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angry, sad me [Nov. 10th, 2011|12:41 am]
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[Current Mood |angryangry]

The Penn State University paedophilia/cover-up scandal and its immediate aftermath is a very big, very public cultural skin-peel, and it's ugly as hell and terribly saddening.

A monster running amok for years. Powerless victims. Villains seeking to "limit the damage" to profits and reputations. A (sports) hero as coward and enabler. Millions are disgusted and enraged while thousands, maybe millions, clamor for "one more game/victory." This is a well-worn path/pattern for us as a culture, especially in politics and government.

We all have our sides in the siege, our heroes who "fight for us" against whatever demonized opposition. We call "them" on every little thing and every big thing, make a grand (self-)righteous production of our dismay, hatred, intolerance, and all, but then... when our particular faction commits the same things, the same evils, it's "understandable". We claim "different circumstance". Or we shoot the messenger. Failing that, we marginalize the messenger. Or, worst of all, we simply do not acknowledge anything of it. We disbelieve it, hoping it will just go away and be forgotten. We do anything possible to not allow "us" to be like "them". We want our heroes. We want our side to be good. So we tolerate the monsters, big and small, and they know we do, and they ride our willful ignorance, our fear, our rationalizing, and our hatred of "the other guys" and of the prospect that we are like the other guys for as long as they can.

Jerry Sandusky raped and molested young boys entrusted to his care and mentoring over the course of about fifteen years. And people at Penn State University knew it. They simply didn't want to hurt the football program, damage the school's reputation, admit that PSU was a place that "that sort of thing" could happen, and/or suffer the legal and financial consequences of what happened. They hoped it would just go away.

We put up with thieves, possibly killers, pimps, warmongers, abject morons, bigots, criminal deviants, and out-and-out liars in every corner of our society -- politics, government, industry, church, entertainment, etc. -- and know we do, even joking about it or stating it as some sort of fait accompli. And we quip, "Well, that's just how it is" or "What can ya do, huh?" And yet we gripe about it, constantly. "Someone should do something," we say, but when the time comes to try we back off, cool down, and say "It'll never work."

We allow all of this to happen.
We allow all of this to happen.
We allow all of this to happen.

This is us, people.

If we can't be bothered to try to change things, even if only for a generation or two, then fuck us. We deserve everything we get.
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I'm still aroond and aboot. [Jun. 28th, 2011|10:15 pm]
I'd a nice long post written, but then a mystery keystroke reloaded the page. And then the post was gone.

This has happened too often lately. Maybe LJ is trying to send me a message.
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not an update [May. 14th, 2011|03:27 am]
Damn LJ ate my update.

I'm not typing it again. It was a long one, too. Damn LJ.
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After the episode after last week's... [Apr. 30th, 2011|07:31 pm]
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... my views are still mixed.

I'm not going into it today or probably even tomorrow. Time to digest and mull is required.
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the answer (a memory) [Apr. 14th, 2011|02:57 pm]
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[Current Mood |thinkin']

Some years ago I was engaged in questioning and fact-finding about a series of highly unusual budget matters and administrative actions at my alma mater. This was back when I gave a damn about the place. The university president had hired a professional lobbyist, last name Trawick, to camp down in the state capitol to make deals for the college and also to act as a shield against criticism and questioning on campus and in town. I'd managed to land an appointment after much asking and a lot of random dropping by her office unannounced.

She dodged my questions initially, deflecting them to the usual "for the good of the school" and "these are new times requiring new ways of doing things" and so forth. No answers, of course. Nothing to pin down. No information. Like a bother, I kept asking her to just answer my questions, the few there were. I wasn't asking for trademark or patent secrets, for goodness sake. I was asking about budget allocations at a public college, a matter of public record kept mysteriously non-public. Of course the inquiry became a debate, at her preference, wherein the subject was whether or not it was my business not only to know but even to inquire as to anything going on at the institution. After a few minutes and her getting nowhere, she finally piped up with: "Who do think you are to be questioning anything Dr. DiGiorgio does here?" My response was: "I know exactly who I am and why I'm here, and that's what's bothering you, isn't it, my nerve to ask and my lack of insecurity?" She then informed me I had no right to ask or too question what the college president did. I countered that as a public employee at a public, hugely state-supported college operating much at the pleasure of the legislature and therefore under its laws and regulating the obligation was up to them to answer.

Then she kicked me out of her office.

I had a microcassette recorder switched on in my jacket pocket during the whole thing. I played the tape for the editors at the college newspaper. I gave the tape to a reporter, a girl named Shannon, who was doing a story on the budget mysteries. I never saw the tape again. A few days later, Shannon quit the newspaper and quickly left the college altogether. Not long after that the newspaper was quietly shut down (again) and restaffed with people who did everything good journalists do, except ask questions.

A few years later Dr. DiGiorgio's administration of the school was put under public scrutiny, all the way up to the Chronicle of Higher Education. He received a vote of No Confidence from the faculty congress, and the school was subject to a legislative audit. At the time, he was the only college or university president in state history to survive a No Confidence vote, though the legislative audit and an independent one commissioned by himself did not come out so well for him. He kept his job, but barely. It figures, though. Dr. DiGiorgio's other career, years ago, was as a licensed psychotherapist. He's good with people, politicians in particular.

