Cranklicious

I seem to be having a McCain kind of evening. I think I will blame it on the rain, which seeped into my brain and prevented me from being able to construct a sentence in my class that began with "There"--it took me three times to get the right spelling.

Plus, I find it depressing that my eharmony contact requests thus far are of the old-dude types (to whom I'm a comparative whippersnapper! So call that a silver lining). I mostly don't care at all about getting older. We all get there if we're lucky, and so far I love the wisdom and general refusal to put up with nonsense that comes with it--plus I plan on going all European, sexy sophisticated, aesthetically speaking. Catherine Deneuve, rather than Cindy McCain, if you catch my drift. But dealing with the dating pool in an abstract manner like this (as opposed to meeting people in other contexts one-on-one and getting to know them as individuals) really brings out the trends. I.e., the dudes my age want the younger women, the older guys feel it's perfectly appropriate for them to be similarly hunting for women who are not their contemporaries. I have a friend who's about ten years older than I am, gorgeous, blonde, and we went to a fast dater singles thing a couple of years ago--I think one guy out of the 20 we met chose her, and a good chunk of them were her age or older.

This is not to say that age gaps don't work (absolutely, they do!), but, again, I'm speaking about general attitudes rather than about individual. When you're dealing with the aggregate, it tends to reinforce one's perceptions of women having a sell-by date, even if you're not someone who buys into that.

Yes, it's irrational to care one way or the other, particularly if you really are dealing with anyone who feels that women are unattractive/not good for birthin' past a certain age. Jerks! Who cares what they think! But, you know. Everyone single person must adore me, even the assholes I wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole.

Hey, I Do Know a McCain Supporter!

I got an e-mail forward today on Obama "fact-checking" (less incendiary than some and more along the lines of "your tax plans weren't all fabulous like you think, Obama!") from my kindergarten best friend, whom I haven't talked to, beyond exchanging Christmas cards, in at least 10 years. She's a very very religious home-schooling mom of four who believes the man is the head of the household, and so forth. She hasn't experienced my cursing, atheistic, wine-drinking, hedonistic, feminist, citified self up front and in person, it's true, but I thought it was implied. My reply to her ("Tell me how things are with you! Please take me off your McCain list!") got bounced back, otherwise I'd sincerely like to quiz her down. She's very smart, and I'm curious how she perceives things.

Very odd.

YIKES, LET ME AMEND: I didn't do more than skim past the first couple. His name is ARA-bic! He's not really Christian! Dear god.

Heroes: Still Not Feeling the Love

I think my expectations are too high, because I'm just bored. Am I misguided? Thoughts?

This Is Outrageous

I can't describe how angry this makes me, how irresponsible it is:

So we have McCain today getting his crowd riled up asking who Barack Obama is and then apparently giving a wink and a nod when one member of the crowd screams out "terrorist."

And later we have Sarah Palin with the same mob racket, getting members of the crowd to yell out "kill him", though it's not clear whether the call for murder was for Bill Ayers or Barack Obama. It didn't seem to matter.

I'm Already Overwhelmed

I signed up for eharmony, in accordance with a certain deal. I set parameters rather broad, geographically speaking (what if my ideal dude is in, say, Hawaii???). Perhaps too broadly, I fear, as I'm now inundated with "ideal" matches. Gah. I can't process all of this information. Someone get me some seasonal pumpkin ale, stat.

Related to Below

Possibly because of the weather change or alternatively because adjustments need to be made to medication to rein in her zoominess quotient, I slept very poorly last night on account of cat interference. It was most irritating, because in addition, she managed through repeated efforts--much like monkeys typing toward Shakespeare--to somehow trigger the snooze alarm before the clock went off. Kudos to her for this milestone, I guess.

Also, We're at Approximately Fifty Degrees

Music Musings of a Sunday Afternoon

I bought new music (and have ordered more: yay!) last weekend, but I haven't had a chance to really listen to it. My desktop computer, which houses my iTunes library, has been inexplicably sans internet for a couple of weeks. You know what a pain it is to rip music when you can't look up track info? Alas, rebooting didn't do the trick, so stronger measures, such as untangling cords and double-checking connections, were in order. But because my guest room, where said computer sits, has no overhead lighting at the moment--the light bulb having burned out about a week or two ago, requiring fetching the ladder out of the garage to change--I haven't been able to do the heroic troubleshooting to fix my computer because I need the light to see what I'm doing, etc. etc. You see how these difficulties compound.

