I wouldn’t want you to think I voted willy-nilly, just based on gut feelings. I voted very scientifically, using a statistics-based creed called “sabermetrics.” According to Billy Blaine, Newt Gingrich, and John Kerry, baseball teams are now using this evidence based method to make player decisions: do they keep a great player who is about to go over the hill? Who gives them the most performance for their buck? It is being used successfully to field better teams more cost effectively. Sounds sensible to me.

The formulas being used are “WHIP (walks and hits per inning pitched), VORP (value over replacement player, or runs created — a number derived from the formula [(hits + walks) x total bases]/(at bats + walks).” Applying this system to the presidential nominees I came up with:

Walks and hits per inning pitched … an evaluation of the “pitches” (television ads) indicates more negative than positive ads on the Republican side.

Value over replacement players … it’s Biden vs. Palin as replacement for the president should one be necessary and I have to go with Biden all the way.

Filling in the long formula it is:

Hits … party acceptance speeches. Although Palin made a strong sowing, I have to go with the Democratic team.

Walks … a toss-up between Obama with Joe the plumber and McCain and the crazy lady at McCain rally.

Bases … how well they are doing with their base according to the polls, and important endorsements. No question Obama is ahead on that score.

A bats … how much talking about the issues versus talking about personalities, clearly a Democratic win.

Walks … the Republican vice presidential nominee on her walkabouts would not respond to reporters, showing disdain for answering reporter’s questions and keeping the public informed. A definite minus to the formula.

I ran the numbers. Made my decision. Have the satisfaction of knowing I took a strictly scientific approach. Newt Gingrich should be proud of me.

Volume 4, Number 28

October 20, 2008 -- Late in the day on a crisp Fall October afternoon in the year 1066 an Englishman took a stray arrow to the throat, which is why we speak the English language the way we do today. For the next couple of hundred years in jolly old England it was a gutter language, spoken only in the streets, French and Latin being the official lingo, and without the heavy hand of grammarians and pedantic professors it slowly morphed into the extraordinary language used worldwide today.

Because a mortgage broker in Southern California made a “liar’s loan” the police department in Northumbria, England, will have to reduce the number of men they put on patrol this weekend. Well, it took more than one “liar’s loan,” but you get the drift. Events have global consequences. It’s like throwing a pebble in the water on one side of the Pacific and you get a tsunami on the other.

Columnist Thomas Friedman in Sunday’s New York Times made the connection. A few years ago the government of Iceland let its three big banks loose to do whatever they fancy, and they fancied giving 5.4% on savings accounts. Money rolled in from all over Europe, including that police department, colleges like Cambridge, business, and institutions of all sorts and the banks grew ten-fold in short order. But bingo, the financial crises sunk their ship, the government of Iceland took them over and depositors can’t get to their money. Both the banks and the government of Iceland seem to be bankrupt.

My advice to Iceland is to barter. In the bad times of the thirties one of my uncles, a doctor, believed in treating people of all race, religion, color or economic status whether they could pay him or not. He drove the back roads of the Texas Brazos Bottom treating all and sundry who needed him, and for years thereafter ever so often a poor sharecropper would show up at his back door with a bushel of tomatoes, string beans, cucumbers, or squash to offer. I’ve read that Iceland is covered up with sheep, so many in fact that almost all of the native vegetation is gone. I can’t say a steady stream of racks of lamb would put more police on the streets of Northumbria, but at least, like my uncle, they would eat better.

Wall Street did catch hell on the OpEd pages of the New York Times. Columnist Maureen Dowd rooted out this story from the London News of the World. Remember the AIG insurance company that we are bailing out with $123 billion of taxpayer’s money? A group of their top executives turned up in Dorset at a British countryside manor for a shooting party ...and spent $17,500 for food and rooms. The private jet to get there cost another $17,500, and the limos added up to $8,000 more. It said they dined on pigeon breast. Is that elitist (now such a dirty word)? I ate pigeon frequently as a child, the birds coming from the rows of pigeon coops we maintained. I don’t know whether to feel good or bad about that.

