Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Down it goes, up it goes, down, up.
Down it goes, up it goes, down, up. What gets me about a volatile stock market is the market part. It really is. If the soft shell Chesapeake crabs look good today, you better buy 'em even if there's fewer of them & they cost more. If the broccoli is getting a bit old, have a "manager's special" & get rid of it before it has to be thrown in the garbage. Freeze in the orange groves today & the price of orange juice in the supermarket strangely increased yesterday (maybe that's an oil analogy).
**
One can imagine lots of individual investors reading ticker tape, on the phone yelling "BUY, SELL, BUY, SELL," as they mull over whether to purchase a new Bentley or jump out the window, but the wealthy Bumsteads don't drive the market. I suspect most Americans have no idea what's happening to their money, why credit loosens & tightens, where their pension funds are invested. We prefer the illusion of stability on a long incline, where even the descents are part of the ascent,
Poet William Carlos Williams means a "world unsuspected" opened up by descent, not American optimism. American economy can fail. America can become unfree. America can descend - maybe descending right now, maybe has been descending for 40 years but we can't see it yet, we thought we were going up, like the stock market.
**
Much of what we regard as "true" about America is religion, bequeathed by the radical Calvinism of the pilgrims & puritans. Our faith is constantly tested, not yet disproved. The ascent of China, India, the European Union we may attribute to our increasing ungodliness. Put a godly person in the presidency, a George W. Bush, a (hoped for by some ev- xtians) Sarah Palin, we rationalize all the apparent descents as actually part of an overall ascent, God's Plan. Even the secularist conservatives buy into this at 11 am Sunday morning, as they haul in the New York Times from the front yard, sip their Bloody Marys, & rant on about the current Democratic antichrist, latest in a long line of horned beasts disguising themselves behind the American flag lapel pins.
The Lord's ways are mysterious, providing us with an antichrist so nakedly adorned with the middle name "Hussein." Truly the Clash of Civilizations. I would have expected the Devil to be more subtle, to cast up someone with a perfectly Biblical first name like "Sarah" & a reassuring Norman Conquest surname like "Palin," making gender & hometown the attractive novelties (he had a number of options for VP), & she wouldn't even have to quote the Bible, because the Devil knows that nobody quotes the Bible better than the Devil.
Who is her Karl Rove? Maybe Karl Rove? Would anyone now dispute his demonic qualities?
**
For me, both Repug candidates are demonic characters. I don't mean that they actual demons, or that I'm intent on demonizing them, although I do. John McCain has already reminded me of both Froggy the Gremlin & Mighty Mouse, & those images offered themselves to me, I wasn't looking for them. I don't research this stuff, just as I rarely resort to a thesaurus for synonyms. The most precise word often turns out to be a word I never use, & so I feel dishonest using it. Which is also why my blog rarely rises above "middle school" on the vocabulary scan. Although "demonizing, " gremlin," & "thesaurus" might push this paragraph up to high school level. I don't think it does a grammar check.
I'm tempted to add "talking to myself" to the post label list, it's too depressing to think of how often I'd want to use it.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
**
One can imagine lots of individual investors reading ticker tape, on the phone yelling "BUY, SELL, BUY, SELL," as they mull over whether to purchase a new Bentley or jump out the window, but the wealthy Bumsteads don't drive the market. I suspect most Americans have no idea what's happening to their money, why credit loosens & tightens, where their pension funds are invested. We prefer the illusion of stability on a long incline, where even the descents are part of the ascent,
The descent
made up of despairs
and without accomplishment
realizes a new awakening :
which is a reversal
of despair.Poet William Carlos Williams means a "world unsuspected" opened up by descent, not American optimism. American economy can fail. America can become unfree. America can descend - maybe descending right now, maybe has been descending for 40 years but we can't see it yet, we thought we were going up, like the stock market.
**
Much of what we regard as "true" about America is religion, bequeathed by the radical Calvinism of the pilgrims & puritans. Our faith is constantly tested, not yet disproved. The ascent of China, India, the European Union we may attribute to our increasing ungodliness. Put a godly person in the presidency, a George W. Bush, a (hoped for by some ev- xtians) Sarah Palin, we rationalize all the apparent descents as actually part of an overall ascent, God's Plan. Even the secularist conservatives buy into this at 11 am Sunday morning, as they haul in the New York Times from the front yard, sip their Bloody Marys, & rant on about the current Democratic antichrist, latest in a long line of horned beasts disguising themselves behind the American flag lapel pins.
The Lord's ways are mysterious, providing us with an antichrist so nakedly adorned with the middle name "Hussein." Truly the Clash of Civilizations. I would have expected the Devil to be more subtle, to cast up someone with a perfectly Biblical first name like "Sarah" & a reassuring Norman Conquest surname like "Palin," making gender & hometown the attractive novelties (he had a number of options for VP), & she wouldn't even have to quote the Bible, because the Devil knows that nobody quotes the Bible better than the Devil.
Who is her Karl Rove? Maybe Karl Rove? Would anyone now dispute his demonic qualities?
**
For me, both Repug candidates are demonic characters. I don't mean that they actual demons, or that I'm intent on demonizing them, although I do. John McCain has already reminded me of both Froggy the Gremlin & Mighty Mouse, & those images offered themselves to me, I wasn't looking for them. I don't research this stuff, just as I rarely resort to a thesaurus for synonyms. The most precise word often turns out to be a word I never use, & so I feel dishonest using it. Which is also why my blog rarely rises above "middle school" on the vocabulary scan. Although "demonizing, " gremlin," & "thesaurus" might push this paragraph up to high school level. I don't think it does a grammar check.
I'm tempted to add "talking to myself" to the post label list, it's too depressing to think of how often I'd want to use it.
But I know it's not true.
Even when I'm boring for days on end,
I'm read by a few.Labels: religion, THE election
