Ticked Off

Regular readers of The Normal Blog will surely agree that most postings consist of factual, well reasoned positions with little or no hint of TNB's emotions. Ranting is not allowed. Thus, you may be shocked to learn that TNB is really ticked off this week, due in no small measure to the following:

• The Flyover--- What were they thinking? How could anyone be so stupid? Etc. Etc. Of course, this refers to the Air Force One look alike "photo-op" which took place in Lower Manhattan without warning, thus justifiably frightening thousands of New Yorkers with obvious memories of 9/11. Both President Obama and NYC Mayor Bloomberg stated that they had no advance notice and were "furious". So, did a head roll? Of course not silly, these are government employees. TNB is ticked off because no one was fired and required to seek a position in the private sector (good luck). Instead the White House official involved issued a lame apology (probably ghostwritten) and the New York official who failed to notify Bloomberg had an administrative reprimand placed in his file. No word on whether he was told to stand in the corner.
• The Singing Sensation--- Is there anyone who has not by now seen the YouTube video of the (formerly) frumpy Scottish lady Susan Boyle wowing British judges with her rendition of "I Had A Dream"? TNB is ticked off, not at her certainly, but at the entire entertainment media for their breathless and stunned reaction that someone who isn't beautiful, has allegedly never been kissed, dresses poorly etc. could possibly succeed. She has already had somewhat of a makeover and sadly once the media tires of the novelty, her 15 minutes of fame will likely end.
• Dick Cheney--- Although George W. Bush seems to have gracefully retired to private life (did he really want to be President?), Darth Vader has emerged from 8 years of hiding to become the unwanted spokesman for the Republican Party. TNB is ticked off that Cheney, who never seemed to be available for meaningful interviews while Vice President, has now appointed himself chief thorn in Obama's side. His image is hardly going to broaden the "tent" of the GOP which took another blow when Sen. Arlen Specter defected to the Democratic Party. When does hunting season begin?

If you're ticked off by something in the news, let TNB know. Best rant gets an all expense paid trip to Alaska in December for the first birthday party of the love child of Bristol Palin and ex-stud Levi Johnston.

Ignoring History

The famous quote "Those Who Ignore History Are Bound To Repeat It" or versions thereof, variously ascribed to Santayana or Burke, has been around for several centuries. Isn't it interesting how relevant this admonition is today? Consider several examples:

For hundreds of years, ending in the early 19th Century, pirates were the scourge of the seas, particularly off of North Africa--the infamous Barbary Coast. Finally, after decades of ransom paying by European nations, the fledgling US Marines finally wiped out the Barbary pirates in 1815 thus causing the phrase "...to the shores of Tripoli " to be included in the Marine hymn.

Then for the better part of the next 200 years, "pirates" were romanticized in the minds of the public, beginning with the classic Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera "The Pirates of Penzance" (which contains the most parodied song ever "I am the very model of a modern Major-General"), then onto Capt. Hook from Peter Pan, numerous sports teams using "Pirates" as sort of a benign nickname and finally Johnny Depp as a dandified captain in "Pirates of the Caribbean". The emergence of real latter day pirates, this time Somalis off the East Coast of Africa, received relatively little publicity until the recent dramatic rescue of Capt. Richard Phillips. Shipping companies and some governments paid ransoms instead of doing something to stop this practice. Ignoring history has increased the price of combating this scourge, which at least is finally receiving overdue attention.

Attention has not been lacking on another scourge--financial fraud. But again history has been ignored. A lot of people think that Charles Ponzi invented such frauds in the 1920's. But he was actually a small timer, preying mostly on the most vulnerable segments of society. 65 years earlier in 1855, when Dickens wrote "Little Dorrit" (now an excellent Masterpiece Theatre series) he portrayed the British aristocracy as being taken to the cleaners by a smooth, trustworthy, hard to approach (sound familiar?) con man eerily similar to Bernie Madoff, who of course preyed on a modern day "aristocracy" of sorts. The fictional counterpart was named Merdle, which is probably the original family name of Madoff, before it was de-anglicized to better identify with the majority of his victims. There obviously were real life models for Merdle, as well as for numerous other crooks who continue to fool people, all of whom ignore history at their peril.

Finally, the real history of the 1773 Boston Tea Party, involving a bailout of the East India Company (really!), was largely ignored on April 15, with the ubiquitous "tea parties" organized largely by Fox News to complain about taxation without representation. That was obviously valid three years prior to the Declaration of Independence, but wasn't there just a fair, democratic election? And worst of all, the "spontaneous" protesters ignored a modern day British (vulgar) usage of "teabagging" referring to a sensitive part of the male anatomy. Easy to ignore when you know nothing.

