How much longer must we tolerate mass culture?

Ha! Well, when you're wrong

nobody@vox.com(Maxvan) — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 06:43:07 -0700

Admit it. I was wrong. Pervez resigned. I still think there's some back room nonsense brewing, but there you have it.

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A Few More Sentences on Pakistan

nobody@vox.com(Maxvan) — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 07:57:50 -0700

I've said before that us westerners don't fully understand what's happening in Pakistan, and that it's time to just listen, not talk about them. I still think that's right, but I have to say that our Media is misreading the little endgame that's going on. The Sharif-Ghost of Bhutto coalition is following Bhutto's footsteps. Is it a voluntary martyrdom? Look, impeaching El Jefe in a Junta never removes him from power, it just makes him angry, and is usually done as a way of washing one's hands: it'sthe coalition's way of saying "America, we're not Musharraf's henchmen" and clears the way for a US military intervention, which is the deal that Bhutto struck, I'm sure of it. If the coalition were serious about a non-bloody removal of Musharraf, they would have gone with Sharif's idea to re-instate the judges(which they haven't done) and put Musharraf on trial for Treason, then, execute him. That they're not going that route points out, again, to me, there has been a back-room deal with the US, and it very likely will involve incursions. Iraq 2, anyone?

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Here's your Sign

nobody@vox.com(Maxvan) — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 06:08:47 -0700

Want to know how bad it gets? Here's your sign . Or Maybe this. Or Maybe this. Or maybe This. Or maybe This.

I don't want to bring you down, but it's getting bad out there. Really bad.

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A few thoughts on Georgia

nobody@vox.com(Maxvan) — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 04:45:09 -0700

I'm not quite sure what to think about the situation in Georgia. I know that a big goal for hundreds of years for Russia was a warm water port, so, southern expansion into Turkey has always been on the menu for them. I know that the Georgians initially were looking to break apart, with about half wanting to join Russia, and Half wanting to break away into an Islamic state. I know there are heavy ties to Chechnya.I know that, increasingly, the battle appears to be between the cold war military complex and extremist Islamic elements in various countries. At the same time, I know that Putin has acted like the old school KGB that he comes from, and that Russia has, in turn acted more and more like the politiburo of old is in charge. I know that minus autocracy, Russia descends into Mob (as in "gangster") Rule. But, most of all, I know thatwhatever happens next, this is serious, for everybody.

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An incredibly long post about finances and value

nobody@vox.com(Maxvan) — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 16:01:10 -0700

I’m not Kramer, and I’m not Bennett, nor am I even Sustern, but I am watching the market. I don’t think you’re getting an accurate picture from the evening news. Now, I know this is hardly a revelation, but let me clarify a little bit:

First of all, Housing is not in some kind of death spiral. The market I see is flattening out. By that I mean, the top 20% in price are finding themselves losing value, while the bottom 20% in price are gaining value- just as sharply as the top is losing value. So, what that means is that investors, people who make money in real estate speculation, are losing their shirts, but the middle class homeowners are fairly stable. The real news in housing is that the exotic mortgages that were all the rage from 2001-2005 are falling apart. It’s not the general housing market, and it’s not even the whole sub-prime market. The bottom line, here, is that there was a big push in 2001 to get people into mortgages, so that they could turn these mortgages into securities, therefore, investment brokers pushed the limits past anything reasonable, and in so doing created a class mortgages that were doomed to fail, and everyone who knew anything about it, knew they would fail. That’s what’s happening, and everything else is window dressing. It really doesn’t matter if the homeowners getting forced out are black, white or Latino (For the record, the majority I’m seeing are Latino) what matters is that if you don’t have a mortgage that is either a fixed rate or a traditional ARM (Adjustable rate mortgage: the traditional version adjusts with the prime lending rate, plus 3% or less) you are in grave trouble, because your mortgage is simply not a good idea. You may not be qualified to refinance either, so like it or not, I really would suggest you think about selling, depressed market, or not. That’s the hard truth. Another matter is consumer credit. As all the analysts say, consumers are carrying way, way too much debt. I think that’s a sign of a weak economy, and more certain than mortgage rates as a barometer of how things really are for the general public. What’s really scary is that, because investors are running scared due to the investment market being down, the credit crunch has translated to seemingly arbitrary changes in your interest rate on your Credit card. You can make all your payments on time, for the full amount, and they’ll still adjust your interest rate based upon what you purchased. If you bought too many necessities, or otherwise made it look like you might possibly be strapped for cash, they’ll adjust up, figuring that you are potentially a greater risk for repayment. So, while too much consumer credit debt is never a good idea, now I would say that even using a credit card for convenience might not be such a great idea. That’s something that should be on the ticker.

