Culture Of More: Screwing The Peasants

Department Of Justice Drops The Dime On Goldman-Sachs


"Moi, Un Criminelle? I Fart At You, Américains stupides!"
Fabrice Tourre, Prime Suspect BSD, Testifying Before The
Congressional Inquiry Into Causes Of The New Depression
Financial Crisis (Photo: Forbes online, 4/27/10)

Goldman-Sachs, home of the best money that money can buy, is reported to be the target of a Department Of Justice criminal investigation, prompted by information forwarded from the SEC.

Bloomberg and the NYT reported the story under National news.

The federal review, which lawyers say is common in such a high-profile case, is being done by the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, Bloomsberg financial news reported. The Securities and Exchange Commission filed a civil lawsuit against Goldman Sachs on April 16, alleging fraud tied to collateralized debt obligations that contributed to the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

Based on public reports about the SEC matter, a criminal case may be difficult, said Douglas R. Jensen, an attorney with Park & Jensen LLP in New York ... “In order to proceed criminally in a case, you need to have very clear evidence of lying, cheating and stealing,” said Jensen...


"Dunno Why The Fuk I Be Heah; Um juss a Businessman; Capiche?"
Goldman BSD Blankfein Swears, Kinda, To Talk 'Bout Somethin',
Maybe (Photo: Jason Reed / Reuters / ABC News Online 4/27/10)

Little Rupert's Wall Street Journal, however reported it as "Politics" and with a little not-very-subtle spin informs us that Congress is really just trying to mislead the public:

Senators vs. Goldman
The committee members fumble toward finding the real villains
[Unsigned Article]

If an investor buys shares in General Electric, and then GE's stock declines in the future, is the New York Stock Exchange to blame? What if the investor chooses to purchase the shares through TD Ameritrade or Charles Schwab? Is the broker also responsible for the losses?

Senators interrogating Goldman Sachs executives yesterday appear to believe the firm has a duty to protect all of its institutional trading partners from making bad decisions... Yet much of the Beltway class, looking back at the financial crisis, now believes that gamblers who bet their money on an always-inflating housing bubble are the real victims...

...In sum, it appeared to be another bad day for the SEC's specific case against Goldman. But lawmakers seemed intent on finding the firm generally guilty of meeting institutional demand for subprime housing risk.


Messr. Tourre Leaving The Capitol: Calimari, Anyone?

It's like the age-old defense of the rapist: "Hey; She Was Askin' For It! She Wanted It!" It's really the fault of the banks and clients to whom Goldman sold those bad investments, because... they wanted it. They forced us.

We're not sure which of the politicians at yesterday's Senate hearing did the most to confuse spectators. Investigations subcommittee chairman Carl Levin of Michigan seemed unaware of the difference between a market-maker, whose role is to offer prices at which a client may buy or sell a given asset, and an investment adviser, whose role is to act in the interests of the client as a fiduciary.

Ranking member Susan Collins of Maine showed that she understood the difference, yet still decided to badger the market makers at Goldman Sachs to admit they weren't acting as fiduciaries. [Who have an obligation to advise clients about risk] Of course they weren't, as their sophisticated institutional customers would have known.

But the heart of the argument against The Masters Of The Universe is this: If you knew your investments were made up of crap, even if your role was not to act as a 'Fiduciary', didn't you still have an obligation to inform others they were selling bags of toxic waste?

Goldman's responses when questioned were to use the same logic as Little Rupert's anonymous writer in the WSJ. Come on, you idiots; We had no obligation to define risk to other players. We sold them stuff to make money. They were in it to make money.

They know how the game's played -- they lost! We won! And that's all that matters. That's how the free market operates, you fookin' Peasants. Do ya hate freedom, is that it?


Goldman's Legacy To Our Kultur.

But those kinds of answers just obscure and evade the real, basic question in everybody's mind: Didn't you have an obligation not to sell bad investments at all?

What's disgusting about the performance of people like Tourre and Blankfein this week is their inability to comprehend the legitimacy of that question. From the perspective of a player, A Big Swinging Dick In Wall Street, they haven't done anything wrong -- and if you believe we have... well, you stupid Peasants, we'll just buy our way out of it.


Who Cares About The Little People? (Cartoon: Abstruse Goose)

However, free of cant, the truth is that Goldman sold toxic crap, because they could. Because they wanted to make more money. It was the Game, Baby; the Game, and the payoff was More. The proof is that as a company, they bet against the performance of their own investments to win big if the subprime market collapsed -- or as Little Lloyd Blankfein put it in a memo, "short [on] mortgages saved the day".

Little Rupert's media suggests this is a political prosecution -- an attack on the 'Free Market' by the minions of a socialist scary Black Man who faked his way into the Presidency. It's true that the SEC is hard-pressed to remake its image as a guardian of financial regulation -- but that is because it did nothing to prevent the behavior Wall Street engaged in during those go-go, Lil' Boots Bush years (Remember him? Yeah, he was just, you know, some guy or other) which put us where we are today.

The "excesses of the free market" which brought about the destruction of the lives of so many people -- the Little People that our Masters Of The Universe don't give two farts about -- occurred because there was no oversight.

And no matter whether Little Rupert wants to spin this scrutiny of Goldman-Sachs as political; it isn't, and all of Warren Buffet's comments or Blankfein's appearances on television to blow smoke will not change that.

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Another Thing You Take For Granted

Leslie Buck [Laszlo Büch], 1922-2010


The Anthora Paper Cup, Designed By Leslie Buck (1959)

(Another post inaugurating a new Category here at Before Nine that talks about things so prevalent in our lives and culture that we simply don't see them... Things We Take For Granted.)

There are hundreds of items which mark our times, from music to favored colors and themes; technology and architecture; clothing, vehicles; hairstyles and eyeglasses; even the typefaces used in publications. And there are also humble things -- like the paper coffee cup.

