Having greenbacks has sometimes been a good indicator of deserved authority. There are times though that it is exactly the opposite., and this, unfortunately, is one of them.

Now, I'm speaking in generalizations here, not pointing out specific individuals, like say, Henry Paulson, who seems to think that the only institutions to big to fail are those with whom he is associated, (including AIG a business Partner of Goldman Sachs)

But there are way, way to many examples these days where money is an indicator of abusive authority not earned toil - perhaps nowhere more so than in the boardrooms of corporate America and it's 'regulators'.

Real leadership doesn't make a grab for the cash as it runs for the door. It stays put and takes the risk associated with the reward.

Perhaps it is not coincidence that both Bush and the Democratic Congress are getting very close to single digit approval ratings. Perhaps either Obama or McCain can double that, or, perhaps, as McCain would put it, it is time to go 'Double Maverick'?

Codename Litefoot

By Robert A. Boyd

2007

Joining the Airforce at 17 in 1965 military brat and NRA match shootist Robert A. Boyd was to get quite the education about America and the World through his experience in Vietnam.

This book was written nearly 40 years later motivated in part by a VA PTSD therapist. At 700 pages the account is quite detailed - though not exactly erudite his centrist 'average joe' perspective on the issues of the day is illustrative, and very, very, real. This includes frank discussions on sex and race, as well as his perspective on drug & alcohol use 'in-country'.

Personally I found the most meaning in his description of authority within the military. I'm from a totally different, non-military, world yet there is a logic in his experiences that is relevant to my own. Like the author, I too was trained in target shooting at a young age (though it ended with my parents seperation) - this provided a connection that was all the more eerie for me.

It's also added a new term to my lexicon - the REMF, 'Rear Echelon Mother Fucker' - not too mention also learning about the CIA's role in military operations. The detailed descriptions of scout-sniper operations were also quite interesting.

I'm not a consumer of military literature, so it's not really possible for me to compare this to others in the genre. I read this only because i ran into Mr. Boyd by chance - or was it!

Year of Living Dangerously

Directed by Peter Weir

Starring Mel Gibson and Sigourney Weaver

1982

This movie is an Australian take on another Vietnam era 'problem' - the crackdowon of Indonesian strongman Suharto. Weir very deftly uses the symbolism of Balinese 'Shadow' puppetry to tell his tale, one of the strong points of the movie.

Another is the relationship between Journalist Gibson and Aussie Diplomat Weaver - which sizzles. Both actors were fresh from their initial grasp at stardom. Gibson with the first Mad Max movie and Weaver with her Lt Ripley character in the movie Alien. This production cemented their star status with the critics, as well as this 'observer'.

As this blog moves into it's second year, more or less, I'm gonna shift focus just a bit.

I'm going to be attempting to focus a bit more on specific problems folks that I see and be a bit of a hound dog on such. These do include personal matters, but those you will most likely not see here. Rather I will use my personal experience to validate other problems, and vice-versa.

I do still have several more constructive projects - however pursuing those publically is not prudent - unfortunately.

...hopefully that can change by next year, perhaps even well before my Gemini birthday...

We hear a lot about how law is supposed to be bi-partisan. But in practice, is it really? Or was the Duke LaCrosse player prosecutor just making an attempt to manipulate both sides of the aisle?

...not that there is a single example of such here in the Pacific NW....

Dark Victory

Starring Bette Davis

With Humphrey Bogart and Ronald Reagan

1939

1939 was a great year for film - it gave us Gone with the Wind and the Wizard of Oz, and Bette Davis at her prime in this chick flick, with horses. 'Dark Victory' may well also be the inspiration for the Kim
Carne's pop song, 'Bette Davis Eyes'.

Davis, like Bacall and Hepburn was a model of a strong woman before the age of feminism. This role was one of her more positive, as a character that is. She plays a spirited heiress equestrienne who develops a brain cancer at 23.

Both Bogart and Reagan were supporting characters at this time - Bogart is okay as the horse trainer and Reagan is likeable as a playboy type, seemingly always with a drink in hand. As they say in the movie 'PROGNOSIS NEGATIVE' - even after brain surgery....but of course, not for the career, or power, of Ms. Davis.

Democratic investors are emerging as slightly different breed of animal on Wall Street - having been through a few 'cyclical' lessons lately. I believe the up market we say yesterday was the result of Democratic Bulls while today's down move was probably driven by Republicans.

The first of those cyclical lessons was the collapse of the high tech 'Massachusett's Miracle' prior to Dukakis's run against George H. W. - followed of course by the Internet bust of 1999/2000 prior to Gore's candidacy. Personally, I think there were actually Republicans who may well have been trying the same thing this time around as well - not that they'll try that again. Not that 'they' haven't pulled plenty of cash out of circulation in the last months of Bush II.

I'd also bet Republicans are doing pretty well in cash equivalent these days. According to KUOW this morning 25 Billion of Paulson's 700 has been paid out in bank dividends, the other initial 100 has been used to buy smaller banks, those NOT needing to be bailed out.

