Fear And Ballast

No One Could Have Forseen

Soup Line; Margaret Bourke-White, 1937

On June 9, 2005, then-Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan (appointed to the Fed Chair by Ronald Rayguns in 1987, holding that position for nearly 20 years) appeared before the Congressional Joint Economic committee to deliver what, in retrospect, was testimony dipped in irony and about to be deep-fried by events.

... a "bubble" in home prices for the nation as a whole does not appear likely, there do appear to be, at a minimum, signs of froth in some local markets where home prices seem to have risen to unsustainable levels... Although we certainly cannot rule out home price declines, especially in some local markets, these declines, were they to occur, likely would not have substantial macroeconomic implications.

But too, also, of course, no one could have forseen what was about to happen. Just one of those things.

Toot, Toot.  Hey; It's Only Money.

In December, 2009, financial writer for BusinessWeek David Rosenburg noted in an article, "Why 2010 Looks So Dicey" that

The defining characteristic of this asset and credit collapse has been the implosion of the largest balance sheet in the world: the U.S. household sector. Even with the equities rally and the tenuous recovery in housing in 2009, the reality remains that household net worth has contracted nearly 20% over the past year and a half.

That's an epic $12 trillion of lost net worth [italics added], a degree of trauma never seen before. As households assess the damage, the impact of this shocking loss of wealth on spending patterns is likely to be enormous.

[Q]uestions of basic economic justice, and war and peace... [have] moved so far right that we have a political discourse which would have been largely unrecognizable a generation ago. The first step toward changing that situation is recognizing it for what it is.
-- Paul Campos, 'Single-Wing Politics', (Via Whiskeyfire)
Lawyers, Guns and Money; February 12, 2011

"Everything's fucked up, and nobody goes to jail," he said. "That's your whole story ... Hell, you don't even have to write the rest of it. Just write that."
-- Matt Tabibi, 'Why Isn't Wall Street In Jail?'
Rolling Stone, March 3, 2011 Issue

 Greenspan Knighted By "Lil' Boots" For Enriching The Carlyle Group Service To America

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Reprint Heaven: Look; I Don't Make This Stuff Up

Trolling For Submerged Vehicles

Obligatory Small Animal Photo At Beginning Of Blog Thing

Sniffing around the Intertubes, I found this.

“When is Ben coming home?” Edmund said.

“They told their dog they’d be back in a week,” the muddy boy said. “So… four more days, then. Their dog hates boats, which means anytime they leave on a sailing vacation their dog has to live outside and kill his own food and put up with me doing whatever I want to it.”

“Do you know which song unlocks the trapdoor in Ben’s cottage?” Edmund said.

As the muddy boy handed Edmund the carton of milk, Edmund saw that on the boy’s wrist someone had lettered, in mud, the letters M O N G O.

“I don’t know anything about songs,” the muddy boy said as he peeked into his bag.

Edmund gestured at the muddy boy’s wrist. “Did Mongo write that on you?”

“Yes.”

“You know Mongo?”

“I am Mongo. Who told you I wasn’t Mongo?”

“Nobody,” Edmund said. “But if you’re Mongo, I’m supposed to tell you something.”

“Then tell it.”

My original suspicion was that James Joyce had been reborn and has been using my name. However, it's part of a serial post-modern Intertubes novel entitled The Numberless, created by Ts’ui Pên, a Chinese writer now living in Italy (and thereupon, I am convinced, hangs a really good tale), translated by a person at Vanderbilt University and published by Potboiler Press.

But, I'm only a Dog, and no one listens to me -- though I do happen to like boats, so long as I'm not actually on them. And, I don't live "outside", and don't kill my own food. I go to a restaurant, like anyone else; even if I have to use a child seat and have difficulty with the silverware.

There. Now you know everything. Except about Heino.

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MEHR, MIT AROOO:  All fans of Umberto Ecco and the Illuminati series, and anyone who enjoys those nifty 9-11 conspiracy videos posted on UTub, take note: in going back to check the links in this post (as the Intertubes has a way of marching on), we discovered a tiny mystery: The novel I'd quoted from had disappeared. And it didn't appear to be as it seemed.

