There's an interesting article on Sarah Palin's debating style in today's New York Times. It notes that her demeanor in her debates during the Alaskan gubernatorial campaign was quite different from her demeanor during her recent interviews with Charles Gibson and Katie Couric.
That had me a bit worried, until I got to this part-
"But just as she does now, Ms. Palin often spoke in generalities and showed scant aptitude for developing arguments beyond a talking point or two. Her sentences were distinguished by their repetition of words, by the use of the phrase “here in Alaska” and for gaps. On paper, her sentences would have been difficult to diagram.John Bitney, the policy director for her campaign for governor and the main person who helped prepare her for debates, said her repetition of words was “her way of running down the clock as her mind searches for where she wants to go.”
Then they reprinted a few quotes from her Alaska debates, and it seems that the main difference between now and then is that now she's hesitantly incoherent, and then she was enthusiastically incoherent.
I expect more of the same tomorrow night- you cannot turn somebody into a competent debater in a few weeks, especially if that person has no idea what they are talking about to begin with. At this point I really think she 'd lose a debate on the nation's economy, health care, or foreign policy to a bag of leaf mulch. I just hope people don't wind up feeling sorry for her. She certainly doesn't deserve it.
I organized one of the protests that were held nationwide yesterday afternoon against the Bush Bailout Bill. About 20 people showed up, not a bad showing for an event that had about 16 hours advance notice. We all brought signs and stood at the main intersection in Northampton from 5 till 6:30. More than half the cars going by were honking and waving and giving us the thumbs up.
Unfortunately in my rush to get out of the house I forgot my camera, which is a pity because there were several cool signs- one woman drew a nice caricature of S. Palin above the line "I can see disaster from my house!". Another guy had a half-mannequin dressed in a business suit which he held up on a pole- the figure had two heads, one Bush, one Cheney. The Cheney head had horns coming out of its forehead.
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here's something I wrote on the subject a few years ago-
44th and Sixth
The old man stands like a shadow in some deep South shanty, beer-swilling, Main-Street town, as he covers his head for the New York cabbies and bus drivers who pass him every day on his corner as he stands and waits.
He stands on the corner of 44th and 6th, stands their every day, to greet the bank manager and his help as they rush to work.
Go away old man, take your stubble-face, and your hunger-stumble walk, and your booze-sour breath, and go away. We don't want you here. You're not our fault.
A man in a three-piece Italian suit hurries by and the old man stumbles across the sidewalk, a smile on his blank, glassy face; Hey, old man, don't stare at me from your corner of the street; I am not your solution, and you are not my problem.. I have problems of my own. My BMW is always in the shop; my club is admitting Jews and blacks; my accountant is screwing my accounts, and my wife too, every Thursday; so get out of my way, old man, I'm in a hurry. I need a good stiff drink. And don't stare at me, old man. I am not you.
A passerby gives the old man a dollar and the last half of an uneaten sandwich from the local deli, and the banker glares at him through his glass wall, as the old man stumbles away to eat the sandwich, and to use the dollar to buy some respite from his reality.
But he'll be back. In a day, or a week, or a month, as you pass there again, scarf tight against the slicing November wind, the old man still stands, head bowed, like a shadow in some deep-south, pickup-truck, Main Street town, lost and at large in his reality, as the cabbies grind by, and the buses miss him by inches, and the banker sits behind his glass wall, because its not his fault.
So, Day Two of the largest robbery in human history didn't go especially well for Bouncing Ben Bernanke and Henry "The Hood" Paulson on Capitol Hill today, although it is looking more and more as if Congress may ignore the will of the American people and actually give the bastards on Wall Street their blackmail for screwing the economy. The Shrub is going to address the American people tonight and tell you all that this is an emergency- just like the invasion of Iraq was.
How do you know when GeorgeFuk is lying- ?? You all know the answer to that...
I urge everyone to write and call their congressman and tell them to "just say no".
John McCain, down nine points in the polls overnight, suddenly wants to stop Friday night's debate and have both presidential candidates suspend their campaigns. Huh? But he's not done- McCain says we need a "bi-partisan congressional committee" to negotiate a bail-out deal with the Treasury.
Well, excuse me, Senator McCain, but last time I checked we had a "bi-partisan" committee looking at the deal- it's called "Congress". What McCain really means is that it's easier to strong-arm 20 people than 435. Fuck you, Senator McCain.
Maybe what Congress needs is more bars. I know, I know, many Congressmen have a reputation for being "lit up", but apparently the English Parliament is even more dedicated in that regard. There are 17 bars in the House of Commons building, and if you want to get sense out of many parliamentarians you had better catch them before lunch. A correspondent on NPR told the following tale this week-
A well-known English politician, having had an especially "liquid" lunch, went to an official function afterwards and spotted a shapely figure in a wonderful, flowing purple gown. When he lurched over and asked for the next dance he was rebuffed-
"Firstly" said the object of his affection, "this is a diplomatic reception, not a dance party."
