Published: December 26 2008 19:53 | Last updated: December 26 2008 19:53
Published: December 26 2008 19:53 | Last updated: December 26 2008 19:53
When Will They EVER Learn?
Posted: January 29, 2009 Filed under: Global Financial Crisis, U.S. Economy, Uncategorized | Tags: Davos, Global Economic Crisis, Global Financial Crisis, Obama Stimulus Package 3 Comments
As reported by today’s NY Times:
WASHINGTON — Without a single Republican vote, President Obama won House approval on Wednesday for an $819 billion economic recovery plan as Congressional Democrats sought to temper their own differences over the enormous package of tax cuts and spending.
There is just no end to the inability of politics to deal withan economic crisis of this proportion. Despite packing the economic stimulus program with worthless tax cuts and yet another form of rebate, the Obama administration failed to get a SINGLE republican congressman to vote for its stimulus plan. Additionally, Obamasold out poor women’s expanded access to birth control in a blink of an eye for absolutely nothing. Any one who has read any material on economic development knows that family planning plays an essential role in bringing nations and populations out of poverty and into the realm of human capital instead of human detritus. However, the principle and lesson were handily tossed and as usual, children, women and the very poor will be kept in their place so some political bipartisan marketing can rule the day. So now we have a less than adequate stimulus plan, packed with expensive little nothings that includes stuff that will NOT work and still not ONE Republican vote for the sell-out. Way to go oh He-man agent of Change and Feminist in Chief!
Party like it’s 1929!
Posted: January 22, 2009 Filed under: New Orleans, president teleprompter jesus, U.S. Economy, Uncategorized, Voter Ignorance | Tags: bad economy, great gatsby, recession depression, US inauguration Comments Off on Party like it’s 1929!The economy may be in recession, but the Champagne flowed freely at Tuesday’s celebrations of the
inauguration of Barack Obama — thanks in large part to donations from some movers and shakers on Wall Street.
Those figures don’t include the $124 million that federal, state and local governments are providing to pay for security and the official swearing-in ceremony.
The finance, insurance and real-estate industries have been at the center of the recent economic storm, but even so, people who work in those industries contributed at least $7.1 million to help fund the dozens of events and parties celebrating Mr. Obama’s official move into the White House, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington nonprofit group that studies money and politics.
That is more that a quarter of the $27 million of donations that have been disclosed so far by the Presidential Inauguration Committee, which estimates the festivities will cost about $45 million. That would make it the most expensive inauguration ever.
The market is below 8000 and the list of huge layoffs happening in industries around the country continues. But hey, we got the nation’s most expensive party ever according to today’s New York Times where the headline read: A Wounded Wall St. Helps Pay for Inauguration Bash. I’m beginning to sense the fall of the Roman empire with Nero in charge of the chaos. Of course, the top of the donor list included the the Uber Lord of the Under World, George Soros whose combined family donations came to $250,000. Given an average family of four in the US doesn’t even live off of $50,000 a year and the total is about the average price of an average home, I’d have to say there are a lot of people being shunted towards Obamaville and other tent cities that would really appreciate a donation of that size for something other than a big party in their honor.
Let’s just highlight reality a moment and forget about the cost of designer ballroom dresses that would feed entire families for months.
My Mourning Tribute
Posted: January 20, 2009 Filed under: Uncategorized 3 Comments
Well, primary engineering rules the day. I feel like I did during the Dubya’s inauguration. One more cheater prospers. Here’s to you my friends, join me on my knees praying that we don’t get fooled again!!!
Yet another Russian Revolution
Posted: December 27, 2008 Filed under: Uncategorized 2 Comments
While many analysts in foreign offices of various countries have been increasing;y worried that the global slow down would bring China’s economy closer to social unrest, the focus has now shifted to Russia. The quick slide of petroleum prices plus the financial market crisis has left the former Soviet Union with restless workers demanding more.
This information is from the U.K’s Financial Times. Newspapers in Europe are interested in more than just the upcoming Obama annointment and actually have foreign offices rather than armies of reporters chasing the PE on beaches in Hawaii. Perhaps Russian adventurism in the neighborhood will stop given this unnerving analysis. We can only hope.
It’s interesting to note that Russian cars makers also need a bail out from Mama Bear. It appears no one likes their domestic drives any more.
