I solemnly swear never to twitter.

Nor to tweet, to twatter, to be twoad. I promise: this blog is as far as I go.

I suppose, in the face of my last post, this dark side of the tech-force needs to be exposed for the sake of equity.




(Thanks to FREEwilliamsburg.com for the find.)

Well done, competitive markets, well done.

Possibly under the influence of the economics class I'm in, or maybe I'm just starting to feel bad for capitalism, I was thinking how cool my new phone is.

After generations of iterations of phones (really, it's only been about ten years since cell's have taken over--crazy, right?), the fruit of all the R&D by all the different cell phone makers has come to, well, fruition.

We are now at the beginning of a new epoch. In it, everyone, where industrialized, can be connected at all times (towers permitting) to each other and to all the information available, from now on, forever. Indeed, touchscreen phones will be an important part of this process.

Anyway, to the rare applause for capitalism:

It's thanks to all these corporations, trying to get even just a piece if not big ol' chunk of the market for probably the most widespread technology on the planet, that constant innovation and resultant extreme variations in phone technology. Finally, whittled down are all the ideas and designs that didn't work, at least as well, and what was left was the iPhone.

Even non-touchscreen phones, like mine, have gotten pretty cool and, more importantly, user friendly in both hard and soft-ware. Now we essentially carry around internet-connected PC's in our pockets and bags.

So, thanks capitalism.

Only what's good for the cell phone isn't always good for other things, like utilities and health care. For those two and a few others, I'd like to say, no thanks.

(Thanks to Mikila and her sister, the latter of which got banged up along with the poor iPhone above--luckily not nearly as bad. I hate to say it, but it doesn't look good for the phone.)

Kill the Pope!

Or, at least, the Catholic Church. I say, we send the un-manned drones we're using in Afghanistan/Pakistan to Vatican City for some carpet-bombing. I mean, really, what's it going to take?

On his recent trip through the continent of Africa, the Pope, in one spoken sentence, doomed millions to the ravages of HIV/AIDS. How? He said that a) condoms do not prevent the spread of HIV but helps to spread it, and b) (assuming, even if they did work, perhaps?) to use them would be sacrilege. Seriously, who else in the world could not only get away with this, but be applauded as a harbinger of peace and love? My ass. More like death and destruction.

Some months ago, the Pope got into minor trouble for allowing an outspoken Holocaust-revisionist to re-enter the higher ranks of the Church, after being ousted for the unseemliness. At the time, I wondered, like most of the media, how is it one of the most powerful people in the world was so out of touch as to not see this as a public-relations problem. (Well, being the Pope can be sheltering, no doubt. But, c'mon, he's from Germany.) Really, the question was asking how come he didn't get any good advice about the situation.

But, now, I think I know the answer and the more accurate question. The answer to the previous question, is that he, and his minions, don't care. Specifically, the impression of rolling-back earlier attempts at conciliation with Jews, and other "outsiders," (such as some of what came out of the Vatican II Council, in the 1960's, what many today criticize as too liberal and reformed) wasn't a mistake--because that's exactly what they were trying to do.

The better question, then?

Are we really supposed to think that one of the oldest, venerated, respected (ha!), moneyed and powerful institutions in the history of the world made a PR-snafu of this magnitude? As implied by Occam's razor, this simply can't be the case. And I doubt very much it is this time, for Africa, either. Although, perhaps most exasperating is that, as far as I've heard, no one has criticized the Pope this time as much as last.

So, that brings us to an ugly equation, representing the world's sentiment concerning the Pope's actions and words:

The lives of Jews, dead over 60 years > (for those of you math illiterate, are of greater value than) the future dead of Africans alive today... all of which = bullshit.


(The below is a graphic reminder of why the last thing Africa needs right now is this utter crap from some white dude in a silly hat.)

My ongoing belief that people's words belie the morons they are, without much help from others.

Tucker Carlson about the Stewart/Cramer skirmish:

And by the way, where was Jon Stewart when the bubble was swelling? How many shows did he do on the coming financial collapse? Why didn't he warn us?

Stewart's answer invariably is: I'm a comedian. That's not my job. But that's a dodge, and increasingly unsustainable. In fact, Stewart is a player in the national conversation. He seeks to influence politics and policy, and he succeeds. It's time for him to admit that, and be held to the same standards everyone else at his level (including Jim Cramer) lives by.

Wasn't the whole point Stewart was making was all these folks weren't doing their job, i.e., not up to the "standards everyone...(including Jim Cramer) lives by."

