Recent negative ads have had an effect upon me. I now no longer trust EITHER candidate, though perhaps the financial crisis has as much to do with that as the well timed ads.

Although I'm still gonna vote for Rossi, if I can still live in Washington State, I have been influenced by the recent Gregoire ad comparing Rossi to Bush, with the photoshopped images merging their two faces.

Rossi does have a shot at doing something good, but, FWIW I am still sceptical. I'd also wonder if the Republican 'powers' aren't above 'messing' with smaller business folks under their control in order to leverage an anti-government response.

I caught the Biden/Palin debate last night. Dem's were expecting to see a Palin train wreck due recent network coverage. In holding even with Biden, Palin 'won' the debate.

Personally, I was impressed with both candidates and do feel that I know them both now, for the first time. Each has articulated their own vision of being a 'maverick' consistent with the ticket leads. Hopefully this is now a requirement for success in the 100 member Senate club or the slightly more diffuse 50 Governor rank.

For me the candidate criteria now is which ticket has the best case for moving us forward, and the answer to that is not in the candidates, but in us as a Country of individuals, some of whom belong to political parties. The ranking two citizens under McCain or Obama are Palin and Biden.

Can we treat each other as civilly as did Palin and Biden? Can we actually hold their feet to the fire to progress the functioning of accountability and reward in our society without resulting to destructive criticism?

By the way, I still haven't caught a single Washington State Governor's Debate between Christine Gregoire and Dino Rossi.

Network

Written by Paddy Chayefsky

Starring Faye Dunaway, William Holden, Peter Finch, Robert Duvall, and Ned Beatty

1976

Peter Finch won the 1976 Best Actor Oscar for this 'speech':

(Thanks to Dori Monson of KIRO 710 & FM 97.3)

Tom Brokaw will be hosting the 2nd Presidential Debate tonight. He has the opportunity to make history, perhaps as much as the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1859.

Now, I'm not suggesting that Brokaw do a 'Network' 'mad as hell' speech. I will definitely measure the man on his ability to hold not just Wall Street but all of Corporate America, including NBC's parent, General Electric, accountable.

Tonight's format will be 'town hall' style. There will be people who are definitely 'mad as hell' attempting to get questions into the debate, however the microphones will be cut off immediately after the question is asked, allowing no follow-up to an evasive answer. It is Brokaw who must do the follow up, honestly and constructively, even if it means someone in New York, or Seattle, actually has to pay for their mistake.

Main Street in Metropolitan Puget Sound, Metropolitan Seattle, as 'they' would prefer is no longer 3rd Avenue. Main Street in this city-region is now I-5 or 405, with the various malls strong along it's length as our new 'main' street businesses.

The folks at Sound Transit would like to make main street for this region their light rail system, and, though I'm currently an opponent (for financial and legal reasons) they do have a shot at it. Given the current people in charge this is a very scary thing.

Sound Transit is currently controlled by the law firm of Foster Pepper Shefelman. I testified at a recent meeting about the financial and legal practices of this firm, given the recent failure of another institution they control, Washington Mutual Bank. In addition I also pointed out a specific example of managerial ommission in Tacoma/Pierce County the bike trail crossing of Pacific Avenue at the Sounder location, as per the GMA mandated Tacoma Comp Plan under employee Chris Larson.

A telling quote from FPS senior Partner Judy Runstad, former land use czaress at the City of Seatte, from a Jean Godden column in 2001. (Godden and Runstad share hair stylists, as well as money from FPS and hubby Jon Runstad)

The Usual Suspects

Directed by Bryan Singer

Starring Kevin Spacey, Gabriel Byrne, Chaz Palmintieri, Stephen Baldwin, Benicio Del Toro, & Pete Postelthwaite
1995

This is the story of a sole survivor of what appears to be a drug deal gone bad on the docks of LA. This role made Kevin Spacey's career and won him a best supporting actor award, though arguably he was the lead. The story begins with an apparently random line-up of five 'usual suspects', including busted bad cop the classy Gabriel Byrne (a similar character to the Coen flick, Miller's Crossing).

