What if's in history
Written by Robert Libby
As I ponder the current state of affairs, I find myself considering the illusion of an alternative history. Thinking about the current dominating debate on gun control and specific limitations on the type of weapons that citizens may own reminds me that there was an assault weapons ban in place twenty years ago. It never raised a constitutional challenge and Justice Scalia clearly states that the Constitution does not bar Congress from limiting weapons and uses for private citizens.
I am reminded that the NRA supported universal background checks before that organization discovered the profitability of lobbying for the gun manufacturers. I remember that gun control advocacy probably cost Al Gore the presidential election in 2000. The NRA went "all in" for George Bush in that election and when the Supreme Court decided 5-4 that Bush had won the presidency, the NRA was rewarded with a law that protected gun manufacturers from liability for wrongful and negligent use of the weapons they sold. Congress also exempted sales of semi automatic weapons from universal background checks. The result has been the distribution of millions of lethal weapons and "cop killer" ammunition, and body armor to anyone who can afford it or persuade someone who can afford it. If Al Gore had been elected, if the 5-4 vote of the Supreme Court had decided that the Florida recounts should go forward and Gore had prevailed, would we be in a different situation now?
Consider the Supreme Court. How might it be different if President Gore rather than President Bush had filled the two vacancies including Chief Justice that occurred between 2000-2008. How might that have affected Citizen's United v. F.E.C.?
Going further back in history as we remember the assassination of President Lincoln, a victim of handgun violence by the way, how might history have differed if that gifted politician had lived to shape Reconstruction? Could Lincoln have kept the Radical Republicans from punishing former confederate states and exasperating the Black Codes and Jim Crow? What happens to the thirteenth and fourteenth amendments if Lincoln continues as president?
Consider President McKinley, victim of hand gun violence, whose assassination vaulted the young Progressive Theodore Roosevelt into the presidency. Republican party boss Mark Hanna had sought to shelve Roosevelt in the obscurity of the vice-presidency. Roosevelt initiated the conservative movement, advocated for the national parks and led the nation toward a climate of regulation. He also made possible the presidency of Woodrow Wilson and the rise of the United States as international leader.
Consider the assassination of John Kennedy, victim of gun violence. Would we have become as deeply entrenched in Viet Nam if he had lived? Would Richard Nixon ever have been able to cobble together a resurrection of his political career?
My conjectures turn to the Revolutionary Era and I am reminded that the colonies were evenly split between citizens that believed the Declaration of Independence and the desirability of independence, loyalists that believed that the rebels should be executed for treason to the king, and the apathetic third that just wanted to work and try to earn a living and improve the prospects of their families. In fact it was a continued and spirited conspiracy and repeated illegal activity, rousing secret meetings, and acts of commercial terrorism that provoked reprisals from the British military and government of the colonies. If the crown had responded to the demands of the colonists with corrections to the grievances and offered representation in Parliament, how might the world be different today?
Finally imagine how the world would be different if the Native Americans had a firm immigration policy in place. If instead of trading and aiding the survival of the struggling few who arrived here in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, they had sent them back from whence they came until they embraced the aboriginal culture, might the world be different today?
(One Man’s Island columnist Robert Libby of Chebeague Island is a teacher, writer, organic gardener, executive director of the Maine Center for Civic Education.)
I am reminded that the NRA supported universal background checks before that organization discovered the profitability of lobbying for the gun manufacturers. I remember that gun control advocacy probably cost Al Gore the presidential election in 2000. The NRA went "all in" for George Bush in that election and when the Supreme Court decided 5-4 that Bush had won the presidency, the NRA was rewarded with a law that protected gun manufacturers from liability for wrongful and negligent use of the weapons they sold. Congress also exempted sales of semi automatic weapons from universal background checks. The result has been the distribution of millions of lethal weapons and "cop killer" ammunition, and body armor to anyone who can afford it or persuade someone who can afford it. If Al Gore had been elected, if the 5-4 vote of the Supreme Court had decided that the Florida recounts should go forward and Gore had prevailed, would we be in a different situation now?
Consider the Supreme Court. How might it be different if President Gore rather than President Bush had filled the two vacancies including Chief Justice that occurred between 2000-2008. How might that have affected Citizen's United v. F.E.C.?
Going further back in history as we remember the assassination of President Lincoln, a victim of handgun violence by the way, how might history have differed if that gifted politician had lived to shape Reconstruction? Could Lincoln have kept the Radical Republicans from punishing former confederate states and exasperating the Black Codes and Jim Crow? What happens to the thirteenth and fourteenth amendments if Lincoln continues as president?
Consider President McKinley, victim of hand gun violence, whose assassination vaulted the young Progressive Theodore Roosevelt into the presidency. Republican party boss Mark Hanna had sought to shelve Roosevelt in the obscurity of the vice-presidency. Roosevelt initiated the conservative movement, advocated for the national parks and led the nation toward a climate of regulation. He also made possible the presidency of Woodrow Wilson and the rise of the United States as international leader.
Consider the assassination of John Kennedy, victim of gun violence. Would we have become as deeply entrenched in Viet Nam if he had lived? Would Richard Nixon ever have been able to cobble together a resurrection of his political career?
