In the neighborhood, in spring

Posted on April 15, 2011 by oddmanout215

Emerging from my bunker to chat with the neighbors (tonywoodphoto)

What’s he building in there?/What the hell is he building/In there?/He has subscriptions to those/Magazines… He never/Waves when he goes by/He’s hiding something from/The rest of us… He’s all/To himself… I think I know/Why…

— Tom Waits

Overheard while running past a couple of old gents in South Philly: “Don’t worry about it, you’ll be alright. I’ve had dementia my whole life.”

This just after I step around a Lady Gaga clone walking a fur-clad dachshund and say hello to my neighbor T., who sells antiques on the street and plays Verdi at full volume and is convinced it’s only a matter of time before the Colombian mob takes him out.

On my home street the girls next door, a cheerful gang of beer-drinking Roller Derby fans, are playing cornhole, an unfortunately named variation on horseshoes that involving two teams trying to toss sacks of pebbles into small round holes in freestanding wooden platforms. Other neighbors are watching from their folding chairs — the ex-Army Ranger and his psychologist wife, the guitarist, the woman who talks like Roseanne Barr, the director of absurdist plays who wears sensible shoes.

And the dogs, of course. There are few kids but dogs, the focal point of socialization on this street, are everywhere. From a distance, it looks like the whole gang, the neighbors and their dogs, are preparing for a midday hunt.

I say hi to my neighbors and they say hi to me, and we chat. I pet an over-friendly dog and duck into my bunker to get some work done. My neighbors are ducking in and out of their bunkers, too. It’s an unexpectedly warm day and everyone is getting back into the swing of playing outdoors and gossiping.

Each of us is here for our collective amusement. What happened to Coyote Boy, our trash-picker neighbor, whose brother sold the house after their father died? Is Mrs. R dead or did her kids put her in a home? Is D working? What happened to the woman he used to brawl with? Did he bury her in his basement?

Later I’ll ride my bike to a bookstore in West Philly and notice all the trees have suddenly sprouted pink or white blossoms and are arching over the streets like twin rows of bouquets. I’ll deduce from this, and from the reappearance of my neighbors, that it’s time to write a story about spring.

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A plague on Republicrats!

Posted on April 13, 2011 by oddmanout215

Will Barack Obama keep the promise he made today and oppose extending the Bush tax cuts next time? Will it even matter when the Republicans are finished screwing around with the tax code?

The ugly truth is that Obama and the Congressional Dems fled the field in advance of the main budget battle and are only skirmishing to save face at this point. Meanwhile, outrageous tax breaks for the richest one percent remain in place and quality of life for most people in this country continues to decline. As Joseph E. Stiglitz wrote in Vanity Fair:

… America has long suffered from an under-investment in infrastructure (look at the condition of our highways and bridges, our railroads and airports), in basic research, and in education at all levels. Further cutbacks in these areas lie ahead. None of this should come as a surprise—it is simply what happens when a society’s wealth distribution becomes lopsided. The more divided a society becomes in terms of wealth, the more reluctant the wealthy become to spend money on common needs. The rich don’t need to rely on government for parks or education or medical care or personal security—they can buy all these things for themselves. In the process, they become more distant from ordinary people, losing whatever empathy they may once have had. They also worry about strong government—one that could use its powers to adjust the balance, take some of their wealth, and invest it for the common good. The top 1 percent may complain about the kind of government we have in America, but in truth they like it just fine: too gridlocked to re-distribute, too divided to do anything but lower taxes.

Stiglitz was one of the first economists to clearly spell out the catastrophic long-range costs of the Iraq war — the first, I believe, to point out that the costs will exceed $3 trillion when care for badly injured veterans is figured in. He was more or less ignored on this issue, just as he’s being ignored on the catastrophic long-term costs of income inequality.

How often do Stiglitz’ common-sense conclusions about excessive wealth in the hands of a few come up in debates about the federal budget? The talk is all about spending cuts. Serious discussion in the White House, Congress and the mainstream media regarding the correlation between drastic cuts in taxes on the rich and the soaring national debt is non-existent.