When New York’s Attorney General, Andrew Cuomo, learned of it he was livid. At least he was successful in stopping a $10 million severance payment to Stephen Bensinger, the chief financial officer.

A phrase in a Thomas Friedman column earlier in the week has been rattling around in my brain and I can‘t seem to get rid of it. “Boom, Bubble and Bust.” Spoken rhythmically and repeated it comes off like a chant in a Disney cartoon feature. A group of Wall Street managers and hedge fund types marching down Wall Street chanting:

Boom, bubble and bust.

Boom, bubble and bust.

A mortgage share is just thin air.

The paper turns to dust.

 

Boom, bubble and bust.

Boom, bubble and bust.

The American dream turns Ponzi scheme.

But sates our money lust.

Friedman says “some people call it Y.B.G. and I.B.G. lending: ‘you’ll be gone and I’ll be gone’ before the bill comes due.” Men think in herds, he says. It’s the madness of crowds. In which case, in the words of Thomas Hardy, take me “Far From The Madding Crowd.”

The only world figure to move swiftly on the financial crises is British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Within hours after the weekend meeting of the big international players he had a plan going to make major equity injections into British Banks. Of course, economics is his strong point, having watched the till successfully all those years for Tony Blair., but Mr. Personality he is not. I guess it’s hard as a banker to portray loveable. His maneuver so impressed us on this side of the pond we reversed course, and now plans to buy equity stakes rather than bad mortgage securities. Wonder if Brown would consider moonlighting for us. Since he is probably going to lose the next election, perhaps he could join us and we could have our own Chancellor of the Exchequer. It has a nice ring to it.

How much doom and how much gloom? NY Times columnist David Brooks claims most economists believe the worst is yet to come. Higher unemployment. More companies going bankrupt. Commercial real estate to decline. More credit card defaults. Nonprofit organizations will suffer. There are others who look into the cup and the tea leaves tell them we are in for a nasty economic slump that is going to be long and brutal. Advice to all squirrels: better build a bigger stockpile of nuts.

On the bright side, NY Times columnist Roger Cohen gives us this quote from one-time vice president Dan Quayle. “The future will be better tomorrow.” And MY Times columnist Nicholas Kristof writes that anyone who is a decade or more away from retirement, the bear market gives them a chance to pick up bargains for their 401k which will appreciate. Someone who can afford it may be able to pick up a house at a good price. The kicker is if you have lost your job the matter is moot. And if you are older you don’t have time to recoup, particularly if you have to draw from your 401k now when the market is suffering. Kristof also notes that happiness has less to do with money than friendship. Which is why you see all of those jolly songfests by the homeless living beneath the overpass.

Republicans seem determined to make the world better for Joe the Plumber, who we all now know is not a licensed plumber and who would come out better under the Obama economic plan than under the one from John McCain. I think McCain is a real “chutzpadik” (I love that word) as a Republican to bring up the word “plumber” at all. Does he think we are all too young to remember Liddy and Hunt, the Republican “plumbers” who broke into Watergate on behalf of Nixon?

Joe the Plumber was like a third person in the debate, last of the series. It seems that it’s O.K. to accuse Obama of palling around with terrorists, but not say that about Sarah Palin. Her pal is her husband, seven-year member of the anti-American extremist Alaska Independence Party, the founder and leader of which, Joe Vogler, said things like “The fires of hell are frozen glaciers compared to my hatred for the American government. I’ve got no use for America or her damned institutions.” Although David Letterman gave McCain what for about it, in the debate, it did not come up. See the Saturday Night Live version of the final debate here:

http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/clips/update-thursday-final-debate/768721/

The Palin approach to the campaign rallies has kicked up a lot of hue and cry. Time Magazine’s Michael Schere: “McCain's effort to paint Obama as awful appears to be stirring up widespread racial, religious and xenophobic prejudices which are not acceptable." Blogger Andrew Sullivan says the crowd “explodes on cue like a microwaved bag of popcorn.” Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne: “… a campaign that strengthens fanaticism, tarnishes the authority of the next president and whips up the worst kinds of prejudice. … You know, the conservative hero William F. Buckley Jr. said, ‘I've spent my entire lifetime separating the right from the kooks.”