My conjectures turn to the Revolutionary Era and I am reminded that the colonies were evenly split between citizens that believed the Declaration of Independence and the desirability of independence, loyalists that believed that the rebels should be executed for treason to the king, and the apathetic third that just wanted to work and try to earn a living and improve the prospects of their families. In fact it was a continued and spirited conspiracy and repeated illegal activity, rousing secret meetings, and acts of commercial terrorism that provoked reprisals from the British military and government of the colonies. If the crown had responded to the demands of the colonists with corrections to the grievances and offered representation in Parliament, how might the world be different today?
Finally imagine how the world would be different if the Native Americans had a firm immigration policy in place. If instead of trading and aiding the survival of the struggling few who arrived here in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, they had sent them back from whence they came until they embraced the aboriginal culture, might the world be different today?
(One Man’s Island columnist Robert Libby of Chebeague Island is a teacher, writer, organic gardener, executive director of the Maine Center for Civic Education.)
Last Updated on Monday, 15 April 2013 20:21
Hits: 106
Dishing it out, server style
Written by Natalie Ladd
Note from Natalie: What follows is an open letter responding to a valid point which has crossed my desk before. It's also the perfect segue into the smokin' red hot (and not so sweet) potato of The Down Low this week.
Dear Natalie,
I usually enjoy your column and read it every week. Most of what you write is good and always funny. You represent for all of us who wait tables and have restaurant jobs. A lot of people have never done it or it has been a long time and things have changed so much. But here's what I think is bulls***, you make it sound like there is no competition or problems between waitresses and in a real restaurant job that isn't the way it is. It makes me wonder if you really do work as a waitress someplace, or if you just used to and have forgotten.
Paulette M.
Server/bartender
Portland, Maine
Dear Paulette,
First let me thank you for reading my column weekly. Like the many real life diners in my real life sections, I know I can't please everyone one hundred percent. However, your comment is one that I have heard before and it's time to address it head on so people don't think I'm a scammer riding the coat tails of hard working servers in and around Portland. Rest assured, I wear the coat tails, too.
Truth is, I have worked one to three shifts per week for almost seven years in a busy, locally owned and operated restaurant. Many people know where and when I work and it's a loosely guarded secret at best. I hope to keep it that way because a lot of great day-to-day column material comes from that little gold mine and naming it would infringe on the privacy of our regular customers and my often reluctant co-workers, and would give my boss free advertising. He currently does not advertise in The Portland Daily Sun, but that's a different issue all together.
Prior to my current gig, I worked full time for seven years as Front-of-the-House Manager and Beverage Director at a top notch place that gets rave reviews. My departure from that job is likened to the worst divorce imaginable as I still love and admire the Chef, but as is often the case in our business, it was time for us to part ways. My resume also includes a long management stint with one of my heros, the colorful Roger Bintliff at the original Bintliff's American Cafe, and the list goes on. Put it this way, I have been hands-on in the business in some way, shape or form since age 13 when I made $4 an hour under-the-table, to scrape gum off the bottom of bar stools.
However, to address the more pressing question about no mention of any serious discourse between my current co-workers and myself, I will admit this is a rare and beautiful thing in the server world.
Here are the tangible mechanics of why we are in this unusual and fortunate situation:
1) We have set schedules designed around our personal obligations.
2) We have the liberty of switching shifts when needed. Our manager trusts us to ensure shifts are covered.
3) With very little exception (and no, I won't elaborate!) we are all of the same professional caliber.
4) The youngest of us is in her mid-twenties and is a career server, as are most of us. In fact, I am the only one of a staff of 12 with a full time job outside of the restaurant. A few of us have young children, a few of us travel quite a bit and a few of us just want a light schedule. It's a perfect mix.
5) We rotate sections allowing slack and taking turns of being on the receiving end of Murphy's Law: All that can go wrong, will.
6) We tip out our bartenders and hostesses fairly and work these jobs on a regular basis, as part of our switching privileges.
7) Most of us have been there at least six years, some since the place opened. Three of us worked together at another restaurant and have known each other for over 20 years. I've worked with yet another server at one of the places mentioned above, and not only is she close to my children, but we know each others skeletons and still feel the love anyway.
So, Paulette, this letter could go on for days, but the real reason I never bash my Creative Consulting Team has little to do with operational mechanics. It has to do with the 12 of us genuinely liking each other, accepting quirks and differences, staging interventions when necessary and behaving like friends/family. Yes, we bicker, a few of us can be clique-like, and there is the occasional back stabbing, usually over a miscommunication. But it's done with a rubber knife and is typically resolved in two days. I work in a highly unusual front-of-the-house situation and I have never seen another restaurant operate quite like it.
That said, I'm sorry. We're always accepting applications but right now, we aren't hiring.
Make bank every shift and thanks again for reading,
Natalie
The Down Low:
Speaking of emails, thanks for all the great suggestions regarding where I should book Carlykardashian's high school graduation lunchon. The last time I had this much feedback was when New Guy started dating someone else and I was getting "out there" like Seinfield's George Castanza. In case you're wondering, I'm doing much better with the graduation luncheon.
Eater Maine (maine.eater.com) Editor Susan Axelrod announced last week she is leaving for a new position within the Portland food/media world and I would personally and professionally like to congratulate her go-get-'em efforts, local charity work and all Eater Maine has brought to our collective table.
Not everyone shares my sentiment, as Susan, and her photographer husband, Ted Axelrod, have been accused of regurgitating previously published information and acting like entitled brats when visiting restaurants on official Eater business. At last glance, the comment feed on Susan's departure had over 60 posts — most of them from anonymous guests within the industry and most of them accusatory and uber nasty.
