The current issue of Rolling Stone has an article by Matt Taibbi called "The Great American Bubble Machine." It's a long piece that basically summarizes a lot of America's recent financial disasters and traces them to excessive greed, the clever manipulation of what's legal and shouldn't be, and some outright uninvestigated crimes...all courtesy of execs of Goldman, Sachs. Taibbi offers a colorful and, if true, devastating indictment of those folks and the system that let them get away with costing us bazillions. Goldman, Sachs is responding in a way that seems to want to deny every last word in the piece without getting into specifics and without calling too much attention to it.
Almost as if to aid the piece in not getting too much attention, Rolling Stone has only posted excerpts — not the whole article — on their website. There are bootlegs of the entire Taibbi screed online but I'm not comfy with linking to such things. I suspect Rolling Stone will see the wisdom of posting it in its entirety but for now, that's what's available.
I get that magazine in the mail...and I don't know why. I think I purchased something a year or two ago which came with a free subscription. So I got to read the whole essay and it's quite powerful and if your blood pressure's low, a great way to get it up to around 165 over 100. Wanna see fireworks tonight? Give it a peek.
Hope you're having a Safe and Sane Fourth of July. There are three movies that seem to always turn up on TV this weekend and they're all on...
In a couple of hours, Turner Classic Movies is running — as someone always does on July 4 — Yankee Doodle Dandy starring James Cagney. The story has very little to do with the actual life of George M. Cohan and the flag-waving can get to you...but Cagney is so good in the role, it's impossible to resist.
Then TCM is running 1776 this evening — at 7:15 on my satellite dish, perhaps another time on your set. They have it in a three-hour slot, which suggests they're running the full version (which runs that long) as opposed to the 142 minute cut that was originally released to theaters and on videotape. A wonderful movie that closely mirrors the wonderful Broadway musical.
Then early tomorrow morning (i.e., not on the Fourth of July), TV Land is running Born on the Fourth of July. I don't know why this is on TV Land. Maybe they ran out of Cosby Show reruns. But this weekend, they're featuring marathons of Leave It To Beaver, Roseanne and The Andy Griffith Show...and smack dab in the middle of them, there's this serious dramatic movie about a war that tore apart this country and so many lives. And then it goes back to Barney Fife trying to remember which pocket he keeps his bullet in. I don't recommend you watch this powerful film like that, especially since it'll probably be interrupted constantly for Prilosec commercials.
I don't know if it works this way everywhere but here in Southern California, the Bed, Bath and Beyond chain is constantly sending out these coupons that entitle you to 20% of any one item. And I mean they send these out constantly. They arrive every hour on the hour in my mailbox. I will receive at least one more by the time I finish writing and posting this.
Those of us who shop at Bed, Bath and Beyond have learned to save them...to always have a fistful in our cars in case we stop in there. My friend Shelly Goldstein has a car that can seat three people. If she took out the Bed, Bath and Beyond coupons, it could seat four.
Though the coupons have expiration dates printed on them, the store never cares. So if you purchase eight items, you hand the cashier eight of these coupons and you get 20% off each item. This creates some odd buying habits and patterns.
For instance: I go in and I have five coupons. This means, I decide, I can only buy five items. If I see eight things I want, I have to decide which three to get at a later date when I can return with more coupons. I don't even think of paying full price for that little $1.00 item because if I come back another time with a coupon, I can save a big twenty cents on it.
To that end, I have to select in the proper number. Let's say I want six dish towels. A package of eight costs $20 or I can buy six individually for three bucks each. If I have no coupons, I'm better off buying them individually. If I only have one coupon, the package of eight will cost me $16 but to buy six individually will cost $17.40 so I'll buy the package. If I have six coupons or more, I'm better off going back to individual towels. And if I have between two and five coupons, the math gets hard.
It also gets hard when, on occasion, they send out a coupon that just gives you 10% off your entire order. If you have enough 20% coupons, that's a bad deal. If you're short, it might save you some dough...or might not, depending on how many you have.
I've also had this happen: I get to the checkout counter and discover I have miscounted. I have eight items but only seven coupons. As I'm trying to figure out which selection to put back, another customer behind me says, "Need another coupon?" She has like eighty of them sticking out of her purse and she hands me one. At a Bed, Bath and Beyond in Tustin once, I had three items and two coupons. The cashier reached down under the counter and got an extra so she didn't have to charge me full price for one item.
But you can't count on the kindness of strangers or cashiers. So there are times when I might shop at Bed, Bath and Beyond and I don't...because I don't feel like I have enough coupons with me. Right now, I have two in my car. I'm not going in there since I'm bound to see more than two things I want.
When I accumulate a lot of 'em, I start looking for reasons to go to Bed, Bath and Beyond. For one thing, it will help me to get rid of the clutter in my car if I use up my coupons. (I don't want to leave them home for fear I'll be out driving and suddenly think of a reason to stop at one of those stores.) I also feel like I'm getting a bargain even though I suspect that with the 20% discount, that cheese straightener will still cost more than if I bought it at Kmart. I haven't checked because I don't want to know for sure. It just feels like a bargain to use your 20% off coupons at Bed, Bath and Beyond. And like I said, it cleans out your car at the same time.
Whoops. Two more coupons just arrived. I'd better post this and run over to Bed, Bath and Beyond to use them up. If it turns out they're closed for the Fourth of July, I'll just wait outside.
Bruce Reed discusses Sarah Palin's surprise resignation. He discusses it from the standpoint of how it's a bad move if her goal is to win the presidency. I suspect that she's already resigned herself to the idea that any higher office is out of her reach and that what she wants to do is to ostensibly run for president and — like Pat Buchanan, Ralph Nader and others we could name — derive the benefits of a candidacy without ever getting within a hundred miles of victory.
Palin's resignation speech itself demonstrated why she's a bad candidate. The whole point of it was to try and assert she was not taking "the quitter's way out" — a point she somehow thought she could score in a speech to announce that she was quitting and getting out. One gets the feeling that Ms. Palin's small band of fervent supporters has convinced her that she can say anything and get people to believe it. Or maybe she's just decided that all she cares about is that small band. And of course, she made her usual gaffes, like attributing to Douglas MacArthur a quote from someone else.
The thing that fascinates me about all this is that a lot of folks seem to confuse the candidate with the message. If he or she says the things they want to hear...well then, that person would unquestionably make a great president and will win in a walk if only he or she runs on that platform. I see lotsa folks whose political views mirror mine...but who I think are such clumsy orators, or who have so much baggage, that they could never win. Or they seem to lack the governing skills to turn those views into a working agenda.
If I believed in what Sarah Palin seems to believe in, she's just about the last public figure I'd want to throw my support behind. She makes those views seem kinda stupid and shallow. I'd be rallying for someone like Mike Huckabee. I personally don't buy his worldview or goals but he articulates them well and seems to know how to play the political game and get results. What he doesn't do, and this may be why more Conservatives aren't lining up behind him, is make Liberals froth. Palin does, and that seems to be the main thing that a lot of people like about her. But if that's all you want, you might as well nominate Michael Savage.
This clip's a little outta sync but it almost doesn't matter. It's George Carl on a vintage Johnny Carson Tonight Show, with Mr. Carl doing the act he did so well for around seventy years. I'm not sure if I've linked to a version of this before since Carl usually did pretty much the same portions of his longer act any time he got booked on television. He did at least two other appearances with Johnny and did the exact same bits...and Carson loved it every time.
Well, whether I've linked to this before or not, here's one of the funniest human beings I've ever had the privilege to see...
July 5, 2009