This is a very well crafted tale, also winning an Oscar for best screenplay. Bryan Singer was only 27 when he began this project. He should be proud, and hopefully a better rep than the mysterious kingpin 'Keyser Soze', whose story Spacey relates here:

As you are continuing to forumulate your response to the bankruptcy of Wall Street please consider the Washington State auditor, Brian Sonntag.

Mr. Sonntag has been an exceptionally talented, forward looking steward of the public's assets in this State. At my preliminary look he received more votes than anyone in our last primary and he received an even bigger endorsement of his leadership when the citizens of this State gave him the powers of 'performance audit' of state and local agencies.

This guy is a total winner and deserving of a high profile seat, perhaps not treasurer, but perhaps the SEC, if not some sort of governmental watchdog role.

As you consider your possible cabinet members in these final days of the campaign please consider our Attorney General, Rob McKenna. Besides being your ranking supporter in the State he is also exceptionally well qualified for the sort of leadership you bring to our Nation.

Certainly he should be candidate for the US Attorney General seat, perhaps something else.

One caveat though, we'd like him back as Governor or Senator. Of course he's pretty much running the State already, quite to the chagrin of current governor Christine Gregoire. It doesn't hurt that he's got a few Democratic friends, including the State Auditor, Brian Sonntag.

Main Street Madrona - Cafe Verite & architect Marty Leibowitz's new multi-family building

The Madrona neighborhood of Seattle is not the richest, though some of its residents certainly are. The neighborhood is, in my opinion, the very best in the City. I am of course biased. I'm prompted to write this by a recent piece in Crosscut, by Knute Berger, talking of history in Seattle and the Mount Baker neighborhood, where he grew up.

Mt. Baker is one of Seattle's finest neighborhoods, but it is perhaps a bit of a 'show' horse. Madrona, to the north, is perhaps Seattle's best example of a 'work' horse neighborhood. At the end of the bus line, above Lake Washington, the neighborhood straddles some of the finest waterview homes in the City as well as one of its historically poorest neighborhoods..

Though many casual observers would come to the quick conclusion that any growth in a neighborhood would be perceived as bad, it has happened here, and it was done well, including involvement by some folks living in the area.

On two full blocks there is a thriving business district, with offices, studios and 3 story residential developments. The transitional blocks adjoining have seen development, including an elementary school, but this is broken up by neighborhood parks as well.

Wilridge Winery and the Hi-Spot Cafe, North Madrona

Stranger Than Paradise

Written and Directed by Jim Jarmusch

Starring John Lurie, Estzer Balint and Richard Edson

1984

West German Jim Jarmusch gives us an immigrant's perspective on America, coincidentally including perhaps the two most crucial key states of the 2008 Presidential Election, Ohio and Florida.

It is also a relationship movie, between Lurie's character, here long enough to become jaded, and Balint's newly arrived world wise, but optomistic, young cousin, as illustrated here:

Property rights are thought of as the domain of the local conservative battling his government for rights to develop environmentally protected land. In fact though it is simply an intellectual tool, not even a 'Motley' one, as in the title of this blog.

In economic theory ownership is defined as an ability to control a resource, of course including your own labor and brain. This may seem droll, but ability to 'control' a resource is, theoretically, supposed to be determined on your ability to manage the resource. Those that are not able to manage do not gain the resources to control anything more than themselves, if even that.

But it is not so simple as econ 101 would have us believe. For one, information is not free.Perhaps most importantly their are very definitely things that make government ownership of PARTIAL property rights desirable. The utility easement on your property is perhaps the simplest and most easily understood example of such a well defined partial transfer.

Value in a nation's financial market's is dependent on the people who control that market's operation, including those that make their living dependent on same. If all can be trusted value will be high, and appropriate. If they cannot be trusted value will be low and undervalued.

This can be applied to today's financial crisis. We now have an accurate measure of the baby boomer generation. Although they may well proclaim their 'decency' it is in fact worth no more than a Ted Bundy charmer smile. Welcome to the hippie third world, proving that a shave and a shower does not make an honest man, or woman.

Tom Brokaw called the parent's of these folks the 'Greatest Generation' in his best selling book, and rightfully so. However not calling individuals to responsibility for their actions on the basis of the 'merit' of their parents is a major part of the problem. Corporate media and it's 'smile' is in part responsible for this situation.