Today, at last, I changed the light bulb, allowing me to see my computer desk and Byzantine cord set up, allowing me to pull things apart and figure out what the hell was wrong with my internet, allowing me to finally load my new music.

So, all of this is to say that I really really like the new Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. Further, I love Cave's embrace of the cheesey mustache and long hair, which makes him look like Burt Reynolds circa 1975 or like a seventies porn star. That is some excellent retaining of the cool while aging.

I'm Going to Come Down Strongly Against This

Why must web ads now be laden with images of animal cruelty and factory farming?? I recognize the alleged benefits of emotional appeals, but this is like being assaulted on street corners with placards depicting bloody fetuses. You know what it does? Speaking for myself, it (1) upsets me and (2) pisses me off.

Crap

This is not good.

So we are now facing:

- a silent run on the huge mass of uninsured deposits of the banking system and even a run on some insured deposits are small depositors are scared;

- a run on most of the shadow banking system: over 300 non bank mortgage lenders are now bust; the SIVs and conduits are now all bust; the five major brokers dealers are now bust (Bear and Lehman) or still under severe stress even after they have been converted into banks (Merrill, Morgan, Goldman); a run on money market funds restrained only by a blanket government guarantee; a serious run on hedge funds; a looming refinancing crisis for private equity firms and LBOs);

- a run on the short term liabilities of the corporate sector as the commercial paper market has totally frozen (and experiencing a roll-off) while access to medium terms and long term financings for corporations is frozen at a time when hundreds of billions of dollars of maturing debts need to be rolled over;

- a total seizure of the interbank and money markets.

This is indeed a cardiac arrest for the shadow and non-shadow banking system and for the system of financing of the corporate sector. The shutdown of financing for the corporate system is particularly scary: solvent but illiquid corporations that cannot roll over their maturing debt may now face massive defaults due to this illiquidity. And if the financing of the corporate sectors shuts down and remains shut down the risk of an economic collapse similar to the Great Depression becomes highly likely.

And Ms. C Foolishly Thought She Was in on the Ground Floor

Cats for Obama. Although Ms. Thing was pained during the Palin nonsense, she would find this a tacky display.

Also, in a completely unrelated announcement, I have a new favorite happy hour bar, which features some retro seventies style and awesome tapas. And why hasn't anyone told me how delicious guava can be? I am now determined to try to make this Cuban pastry (as a result of being a regular at a recently opened Cuban sandwich, deli, and pastry shop, I scored some free sweets from the owner).

Funny Because It's True

Corruption and Greed on Wall Street

That's tonight's catch phrase. Spread the word.

Hmmm. Palin appears to be under the impression that she's running for governor of Alaska and that she's stumping to bring some more oil drillin' back to the peops.

Have we learned nothing from Gore?! Yo, Biden: stop with the sighing.

Oh my god. She just winked. Tina Fey, ladies and gentlemen, let's give her a big round of applause! She had us all going there for a bit, didn't she?

My friend who's been Rip-Van-Winkling through the campaign since the conventions and thus missed the unfolding Palin media debacle just called to report that Palin is an idiot. I'm sending her youtube clips.

Odious Little Toad, Part II

If you have some free time, you might check out this looooong but very worthwhile profile of McCain in Rolling Stone. John McCain--George W. Bush plus Faustian levels of ambition.

And a friend just passed this along, saying it made his day (when you're obsessed with the campaign news, it helps to have fellow junkies to commiserate with, although I can do without the harranguing over my aversion to watching youtube clips of Sarah Palin). I think we have those tireless Michigan Obama campaign volunteers to thank. Now let's all bus to Indiana!

This Is What Happens with Us v. Them

So my friend who was recently railing about the fat cats on Wall Street in this bailout approvingly sent me the latest Michael Moore missive on same, sedately titled "It's a Right-Wing Coup!":

No matter what they say, no matter how many scare words they use, they are up to their old tricks of creating fear and confusion in order to make and keep themselves and the upper one percent filthy rich. Just read the first four paragraphs of the lead story in last Monday's New York Times and you can see what the real deal is.

