messiestobjects

Ghouls & Goblins & Palin Oh My! It's Going To Be The Scariest Halloween Yet!

I haven't been around much lately, I know. My question is, have any of us? For myself, I've been consumed with fear and paranoia over the state of the economy. My 401k has less money in it now than what was put into it out of my original paychecks. My stocks... well, as I've said before; when in 2050 they are teaching schoolchildren in the most powerful Nation in the world (my prediction: Eurasia) about the great world stock market crash of '08, my picture will be in the book as the poster child for those who bought in at exactly the worst moment in history. Maybe. I'm sticking it out in case my fears are incorrect.

Also, I've been consumed with the fear that no matter how many nonsensical utterings of bullshit come out of Sarah Palin's mouth, we still might be forced to look at her pasty vapid psycho doll eyed face for the next four years. If that happens, it'll be the final nail in the coffin of our country. She's deeply stupid (yet thinks she's smarter than everyone and that no one can see through to her motivations) and masks it poorly with down-home stylings meant to fool the common man into thinking she's like one of them. She's playing on the irrational blue collar disdain of elitists, which is scary because apparently the present down-home version of an elitist is someone with an education who speaks with knowledge and authority on a given subject. Apparently, the people with whom Palin is trying to connect would rather the officials in charge of their government not understand how to answer basic questions and mask their ignorance with folksy exclamations which make no sense. I CAN NOT believe that people are being taken in by her and McCain, especially after realizing finally that they've been taken in by Bush for the last 8 years.

It's embarrassing to have these people on the world stage representing us, and if you're voting for Palin (to hell with McCain; he's irrelevant and will keel over soon) shame on you, dupe. Well, the polls do currently favor Obama of course, but not by a wide enough margin to quell my disbelief.

Another thing I'm afraid of lately is this Creation Museum in Kentucky. It's a museum. Dedicated to Creationism. And people are visiting it in droves. Creationism is the belief that the world was created by God around this time of the year on a Monday morning in 4004 BC. Dinosaur bones and all. Now, the belief in God, the Bible, and its literal truth, is a Faith. Faith, not Science. The line between the two concepts is under attack. Science is the search for truth, based on verifiable fact. Faith is the belief in something for which you have no proof. I have no problem with people of Faith going to Church and learning about what they believe in. I just wish they'd stop trying to force their beliefs into the schoolroom. It's dangerous and useless. Education in America is already severely limited these days. I met a Gas Station attendant in Germany who studied math for fun and spoke four languages. Most European students can talk intelligently and at great length about world politics, and know where Eritrea is on a map. There are people like that in the States, to be sure, but they get made fun of and called geeks. Something that modern day religious Americans seem to forget is that part of the reason why America is such a great place to live is that we once valued a secular education, and our prosperity comes from the application of our knowledge AND hard work. And on Sundays and at mealtimes, God was valued and thanked in many homes, sure, but at the end of the work day, God helps those who help themselves. Deceiving ourselves into thinking that faith needs to compete with science is not going to help anybody, because it's false. When it comes to science, religion tends to breed rather a hostile attitude of indifference because what difference does science make when Jesus is coming back to turn the Earth into blood soup and all the people who are looking forward to this disaster get to skip it and go to Heaven for candy and unicorns? They tend to forget that, even according to the Bible, we are Stewards of the Earth, and as such will be held responsible for it one day, one way or another.

Granted, science has caused a lot of problems on this Earth. Next to all the good things like medicine and movie theaters. But at this point, Science is also the only tool we have to save ourselves, and subverting it with Bible stories is NOT the way to go.

So now I come to the thing I'm actually afraid of this morning, the real reason behind this post. I get up and begin my routine as usual; perform the daily miracle of turning tap water into coffee. Eat breakfast. Drink some pre-miracled water, gulp down my daily plethora of vitamins with a big glass of more tap water, brush my teeth with tap water from the bathroom sink. I go sit down at my computer for my daily stock torture, notice I have a message on my phone. It's my landlord, Frank, telling me they put out a warning last night not to drink the tap water, not even after boiling it, and that it might not be safe to even bathe in until further notice; I listen to this as I'm taking another long sip of coffee. SO, I call Frank back to see if I need to go to the hospital, and he says he doesn't know; he's on his way up to the borough office to find out what's going on. Meanwhile, I wait here, typing out my ranty fears in this post, wondering how sick I can expect to be at any moment. I continue drinking my coffee because, what the hell, what's done is done.

I finally get a call back from Frank. Apparently, someone who lives next to the town Water Tower saw three guys hanging around the tower. Climbing it and other shady behavior. Neighbors called it in, water's being checked to see if terrorists poisoned it. I live in a very small town; that water tower probably supplies about 5 or 6 hundred people.

I make more coffee and drink a big fat glass of tap water. Laugh and shake my head. More disbelief, more wonderment at how afraid people are, and how much America is being ruled by their fears. I laugh as my stocks tumble. Screw it. It's only money. President Palin? Ha! Good joke! She'll only hasten the downfall of this abominable government we're stuck with! The terrorists have already won anyway. They've shown us how weak and vulnerable we've become, all on our own. Thank God I got to see Stereolab at the Fillmore in NYC before I died. Miss Luongo and I went up to see them last week with my friends Jeff and Steph. Pure aural pleasure.