Tax rates for the richest have been cut in half since the 1950s. Instead of working to reverse this, many D.C. Democrats — the very people we elected to protect our interests against the rapacity of the rich — are on the verge of voting to cut spending for the neediest and not even making the case that excessive tax breaks for the rich is one of the main drivers of the deficit.

We know where Republicans stand. It wasn’t until this year that we found out Dems in high places stand for the same thing: the prevention of fair taxation of the rich, even though this directly undermines the funding of education, jobs creation, infrastructure repair, environmental protection and other expenditures that would benefit the many rather than the few.

A plague on both your houses, Mercutio would say. Actually, it’s the same house — the house of the Republicrats. The only questions are 1) whether there exists a qualified Democrat or independent with the guts to oppose Barack Obama and take a shot at tearing down this house, 2) whether we can elect enough true Congressional progressives to make an actual difference when it comes time to rebuild.

Posted in economic collapse, finance reform bill, globalization, Great Recession, Iraq war, mainstream media, Politics, taxes, unemployment, world-wide economy | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Lumet’s gone, but ‘Network’ is forever

Posted on April 10, 2011 by oddmanout215

Reading of Sidney Lumet’s death, I thought of Al Pacino chanting “Attica! Attica!” to rouse the rabble in Dog Day Afternoon; of Henry Fonda, with Obama-like cool, shrugging off Lee J. Cobb’s bully tactics in Twelve Angry Men; of Jerry Orbach as a crooked New York cop raging against his fate in Prince of the City.

Lumet made more than a few great movies, but even his lesser films feature great scenes. He was a master of the sort of pacing that pays off in harrowing and darkly humorous depictions of people at the end of their rope.

His masterpiece is Network, a satire of the news media and a hilarious dystopian vision of America’s future. Who among you in my vast legion of readers hasn’t watched Network on DVD and said damn, I can’t believe this sucker was made in 1976! It’s as if Lumet and screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky had a crystal ball and could see everything from Fox News to globalization to the triumph of apathy over the spirit of rebellion.

Network shows us Ned Beatty as a corporate demigod explaining the new world order (“There are no nations…”) to Peter Finch, playing Howard Beale, the newsman who has gone gleefully insane for an audience of millions (“I’m mad as hell…”). Except that there is greater clarity in Beale’s madness than in network news, which is expertly personified by Faye Dunaway as a mid-level corporate hustler who seems always on the verge of realizing she, too, has gone around the bend.

Lumet was still going strong at age 82 when he made Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, about two brothers who scheme to rob their parents’ jewelry story, with disastrous results. The director even managed to coax a great performance out of Ethan Hawke. It’s a suspenseful but relentlessly dark film, made by an artist looking death in the face and not blinking. Instead, he seemed to be asking, “OK, what else can you show me?”

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How to negotiate like Neville Chamberlain

Posted on April 9, 2011 by oddmanout215

John Boehner’s target was $40 million in budget cuts. He got $38.5 million. And yet talking heads on MSNBC will almost surely try to spin the budget deal as some sort of victory for Democrats and working people, just as they routinely try to spin Barack Obama’s lack of spine as leadership.

Obama was loquacious in announcing a deal to avoid a government shutdown, and apparently oblivious to the damage his surrender on the budget issue might do regarding the likelihood of a genuine economic recovery.

How breathtakingly gullible, to have let himself play the Republicans’ game, conceding from the start that downsizing social programs while extending tax cuts for the rich somehow amounts to a step in the right direction. How foolish not to have framed the budget debate in Democratic terms — the terms used by ThinkProgress in summing up what the deal that was struck actually means in dollars:

…While they very nearly shut down the government to extract painful spending cuts, Republicans had already wiped out those spending cuts many times over with the revenue lost from extending the Bush tax cuts.