Media Matters take on the situation:

In the Seinfeld episode "The Comeback," George Costanza is embarrassed by his inability to think of a response to a co-worker who made fun of his overconsumption of shrimp cocktail by saying, "Hey George, the ocean called. They're running out of shrimp." George later thinks up what he believes is the ideal comeback, "Well, the Jerk Store called, and they're running out of you," and becomes obsessed with gaining an opportunity to use the line, eventually flying to Ohio in order to do so.

George's long-planned zinger falls flat, however, when the co-worker responds, "What's the difference? You're their all-time best seller." Flustered, and again unable to think of a witty response, George blurts out: "Oh yeah? Well I had sex with your wife!" -- a jibe that blows up in his face when he is told the man's wife is in a coma. The episode ends with George driving home, plotting yet another attempt to win the verbal battle.

Conservative commentator Tucker Carlson has been doing his best George Costanza impersonation for the past week, as he lashes out again and again at Jon Stewart, who humiliated Carlson on national television more than four years ago.

Out of Print

Almost 1/4 of people don't care about their city having a print, daily newspaper. I'm surprised it's not higher; I think it is. People are lying. Some just like to say they'll suffer with out print news, to seem academic and cultured, and, who knows, maybe they are.

Mourn the paper, perhaps; miss it, sure. But it's like the death of a centenarian grandmother--she had a good run; her time finally has come. By that measure, the newspaper has already had 4 lifetimes with almost no change at all (color news print for more than advertising has just recently become common). Aren't print news media to blame, as the car companies are, for not only the lack of long term vision, but ignoring the changing world of all things digital as it's gone on around them?

I don't really care, and apparently neither does PBS. Jim Lehrer just got done telling me that now I can go online to watch the News Hour any time I want. Sweet.

Here, in the Empire state, it comes down to this.

When you have various union groups rallying outside City Hall that, for the most part, are there to yell at rich people, as a group, there's a problem. No strangers to giving grief, the unions usually frame their contention as labor to business, not just the rich. For them it's usually not a class issue, only a function of who they have to deal with, capital. Unions exist for the taking to task of capital that either doesn't respect them (the unions) or, more importantly, play within the rules of the past fifty years of labor/management relations.

And so, the rich (however you define that) are just going to have to step up and appease the mob. It would have been nice if it had not come this. But, here we are. Some people, who up till now have pretty much had economic free reign, are going to have to pay a little more.

A little--what many New Yorkers consider to be a fair share, like the group Fair Share Tax Reform, who argue for a "shared sacrifice" in these bad times by those who profited during the good. Government spending and services will be cut this year, how drastically is still in question. Major cuts in jobs and services vital to all those but the rich, doesn't seem very fair to me.

The "little" part is important because politicos tend to think and talk about these things in absolute terms: innovation-starving socialism or entrepreneurial-friendly capitalism, limited (ineffectual) or big (wasteful) government, progressive (distributing wealth downward) or regressive (distributing wealth upward) taxation, and most importantly, chocolate or peanut butter.
Fortunately, much like Reese's Peanut Butter Cups lovers, you don't have to choose; you can have both or something in between. And, despite all the evidence to the contrary by temper-tantrumed TV-personalities and on bickering blogs, most people aren't as polarized either.

Most of the "rich" aren't going to move out of the state, decreasing state budget revenue, because of slight shift in the tax burden--the argument made by the conservative politicians in NY, and abroad, who rail against a so-called "Millionaires Tax," which would go a long way to mind-ing the billions of this year's budget gap.

You're telling me that some multimillionaire, nay billionaire is going to move 50 or 100 or more miles across state lines, away from friends and family and workplace, to save a few thousand dollars? Just because something is the best deal, doesn't mean it's the best deal. For those that do move: screw 'em--is that the kind of people we want as fellow state residents?

That goes for corporations, too. As when lamenting the loss of companies and jobs to lower taxes and wages in other countries, the same ballyhoo is proffered up by states for keeping corporate taxes low and the minimum-wage stagnant--the retention of businesses in the state. (A similar idea of "retention," of the "best and the brightest" by AIG, is being batted down as I write this. Though I don't think the AIG guys are an example of when a company would actually want to keep good employees--obviously they weren't.)

This diaspora-paranoia about businesses exodus from traditional sectors in America's industrial complex, from the 70's onward, isn't without basis in reality. Historically, far from it. But that's for increasingly fewer types of industry, like car manufacturing and textiles. Instead of trying to revive or keep alive old industries, we should incentivize technology (for example, alternative energy r&d) and explore new business models, such as public/private partnerships.

