For your reading pleasure

this article about the Republican presidential candidates.

Nader nails it

In this concise essay, Ralph Nader assails a fundamental error in "free trade" as it is practiced globally. It happens that the economist, Paul Samuelson, whose works Nader discusses, wrote the Econ 101 text that I carried to class at Stanford five decades ago, long before Samuelson saw the light, and so I was taught the mutual benefits of free trade. Fortunately, I flunked Econ 101 and so the lessons of Samuelson's text never sank in.

I don't know what it will take for Nader's long-standing critique of free-trade agreements to grab hold. He and, notably, 1992 third-party presidential candidate Ross Perot (he of the "giant sucking sound" bite) have been right about the effects of such treaties for at least thirty years, with no apparent effect on our leaders--including Obama, who recently executed a deal with South Korea.

Look around: Besides retail service-industry jobs such as salesperson and wait-person, the arms industry and the military, where are American jobs going to come from?

Despair, wretchedness, sadness

are words that are woefully weak to describe my reaction to this story about the aftermath of our invasion of Iraq.

No shopping today

Not only did I not buy anything today -- Buy Nothing Day -- I returned to Radio Shack a laptop and accessories (more than $500 worth of merchandise) that I'd bought three weeks before and received a full refund. I didn't need the new computer because my old one hadn't suffered a fatal crash after all, but was simply taking a prolonged rest and woke up last night.

I hate when that happens...

but no problem: An "inquiry" has been instituted.

Occasionally I regret

leaving the old profession. Reading this article from the Guardian is one of those times.

Obama, the Republicans' tool

This essay says it: It's all political theater, and the people aren't the directors.

A psychiatrist analyses Obama

A brief capsule, based on Obama's recent appearance on Leno.

My reaction: "And they pay you for this?"

What's happening?

Today, and several days before today, at the checkout counter at a retail store, when I moved my credit card through the store's counter-mounted implement, I understood I was "swiping" my card. I rather liked that term because it was so precisely expressive of the physical action of moving the card through the machine's slot. However, lately I've been hearing the word "slide" to depict that action, a word that, although not descriptively inapt, seems less precise and, frankly, a word that owes its recent adoption to political correctness. I understand that "swipe" sometimes means "steal" and often refers to an act of wiping up various forms of detritus, as from a countertop or floor, which lead me to ask, Why this change of the word in common parlance?

Support our troops?

Well, not all of them.

I'm still here

I appreciate that it's been quite a while since I last posted on this blog (perhaps the longest gap in my posting since I started this site on August 18, 2003, with a co-blogger, Kyle, who a few months later left this blog to me and maintains his own blogs, Metaphor and Squelch -- see my list of blogs), but the interruption isn't because I've had nothing to say, just that I have nothing to type. I mutter to myself, I mutter to the few others who'll hear me -- and some who won't -- muttering, muttering. I know after eight-plus years of blogging that my posts don't affect anything, and muttering takes less time and is easier. Perhaps if Jobs' successors invent a hand-held device that allows one to create a post on one's blog by muttering into it, I'll be back at it with my earlier frequency. (On the first day of All That Arises, Kyle and I posted eight (8) separate items on various subjects! Oh how young and innocent we were back then.)

Anyhoo, I'm not bowing out, just explaining my recent cyber-silence. Later, gator.

An observation about art

I suppose I've always known this: Very seldom is a work of art, especially in literature and writing, truly novel. As proof, consider the famous comedic line from the movie, "Young Frankenstein" by Mel Brooks: "Walk this way," spoken by the hunchback Igor to Frankenstein, after which Igor limps away followed by Frankenstein attempting to imitate the limp. Funny, eh? And unique? No, not at all.

The same sequence appeared four decades earlier in the movie "After the Thin Man," where Nick Charles (William Powell) is told by an aged butler to follow him ("walk this way") and thereupon shuffles into the drawing room, which Nick dutifully imitates. It's a scene funnier than Mel Brooks' copy, much more in tune with the story.

Why do I bring up this obscure fact? I have no idea, except that I felt like it in the moment, and I don't Tweet.