Too Much Information

In the world of text messaging and twittering, one of the most widely used acronyms (after OMG, BTW, LOL, etc.) is TMI, which is shorthand for Too Much Information and usually means that the recipient of one of these messages just has information overload. He or she can't or won't process all the information sent to them and has thus sent back a mild protest--TMI.

In our modern world, don't we all sometimes feel that we are receiving, by various means probably not even including texting, far more information than we want, need, can use and/or care about?

Only a generation or so ago, even the most knowledgeable people didn't have access to 24/7 news stations (they didn't exist!) or information now easily available on the Internet (PC's were just coming into widespread use) or certainly the currently ubiquitous cellphones which "way back then" in the '80's only could make telephone calls. Imagine how primitive!

You actually had to read a newspaper (remember them?) or magazine or carefully listen to a radio or TV news program to find out what was going on--and without much of the trivia than is now available. Rarely, for most people was there too much information--often not enough.

Actually if the irrelevant (should President Obama have bought pizza from his hometown Chicago rather than from St. Louis, did Billy Bob Thornton "pull a Joaquin Phoenix" in a Canadian interview, is Lindsay Lohan for real, will Blago go to Costa Rica to star in an NBC reality show, is the new White House dog Bo potty trained, etc. etc.) is filtered out there is a wealth of good information to make you smarter and more intelligent.

In order to achieve what might be referred to as JEI (Just Enough Information) you need to pay very close attention to The Normal Blog. Of course, in general blogs are probably the biggest source of TMI (present company excluded). Sadly, much of the "information" imparted is only opinion (present company also excluded).

Exodus

As Passover approaches, once again the timeless story of the Israelites, led by Moses, and their exodus from slavery under the Egyptian Pharaoh is being related to young and old. The parting of the Red Sea, 40 years of wandering in the wilderness and many other profound stories are being repeated. Although occurring perhaps 3,500 years ago, the biblical exodus still has significance for those of us coping with 21st century life.

For example, the desires of many people who are poverty and disease stricken and who live under brutal totalitarian regimes to find a better life elsewhere might produce a mass migration or exodus if such were possible. But it is painfully obvious that today's immigration policies and political climate in much of the developed world inhibits, in fact prohibits, any meaningful exodus from taking place.

Closer to home, the last 25 years or so have witnessed a huge exodus of Americans from the Midwest and Northeast to the South and Southwest. While this has understandably resulted from a desire to escape harsh winters and/or to seek better economic opportunities, so called "paradise" destinations such as California, Nevada, Arizona and Florida are reeling under the burden of the staggering overdevelopment in their states caused in no small part by such exodus. Where is Moses when we all really need him?

On a much more micro scale, we are seeing an exodus of various business executives starting with Rick Wagoner of GM and no doubt soon to be followed by some bank executives who raise the ire of Barack Obama--yes, he can be really angry. This type of exodus differs in one tiny respect from the others mentioned above. Only these guys get $20 million or more in severance to make their exodus comfortable. No unleavened bread for them.

April Fools

Every April 1, many pranks and tricks are played. Those who fall for them might be called April fools. But often these days, what might appear to be an April Fool's joke has actually happened on a daily basis. All of the following with one exception are real occurrences:

• A number of mistrials have been required because certain jurors, in contravention of judicial instructions, have been caught texting or twittering during jury deliberations. (Milwaukee Bucks player Charlie Villanueva was detected twittering at halftime during his coach's pep talk).
• A former NFL star (Travis Henry) and a former NBA player (Jason Caffey) have admitted to fathering, respectively, 9 and 8 children by an equal number of different women and despite their bloated salaries both are behind in child support.
• Iowa Senator Charles Grassley (who later said he was kidding) announced that he believed that many of those responsible for the financial crisis, particularly some AIG bonus recipients, should behave like some Japanese executives and commit suicide.
• Despite having several highly paid image consultants, Yankees star and '"former" steroid abuser Alex (A-Rod) Rodriguez's image took another big hit (pun intended) with the alleged revelation that he was client #13 (his uniform number) at the same high priced escort service that brought down NY Gov. Eliot Spitzer, supposedly client #9.
• Deposed and soon to be indicted former Illinois Gov. Rod (Helmet Hair) Blagojevich spent a morning as the host on a Chicago radio talk show right after receiving a six figure advance for a yet to be written book about him, who else?
• The wife of jailed Uber-Swindler Bernie Madoff received a seven figure advance for a tell -all book "The Truth About Ruth".