I don't have any specific stock picks for you for a Democratic administration - no doubt Warren Buffet is playing that - and hopefully NOT Barack.... and GHW Bush's best friend right now might well be a particular Bear named Vladamir...

Perhaps Christine Gregoire?

Conversations with Other Women

Starring Helena Bonham Carter and Aaron Eckhart

2006

This is a unique romantic comedy. Helena Bonham Carter plays an expat American returned to the States for a wedding where she 'has a history with one of the guests'. 98% of the movie involves dialogue between her and Aaron Eckhart, starting off as a wedding flirt.

The movie is a bit of an experiment - split screen throughout - the idea being the two perspectives of each of the co-stars, and, occassionaly others (including the viewer?). At first this is confusing - knowing that this what was intended from the start might've helped. At the end, it definitely works very well.

Citing DOJ 'policy' Bush Appointed Manhattan District US Attorney Michael Garcia has refused to prosecute Eliot Spitzer for prostitution.

Well, FWIW, I sure hope bi-partisanship is defined differently under Obama... :-)

However, it is a pretty safe assumption that the 'Bar' of legal conduct is set about the same here in Washington State, under the direction of the King County Superior Court, and it's officers.

New York Times article.

Here's an idea - how about we only pay these folks minimum wage? Are they really worth any more than that?

Jacob's Ladder

Directed by Adrian Lyne

Starring Tim Robbins

1990

For Veteran's day a tale of a traumatized Vietnam Vet - perhaps one of the most psychologically powerful and chilling tales ever told. Tim Robbins, husband of Susan Sarandon, plays the vet, in his breakout starring role.

A great letter today in the Tacoma News Tribune, my local paper - regarding speculation Lieberman would be removed of his committee chairmanship. I've read local speculation on this same subject - with the upside being that this would be a 'promotion' for Washington State Senator Patty Murray.

FWIW, it's hard to see that as being an earned advancement....

Letter in the TNT.

Falls of the Little Mashel River

This is a hidden little gem, just South of Eatonville towards Mount Rainier on the Alder Cut-off Rd. It's on the Eastern Boundary of the Pack Forest, a large operation of the University of Washington's college of Forest Resources. The Falls are described in Harvey Manning's low elevation guidebooks, but accessed from Hwy 7, some 2-3 miles away - accessed here, they are perhaps 2-3 hundred yards from the road.

There are 3 main falls, and several smaller cascades. The largest, the lowest, is 150 feet.

Access is a bit of a steep scramble, but not too bad. I'd stay off of it immediately after a rain, but give things a day or two to dry out a touch and the routes are fine, though there is a bit of log hopping and you'll use your hands a few times. During the summer months you should be able to cross the large creek safely, just above the lower falls, saving the double scramble on each side.

To park, look for the first trestle on the Elbe rail line, just outside of Eatonville. Park just before or after this bridge. Google Area Map.

If you want to hike a bit farther, check out the Pack Forest - a loop can be made up to Hugo Peak in 3 miles or so, via Road 1000 and the Reservoir trail.

Alternatively - you can hike the little used rail line north and downhill 2 miles to the gorge on the Big Mashel. Better, visit the falls twice, and do both!

The economic idea behind FDR's economic stimulus plan is called 'Keynesian' economics, a favorite subject of mine.

Now, Obama is going to have a tough time of it, after the looting of the Federal Government by the Republican 'businessmen'. But, clearly, this is going to be some aspect of the plan, hopefully modernized a bit.

A small thought in that regard - although 'printing' money is clearly in the jurisdiction of the Federal Government, the spending of need not be. Infrastructure spending at the local level can build quality local assets - and - if both government officials AND local business people are HONEST those public projects can also be business friendly - in the historic sense of community.

I know, I know, that's a tall order. But perhaps the first place to start would be for the feds to stop backing scumbags who just happen to have a DC lobbyist - at any level.

Alpha Dog

Directed by Nick Cassavetes

Starring Justin Timberlake and Emile Hirsch with Bruce Willis and Sharon Stone (the parents of the perpetrator and victim)

2006

This movie is a manifestation of good art, imitating some very sad life, imitating, originally, some very questionable art.

The plot involves a true story of some post high school drug dealers in the greater Pasadena area of Los Angeles County who are fans of violent hip hop videos. What starts out as a game between debtor and debtee becomes paranoid and tragic as the perpetrator realizes that he's commited kidnapping, even though the 'victim' is definitely enjoying the party. The movie is constructed from, and directly references, witness statements, which gives it an added air of authenticity.

The Heart of the World:
A Journey to the Last Secret Place

By Ian Baker

2004

This book is a mountain sports person's version of the Da Vinci Code. It concerns a search for a legendary waterfall in one of the most inaccessible places on the planet, the Tsangpo Gorge of the Brahmaputra River. After several hundred miles on the Tibetan plateau, just to the North of Everest, the river cuts through the Himalaya carving a canyon between 25,000 foot peaks. The area is a political no man's land between India and China, peopled by the most remote fingers of Tibetan culture.

Baker is a Tibet scholar become adventurer. This book is an essay on Tibetan Budhism as it applies to landscape and the exploration of sacred secret places. Baker was in the area at the same time whitewater Kayakers were attempting to paddle the river for the first time, perhaps foolishly. For folks aware of that story this book provides an added dimension - perhaps a bit like the Scott/Amundsen race to the South Pole.

