Maybe This Time......

Not much of a joiner, never have been. But The Long Now Foundation may be an exception. I've been tired of the relentless presentism of modern culture for a long time and, at 65, I'm fed up. So, yes, I can see myself joining an organization the most tangible project of which has been the design and construction of a 10,000 year clock. Such things as always writing "0" in front of the year (so that we're now in 02009) seem more pretentious, but I'm sure they'd just say I'm not yet there in my ten thousand year thinking yet.......

But if not.....

Yet another meeting on the "critical catastrophic crisis" today with Mr. Obama and assorted governors. It's as if, despite a vast and highly questionable plan having been passed, that having meetings every day will somehow help to cure the country's economic malaise.

Then there are the endless theories, mostly incorporating at some juncture a hopeful prediction as to when the recession will 'turn around.'

But it doesn't take a whole lot of reading to see that we are living in a monstrously complex economy, that is tied in to an incalculable degree with other economies in the world, and that no one has an accurate view of what's going on.

Which is why I'm doubly apprehensive at the haste to pass a gigantic 'stimulus package' only a month into the new administration. Yes, there's a lot of pressure to do something, but that doesn't make this wise.

If there's anything specific that bothers me, it's the rush of government at every level to preach tax cutting, while at the same time proposing -and in some cases already passing- measures to generate more revenue, many of which may charitably be called inadvisable.

The thing I'm looking for -and have yet to see- is a list of government cuts to attempt to balance the deficit that is only growing worse. And it's not going to come, because every one of our elected officeholders is already looking at November of 2010 and sweating.

Endless Catastrophe

I believe this subject, which I have visited ere this, bears reiteration. The world is not ending, despite the constant stream of disaster / catastrophe reporting (and even series on cable), such that even 8 inches of lake-effect snow on Rochester or Buffalo is deemed a Sign of the End Times by some.
If this continues, I expect we'll have shows airing next season entitled A Volcano in Your Back Yard, Tsunamis for Two, Lahars in Laredo, Earthquake Ecstasy.
The constant natter about catastrophe and chaos perhaps makes it seem normal to view such series as Obama and the Fearmonger Express, doing exactly the same thing he took G.W. Bush to task for even before his nomination. Only the War on Terror was / is not "real," but if we all don't get behind his legislative agenda we face then end of the world as we know it. The Sky Will Fall.

OK, Chicken Little.....

All Is Speculation

Heard on TWC this morning: "We're going to be talking about that plane crash near Buffalo all day today. We don't know the cause yet, but we're going to be talking about the effect weather may have had...."

.....and so it goes. The Near Bankrupt Paper of Record elected to have Ron Obvious write this story, with an execrably written headline: Fifty Varied Lives, Ended on a Cold, Foggy Night. Extra commas, we has them.