The section quoted above was indeed from a postmodern, online novel, The Numberless -- however, the domain where it was posted, thenumberless.com, has expired.  It did exist, however (and proof can be seen courtesy of The Wayback Machine), but there are no search engine references to the work. 

Thankfully, the Wayback cache did keep a link to the email address at vanderbilt.edu of the novel's 'translator', Matthew S. Baker, and a search for him shows that he is quite real and very much extant.  Formerly of the MFA program at Vanderbilt University, he has had a children's novel, If You Find This, just released this year by Little, Brown publishers.

Baker's claim in posting The Numberless online was that it had been penned by Ts’ui Pên, a Chinese writer living in Rome, and that Baker had translated it from the original Italian.  Putting Pên's name into the vast whirl of the Googlemachine shows one reference  -- to a 1941 short story, "The Garden Of Forking Paths", a collection of short works by Jorge Luis Borges and published under that title.

It's a story set during WW1, involving espionage and a search for Hermetic knowledge.  Pên is mentioned as "a learned and famous man" who resigned as governor of a Chinese province "to undertake two tasks: to write a vast and intricate novel, and to construct an equally vast and intricate labyrinth ... in which all men would lose their way." Ts'ui Pên was murdered before completing the novel. The draft he left behind was confusing, contradictory and made no sense to later readers. The labyrinth he mentioned was never found.

However, the novel Ts'ui Pên wrote was the labyrinth -- his attempt to describe a world where all possible outcomes of an event occur simultaneously, each one itself leading to different possible futures.  Today, given String Theory, The Multiverse, and even stories like "One: A Novel", this vision is hardly new -- but in 1941, notable.

And Heino is still around.. 

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Memorial Day

Vergessen Sie Nicht

Mother In Aleppo, Syria, Tries To Comfort Her Children During Bombing, 2015

GENEVA, June 20, 2014 (UNHCR) – The UN refugee agency reported today on World Refugee Day that the number of refugees, asylum-seekers and internally displaced people worldwide has, for the first time in the post-World War II era, exceeded 50 million people.
(via UNCHR.org)

Children, Orphaned Or Separated From Their Families; Uganda (UNHCR)

Officer :  You were never in combat.
Maurer :  To be there is to fight.
-- Decision Before Dawn, 1951

(Child Holocaust Survivor,
 Photographed As Part Of Effort To Reunite Children 
With Surviving Family Members; USHMM)

Deaths In Military Conflicts Since 9/17/1945
(Includes military and civilian deaths. Full List Here)

1946-49: Chinese civil war (1,200,000)
1946-49: Greek civil war (50,000)
1946-54: France-Vietnam war (600,000)
1947: Partition of India and Pakistan (1,000,000)
1947: Taiwan's uprising against the Kuomintang (30,000)
1948-1958: Colombian civil war (250,000)
1948-1973: Arab-Israeli wars (70,000)
1949-: Indian Muslims vs Hindus (20,000)
1949-50: Mainland China vs Tibet (1,200,000)
1950-53: Korean war (3,000,000)
1952-59: Kenya's Mau Mau insurrection (20,000)
1954-62: French-Algerian war (368,000)
1958-61: Mao's "Great Leap Forward" (38,000,000)
1960-90: South Africa vs Africa National Congress (??)
1960-96: Guatemala's civil war (200,000)
1961-98: Indonesia vs West Papua/Irian (100,000)
1961-2003: Kurds vs Iraq (180,000)
1962-75: Mozambique Frelimo vs Portugal (10,000)
1962-75: Angolan FNLA & MPLA vs Portugal (50,000)
1964-73: USA-Vietnam war (3,000,000)
1965: second India-Pakistan war over Kashmir
1965-66: Indonesian civil war (250,000)
1966-69: Mao's "Cultural Revolution" (11,000,000)
1966-: Colombia's civil war (31,000)
1967-70: Nigeria-Biafra civil war (800,000)
1968-80: Rhodesia's civil war (??)
1969- [Ongoing] : Philippines vs New People's Army (40,000)
1969-79: Idi Amin, Uganda (300,000)
1969-2002: IRA - Norther Ireland's civil war (3,000)
1969-79: Francisco Macias Nguema, Equatorial Guinea (50,000)
1971: Pakistan-Bangladesh civil war (500,000)
1972-2014: Philippines vs Muslim separatists (150,000)
1972: Burundi's civil war (300,000)
1972-79: Rhodesian/Zimbabwe's civil war (30,000)
1974-91: Ethiopian civil war (1,000,000)
1975-78: Menghitsu, Ethiopia (1,500,000)
1975-79: Khmer Rouge, Cambodia (1,700,000)
1975-89: Boat people, Vietnam (250,000)
1975-87: Civil war in Lebanon (130,000)
1975-87: Laotian civil war (184,000)
1975-2002: Angolan civil war (500,000)
1976-83: Argentina's military regime (20,000)
1976-93: Mozambique's civil war (900,000)
1976-98: Indonesia-East Timor civil war (600,000)
1976-2005: Indonesia-Aceh civil war (12,000)
1977-92: El Salvadorian civil war (75,000)
1979: Vietnam-China war (30,000) 