(It's key that historical processes, while true of a particular time and place, are not absolutes binding human behavior, that we must structure our lives and world around. Rather, in a more reciprocal relationship, as we structure society to fit our wants and needs, so too those structures influence and shape us. This is a good thing. It allows room for change and, maybe, progress.

With no disrespect to Mr. Wiesenthal, I think it takes more than simply remembering history to avoid repeating it: a contextual reading of that history is necessary. Too, an unnuanced look backward can engender the repetition of past mistakes, as recurring behavioral patterns can develop within contiguously similar contexts. How can someone be expected to stop fighting back when they keeps getting kicked in the face, even if they know their fight is futile?)

The following paragraph is from Paul Krugman this week, about what school teachers in my home town are doing to help out the school system, their workplace. It's something that's actually crossed my mind recently. But feeling foolish in its simplicity, I hesitated verbalizing the idea:

"The schoolteachers here [Montgomery County, MD], who make on average $67,000 a year, recently voted to voluntarily give up their 5 percent pay raise that was contractually agreed to for next year, saving our school system $89 million — so programs and teachers would not have to be terminated. If public schoolteachers can take one for schoolchildren and fellow teachers, A.I.G. brokers can take one for the country."

That's the sprirt--taking one for the team!

So, take a lesson Wall St.--even if it isn't the financial capital of the world anymore, or even the country, according to Ian Bremmer on WorldFoucs, a PBS program, recently. Still, they are a significant part of our tax base, and, even in these times of dwindling bonuses and expense accounts, and populist rage, they aren't people we have to run out of town.

Besides, when the alternative is a fiscally hand-tied government, with extreme cuts to health care, education, and unemployment, who could live here besides the rich?

What the hell is wrong with these people?

AIG ignited fresh outrage over the weekend with news that it's making $165 million in bonus payments to executives on Sunday, most of them in the unit that sold risky financial contracts that caused huge losses for AIG.

The Fed chief on Sunday's broadcast repeated his ire over the AIG bailout, saying that over the past 18 months, that was the case that angered him the most. He says he "slammed the phone more than a few times on discussing AIG." - Jeannie Aversa, AP Economics Writer

I mean, really!

Perhaps it's no surprise then: apparently, a lot of the business that AIG did was with European banks (see below). The Economist should do the stats for cocaine use of the bailout-banks. At least the U.S. is still #1 at something.

More from the "bogus 'war on the wealthy' storyline."

Excuse the excessive borrowing, but this budget is too important... If you care about reality and stuff. Again, from Media Matters:

The media's tax fraud

by Jamison Foser

Last week, President Obama unveiled a budget outline that extends the Bush tax cuts for all but the top two percent of taxpayers and makes permanent a tax credit of up to $800 for low- and middle-income workers that was included in the recent stimulus package, among other tax cuts.

On the other hand, individual taxpayers with taxable income above $200,000 ($250,000 for families) per year would pay more in taxes under Obama's plan, under which the tax rates paid on income in the top brackets would revert to their levels under President Clinton in the 1990s -- from 33 and 35 percent to 36 and 39.6 percent. Slate.com's Daniel Gross estimates that for someone with $350,000 in income, this will amount to about $1,500 a year in increased taxes...

If the expiration, on schedule, of tax cuts that were always scheduled to expire is described as a policy of raising taxes, that makes a mockery of the entire tax policy debate of the past decade. It rigs tax debates in favor of Republicans, who find it easier to argue for tax cuts for the wealthy if they can argue that the cuts won't cost very much -- by making them "temporary" -- but who then get to argue that the scheduled expiration that they included in order to make the cuts look affordable would constitute a tax increase. The GOP gets to have it both ways, describing tax cuts as temporary when it helps them, and pretending they were intended to be permanent when it helps them. It's no great surprise Republicans want to have it both ways -- but that doesn't mean the media should go along.

The actual change the Obama proposal makes to the Bush tax rates is making permanent the cuts for those who make less than $200,000. The proposal doesn't actually increase income tax rates for anyone compared to current law, and it reduces them for the vast majority of taxpayers. Yet the "increase" -- mandated by a law signed by President Bush, and scheduled to occur for nearly a decade -- has gotten all the attention, while the cuts have largely escaped notice from the major media...

You have to wonder how media stars like Blitzer and Gibson have lost touch with their viewers so badly that they think $200,000 incomes are typical.

Charlie Gibson reportedly makes $8 million a year and is paid less than his counterparts at CBS and NBC.

Might that have something to do with his lack of perspective? How could it not?

How could it not, indeed.

Journalists are doing what they can do.