Resolving it may well take the passing of the baton of their 'authority'. Not to mention that of the 'worst' generation's.

CBS's classic 'Sunday Morning' program had a spot-on commentary from the iconic Ben Stein. I just searched for it this A.M., but as of now it is not up.

Hopefully we will be hearing, and seeing, more of him.

Some further explorations of important basics that they didn't tell you about econ 101....

Supply and Demand applies not only to specific products or an individual's labor. Supply and demand also effects the organization of our economy - the supply of a particular size and form of an organization is, theoretically, also subject to market forces.

Unfortunately due our current financial system this mechanism is not working - the determinant of success is not the ability to deliver a quality product, but rather one's complicity in the financial system that has just 'disproved' itself.

Welcome to the United Socialist States of America, Inc.

My name is George Herbert Walker Bush, and the KGB's Mr. Putin has nothing on me. My boys. Jeb and George are gonna kick your ass, just like they did Saddaam's. If you want to do business with me, contact my chief corporate socialism officer, 'Hank' Paulson.

As to the rest of you, you may think you are free, but the lawyers own you all, thanks to your foolish implementation of legal standards associated with political correctness.

Stand up to me, and I'll kick you into the hell on earth I've built, the sidewalks of the homeless and labled as a level 3 sexual predator.

Go ahead, make my day,

The Spokane Spokesman Review notes a possible ten year sentence for an Auburn area business absconding with sales tax revenues.

The legal argument is that these funds are not actually in the possesion of the owner, rather held in 'trust' for the State.

FWIW, too bad corporate and State employees aren't held to the same standard for money they 'hold in trust' - whether it be there shareholders or, the actual taxpayer!

Though the hypocrisy of the Bush dynasty and Hank Paulson cannot be denied, the current plan to take a partial ownership stake in the bailed out companies is appropriate.

The current plan is for these ownership rights to be without voting rights. At first glance this might seem wrong, but it probably does make sense. However, do recall that the 'management' right of termination, for cause, is always open to the government.

And, FWIW, one that still needs to exercised against firms that the government does not have a stake in.

I am sceptical of those that call for 'regulation' as the solution. Frankly, the way things are working now we get to choose between getting defrauded by Wall Street republicans or Capitol Hill regulators.

The final solution is to put the control of assets in the hands of those best able to manage them, for an appropriate mix of public and private benefit.

Sure, Dems and Republicans are going to disagree on exactly what that balance is, and that is exactly what domestic issues in electoral races should be about.

Northanger Abbey

A TV Movie, based on the Jane Austen Novel

1986 & 2007

This is a lesser known Jane Austen work which I enjoyed immensely. Like others by the author it concerns love in the class based society of historical England. It is perhaps the most humorous of her works, making romantic fun of literature.

In courting the modestly well off female lead a wise general's son compares fiction and reality to air and water - "confuse the two and you drown", but "if you wish to catch a fish, by all means, drop in a line".

Predictably each character does 'catch' the other, but with some dark distractions arising from the young woman's fascination with gothic novels.

I saw the 1986 BBC production - the 2007 version, also for TV, is supposedly better, according to IMDB.

BTW, one could also 'dive in' to the fiction, and pull the fish up with your teeth, if you wished.

Another of the benefits in a 'property rights' approach to economics is in the management of a corporate organization.

Historically we have represented the interests of individual laborers through collective legal representation - and there is nothing fundamentally wrong with that. Of course it can also be divisive and counter-productive as the distribution of profits needs to be 'argued'.

The most common left wing answer to this is employee ownership, and this can work, but it is also not without problems - for one, how do you make the tough personnel decisions?

A mix though of salary and ownership has many, many benefits.

The political idea of 'main street' compared to corporate wall street is attractive. Both 2008 presidential campaigns have taken up this idea fervently and continued it with the 'joe the plumber' barrage.

Certainly 'blue collar' america is the foundation of this economy - anyone, working hard, working honestly, should be able to become successful and own their own business. More than anything else this is what Sarah Palin stands for, and another Joe, Joe Biden, does a pretty darn good job at.

The shining light of main street Wasila is a compelling vision., Who wouldn't want to live in a town with a Moose ambling it's way down main street street under a backdrop of community businesses, green forests, and crystal capped mountains?