(Click On Image To Expand. Easy But Not Fun.)

1979-88: Soviet Union Invasion Of Afghanistan (1,300,000)
1980-88: Iraq-Iran war (435,000)
1980-92: Peruvian civil war (69,000)
1984- [Ongoing]: Kurds vs Turkey (35,000)
1981-90: Nicaragua vs Contras (60,000)
1982-90: Hissene Habre, Chad (40,000)
1983-2011: Sri Lanka's civil war (70,000)
1983-2002: Sudanese civil war (2,000,000)
1986-: Indian Kashmir's civil war (60,000)
1987-: Palestinian Intifada (4,500)
1988-2001: Afghanistan civil war (400,000)
1988-2004: Somalia's civil war (550,000)
1989-: Liberian civil war (220,000)
1989- [Ongoing]: Uganda vs Lord's Resistance Army (30,000)
1991: Gulf War - large coalition against Iraq to liberate Kuwait (85,000)
1991-97: Congo's civil war (800,000)
1991-2000: Sierra Leone's civil war (200,000)
1991-2009: Russia-Chechnya civil war (200,000)
1991-94: Armenia-Azerbaijan war (35,000)
1992-96: Tajikstan's civil war war (50,000)
1992-96: Yugoslavian wars (260,000)
1992-99: Algerian civil war (150,000)
1993-97: Congo Brazzaville's civil war (100,000)
1993-2005: Burundi civil war (200,000)
1994: Rwandan civil war (900,000)
1995- [Ongoing]: Pakistani Sunnis vs Shiites (1,300)
1995- [Ongoing]: Maoist rebellion in Nepal (12,000)
1998- [Ongoing]: Congo/Zaire; Rwanda, Uganda vs Zimbabwe, 
Angola, Namibia (3,800,000)
1998-2000: Ethiopia-Eritrea war (75,000)
1999: Kosovo - NATO vs Serbia (2,000)
2001- [Ongoing]: Afghanistan War - USA & UK vs Taliban (40,000)
2001- [Ongoing]: Nigeria vs Boko Haram (16,000)
2002- [Ongoing]: Cote d'Ivoire's civil war (1,000)
2003-11: Second Iraq-USA war - USA vs Shiite squads, Sunni extremists (160,000)
2003-09: Sudan vs JEM/Darfur (300,000)
2004- [Ongoing]: Sudan vs SPLM & Eritrea (??)
2004- [Ongoing]: Yemen vs Houthis (??)
2004- [Ongoing]: Thailand vs Muslim separatists (3,700)
2007- [Ongoing]: Pakistan vs Pakistani Taliban (38,000)
2011- [Ongoing]: Iraq's civil war after the withdrawal of the USA (150,000)
2012- [Ongoing]: Syria's civil war (200,000)
2013- [Ongoing]: Islamic State, Sectarian War In Iraq, Syria (??)
2014- [Ongoing]: Ukraine's civil war (6,000)

