The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

    Dean Baker's right again.

    From about 2000 Dean Baker reported that we were in a real estate bubble which would end with a collapse. In Jan  2004 he even offered a $1000 prize for the  economist who could make the best attempt at disproving  him (and paid it to Hilary Croke a researcher for the Fed. )
     

    Here was Baker last week, commenting on the Washington Post's view of the economy.

     QUOTE

    Elusive Trope's picture

    Serenity Someday...Maybe

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    Frank Costanza: Serenity now! Serenity now!

    George Costanza: What is that?

    Frank: The doctor gave me a relaxation cassette. When my blood pressure gets too high, the man on the tape tells me to say 'serenity now!'

    George: Are you supposed to yell it?

    Frank: The man on the tape wasn't specific.

    The "Serenity Now!" episode remains one of my all time favorite Seinfeld episodes. When I was fiddling with my previous blog, I had at one moment tried to expand my thoughts on the joy and happiness using Frank's approach to achieve peace of mind.  But in reading the wikipedia entry on the episode,  I discovered another thread in the episode was inspired by the same David Mamet play with which I was also trying to assimilate into the previous blog: Glengarry Glen Ross.

    Frank Costanza: Starting tonight we're having a little sales contest. The loser gets fired. The winner gets a Water Pik.

    Let Freedom Ring: Freedom to Marry in all 50 States

    Hopefully this video will attach--I came up with a visual to support freedom to marry in all 50 states and am looking for feedback. Also maybe shares...I haven't done anything to get it out there yet.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-lnWj6otzg

    I also couldn't figure out how to attach the jpg file I made. Technology is hard.

    Elusive Trope's picture

    Paging Dr. Maslow...paging Dr. Maslow

    “Let yourself be drawn by the stronger pull of that which you truly love.”
    -- Rumi


    Going back over some bookmarked articles, given my latest focus, a couple of articles caught my attention.  First there was the following passage from The Guardian article on Czech photographer Josef Koudelka::

    After the Prague pictures established his reputation - or at least that of an "anonymous Czech photographer" - Koudelka left the country on a three-month exit visa to photograph Gypsies, a project he'd begun in 1966. Failing to return home at the end of that period, he became stateless, a status he craved the way others yearn for money or fame. He felt at home in exile. All he needed, he insisted, was a good night's sleep, plenty of film, and time. Everything else was a seductive distraction: the less he had, the less there was to miss. "I needed to know that nothing was waiting for me anywhere," he has said. "That the place I was supposed to be was the place where I was at that moment, and that when there was nothing more to photograph there, then it was time to leave for another place."

    Did you know that.....

     

     

    o In New York city “Between 2006 and 2010, the amount spent (by the school system) on arts and music equipment and supplies was cut by 79 percent

    o nearly one fourth of all public schools have not a single art, music, theater or dance teacher on staff

    o at Brooklyn Tech (where Flavius'  grandson goes) 24 percent of the students were black in 1999-2000, compared with 10 percent during the 2011-2012 school year

    o At Bronx Science, the share of black students dropped from 9 to 3.5 percent over the same period.

    jollyroger's picture

    New Jersey Transit explains half billion Sandy damage with fully blacked out document, because, security.

    Although my sister lives in New Jersey, I have been blissfully unaware of the post Sandy travails besetting New Jersey Transit due to some demonstrably poor pre-storm planning (must visit more)

    Leaving aside the substance of the matter, we learn this amusing if alarming detail:

    When asked by the Bergen Record for a copy of their prestorm planning documents (New York City's Transit Authority has a 5 volume treatise) the responsive document, entitled "New Jersey Rail Operations Hurricane Plan” required only 3-1/2 pages.

    trkingmomoe's picture

    Sen. Elizabeth Warren Introduces Her First Stand Alone Bill - Bank on Students Loan Fairness Act

    Yesterday, May 8, 2013, Sen. Warren-D introduced her first bill in the Senate for students loans at the same rate at the Fed Window that banks get. 0.75%.   I will let her explain the bill in her own words. 

     

    Richard Day's picture

    HERE COMES THE SUN & THE WIND & NATURAL GAS &...

    blindfolded lady with sword in right hand held vertically down to floor, and a set of balance scales in her left hand held neck high

    I scanned a nice article at NYT forecasting how our energy needs will change over the next decade.

    But it really is the progress our nation has made over the last five years that astounds me.

    We are really close to seeing America as a net oil exporter!