The son of Mr. Buckley is now a Republican pariah coming out for Obama, castigated heavily by the right as only they can do. “I haven’t left the Republican Party. It left me.” said Christopher Buckley, who had to give up his column in the National Review, the publication his father started in 1955. Colin Powell has had to don a flack jacket for the same reason. You just don’t want to mess with the mighty Russ Limbaugh.

Under the heading of “why have we been doing this for the last two years?” comes this bit of political history from the New Yorker Magazine: “In keeping with the tradition of the first five American Presidents, John Quincy Adams considered currying favor with voters to be beneath the dignity of the office (of the presidency), and believed that any man who craved the Presidency ought not to have it.” But just think of what it would do to the economy if nobody campaigned, if nobody spent all of those millions and millions trying to win, if there were no press junkets, if there were no television appearances. And we wouldn’t know what to do with ourselves.

Politically, I try hard to keep up with my peers, but sometimes it’s hard. At a Republican rally last week Fred Thompson (you remember him, the multimillion dollar common man with the young trophy wife, who performed better delivering his lines on Law and Order than he did on the presidential campaign trail) spoke disdainfully about “Chablis and Brie” people, like me I suppose. Now as I said, I try to live up to what is expected of me, but unlike Fred I can’t afford a good premier grand cru Chablis, which will run you about two grand a bottle. That doesn’t sound like any Democrat I know. Obama is going to have to spread a lot of wealth around to make that the drink of liberals. McCain, awash in Budweiser beer money, would easily be able to spring for a bottle like that now and then, but I doubt if Joe Biden drinks it on the club car on his way back to Delaware every night. Come to think of it, neither Fred nor John, 66 and 72 respectfully, would want to wait the recommended 7 to 12 years to drink it, and that certainly lets me out.

The other problem is that in taste tests it is reported that Brie is terrible with Chablis. The recommend cheese is Chèvre, fruit of the goat (there may be some symbolism there). Senator Thompson, where are you finding all of the elitists drinking Chablis and eating Brie? If I am going to have to imitate them, I need role models. I don’t see Henry Waxman straining it through his mustache. Dour Harry Reid doesn’t look the type. It seems too festive for him. Hillary Clinton is said to go for straight shots of Vodka. Seems to me, Senator Thompson, you would be more apt to find those persons among your fellow lobbyists. As for me, I will probably have more luck trying for “Joe Six-Pack.” Of course the beer has to be Fat Tire, Newcastle Brown Ale, Harp Larger, Bass Ale, or the like. You can carry this Joe Six-Pack thing just so far.

And in case you missed it, here are some clips from Sarah Palin’s appearance on Saturday Night Live:

http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/clips/gov-palin-cold-open/773761/

http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/clips/update-palin-rap/773781/

Obama and McCain appearances at the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Service Dinner:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/27231593#27231593

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/27231610#27231610

And John McCain’s appearance on David Letterman:

Part I - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v48l5s8qryk

Part II - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiI4z9h6cgA

Part III - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hV93U115RnM

Part IV - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHHcvho3CT0

Volume 4, Number 27

October 13, 2008 -- Parathyroidectomy they called it. A simple procedure to remove a misbehaving parathyroid which I did not know beforehand that I even had. It turns out you have four of them , making it easy to purge one without a sense of loss. Kind of a useful suffix, “Ectomy.” Think appendectomy. Tonsillectomy. Hysterectomy. I want to undergo a SarahPalinEctomy. I walked out of my house a couple of days ago and saw a Palin sign in the yard next door, and in the yard across the street. The movers come Tuesday.

The Governor has turned into Joe McCarthy in drag. In the course of doing the normal vice-presidential campaign duty of trashing the opposition’s presidential nominee she is making guilt by association an art form.