Leslie Buck, the designer of what we've come to expect as the standard paper coffee cup, died at his home in Long Island yesterday.

Born Laszlo Büch in Czechoslovakia in 1922, he was deported by the nazis to Auschwitz and Buchenwald with the rest of his family; only he and his brother, Eugene, survived. They emigrated to the United States after World War II ended in Europe and opened an import-export business in New York.

In the late 1950's, they started the Premiere Cup Company, manufacturing (what; you were expecting socks?) paper cups. Premiere merged with the (not that much larger) Sherri Cup company a few years later, and Buck became its design director.

According to the New York Times, the Sherri Company "was keen to crack New York’s hot-cup market. Since many of the city’s diners were owned by Greeks, Mr. Buck hit on the idea of a Classical cup in the colors of the Greek flag. Though he had no formal training in art, he executed the design himself. It was an instant success.


All-Purpose Cups In The 1950's: For Hot Drinks, The Wax Melted

"Mr. Buck made no royalties from the cup, but he did so well in sales commissions that it hardly mattered, his son said. On his retirement from Sherri in 1992, the company presented Mr. Buck with 10,000 specially made Anthoras, printed with a testimonial inscription."


Leslie Buck In 1991 (New York Times Online)

It made Sherri Cup, Inc. a fortune. The concept was copied by other manufacturers, of course, but Sherri is apparently still going strong, having sold 500 million of Leslie Buck's design worldwide last year. Naturally, the standard white, 8-ounce card stock cup with the rolled lip and coated inner surface is now a standard item all over the planet.

Every morning, I get a tall cup of whatever Java that the Asian Breakfast Place near my office brews, but never paid much attention to the container I pour it into. I've seen cups like it from the moment I understood the concept of a paper cup, and until now had no idea who designed it.


Dairy Queen's Version With Rolled Lip And 'Safety Bulge', 1960's

The Greeks of the Classical world believed that no person ever died, so long as they remained in the memory of the living. No one knows whether that's so -- but give Leslie a thought next time you order a brew at Starbuck's, or Peets, or 7-11.

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The Delights Of The Jobless Recovery

In the words of The Great Curmudegon:

One gets the sense that elites have moved on, that the recovery is here and the foreclosure crisis is over. Neither is true.

I know how ironic this must sound, but Bloomberg reports that more and more Americans are exhausting their unemployment benefits without having found work.

What will become of them, when they have no money at all? Well, in the true spirit of the early Protestants who founded this great country, "The weak culls will have to fall by the wayside as nature intended. They are not of the Elect Of God, and therefore damned upon the Day of Judgment; and since their names are not writ in the Big Book O' Life™, who cares?"

Since the recession began, aid extensions added 53 weeks of assistance to the 46 weeks that had been in place. About 11 million Americans, roughly 70 percent of the nation’s jobless, in March received unemployment checks averaging $320 per week.

The challenge for lawmakers is that while benefits have reached record lengths, so has long-term unemployment. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 44 percent of the jobless have been out of work for at least six months, the biggest share since the government began keeping track in 1948.

According to the Bureau Of Labor Statistics, a record 6.5 million workers have been unemployed for 27 weeks or more. A study by the Pew Fiscal Analysis Initiative which the Bloomberg article noted shows 3.4 million workers have been unemployed for more than a year.

So, the Math: 11 million unemployed. More than half of them have been unemployed for more than 6 months, and roughly a third have been out of work for more than a year. That doesn't count people who have already lost their benefits.

UPDATE: Time for this dog to find a new food bowl, and in the next six months. Other wise members of the pooch pack, look after yourselves, since no other dogs will.


Willie Wheelie Says: Sometimes Ya Just Gotta Hit The Road

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Senator Mongo Votes Yes

You Fools Are Actually Blocking Reform Of The Financial System??


Mongo tries to be happy, Immerhin

I have no idea what those clowns from the South are about. I think someone's telling them they'll receive a campaign contribution if they protect banks and Goldman-Sachs from the big bad Evil President.

Interestingly, the maximum the GOP, or any individual Rethug candidate, would receive in contribution from the Greed 'Financial' industry is small -- perhaps a few hundred thousand dollars. That's always been the case with Washington politicians, who appear to have much lower thresholds of whorehood than the Big Boyz and Girlz on Wall Street.

Compare an investment of a couple of hundred thousand on a wonky and (if you're lucky) skirt-chasing politico with the Billions these unregulated BSD Masters Of The Universe are making, personally. Even the average bonus at Goldman for 2010 (based on Q1 performance) is $308,000... and counting.

I didn't vote for these Mint Julep Redneck Yahoos; they didn't vote for me.

I try to be happy anyway, though.

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Alice Miller (1923 - 2010)

Dr. Alice Miller, author of a number of works regarding the effect of physical or sexual abuse in childhood, passed away on April 14th at her home in Provence, France; her death was announced on the 23rd by her German publisher.

Her obituary in The New York Times noted that her first book, The Drama of the Gifted Child (originally titled 'Prisoners of Childhood') set forth in three essays "a simple but harrowing proposition. All children, she wrote, suffer trauma and permanent psychic scarring at the hands of parents, who enforce codes of conduct through psychological pressure or corporal punishment: slaps, spankings or, in extreme cases, sustained physical abuse and even torture."

"Unable to admit the rage they feel toward their tormenters," the Times continued, "Dr. Miller contended [that] these damaged children limp along through life, weighed down by depression and insecurity, and pass the abuse along to the next generation, in an unending cycle. Some, in a pathetic effort to please their parents and serve their needs, distinguish themselves in the arts or professions. The Stalins and the Hitlers, Dr. Miller later wrote, inflict their childhood traumas on millions."

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Fascism

You Really Think It's Going To Look Like This?

