Fear & Loathing

One less genius. Just what we needed.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/26/a
rts/music/26larrocha.html?_r=1&hp   bio

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpJAkFgU14A    plaing Albeniz


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuqV3cYDn5k   playing Mozart concerto

The worldwide economic contraction is at hand, as first predicted on these boards (as far as I can ascertain) by JudgementDay in August-September 2008. In the past ca. 18 months, more than 4.5 million jobs have been lost in America. Within the next year, that number will roughly double. That means that about one out of five workers will be idle or severely underemployed. That level probably will be the broad, low plateau of the downturn. This American debacle is dragging the rest of the world down with it, as America is the "world's market". See, for instance, that Caterpillar is laying off thousands, because their heavy equipment is no longer selling to the contracting Chinese market.

So roughly one out of every five American families will be in fairly desperate financial straights, and extremely vulnerable.  On the other hand, the agenda perpetrated by the conservative overlords during the Bush Administration has esentially bankrupted the Federal Government, and created a small class of plutocrats holding vast, private economic resources.

America will therefore comprise a small group of ultrapowerful plutocrats, a shrunken, stressed-out midle class, a large, relatively hopeless economic underclass, and an impotent Federal Government. Further, the bitter, recent political battle has pretty much destroyed any hope of generating any national consensus.

Taken together, these phenomena will almost certainly bring on an era of tyrany by the greedy plutocrats who, knowingly or not, pecipitated the events. These plutocrats will control the more-or-less desperate underclass, and overwhelm the sketchy middle class. America will descend into essentially a feudal society, run by financially powerful overlords with no allegiance to the country, and no entities capable of neutralizing their selfish will. It will be "small town politics" on a grand scale.

Enjoy today.

 

Here's a nice chunk of writing:

"The other residents must have gone down to the basement shelters (unless they too were to weak from hunger, or too old to care), leaving behind this stray genius to play in the darkness, impudent and precise, showing off with thundering fortissimos immediately followed by fragile little pianissimos, as if he were having an argument with himself, the bullying husband and the meek wife all at once.

Music was an important part of my childhood, on the radio and in concert halls. My parents were fanatic in their passion; we were a family with no talent for playing but great pride in our listening. I could identify any of Chopin's 27 etudes after hearing a few bars; I knew all of Mahler...But the music we heard that night I have never heard before and have never heard since. The notes were muffled by window glass and distance and the unending wind, but the power came through. It was music for wartime.

We stood on the sidewalk, beneath a powerless streetlamp cobwebbed with hoarfrost, the great guns firing to the south, the moon veiled by muslin clouds, listening until the final note. When it ended, something seemed wrong: the performance was too good to go unacknowledged, the performer too skilled to accept no applause. Finally, when it seemed respectful to move again, we resumed our march."

That is freaking dense with images and feelings. You don't even have to know the context. This author can humble me...

The Bills have provided me the perfect metaphor for the human experience:

Always at the appropriate time they have represented:

-the idealism and hope of superficial youth
-the tenacious, futile attempt to create a deep meaning out of non-sense
-the creation of a shell for survival

-and ultimately, the dissolving into non-existence

Does your team fit into your big picture?

Give up the top ten most memorable experiences of your life, if you've got that many. Start with one at a time. Try to save a few for the "end" times.