The Long Road Out

I can't express my feeling about the Davos Economic Summit, currently performing it's annual circus, better than Joseph Stiglitz: “They are now licking their lips,” said Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel laureate economist. “Davos Man has been able to overlook Trump’s ‘America First’ rhetoric, his anti-climate-change action, his protectionism, nativism, racism, bigotry, narcissism, misogyny, for the lucre that seems to be the true motivating force behind Davos Man.” Indeed... I'm trying to imagine a policy level definition of some of the economic chaos generated in the last weeks.   There isn't one, not that the Dow Jones isn't loving every minute of it.   But what sort of policy combines: bonuses paid by Walmart based on some tax change-- tarifs slapped on random goods (this week's list includes foreign-made washing machines and solar panels. I assume Trump played golf with some one in the roofing and some one in the appliance industry last week.)-- random s...

  I ran volunteer networks for Planned Parenthood, and attended founding meetings of women centers and academic meetings ranging from the National Womens' Studies Association on down.  I've marched in every major women's march since the 70's—and a bunch of great local ones (I still get teary-eyed on Broadway in NYC recalling the excitement at some of those Take Back the Night marches in the 80's).   I even got arrested at the women's peace encampment at Seneca Falls.   I'm the real deal…a feminist man.   My resume is great! So why the fuck don't I want to go to the march this weekend?   My habits are so strong that I've been planning sign painting events and group meet ups, blithely ignoring my honest feelings.   I'm not interested. What happened?   Did I get bored?   I don't think so…maybe I'm numb to my heart here too, but I feel like I've been getting more animated about my p...

Ah, Denver, or Texas recently.   Or NYC.   Add them to the list.  This violence made my partner recall a paraphrase of the Margaret Atwood quote:    “Men are afraid women will make fun of them.   Women are afraid men will kill them.” Wife- and pet-beater kills people.   Feels kind of like slipping on an old shoe, doesn't it.   Indeed, it's the core US myth.  It’s our national story. It isn't enough we have the bully who authorizes all U.S. bullies, Trump, mouthing off like a crybaby.   The rest of the world already recognizes that he's representative of our joint narrative.   Guy who can't keep a relationship going.  Gets angry.  Takes it out on the women closest to him first, then every one, randomly.   We're going to let this pass too.   Mass Violence Incident 10, 850 (this is only the 2017 file we're reviewing so the numbers only go into the mid-five digits). Since violence against women (and anim...

There are so many despicable companies and brands in the world.   So it's hard to chose the absolute numero uno  when this much-coveted prize is awarded annually.  But the judges (me) have decided.  My choice is Monsanto--protected by the government, actively poisoning the food chain, guilty of predatory customer behavior, and literally violent to non-customers. Monsanto is still first in the "Worst Corporation of the Decade" ranking, which, surely, this year's victory will help.   They're kind of like the Chicago Bulls in their heyday. It's nice to feel so certain that Monsanto is the absolutely worst company on the planet.   Knowing this makes the judges (me) feel clearheaded and thoughtful, since it would be easy to be confused by the many categories and brands in the runner-up spots: All the defense contractors--whether General Electric or General Dynamics, these guys make money exporting death to bad people, and go out of their way to make sure...

We happened to be eating on Rue Oberkampf, on the same block as the Bataclan in Paris, the night of  those events.   And we happen to live on the West Side in Manhattan where not a day goes by without at least one trip on the West Side Bike path.   My work is based in Portland, Oregon where it's been OK to walk in and assault dark-skinned individuals for quite some time, including yesterday. Does proximity make any difference? Lack of proximity clearly makes it harder to understand how other "tribes" feel.   Just look at Trump's response to the bike path murders in New York yesterday--60% of the victims came from Argentina and it never occurs to him to even mention the sadness in Rosario.   Of course, he's a moron, but the point here stands.   We mourn our own.   It's in our genetics, often disguised as biased "empathy" rather than the true standard of "compassion." But if this psychopathic guy had just stayed in Passaic where he wa...

I offer, with appreciation, these few paragraphs from an editorial in the NYTimes today by Jill Filipovic.   One more coherent effort to make sense of how we ended up with Trump in office...a man of such repulsive mediocrity that his one accomplishment is being the perfect icon for all that is truly awful about the United States.  In Filipovic's words, "The president is a perfect figurehead for this bizarre moment: a man who carries all of the negative characteristics of stereotypical masculinity while adopting almost none of the virtues, occupying the most powerful and exclusively male seat of power in the nation (and perhaps in the world), who ascended in large part because a yawning fear of female power kept one of the best-qualified candidates in history out of office. He is ego unchecked, narcissism in place of dignity. 152 COMMENTS In a 1961  essay for Vogue , Joan Didion wrote that people with “self-respect have the courage of their mistakes. They know the p...

When your business policies are unethical, there's normally an additional cost of business; public relations, false advertising (often with a green tint), and philanthropy in the sorts of activities that give the appearance that you care about humans. That's what happens with bad companies.   For instance, the major airlines.   I like picking on United because their employees seem the most miserable and the experience of dealing with them is the most institutionalized.   With the other airlines, every once in a while some rogue employee acts up and does the right thing. Today's wonderful policy:  trying to change the return flight on a ticket I paid for 45 days ago--for a flight in three weeks. The original ticket on business was $1103 and returned to Newark.   I needed to switch to Logan in Boston.   The new ticket, including the $200 change fee, was $2471.   Yup, that's right...the increase was more than the original ticket.   And they've ...