(via UNHCR)

Reprint Heaven: Victory

( Fifty years ago, now.  This post is now another annual repeat. )

Victory In Europe (V-E) Day; May 8th


May 8th, 1945; Kaiser-Wilhelms Church, Kurfurstendamm, Berlin


San Francisco, May 8, 1945


May 8th, 1945; Times Square, New York City


Canadian Troops, German Refugees Outside Hamburg, May 8, 1945


May 8th, 1945; Ebensee Concentration Camp, Bavaria


May 8th, 1945; Russian Soliders At The Reichstag, Berlin


May, 1945; Russian Soldiers Near Führerbunker Show Location
In Chancellery Garden Where Hitler's Corpse Was Burned


May 8th, 1945; Berlin


May 7, 1945; Survivors Of Mauthausen Concentration Camp


May 8th, 1945; Winston Churchill At Whitehall, London


May, 1945; Bomb Damage Still Being Cleared, Central London


May, 1945; Berlin


May 8th, 1945; Paris


May 8th, 1945; German Refugees, Juchen (N.Rhein-Westphalia)


Memorial, Mamayev Kurgan, Volgograd


Memorial, The Cenotaph, London


Memorial, Near The Mall, Washington, D.C.


Memorial, The Neue Wache With Kollwitz Pieta, Berlin


Memorial, Deportees And Prisoners; Lyon, France


Memorial, Yad Veshem, Jerusalem


Kaiser-Wilhelms Church; Kurfurstendamm, Berlin


European Union Headquarters Building; Brussels, Belgium

---

Что вы ищете в этом?

Gettin' Weird Out There

Sad Vlad The Putin had a one-sided conversation with a large, stuffed Totoro for over two hours on Russian Television. While viewers were somewhat mystified, this seemed to make Vlad feel better, though the Totoro had no comment (as Totoros are wont not to). 

All this because Before Nine has been getting a lot of traffic from Russia (not that we get a lot of traffic at all), and even the continuing lure of Johanna Sällström doesn't seem to explain it.  Well -- enjoy!

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Reprint Heaven: The Random Barking Pesach Miracle

Nu?
(From 2012)

Whether this observation bounded by the strictures of religious belief, or as open as any question in quantum mechanics -- it can't be denied that we live on a single planet, its atmosphere captured by gravity, orbiting a single star in a universe so vast that we can't conceive just how large that vastness is.

So.. what? What is all this for? Religion will insist on one answer, science another -- though unlike religious leaders, scientists (not ones paid by the Koch Brothers™, or some other bored billionaire, anyway) will tell you their answers aren't absolute. But though you can debate about the purpose, the facts of where and how big can't be argued. So, what's it for? What are we for?

And from that perspective, President Boner's toupee, Obama's support for Banksters™ or 'National Security', or "Bucky The Beaver" Brooks' rat-toothed giggle doesn't mean much.

President Obama Graciously Ignores The Incident Of President Boner's Hairpiece (Photo: People/Newsroom; TPM; Inset Detail By Mongo)

In the face of the unanswered Big Questions, many of the things we consider so important, aren't. There are obvious things which are important, but much of what captures our attention in this place we inhabit -- as Ellen Ripley reminds us, "all this, all this bullshit you think is so important" -- isn't.

We should be asking The Big Questions. But, I'm only a Dog, and no one listens to me.

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MEHR, MIT SCHADENFREUDE, UND FROHE OSTERN, PEEPS!  Three guys appear before Saint Peter, sitting at his raised dais while guarding the entrance to Heaven Itself.  Pete fixes a gimlet eye on them and intones, "You wish to enter the Kingdom Of Heaven. To see God, and to know your place in All Things, and to live forever and ever in Paradise. Is that about right?"

"Yeah man."   "Yes, your honor."   "I do!"  The men replied.

"Okay." Peter leans on his raised podium and squints down at them. "Listen up; here's how it works. I'm going to ask each of you a question. You get it right; you're in. You blow it, and I pull the string and you go to Hell. Ready?"  The men, obviously frightened, nodded. Peter pointed to the first man. "You. What's the meaning of Easter?"