Just as recent McCain TV ads do, Palin attempts to tie Obama to William Ayers, a radical in the 1960s when Barack was 8 years old. Obama “launched his political career in the living room of a domestic terrorist.” He is “palling around with terrorists” she says (more than one? Who are the others?). Obama is “not a man who sees America the way you and I see America,” she says (and I say thank God for that). She brands him an enemy of American troops (McCain is only an enemy after they get home and try to get some benefits as promised). Obama sees "America as being so imperfect that he is palling around with terrorists who would target their own country.”

The McCain strategy is to send the candidates to places where everybody is a die-hard supporter of McCain, then yell about Obama until the crowd is frenzied and starts making threats. As NY Times columnist Frank Rich writes, there are cries of “Treason!” “Terrorist!” ‘Off With His Head.” “Kill Him!” In America, no less. Not Germany in the thirties. Not is some Arabic country. But in America in 2008.

I agree with Rich, who reported on these rallies, that this is despicable. Sad to say it seems to me there are base instincts of cruelty embedded deep within all of humanity that will well up when beckoned by demagoguery. It makes talk radio and Fox News popular.

It got so bad at one rally that McCain himself tried to tamp it down, and got booed for his efforts.

It is too much for even pundit George Will, who complains that the McCain campaign is “less that Obama has bad ideas than that Obama is a bad person.” I go with the view of Senator Joe Biden, who says about Obama: The man’s "confidence, cognitive ability, judgment and intellectual security—that he can listen and absorb advice without having to prove he's the smartest person in the room.” Pretty good qualifications for a terrorist.

This is coming off like a Sarah Palin witch hunt, with which you probably know she has some experience through her church in Alaska. The church was a host for an evangelical minister from Africa who had managed to banish a local witch through the power of prayer. He laid hands on Sarah Palin (in the gospel sense) and prayed for success in her campaign for governor, and she gives him appropriate credit for the outcome. You might call her campaign to destroy the career of her ex-brother-in-law a witch hunt but we will leave that to the authorities who have it under investigation.

The irony of Palin ranting about guilt by association is that the same claim could be made against the Governor herself. Robert F. Kenney Jr. wrote in Huffington Post that “Palin, it could be argued, following her own logic, thinks so little of America's perfection that she continues to "pal around" with a man--her husband, actually--who only recently terminated his seven-year membership in the Alaskan Independence Party.” If that sounds like a benign after-hours poker group, think again. It was led by a man named Joe Vogler who trashed the United States and all of its institutions, claimed the making of Alaska a state was illegal and preached the harshest brand of anti-Americanism. Loveable Todd belonged to this organization for seven years. Mrs. Palin spoke to the group on two occasions, and I’ll wager that on neither occasion did she profess love of country. Yes, Governor, Obama is “not like you.”

"At the end of the day, campaigns are campaigns. In the last five days, it always comes down to a knife fight in a telephone booth." A quote from a Democratic political consultant, Chris Lehane. We have one more debate and 22 more days to go before this tortured process ends. It has been pointed out that this is the first campaign in which the two nominees of one party have both been found guilty of ethics violations: Palin for “Troopergate” and McCain long ago for the Keating savings and loan scandal. But then forgiveness is an American trait. Except among evangelicals.

Here is the Saturday Night Live version of last week's debate between Obama and McCain:

 http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/clips/update-thursday-debate-open/742065/

There are two more opposing sides that will vie for dominance in this election: intellectualism and anti-intellectualism. NY Times conservative columnist David Brooks weighs in on the subject, appropriately, since if there was ever an intellectual it is Mr. Brooks, which is what makes him and his mentor, the late William F. Buckley so much fun to read, even when you disagree with them. Here’s what he had to say: “What had been a disdain for liberal intellectuals slipped into a disdain for the educated class as a whole … no American politician plays the class-warfare card as constantly as Palin. Nobody so relentlessly divides the world between the ‘normal Joe Sixpack American’ and the coastal elite.” Personally, I feel better knowing someone a whole lot smarter than I am is in the White House. The “Heartland” or “Joe Sixpack” gave us George Bush, a man with neither the temperament nor the intellect for the job. Please don’t do it again.