    Alternative sources of energy are cutting our dependency on coal.

    Alternative sources of energy are creating jobs!

    New sources of traditional fuel are creating jobs; real jobs paying good money.

    jollyroger's picture

    Your surveillance dollars are not well spent!

    Zacarias Moussaoui in August, 2001, attracted FBI attention yet eluded investigation despite floridly odd public behavior.

    Tamerlan Tzarnaev, ten years and trillions of anti terror dollars later, attracts FBI attention, then maintains a floridly pro jihad ( public) YouTube channel , yet eludes further investigation.

    Obviously, our security apparatus is overworked in the war on terror.

    (I suggest triage: withdraw funds from the war on drug users.)

    trkingmomoe's picture

    Hamilton Project White Paper: Should the United States Have 2.2 Million More Jobs?

    Last Friday the Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institute published their final working paper by Micheal Greenstone and Adam Looney.  The research shows through charts and grafts, that we would have 2.2 more million jobs in the economy if we followed the same policies that we had during the last 5 recessions.  The authors compare this recovery rate to past down turns and recoveries.  They place the blame squarely on the reduction of public employees in order to reduce debt. Also the authors point out that we fall short of 10 million jobs right now in this economy.

    Elusive Trope's picture

    Humiliation Junction...What's Your Function?

    https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcR4ieW6XnHOV2PjDJqOaDkNHpHGKP0N9MwUdXYrxTZY6jIZAg_wqA

    Sometimes one tries to move further along the tracks on a particular train of thought and then just like that one is right back at the old station. While I think humiliation and its role in the facilitation of what some authorities refer to as radicalization is an intriguing topic, I wanted to delve more into the collective perception of the radicalization process.

    Critical to understanding the (shifting) core of this perception, I believe, is people's relationship with and understanding of tension and conflict.  In particular, tension and conflict as it relates to not only as an expression of human nature, but also in the formation of that same human nature.  These perceptions inform our politics, our understanding of our place in the world, and the place of others.  As with one of the facets of this tension, humiliation, this topic quickly pushes one to the notion that the personal is political (and the political personal). 

    trkingmomoe's picture

    Gwen Graham-D Will Run Against Steve Sutherland-R in Florida House District 2

    Gwen Graham, the daughter of former Florida Senator(18 years) and Governor(8 years) Bob Graham, announced last month she will run for Congress in FL House District 2 against incumbent Steve Southerland-R(Panama City.)  She graduated from Leon High School while living with her father in the Governor's mansion in 1980.  She attended University of North Carolina and got her law degree from American University.  Returned to Tallahassee to raise 3 children

    Richard Day's picture

    TOY GUNS!

    The NRA is having another convention and crazy crazy people will show up and give grand speeches about liberty and the Constitution and the commie liberals.

    Mediamatters does a splendid job demonstrating how the voices of the right including Hannity and Nugent and beckerhead and so many other nutjobs have been calling for out-right revolution over the last few years.

    Talk about yelling 'fire' in a crowded theater?

    Richard Day's picture

    CRUZIN WITH CRUZ; EXCEPT HE AINT AMERICAN!

    Joseph McCarthy.jpg

    Senator Cruz

     

    Speaking of revolutions:

    Ted Cruz has been accused of setting himself up for a 2016 run for the Presidency!

    Ted Cruz has denied these charges.

    http://www.salon.com/2013/05/01/ted_cruz_will_never_be_president/?source=newsletter

    Like Joan Walsh postulates:

    Some Random Thoughts on Syria

    I assume that Assad has constructed a golden parachute. He could bail out and land in a well feathered nest in any one of several countries. But, if he did so, his minority tribe would almost certainly lose and suffer terrible retribution. So far Assad is hanging tough and so are his followers. We often bandy the term, "existential threat" lightly, but there are many people fighting for the very life of their families, themselves, and their country as they know it.

    Richard Day's picture

    I HAD A WONDERFUL DAY!

    File:Kindergartenfrankfurt.jpg

     

     

    I had a wonderful day.

    Spring was more than a month late but damn I had a wonderful day.

    It was 67 F for chrissakes!

    Seany notified me by email that he would arrive with the troop on the weekend, like two days before the event.

    I did not expect the troop until sometime in May.

    Elusive Trope's picture

    Falling Sideways Some More

    http://www.movieactors.com/freezeframes-77/Sideways346.jpeg

    Do not drink too much. Do you hear me? I don't want you passing out or going to the dark side. No going to the dark side!