While it is true that in addition to Eater's nationally mandated canned-stuff-turned-local (the recent burger week survey, for example), the site primarily serves as a comprehensive source of gathering reviews, news, observations and commentary (Full Disclosure: This column is often included) made pretty by Ted's photographs. What's wrong with that?
Absolutley nothing, per se. According to the posts, the real beef it seems is around the Axelrod's personal, and still unverified From Away-like actions and pompous Jersey mentality. This includes: walking out on checks, rearranging the dining room during service for photo shoots, and in one short year, imposing themselves upon a tight knit community of professionals, many of whom have come up through the ranks together, implying a trust and status the Axelrods have not earned.
Let's face it, Mainers love people From Away when they're spending money and infusing our economy, but as competitors and know-it-alls, not so much. In this case, Ted defended Susan's ethics and denied awareness of transgressions in a few posts of his own, and without the actual finger-pointing posters coming clean with specific times, dates, places and incidents, there isn't anything to support their claims without them coming off as sour grapes.
However, nothing deep within the layers of this business surprises me anymore, and I'm not saying this tainted beef really did or didn't happen. What I am saying is sour grapes make really bad wine and none of us want that.
(Natalie Ladd is a columnist for the Portland Daily Sun. She has over 30 continuous years of corporate and fine-dining experience in all front-of-the-house management, hourly and under-the-table positions. She can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .)
Dear Natalie,
I usually enjoy your column and read it every week. Most of what you write is good and always funny. You represent for all of us who wait tables and have restaurant jobs. A lot of people have never done it or it has been a long time and things have changed so much. But here's what I think is bulls***, you make it sound like there is no competition or problems between waitresses and in a real restaurant job that isn't the way it is. It makes me wonder if you really do work as a waitress someplace, or if you just used to and have forgotten.
Paulette M.
Server/bartender
Portland, Maine
Dear Paulette,
First let me thank you for reading my column weekly. Like the many real life diners in my real life sections, I know I can't please everyone one hundred percent. However, your comment is one that I have heard before and it's time to address it head on so people don't think I'm a scammer riding the coat tails of hard working servers in and around Portland. Rest assured, I wear the coat tails, too.
Truth is, I have worked one to three shifts per week for almost seven years in a busy, locally owned and operated restaurant. Many people know where and when I work and it's a loosely guarded secret at best. I hope to keep it that way because a lot of great day-to-day column material comes from that little gold mine and naming it would infringe on the privacy of our regular customers and my often reluctant co-workers, and would give my boss free advertising. He currently does not advertise in The Portland Daily Sun, but that's a different issue all together.
Prior to my current gig, I worked full time for seven years as Front-of-the-House Manager and Beverage Director at a top notch place that gets rave reviews. My departure from that job is likened to the worst divorce imaginable as I still love and admire the Chef, but as is often the case in our business, it was time for us to part ways. My resume also includes a long management stint with one of my heros, the colorful Roger Bintliff at the original Bintliff's American Cafe, and the list goes on. Put it this way, I have been hands-on in the business in some way, shape or form since age 13 when I made $4 an hour under-the-table, to scrape gum off the bottom of bar stools.
However, to address the more pressing question about no mention of any serious discourse between my current co-workers and myself, I will admit this is a rare and beautiful thing in the server world.
Here are the tangible mechanics of why we are in this unusual and fortunate situation:
1) We have set schedules designed around our personal obligations.
2) We have the liberty of switching shifts when needed. Our manager trusts us to ensure shifts are covered.
3) With very little exception (and no, I won't elaborate!) we are all of the same professional caliber.
4) The youngest of us is in her mid-twenties and is a career server, as are most of us. In fact, I am the only one of a staff of 12 with a full time job outside of the restaurant. A few of us have young children, a few of us travel quite a bit and a few of us just want a light schedule. It's a perfect mix.
5) We rotate sections allowing slack and taking turns of being on the receiving end of Murphy's Law: All that can go wrong, will.
6) We tip out our bartenders and hostesses fairly and work these jobs on a regular basis, as part of our switching privileges.
7) Most of us have been there at least six years, some since the place opened. Three of us worked together at another restaurant and have known each other for over 20 years. I've worked with yet another server at one of the places mentioned above, and not only is she close to my children, but we know each others skeletons and still feel the love anyway.
So, Paulette, this letter could go on for days, but the real reason I never bash my Creative Consulting Team has little to do with operational mechanics. It has to do with the 12 of us genuinely liking each other, accepting quirks and differences, staging interventions when necessary and behaving like friends/family. Yes, we bicker, a few of us can be clique-like, and there is the occasional back stabbing, usually over a miscommunication. But it's done with a rubber knife and is typically resolved in two days. I work in a highly unusual front-of-the-house situation and I have never seen another restaurant operate quite like it.
That said, I'm sorry. We're always accepting applications but right now, we aren't hiring.
Make bank every shift and thanks again for reading,
Natalie
The Down Low:
Speaking of emails, thanks for all the great suggestions regarding where I should book Carlykardashian's high school graduation lunchon. The last time I had this much feedback was when New Guy started dating someone else and I was getting "out there" like Seinfield's George Castanza. In case you're wondering, I'm doing much better with the graduation luncheon.
Eater Maine (maine.eater.com) Editor Susan Axelrod announced last week she is leaving for a new position within the Portland food/media world and I would personally and professionally like to congratulate her go-get-'em efforts, local charity work and all Eater Maine has brought to our collective table.