Why didn’t Obama repeatedly use the bully pulpit to criticize Republicans for insisting on cuts to social programs rather than an end to the Bush tax cuts? Has he invested so much in being the most reasonable guy in the room that he can’t speak plainly for what’s not only right but also logical? Must he always negotiate in the style of Neville Chamberlain?

It’s a gamble, I guess. By distancing himself from Democratic principles, Obama figures he’ll lure independents into his camp and win re-election. The irony is he might end up alienating independents as well as we Dems who feel betrayed by the ease with which he has broken most of the promises he made during the 2008 campaign. He is just as likely to be perceived as an ineffectual waffler as a great compromiser, especially if the economy is still in a rut next year.

And really, what are the the chances the economy will improve as a result of tax breaks for the rich and austerity measures for the poor and middle-class? And without the sort of sincere and focused effort to create jobs that Obama has avoided from the get-go?

Nobody likes a waffler — especially when his waffling, rightly or wrongly, appears to be contributing to the persistence of hard times.

Posted in Congress, economic collapse, Great Recession, mainstream media, Obama, Politics, unemployment | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

How do Paul Ryan do that voodoo he do?

Posted on April 8, 2011 by oddmanout215

The rich get richer, the poor get steamrolled. (tonywoodphoto)

I vote “yes” on Robert Reich’s call for higher taxes on the rich:

…Remarkably, taxes on the top have plummeted. From the 1940s until 1980, the top tax income tax rate on the highest earners in America was at least 70 percent. In the 1950s, it was 91 percent. Now it’s 35 percent. Even if you include deductions and credits, the rich are now paying a far lower share of their incomes in taxes than at any time since World War II… If the rich were taxed at the same rates they were half a century ago, they’d be paying in over $350 billion more this year alone, which translates into trillions over the next decade. That’s enough to accomplish everything the nation needs while also reducing future deficits.

I vote “no” on Paul Ryan’s far-right budget plan and wonder how many Americans understand that Ryan and his well-healed, whitebread homeys are trying to consign progressivism to the scrapheap of history. Their plans always boil down to this: The sky is falling and the only thing gonna save us are drastic sacrifices by the working class to the wealthy.

Economists such as Reich and Paul Krugman dismiss these right-wing con artists, but the mainstream news media — i.e., editors and reporters of the news, as opposed to the pundits — make no effort to separate the verities from the voodoo.

Here’s Krugman on Ryan’s contention that large tax cuts would increase revenue by almost $600 billion over the next 10 years:

A more sober assessment from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office tells a different story. It finds that a large part of the supposed savings from spending cuts would go, not to reduce the deficit, but to pay for tax cuts. In fact, the budget office finds that over the next decade the plan would lead to bigger deficits and more debt than current law.

You might think business reporters and analysts at the NY Times, Washington Post, et al., would be on the case, writing stories that either debunk or defend Ryan’s plan, an updated version of Reagan-era voodoo economics that helped get us in the mess we’re in today. But you would be wrong.

Posted in economic collapse, Great Recession, mainstream media, New York Times, Obama, Politics, taxes, unemployment, world-wide economy | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

The Obama trap is closing on progressives

Posted on April 6, 2011 by oddmanout215

We gotta get out of this place! (tonywoodphoto)

From the Animals:

My little girl you’re so young and pretty/And one thing I know is true/You’ll be dead before your time is due/Yes you will.

From Michael Gerson in The Washington Post:

Obama now has Republicans cornered in budget negotiations. By accepting $33 billion in cuts for the remainder of 2011, Obama has taken the middle ground and exploited a major division within the Republican coalition. The administration has transformed a weak record into a strong political position. What made this possible was Obama’s willingness to betray progressives in Congress even before the budget conflict began. In February, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had criticized spending reductions in the range of $30 billion as “draconian” and “unworkable.” Now that figure is a floor. The left has already lost the budget battle — though the right has not yet won it. Obama clearly takes liberals for granted, shoring up his own fiscal reputation at their expense. Given their quiescence, it seems a good strategy.

