Economic Bail Out on This Week: or America is a spoiled brat or George Will for President

I heard the best discussion and explanation of the economic crisis today on This Week.  We have all heard that the problem is greed on Wall Street and in Washington, but no one wants to talk about what underlies that.  Wall Street and Washington have always been greedy.  One of the panelists says, “If you take the greed out of Wall Street, your left with pavement.”  Something else has been going on for a long time that no one wants to admit, especially the average family in America.

THE MIDDLE CLASS IN THIS COUNTRY HAS BEEN LIVING BEYOND ITS MEANS FOR OVER A DECADE.  “Seriously beyond its means,” as one panelist says.  That is why no one has been paying attention to or regulating Wall Street.  The average middle class family doesn’t regulate its own budget, much less pay attention to what the government or Wall Street is doing.  America has a lifestyle based on debt, and no one wants to gives us credit anymore.

George Will has the best statement on the show:

You’re coming dangerously close to the truth, which is the sainted American people are the problem here.  That is they have 105 billion credit cards.  That’s nine per card holder.  Self-reporting, they have about $12,000 credit card debt per household.  Household debt is 139 percent of household income.   I mean, they can’t go on like this.  The refusal to defer gratification is a fundamental attribute of childishness.  For as long as I can remember the slogan has been in this town, in political rhetoric, the federal government ought to behave more like families, because families balance their budgets. It turns out that families looked around and said, “You know what?  Let’s behave more like the government.”

I’m voting George Will for president.  Tell the country the truth.  Stop blowing sunshine up our asses telling us we’re so great.  If we’re acting like spoiled brats, let us take our spanking so we learn from it.  Instead the government is going to prop up the failures, so we can all continue our narcissistic national masturbation ceremony until our proverbial genitals fall off.  And then we’ll want to know who we can blame.  Let’s not forget that while we’re doing this crap, China and Russia are brainstorming how to take advantage of our ignorance.

Into the Volcano by Don Wood (Early Reviewer Book)

I’ve been trying to think of unique ways to describe this graphic novel without using “visually stunning” and “breathtakingly beautiful,” but I can’t do it.  Every panel is a work of art.  The scenes where the lava meets the ocean are perfect.  It’s just ink on a page, but Wood captures the light, the hiss, and the heat.  The graphic novel not only stands up to artistic scrutiny, but also has a gripping story.

It’s a mystery- adventure that appeals to a younger audience, but I found myself engrossed. Brothers, Sumo and Duffy, are pulled out of class unexpectedly by their father to be shipped off to an island with a mysterious cousin they’ve never met.  The whole enterprise is shady, and when the boys meet Auntie, it gets even more suspicious.  The book twists and turns, so the reader is never quite sure who’s good and who’s bad.  The boys have to do some self-reflection.

Wood’s artistic portrayals of the characters captivated me.  I was shaken by overweight Auntie with her greenish-pink skin and broken foot.  I immediately knew something wasn’t quite right with her.  You can almost smell her.  The boys have a  pugish Hawaiian look, which made me not fall for them right away.  That’s a good thing.  Most books aimed at younger audiences try to win the reader over to the protagonist’s side with sentimentality too soon. Wood’s style and scope gives the book a cinematic depth that I have rarely seen in graphic novels.  One panel you’re in the boat with the characters, waves pounding; the next you have a bird’s eye view.  It sets a fast adventure pace that young readers will love.

Overall, I’ll be shocked if Into The Volcano doesn’t win some awards.

ijustfinished.com

Obscene in the Extreme by Rick Wartzman (Early Reviewer Book)

Before you get to excited, the subtitle to Obscene in the Extreme is “The Burning and Banning of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath.”  It’s what I call an academic book, which means it appeals to a small group of people in specific and specialized areas of study.  That’s not to say the book is bad or boring.  It’s neither. Being a teacher who teaches The Grapes of Wrath, I’m one of those people who have a specific interest in the subject matter.

Obscene in the Extreme will be released just in time for the American Library Association’s “Banned Book Week” (September 27 – October 4, 2008).  Wartzman structures his historical study around  the week the Kern County Board of Supervisors banned Steinbeck’s masterpiece from the public library.  The Grapes of Wrath was a No. 1 bestseller in the U.S., and the Kern public library had 600 people on the waiting list to read the novel.  The problem was the novel did what great novels do- it told the truth.  It told the truth about the misery of the migrants in California; it told the truth about how people who are down and out talk and think; it told the truth about how the capitalist system will turn fascist in order to protect its profits and power.