One of the most interesting things I find with both of these transition economies has been the dance between enjoying increasing levels of consumer goods in return for accepting politically repressive regimes. Folks in both China and Russia have been willing to trade freedom for stuff. Now that the stuff is less available, what will happen? Take that thought one step further and are all that different? Exactly how much freedom do we sell for our daily bread and Wii? While our expression of frustration were vented in the recent vote, how long and deep can this recession go before we too start demanding results from all this change? Better yet, what happens when the candidate that promised to change things so drastically can’t really deliver.
By Isabel Gorst in Moscow and Anuj Gangahar in New York
Russia is bracing for further unrest as the rouble on Friday slid to a new low against the euro after a succession of moves to devalue its currency.
A cut on Friday extended six weeks of devaluations by Russia’s central bank designed to offset the impact of the global economic crisis and falling oil prices as the country’s main export commodity approached its lowest level since 2004.
After the depreciation, which was the eighth so far this month, the rouble declined as much as 1.2 per cent to Rbs29.06 versus the dollar on Friday, a four year low. The rouble has now lost nearly 20 per cent of its value against the US currency since August.
Analysts at Barclays Capital said the best case scenario would see Russian policymakers, facing the mounting evidence of a recession, allowing a one-off depreciation of 10 per cent or more.
The rouble’s slide comes as the government faces scrutiny over its policies. A demonstration earlier this month in the far eastern city of Vladivostok marked the first major challenge to the Kremlin since the onset of the global financial crisis.
Mikhail Sukhodolsky, a deputy interior minister, warned on Christmas Eve that there could be further protests. “The situation may be exacerbated by a growth in frustration of workers over the non-payment of wages or those threatened with dismissal,” he said.
His remarks coincided with criticism of the Kremlin’s rough handling of the protests in Vladivostok. Moscow-based Omon riot police detained about 61 people in the protests against car import duties designed to prop up domestic car producers, but making foreign vehicles prohibitively expensive for ordinary Russians.
The Ultimate Object Passes Quietly into the Night
Posted: December 12, 2008 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Bettie Page Comments Off on The Ultimate Object Passes Quietly into the Night 
This from today’s New York Times:
Bettie Page, a legendary pinup girl whose photographs in the nude, in bondage and in naughty-but-nice poses appeared in men’s magazines and private stashes across America in the 1950s and set the stage for the sexual revolution of the rebellious ’60s, died Thursday in Los Angeles. She was 85.Her death was reported by her agent, Mark Roesler, on Ms. Page’s Web site, bettiepage.com.
Ms. Page, whose popularity underwent a cult-like revival in the last 20 years, had been hospitalized for three weeks with pneumonia and was about to be released Dec. 2 when she suffered a heart attack, said Mr. Roesler, of CMG Worldwide. She was transferred in a coma to Kindred Hospital, where she died.
In her trademark raven bangs, spike heels and killer curves, Ms. Page was the most famous pinup girl of the post-World War II era, a centerfold on a million locker doors and garage walls. She was also a major influence in the fashion industry and a target of Senator Estes Kefauver’s anti-pornography investigators.
We’ve spent a lot of cyberink here talking about the objectification of women. Bettie and Marilyn Monroe were the 50s icons of the women as object of male fantasy. Marilyn couldn’t get beyond the process and died young. Bettie, while experiencing major problems in her life, emerged in charge of herself. You can learn a lot more about Bettie here on her official page as well as the Obit at the Times. Her life was featured in a movie, The Notorious Bettie Page and there are books about her.
One thing that you will learn is that she was born in Jackson, Tenn and that her father, an automechanic, molested Betty May and her two other sisters. This is a theme that runs through many women’s lives who eventually turn to adult entertainment to make money. She was a straight A student and graduated from Peabody college with credentials to teach. She eventually decided to pursue a career in acting and took to modelling to make ends meet. She eventually posed as a playboy centerfold in 1955.
Betty became depressed, as many women in that industry do, and she escaped the life at the peak of her career while fighting problems with mental illness. She went through two marriages and divorces. She eventually became a born-again Christian.
Her photos, however, lived on and eventually, with help of many folks, she regained control of her imagine and her voice. It’s a good time to reflect on what we consider the difference between taking charge of our on sexuality and bodies and being objectified as toys for men. Also, why do we still need to have this conversation?
“I want to be remembered as I was when I was young and in my golden times,” she told The Los Angeles Times in 2006. “I want to be remembered as a woman who changed people’s perspectives concerning nudity in its natural form.”
peej
Carissa
bostonboomer
dakinikat
ecocatwoman
mablue2
Mama Lopez
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
Recent Comments