April Showers

Thankfully, Ash hasn't had to deal with hard, stormy rains. At least not yet. We've just been gettin light showers and drizzle. But the skies still look heavy with rain.

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1205

The bottom has fallen out of the sky. I'll leave it to Ash to fend for her kittens for now, but I'll see what's up in a bit.

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1632

The sun has come out. I don't think we're out of this storm system, but it's good to see Ash get a little reprieve, with her kittens only days-old.

April Showers

Thankfully, Ash hasn't had to deal with hard, stormy rains. At least not yet. We've just been gettin light showers and drizzle. But the skies still look heavy with rain.

_ _ _

1205

The bottom has fallen out of the sky. I'll leave it to Ash to fend for her kittens for now, but I'll see what's up in a bit.

_ _ _

1632

The sun has come out. I don't think we're out of this storm system, but it's good to see Ash get a little reprieve, with her kittens only days-old.

Economics Can Be Strange

"If the Treasury were to fill old bottles with banknotes, bury them at suitable depths in disused coalmines which are then filled up to the surface with town rubbish, and leave it to private enterprise on well-tried principles of laissez-faire to dig the notes up again (the right to do so being obtained, of course, by tendering for leases of the note-bearing territory), there need be no more unemployment and, with the help of the repercussions, the real income of the community, and its capital wealth also, would probably become a good deal greater than it actually is. It would, indeed, be more sensible to build houses and the like; but if there are political and practical difficulties in the way of this, the above would be better than nothing.

-- John Maynard Keynes

This sounds like a questionable model, doesn't it? But it does seem to get at the heart of the Keynesian notion of government making up for demand. This is our best wisdom. Kinda scary, no?

Though, I suppose Obama's stimulus bills tighten the rationality, by supplying the means for government to continue to provide services and goods, as well as for unemployed people to supply themselves - keeping money and goods circulating. But it still sounds problemsome, like we've always been living on a flawed model, but I guess it's no secret that we never lived in a perfect world, and hard times only expose the weaknesses more openly.

Economics Can Be Strange

"If the Treasury were to fill old bottles with banknotes, bury them at suitable depths in disused coalmines which are then filled up to the surface with town rubbish, and leave it to private enterprise on well-tried principles of laissez-faire to dig the notes up again (the right to do so being obtained, of course, by tendering for leases of the note-bearing territory), there need be no more unemployment and, with the help of the repercussions, the real income of the community, and its capital wealth also, would probably become a good deal greater than it actually is. It would, indeed, be more sensible to build houses and the like; but if there are political and practical difficulties in the way of this, the above would be better than nothing.

-- John Maynard Keynes

This sounds like a questionable model, doesn't it? But it does seem to get at the heart of the Keynesian notion of government making up for demand. This is our best wisdom. Kinda scary, no?

Though, I suppose Obama's stimulus bills tighten the rationality, by supplying the means for government to continue to provide services and goods, as well as for unemployed people to supply themselves - keeping money and goods circulating. But it still sounds problemsome, like we've always been living on a flawed model, but I guess it's no secret that we never lived in a perfect world, and hard times only expose the weaknesses more openly.

Pam

The little red swimsuit that Pamela Anderson wore on "Baywatch" is going to be auctioned off. Meh, I'm sure it's already been washed, and we are talking about a looong time ago. I'm sure the scent of the woman is gone, along with her youth.

Pam

The little red swimsuit that Pamela Anderson wore on "Baywatch" is going to be auctioned off. Meh, I'm sure it's already been washed, and we are talking about a looong time ago. I'm sure the scent of the woman is gone, along with her youth.

Nixonland

Rick Perlstein’s “Nixonland” affords us this shuddering glimpse into the Nixon White House, as the president and his men struggle with the Vietnam War, which has become our prototype for being stuck in a quagmire and which demonstrated that the Americans can be bloodied and beaten, even by Third World powers. They are discussing another wave of escalation against the north:

Connally urged him, "Don't worry about killing civilians. Go ahead and kill 'em. People think you are now. So go ahead and give 'em some."

"That's right, " concurred the president.

"There's pictures on the news of dead bodies every night," chimed in Haldeman. "A dead body is a dead body. Nobody knows whose bodies they are or who killed them."

I guess this was before Republicans came up with the concept of compassionate conservatism. In all fairness, Americans had been dying in that war for about ten years with no good end in sight, and there is no question about the totalitarian brutality of the enemy. However, the problem in Vietnam was the problem that we now have in Afghanistan, more than thirty years later: what are we fighting for?

All sweet souls of noble understanding want to see the fruits of democracy and freedom take root wherever the light of reason can shine, of course, but such grand ideals must achieve some recognizable form through real, man-run institutions, by a government, and therein lies the rub - along with all the corruption and all the betrayals and all that human misery, that familiar trail of broken dreams.

The United States backed a number of governments in Saigon, but there was no true democratic leadership, but only corrupt gangs taking advantage of the American need to have a native government to be fighting behind. And that is how things look with Afghanistan today and the Karzai government.

A key difference with Afghanistan, though, is the nature of the threat. Even if we cannot get a liberal republic, there is something to be said for having some forward bases in a region of the world that spawns terrorist cells, the country that was the original home of al-Qaida. It makes it easier to swat those cells down. It also helps to have a footprint in that region in the dread event that another massive invasion is required in some grimmer future.