"Secondly, that is not a waltz, it is the Brazilian national anthem."
"And lastly," he was told coldly, "I am not some chorus girl, I am the Archbishop of San Paolo!"
Please, call your Congressperson again and tell them to "JUST SAY NO!"
UPDATE: There are nationwide protests Thursday. Please, for the sake of us all, and your children and grandchildren, we MUST say NO!!!
Congress is getting thousands and thousands of outraged calls and emails AGAINST this scandalous, illegal bailout for Wall Street NeoCons. You REALLY MUST EMAIL OR CALL YOUR CONGRESSMAN NOW, AND TELL THEM "JUST SAY NO!!!"
Last Thursday Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson got Congressional leaders together and gave them a message- give Wall Street $700 Billion dollars now or the entire global economy will go belly up within a week.
Today he told Congress that unless we give Wall Street $700 Billion dollars now the American economy may suffer a recession.
Hmm- that's quite a change of story. and pardon me for pointing this out but, as far as the working person goes- we're ALREADY IN A FUCKING RECESSION.
As we have always believed in equal time1 here at MBB, we're proud to present the following message to Treasury Secretary Paulson and all the Wall Streeters who are currently salivating at the thought of having $700 Billion taxpayer dollars to play around with, no strings attached-
Our Message:
Fat fucking chance. You guys have spent the last decade playing fast and loose with the rules, the economy, and even fundamental logic. You discovered that you could create new financial "instruments" faster than the government could regulate them, and then discovered that the government had no intention of even trying to. You discovered that you could make billions off the staid, boring old mortgage market by bundling mortgages, chopping and dicing them, and re-bundling them as "investment-grade" bonds, and then insinuating them into every sector of the economy so that the entire thing would be harder to unravel than the world's largest ball of rubber bands.
You let your street pushers, the mortgage brokers, know that you'd buy -anything- *wink* *wink* that they brought in. You bought those mortgages knowing that your pushers had lied to a bunch of the lendees, telling them that adjustable rate mortgages were actually fixed rate. You bought adjustable rate mortgages that you knew had been sold with the assurance (which you knew was worth nothing) that before the rate went up they could be re-financed at a lower rate, and then you bundled and sold those mortgages on the basis that they would give a rate of return based on the original, adjusted higher rates.
In other words, you and your minions, you and your street pushers, sliced and diced the mortgage market, the economy, and hundreds of thousands of home-owners, and you made billions and billions in profits for yourselves while you were doing it. And now, having brought the economy to the brink of collapse for your own selfish gain, you're threatening to push it over the edge of the cliff if we don't pay you not to.
So here's what we're going to do- first, you can have the fucking money, but there's a price to pay. To begin with, we now own you. We're not giving you money, we're buying you with it. You and your firms belong to us now.
Second- you're fired. All of you, from the top CEO to the last secretary. Ever hear of common responsibility? You have 24 hours to clean out your desks.
Third- those of you at the top, don't go too far, because you're going to be prosecuted for fraud. Your bank accounts, portfolios and property all now belong to the US taxpayer. You can't profit from a crime, remember? So everything you have belongs to us now. Don't worry, you won't need it- you're all going to spend the next 20 years in prison.
So, you think this is harsh, do you? Listen up, fuckheads- you're damned lucky that thousands of middle-class Americans are not descending on Wall Street right now with torches, burning your fancy-ass Republican banker's skyscrapers to the ground and pulling you out of the smoking debris so that we can beat you to death with manhole covers.
I was given your name as a trusted person I can write to and ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a transfer of funds of great magnitude and most importance for your attention.
I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country has had crisis that has caused the need for immediately large transfer of funds of 800 billion dollars US. If you would assist me in this transfer, I can promise it would be most profitable to you.
I am working with Mr. Phil Gram, lobbyist for UBS, who will be my replacement as Ministry of the Treasury in January. As a Senator, you may know him as the leader of the American banking deregulation movement in the 1990s. This transactin is 100% safe and contains no risk to you.
This is a matter of great urgency. We need a blank check. We need the funds as quickly as possible. We cannot directly transfer these funds in the names of our close friends because we are constantly under surveillance by our enemies. My family lawyer advised me that I should look for a reliable and trustworthy person who will act as a next of kin so the funds can be transferred.
Please reply with all of your bank account, IRA and college fund account numbers and those of your children and grandchildren to wallstreetbailout@treasury.gov so that we may transfer your commission for this transaction. After I receive that information, I will respond with detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect the funds.