 The man opened his mouth, but no sounds came out. "Well?" peter said, frowning. "That your 'final answer'?"

"Uh... isn't it about Moses, and wandering somewhere for forty days and BWWWAHH HHHHAAA!!!!!!" The ground beneath the man opened up; flames shout out of the ground and he fell into the flaming maw. The earth closed and the air was redolent of sulfur and brimstone. Peter shifted his gaze to the second man. "You -- what's the meaning of Easter?"

"Well, it's about -- well, there's a whole bunch of fish and bread at the end of it but BWWWAHHH HHHAAA!!!!!!"And the earth opened beneath him, flames spewed towards the sky, and he was pulled down into the fiery pit; the earth closed over him.  Peter looked at the last man. "You. What's the meaning of Easter."

"Ah... isn't that where, uh, Jesus had the last supper, and was betrayed, and tried for heresy, and sentenced to be crucified?" The man said.

"Okay," Peter replied. "Say more."

"And He was crucified, and taken down and placed in a tomb?" The man said with a hesitant smile.

"All right," Peter said, leaning forward. "Keep going."

"And they rolled a big rock in front of the tomb, and He was there for three days?"

Peter was nodding. "You're on a roll, man; tell it."

The man, beaming, smiled back at him. "Yeah! And on the third day, Jesus rolled back the rock -- and he came out of the tomb -- and saw His shadow; and that meant we had three more weeks of Winter BWWWAHHH HHHAAA!!!!!!"

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Oh, and Gut Pesach.

Taliban

Someone Else Today. You Tomorrow.

This bill is not about discrimination... [the purpose of the legislation] is very simply to empower individuals when they believe that actions of government impinge on their constitutional First Amendment freedom of religion... 
-- Indiana Governor Mark Pence, to ABC's George Stephanopolis

SB 101: Religious freedom restoration. Prohibits a governmental entity from substantially burdening a person's exercise of religion, even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability, unless the governmental entity can demonstrate that the burden: (1) is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest; and (2) is the least restrictive means of furthering the compelling governmental interest... Specifies that the religious freedom law applies to the implementation or application of a law regardless of whether the state or any other governmental entity or official is a party to a proceeding ... Prohibits a governmental entity from substantially burdening a person's exercise of religion, even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability... Specifies that the religious freedom law applies to the implementation or application of a law regardless of whether the state or any other governmental entity or official is a party to a proceeding implementing or applying the law. Prohibits an applicant, employee, or former employee from pursuing certain causes of action against a private employer... (The RFRA, per the Indiana General Assembly)

I had intended to post a long rant on the perfidy and outright evil which characterize right-wing evangelism in America, but we'll just take those items as a given.

SB 101 isn't the first law passed in even recent memory allowing a minority in political control to enshrine their intolerance with the force of legislation -- in this case, evangelical christians (with a small "c") and their god-given (well, somebody's god, anyway) right to condemn -- in this case, LGBT Americans. And evangelicals love to condemn; being a True Believer seems to gives them the authority to do that, filled with Grace™ and love (and something else) as they are.



And our right-wing evangelicals want to be the dominant authority -- over women, over children, over education and art and sexuality. Our evangelicals, like the Taliban, would like to enact their own version of religious law in America -- and religious law is not about uplifting and empowering the human spirit; it's based on Thou Shalt Not.

Religious law of whatever flavor is based on the fundamental precept that Humans are bad, stained from birth with evil, who must be carefully watched by the Elders and restricted from committing more acts which The Elders believe are affronts against (somebody's) god.

And (as is always true in less democratic forms of governing), the force of religious law always rests on ultimate punishment. Those who break these laws are whipped and disfigured, have parts of their bodies crudely amputated; are tortured until they confess their crimes; are stoned to death, beheaded, or burned at the stake. And the entire community will be made to watch, or may be required to participate in a ritualized killing... as a religious requirement. As an object lesson.