It could all be moot anyway. Wall Street seems to have reached “the end time.” Not only Wall Street, but the entire financial world. Iceland has reached bankruptcy (want to buy a country? Cheap?). Have now been given its $700 billion stipend to do one thing, Treasury is now rethinking the process and intends to do something else, infusing American banks directly with cash and taking ownership stakes in return. You and I, since the government is ours, will now be able to put “banker” on our business cards.

Have you looked at your 401k lately? Economist and NY Times columnist Paul Krugman says about the market: “the only things anyone wants to buy right now are Treasury bills and bottled water.” Columnist David Brooks is pretty cynical: “central bankers and Treasury officials leap in to try to make the traders feel better. Officials pretend they’re coming up with policy responses, but much of what they do is political theater. In reality, they’re trying to cajole, bluff and calm their audience of global money-sloshers.”

The most important sloshers got together this past weekend, the group of seven: the United States, Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Canada, and Japan. To paraphrase the late Rodney Dangerfield, “What a group, what a group.” They agreed upon five principals, ranging from preventing the failure of important banks to protecting bank deposits. In effect, by partially nationalizing banking systems it effectively trashes the old concept of the free market system. And it happened on a conservative Republican watch!

We are still finding where to place the blame for this fiasco. Author Richard Dooling came up with a new one today in a New York Times OpEd piece: The computer! It seems we got along for 600 years using sticks with notches carved into them as “shares,” and we got along just fine. Now, he says, no one understands credit default obligations and derivatives (I find that almost comforting). “The best and brightest geeks Wall Street firms could buy —fed $1 trillion in subprime mortgage debt into their supercomputers, added some derivatives, massaged the arrangements with computer algorithms and — poof! — created $62 trillion in imaginary wealth … unregulated replication is applied to money itself. Highly complex computer-generated financial instruments (known as derivatives) are being produced, not from natural factors of production or other goods, but purely from other financial instruments.” We are “off-loading our minds onto super-intelligent machines, that is, until they run away from us, like mad sorcerers’ apprentices, and drag us to the precipice for a look down into the abyss.” Now I sometimes lose files, but $1 trillion? You don’t suppose it’s on the hard drive in there somewhere? What is he saying? We’ve been dealing with paper paper? Assets as a figment of our computer’s imagination? The revenge of Sci-Fi. I always knew those damn things would turn on us some day.

This notion of guilt by association as promulgated by Sarah Palin and the McCain campaign is nagging at me. Those of us who have spent any time at all in the PR game have by the nature of the business brushed up against one notorious figure or another. I once shook the hand of Rupert Murdock (along with about 500 other people at that evening event). Does that mean by my association with a rapacious publisher and owner of Fox television somehow puts me in the same category as Bill O’Reilly? I once was in a reception line that greeted Andrew Young, in his Civil Rights days, before his stint as Ambassador to the United Nations, and before as spokesperson for Wal-Mart, made a statement regarded as anti-Semitic. Am I now to be considered anti-Semitic? That chimpanzee I took to lunch that time at the Houston Club to meet the press was, I believe, the chimp that starred in a movie with Ronald Reagan. Does that make me a closet Republican? No, no, please say it isn’t so. Some things are just too hard for an old, pinko leftist liberal herbivore to bear.

Volume 4, Number 26

October 6, 2008 -- My grandmother, the sainted one, was born in East Texas during the Civil War to “planters” as they were called rather than farmers. I considered her as the optimum model of what was at one time the Southern Romanticized ideal of womanhood: quietly genteel, retiring, never raising her voice, stoically accepting what life brought her. Even at the age of 88 she would perch a little hat (widowed, with two pre-school girls to care for, she supported herself by making women’ hats) on top of the buns of coiled knee-length, never-cut hair that was brushed 100 times every night, and go to teach her Sunday school class. What I found most remarkable about her was that she never had an unkind word to say about anyone. Not anyone. Not that she was naive; she carefully read the newspaper every day with her magnifying glass and listened to news on the radio, but she always found something good to say about even the worst of individuals.

