What's All This Then? |
|
|
commentary on the passing parade Agree? Disagree? Tell me
ARCHIVES
|
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
A SURGICALLY INDUCED BLOGGING BREAK I’m having major back surgery tomorrow which will keep me away from the blogosphere for a while, while I try to recover. I’ll be looking for all the help I can get in this post-op period and taking a break from trying to make sense of the daily outpouring of news - or from being utterly frustrated by nonsense masquerading as news, should have a beneficial effect - if not on my soma - at least on my psyche. I won’t have to think of the words to describe my bewilderment at the array of contradictory economic numbers thrown at us daily. The price of everything is going up. We’re losing jobs instead of creating needed jobs for people coming into the labor market - yet we are told that it’s good news when the job loss isn’t as large as expected. Not that government statistics can be trusted for a minute. How do they count every lost job? Do they call every mom and pop enterprise in the country and ask if anyone was laid off this month? Yet the stock market keeps climbing - which says that things are fine in this segment of the economy even if they’re bad everywhere else. The economy was supposed to get a magical shot in the arm by the lowering of interest rates. And so the Fed lowered and lowered and lowered - and we’re down to what - two percent? But the economy doesn’t seem to be responding to the Fed’s magic. Maybe it will when it gets lowered to zero. That might help people get cheaper loans which will be sorely needed by all of the people living off interest on their hard earned savings - which now produce so little income that they need to borrow money. The only trouble with that is that they won’t be earning enough interest income to repay the loan!! Welcome to the world on the other side of the looking glass. I’ll be staying on this side for a while. I won’t have to find the words to express my disgust at the political pandering of politicians who want to become the leader of the free world. Could there anything more blatantly pandering than the proposal for a Federal gas tax "holiday." It’s not just that the savings for any driver would be minuscule. It’s that at a time when the government is mailing out billions of borrowed money to taxpayers to "stimulate" the economy (as not reflected by the stock market) - that same government will be deprived of billions in tax revenue that is supposed to be used to repair the nation’s crumbling roads and bridges. Well, says Hillary - we’ll just get the gas companies to replace that loss of revenue. Sure you will Hillary. The Congress will go along with that idea because it’s such a good idea. You’ll get bipartisan support and President Bush will sign the windfall profits tax bill the moment it hits his desk. That is, if you’re not hit by sniper fire as you maneuver along Pennsylvania avenue in a crouched position to personally deliver the document to the White House. As we all know, Pennsylvania Avenue can be a dangerous place when it gets warm in Washington. But I can think of a better idea - and one less dangerous for Hillary. Why not just ask the oil companies to lower their price at the gas pump? They’d still make huge profits and they would be beloved of the American people. Hey, don’t laugh. It stands as good a chance of bringing gas price relief as the Clinton- McCain proposals. I won’t have to find different ways of verbally shaking my head over the never ending Obama-Wright story. Obama handled himself well answering fifteen straight minutes of questions about the reverend on Sunday’s Meet The Press. But will it be enough? Of course not. It’ a story loved by the media. It has prurient interest. Meanwhile McCain says he has a plan to make us independent of foreign oil so that never again will out boys have to fight a war in the Middle East. What’s that John? You mean we didn’t go to war in the Middle East because some despot was getting ready to attack us with weapons of mass destruction? You mean it was about oil all the time? I’m going to look for that story in my local paper. Or if I can’t find it there, for sure it’ll be a lead item on television newscasts. Or if not, for sure the talking heads will be all over it on Sunday. Or at least the Sunday after. Well maybe by the time I’ve finished recuperating, someone other than Keith Obermann will have caught up with the story. That and the nutty pronouncements of McCain’s two minister supporters whose support he solicited and which he accepts with pride. You know , pronouncements about God damning America for a variety of imagined "sins." But then those are white guys with a big white following. Still, one can always have the audacity of hope. While I’m taking my blogging vacation, I won’t have to find words to express my sorrow at the continuing farce known as the Israeli/Palestinian Peace Process. I won’t have to find the words to describe the idiocy of continued pronouncement from the likes of Condoleezza Rice about achieving a "peace agreement" by year’s end - with help from Jimmy Carter representing Hamas of course. , One thing that will bring me both solace and sorrow as I recuperate will be thoughts of our beloved Cody, who left us My 16, 2005. Since I doubt that I’ll be near a computer on May 16, this is an early 2008 commemoration of that day of sadness - and for those who are casual visitors and/or do not know about our Cody, here is her obituary - and here are my comments on the first anniversary of her departure, along with a picture of her wonderful face. It’s the second item in that day’s comments. And she was remembered again last year with the same picture. Wish me luck for tomorrow. |