Second, Gas prices are adjusting up but still are wonky. On the one hand, crude prices are going up not only because of demand. There are, in fact, Oil speculators who are jacking the price up. America is, in fact, hording the strategic reserves to artificially keep up profits for big Oil. Retail vendors are, in fact cashing in. But, on the other hand, that’s because Oil is not a renewable resource, and we really have hit peak (where we’ve used up more than half of all the oil there will ever be). Burning oil really does harm the environment in quantifiable ways. We really are not using oil efficiently. So, in other words, we probably should be seeing closer to European prices, around 8-10 dollars a gallon, but less of that price should be going to profits for Oil companies. If we were even halfway smart, gas taxes would double, and subsidies would be cut in half. The money thus generated would go to research and development of non-carbon fuel. But, related to that, transportation costs should be going up. The days of 100 dollar cross country flights should never have been (don’t get me wrong, I took advantage of them, as well) and we will have to pay for them, now. Expect prices to go up at your local Wal-Mart. But the real story is this: there are coming food shortages. The oil shortages are really a non-issue. We used far too much fossil fuel, and we simply cannot live that way any more, and we will have to adjust our lifestyles. There’s no debate, no story, no excuse. But we are mishandling food, we have been mishandling food, and, unless we change course IMMEDIATELY, the consequences will eclipse what we’re dealing with on Oil. That’s a story.

Is Starbucks going under? Ab-so-freaking-lutely NOT! By now, we’ve all heard that they’re closing 600 stores. They’re also opening 200 new ones. This is just a change in strategy. I thought their “overkill” method of franchising was doomed, but as long as they were doing good, I was happy to be wrong. Now, it looks like I was right to think they were barking up the wrong tree. See, their business model was to allow franchisees to build their new starbucks wherever they wanted, even if there was another starbucks across the road. The idea was to let the individual franchise holders take the risk of location. The issue that has come to bear is that such risk cannot be deferred from the parent company, forever. Sooner or later, you have to actually own your brands. That’s the story, here.

Likewise, the weak dollar, I’m not really all that worried… On the one hand, like mortgages, this hurts the big guys who cashed out on our backs, and will be corrected by genuine market forces, as opposed to the artificial forces that we have confused for the market. Look, Europe needs American dollars; they need us to buy goods. They’re doing ok with the Chinese and Indians, but China is fairly closed and self-contained, and India is really unstable. America, and therefore the Dollar is still necessary to the European, Asian, and world economy. So, this is largely a correction. What is it correcting? The “air” economy that got over-extended. When the dot-coms crashed in the late 1990’s, people talked about an “air” economy, of people over-valuing things that really had no value. Well, post 9/11, there was a different reason for it, but the economy was still pumped up on nothing more than talk, and promises. We delayed the crash that could have come, and should have come in 1997, all the way out for 10 years, with things like exotic mortgages, stimulus packages, tax cuts and subsidies, all created to make the economy look strong, but we’re basing all this on what? A service sector economy. Well, what good is a service sector economy to the world market? Nothing is exported from that, and we won’t learn their languages, so we can even provide those services to them. That’s what’s getting corrected. Hopefully, it’ll get bad enough to mean the death of NAFTA and outsourcing, but I have a feeling that’ll we’ll get screwed by ourselves long before those really necessary measures of actually rebuilding a manufacturing base to our economy happen.