                                 -- Jack Cole, Sideways (2004)


    In the film Sideways, Paul Giamatti plays Miles Raymond, a forty-something unsuccessful writer, wine-aficionado, and  depressed middle school English teacher living in San Diego, who takes his soon-to-be-married actor friend and college roommate, Jack Cole (Thomas Haden Church), on a road trip through Santa Ynez Valley wine country. Miles wants to relax and live well. However, Jack wants one last sexual fling; at least that is their expressed agendas for the trip.

    Richard Day's picture

    THE PRESIDENTIAL LIBARY

     

    We're goin into Iraq, find a way!

    (George W. Bush to his Cabinet in January, 2001.)

    Elusive Trope's picture

    Falling Sideways

     

    In the 1993 film Falling Down, Michael Douglas plays a divorcé and unemployed former defense engineer, William Foster, who goes on a violent rampage across L.A. while trying to reach his daughter’s birthday party at the house of his estranged wife.  Roger Ebert writes of this character:

    What is fascinating about the Douglas character, as written and played, is the core of sadness in his soul. Yes, by the time we meet him, he has gone over the edge. But there is no exhilaration in his rampage, no release. He seems weary and confused, and in his actions he unconsciously follows scripts that he may have learned from the movies, or on the news, where other frustrated misfits vent their rage on innocent bystanders.

    Tsarnaev opens strong with Full Keanu

    I had been trying to decide how D. Tsarnaev would describe his activities in his discussions with authorities and the press. I thought he'd be quiet for a few days but apparently he's already begun to talk with authorities. I'll post a link as soon as I find a good rundown.

    Orion's picture

    Fear Itself

    Another tragedy befell another community in this country, this time in Federal Way - a suburb near Seattle, Washington:

    A shooting that left five people dead at a Federal Way apartment complex Sunday started as a case of domestic violence, police said Monday. It ended with a woman the suspect was living with and three innocent bystanders dead before police shot and killed the suspect.

    Officers responded to 911 calls at 9:30 p.m. at Pinewood Village in the 33300 block of 18th Lane S.

    Police said the suspect, in his late 20’s, shot and killed a woman in her mid-20’s who he was living with in the complex.

    The suspect then went to the parking lot, where he shot two men who confronted him, police said. He then grabbed a shotgun.
     

    Elusive Trope's picture

    Getting Radical

    http://skateandannoy.com/aa-sna-uploads/2007/06/mcwilson.jpg

    As I was leaving my place today, Andrea Mitchell on her MSNBC show asks her guest "...so what is the process of radicalization."   I don't know what kind of answer her guest gave since I then closed my front door, but the reporting on this event has had me more than once pondering the term "radicalization" in the current discourse.

    Of course, this question is posed in the context of the Boston Marathon bombing and its aftermath.  The term radicalization in this context it is understood has a more narrowed definition than the general term 'radicalization.'

    Looking back over my days of youth and the circles in which I ran in, there was some touching upon this process.

    From Sandy Hook to Boston: America's love affair with Extremism must come to an end.

    Stories. They've been around for a long time, and sometimes they help us figure out trends and events that seem mysterious.

    In the days after Sandy Hook, I thought a lot about the story of the Pied Piper, in which citizens thought they had found a permanent solution to their rat problem, only to discover that the price of that solution was...their kids. (Uh-oh, it turns out that preparing our children for some sort of theoretical disaster by teaching them to ride and shoot and hate America might have its drawbacks.)

    Now, thinking of two 19-year olds (so impossibly, foolishly young) whose lives have been effectively sacrificed on twin altars of extreme thinking, I keep coming around to the last scene of Romeo and Juliet, with the two kids  from families who had a lot in common but chose to hate each other, laid out on funeral biers and the prince (a dull guy but you know, he was right) trying to connect the dots for them.

    Elusive Trope's picture

    Loser

    http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2010/016/a/8/Hello_Loser_by_HaloKitty10461.jpg

    In the aftermath of the capture of the second suspect Boston Marathon bombings, one of the questions being asked in a number of circles is how did these two brothers become radicalized.  Part of the motivation behind the question is just the quest to understand why they did what they did.  Clarity around the motivation may facilitate for some of the victims and others traumatized by the event to a greater sense of closure.   For some this questioning into the 'reasons why' may be driven by what may be simply called academic curiosity.

    Another purpose of this question, however, is posed with the intent to gain some insight into how we in a developed country can help prevent other young adults like these two from becoming radicalized in the future.

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