And nations ruled by True Believers and their edicts -- religious, or political -- always become bankrupt cultures; shabby, frightening, and ultimately murderous places.  Ask the Muslims of Serbia and Croatia. Ask the Tutsis of Rawanda. Ask the people of Cambodia. Ask the people of Afghanistan. Ask the Jews of Europe.

(A Dog has a long memory:  The last member of my family had been a born-again evangelical; for a time, they were associated with a tiny sect, organized around a self-proclaimed 'pastor'. After a long illness, my family member died; at the funeral, I watched the 'pastor' turn what was a moment of grief and remembrance into his opportunity to tell a captive audience, at length, that their time on earth was short and everyone in earshot and beyond was hellbound and they'd better get right with the lord.

(He shouted and strutted; he preened -- a True Believer in full, in love with the power that act of condemnation gave him. Of passing judgement, and settling scores. I've found some of him in every individual I've seen or experienced since who claims to be 'moved' by an allegedly higher power. And the so-called "laws" associated with whatever freakshow delusion they're pushing which allow them to do pretty much whatever they want. Yes, they'll make fine leaders of America, or whatever they'll call their New Kingdom.

(Ask the members of the People's Temple at Jonestown. Ask the Branch Davidians at Waco. You might even ask the members of 'christian' congregations across America, listening to speeches made by their 'pastors' condemning other people as less than human and feeling such putrescent drivel is not only just fine but righteous.) 

SB101 is not the last legislation of its kind that we'll see passed in America. And if an evangelical christian ever becomes President of the United States, we will see many more. The United States is, in the eyes of many, the country where political apathy is king; perhaps that's so.

If it is, then God help us all. In our torpor, ultimately we may find ourselves ruled by the same kind of strutting, egotistical monsters that a real pastor, Martin Niemöller, had in mind when he made the oft-quoted observation:

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak out. --  Pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984)

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MEHR, MIT "ES GENUG IST !":

(Reuters) - Indiana's Republican Governor Mike Pence, responding to national outrage over the state's new Religious Freedom Restoration Act, said on Tuesday he will "fix" it to make clear businesses cannot use it to deny services to same-sex couples.

Pence, in a news conference, said the law he signed last week had been widely mischaracterized and "smeared" but he called on the state's Republican-controlled General Assembly to send a new law to his desk this week to fix it...

But Pence found support from conservatives including Republican presidential hopeful Ted Cruz and possible presidential contenders Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio...

Critics say Indiana's law went too far in potentially allowing businesses to deny services to gay couples, because they could argue that doing so went against their deeply held beliefs.

Same-sex marriage became legal in Indiana under an appeals court ruling last year.

Religious Freedom Acts in Georgia and North Carolina appeared to stall this week after Indiana came under fire. But the Arkansas House of Representatives is expected to approve this week an RFRA that has already passed the state's Senate.

Greg Stillson For President

I Saw The News Today Oh Boy

   Sen. Ted Cruz; June 6, 2014  (Photo: Texas Tribune / Bob Daemmrich)

Martin Sheen As Greg Stillson In The Film Adaptation Of King's The Dead Zone (1983)

We've all seen the news.  Yesterday, Senator Ted Cruz of Canada the Soverign Nation Republic State of Texas announced that he was running for the Republican party's nomination as its candidate for President in the 2016 election. He said many things, and repeated the word "imagine" many times.

As I watched him speaking in a number of film clips on mainstream news, I was suddenly reminded of a character in contemporary writing and film -- Greg Stillson, in Stephen King's The Dead Zone.  If you've seen the 1983 film (possibly the best screen adaptation of any of King's books), then you've seen Martin Sheen playing the role of a local politician in Maine, a Huey Long-style populist who runs for Senator -- very much what would pass for a Tea Partei candidate today.

Stillson says he believes in America, and Values -- oh, and the truth, so long as he agreed with it. And, outwardly a confident and canny politician, King's character was written as an evangelical, too -- and very much convinced that it was his destiny to become President and Do God's Will (well; the will of somebody's god, anyway).

But the truth was that inwardly, Stillson was altogether not all he seemed -- and whatever it was people were voting for when they looked at him, what they got was very different.