Chicago is home not only to Barack Obama, but also the University of Chicago, home of the 'Chicago School' of Economics, on it's south side, the historically poor black area.

As you will recall supply side economics, the idealogy of the Reagan/Bush era was a product of this institution.

It is tempting to cite this current economic meltdown as failure not just of the Federal level of the Republican Party, but also of this economic ideology.

Corporate 'Welfare' is a term that resonates well with the best of our Country, right, left, and everyone else.

What is important is that our system, including completely private businesses and welfare organizations, as well as the ubiquotous american corporation works in the way that best makes sense.

A property rights way of looking at these questions work well, just so long as everyone involved recognizes the need for both pure public rights and pure private ones, as well as the corporate mix.

'X-efficiency' is a term used for talking about the unmeasurable, the particular value of the organizational management practices of an organization. The price of labor, the price of land, the price of inputs, service or physical can all be handled by an accountant, as well as reported to a government economist.

Our system and it's over-reliance on national institutions, has problems. Sure, there is a need for large national corporations. Washington State's Boeing is among the top of that list, as to are our automobile manufacturers. These are necessary evils and they require federal regulation.

However there are many businesses where largeness is bad - perhaps first among them the community coffeeshop (which, btw, is where this blog is mostly written).

Subsidizing a bad organization means that failure is perpetuated, not mitigated. Right now, those failures are at the national level, and we need to bring much, but not all, of the property rights in our system back to the local level.

Will there be more 'failures'? You betcha. Will there also be successes that we can all learn from and emulate? I sure hope so!

Jamaica Inn

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock

Starring Maureen O'Hara and Charles Laughton

1939

This was Hitchcock's last English production before his timely immigration to America. The production is lush, a superb example of the pre-war golden age of film.

Maureen O'Hara has lost her family and has come to stay with her aunt, mistress of the Jamaica Inn on the English coast, circa 1800. Unfortunately it turns out that the Inn is actually a den of thieves, run under the rule of a very greedy 19th century Lord, played by Laughton.

Some critics don't consider this a good example of the Hitchcock style, which may be true. It is also though a very well made classic thriller which exposes the various criminal foibles to which the upper classes are subject - presumably the same class as some of the so-called 'critics'. Note also that the resemblance between Laughton and Hitchcock, in his older years, is uncanny. :-)

The 2008 iconic 'joe the plumber' most likely owns his own tools - motley or not.

This is a good example of the perspective I'm shooting at here as Wall Street crashes because ot it's very poorly 'owned' tools.

If 'Joe' does buy his a plumbing business he will be buying not tools and vans so much as an organization - buth having worked his way up in the field he will have a very good, very fair, shot at making it work.

This stands in start contrast to the way corporate america now works - where the primary qualification is not ability, but rather one's willingness to NOT hold others in the organization accountable for their actions.

Hopefully Joe will also be a member of his community, including an active involvement in business, non-profit, and government affiliated organizations.

Dead Pool

Starring Clint Eastwood and Liam Neeson, with Jim Carrey

1988

This is the last of the Dirty Harry movies, 5th in the sequence. The plot concerns a strange game to murder celebrities in high risk professions, including Callahan, himself. Though definitely 1980's Hollywood, it is also a superb musing on fame, the press, and law in order with a great sound track including Guns and Roses and some of Eastwood's favorite jazz. As with all Dirty Harry movies it is set in San Francisco, the jewel of the West Coast.

The movie also features a quality relationship with a strong, non-hollywood type 'Eastwood Girl'.

In this clip Liam Neeson and Eastwood discuss the rules of the 'game'.

The in-movie music video of a young Jim Carey, lip syncing Axl Rose of Guns and Roses, is classic.

The movie's take on SF car chases is equally as good, though you'll have to see the movie to catch that one.

Taxation, under U.S. laws, is definitely not 'equal'. We like to see ourselves as a 'progressive' nation, helping out those that are less well off through our tax system. But if we step back and take a good look at this, is it really true?

Consider our civil justice system. From the same measure we apply to taxation is 'law' regressive or progressive?

Take another step back. Ask yourself this, considering everything under the control of law, taxes, civil courts, criminal courts, human resources, politicians, etc do we actually live in a progressive society or a massively regressive one?