Not everyone shares my sentiment, as Susan, and her photographer husband, Ted Axelrod, have been accused of regurgitating previously published information and acting like entitled brats when visiting restaurants on official Eater business. At last glance, the comment feed on Susan's departure had over 60 posts — most of them from anonymous guests within the industry and most of them accusatory and uber nasty.
While it is true that in addition to Eater's nationally mandated canned-stuff-turned-local (the recent burger week survey, for example), the site primarily serves as a comprehensive source of gathering reviews, news, observations and commentary (Full Disclosure: This column is often included) made pretty by Ted's photographs. What's wrong with that?
Absolutley nothing, per se. According to the posts, the real beef it seems is around the Axelrod's personal, and still unverified From Away-like actions and pompous Jersey mentality. This includes: walking out on checks, rearranging the dining room during service for photo shoots, and in one short year, imposing themselves upon a tight knit community of professionals, many of whom have come up through the ranks together, implying a trust and status the Axelrods have not earned.
Let's face it, Mainers love people From Away when they're spending money and infusing our economy, but as competitors and know-it-alls, not so much. In this case, Ted defended Susan's ethics and denied awareness of transgressions in a few posts of his own, and without the actual finger-pointing posters coming clean with specific times, dates, places and incidents, there isn't anything to support their claims without them coming off as sour grapes.
However, nothing deep within the layers of this business surprises me anymore, and I'm not saying this tainted beef really did or didn't happen. What I am saying is sour grapes make really bad wine and none of us want that.
(Natalie Ladd is a columnist for the Portland Daily Sun. She has over 30 continuous years of corporate and fine-dining experience in all front-of-the-house management, hourly and under-the-table positions. She can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .)
Last Updated on Wednesday, 17 April 2013 00:25
Hits: 224
Smack down time
Written by James Howard Kunstler
What a humdinger last week was in a money world that is chugging toward maximum velocity and turbulence. Readers know (and may be sick of hearing) that I'm allergic to conspiracy theories, but my allergy is not absolute or total and there are excellent reasons to believe that the smack down of gold and silver was an orchestrated event. By whom? So far, in the opaque realm of paper gold sales, we don't know, except that it was a 500-ton dump that set off the larger skid, and it is even quite possible, as one anonymous wag put it on James Sinclair's website, that the buyer and seller were virtually the same entity — meaning that the probable naked short transaction only amounted to a mere bookkeeping jot when all was said and done.
Anyway, the 500-ton all-at-once dump could only be calculated to drive the price down. Any rational strategic sale of so much gold would be parceled out in smaller amounts over time so as not to drastically impair the sales revenue, as this sale did. And, by the way, who even has the roughly $25 billion holdings in paper gold besides a major government, a major central bank, or one of the Fed's Too Big To Fail handmaidens (Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley)? Or who could afford to eat the $billion-plus loss on the smacked-down sales value? In other words, the usual suspects.
I hate the term The Powers That Be, with its odors of recycled paranoia and lumpen extremism, but signs of collusion abounded last week. First, on Wednesday, Goldman Sachs issued an advisory to short gold as the price flirted with $1,600/oz. Then on Thursday, The New York Times planted a front-page story headlined: "Gold, Long A Secure Investment, Loses Its Luster." The story featured a quote by supreme market manipulator and world-class schmikler George Soros: "Gold was destroyed as a safe haven, proved to be unsafe," Mr. Soros said in an interview last week with The South China Morning Post of Hong Kong. "Because of the disappointment, most people are reducing their holdings of gold."
Well, there you have it. Soros sez: Gold = crap. If you get some on your shoe, scrape it off. All that set the stage for the Friday smack down. Notice how falling gold and silver prices make the U.S. dollar look good — it takes fewer dollars to buy more precious metal. The dollar must therefore be sound! And this is in the interest of whom? Say, perhaps, a Federal Reserve busy systematically melting away the value of dollars through so-called quantitative easing (money "printing" or promiscuous credit creation) plus financial repression (interest rate chicanery), and also a U.S. government so deep underwater on its debt obligations that Treasury Secretary Jack Lew shares office space with the giant squid of the Aleutian Trench.
To complicate matters, the day of the gold smash, rumors flew of a plan by the Cyprus government to sell off its relatively small gold holdings to pay off its EU debt — didn't happen — but the rumor had the effect of further queering the gold price some more by implying that the EU would soon come calling on all the PIIGS nations to settle up their vigs with yellow metal.
Thursday, interesting things happened in another ring of the circus. The novelty investment called Bitcoin, having developed a hockey-stick chart profile, shooting up from about $60 a month ago to $260, got smacked smartly back down to $60. It had been attracting a lot of attention as a shelter from international monetary shenanigans — and hypothetically as an eventual rival to funny-money central bank currencies. Bitcoin is a web-based species of virtual "money" invented by a shady character (or cohort of characters) called Satoshi Nakamoto whose true persona remains mysterious. Bitcoin's supposed virtue is that it can't be confiscated by governments — though experienced programmers know any website can be hacked — or otherwise meddled with, making it a more reliable store of value than the traditional "safe harbor" investments such as sovereign bonds and precious metals. Well, okay, but it raises a couple of questions: 1) Does the world need an even more abstract form of "money" than fiat currencies, CDOs, Fannie Mae promissory notes, and JC Penny stock? I don't think so. If anything, the world needs more tangible instruments to represent a store of value, a medium of exchange, and an index of price. Bitcoin is little more than a bundle of algorithms. Granted, math helps with the management of money, but is math "money?" 2) what happens if you can't get online to access your Bitcoin "wallet?" Is Bitcoin, after all, just another example of the techno-narcissism infecting contemporary culture?