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I Remember Finding Out About You

The Voices Tell Him To Be Angry: Get Thee Behind Me


(Photo: San Francisco Examiner, March 2010)

On his radio show (syndicated by Clear Channel Communications, which also syndicates Hannity, Lard Boy, and Little Mikey 'Savage' Weiner) today, Glenn Beck not only claimed that God has given him a plan, but that he is carrying out god’s will and anger.

Are you here to relax and be entertained, or ... will you pick up the mantle left to you by the Founders [as] a guardian of man’s freedom? Will you do it, because your children will ask you, "What did you do?" I believe your god will ask you, "What did you do?"

...god is giving a plan I think to me that is not really a plan... The problem is that I think the plan that the lord would have us follow is hard for people to understand. Because of my track record with you who have been here for a long time -- because of my track record with you, I beg of you to help me get this message out, and I beg of you to pray for clarity on my part.


Actual Quote (Cartoon: Auth / Philpadelphia Enquirer, 3/14/10)

This isn't the first time Beck has mixed religion and Rightist politics -- but this time, he crossed a line. He was no longer offering political commentary with what he claimed was spiritual underpinning... he was preaching. He was telling people what god wants them to do -- and of course god thinks exactly as Glenn Beck does because god is speaking to him.

Some blog commenters dismiss Beck for his histrionics and his crying, his Boy-Is-That-Out-There analysis of the relation of Religion and State. This time, they're saying he's gone over the edge; that with this Howard-Beal-like outburst, he's painted himself as a genuine, eccentric irrelevancy -- that (depending upon what he does next) this is the beginning of the end of his career.

I disagree. Beck hasn't reached the bottom; he may have just broken through a ceiling -- to a place where Fox 'News' and Little Rupert now support Beck's ridiculous vision of American history... because the 'christian' Right can be exploited, just as the mainstream Right has been.

Beck may be a huckster, not especially intelligent; but I think he senses that this is his breakout moment. It may be the way for him, in his chosen path as a propagandist, to become even more influential than the King, Limbaugh -- by claiming to be the voice of an audience no advertisers have really tried appealing to: The religious, ultra-conservative Right.

Murdoch's News Corp has catered to the Angry-White-Male, working-class conservative since the early 1990's; from a broadcast and advertising perspective, it was uncharted territory, and an undeveloped audience. Murdoch's made Billions exploiting it.

If Fox has been the functional equivalent of The Buffalo Bob Show for the Right -- one, long cartoon -- Limbaugh has staked his claim as the "intellectual" of that same Fox-News, Joe-Sixpack audience. But that audience is nearly all secular -- Rushbo can only claim to speak for social conservatives.

I feel Beck is after another audience altogether -- and it's very possible Murdoch will support the shift he presented. Little Rupert may believe his business model, originally used on the working-class Right, will work on an entirely new audience of religious conservatives... because Rupert may believe there's market share in it, and the advertising revenue which follows.


(Photo: CNN)

The plan that He would have me articulate, I think, to you is: Get behind me, and I don’t mean me, I mean him. Get behind me. Stand behind me; I truly believe I have done years now of reading the Founders, the diaries, their letters;, the Pilgrims, their diaries, their letters... and I will tell you that god was instrumental and they knew it.


Behold, I Stand At The Door And Knock --
Now Open Up, Or I'll Bust A Cap Somewhere

They knew that had very little to do with it. They just stood where they were supposed to stand, and they said the things that they were supposed to say as He directed ...but that’s what He is asking us to do is to stand peacefully, quietly with anger, quiet with anger, loudly with truth.

As usual, Beck was semi-coherent. He added that he was changing his delivery style -- that having already admitted he was an Entertainer, Beck now wants us to believe he's channeling the voice of god, which is telling him to tell people to surrender to god's will and whatever they do will be just right...

When we were -- and I’ve never told this story before -- when we were starting the TV show, there were things that I did that I wouldn’t do now because I had to be more of an entertainer to get people to go, 'What is this show at five o’clock?' I never said anything I didn’t believe, but I may have said things in an entertaining fashion.


Margaret Atwood's Vision Of The Future

There are people who want to force a Theocracy on the population of this country, as surely as there are Islamic radicals who want to see their concept of god controlling the world, delivered by the sword.

The Hutaree militia in Michigan, preparing for "war"; another group in the Midwest recently sent letters (based on a bizarre interpretation of the U.S. Constitution) effectively threatening every sitting state Governor. There are those who send their sons to join the military specifically to obtain combat training, to be used later in 'taking the country back' from godless hippies, immigrants, feminists and liberals. And all this is just the tip of the 'christian' Rightist iceberg.

The escalating language of conflict and hate that the Right has used to organize since the mid-1980's, when the 'Fairness Doctrine' was repealed and Right-wing radio was born, has now mutated into actions. Beck's often bizarre and nonsensical commentary with a definite religious basis has now become Prophecy.


Lies, Lederhosen, And Flirting With Sedition (Phaux)

On March 27th, Beck kicked off his ‘American Revival’ tour in Orlando, Florida. Entitled ‘The Future of History’, it is an eight-hour-long stage show that allows Beck to discuss "Faith, Hope and Charity". For the price of admission, Glenn promises that this event will give "information, inspiration and preparation to turn this country around".

BEck won't usher in the Republic of Gilead -- he's not a big enough false prophet for that, and the timing doesn't feel correct. But if the Rightist media has decided the 'christians' should have the opportunity to dominate social debate over the air, Beck's prancing and spewing may make it possible for someone else, one day, to submerge America in its own long night of repression and evil.

Not only do we have no idea what that means -- we believe such a thing could never happen, in America. Many Europeans, Germans in particular, understand what that means all too well.