Editorial note- As many of you have responded with your own memories, and most of you did not have stocks then -neither did I. My own response to this crisis, aside from the sheer drama of the event, was involved in the fact that as antiquarian booksloggers we have, as customers, many folks involved in the financial markets. They lose money, we lose sales. That was my main concern as the story went forward. Obviously we made it to today, and NOW we have canned tomatoes and firewood... I also want to thank the several new MMB Commenters who shared their thoughts with us -Many Thanks!
Suddenly the stock market seems to have everyone's attention. Yesterday's 500 point loss was certainly dramatic, but represented less than 5% of the NYSE value, and it's what comes next that has really analysts worried. Suddenly everyone knows what AIG stands for.
The current brouhaha brought back my memories of a really impressive melt-down, that of October 19, 1987. On that Monday, the NYSE plunged 22% -to equal that, todays market would have to lose 2,400 points in a single day. Ouch.
I can remember exactly where I was on Monday, October 19th, 1987- I was on a train to Chicago, where I was going to attend a big book auction on Tuesday. I've never been crazy about flying, so Sunday evening I got on an Amtrak train and headed from Boston to the Windy City, planning to arrive sometime after lunch on Monday and go over to the day-before-auction preview.
Back in Ye Olden Dayes, of course, we didn't have cellphones or WiFi or anything, so when you were on a cross-country train you were essentially cut off from all news of the outside world. When I rolled into Chicago around 1 pm I hadn't heard a word of news all day.
I grabbed a taxi for a ride to the auction house, and got a chatty driver. This was one of the big-city fancy-schmancy auction houses, so I'd put on a tie, and was carrying a briefcase which had my jammies & toothbrush in it, so I probably looked like a disheveled bond trader or something. The driver immediately started making cryptic remarks about "what a crisis, huh?" and "ever seen anything like this before?".
In situations like that I have this odd reflex reaction of trying not to look stupid and playing for time until I can figure out what the Hell is going on, so I made a few non-committal remarks, and we were suddenly at the auction gallery.
I got out of the cab with the odd sensation that the world was ending, and everyone knew it but me.
Big city fancy-schmancy auction houses are not the sorts of places you go up to someone and ask "pardon me, but have you heard a newscast lately?", so I got my catalog and started previewing. All round me the gallery front-office staff, which at places like this is mainly composed of attractive, well-bred young women trolling for well-off art-collecting husbands, had a hushed feeling of dread. They were whispering things to each other like, "my fiance sold all his positions this morning but we got wiped out anyway," and "well, my boyfriend works at the Board of Trade, and he says this could be the end of it ALL".
hehehehehe... I thought- I got to get me to a radio...
...and I eventually found one, playing softly in one corner of the gallery. The newscasters were using comforting phrases like "the worst disaster since the 'Crash of '29".
At times like that I am thankful that my business of buying and selling century-old books lends me a certain long-term perspective on such things. Well, the books and a few stiff scotch-and-waters did, anyway. And the good news was that on Tuesday everyone was completely spooked and I got some good buys at the auction.
And, of course, the markets went back up eventually. So a 500 point drop, or even a 1,000 point drop isn't something to worry about. It's that AIG thing that has me hoarding canned goods and being thankful we have 4 acres of cuttable firewood out back.
Many of us sit at desks all day, and are past an age where physical fitness is an easy attainment. A friend sent me this excercise suggestion, and I thought I would pass it along. My friend suggested doing it three days a week. Begin by standing on a comfortable surface, where you have plenty of room at each side.
With a 5-lb. potato sack in each hand, extend your arms straight out from your sides, and hold them there as long as you can. Try to reach a full minute, then relax. Each day, you'll find that you can hold this position for just a bit longer.
After a couple of weeks, move up to 10-lb. potato sacks. Then 15-lb. potato sacks, and then eventually try to get to where you can lift a 25-lb. potato sack in each hand and hold your arms straight for more than a full minute.
Once you feel confident at that level, put a potato in each of the sacks.
We are all waiting to hear from our friend Thomas, at Casa Doomcake, who was right in the path of the hurricane...
He gave us updates until the power went out. The most we ever get here in New England is much less that that. We do winter storms that will make you quake, but hurricanes are another story altogether.
Carry on, Thomas, and please, let us know you are ok.
Back in high school in Concord, in the late '70s, I knew a guy named David Filipov. We weren't buddies, but we had buddies in common, so we knew each other, and he was a cool guy. The one outstanding thing about David was that he was one of a dozen kids at CCHS who took Russian, a course they discontinued when Reagan was elected and all the school budgets got cut.
David went on from there to become the Russian correspondent for the Boston Globe, and marry a Russian woman. I was used to reading his columns in the Globe, and hear him every so often on NRP's Boston affiliate radio station, reporting from Moscow. That in itself was very cool- here's a guy I knew in high school who really made something of himself.