That idea is just off the radar screens of Bitcoin pimps such as Jon Matonis of Forbes Magazine who said last week that "civilization won't regress to the state of having no electricity." Really? You think so? Just watch. Electric grids all over the world are aging and decrepit — the USA's in particular — and the capital is not there to renovate them. And perhaps you haven't noticed the gathering scarcity problem with fossil fuels. You bet society could regress to, first, spotty electrical service and then possibly no electricity at all in many places. But that is an extreme case because in the meantime all it would take is a "denial of service" incident to render Bitcoin useless — and the mysterious Mr. or Ms. Nakamoto him/her/itself induced a half-day time-out in Bitcoin last week, taking its Mt.Gox trading platform off-line.
The week ahead in world money matters looks bloody and gruesome. Japan is committing financial hara-kiri by central bank desperation. In artificially suppressing the gold price, the American Powers That Be (yccchhh....) give China, Russia and other rivals the opportunity to buy gold cheaply, and to do so by dumping some of their US Treasury holdings, weakening the dollar's international exchange value — which the gold smack down was supposed to enhance! China and Russia have both been steadily accumulating their gold holdings in plain sight, with the possible motive of backing currencies with more appeal in international trade settlements than the dodgy U.S. dollar.
The weeks ahead could be a bloodbath for the four horsemen of monetary apocalypse: the dollar, the Japanese yen, the Euro, and Great Britain's pound — that is, the core of the so-called advanced economies of the world. What a prankster history is!
(James Howard Kunstler is the author of several books, including "The Long Emergency," "The Geography of Nowhere" and "The Witch of Hebron." Contact him by emailing This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .)
Anyway, the 500-ton all-at-once dump could only be calculated to drive the price down. Any rational strategic sale of so much gold would be parceled out in smaller amounts over time so as not to drastically impair the sales revenue, as this sale did. And, by the way, who even has the roughly $25 billion holdings in paper gold besides a major government, a major central bank, or one of the Fed's Too Big To Fail handmaidens (Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley)? Or who could afford to eat the $billion-plus loss on the smacked-down sales value? In other words, the usual suspects.
I hate the term The Powers That Be, with its odors of recycled paranoia and lumpen extremism, but signs of collusion abounded last week. First, on Wednesday, Goldman Sachs issued an advisory to short gold as the price flirted with $1,600/oz. Then on Thursday, The New York Times planted a front-page story headlined: "Gold, Long A Secure Investment, Loses Its Luster." The story featured a quote by supreme market manipulator and world-class schmikler George Soros: "Gold was destroyed as a safe haven, proved to be unsafe," Mr. Soros said in an interview last week with The South China Morning Post of Hong Kong. "Because of the disappointment, most people are reducing their holdings of gold."
Well, there you have it. Soros sez: Gold = crap. If you get some on your shoe, scrape it off. All that set the stage for the Friday smack down. Notice how falling gold and silver prices make the U.S. dollar look good — it takes fewer dollars to buy more precious metal. The dollar must therefore be sound! And this is in the interest of whom? Say, perhaps, a Federal Reserve busy systematically melting away the value of dollars through so-called quantitative easing (money "printing" or promiscuous credit creation) plus financial repression (interest rate chicanery), and also a U.S. government so deep underwater on its debt obligations that Treasury Secretary Jack Lew shares office space with the giant squid of the Aleutian Trench.
To complicate matters, the day of the gold smash, rumors flew of a plan by the Cyprus government to sell off its relatively small gold holdings to pay off its EU debt — didn't happen — but the rumor had the effect of further queering the gold price some more by implying that the EU would soon come calling on all the PIIGS nations to settle up their vigs with yellow metal.
Thursday, interesting things happened in another ring of the circus. The novelty investment called Bitcoin, having developed a hockey-stick chart profile, shooting up from about $60 a month ago to $260, got smacked smartly back down to $60. It had been attracting a lot of attention as a shelter from international monetary shenanigans — and hypothetically as an eventual rival to funny-money central bank currencies. Bitcoin is a web-based species of virtual "money" invented by a shady character (or cohort of characters) called Satoshi Nakamoto whose true persona remains mysterious. Bitcoin's supposed virtue is that it can't be confiscated by governments — though experienced programmers know any website can be hacked — or otherwise meddled with, making it a more reliable store of value than the traditional "safe harbor" investments such as sovereign bonds and precious metals. Well, okay, but it raises a couple of questions: 1) Does the world need an even more abstract form of "money" than fiat currencies, CDOs, Fannie Mae promissory notes, and JC Penny stock? I don't think so. If anything, the world needs more tangible instruments to represent a store of value, a medium of exchange, and an index of price. Bitcoin is little more than a bundle of algorithms. Granted, math helps with the management of money, but is math "money?" 2) what happens if you can't get online to access your Bitcoin "wallet?" Is Bitcoin, after all, just another example of the techno-narcissism infecting contemporary culture?