Mount Rainier Is Often Much Rainier. And Don't Tell Me That Rainier Isn't A Word.

I spent a few more days in Seattle this past week. Sorry Jordan and Alison, for not calling this time around... I was stuck on Bainbridge Island for the whole two days I was there; no real free time this round. I did get to spend a morning in the town of Poulsbo... very proud of their supposed Viking heritage there. Cute town though. Bought some tea and used books. That's the thing about America... traveling and history here often don't really stand up very well next to other parts of the world. I mean sure, America has some exciting history, but it's rather few and far between. For instance in almost any small po-dink European town you go to, something cool happened there. Mozart was born there, or Franz Ferdinand was shot there, or a King was dethroned there, or the world's most famous physicist studied there, or dangerous idealistic crusades were crushed there, or fire was discovered there... well you know. But in the States... well okay, there is some cool stuff. We have loads of cool landscapes. The Devil's Tower, The Grand Canyon, Niagra Falls. There are some wicked cool landscapes in Europe, yet we've got them beat overall in that department. However, comparatively our sense of history is definitely a bit lacking; Whenever I'm in Paris, I visit the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower. When I'm in Munich I visit the Glockenspiel and the Hofbrauhaus. When I'm in Venice, I hang out in San Marco Piazza or visit Murano, the glass blower's island. And whenever I'm in Seattle, I visit the very first Starbucks shop.

And you know, I'm not the only one. Both times I've been there, that little place was packed with people taking photos and oohing and ahhing. It would be really sad except that I'm one of those people. I even picked up three bags of the exclusive Pike Place special reserve blend, a blend only sold at the Pike Place original location. Wait, maybe it's still pretty sad. Heeey guys, look over here, it's another shot of Mount Rainier!

Yes, well. See? Landscapes. That's what we have in America. We may not have a political, economic, or health care system that anyone anywhere in the universe respects right now, and not much history to speak of, but we've got landscapes.

Speaking of our poor economy, today was a weird day. In a way I'm happy that the bailout package did not go through. It's not right that the crooks on Wall Street should be allowed to get away with all their dirty dealings, and then have the taxpayers give them 750 billion bucks when they hit a rough patch. But, you know, the fact that the bailout didn't happen is bad bad bad for our economy, it's true. We are approaching the Great Depression II, and I think that if that happens, we are all going to find out first hand why your Grandparents and Great-Grandparents were such bitter, cautious people when it came to money. (Not my Grandparents though. They're great. I'm talking about your Grandparents.) I myself have lost a ton of money in the market. A TON. But I kind of had a bad feeling today so I cashed most of my stocks out this morning before the really big crash hit. Should've done that weeks ago. I guess what I'm trying to say is, now is a good time to listen to your tight-fisted elder relatives. Because really, I feel that the only hope we have of avoiding breadlines and 100 dollar cans of peaches is that this is all some sort of master plan to initiate the New World Order. Either way, you know, bad bad bad. Of course this could be the bottom, as bad as it gets. Maybe they're really trying to fix things after they, you know, screwed it up so abominably. Maybe they'll come up with a bailout, and it will fix things. But they're either utterly incompetent or evil, and neither scenario bodes well for us. Aw hell, when you get depressed and think that the people on the following YouTube might possibly represent the subconscious of America, you realize that we're all doomed anyway, and maybe we deserve to be.

Anyway, sorry. I digress. Here's a nice photo taken of some photo takers with a fishmonger on Pike Place. I added some other Mt. Rainier and Pike Place photos from this trip over at the smugmug gallery.

'Nuff Said, Charles Addams

Taking Stock Of My Stupidity

I've got yet another new, very dangerous hobby which I've chosen to become addicted to this week. The stock market. And you know, it's a good example of how extremely poor my sense of timing is, because there really ain't much out there that's doing any good. Especially not the stocks I chose to buy into... grr argh.

I'd picked up Jim Cramer's book, Stay Mad For Life a few weeks ago, and there was a lot of good advice in it about retirement planning and saving and all that boring grown-up stuff. And of course a few good stock tips. So I followed some of his advice, which as it turns out was of course written a bit before the current financial crisis which America is unlikely to ever fully recover from. In fact, much of what I read online from various stock pundits involves buying companies that provide raw materials to China, as they are the real economic up and comer these days, and investing in purely American ventures is widely considered to be, well, stupid.

But of course, at this particular point not even that advice is panning out because nobody really has any confidence in the market to begin with, so everything is tanking, more or less. Nobody is really saying it, but it looks like the US has peaked; we've reached the highest point of wealth and world economic power that we were ever going to reach, raised our hands up at the pinnacle of the ride and gone "woooo-hoooo!", and now we're on the full-tilt ride down.

Enter me and my money: The two of us go in, but only one is coming out. It's a fight to the death.

Anybody got any hot insider tips?