There is a God

or at least a god: The Detroit Tigers beat the New York Yankees in the American League playoffs to advance to the finals, sending the Yankees home, no longer in contention for a World Series title.

Another bike stolen

I returned to my condo this evening to see that my bike had been stolen from my carport sometime during the day. It was hidden from the adjacent street but I hadn't locked it because when I ride it locally (as I do often) it feels paranoid to lock it each time I return home. It wasn't a two-thousand dollar bike, but it was a good ride and I like the darned thing. And now it's gone. It's the second time I've lost a bike to theft. My previous bike was stolen off the back of my truck when I stopped at 7-11, momentarily, in Ukiah, California, on my way back to SB from a trip up north. I've also lost two laptops to theft from my car. That's four thefts, none inconsequential, in the last ten years.

You'd think I'd become more circumspect about securing my possessions on these accounts. But no. So far I've taken the position that we are good people, we humans, and don't do evil. But, damn it, I'm becoming jaundiced and, frankly, I'm growing tired of replacing these things. We're talking many hundreds of dollars over these years, not to speak of the pains in the ass(es).

So, I'm on Craigslist now, looking for a used bike to buy and, I must admit, there are many. Another reason I'm shopping: I might find my own bike for sale. If so, do you think the seller might give me a break on the price?

Reconstruction in Iraq, American style

If I hadn't been crying so hard while reading this article about our efforts to rebuild Iraq, I'd have been laughing.

Worst president ever

Herewith is a letter to the editor of the SB NewsPress that I sent today. I'll update this post if/when it's published.

Update: The letter was published on September 24, 2011.

Several liberal bloggers and essayists predict that an “Arab spring” will soon come to America: that after three years of Democrats’ (read Obama’s) failures (1) to rein in the excesses of wealthy traders and profiteering corporations; (2) to support the needs of the poor and middle class for jobs and decent incomes; and (3) to end Bush’s wars and egregious violations of our privacy, a mass of disaffected Obama voters (acronym: a D.O.V. movement) will take to the streets to force their representatives to fundamentally change America’s international and domestic policies.

To which predictions I reply: LOL. Americans are too chained to cable TV and Internet connections; too stressed by falling values of their homes and retirement accounts; too fixated on consumption and maintaining incomes to support that consumption. No, the time for an American “Arab spring” has passed; its people are too cowed, too lost in the maze of distractions created by those in power: power over our finance, our media, our governance.

The most Americans can hope for is that our inevitable decline ends in a soft landing. And the most Obama can hope for after his single term as president is that, having presided over the demolition of the hopes and aspirations of his constituents—traditional progressives and, most appallingly, minorities and the youth—by his repudiation of his campaign promises, he ends up being second on the “worst president ever” list, behind only Harrison, who died after thirty days in office.

Handwriting on the wall

As long ago as during the months before the general election, Obama revealed himself to be the "political hack" that the McCain campaign termed him. So, why are we progressives surprised at the nature of his governance, to wit, doing anything and everything necessary to be re-elected.

My favorite line from this essay

about Obama's "jobs" speech is near the end: "Republicans have never had such an effective lackey."

This morning's Yahoo! News front page is covered with stories about "jobs": Obama's upcoming speech, the Republican candidates' debate, the impact of job loss on all segments of our economy, etc. But the theme of all stories is that Obama must come up with a plan in his speech that solves the problem.

What a crock! First of all, a speech isn't going to solve anything. Laws and policies and human conduct are. Second, where's Congress in this? They pass the laws and deal with domestic economic issues, not the President. He's paramount in foreign affairs (somewhat) but domestic issues are to be dealt with by the legislative branch of government. Third, it's more than a year until the election, but the stories all deal with the political issues--who's leading in the polls; what Obama "must say to turn the tables on the Republicans"; who's at fault for the persistent economic doldrums, etc.

I'm tired of all this, so much so that I'm not going to watch the President's speech tonight, just as I didn't watch the Republican candidates' debate last night. Fuck 'em all.

Everything you need to know about our militarist empire

is found in this excellent interview, that summarizes five important books on the subject.