The smoking gun here being that lobbyists for Wall Street were trying to maximize their benefits in the bailout. Which is absolutely craven and disgraceful, I agree. But is it surprising? Interests have long been able to influence legislation, which is how we got in this mess to begin with. Of course they're going to send in their minions to increase their advantage when it all tanks! This is why we set up systems with oversight and the correct incentives and don't rely on people to be good for its own sake. It's just human nature.

But I guess it's predictable that once we pit Them against Us, we're going to be suspicious that They can operate under any semblance of good faith. We've been duped before, haven't we? We got duped into war, so why wouldn't they be similarly lying about this too? The Bush administration thus reaps the rewards of years of ineptitude, political opportunism, and kleptocracy; they've manipulated us for so long, there's no way we're going to take them at face value for anything anymore.

At the same time, we've bought into the frames that have defined our polarized times: it all boils down to opinion, there's no objective reality, no common set of facts. There's merely what They say and what We say. The ones who profess to know, the "elites," are just pushing an ideological agenda and are not to be trusted.

The bad part of all of this is that while we settle down into our entrenched battle positions and attempt to stick it back to the people who have stuck it to us, we're not really looking at our own long-term best interests. Just because the Bush administration has wrecked its own credibility doesn't mean that it is necessarily lying about this financial crisis. In fact, there's a pretty broad consensus about how this came about. The sticking point seems to be the best course of action to minimize the impacts to the overall economy. Since no one is omniscient, people of good will can argue about what the government should or shouldn't do next. But as I am not wedded to the purity of the markets nor energized by a good cleansing economic meltdown and hopeful resultant New Deal-style liberal initiatives, I favor the prudent course of doing something if it seems like it could prevent worse impacts. It just seems so much more sensible than doing nothing, out of spite.

I'm Just Hoping This Doesn't Happen to Me on Election Day

Your Public-Service Announcement

New TV on the Radio.

Heroes, Vision Quest

My verdict: a snooze. I think you guys have planted the seeds of doubt, because now I'm rolling my eyes at the Byzantine plot twists and contradictions, when once I used to just let it flow. I feel somewhat bereft. I hope it comes back.

Queries:
1. Another guy who paints the future?
2. This isn't a query, but I said, in unison and with the exact same inflection (you know what I'm talking about if you saw it): "I made you." That's never a good sign of your show's suspense bona fides.
3. Again, not a query, but I remember that it's somewhat irritating that there are so many characters to be juggled that there are storylines you don't get back to for weeks at a time. That's a drag.
4. Evil Claire?
5. Why do we care about Parkman?

Wherein I Find I Am Not, In Fact, a True Believer

Reading up on the economic crisis and the subsequent failed rescue plan, I've been pretty stunned to see the grave dancing by people I normally agree with. One of my coworkers, for example, a hardcore Democrat, told me that he was "supportive" of the balky house Republicans who voted against the bailout because he was pissed about having any of his money going to Wall Street. And apparently other Democrats are yearning for the "salutary" effects of a depression and hoping to leverage the moment to institute some New Deal action. On the other side of the aisle, some symmetry of the zealots:

According to one GOP lawmaker, some House Republicans are saying privately that they’d rather “let the markets crash” than sign on to a massive bailout.

“For the sake of the altar of the free market system, do you accept a Great Depression?” the member asked.

Somehow, I think it's easier to be a purist when you're insulated enough, for a while at least, from the consequences. But you know it's never the big guys who suffer, right? They may lose some yachts and have to scale back on the vacation homes, but it's the rest of us that will be in a world of hurt when the unemployment rates increase and credit freezes up. Which is not to say that I don't share boiling rage at the captains of industry and their political tools (*cough* Phil Gramm *cough*) for what they've wrought.

But I'm a pragmatist who listens to people who know what they're talking about and who are actual economists and everything. The way I see it, it's a big sucky mess that lax regulation and a lot of greedy people got us into. So you do what you can to keep the economy going, elect the dude who will be more likely to fix the structural problems, then fix the structural problems. But that's just me.

The Challenge Has Been Answered

Refusing to be cowed by my bluster, Ms. Nikki has signed up for her art class. So now, in good faith, I must commit to an online dating do-dad of some sort. I've got my maximally flattering photo picked out and everything. Given that my worst date ever (New Years 2006, a night that will live in infamy) was as a result of a friend setup, I'm pretty sanguine that it can't be that bad to go completely blind. I'll keep you apprised of any good stories.

I'd ask for suggestions on sites, but all of you monogamously ensconced people are likely to be no help whatsoever.