NPR should not try to be funny

actually, it was someone on Marketplace. PRI. i think they are just thrilled to be in the middle of all this stuff. i forget the female reporter's name but she said "i'm heading to reno where i hear there are casinos rivaling those of wall street," a beat, then goes on (i guess you're supposed to insert a laugh?)

on paper it's kind of cute. coming out a correspondent's mouth it pushes my ANNOY button and holds it down, like so much stuff on NPR does.

still. it's all we've got. but this time around i have to defer to lou dobbs for my listening time. he has some weird ideas. "mister independent" he calls himself, "mr. codependent" i call him. he has some weird thing about race that is so irrational and whack, it makes his other ideas suspect in some peoples' eyes.

what he does get right is that liberal groups are all too happy to trash him and simplify what he says he believes, which is that the immigrants aren't to blame for what's happening to them, but rather the employers who hire them. i've heard him say any number of times that he believes enforcement should and doesn't, focus on the employer side, the business side. he says lobbying groups paint him as a mexican-hater and that those same groups are backed by same employers who have an interest in cheap slave labor.

but at other times he seems to truly have a visceral hate for people of other races and cultures.

however when it comes to money, no one knows more.

and i wasn't surprised to see where he comes down which is where i come down: no bailout.

do something else. get the credit markets moving by giving the cash to parties who are not wall street honchos. do anything. the world is our oyster.

revenge is rewarding, says a psychologist who compares the parts of the brain activated by revenge, to the same parts that enjoy heroin, chocolate, bla bla. he says the "no bailout" sentiment is based on revenge and the desire to punish wall street.
even though it's not in our favor.

i don't buy it. i just don't.

remember what alan watts said about wall street? that you can measure something in inches, but on wall street, you're not selling that something, you're selling the inches themselves.

listening to some of the programs about this, warren olney's program for one, i realize how over my head these concepts are that are flying about. and that doesn't mean i don't have an opinion, just that i feel cautious about that opinion. i seriously am not surprised by any of this, even though i don't think about finance. just watching the market over the past few months there's been something in the wind and here it is.

but i think it's more of that shock doctrine stuff. (by naomi klein: read it) scare the american people so you can take advantage of them ....AGAIN.

as to what to do in the here and now? do anything. anything but reward these criminals. do what mcconoughy said, for fuck's sake.

have we had fun like this in an election season ever? i think not.