With a shrug and a smirk, the woman from the LA Times response to criticism of the business media on News Hour, PBS. Great defense. Though some don't think that's enough.

Thanks, in large part to Jon Stewart, the world today (finally?) has been talking about what role the business media play in the economy and to what extent are they culpable for the mess we're in.

The breathtaking interview (more like debate... really a bitch slap) last night with Jim Cramer and Jon Stewart on the Daily Show was one of the peak moments so far in the aftermath of this money-mire. You have to give Cramer credit for diving head long into the home turf of a pissed-off Jon Stewart.

Of course, Jimmy was no match for Jon. But what got me was the attitude of disgust with which Stewart seemed possessed: he wasn't just showing Cramer as a fool, all too easy for the master, but chided him like a child who refuses to take serious his irresponsibility and lacks the gravitas of the situation.

"It's not a fucking game!"

"They burned the fucking house down, then walked away rich."

"This song ain't about you."

I haven't seen Stewart like this since after 9-11, when he broke out of his normal role (a good one to start) and helped to make TV something more than entertainment or advertising or even education. He was directly linked to us, the audience--at least here, in NY. He was living in the same world, with the same things going on around him. He didn't laugh because we weren't. He got choked up because we did, too. He was confused and scared and pissed--kind of like he was last night--and so we're we.

Enemies at the Gate

Limbaugh said this week that White House officials are "targeting" him because "they need a demon to distract and divert from what their agenda is." He said Obama aides are "going after private citizens" in a manner reminiscent of Richard M. Nixon's "enemies list." He also challenged the president to a debate on his show.

- Howard Kurtz, Washington Post

Oh lord, here we go with the "agenda" again. Though not as damning as "conspiracy," the word does bring up images of sneaky, back-door, misrepresented--and that's the problem (for the right), there is no subterfuge: Obama was actually voted in to do almost exactly what he's doing; for the big ticket items like the economy, health care, and Iraq, anyway.

If, other than the current credit crisis, the long-term economic time-bomb ticking is health care, and that finally there is a real want (seems to be) for a system with everyone covered, how doesn't it make sense to attack the two together? There's no other way, they're inextricable.

Obama's inheritance is two-fold: one of incompetence, the other negligence; a failing economic system and an inefficient and morally outdated health care system. So, sure, there's an agenda. It's called "Clean Up the Mess." And, Rush, you'd better hope it works--or yours will be one of the first gated compounds overrun by the evicted, out of work and hungry.

Besides, the Administration doesn't need to target you: you're a walking, screaming bulls-eye. They're not in need of a demon; you have been giving them (the left) one for some time now.

To compare Obama to Nixon is like... well, it's just plain stupid. If you want to make the point that Rahm came after you with barred teeth, the Tricky Dick-allusion is bunk--who doesn't have an enemies list? You? Of course you do.

And one name does not an "enemies list" make.

Really, how is this coming after you? Saying that you're now the voice of the right? Wasn't that already the case for years? Maybe I've just been overly cynical before now.

Anyway, isn't that what you want to hear, Rush? Aren't you pleased? I bet you do, and know you are.

Class Matters

The paragraphs below are from one of the regular emails I receive from Media Matters, a great watchdog organization of elite media and the entrenched political and business class interests they usually speak to and for.

Yes, they are left-leaning--unapologetically so. They contend that, despite the view to the contrary of a few overweight and Irish right-wing blowhards and their hater-audiences, the news media is for the most part a mouth piece for conservative values and perspective.

---

"Warren Buffett, who knows a thing or two about wealth, has noted that because of the way the tax code is structured, he effectively pays taxes at a lower rate than the secretaries who work for him, concluding: "There's class warfare, all right. But it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning."

One reason they're winning is that the news media do not use the loaded phrases "class warfare" and "redistribution of wealth" to describe things like the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, or the home mortgage deduction (which favors those who are wealthy enough to buy homes over those who are not) or countless other policies that benefit wealthier Americans at the expense of those who are less fortunate. Instead, the media pretend this is a one-sided war -- as though the wealthy are being unfairly assaulted by an army of bullying waitresses and janitors and farmers and teachers.

Another reason is articles like [the] Washington Post front-pager. The Post tells us in paragraph one that Obama plans to raise taxes on the wealthy and waits until paragraph 18 to reveal that he plans to make permanent a tax credit for low- and middle-income workers. A tax increase that applies to almost nobody -- that leads the article. A tax credit that applies to much of the nation's workforce? Buried 18 paragraphs in."

New favorite thing

It's the ocean, man.