That idea is just off the radar screens of Bitcoin pimps such as Jon Matonis of Forbes Magazine who said last week that "civilization won't regress to the state of having no electricity." Really? You think so? Just watch. Electric grids all over the world are aging and decrepit — the USA's in particular — and the capital is not there to renovate them. And perhaps you haven't noticed the gathering scarcity problem with fossil fuels. You bet society could regress to, first, spotty electrical service and then possibly no electricity at all in many places. But that is an extreme case because in the meantime all it would take is a "denial of service" incident to render Bitcoin useless — and the mysterious Mr. or Ms. Nakamoto him/her/itself induced a half-day time-out in Bitcoin last week, taking its Mt.Gox trading platform off-line.
The week ahead in world money matters looks bloody and gruesome. Japan is committing financial hara-kiri by central bank desperation. In artificially suppressing the gold price, the American Powers That Be (yccchhh....) give China, Russia and other rivals the opportunity to buy gold cheaply, and to do so by dumping some of their US Treasury holdings, weakening the dollar's international exchange value — which the gold smack down was supposed to enhance! China and Russia have both been steadily accumulating their gold holdings in plain sight, with the possible motive of backing currencies with more appeal in international trade settlements than the dodgy U.S. dollar.
The weeks ahead could be a bloodbath for the four horsemen of monetary apocalypse: the dollar, the Japanese yen, the Euro, and Great Britain's pound — that is, the core of the so-called advanced economies of the world. What a prankster history is!
(James Howard Kunstler is the author of several books, including "The Long Emergency," "The Geography of Nowhere" and "The Witch of Hebron." Contact him by emailing This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .)
Last Updated on Monday, 15 April 2013 20:16
Hits: 191
Paging Aldous Huxley
Written by Bob Higgins
The "North Pond Hermit" story has again put Maine in the spotlight, and the growing tale has spread across the country with a furious fire of an epidemic.
If the entirety of the story is to be true, when Christopher Knight was finally caught last week for his 27-year-long stretch of camp burglaries and self-imposed hermit-style exile, there is a lot that he has missed out on.
Think about this for a minute. We had just bombed Libya, and Chernobyl has just melted into a pile of radioactive slag that was unapproachable for longer than a minute.
Reports are that he kept up on current events by listening to battery-powered radios.
At this point, it's unclear just how much Knight knows about the events of the last 27 years. I'm sure among the items he admitted to stealing were newspapers. It's a good bet he knows what 9-11 was.
When he walked into the woods, "Internet" connection speed maxed out at 1,200 baud. There were less than 5,000 "hosts" on the Internet backbone, all held together with 56k leased lines.
Forget fictional characters "Robinson Crusoe" or even Tom Hanks in "Castaway." There are gaps in the last 27 years that even fictional protagonist John Savage in "Brave New World" would have trouble coming to terms with.
Think for a moment how our society has changed, both how much and how little in that period of time. It's not unreasonable to think that it might take longer than 27 years to come to a full understanding of what has happened during that time.
Imagine for a moment that he had grown his own food and fished or hunted, occasionally heading to "town" to sell something that he had made with his own hands. That simple change of path might have left him unknown and unbothered until he decided to leave the woods altogether.
That takes some serious skill and determination, a stubbornness in solitude that you can't help but admire. Many have dreamt of "getting away from it all," but this guy actually claims to have managed it.
Yes, with a LOT of theft. Quite frankly, that degree of theft and dependence on the idea "what's mine is mine and what's yours is mine once I decide to steal it" is unheard of, short of the halls of Congress.
The quick fame has already yielded an explosion of links. Google shows over 1.4 million sites, links, clips or other mentions of the "North Pond Hermit" in the 48 hours since the story broke.
Already, there is a Facebook "Fan Site" as well as individuals gathering for a legal defense fund. Knight sits in jail on a $5,000 bail.
Given the heat that the story has generated, I'm quite frankly shocked that representatives from Letterman, Leno, Dr. Phil and all other sort of righteous gasbags have not shown up with duffle-bags and briefcases full of cash for his bail, and just sign here so we can get you on the show. Hell, he reportedly listened to Rush Limbaugh, so the least the dude can do is toss a few bucks into the legal defense fund.
Heck, cutting some sort of deal before pleading guilty might get him the cash he needs not only to buy what he wants, but to pay off the fines as well.
Consider this. When confronting head-to-head this "Brave New World, that has such people in it," would you not sprint back to the woods with a speed usually reserved (Sorry, Curtis) for fleeing irritated ex-fiances carrying shotguns filled with rocksalt?
Spend as little time as possible in jail, but spend as much time as you can honing the crafts that eluded you over the years, Mr Knight. Call the fine folks at L.L. Bean and ask them if they would consider booking you a couple of times a week for the rest of the summer for a "lecture series." Use the cash from that to outfit yourself with what you need to survive without stealing, and head right back to it.
Why? There is little admirable of the cultural change of a quarter century that drove you into the woods to begin with. At some point, I'm sure the state will step in and insist on some sort of mental evaluation. You'll be asked "Why" until you give the answers they expect to hear.
Even though you survived solely on theft, you've lived a life that many could only dream of. I sure hope the ending of your encounter with our "Brave New World" ends better than it did for your literary counterpart, John Savage.
(Bob Higgins is a regular contributor to The Portland Daily Sun.)
If the entirety of the story is to be true, when Christopher Knight was finally caught last week for his 27-year-long stretch of camp burglaries and self-imposed hermit-style exile, there is a lot that he has missed out on.
Think about this for a minute. We had just bombed Libya, and Chernobyl has just melted into a pile of radioactive slag that was unapproachable for longer than a minute.