If you realized that only the last item was made up by TNB, you win an all expense paid trip to a Caribbean island of your choice (April Fool).

Duplicity

For a few hours of escape from all of the world's troubles, TNB recommends the enjoyable new Julia Roberts/Clive Owen caper film "Duplicity" which deals brilliantly with the world of corporate espionage. Once you have left the theatre (unfortunately not the late, lamented Normal, pictured to the left) you'll be back in reality faced with even more "duplicity", which is defined in the dictionary as double dealing or deceitfulness. Consider the following:

• Perhaps more duplicitous than the much maligned bonuses paid to failed executives, AIG transferred Billions (not a mere $165 million) of its bailout money to various counterparties such as Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank which it had insured with its arcane credit default swaps. Since without the TARP funds, AIG would have been bankrupt and would have defaulted on its own default instruments, the taxpayers were possibly deceived as to exactly what the bailout was really for (not the only example). BTW, apparently some of these bonuses have been returned (except of course those paid in Europe) and perhaps the ill-conceived (maybe duplicitous) 90% income tax will deservedly die a quiet death.
• Is there a body containing more duplicity than the US Congress? How about Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut who while posing as a populist took huge campaign contributions from the financial services industry (as did another ranking Democrat, NY Sen. Chuck Schumer) and allegedly snuck something in the stimulus package which permitted AIG and other bailout recipients to legally pay the aforementioned egregious compensation? OMG.
• Daphne Merkin, the author of the forthcoming "Jews and Money" (we need this?) wrote an interesting New York Times column about the "casualties "of Bernie Madoff while deceiving the readers by not fully disclosing that her brother is Ezra Merkin, who has been sued by half of New York's wealthy for feeding their money (after sizable fees) to the newest resident of the Metropolitan Correctional Center of NYC. After TNB realized this, another reading of the column showed that she was subtly excusing any of his enablers because of Bernie's charm, aura, etc. etc. OY.

It appears that we just have to learn how to deal with the double dealers. In the Movie "Duplicity" there are at least some triple dealers, but that's fiction, right?

Headlines

Thursday, March 12 was quite a day in the headlines. For example:

BERNIE MADOFF REMANDED TO PRISON

COMMENT: While victims present in the courtroom applauded, the King of Swindlers was led away in handcuffs. Unreported was a later incident when Ruth Madoff tried to sneak in a pastrami sandwich from Bernie's favorite deli. Ruth, of course, is dearly trying to hold onto $69 million she claims is not from the fraud. She maybe ran an expensive escort service (Eliot Spitzer, anyone)?

BRISTOL PALIN NO LONGER ENGAGED

COMMENT: Remember the unbelievable "spin" right after the GOP convention, where Sarah and others gushed over how much in love Bristol and Levi (who always looked like a deer caught in the headlights) were, their forthcoming marriage and completion of high school (they're both dropouts) ad nauseum? If any normal person bought into this, TNB has a bridge for sale. Another example of Beverly Hills Hillbillies relocated to Wasilla. BTW, actual statistic--only 8% of teenage mothers marry the father, with many divorces the eventual result.

JON STEWART CREAMS JIM CRAMER

COMMENT: While taking his well deserved medicine from Jon, it looked like Jim Cramer was on on some other meds (Ritalin, Prozac?). Apparently, his entire shtick (Mad Money) is a tiresome act. He was well behaved on Martha Stewart (obviously no relation) earlier Thursday but didn't show up on Morning Joe Friday AM (no more caffeine maybe?)

SYRACUSE BEATS UCONN IN RECORD 6 OVERTIMES

COMMENT: Arrogant, grossly overpaid UConn coach Jim Calhoun was his usual ungracious self afterwards, blaming everybody but himself and TNB. Why are so many college coaches so widely admired? Must be the great examples they set for their "student-athletes".

TEXAS, SOUTH CAROLINA GOVERNORS REFUSE STIMULUS MONEY

COMMENT: Apparently following the lead of Rush (I hope Obama fails) Limbaugh, these 2 enlightened conservatives believe that the strings attached to the stimulus package (e.g. improving unemployment benefits) made helping their constituents unpalatable. Better to take a "principled" stand. These guys are worse than college coaches.