I thought about her when I watched the Vice Presidential debate last Thursday. I asked myself what would she say about Governor Sarah Palin, and forced myself to consider in keeping with my grandmother’s determination to be charitable. “She seemed to enjoy herself?” Or, like a Tupperware party lady, “She exuded confidence about her product?” Perhaps, “It’s refreshing to hear such folksy language used in talking about such serious, catastrophic subjects?” No, no, I just can’t do it. It would be too hypocritical. Best to let others, a few of the hundreds of writers, talkers, bloggers who weighed in on this matter, literally every person who had a pen, a keyboard, a microphone, a camera whose expressed opinions match mine, say it for me.

New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd always cuts to the chase. She called it “a shout-out for the latest virtuoso of Frontier Baroque, bless her heart, the governor of the Last Frontier. Her reward’s in heaven.” She was “speakin’ in homespun haikus. pompom patois and sing-songy jingoism.” Maureen does not mince words, she pulverizes them.

Her fellow NYT columnist Frank Rich: “…there’s a steady unnerving undertone to Palin’s utterances, a consistent message of hubristic self-confidence and hyper-ambition … she’s either speaking utter ignorant gibberish (as to Couric) or reciting highly polished, campaign-written sound bites that she’s memorized.” Rich says it’s now all about her“ … a “ticket headed by a warrior who is out of juice … McCain continues to fade into incoherence and irrelevance.” Not too many people want to bring this up, but McCain’s behavior is getting erratic and bizarre. Well maybe there are a few since even the Obama campaign is running an ad calling McCain “erratic in a crisis.”

Another sharp-shooter with whom I agree is NYT columnist Gail Collins: “This entire election season has been a long-running saga about the rise of women in American politics. On Thursday, it all went sour.” Many women find Palin in this position insulting.

NYT columnist Charles Blow called it a “charm offensive — winking, smiling, dodging questions and speaking in her signature Sarah-phonics … a mash up of sentence fragments and colloquialisms glued together with misplaced also’s and there’s.” He reported seeing Palin-As-Rosie-The Riveter t-shirts. Can you see Rosie-The-Riveter running the country?

Of course she delivered her memorized set pieces very well to the delight of worried Republicans and conservatives. Pat Buchanan gushed as though it was the performance of the Century … and in some ways perhaps it was. She is portraying Obama as “not like us.” Us? Good Lord, don’t include me in your ‘us.’ McCain called her a great role model … for Tina Fey maybe. Here is Fey doing her Palin thing on the debate …

http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/clips/vp-debate-open-palin-biden/727421

Many thought Gwen Ifill, the moderator, should have insisted that Palin answer the questions. On Sunday morning’s "Meet the Press” Ifill said Palin "more than ignored" some of her questions -- she "blew me off." She added that Palin decided to "give a stump speech" instead of a debate.

I suppose that we should be grateful that the other high drama of the week, the save the world solution to the financial crises came to a conclusion, satisfactory or otherwise as time will tell. Last Monday, at the next-to-the-last-minute, Republicans reacted to a strong speech by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and rejected a bipartisan plan. As NYT columnist Frank Rich put it: Rep. Barney Frank taunted his G.O.P. peers with pitch-perfect mockery: “Somebody hurt my feelings, so I will punish the country!”In the end the plan was tweaked, and finally passed.

Blame for this fiasco will be studied for years. Forests will be decimated to publish the books yet to be written. Everyone has their favorite culprit, but the bottom line comes down to greed, a mania for deregulation, people wanting to live beyond their means and a kind of euphoric Ponzi scheme that was going to let everybody do so, and a system of volunteer regulation by the companies to be regulated. As details are revealed, some of them are fascinating.