Reports are that he kept up on current events by listening to battery-powered radios.
At this point, it's unclear just how much Knight knows about the events of the last 27 years. I'm sure among the items he admitted to stealing were newspapers. It's a good bet he knows what 9-11 was.
When he walked into the woods, "Internet" connection speed maxed out at 1,200 baud. There were less than 5,000 "hosts" on the Internet backbone, all held together with 56k leased lines.
Forget fictional characters "Robinson Crusoe" or even Tom Hanks in "Castaway." There are gaps in the last 27 years that even fictional protagonist John Savage in "Brave New World" would have trouble coming to terms with.
Think for a moment how our society has changed, both how much and how little in that period of time. It's not unreasonable to think that it might take longer than 27 years to come to a full understanding of what has happened during that time.
Imagine for a moment that he had grown his own food and fished or hunted, occasionally heading to "town" to sell something that he had made with his own hands. That simple change of path might have left him unknown and unbothered until he decided to leave the woods altogether.
That takes some serious skill and determination, a stubbornness in solitude that you can't help but admire. Many have dreamt of "getting away from it all," but this guy actually claims to have managed it.
Yes, with a LOT of theft. Quite frankly, that degree of theft and dependence on the idea "what's mine is mine and what's yours is mine once I decide to steal it" is unheard of, short of the halls of Congress.
The quick fame has already yielded an explosion of links. Google shows over 1.4 million sites, links, clips or other mentions of the "North Pond Hermit" in the 48 hours since the story broke.
Already, there is a Facebook "Fan Site" as well as individuals gathering for a legal defense fund. Knight sits in jail on a $5,000 bail.
Given the heat that the story has generated, I'm quite frankly shocked that representatives from Letterman, Leno, Dr. Phil and all other sort of righteous gasbags have not shown up with duffle-bags and briefcases full of cash for his bail, and just sign here so we can get you on the show. Hell, he reportedly listened to Rush Limbaugh, so the least the dude can do is toss a few bucks into the legal defense fund.
Heck, cutting some sort of deal before pleading guilty might get him the cash he needs not only to buy what he wants, but to pay off the fines as well.
Consider this. When confronting head-to-head this "Brave New World, that has such people in it," would you not sprint back to the woods with a speed usually reserved (Sorry, Curtis) for fleeing irritated ex-fiances carrying shotguns filled with rocksalt?
Spend as little time as possible in jail, but spend as much time as you can honing the crafts that eluded you over the years, Mr Knight. Call the fine folks at L.L. Bean and ask them if they would consider booking you a couple of times a week for the rest of the summer for a "lecture series." Use the cash from that to outfit yourself with what you need to survive without stealing, and head right back to it.
Why? There is little admirable of the cultural change of a quarter century that drove you into the woods to begin with. At some point, I'm sure the state will step in and insist on some sort of mental evaluation. You'll be asked "Why" until you give the answers they expect to hear.
Even though you survived solely on theft, you've lived a life that many could only dream of. I sure hope the ending of your encounter with our "Brave New World" ends better than it did for your literary counterpart, John Savage.
(Bob Higgins is a regular contributor to The Portland Daily Sun.)
Last Updated on Thursday, 11 April 2013 21:20
Hits: 211
Warhol was wrong: The rise of the 'obscure celebrity' culture
Written by Curtis Robinson
Who would have dreamed that Andy Warhol was 180 degrees wrong with that whole "in the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes" idea?
Only 15 minutes?
It turns out that here in Warhol's future, it's our obscurity that lasts for, maybe, 15 minutes. The very concept of non-fame, that blissful condition of personal privacy as a lifestyle, has been diminished in a way usually reserved for gun control laws in a House subcommittee.
That's because Warhol was right about deconstruction of cultural filters allowing everyone to create and display art, publish their opinions or offer images to millions of their fellow humans, a condition reserved for a certain elite for most of humanity. That might mean everyone's a journalist, but it also means everyone is a subject.
He was also right in thinking that this might diminish the impact of being published or displayed. Certainly, as most folks in your local coffeehouse can confirm, "offering" images to humanity does not mean humanity cares. So what we end up with is all the downside of being famous, like surrendering our personal privacy and making ourselves available to thousands of people we don't know, without much of the upside, like money, staff and a green room buffet.
We have created a new beast: obscure celebrities.
There was a time when the legal definition of becoming a "public figure" as opposed to a "private figure" included virtually any movement toward public participation. It is not a casual designation, because under United States laws the "public figure" has significantly fewer privacy rights. If you have published opinions in the public square, and since you've likely posted something somewhere, then welcome to the mosh pit.
It is now nearly impossible to libel you. Trust me on this.
If this all seems harmless enough, we should realize that the first thing "fame" does is turn identity into commodity. People are getting rich off using your identity to sell stuff, just like they do with the famous-famous.
Another sign we have become obscure celebrities: People we have not met seem to know us, they know our favorite color and where we went to high school and if we own a dog. And those fans of ours dream up great deals to pitch us, from credit cards to Canadian scripts. In the old days, only actual celebrities had to worry about blackmail scams from unknown "friends" and stalkers from far away, but it is the same for obscure celebrities. When's the last time anyone wondered "how did you get my name?"
And, just like famous folks, nobody feels truly safe from the faceless horde these days.