UPDATE: From Today's (4/22/10) Beck Radio Dinner Theater Hour

"We are entering a - we are entering a dark, dark period of man. Um, I was, um, I was in the Vatican, and I was surprised that the individual I was speaking to knew who I was. And they said: 'Of course we know who you are. What you're doing is wildly important. We're entering a period of great darkness, and if good people don't stand up, we could enter a period unlike we have seen in a very long time.'

"It was odd to stand in the Vatican and hear those words. Of all places that would understand the Dark Ages. We are dealing with people who want to deconstruct the world. They say they are for progress, but their progress is to deconstruct. Their progress is to go backwards. Instead of inventing our way out of something. Instead of heralding achievement and merit, they destroy it. Instead of respecting life, we devalue it."

Becky doesn't say whether the "individual" was a Catholic priest, a Swiss Guardsman, or his Fox 'News' gofer. Or a voice in his head. But, whatever: What Becky does is not just important -- it's wildly important.

What a narcissistic dullard.

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In Dreams

VOCATUS ATQUE NON VOCATUS DEUS ADERIT*


A Dream - Mandala, Drawn By Jung (Photo: L.A. Times)

Beginning in 1914, Carl Jung kept an artistic journal of his own dream imagery, determined by maintaining that record to look into his own visions from the collective unconscious, a term Jung created and which we now take for granted.


Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961)

It was Jung's deep belief that each person carries from birth, as part of their genetic and spiritual inheritance, ancestral memories and general human experience. His therapeutic practice as a psychiatrist included this dimension.

Jung had been a pioneer in developing psychiatry, along with it's originator, Sigmund Freud -- but Freud's concept of the mind were more practical, more classically-oriented, and Jung broke with him at the turn of the last Century. In Freud's opinion, Jung had descended into mysticism. For Jung, he was bridging dimensions in the human psyche which Freud's practice could not explain.


Not A Fillmore Poster: Detail Of Art By Jung From Another Dream

The journal was kept in a large, red-leather-bound book, and was referred to as 'The Red Book' by Jung's intimates in his work in Switzerland. After his death in the 1960's (his last words were, "Let's have a really good red wine tonight" -- a man after my own heart), the Red Book was placed in a Swiss bank vault for over forty years, until several years ago.

Many images in it were published in a coffee-table version in 2009 -- but the actual Red Book is currently on display at the Armand Hammer Museum in the Westwood district of Los Angeles (I'm not an L.Alien, but, hey; if you're in the neighborhood, ya oughta seek da kultcha, bud).

Think about it: Here's a private, seminal document, created by an important figure in Western medicine and philosophy -- and you can walk into a museum, and see it. I may be a Dog, but still capable of being amazed at the world we continue to create, and live in.

Frequently, I'm also aghast and horrified by that same world, but that's easy. Jung might have agreed that you have to work at it to continue seeing the magic.

* "Called Or Not Called, God Is Present" -- comment in Latin, carved over the doorway to Jung's home.

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Tee Vee For Dead People

I don't know what this is about. I just found it, out there -- on the Intertubes (actually, it's part of the introduction to the Season 4 Gag Reel of the X-Files).

I'm a Dog who can talk and write and use Photoshop, but that doesn't mean I understand everything -- so, look: You figure it out, then come back and tell us.

And don't spill my juice box. Thank You. You're Welcome.

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The Hunting Of The Vampire Squid

Lloyd Blankfein, In Full Regalia As Goldman-Sachs's CEO

The U.S. Government filed a civil action against investment firm Goldman-Sachs (VAMPSQD) in Federal court today, accusing the Vampire Squid of the finance industry with defrauding investors.

In a nutshell: During those heady, good-for-the-'Investor class', Go-Go L'il Boots Bush years, G-S offered 25 different investments to clients. They were backed by CDO's -- Collateralized Debt Obligations -- which consisted of various 'pools' of mortgages.

So long as the mortgage-holders paid and didn't default on their home loans, the mortgage pools would perform well and the CDOs maintain their value. So long as the risk assumed by the lenders was low -- loans were made to people who could repay them.

Meaning, the loans weren't made to, say, a couple who had four children, with an income of $40,00 a year and no down payment, to buy a $3 Million-dollar home with interest-only payments for two years... which then reset, at higher payments they couldn't hope to make. Or loans that allowed the same family to refinance every six months or so in order to take cash loans on their property -- "treating them like ATMs" -- in order to upgrade their home with Viking ranges and a pool, and buy new SUVs, and finance a lifestyle stratospherically beyond their means.

Does this mean that most of the structure of 'Free-Range' American capitalism had been tied to the delusional belief that real estate prices would rise higher, forever? That we can (and should) live in a Robin Leach-esque fantasy world of instant gratification and elite access? Oh my yes.


In the first months of 2007, Bear-Stearns Had Yet To Show
Sign Of Trouble; The Crash Was 19 Months Away -- But All U.S.
Household Debt Nearly Equaled Our Gross Domestic Product

And the theory behind creating the CDOs was simple: Who would default on the loan for their 'primary residence'? Mortgages have traditionally been one of the most stable lines of income for a bank; people will default on credit cards or auto loans, but not on their house payments. So, when someone dreamed up the notion of bundling the mortgages into a pool and turn that into a vehicle for investment, it seemed like a good situation. Unless, of course, the loans being made created a massive, volatile amount of risk. Unless the economy collapsed.


John Paulson And Friend: Two Years Ago, It Was An Open Secret
He'd Made Billions 'Betting Against The Market' (New York Magazine, November 2008 -- Two Months After The Crash)

Goldman-Sachs' investment had some interesting twists, however. They went to John Paulson, a well-known hedge fund manager, and allowed Paulson to pick the mortgages that went into the CDOs. Some of them, Paulson could loan with bad ("toxic" "unsustainable") home loans.

Then, Johnny The Stuffer could bet against the performance of the very same CDO investments he created -- knowing which ones would fail! If they did, Paulson stood to make a lot of money -- and Goldman was allowing him to choose. Up front. In advance... so the Federal complaint alleges.