Stillson is introduced in the novel at the beginning of the book as a struggling traveling salesman for a Bible-printing company ... During a stop at a house in rural Iowa, Stillson is attacked by the absent homeowners' dog and, enraged, sprays ammonia in the animal's eyes before beating it to death. As he drives away, Stillson comes to the realization that he is destined for greatness. (Stephen King Wiki)  

It is possible the truth is, in the long, oily wake of the Scalia Court's decision in Citizens United, that America's elections are now the property of people like the Koch brothers, Addled Sheldon, and Little Rupert? Just another thing to be purchased. Because they can. Because Freedom.

But, maybe not. Maybe that's not the truth. Maybe elections might be the last place where, when casting a vote, we are in fact all equal and anything is possible. The truth? We have a moral obligation to work against ignorance and malevolence, or we will get the leaders we deserve.

The truth, too, is that King's novel and the film it's based on are just that -- fiction. In the real world, people like the Senator from Canada Texas are all too present a reality, and using the political process (such as it is) we should work pretty damn hard to ensure he or anyone like him, if they receive the nomination of any party, will be defeated at the polls.

 I'd suggest going here and adding your name, and even spending a few dollars. And yes, this will be on the final.

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Second Star From The Right

And Straight On 'Till Morning
Leonard Nimoy  1931 - 2015

Not all that many people affect a wider world; the number that have a positive influence are even smaller.

El Rog (that's pronounced "Raj") The Magnificent at my Place Of Witless Labor™ spoke over the Great Wall Of Cubicle a while ago and advised Leonard Nimoy has died. The visual image which immediately popped into my mind was the character he made immortal, Spock, as he'd appeared in the first JJ Abrams reboot of the Star Trek franchise, and so my first thought was Spock, dead? No; that's not possible. It took a few seconds to remember Nimoy in any other way, and then the news seemed not only possible but not unexpected. Now He Knows What We Do Not.

As Lynda Barry tells it, television was role model, teacher, and refuge for several generations. It was all those for me, and due to an odd twist of pre-frontal cortex which allows me to recall the complete dialogue of specific films nearly intact, I would remember the faces of character actors who appeared in films and different television series (which would lead to posts like this, and this, and this one).

I watched Star Trek when it was new in 1966, and a new concept for television -- a science fiction episodic television program (the audience could 'get involved' with the lives of its characters, and their relationship with each other, to create a backstory to support the arc of the series).  It's true that 'The Twilight Zone' had appeared in 1959, and One Step Beyond not long after; then "Outer Limits" in 1964, but each of their episodes were separate presentations, a series of short stories.

Star Trek was the first of its kind, and it made all the other series that followed, Star Trek-related or not, possible -- ST Next Generation; ST Deep Space Nine; ST Voyager; Starship Enterprise; Babylon 5; Stargate; Battlestar Galactica (original, and the remake); Space 1999; even the Saturday morning Thunderbirds! marionette series.

It also made possible a long string of other sci-fi and fantasy-related programs that we take for granted, today, from X-Files and Roswell to the SciFi Channel. 

The crew of the NCC 1701 were a family, and Leonard Nimoy's rendition of the science officer and XO was spot on, right from the beginning; I can't imagine another actor in 1966 who could have brought more to the role (Try and imagine it. Go ahead). The series was a popular success, but even with a large write-in campaign from fans, NBC cancelled it; episodes in the spring of 1968 were the last.

In the1970's Nimoy joined the cast of Mission: Impossible, replacing Martin Landau (who ended up as the star of -- yes; 'Space 1999', with his MI co-star and then-wife, Barbara Bain).  When Star Trek's creator, Gene Roddenberry, finally received financial backing to produce "Star Trek: The Motion Picture", Nimoy returned to his Spock role. But, the movie had a poor showing when it was released in 1979 and for a time it wasn't clear whether there would be any sequels. Nimoy began looking for other ways to reinvent his career -- as a writer, an artist, as a stage actor.

Four years later, with a different director and script, The Wrath Of Khan (with another decent character actor, Ricardo Montalban) appeared, and was a success -- even when the unexpected happened; Spock sacrifices himself to save his ship, its crew, and the officers on it that were his family.
  