Just look at the nearly 200 cases of Mainers being scammed by those Jamaican cons. They call up and say you've won a sweepstakes or a car or whatever, eventually convincing you to send money for taxes or such, then they pile it on with blackmail that you'll "get into trouble" and the beat-down goes on.
Sure, there have been phone scams since they first strung twine between soup cans. But they sure are more democratic now, with thousands of people, mostly senior citizens, falling for the Jamaican scam with an average loss of something like $70,000. Maine's senior U.S. Senator, Susan Collins, even organized meetings on the issue in Washington.
Another sign we're all obscure celebrities: the paparazzi.
In the old system, famous people had to worry that some low-life photographer always lurked in the bushes, ready to record any embarrassing moment or scandal that could forever destroy their image and diminish any hope of the good life. The famous needed skilled spin-doctors, on call 24-7 to salvage the latest public crisis.
The stars had to watch their every move. The rest of us were left alone to romp around spring break and do silly things in public that were quickly forgotten.
Not here in Warhol's future. Fall down at the prom and 100 cameras come out. Take a stupid photo at band camp and explain it at the job interview five years later. Tweet some random thoughts at 2 a.m. and your career, as you knew it, is over. We're all a breath away from some personal "VH1 Behind The Music" disaster.
You are probably already a celebrity product endorser. Facebook can take any "like" you make, combine it with any public image of you, like all those you've sent on Facebook, and presto! You are in a product advertisement. Never mind if you want to be in the ad. Check your terms of use. Have your people get right on it.
Welcome, fellow obscure celebrities, to the Fame New World!
Granted, most of us are not really what Warhol would likely consider "world-famous," just famous in our own worlds. But even that is famous enough, on some days, to wish that 15 minute prediction has come true.
(Curtis Robinson is founding editor of The Portland Daily Sun.)
Only 15 minutes?
It turns out that here in Warhol's future, it's our obscurity that lasts for, maybe, 15 minutes. The very concept of non-fame, that blissful condition of personal privacy as a lifestyle, has been diminished in a way usually reserved for gun control laws in a House subcommittee.
That's because Warhol was right about deconstruction of cultural filters allowing everyone to create and display art, publish their opinions or offer images to millions of their fellow humans, a condition reserved for a certain elite for most of humanity. That might mean everyone's a journalist, but it also means everyone is a subject.
He was also right in thinking that this might diminish the impact of being published or displayed. Certainly, as most folks in your local coffeehouse can confirm, "offering" images to humanity does not mean humanity cares. So what we end up with is all the downside of being famous, like surrendering our personal privacy and making ourselves available to thousands of people we don't know, without much of the upside, like money, staff and a green room buffet.
We have created a new beast: obscure celebrities.
There was a time when the legal definition of becoming a "public figure" as opposed to a "private figure" included virtually any movement toward public participation. It is not a casual designation, because under United States laws the "public figure" has significantly fewer privacy rights. If you have published opinions in the public square, and since you've likely posted something somewhere, then welcome to the mosh pit.
It is now nearly impossible to libel you. Trust me on this.
If this all seems harmless enough, we should realize that the first thing "fame" does is turn identity into commodity. People are getting rich off using your identity to sell stuff, just like they do with the famous-famous.
Another sign we have become obscure celebrities: People we have not met seem to know us, they know our favorite color and where we went to high school and if we own a dog. And those fans of ours dream up great deals to pitch us, from credit cards to Canadian scripts. In the old days, only actual celebrities had to worry about blackmail scams from unknown "friends" and stalkers from far away, but it is the same for obscure celebrities. When's the last time anyone wondered "how did you get my name?"
And, just like famous folks, nobody feels truly safe from the faceless horde these days.
Just look at the nearly 200 cases of Mainers being scammed by those Jamaican cons. They call up and say you've won a sweepstakes or a car or whatever, eventually convincing you to send money for taxes or such, then they pile it on with blackmail that you'll "get into trouble" and the beat-down goes on.
Sure, there have been phone scams since they first strung twine between soup cans. But they sure are more democratic now, with thousands of people, mostly senior citizens, falling for the Jamaican scam with an average loss of something like $70,000. Maine's senior U.S. Senator, Susan Collins, even organized meetings on the issue in Washington.
Another sign we're all obscure celebrities: the paparazzi.
In the old system, famous people had to worry that some low-life photographer always lurked in the bushes, ready to record any embarrassing moment or scandal that could forever destroy their image and diminish any hope of the good life. The famous needed skilled spin-doctors, on call 24-7 to salvage the latest public crisis.
The stars had to watch their every move. The rest of us were left alone to romp around spring break and do silly things in public that were quickly forgotten.
Not here in Warhol's future. Fall down at the prom and 100 cameras come out. Take a stupid photo at band camp and explain it at the job interview five years later. Tweet some random thoughts at 2 a.m. and your career, as you knew it, is over. We're all a breath away from some personal "VH1 Behind The Music" disaster.
You are probably already a celebrity product endorser. Facebook can take any "like" you make, combine it with any public image of you, like all those you've sent on Facebook, and presto! You are in a product advertisement. Never mind if you want to be in the ad. Check your terms of use. Have your people get right on it.
Welcome, fellow obscure celebrities, to the Fame New World!
Granted, most of us are not really what Warhol would likely consider "world-famous," just famous in our own worlds. But even that is famous enough, on some days, to wish that 15 minute prediction has come true.
(Curtis Robinson is founding editor of The Portland Daily Sun.)
Last Updated on Thursday, 11 April 2013 21:16
Hits: 150