Now, add the fourth dimension to your perspective, time.

Have we, since the 1960's, become a more just society? Or, perhaps have we become, in terms of our 'law', a third world country?

Law is fairly clear about self defense.

So too is our constitution about the tools available to us to defend ourselves against government. We are guaranteed the right to petition for redress, and the first and second ammendments of the constitution make due process clear.

That standard of what constitutes a threat from a government against an individual citizen must be high, and, bloody hopefully, it should be as narrow as possible.

But, exactly what is that standard, that is my question for you.

The futures market was predicting a black October Friday today - basically short sellers attempting to drive the market down yet further - however the market, though still down, is not crashing.

Recently I reviewed an Eastwood movie called 'Dead Pool' - the plot involving a group of successful individuals doing a sort of office pool on who could pick the most names who would die before 12 months was out.

Short selling on Wall Street is a bit like that, and definitely a dark game. But, as Eastwood's character Dirty Harry noted in the movie, sometimes they even come after you - by being a short seller you can make yourself a target of same...

The 'Maverick Republican' Brian Derdowski has an op-ed in the P-I today about King County proposition 8, which would make the county elected offices non-partisan.

Below is my comment, edited.

I come out on this with Derdowski, though, FWIW, I left the County about the same time he left office.

The parties do however need to become more accountable - Jane Hague on the Eastside is one big fat example. They also need to get a bit more respect for Independents. These are both meaningful tweaks, not sham reforms like King County propostion 8.

I would agree with the commenter who challenged Derdowski as being a true Republican - if I'm up to date Derdowski is backing Gregoire when many of his Eastside neigbhors are voting Rossi-Obama.

But there is a reason for Derdowski's concerns about his Issaquah neighbor Rossi - and those reasons are, for me, the biggest red flag about Rossi.

But who knows, perhaps pigs will fly, Rossi and Derdowski will make up, and this practical, realistic 'independent' socialist will join a re-constituted Republican party.

Perhaps we can all go moose hunting with Teddy's ghost in the Issaquah Alps and try to forget that the last 'partisan' century even happened....

Sure, individual and company property rights are easy to understand, even if we are doing a piss poor job at supporting them with our financial system.

Much more difficult are public tools - ones that belong to all of us, over whatever span they may reach.

I'd argue the public system is as broken as the private one - in fact I think we've foisted the weaknesses of both systems upon each, rather that reaching for the best of the two worlds.

I won't claim to have the final word on this subject, but, one measure that is very important is what people are willing to do for free. If someone finds something worth working for without compensation, it is likely a good endeavor.

This brings up the concept of matching private donations with public, and, this, too, is part of the solution.

Traffik

A TV Miniseries

Directed by Alastair Reid

1989

The highly acclaimed 2001 release 'Traffic' was loosely based on this english produced miniseries - set in Europe and the Pakistan region as opposed to the US/Mexico area. Another major difference is that instead of a local honest cop's perspective we are given the story of a displaced opium farmer. FWIW, I was emotionally reminded of another threaded production, 'Babel', which also addresses arab and gun issues from a family perspective.

At 315 minutes for the 6 part mini-series may seem long, but it is not - a gripping story all the way reminding us that there actually was a reason for the drug war at one time. Looking back at this with the perfect vision of hindsight I also found myself wondering just how much heroin profits were used to fund Afghan rebels in, as the movie puts it, the 'wild west' parts of that area.

With the advent of computer software the legal concept of 'intellectual' property rights has been reinvigorated.

Dear reader, let me ask you this, what is the value of the 'intellectual' property rights of your constitutional rights?

Does it perhaps even extend beyond the concept of property, to being an 'inalienable' right, a body-mind thing?

If this is the case, then, would in not be the case that a violation of civil rights is the constitutional equivalent of rape?

Now, I'm not saying that anyone should be able to merely accuse someone of violation of civil rights and ask that the perpetrator be treated as a sexual predator - the standard of evidence must be high. Personally I think the bar should be set somewhere in the area of slander and liable, but I'm not a legal professional.

Governor Gregoire and her generation have built their authority not absent any technical or organizational ability.

However, that ability is shielded from full accountability by the law, as her generation has made it. Among the 'tools' of that law is the ability to characterize a citizen or business person's questioning of government as 'harrassment'.