And that’s the way it is, as Cronkite used to say. Barack Obama concedes $30 billion without being asked, then tacks on $3 billion more. Republican leaders might have to accept his generous offer, which includes cuts to programs that help the working poor, students and just about everyone else who isn’t wealthy. This along with his cooperation in extending bonus tax cuts for the wealthy that increase the deficit by $858 billion.

Damn, he sure did outfox those guys!

Questions for fellow quiescent, taken-for-granted progressives — Who’s cornered, the Republicans or us? How did we end up in this dreary little right-of-center prison, with a president who has repeatedly pretended compromise and surrender mean the same thing? And how do we get out of this place?

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On the road to Johnny Brenda’s w/ Nicos Gun

Posted on April 5, 2011 by oddmanout215

You’re achy and pissed when you pull into Roadkill, AL, or wherever, and sick of looking at each other, of the smell of each other in that RV you’re rattling around in. But South by Southwest in Austin was sweet and so were the other gigs, and you haven’t starved yet, and Joe Bob and the boys at the Waffle House were nothing like the extras in Easy Rider.

The good write-ups help, including one by Bruce Warren of WXPN.

But four hours sleep every night sucks. It feels good to swing east and then north like Sherman’s rearguard, through Atlanta and the Carolinas, then up to D.C. and to Philly for a show tonight at Johnny Brenda’s, where the pretty machines will know all your songs.

This gig won’t quite end the tour, but you’ll be back in Philly again long before you play the Roots Picnic on June 4. Happy trails.

Nicos Gun with Morning Teleportation 9pm April 5 at Johnny Brenda’s, 1201 Frankford Ave., Philadelphia, (215) 739-9684. Admission $10.

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To NY Times, economic rut is recovery

Posted on April 4, 2011 by oddmanout215

Nicely detailed, but what about the big picture? (tonywoodphoto)

The lead paragraphs and headline — “Job Growth Suggests Resilience of U.S. Recovery” — of a recent New York Times article suggests, Herbert Hoover-style, that prosperity is just around the corner. The real story is buried deep in the text:

… Yet March’s numbers also offered more than a few cautionary signs that the national economy was not cured of all its ills. The ranks of Americans who have been without a job for 27 weeks or more remain painfully high, at more than six million. And the labor force has shrunk steadily since the beginning of the recession, to a point that just 64.2 percent of adults are either in the work force or looking for a job. That is the lowest labor participation rate in a quarter-century…

The average workweek, too, was unchanged, at 34.3 hours, and average hourly earnings remained static. Such indicators point to an economy with much slack demand, hints of deflation and little upward pressure on wages. Real earnings, the Brookings Institution noted on Friday, have fallen 1.1 percent in the last year…

Another question is what the midterm future augurs. Will jobs continue to expand through the spring, and with enough vigor — 300,000 a month, say — to substantially reduce the unemployment rate? ...If the economy adds 200,000 jobs a month, it will be 2019 before it reaches the employment rate that preceded this recession.

Bill Keller, editor of The Times, equates his style of reporting with “objectivity.” It’s really just spin. Yes, hiring was up in March, but the increase is a blip compared to the number of jobs lost since 2008, and real earnings continue to fall. In what way could these facts indicate resilience or recovery to anyone trying to honestly gauge where the country is heading?

The editors and managers of The Times and the other corporate-owned media outlets seem to think their mission is to put a new coat of paint on the bug-infested shack we call the economy. They want us to believe the shack is a palace that’s slowly being restored.

These people do good work when they remember their role should be to dig for and present information to counter the lies in which all governments traffic. However, they usually fall down on the big stories, from Iraq to our endless recession, and end up spinning for the corporate-political establishment. Too bad for the rest of us.

Posted in economic collapse, Great Recession, Iraq war, mainstream media, New York Times, Politics, unemployment | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Snooki hits back at critic of her Rutgers gig

Posted on April 3, 2011 by oddmanout215

Who's this Tony Morrison guy? Snooki and Rutgers students want to know.