A decision made by the S.E.C. in April 18, 2004 changed what was known as the net capital rule, an exemption from the amount of debt that firms like Bear Stearns, JPMorgan Chase, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley could take on. They are now the dear departed, and John McCain cried ‘Off With His Head’ about Chairman Christopher Cox, although that is not someone a president can fire, certainly not a presidential candidate.

The big private/public mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac story is complicated as I understand it. About 1994 I think it was, Phil Gramm rammed through some legislation that allowed the exotic instruments like sub-prime mortgages and bundling and derivatives and the like to come into being without legislation. Congressman Barney Frank tried to get some regulation passed, but was unsuccessful. By 2004, a lot of money was being made on risky loans, many more people were being able to buy homes and the market value of homes was doubling every six years. Fannie Mae was getting pressure from all sides. Companies they bought mortgages from wouldn’t sell them good loans unless they also took the risky ones; competitors who were taking them were eating their lunch; stockholders wanted more profits; hedge fund managers complained about not making enough money; campaigns targeting members of Congress were run. According to news reports, one automated phone call warned voters: "Your congressman is trying to make mortgages more expensive. Ask him why he opposes the American dream of home ownership." Pressure came from both sides of the aisle, yes Democrats in particular urging them to provide more loans to low income families. So they did. So now you and I are in the mortgage business. California wants a $7 billion federal loan. Shall we give it to them?

The call is that Treasury has just about a month to create one of the world's largest asset management firms and put a dollar value on assets that no one wants. And Paulson wanted this job? No wonder he didn’t want anyone looking over his shoulder.

“The country faces a recession. Public finances are in a mess. Inflation is accelerating. The housing market is collapsing.” Writing about the U.S.? No, it’s Oliver Kamm in an editorial for the Times of London on Great Britain. Either it’s catching or misery loves company. Can you speak Swedish? Right now that seems to be the best place to be.

You might keep this in mind:

Thirty days had September

Thirty more until November

Fourth when voting will be done

Then at last we’ll know who won!

If you are going to try to understand the financial situation it helps to understand the terminology. William Safire, in his language column in Sunday’s New York Times Magazine may be of some help. What shall we call the efforts to solve the financial problem? It could be called, as first it was, “the troubled asset relief program.” That is much more soothing than saying you are dealing with what the Financial Times of London calls “Toxic Debt.” You could call it “Intervention,” the term used to deal with alcoholics, in this case a Wall Street drunk on greed. You could call it a “rescue,” which is a feel-good way to consider yourself a savior. Or you can think of it as a “bailout,” more accurately an act of desperation.

Publishers of the Collins English Dictionary in London want to “exuviate (shed) rarely used or archaic words as part of an abstergent (cleansing) process to make room for as many as 2,000 new entries” according to a report from William Adams in London. They asked for comments and received thousands of replies from people who wanted to save their favorite words … embrangle (to confuse or entangle) was the word most respondents wanted saved. I was pleased to note, however, that a favorite word of mine, “fubsy,” meaning short and stout, came in second. While publishing a small local magazine in 1950 I used it in a cut line referring to the cover photo of a local entertainer. I only had room for about two words, so “Fubsy Songster” was the perfect caption. One look at that photo and you knew there was a fubsy guy. I admit I haven’t had the occasion to use it in the last 58 years, but it was always there if I needed it. If you like, bury it with me.

Makers and sellers of perfumes made a case for the word “agrestic,” which describes an aroma note or type which is “of the countryside.” Now there is a word that ought to be a part of wine tasting lingo. I was sent an e-mail offering a bottle of 1982 Petrus for sale at $5,999.99. It must be a good price since they went to the trouble of lowering the price below six thousand a bottle. It has, they say, caramel, roasted herbs, cherry jam, cedar, and smoke, followed by a thick, full-bodied, unctuous texture. A simple word “agrestic” would have done it for me. This 1982 wine is said to just be reaching maturity, and would be best if saved another 20 years. That leaves me out. I reached maturity long before it did. My tannins have long since subsided. I will have to settle for the bottle of “Plonk” in my refrigerator (I’m sympathizing with the British tonight).