Though 'they' would have you believe that such an accusation is to prevent violence, it is actually a direct threat against the citizen - in fact, a directive that corporate and governmental organizations actually harrass the citizen business person - until they are bankrupt, until they die in the gutter.

Though I'm definitely a critic of Gregoire and crew for this legal scam taking us directly to the third world.I am not going to challenge that process.

We do need to regulate trhis economic punishement and make sure it is not abused, exactly as above. The best way to accomplish that regulation is to send those individual practictioners of this abuse to this hell on earth they have so righteously and criminally created.

If there are any fine points to be worked out as to what exactly defines that hell, well, let them argue the details. It is, as they say, 'a free country'.

Or so I hope.

The Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch has an interesting story about State computers being recently used to access the records of 15 minute famous 'Joe the Plumber'.

Story

According to the published report someone in the AG's office, a child support agency, and the Toledo Police Department accessed these records, all without 'cause'.

Methinks this might say more about these employees and their agencies than it does about the independent plumber.

Copenhagen

Starring Daniel Craig (James Bond) and Stephen Rea (The Crying Game)

Adapted by Director Howard Davies

2002

This play concerns a meeting between two pioneers of Atomic Physics, Werner Heisenberg and Niels Bohr.

Bohr was the jewish teacher and employer of Heisenberg - who would 'invent' Quantum Mechanics and the Uncertainty Principle under his tutelage. Heisenberg would also head the German atomic program under Hitler, which did not invent the bomb. Bohr would flee occupied Denmark and join the Manhattan project in the U.S.

The play is a literary exploration of the uncertainty principle and quantum mechanics as they apply to a 1941 meeting of the two men, where they very definitely 'measure' each other.

The outcome of this conversation of inquiry would have many, many consequences, perhaps as many as any in history.

The British Economist John Maynard Keynes reshaped the world with his theories of government infrastructure stimulus during the Great Depression. This blog entry is about Keseyian Economics - a bit of randomness inspired by a typo in a comment on a good piece on the current election in Seattle based Crosscut.

Economics according to Ken Kesey would be a very different thing - however one could certainly imagine both of his major novels - 'Sometimes a Great Notion' or 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' - being rewritten for a Wall Street setting.... :-)

FWIW, Kesey's brother continued in the family Dairy business starting Nancy's Yogurt - far superior to ANY other mass produced product, save that from Trader Joe's (and I'd not be surprised if Nancy's manufactures that). This continues a proud tradition of Oregon dairymen, including those of the Tillamook area on the Oregon Coast.

(I usually buy mine at Fred Meyer's, a chain founded in Portland, now under national Corporate ownership.)

As in, like, compared to, British Columbia?

I went to a cross-border environmental lecture at Tacoma's University of Puget Sound last night, 'hosted' by Steve Scher of KUOW as well as Vaughn Palmer, Political Correspondent for the Vancouver Sun.

Palmer opened with an interesting historical rant on the name 'Columbia - it turns out Washington State had been considered to be named so - but it was rejected as too confusing, given the existing Washington, District of.....

Go figure.

I took it to be this writer's rhetorical take on the prophesy of 'ecotopia' or the more mainstream 'Cascadia'. It is an interesting take - a way of literally reflecting both the shared environment and economics of the two cross-border regions - as well as their sovereign differences. Perhaps I'm reading too much into his words, but I do think at least one student had the same read.

..I wonder what Bert Goyle would think....?

American Madness

Directed by Frank Capra

Starring Walter Huston

1932

This movie has a similar plot to 1946's 'It's Wonderful Life', starring Jimmy Stewart. Huston plays the money making depression era NYC banker with a heart of gold. Thugs spark a run on his private bank, with the help of morally challenged middle manager.

The plot in this movie is perhaps not as developed as in the later version, however the energy of the time, 1932, comes through loud and clear.

Walter Huston is himself a remarkable character. He was the old salt who leads Bogart in search of 'Treasure of the Sierra Madre', a movie directed by his son, the more modern classically famous John.

Huston was born in Toronto and was trained as an engineer as well as dabbling in the arts.He began his hollywood career after a somewhat spectacular failure as a civil engineer.