But, on the other hand, the weak dollar is covering up the real story, again. It’s covering up how weak our job market is. It’s covering up how much skilled labor we’ve let slip away. It’s misdirecting us from recognizing that we’ve gone on far too long believing that we’re all rockstars and celebrities while we contribute nothing to the market. We’re selling each other big macs and haircuts and that will not sustain an economy. Farm, factory, and firmament sustain an economy (meaning you need a larger sector of job making food, manufacturing goods, or exploiting natural resources) So, a sustainable economy, ultimately, is one in which a real value has been produced. What’s a real value? Something that’s useful, no matter what. For an example, a doctor, even though he’s performing a service, is producing real value in that by keeping people alive and healthy, they can continue to work and consume. Meanwhile, there’s no real value to a Barber. Don’t get me wrong. I like Barbers, and I think short hair is preferable to long hair, but ultimately you can cut Barbers out of the economy, and you’ve still got the same strength or weakness to the economy. If I’m still not clear, I’ll explain later, if anybody asks. But, that’s my point in a nutshell. We’ve become the kind of country where things of real value, like the information in a doctor’s head, become confused with things of much, much lesser value, like the information in a Barber’s head. That’s really the news story of the generation. We’re a bunch of idiots, filled up with useless information, and so obfuscated from anything real, and sustainable that we wouldn’t know it, if it hits us. No, I don’t mean that in the metaphorical sense. Whether you’ve got a religion or not, and whether you think that fathers should be equal partners to mothers is immaterial. I’m talking about value in a purely material sense. I’ll let the poets argue about whether America has lost its “values”. I’m saying we’re not able to discern Air from pollution, food from poison, and water from waste. I’m saying we’re illiterate. What’s worse is that we don’t seem to care. I don’t care if you pay attention to me, or not. Seriously, I have no desire to be admired, no claim for fame, and no need for notoriety. But it’s disheartening to me that the information I’m talking about is so easily ignored. So, when I say that I find it discouraging that the very, very few who might read this will still find it unclear, I don’t mean that I’m throwing out pearls before swine. I mean that this should be such commonplace thought that even if I articulate it poorly, it should be as clear as when a rockstar sings “If you know what I mean”.

Opinion is nice, and entertaining, but it’s not as valuable as fact. So, even if I’m ranting, the thing that should be outraging you is that our economy is so service based, not that you disagree with one bit or another about how I present this.

To illustrate this: the Election would be all but over if word got out that McCain once had a gay lover in Viet Nam, and yet, the election continues even though neither candidate has a plan to balance the budget.

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287(G)

nobody@vox.com(Maxvan) — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 18:44:13 -0700

So, our local sheriff, Chuck Jenkins, decided that Frederick County should participate in the 287(G) program.

I might not be the only one who thinks it's a bad idea but here's a question; What would a real conservative say about a federal program that makes local government pay for a federal job? Isn't that an unfunded Federal program, too?

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Max fer Prez

nobody@vox.com(Maxvan) — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 07:45:39 -0700

So, I hear that neither Obama nor McCain is planning on balancing the budget, any time soon. This isn’t rocket science, folks. Here’s my three point plan:
Repeal the Bush Tax cuts. Add some taxes to the top 10%. That probably includes people in my family. If you still think I ain’t committed to it, raise my taxes to go along. Not people who earn the same as me, I mean just me.
Re-institute the draft. Replace all those “contractors” in Iraq with actual, accountable soldiers. Reduce the overall troops and expenditures in Iraq to equal what we’ve got in Serbia. (Yes, that means a near total pullout from Iraq) Oh, and while we’re at it, let’s reduce the amount of Aid that goes to Israel to equal what we give to the Sudanese.

Our grain reserves are nearly nothing, and our reserves on just about everything else are nothing at all. Stop paying farmers to grow nothing. Please note I didn’t say “end farm subsidies” I just said to stop subsidies that hurt our strategic interests, like paying a farmer more than his crop would be worth to grow nothing.
I bet we’d have a budget surplus within my first 100 days. Probably have enough to fund Universal health care, and alternative fuel research, too.

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Obama, Huh?

nobody@vox.com(Maxvan) — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 20:13:16 -0700

We will see, won't we?

Is America ready? I think so. the real America has been ready for years. The America you see on TV will never be ready.

Is Barack ready? Maybe. I still see signs of a real greenhorn in him, but, that's still better than an old, corrupt man.

What of Clinton? I sincerely hope that she can truly do something for the party, and not herself, for once. That's my big doubt, truthfully. I really believe her hubris could screw the whole thing up.

Why, oh, why couldn't we have Mikulski, or even Barbara Boxer, instead?

I guess America is still only barely ready for democracy. Guess that makes it a good thing that it's barely a democracy. Ok, ok that was cynical. But, for somebody who's into direct democracy and Social democracy and so on, it sometimes seems so backwards, here.