 "I was, and always shall be, your friend." If you saw the film when it was released,

tell me you didn't feel just a little misty when he spoke that line. 

There would be another four star Trek films with the original cast  -- two of them written, and directed, by Nimoy. In 1987, he directed Three Men and A Baby for Disney Studios -- a big hit, financially. Nimoy continued directing other productions until 1995.

Over the last twenty years, Nimoy had been candid that as a person, it hadn't all been a bed of roses; he had suffered with an alcohol addiction since the late 1960's, but had conquered it. Even as he grew older he continued to do what he did best, to act -- his appearance as the reclusive Dr. Bell on the series, Fringe, and reprising Spock in the 2012 Star Trek reboot, were his last hurrahs as an actor.

Nimoy and Zachary Quinto at the opening of Abram's Star Trek (2012)

Through the original series and the motion pictures, Spock's character was about resolving inner conflict, the Path Of Logic versus human instincts. But Nimoy's character, which he did a good deal to shape, was also about loyalty, compassion, and Right Action.

For generations of people who grew up watching Nimoy as Spock, the character showed a bridge between our illogical selves and Something Larger, in a positive way.  The planet Vulcan may not exist, but that there might be a choice between instinctive or unconscious behavior, and some level of clarity achieved through discipline, does. No matter how that is internalized, it's a powerful message.

And, it's not a stretch to say that Nimoy's role as (arguably) Star Trek's most popular character helped to popularize science fiction on television. This was different from the B-Film sci-fi that was churned out in the 50's and 60's  -- it made science fiction acceptable as a dramatic form, The Human Dilemma in the vast reaches of space. Without Trek on television and in film, there might have been a very different and less nuanced 'Star Wars' (all six of them), or Blade Runner, Alien, or "Interstellar".

So, another Mensch leaves us -- I hope, for another continuing adventure.

Kirk:  I think its about time we got underway ourselves. 
Uhura:  Captain, I have orders from Starfleet Command. We're to put back to Spacedock immediately ... to be decommissioned. 
Spock:  If I were human, I believe my response would be, "go to Hell" -- if I were human.
Uhura:  What are your orders, sir?.
Kirk:  Second star on the right -- and straight on 'till morning.

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You Have Nothing To Lose But Your Fast Food Chains

Greece Shows The Way

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MEHR, MIT AROOO:  Paul Krugman, one of the Smartest Humans On Earth™, explains that there's more to the Greek finance drama than meets the eye -- principally, that The Syriza Party's standing up to bullying by EU finance ministers may be the beginning of the end of Austerity programs in the Eurozone. 

From an economist's perspective, Krugman believes Greece has done well in the sort term and is positive about its future. The actors in this drama who aren't happy in the EU are the Austerians, who should just go back to Planet Buzzkill, already.

... the main issue of contention involves just one number: the size of the Greek primary surplus, the difference between government revenues and government expenditures not counting interest on the debt. The primary surplus measures the [amount of money] that Greece is actually [paying] its creditors. Everything else, including the [total amount of Greece's] debt — which is a more or less arbitrary number at this point, with little bearing on the amount anyone expects Greece to pay — matters only to the extent that it affects the primary surplus Greece is forced to run.

For Greece to run any surplus at all — given the depression-level slump that it’s in and the effect of that depression on revenues — is a remarkable achievement, the result of incredible sacrifices. Nonetheless, Syriza has always been clear that it intends to keep running a modest primary surplus. If you are angry that the negotiations didn’t make room for a full reversal of austerity ... you weren’t paying attention.

The question instead was whether Greece would be forced to impose still more austerity. ... So did the current Greek government back down and agree to aim for those economy-busting surpluses? No, it didn’t. In fact, Greece won new flexibility for this year...

And the creditors did not pull the plug. Instead, they made financing available to carry Greece through the next few months. That is, if you like, putting Greece on a short leash, and it means that the big fight over the future is yet to come. But the Greek government didn’t succumb to the bum’s rush, and that in itself is a kind of victory.

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