7-29-09

7-29-09—The unusual exchange between American and Chinese officials ... underscored a subtle shift in power between China and the United Sates, one in which the Chinese are showing a new assertiveness as they seek to protect their huge investment.—NYT A5
--During its US tour last summer, FC Barcelona held a training session one evening in Central Park. The team, including superstar Thierry Henry, practiced in a part of the park’s North Meadow that serves as the outfield for several softball fields. As warm-ups began so did calls from the clueless nearby beer league softball games for Barcelona to “Get the --- off the field.”—WSJ D8
--Sex really is a nation of its own. Those who allegiance is given to sex at a certain moment withdraw their loyalty temporarily from other powers. It’s a symbol of the possibility that we might all defect for one reason or another from the obedient columns in which we march.—Wallace Shawn HARPERS August 2009 p. 15

the summer of our discontent

It was Americans’ reverence for their traditional two-party system] that blinded them when it foundered once and for all on the inherent contradictions of liberal “democracy” soon after Barack Obama took office. The people’s desire for instant gratification, their willingness to elect dangerous demagogues, and the venality and contentions of their leaders all had rendered the American decline inevitable. ... The pampered youth of the American bourgeois classes came to believe that their mere attendance at rallies and the symbolic choices they made between factions in the election booths constituted a movement—even a sort of revolution. –Li Xian The Dragon Rising, The Chinese Century, HARPERS July 2009, 33-34

1825

Britain had prospered in the early 1820s from low interest rates and a surplus of money. There were two booms, in foreign investment and in trade. ... The middle classes borrowed to invest in the booming economy. Banks kept up with the demand for cash, issuing more banknotes. ... Late in 1825 the bubble burst. ... The visionary companies were the ones that fell furthest.—Ben Wilson, THE MAKING OF VICTORIAN VALUES (2007) p. 277.

green century

The situation is like this: they hired our parents to destroy this world, and now they’d like to put us to work rebuilding it, and—to add insult to injury—a a profit... And in our bewilderment we’re ready to leap into the arms of the very same ones who presided over the devastation, in the hope that they will get us out of it. ... Ecology isn’t simply the logic of a total economy; it’s the new morality of capital. The system’s internal state of crisis and the rigorous screening that’s underway demand a new criterion in the name of which this screening and selection will be carried out. From one era to the next, the idea of virtue has never been anything but an invention of vice. Without ecology, how could be justify the existence of two different diets, one “healthy and organic” for the rich and their children, and the other notoriously toxic for the plebes, whose offspring are damned to obesity. The planetary hyper-bourgeoisie wouldn’t be able to make its normal lifestyle seem respectable if its latest whims weren’t so scrupulously “respectful of the environment.” Without ecology, nothing would have enough authority to gag every objection to the exorbitant progress of control ... Everything is permitted to a power structure that bases it authority in Nature, in health and well-being. ... The new green asceticism is precise the self-control that is required of us all in order to negotiate a rescue operation where the system has taken itself hostage. –The Invisible Committee, THE COMING INSURRECTION (2009) pp 75-79

weekend update

-18/19-09—Now, on TV every day as people remember some trauma or triumph, they stop as if on cue ... and weep. They think this shows sincerity and sensitivity. ... I sometimes watch with fascination those shows where people lose weight. They often begin to sob as they fall of the treadmill or remember the Twinkie they didn’t eat. This is now the national style. It makes Europeans laugh. When they’re about to be mawkish or overly emotional they say, I don’t mean to get American on you.” --Peggy Noonan WSJ A13

7-16-09

7-16-09—First, the bosses were taken hostage. Now, workers facing layoffs in France have threatened—twice this week—to blow up their factories unless they receive more severance pay. –NYT B9

7-15-09

7-15-09—Sarah Palin is a collector of grievances. She runs for high office by griping. This is no small thing, mind you. The piling-up of petty complaints is an important aspect of conservative movement culture.—Thomas Frank, WSJ A13

7-14-09

7-14-09—...China’s protectionist tactics to become the world’s leader in renewable energy. Calling renewable energy a strategic industry, China is trying hard to make sure that its companies dominate globally.—NYT B1 [so they won’t have to invade Iraq for wind...]