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Spoiler

nobody@vox.com(Maxvan) — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 20:20:43 -0700

So, Hillary is in the race until forced out, huh? There you go. That's exactly why the democrats haven't been able to beat even the worst the republican party has had to offer. So much of the party big wigs are so pumped up on hubris that they're convinced they'll win by act of God, and screw the electorate. How else do you explain losers like Kerry? How else do you explain Al gore HANDING the election to Bush, before that? (Say what you want, but Al gore won the election, and then, slunk off without so much as a whimper when the supreme court decreed otherwise). On top of that, good men like Edwards and Dean have been treated like dirt, when they have been the only signs of vitality in the old, grey Ass. I mean, it still strikes me. How can Hillary not see that, even if she somehow wrestles the nomination from Obama, she has ZERO chance of winning the general Election?

But, then again, unless she can swing her support under Obama, Barack has no chance of beating Mccain. That might be the strategy. It's so cynical that I think it's true: Clinton knows she won't get the nomination, but she's trying to wring all the power she can out of the race. If the final count comes out (as seems likely) where Obama only just has enough delegates to win the nomination, while Clinton has almost enough, she might be in a "kingmaker' role, able to dictate policy from behind the curtain of the DNC. It's utterly anti-democratic, and slimy, but what else do you expect?

I expect her to have a 'deathbed conversion" where suddenly she starts talking about a new man from Hope, and Obama suddenly endorses about half of Clinton's platform. If the voters see through it, McCain will be a mortal lock on the Presidency, and I will blame the democrats for once again allowing party hacks to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Honestly, if it goes the way i think it will, I may never vote for a democrat, again.

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Dharma Crash

nobody@vox.com(Maxvan) — Sun, 11 May 2008 20:51:39 -0700

Lexicon Devil: The Fast Times and Short Life of Darby Crash and the Germs

So, this might seem a bit too insular for a blog post, but bear with me.

This book is an "Oral Biography" of the punk rock singer Darby Crash, who died at 22, in the early 1980's. I happen to know some of the same people as Darby did, and met Jan Paul Beahm (the real person behind the persona) a few times. That's why I read this book. Just to see what some people i knew had to say.

First universal truth: EVERYONE has an agenda. Even if they don't know it. We all have some angle, some desire to see'our way' triumph, and because of this:

second universal truth: We all have faulty memories. We'll remember slights against us as more important than they are, and we'll remember our triumphs as bigger than they were.

So, i wasn't looking for accuracy. But, I got insight, and it was unexpected.

See, I said I knew these people, I didn't say they were friends to me. No, many of the people I knew that appear in these pages out-and-out hated me, and I can't say I was too fond of them. But the insight came from facts: almost universally, these people were fresh out of the ISP program at University High in Beverly Hills, California. At that program, in that school, the majority of the curriculum was based upon Scientology and E.S.T. I never bought into either of those, and think both are shams. Now that's just what I think, so don't get all offended if you really, really believe in that stuff. But, the reason why I don't like either one is that they seem to me to be a system of control. Brainwashing, perhaps, though I don't truly believe in such a thing. But, hearing that these kids were upper middle class kids raised in these philosophies goes a long way towards explaining why they and I never got along.

Another insight is how above the rest of us these people still hold themselves to be. See, that was their beef with people like me, and with me: they viewed us as lumpen proles. In their eyes we're capable oflittle more than animal functions. More than once they describe us as subhumans whostink and cannot be reasoned with, and ruin things for no better reason than it's "our nature'. It's all because of which neighborhood we were raised in, and our fashion choices. So, here's a little insight in return: if you view yourself as oh-so-above other people, and you mock them, don't be surprised when they rise up and strike back! If you say "Oh, I hate all redheads because they're stupid and violent", don't be too shocked when a redhead backhands you, and laughs. You want to know why your precious little club got torn down? It's because you built too many walls, and not enough doors.

Some of these people even espoused fascism, and still do! That included Darby Crash.But, here's the problem with that: just like the rabble strung Mussolini up, just like Ceauşescu had his followers turn rabid on him, in the end they'll turn on you. It's one of the things i like about humanity: eventually we'll turn on any cultof personality. Eventually the mob will have its way. Now, Darby committed suicide, but that was just a final attempt to assert control. That was him saying that he could still define his own life. He didn't realize what the rest of us rabble knew all along: either you find a place, or one will be assigned to you.

So, while this started as just some personal research, it did end up relaying another universal truth: Like it or not, we're ALL just another one of us.

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