(For the five-minute explanation of this, with added yucks, go watch this).

Hey, Little Lloyd! Hey, Johnny! What role models you are for the kiddies, hah? I guess this is what all newly-immigrant parents tell their kids -- that this is the Promise Of America: If you work very hard, someday you may grow up to be a thief -- a very, very clever thief, and an Oligarch, whom no one can touch because you are so rich.

Ah, America; the land of Opportunity.

And Goldman-Sachs had taken care of their end, too, by allowing Paulson to create the investments. And as they were written, if the CDOs did fail... the investors would be on the hook to pay G-S for losses. How sweet was that? They couldn't lose, no matter what!! And Paulson could, uh, make out like a bandit!!

And, that's what happened. Only -- the investors were never let in on all the fun! And they got soaked!! Ha ha ha ha ha ha!!! Joke's on them, right?


From Last Year: Mr. & Mrs. Blankfein's G-S Holiday Season

That's to say, they lost a good bit of money. Billions of dollars, in fact -- most of which went to Goldman-Sachs, and John Paulson.

Isn't that funny? The Department Of Justice doesn't think so.

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A Week

1.) Entire Polish Government Dies In Plane Crash


Mourners In The Streets Of Warsaw (Photo: Dean Gallup / Getty)

... Fortunately, that's not entirely true, but it sounds like the beginning of one of the worst Polish jokes imaginable.

Polish President Lech Kaczynski and dozens of Poland's top Parliament members and policy-makers died this past Friday when their plane crashed in heavy fog, creating a unique crisis in a country's government: It was decapitated by the tragedy.

Also among the passengers was Bronislaw Geremek, the anti-communist Polish politician whose actions in the late 1960's began the Solidarity movement, and was a living legend in creating a post-Soviet-dominated Poland.

The bitterly ironic twist to this story is that the plane (a former Soviet Tubolev airliner) went down about a half-mile from a runway outside the Russian city of Smolensk. It was carrying a delegation to a ceremony commemorating the massacre of more than 20,000 members of Poland’s elite officer corps 70 years ago, at the hands of the Soviet army and NKVD -- forerunner to the KGB, Vladimir Putin's former employer.

2.) Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens To Retire

John Paul Stevens, at nearly 90 years of age the second-longest sitting Associate Justice on the United States Supreme Court and its leading liberal voice, announced this week that he will retire over the summer.



Senate Minority Leader John Boner said the GOP "will push to replace that old Liberal _______" with a large trainable rodent, similar to four other members of the formerly venerated and formerly neutral Hugh Court.


3.) Mine Explosion Kills Twenty-Nine


Handmade Highway Sign, VA (Photo: Jeff Gentner / AP)

In churches across southwestern Virginia, services were held Sunday mourning the loss of 29 miners in what appears to be an underground explosion, possibly due to a lack of ventilation of coal dust -- something the mine's owner, Massey Energy Corp., had been cited for by Federal safety officials on four separate occasions in the past year.

But, you know; any Teabagger will tell you: That there nosy Federal government got no business poking around in the affairs of honest citizens, and preventing free enterprise from bein' more free. Yuh.


4.) President Obama Announces U.S. Reserves Right To Use Nuclear Weapons Against Rogue States Who Possess Them And Haven't Signed the UN Non-Proliferation Treaty


Little Mahmood Plays 'Jeopardy': Odds Are, He Loses

On Saturday, President Barack Obama announced a summit for nations in the 'Nuclear Club' to agree to specific controls to their stockpiles of nuclear materials to be put in place within four years -- on the strength of the argument that not to do so, seriously, invites terrorist acts too terrible to contemplate.

At the same time, Obama announced that while a "No First-Use" of nuclear weapons was the stated position of the U.S. government, that did not apply to rogue states such as North Korea or Iran, which have (as in the case of North Korea), or appear to be developing (as with Iran), nuclear weapons.

What this should tell us: earlier this week, Iran publicly unveiled, on their national television with a ceremony, a new centrifuge design for enrichment of Uranium. At the end of last year, they were shown to have built a secret enrichment facility which they kept from the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Iran only admitted it because the British and U.S. governments were about to publicly announce it. And, Iran has conducted several tests of medium-range missiles, capable of hitting targets in Israel -- which has no trouble seeing potential nukes and operational missiles as a serious threat... particularly when Iran's "President" says the Holocaust didn't happen.

All in all, the Iranian government has shown it has no intention of slowing their march towards building nukes, and has no fashion sense (those windbreaker-and-khaki-pants-with-white-shirt ensembes just scream "Repressive Misogynist Uptight Religious _______"). The Israelis have said they can't permit Iran to have nuclear weapons.

Also, they would like the Iranians to at least start wearing button-down Oxfords -- in muted colors, for Christ's sake; they don't have to immediately jump to stripes or tattersalls -- and try maybe jeans, with Timberland or Bass loafers, and a grey or brown tweed sports coat from LL Bean or Joseph A. Banks.

I'm only a dog, but I won't be surprised to wake up one morning and find that Iran's nuclear facilities have been bombed (in the same way that the Israelis leveled Iraq's nuclear reactor in 1981) and this time possibly with "bunker-busting" tactical-level nuclear warheads.

If so, the Middle East's political and military circumstances, and possibly its fashion direction, will change in a hurry. I believe Burkas will be all the rage, whether women want to wear them or not. And, radiation suits will be in vogue, for a while.

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It's The Money, Honey -- But You Knew That

Doesn't Know Much About History, Doesn't Care


Nasty, Greedy Little Man (Photo: I Spit On News Corp.)

When reasonable people have disagreement over issues, even passionate disagreement, it's possible both sides can make an attempt to retain a basic, innate respect for their humanity -- a recognition that "we all breathe the same air; we all cherish our children's futures; and we are all mortal".

I think about John Adams and Thomas Jefferson: Two men whose arguments and writings, more than any of the American Revolutionaries, shaped the creation of an entirely new order of representative government. They became the closest of friends, then the most bitter antagonists -- two men who could not have been more opposed to each other professionally or personally (You think politics during the Nixon, Reagan or Clinton years were crazy? Do some reading).



It took a long time, but they slowly picked up the threads of their old friendship. And when Adams, the crusty old Federalist, lay dying on July 4, 1826, his last words were, "Yet Thomas Jefferson survives"... not knowing that the author of most of the Declaration Of Independence had passed away hours before.

American politics has always involved some of our worst -- and best -- instincts. But the (probably intellectual) notion borrowed from our British roots about politeness and "Seemly public discourse... as an edification to all who observe" has all but disappeared.

Politics is now more theater than it has ever been -- and as a method of evoking raw passions to carry a debate, it looks more like the psychology of advertising than trying to find a national consensus over serious public issues... exactly the problem facing the American Revolutionaries in the late 18th Century.


24 Hours A Day: Alarm, Anxiety, Fantasy -- With Commercials

And, because getting more and more is the new religion, a media industry has evolved with essentially a 'Yellow Journalism' business model which thrives on creating conflict, division, sensation and 'controversy', so that they can sell things.

This means much of what they broadcast are untruths: They lie. Period.

Little Rupert Murdoch is the current Citizen Kane of Right-Wing media. He's a conservative, but a pragmatist, too: He just wants to make more, and if somehow being more Progressive would bring more profit, that might be News Corporation's intellectual position.

But Little Rupert's not personally disposed to be Liberal, and he likes spewing crap for his team. He thinks of people as stupid, gullible, and worse (if he didn't, Little Rupert wouldn't treat his 'consumers' that way). And, he likes media people who are like him -- Rightist, but "at the end of the day" don't give two hoots about telling people the truth, or the politics: Show Me The Fookin' Money, Mate.

It's why he's let The Simpsons run for ten-plus years; not because it was a groundbreaking animated program, or embodies generally decent values -- but because Viewers = Higher Ad Buy Rates.

Ben Frumin at Talking Points Memo reported that Fox News' Liar Rightist Shill News Commentator guy Glenn Beck doesn't say the things he says and cries because he cares deeply about politics, or about the United States of America; or about other human beings (if he did in a real way, his message would probably be very different).


As Frumin Reported, And As Beck Says, "He's an entertainer"

A new profile in Forbes states that Beck "insists that he is not political":

" 'I could give a flying crap about the political process'. Making money, on the other hand, is to be taken very seriously, and controversy is its own coinage. 'We [i.e., Fox] are an entertainment company,' Beck says. He has managed to monetize virtually everything that comes out of his mouth. "

Frumin goes on to note that, according to Forbes, Mercury Radio Arts, Beck's own company "(which Forbes dubs "Glenn Beck Inc."), reported $32 million" in revenue in the 12-month period ending March 1st, and which Forbes and Frumin list as

* $13 million a year from books and magazines;
* $10 million from radio syndication;
* $4 million from a newsletter, GlennBeck.com, and merchandise;
* $3 million from speaking engagement fees;
* $2 million income as a News Commentator at Fox 'News'

Beck and Fox, Hannity, Lard Boy, Loofah O'Reilly and Mikey Wiener; and Rightist 'commentators' and propaganda outlets, are coming under increasing scrutiny for regularly using escalating, violent rhetoric, which are considered contributing factors in a rising number of violent right-wing incidents.

You can't immerse right-wing nut jobs in a bath of Fox 'News' and battery acid for 24 hours a day, and not anticipate that one or more of them will just start killing people.

One example -- just today, an obese amazingly fat right-wing Texan named Larry Worth was arrested by the FBI for placing 36 pipe bombs in Post Office Boxes around the country. A friend of Worth's told local reporters that the man "sat around watching Fox all day, and getting angry".


Larry Worth, Who Looks Disturbingly Like Someone I Work With
(Photo: Smith Co., Texas; via TPMMuckraker, April 8, 2010)

People like Lard Boy and Beck enjoy being virtually untouchable. They can say, even do, almost anything. They enjoy being the people who create and channel the fear of their audiences into anger -- and they enjoy the power that gives them in Rightist circles. But it's not about serious political principles; it's an act. It's about ego, and about personal enrichment.

Limbaugh said in 2009, "First and foremost, I’m a businessman. My first goal is to attract the largest audience possible so I can charge confiscatory ad rates. I happen to have great entertainment skills, but that enables me to sell airtime.” Then he added -- as if he had to after a rare moment of honesty -- "But in my heart and soul, I know I have become the intellectual engine of the conservative movement."


Obligatory Cute Animal Photo In Middle Of Social Discourse

The 'intellectual engine' comment is part of the act; Limbaugh displays no intellect in his vaudeville. His career is about ego, and about money; the remark about "confiscatory ad[vertising] rates" says it all. People like Lard Boy want it (as Grace Slick once famously sang) "fat, and round", and they want it for themselves. Politics are just a means to that end. And Blimpy did get fat, and round.

This government is governing against its own citizens. This president and his party are governing against us. We are at war with our own President, we are at war with our own government. -- Rush Limbaugh, January 9, 2010

The real indicator of their lack of commitment to any ideas or principles appears when their listeners begin to act on the anger which the Becks and Lard Boys work day after day to manufacture. When a militia group is taken down, when nut cases call Progressive or Liberal elected officials to threaten them; when physicians and nurses at family planning clinics are harassed and their homes firebombed; when the number of credible threats to an African-American President rises substantially...

When these things happen, the Becks or Limbaughs don't stand proudly behind their work. They don't talk about being 'Culture Warriors', revolutionaries, and take responsibility for their role in creating and enciting violence against a government they keep shouting is illegitimate and evil.


All Part Of The Game; It's Even On Nintendo

Like every bully ever born, when it's possible they could be punished for their behavior -- or when it might affect their cash flow -- suddenly they become subdued, polite. Then, people like O'Reilly or Beck don't claim to be 'news commentators', or 'journalists'. They're not even savvy businesspersons.

Suddenly, they claim to be only simple entertainers -- and entertainers can't be held accountable if what they say is taken seriously, right? It's the fault of those crazy persons who do those violent things. It's really someone else's fault.

Always someone else's fault.

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Heavy Thinking, For A Dog

Fifty years from now, most of the major players involved in the invasion of Iraq and the deregulation of America's financial system into a private game for the benefit of a relatively small group of people will be dead.

Then, in that distant time, there will be books and articles written which admit that "some mistakes possibly may have been made", but that the people who made them were really good with kids and felt sort of bad about it occasionally, and weren't really evil or anything -- and so couldn't be held accountable.

And, it was all so long ago, anyway.

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Banking Reform: Now With 50% More Jowls

 [NOTE:  Please see the updated version of this post from 2013 here.]

Larry Summers, 2010 Gore Vidal-Look-alike Contest Runner-Up

Every time I see Larry Summers, he looks fatter. It's almost a parody of what being a BSD will get you, or a reverse 'Portrait Of Dorian Grey': Public evidence of a corrupt life worn in his face.

Summers has been over and under and up and down, as the Sinatra song says, but has generally been a King, not a Pawn. He's been one of Harvard's youngest tenured professors; was on the staff of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Reagan from 1982-1983; and served as Chief Economist for the World Bank until 1993.

It was at the World Bank that Larry wrote a memo, later leaked to the press, in which he said, "the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that . . . I've always thought that under-populated countries in Africa are vastly underpolluted". Larry claimed the remark was 'sarcasm' and was taken out of context, which is a far cry from saying it was a fraud.

Larry served as the Secretary of the Treasury during the last year-and-a-half of the Clinton administration's second term. Summers was successful in pushing for capital gains tax cuts. During the California energy crisis of 2000, then-Treasury Secretary Summers teamed with Alan Greenspan and Enron executive Kenneth Lay to lecture California Governor Gray Davis on the causes of the crisis, explaining that the problem was excessive government regulation. Under the advice of Kenneth Lay, Summers urged Davis to relax California's environmental standards in order to reassure the markets -- Californnia had to deregulate it's electricity markets.

Remember Enron, a company full of leeches and criminals? Remember the conversations recorded between Enron energy traders, laughing -- because the deregulation Summers and Lay wanted allowed Enron to buy California's own electricity, and sell it back to California at inflated prices? Thanks, Larry!

Summers supported the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999, which lifted more than six decades of restrictions against banks offering commercial banking, insurance, and investment services by repealing key provisions in the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act. Summers also pushed heavily for deregulation of the derivatives market, which was successful under Lil' Boots Bush.

All of that led directly to the current economic disaster we're experiencing, by the way. Without a firewall which kept banks out of other financial businesses, and kept investment houses out of the banking business; without regulation of the derivatives market, you end up with... well, where we are now.

The Nation's Financial Future Bores Larry: Nothing In It For Him

Ol' Larry was also made President of Harvard University -- until he was forced to resign in 2006 after receiving a no-confidence vote from a majority of its faculty, because Summers had made dismissive comments about the value of women; tried to dismiss an African-American professor for spending time working on a particular Democrat's presidential candidacy; and showed favoritism to a visiting instructor because there was money in it for him.

In short, Larry continued to behave like a greedhead sociopath. Surprise, huh?

Now, Larry is the principal member of the Obama Administration's Economic Advisory Council. President Obama is expecting him to work on... reforming the investment and banking industry.

Right.

Summers has recently come under fire for accepting perks from Citigroup, including free rides on its corporate jet in 2008. After he economic stimulus legislation was passed in early 2009, Larry called Senator Chris Dodd and asked him to remove caps on executive pay at firms that received stimulus money, including Citigroup.

Later that year, it was disclosed that Summers has been paid millions of dollars by companies which he now has influence over as a public servant. He collected approximately $7.7 million in fees from various Wall Street companies which received government bailout money.

What a guy. Thanks for everything, Larry; millions of people are barely treading water -- but you got yours, huh? So I guess it's okay. The interesting thing is, you're two years younger than I am, and man; I look in way better shape.

Hee hee hee hee hee hee. But, then, I'm a Dog, and this means I'm only eight years old in a human timeframe. However, Larry can't bark very well, and possibly spends less time licking potentially embarrasing areas of his body in public.

Mongo In The Early Years

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Johanna Sällström (1975-2007)

Johanna Sällström As Linda Wallander And Krister Henriksson
As Kurt Wallander On The Set Of Before the Frost (2004)

Three new episodes of the BBC-1 Wallander mystery series were released on British television this past January, starring Kenneth Branagh as Swedish police Inspector Kurt Wallander. I'm not certain when they'll be released in the U.S.; however, I've seen them already (courtesy of the redoubtable Donka Ufman), and they're excellent.

I've been rereading Henning Mankell's The Fifth Woman over the past week, and wondered this morning whether the latest (and probably the last) Wallander novel had been released in English.

During a search to answer that question, I was stopped in my tracks by a reference about Johanna Sällström, the actress who played Wallander's daughter, Linda, in the Yellow Bird Productions version of the mysteries for Swedish television; she had died in 2007.


Before The Frost; Sällström's Linda Wallander

I didn't know about Henning Mankell's work, the Wallander character or the Swedish version of the televised novels and stories until Branagh's BBC production came to PBS last year. The Yellow Bird Wallander episodes were great; Sällström's portrayal of Wallander's daughter was excellent but dark, complex -- much different than the take on the character portrayed by British actress Jeany Spark.


Spark's Linda Wallander: Not Yet A Cop; British, And So Different

In Mankell's novels, Wallander himself is painfully divorced and awkwardly alone, his relationship with his father adversarial, difficult. He's only focused and certain when working as a police detective -- and he's a good one. Linda Wallander is a counterpoint to her father; trying to keep connections to divorced parents (her mother, remarried, means there's also a stepfather) and grandparents (Wallander's angry, willful artist father), and find her own way in life. Yet, they're both drifting a bit.

Linda darts from small job to University and back, never quite finding something that will anchor her in the world -- until one day, using her father's ability to look for patterns and make decisions, she enters Sweden's national police academy. Eventually, Linda ends up serving as a beat cop in her old home town; now, her relationship with her father is professional as well as familial. She wants to become a Detective -- and Wallander stands aloof, letting other officers in his detective squad make sure she earns it.


Krister Henriksson As Kurt Wallander

As a father, he's seen Linda zip from job to job; he worries -- was she trying to find herself? Is this job just one more sidetrack? As a career investigator he can't carry someone who doesn't have the gift for the work, and it's deadly serious ("You carry a gun. This is life and death"). But, Linda has it, painfully making her debut in a case involving multiple homicides and a childhood friend -- the basic plot of Mankell's novel-turned-Wallander episode, Before The Frost.

Sällström had the opportunity to bring that character to life on Swedish television, and in subsequent episodes of that series. Half of them were original television screenplays authored by other writers; Mankell had given the production company the rights to do so. In fact, he was so impressed with Sällström's acting (as a playwright, and director of one of Sweden's oldest theater companies) that he had projected three more mysteries, featuring Linda Wallander as the investigating detective.


Sällström In 1995: The Up-And-Coming Swedish Teen Star
(Photo: Wikipedia)

Sällström, in many ways, seemed lucky. She was the daughter of a 70's-80's Swedish pop musician, a teenage star of soap operas on Swedish television, and had broken into film acting, even winning an award. Sällström found the attention, her sudden celebrity status, was too much. In 1997, she abruptly put her acting career on hold and moved to Denmark where she worked anonymously in a cafe.


Awards, But Not Happiness: About To Be A Recluse, 1997

She eventually married, returned to Sweden in 2000, and tried to resume her career -- except, instead of the previous bright opportunities from three years before, Sällström found work only in occasional bit parts. Her marriage deteriorated into separation; money was an issue. Relative to her prior fame, a struggle just to have enough to eat and pay rent must have been a real challenge.

Sällström divorced her husband in 2003, shortly after her daughter, Talulah (named after the flamboyant American actress, Talulah Bankhead) was born. Depressed, running out of money, she faced eviction -- and said in a later interview that she felt so isolated and lonely that she even invited the court official, assessing her for eviction, to sit down and have coffee simply for the human contact it offered. It was at that low an ebb that she managed to audition for and won the role of Linda Wallander in Yellow Bird's Production of Mankell's Before The Frost.



This should have been her turning point. She was employed on a hit television series in Sweden as a dramatic actress, her career seemed back on track... then, on December 26, 2004, Sällström was vacationing on the western coast of Thailand -- a popular destination for Swedes -- with her one-year-old daughter when the Sumatran earthquake and Tsunamis struck.


Phuket, Thailand: December 26, 2004

They survived (Sällström held on to a small tree with one hand and her daughter with the other for several hours, until the tidal surge stopped, and receded), but watched hundreds of people killed around her, including friends and dozens of fellow Swedes. After her return to Sweden, the experience never left her.

She returned to her acting career, but suffered nightmares and depression. By 2006, Sällström was briefly hospitalized in a psychiatric unit in Malmö, where she lived. In February of 2007, at age 32, she took an overdose of sleeping pills; at the time, her daughter was five.


Henning Mankell

Henning Mankell had been involved with the Yellow Bird productions of his novels, and was impressed with Sällström's ability as an actress and personal courage, enough to consider writing three more Wallander books focused on Linda Wallander as the central figure.

Mankell spends his time when not writing or directing very actively involved in raising awareness about HIV-AIDS, and to provide support (primarily in Africa) for those afflicted with it. In the past several years, he spent his own money to build three schools in Mozambique. He's helped to found the country's first national theater troupe.

It's only a guess, but it doesn't seem out of character for Mankell that he might have considered further Wallander mysteries centered on the character Sällström brought to life as a way he could help her by doing what he loves to do best -- write. The Wallander books were Mankell's way of exploring contemporary Swedish social themes, but he'd said that the character was becoming stale for him as an artist. Seeing Sällström's acting work may have given him additional inspiration to continue using the characters he'd made in a slightly different way.

Her death shocked and affected him, enough that he abandoned the plan -- his most recent Wallander novel, The Troubled Man, released in Sweden last year and to be published in English sometime in 2010, will probably be Mankell's last featuring his most internationally-famous creation.

It's an odd feeling, in retrospect, thinking about the Swedish Wallander productions with this new, additional perspective of talent, tragedy; a shortened life. Sällström initially appeared as Wallander's daughter does in Mankell's novels: An on-again, off-again supporting player; then, she became one of the two central characters. She was good, she had solid credits to build a career upon -- but her internal support was thin.



Depression is a weight of almost unimaginable proportions. Like an iceberg, most of it is hidden from the outside world; others don't see it or understand it. But, that weight inexorably pulls its sufferers down a spiral staircase within themselves, to a place progressively darker and where what little air is left seems fouled. And whether or not someone can find their way back becomes a crapshoot, like so many things in life. Not everyone who gets pulled down has the luck or strength to return into the light.

I enjoyed Sällström's work, and only wish she'd lived longer, so that we could have seen more of it.

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