From nj.com:

What’s worth more? A commencement speech by a Nobel-winning novelist? Or a pair of Q&A sessions with one of reality television’s biggest stars? At Rutgers University, Snooki edges out Toni Morrison by a couple thousand dollars. Last month, Rutgers officials said they had booked Morrison — author of “Beloved,” “Song of Solomon” and other novels — to speak… at commencement in May. She will be paid $30,000… Rutgers students said they had also made a big-name booking. Snooki… appeared at two question-and-answer sessions at the Livingston Student Center in Piscataway. Her fee: $32,000.

An nj.com reader’s posted response to the story:

When asked what her advice was for Rutgers students, [Snooki] said: “Study hard, but party harder.” Great advice. No wonder today’s college graduates can barely spell.

A reply to the reader that I drafted for Snooki, in response to the nj.com reader:

Here’s one word I can spell — L-O-O-S-E-R! You’re just jealous because everybody likes me, ’cause I go through the boyfriend break-ups and the friend stuff and the fights and stuff like that, and ’cause I’m like, relate-able, even though I don’t sing or any of that stuff. You want to know why I’m relate-able? It’s because I say what’s on my mind, which is nothing, and most people can relate ’cause they’ve got nothing on their minds, and nothing relates to nothing, if you know what I mean. And what’s it to you that Rutgers college paid me more than this Tony Morrison guy that writes books that nobody reads? Do they even make books these days except for loosers like you? If this Morrison guy is so smart, how come his agent only got him 30K? It’s ’cause I’m relate-able and he’s not, end of story.

Posted in arts, fiction, NJ | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments

This weekend — the Phillies or ‘The Loser’

Posted on April 2, 2011 by oddmanout215

From the late Austrian Thomas Bernhard’s novel The Loser, in which a fictional version of Glenn Gould has studied piano with two would-be virtuosos, Wertheimer and the narrator, who have both quit playing because they were psychologically damaged by the reality of Gould’s superior talent:

[The Goldberg Variations] were originally composed to delight the soul and almost two hundred and fifty years later they had killed a hopeless person, i.e., Wertheimer… If Wertheimer hadn’t walked past room thirty-three on the second floor of the Mozarteum twenty-eight years ago at precisely four in the afternoon, he wouldn’t have hanged himself twenty-eight years later in Zizers bei Chur, I thought. Wertheimer’s fate was to have walked past room thirty-three in the Mozarteum at the precise time Glenn Gould was playing the so-called aria in that room. Regarding this event Wertheimer reported to me that he stopped at the door of room thirty-three, listening to Gould play until the end of the aria. Then I understood what shock is, I thought now.

Bernhard, a first-rate piano player before he quit to write, presents a narrator who’s clearly in conflict with himself, although it would be a mistake to call him confused. Guilt-ridden and appalled by Wertheimer’s suicide, the narrator rants against his late friend, himself, and even his hero Gould.

The relationship of the three main characters is rehashed and rewoven in a 170-page high-wire act that mimics the way a Baroque composer reconciles various themes, over and over in the same piece. The narrator seems to identify as closely with “the loser” W. as with Gould, and this feels right. Who among us hasn’t felt like W. at some point? Should we stop playing baseball, and even watching it, because we can’t pitch like the Phillies’ Roy Halladay? Smash our guitars because we aren’t Jimi Hendrix?

There are amusingly nasty put-downs of just about everything, but also the sense that Bernhard, through his narrator, is making fun of his own cynicism. He’s like the narrator in Dostoevsky’s Notes From Underground, a volatile mix of grandiosity and self-loathing, disgusted by human folly, trying hard to run from the fact that he’s human, too. The only thing he feels comfortable praising is the (arguably) cold perfection of Bach’s music as played by Gould.

Read The Loser if you’ve ever groaned at the ugly landscape of mainstream culture — I never want to hear the name Snooki again, I’m out of here — then laughed at the absurdity of trying to separate yourself from it.

Or maybe you’d better go to a ballgame instead. The Phils are back, and they’re playing at home this weekend.

Posted in arts, autobiography, fiction | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments