State of The Union

What a world we live in. No doubt, at other, if not all, times in human history, people have justifiably made similar claims delivered with (or, perhaps without) heavy doses of sarcasm. Perhaps another way of describing our present predicament here in the U.S. would be to observe that, as per the ancient and marvelously veiled Chinese curse, we live in interesting times. And speaking of interesting, China, as fate would have it, is now America's greatest economic rival. I'm not sure who, if anyone, constitutes the United States' greatest military rival. I suspect no one does, though, equally, I'm reasonably sure that in some regions of the world asymetric warfare, or, if you prefer, fourth generation warfare, is practiced with great skill against the U.S. military juggernaut. But that's another subject for another time.

What may be the most interesting thing about living in the U.S. presently, at least from this citizen's perspective, is the overwhelmingly Orwellian disconnect between the behavior of officialdom, their preferred organs of misinformation dissemination, and the state of the rest of the union. With that in mind, I think it's worth noting that during President Obama's State of The Union address last night, one of officialdom's highest ranking members, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, fell fast asleep. I suppose Justice Ginsburg's deep dozing could be attributed to her advanced age, or, even, perhaps, the relative lateness of the hour, but I prefer to entertain the idea, however fanciful, that the Universe, through the unwitting medium of Justice Ginsburg was, instead, offering a meaningful, succinct, proper, and profound judgment on the content and quality of our President's oratory- if not his entire Presidency- as one best slept through. To bowdlerize the pop outfit, Green Day, "Wake me up when Obama ends."

I personally applaud Justice Ginsburg's response, however unintended it may have been, to the President's State of The Union address. After all, his was a communication with only slightly more merit than an awkwardly constructed, sophomoric love ditty scrawled on public restroom toilet paper. Had I watched the speech in real time it would have unquestionably left me in a state of agitation entirely incompatible with sleep, but one well aligned with nightmarish fantasies of the sort that would likely still be bothering me. Sometimes, when the times get too interesting, the best thing to do is to turn off the set. And while Poor Justice Ginsburg couldn't afford that luxury, being duty bound to actually attend the event, the results were, nevertheless, at least where her presence was concerned, entirely fitting.

Sarah Palin: Whore of Babylon Update

Until now I've neglected to comment on what is perhaps the most momentous Whore of Babylon fiasco since John McCain, in his role as Pandora, and to his everlasting shame and disgrace, caved to the "religious right" lunatic fringe pressure from members of The Republican Party and released the scourge from Wasilla upon the lower forty eight. By now, everyone who is remotely tuned in to current events is familiar with The Whore of Babylon's hideous connection to the horrific shooting spree that took place approximately a week ago in Tuscon, Arizona.

One of the chief victims in the melee was Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords who has spent the last week fighting for her life in hospital. Sarah Palin, who employed the language of firearms against her political opponents in the midterm elections, has come under intense criticism as a result. One devoutly hopes that the opprobrium she has so richly earned of late amounts to the beginning of the end for Palin as any kind of political force. In the meantime, TWOB, who is as shameless as she is egocentric, will not go easily.

Uncertainty Continued

I was prompted to write the prior piece on the inability to achieve certainty as a result of observing (and sometimes) engaging in an ongoing debate, on three other sites, regarding the nature of, and prospects for, gold. Quite frankly, I'm more than a little tired of debating the merits of gold to those who appear programmed against the very idea of gold acting as a store of value. I detect-over and over- a combination of obnoxious recalcitrance and immaturity in those who attempt to make arguments against gold's utility. This is especially the case given the superior performance of physical gold and silver to all other asset classes over a one year, five year, and ten year basis.

In the case of one particular commentator, who asserts-his assertion being, more precisely, a belief, based as it is on projections that have nothing like a guarantee (ah, there's uncertainty again) of coming to pass-that just about anything but gold will act as the future's value storage mechanism, he neglects to admit, except very occasionally, that gold could (continue to) do well for some number of years until his model takes hold. To quote the arch hater of the old gold standard, John Maynard barbarous relic Keynes, "In the long run we're all dead." As such, in the meantime, while waiting for the the longest running tradition in human experience of one item acting as money over time, to end, you will lose your shirt, if you haven't already, should you choose to act on the formulations of those who mistake (and misrepresent) the way the world is, for the way they envision it at some unspecified point in the future.

Uncertainty Principle

As Tom Stoppard illustrated so well in his play, Arcadia, we humans have a desperate need for certainty in situations where, generally, there is none to be had. Psychologically, most of us feel rather uncomfortable maneuvering through life without rock solid narratives to explain the myriad things, both large and small, that matter to us. I know I have all sorts of explanations for all manner of human phenomena, but, I must say that, though I hew to a variety of views quite strongly, I always try to be aware that, to paraphrase Hamlet, there are more things on heaven and earth than are dreamt of in one's philosophy.

All this by way of saying that no matter how well one thinks one has thought something through, there are always things one has simply not accounted for. Now, of course, sometimes the probability that one has left some crucial aspect or two out of their brilliant formulation is low, but, even that, outside of the limited purview of very hard science, is a state of affairs that is, to to a greater or lesser extent, simply unknowable. At this point you may be, just perhaps, wondering what shaky (according to me) positions I have in mind when I prattle on about unknowability? All in good time.

Merry Christmas...

and a Happy New Year.

This is my end of the year post, and it is simply a series of not so simple questions for you to consider providing answers to. I look forward to hearing your thoughts and ideas.

1.) In the last year, what, if anything, have (you) learned about the culture we live in with respect to its functioning, resiliency, and its likely future?

2.) What are your biggest concerns with respect to the health of the nation vis a vis your own fortunes?

3.) If you could live in another (or other) part(s) of the world, where would it/they be, and why-other than weather related reasons- would you choose to live there?

4.) What sort of interesting developments or changes do you imagine will come about in the U.S. in the next twelve months? What have been the most interesting or meaningful ones to come about in the prior twelve months?

What Will it Take?

To the multitude of readers who regularly take in my column for kernals of insight, pearls of wisdom, and, of course, just for its sheer entertainment value, I would like to extend you an apology for not posting for well nigh almost three weeks. I have no reason to offer as an excuse for the dearth of new content from this quarter other than that a certain exhaustion set in last month. Perhaps it was the onset of the dreaded holiday season, or an impending birthday, or the paucity of sunlight at this time of year, but, whatever the reason(s), they served to short circuit my usually regular, if not always stellar, output.

Still, even as I was taking a self imposed and modestly refreshing break, I did happen to notice, among many global developments, that Ireland has unsurprisingly, but disappointingly, been broken by the monetary hooligans of the EU, and, also, that some here in the U.S. are expressing their deep disapproval, not to say outrage, at the methods and behavior of the Transportation Safety Administration whose conduct of late has been markedly unkind to a number of folks seeking to get from point A to point B by air.

For what it's worth, I was in the less than enviable position of having to fly recently, and when it was my turn to stand inside the backscatter used by the TSA, I opted, as is my wont-call me crazy, but I trust the safety of the TSA's x-ray machines about as much as I trust the assurances of The Federal Government that The Gulf of Mexico is cleaned up and ready for unbridled shrimp harvesting-for the dreaded pat down.

The new pat down procedure, which the TSA employee assigned to check me for bombs and other such potentially dangerous cargo, made sure to let me know was in place and would be practiced, involved, among other things, the use of the back of the hand when slapping, excuse me, when checking passengers in what the TSA agent euphemistically referred to as (a tad nervously or so it seemed to me) "sensitive areas." The entire exercise was silly, which, other than the fact that the procedure likely amounts to a violation of the 4th Amendment and almost certainly won't do much, if anything, to safeguard passengers, is fine.

And all this puts me in mind of my opening apologia for my blogging absenteeism. I've just have had a Eureka moment wherein I suddenly feel I have a firmer grasp on just what it was that might have been keeping me from posting. While I am heartened that some number of my fellow citizens have chosen to stand up for themselves in the face of utter police state piffle as practiced by the TSA, I am, in the main, disheartened at the response of the vast majority of my fellow citizens who appear to have the demeanor of overfed sheep in the face of a constant barrage of myriad outrages.

It doesn't seem to bother most of my fellow Americans in the slightest that such entities as commercial banks and institutions like the The Federal Reserve are as lawless as wild west bandits. The behavior of these institutions is bad enough, but it doesn't seem to so much as provide the hint of a transitory wrinkle on the collective brow of the nation's above twenty one crowd that, in the face of a level of egregious scamming that would make Charles Ponzi blush, their Federally elected officials act, for all the world, as if they had either no clue, no balls, or were on the payroll of the scammers, which, of course, they are.

And so, one is left to ask the question that one is constantly faced with when one witnesses a strong electric shock administered to a subject who does little more than faintly twitch in response: Is the subject dead? And if not, just what is it going to take to make the subject remove the instrument of pain and strangle the son of a bitch who attached it to them in the first place? To be a tad less abstract, what are the American people waiting for, well, besides waiting in very long overnight queues for flat screen T.V.s and cut rate computers on sale at Best Buy on Black Friday? Why, dear reader, I will tell you what they are waiting for. They are waiting, like the sheep they are, to be shorn of their remaining threadbare wool. Pardon the unsavory imagery, but not until they are as naked as a porn star in a shoot on a public beach will they likely wake up and realize that they don't want to be sheep any longer. I am talking real deprivation wherein the sheep are left cold, hungry, and without shelter. Yes, I think that is what it's going to take to inspire the sheep to be something other than (utterly shorn) sheep.

Unfortunately, by then, and there will be a then, because the folks calling the shots in The Land of The Free aren't merciful, it will be too late. Glad I'm back yet?

Sarah Palin: Whore of Babylon Update

The Whore of Babylon, who now has her own show on the dubiously named Learning Channel, has recently asserted that she could defeat Obama in the next Presidential election. Putting aside the fact that politics at the the Federal Level are utterly corrupt, and that, therefore, at least hypothetically, anything is possible, Sarah Palin's boast should disabuse anyone of two things: one that she isn't more than a tad eager to hold the highest elected office in the land, and, two, that she is not utterly delusional.

TWOB's distorted view of reality resides, in this humble observer's opinion, on Palin's astounding misconception that she is fit- in all the ways one needs, and ought to be fit- for The Presidency. Okay, I imagine she's physically fit, but, then, one of the nation's better Presidents, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, was confined to a wheel chair, so I'm not giving her anything but the minimum number of points for her likely ability to hike through some place like Denali National Park for more than half an hour without rest.

In truth- and it is the truth-only the most benighted and/or demented characters believe that Palin should be allowed to hold any office, however modest, since all Mrs. Palin really embodies, at least to those who have some semblance of judgment, is massive ambition married to appalling ignorance, all wrapped up in a toxic, little, Fundamentalist Christian box with a tawdry and fake "you betcha" bow on top. Put another way, in any other context save possibly running her own home in Alaska, she's a grand scale calamity waiting to happen. And that's being kind.