Then we had 9-11, and within a few days I heard that one of the victims of the first plane was David Filipov's dad.
David wrote a very moving piece in today's Boston Globe that I'd like to share-
Seven years ago today, terrorists flew the plane carrying my father into the World Trade Center.
The crash of American Airlines Flight 11 was an extraordinarily public event. The death of the man who gave me my passion for sailing, baseball, playing the guitar, and telling a story is my private tragedy. I've never wanted to mix the two, the public with the private.
Everyone has seen the grainy video of the Boeing 767 slamming into the North Tower and exploding into flames. I've seen it far too many times. Every Sept. 11, countless memorial services, blood drives, and charity events commemorate the day. I've never been to any of them. Tens of thousands have paid their respects at ground zero. I had never been able to bring myself to come here.
Until now.
As a son, I decided it was time to finally visit the place where my father died, and try to move on. And what I saw is that ground zero has moved on, too.
In some ways, the locus of one of America's greatest tragedies has become just another storied block in this storied city, as normal as the passenger planes that descend over the Manhattan skyline on a clear September morning like silver dragonflies.
The place where the World Trade Center once stood is a cavernous construction project surrounded by bustling streets where vendors hawk photos of the burning towers and other Sept. 11 memorabilia to passing tourists; bankers and brokers rush to and from their offices with barely a glance toward the site where the foundations for buildings are being laid; and the roar of buses and tractors drowns out ordinary conversation.
As I watched men in orange hats navigate the warren of concrete and gravel, a spectator spoke up. "When do you think it will be finished?" he asked.
His name was Walter Saravia, a student at New York City College of Technology. When the first plane hit, Saravia was nearby. He couldn't get the smoke and the sirens out of his head for days. He had been by the memorial a number of times, but yesterday was the first time he had stopped to really look.
"It's like a bad memory you subconsciously avoid," Saravia said as he stared through a mesh wire fence at the giant ramp leading down to the floor of the site, lined by the flags of the nations whose citizens died in the Sept. 11 attacks. "When you're from the city, you start to take for granted what is here."
Today, families of the victims will be allowed to go down the ramp and lay flowers at the site. But the rest of the ceremonies will be held on a stage across the street from ground zero. They started doing that last year, instead of marking the day in the pit, according to Victor Valdez, a security guard at the site.
"It's a construction site now," Valdez said. "But it's also a meaningful place."
Valdez lost three friends here. Part of his job is to escort family of the victims to a small trailer inside the fence where, in a quiet and secluded spot, they can leave pictures and other mementos of the ones they lost. So I went in, and for a while, I searched the walls for a picture I knew I would not find.
Back outside the fence, in contrast to the solitude, ground zero seemed even more of a tourist attraction. Two young women from Kazakhstan, stopping by on their way to see the Statue of Liberty, pored through a picture book they got from a vendor depicting the explosions as the planes crashed into the towers, their collapse, and the grim aftermath in agonizingly graphic detail.
An Italian couple, Paolo and Danila Beraldi, stopped by the site to snap a picture of the construction cranes over ground zero; they had arrived in New York on Tuesday night, and "we felt we had to come here," Danila Beraldi said. The Sinclair family, of Belfast, took in the site during a layover on their way to Florida for a vacation.
"You couldn't come to New York and not see it," said Avrill Sinclair, who remembers The Troubles in Northern Ireland, which her three children are too young to have lived through. "When you look at it, it's hard to imagine such a terrible thing. It's a day we'll never forget."
John Morabito, a New York City firefighter with Ladder 10, isn't likely to forget the day, either. He was in the lobby of the North Tower when the South Tower collapsed, causing a shock wave that threw him in the air. He was amazed he walked away with no injuries. Yesterday Morabito was yucking it up with visitors, selling Ladder 10 T-shirts and posing with tourists for pictures.
So this was the place where the wars I covered for the Globe in Afghanistan and Iraq began. I watched this scene and wondered whether I should be trying to grieve in this public place. Even here, especially here, my thoughts were dominated by the grainy video of the plane. How and where did he die? On the ground? In the air? What was he thinking in those last moments? Where is he? Authorities found only a bit of bone, which they sent us in 2002 and we buried in a coffin smaller than a mailbox. What became of the rest?
Perhaps, as the parents of another victim suggested near the scene, his ashes were spread all over New York.
Across the street, I walked into a small museum dedicated to the tragedy of the towers and, again, searched through hundreds of pictures in vain.
Before I walked back out into the busy crowds and the bustling streets with the silver planes floating overhead like harmless dragonflies, before I left ground zero behind, I turned to a corner where, under the words "In Memoriam," a list of the victims was etched in stone.
That's where I found Al Filipov's name. I guess that's what they call closure.
- -
So, I dedicate this song by the late Eva Cassidy to Al Filipov, and all the others lost on 9-11...