This story is one of the reasons I distrust authority.
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human nature, money, and something for nothing [Apr. 12th, 2011|11:35 am]
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[Current Mood |annoyedannoyed]

The very idea that "nobody could have foreseen" the recent U.S. economic collapse is galling. I did, and I said so back in 1998. I had worked in the mortgage business, albeit unsuccessfully, in the mid '90s. It was at the time when sub-prime mortgages were a laughing stock, openly dismissed and ridiculed by serious financial professionals and analysts alike. They were seen as a gimmick, and they were right to be seen so. The only people selling sub-primes before '98 were at best hucksters, mostly selling them to people with some land who were buying single-wide and double-wide trailers. Or to the working poor. And easily half of sub-primes defaulted. I remember. I worked collections for the lenders, too. And the came Bill Clinton and Andrew Cuomo.

President Clinton and Housing Secretary Cuomo unveiled a new initiative to promote home ownership. I remember the press conference well. The long and the short of it was that banks were now not only going to be encouraged but mandated to make loans to people to whom they otherwise wouldn't give a loan application. It was okay, though. The government was going to back them up. There'd be some defaults, said Cuomo, but it wouldn't be many at all. I looked at my (now ex-)wife and said, "This is going to end badly." The government and its financial gurus - Paul Krugman included - were defying centuries of banking and finance experience, insight, and knowledge. They were specifically defying the notion that if people really don't have the money coming in, then they can't spend it. Within a year I was seeing more and more big national and international banks not only originating and servicing sub-prime loans. Not only that, they were including them in investment securities and other financial instruments - in order to spread the risk, and such instruments wound up in pension and 401(k) funds. It was all doomed to come crashing down, and then the U.S. federal government was going to be on the hook for it. But it was still going to cost everyone, and I mean everyone, billions and trillions of dollars. There was no avoiding it, at least not for long.

It's like government spending. It's not really government spending. It's taxpayer spending but with other people spending the taxpayers' monies, and so many people seem to think it's different. For every single government program, taxpayers foot the bill. The more politicians promise and the more the taxpayers demand from them, either the more taxes increase immediately or the more debt is accumulated by the government to pay for things. But the credit bill still comes due, and who pays? Taxpayers. And then they complain about the taxes. And then blame the politicians. But they don't want to give up what they get from the government, the stuff they're complaining about paying for. They want other people to do without or to pay more.

You can't live in credit forever. Nobody can. You either live within your means as you go, or you get forced to live below the means you used to have because the economy has collapsed since you couldn't exercise some fucking restraint.

I'm a nobody, and I knew this shit was coming. All of it. Almost a decade before it started happening. I'm not a genius, nor am I an oracle. I'm just not an idiot. And yes, I'm talking to you Bill Clinton, Andrew Cuomo, Alan Greenspan, Timothy Geithner, Ben Bernanke, and all.
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I think you and I are destined to do this forever. [Dec. 24th, 2010|02:22 pm]
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[Current Mood |creative]

When ideals become institutionalized
the importance is then placed upon the institution, not the ideals. Worse yet, the importance is soon placed on individuals or groups/parties of power in the institution. The institution becomes a mechanism of rule, and the ideals are twisted, subverted to suit the ruling agenda or simply reduced to near-meaningless slogans, again in subservience to the agenda.

Unlike some,
I don't want to change the world. Truth be told, I believe that'd be colossally selfish, egotistical of me. Seriously, who am I to prescribe to everyone else how to live? Who is anyone else to do so, for that matter? My agenda is just to encourage and engage in the discussion of ideas, however small my market, and my market is people I may meet in person and people who read my writings. It's a microscopic market, yes, but them's the breaks. I'm not big for the faceless crowds. The genuinely interpersonal is more my thing. Also, I have no desire whatsoever for power, other than the power to speed up bureaucracies and make them efficient. (I know that power doesn't exist, though, and so it's a moot point.)

Oh, by the way...
This isn't a Christmas post. That's tomorrow.
:P


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(no subject) [Dec. 16th, 2010|01:27 pm]
"If you have always believed that everyone should play by the same rules and be judged by the same standards, that would have gotten you labeled a radical 60 years ago, a liberal 30 years ago, and a racist today."
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a Twitter entry [Nov. 4th, 2010|08:56 pm]
21st century tech has broadened, eased communication, but somewhere along the way many people abandoned actual communication skills.
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November 3 [Nov. 3rd, 2010|02:38 pm]

I'm glad some new candidates won.

I'm glad some new candidates didn't win.

I'm not glad some new candidates won.

I'm not glad some new candidates didn't win.

I'm glad some folks won re-election.

I'm glad some folks didn't win re-election.

I'm glad some folks did run for re-election.

I'm glad some folks didn't run for re-election.

I'm glad some thing got shaken up.

I'm glad some things stayed the same.

I'm not glad some things got shaken up.

I'm not glad some things stayed the same.

I'm glad some ballot initiatives passed.

I'm glad some ballot initiatives didn't pass.

I'm not glad some ballot initiatives passed.

I'm not glad some ballot initaitives didn't pass.

I'm not expecting Lovecraftian disaster.

I'm not expecting either Plato's or More's Utopia.

I'm not expecting much, actually.

I'm not going to stop trying to better things, though.

Don't you stop either.

Just know the process doesn't end until the ideas stop.

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