Obama’s quandary is how to maintain a positive presence with the least pain in that alien, unwelcoming land. I am sure he did not want to be another president ceaselessly bleeding troops in a quagmire not of his making. Iraq is enough pain for any Administration. But it can all seem like one big swamp of illiberal, murderous fanaticism. Still, it is important to maintain your humane side, and not sink into the nihilistic doldrums of the Nixon Administration, not that I think we really have to worry about that with Barack Obama, who perhaps would have made a better pastor than a president.

Nixonland

Rick Perlstein’s “Nixonland” affords us this shuddering glimpse into the Nixon White House, as the president and his men struggle with the Vietnam War, which has become our prototype for being stuck in a quagmire and which demonstrated that the Americans can be bloodied and beaten, even by Third World powers. They are discussing another wave of escalation against the north:

Connally urged him, "Don't worry about killing civilians. Go ahead and kill 'em. People think you are now. So go ahead and give 'em some."

"That's right, " concurred the president.

"There's pictures on the news of dead bodies every night," chimed in Haldeman. "A dead body is a dead body. Nobody knows whose bodies they are or who killed them."

I guess this was before Republicans came up with the concept of compassionate conservatism. In all fairness, Americans had been dying in that war for about ten years with no good end in sight, and there is no question about the totalitarian brutality of the enemy. However, the problem in Vietnam was the problem that we now have in Afghanistan, more than thirty years later: what are we fighting for?

All sweet souls of noble understanding want to see the fruits of democracy and freedom take root wherever the light of reason can shine, of course, but such grand ideals must achieve some recognizable form through real, man-run institutions, by a government, and therein lies the rub - along with all the corruption and all the betrayals and all that human misery, that familiar trail of broken dreams.

The United States backed a number of governments in Saigon, but there was no true democratic leadership, but only corrupt gangs taking advantage of the American need to have a native government to be fighting behind. And that is how things look with Afghanistan today and the Karzai government.

A key difference with Afghanistan, though, is the nature of the threat. Even if we cannot get a liberal republic, there is something to be said for having some forward bases in a region of the world that spawns terrorist cells, the country that was the original home of al-Qaida. It makes it easier to swat those cells down. It also helps to have a footprint in that region in the dread event that another massive invasion is required in some grimmer future.

Obama’s quandary is how to maintain a positive presence with the least pain in that alien, unwelcoming land. I am sure he did not want to be another president ceaselessly bleeding troops in a quagmire not of his making. Iraq is enough pain for any Administration. But it can all seem like one big swamp of illiberal, murderous fanaticism. Still, it is important to maintain your humane side, and not sink into the nihilistic doldrums of the Nixon Administration, not that I think we really have to worry about that with Barack Obama, who perhaps would have made a better pastor than a president.

Did I Shower Last Night?

Did I shower last night or not?

Sometimes I still struggle with that question in the evening, when I am deciding whether I need to shower tonight or not. The hair looks dry and ungreasy enough, so that even if I did not shower last night, I could skip yet another night, which sometimes happens, though I generally bathe every other day, which seems enough for me, as I do not lead what you might call a very active lifestyle.

But this time I lay the struggle aside in favor of showering anyway. What’s the worst that can happen? That I shower two days in a row, OMG?! No one may remember, but I used to have a bit of an overachiever streak in me when I was a kid, and it is always nice to see it emerge on the rare occasion.

Wouldn’t Gabe be proud of me?! Not that it would have saved me in her eyes and secured me some quality time in her bed. No amount of soap and water can wash all the multitudinous scars from my face, nor add another half a foot to my Indian frame. But upgrading my hygiene habits to bathe everyday would at least make me that much more middle-class, I guess.

I am not even going to try to make a habit of this, though. I can still wonder, this late in life, why I am not able to ratchet up the lifestyle another notch, which would seem to require only a little more self-discipline. After all, I got nothing but time, right? A little like a prisoner. But I need to be pressed by necessity to steal time away from my books and the Internet, my dreamy little worlds. And, like I said, it wouldn’t change anything.

Did I Shower Last Night?

Did I shower last night or not?

Sometimes I still struggle with that question in the evening, when I am deciding whether I need to shower tonight or not. The hair looks dry and ungreasy enough, so that even if I did not shower last night, I could skip yet another night, which sometimes happens, though I generally bathe every other day, which seems enough for me, as I do not lead what you might call a very active lifestyle.

But this time I lay the struggle aside in favor of showering anyway. What’s the worst that can happen? That I shower two days in a row, OMG?! No one may remember, but I used to have a bit of an overachiever streak in me when I was a kid, and it is always nice to see it emerge on the rare occasion.

Wouldn’t Gabe be proud of me?! Not that it would have saved me in her eyes and secured me some quality time in her bed. No amount of soap and water can wash all the multitudinous scars from my face, nor add another half a foot to my Indian frame. But upgrading my hygiene habits to bathe everyday would at least make me that much more middle-class, I guess.

I am not even going to try to make a habit of this, though. I can still wonder, this late in life, why I am not able to ratchet up the lifestyle another notch, which would seem to require only a little more self-discipline. After all, I got nothing but time, right? A little like a prisoner. But I need to be pressed by necessity to steal time away from my books and the Internet, my dreamy little worlds. And, like I said, it wouldn’t change anything.