7-13-09

7-13-09—Up and down Wall Street, analysts and traders are buzzing that Goldman Sachs, which only recently paid back government bailout money, will report blowout profits from trading on Tuesday. NYT A1—meet the new boss, same as the old boss


--Three Inmates Escape from State Prison at Michigan City.—SBT A1 –life imitates art [as in DILLINGER, although one of them has already been apprehended at the Mayor Daley vacation home in SW Michigan...]

weekend update

7-12-09—The park [in Granger Indiana] was part of a national attempt on Saturday by the American Association for Nude Recreation (AANR) to set the world record for largest skinny kip across North America... SBT B4
7-11/12-09—[Sarah Palin] was limited in her ability to explain and defend her positions, and sometimes in knowing them. She couldn’t say what she read because she didn’t read anything. .. She wasn’t thoughtful enough to know she wasn’t thoughtful enough... She is a complete elite confection. She might as well have been a bon bon. –Peggy Noonan –WSJ A11
--7/11/09--Most intelligence officials interviewed “had difficulty citing specific instances” when the National Security Agency’s wiretapping program contributed to successes against terrorists...—NYT A1

7-8-09

7-8-09—Pope Benedict XVI on Tuesday called for a radical rethinking of the global economy, criticizing a growing divide between rich and poor and urging the establishment of a “true world political authority” to oversee the economy and work for the “common good.” –NYT A6
--In “Caritas in Veritate,” Pope Benedict offered a sweeping indictment of the troubles that fueled the economic crisis, ranging from outsourced labor, to lax market regulation, to managers and financiers driven by profit and “darkened reason.”—WSJ A11
--Indiana’s privately welfare project has so many problems that the state could start taking steps to cancel its $1.6 billion contract with lead vendor IBM... WSJ A6

7-7-09

7-7-09--All told, Paris has set aside 100 million euros in stimulus funds earmarked for what the French like to call their cultural patrimony. It is a French twist on how to overcome the global downturn, spending borrowed money avidly to beautify the nation even as it also races ahead of the United States in more classic Keynesian ways: fixing potholes, upgrading railroads and pursuing other “shovel ready” projects.
“America is six months behind; it has wasted a lot of time,” said Patrick Devedjian, the minister in charge of the French relance, or stimulus. By the time Washington gets around to doling out most of its money, Mr. Devedjian sniffed, “the crisis could be over.”
Gallic pride aside, Mr. Devedjian has a point. While he plans to spend 75 percent of France’s stimulus money this year, the White House is giving itself until fall 2010 to lay out that big a share of the American expenditure. And many experts predict that Washington will fall short of that goal.
As it turns out, France’s more centralized, state-directed economy — so often criticized in good times for smothering entrepreneurship and holding back growth — is proving remarkably effective at deploying funds quickly and efficiently in bad times.
“All projects must start in 2009,” Mr. Devedjian said. “We want rapid results.”—NYT B1

7-6-09

7-6-09—[A Russian version of Rush Limbaugh and Oliver Stone] has derided the United States as “a great power with a broken back,” “a country where armed psychopaths regularly roam educational establishments” and “a parasite that owes the world $53 trillion.” –NYT A1

happy birthday America

7-5-09—Overwhelmingly white, overwhelmingly Protestant and Lutheran, [Minnesota] has election four Jews to th3 US States Senate in recent time. (Jews make up less than 1% of the state’s population—NYT WK4
--“Dillinger did not rob poor people,” wrote one correspondent to the Indianapolis Star. “He robbed those who became rich by robbing the poor.” --NYT WK 8
--Sarah Palin showed on Friday that in one respect at least, she is qualified to be president. Caribou Barbie is one nutty puppy.—NYT WK 9