Baker first visited Kathmandu at 19, like him I also visited at that age, just a few years later. My journey was the opposite of his - starting off as a mountain adventurer, but becoming more spiritual along the way - ending up in a similar 'place'.

I too was aware of the Tsangpo gorge, having completed a survey of Chinese Rivers using Army Map Service topos from the University of Oregon map collection during a few spare months in early 1982, shortly after my return from Nepal and India. I shared stories of this discovery, but can't say for sure whether I was the one who first targeted this river for whitewater sport.

The Last River

By Todd Balf

2001

This book concerns one of the early attempts at paddling the Tsangpo gorge of the Brahmaputra river - which will likely never be done completely.

Sadly a paddler died, Seattle native Doug Gordon, a classmate of Bill Gates at the Lakeside School. I didn't know Gordon, but it's a safe assumption we were at some event or another.

It's a great companion read to the more spiritually focused 'Heart of the World'. Ian Baker, the author of this piece was in the area at about the same time.

Word has it Seattle's own Jim Diers was in Chicago the Saturday after the election for an 'Urban Strategy' session with Barack Obama. Hopefully this works out to be a good thing. His ideals are lofty, the idea he claims of making democracy stronger through neighborhood activist organizing.

Presumably the Diers/Obama connection is through Jesuit Greg Galluzzo who trained both Diers and Obama in community activism..

Metropolitan planning organizations are another great idea - a federal requirement that local governments 'plan' federal expenditures. In practice, unfortunately, they may well be a local manifestation of the worst of both national political parties and their pork- nothing more than a bunch of lawyers and lobbyists figuring out how to scam the public by controlling expenditures with little eye to making wise infrastructure investments.

The Puget Sound Regional Council is our local 'MPO'. It has a similar reach to the Sound Transit taxing authority, but also includes the rural areas of the 3 counties as well as all of Kitsap. The PSRC has just received an award for being the 'best' of these organizations.

The current Executive Director of the PSRC is Bob Drewel, a 'old boy' democrat from Snohomish County.

Deliverance

Screenplay by James Dickie, based on his novel

Starring Jon Voight, Burt Reynolds, and Ned Beatty

1972

From the year of Nixon's re-election comes this classic outdoor flick. Burt Reynolds is at the top of his game, taking his yuppie buddies on a river trip, just before it is damned by the most recent project of the Tennessee Valley Authority (The SE US's equivalent to the BPA).

Locals aren't happy about being displaced in name of progress, but they do share a love of music. The banjo playing in this movie is incredible.

Beyond the Ivory Tower

By Derek Bok (President of Harvard University)

1982

Harvard President Derek Bok's book on the responsibility of academia to business and community is still relevant today.

President-elect Obama's choice to head the White House Economic Council is Lawrence Summers*, the 2nd Secretary of the Treasury under Clinton, and, more recently, a short term President of Harvard - fighting the same battles that Bok fought during his tenure.

The $64 Billion question though is whether right wing attack folks of the likes of Newt Gingrich were supportive of the Summers (Clinton) attacks? In this case, I cannot say - but in general the circumstantial evidence is substantial.

* Here is what Summers had to say about the 700 Billion dollar bailout, back in September.

Is the recent 700 Billion dollar Wall Street recue package nothing more than the moral and legal equivalent of a bailout of Enron? Certainly there are parallels - fraudulent paper transactions used to document value that did not exist - the only difference this time around is that the technique has been used across the board to support american corporatist finance - hence why I've called this piece 'Macro-Enronomics'

The term 'Enronomics' was first used in late 2001, and quickly spread, perhaps first at the Seattle Weekly under the pen of Eric Scigliano as well as on Jon Stewart's 'Daily Show' and George Stephanopoulos on ABC. Though rooted in pop culture this should perhaps be permanently associated with George W. Bush, much like H.W. Bush's term 'voodoo' economics has stuck to the supply side economic practices of Ronald Reagan.

It is quite true that we cannot afford to let our financial system melt down. But why, why in the world are we allowing these fraudsters to continue as leaders, let alone keep a dime of their ill-gotten gains or walk the streets.

We need to pay for the costs of this bailout, and the best way to do this is not higher taxes but to civilly confiscate the funds of the responsible beneficiaries of this scam - and make damn sure they never work in finance again - if ever make more than the minimum wage.

Soggy Sneakers Guide to Oregon Rivers

By Members of the Willamette Kayak and Canoe Club

2004 (First Edition 1980)

This book, still in print 28 years after it's initial publication, is a great example of a volunteer based organization producing a very useful tool - though it does help to understand that each seperate contributor will have his, or her, own biases. That however is good advice no matter the professional status of the contributor.

I was fortunate to have spent my high school years paddling with maybe 2/3 of the original contributors of this book - a great group of mentors. This included the natural resource folks at Oregon State University, who saw the project to completion and Gene Ice, the instigator of the project, a post-grad physics student at the University of Oregon who would later go on to win awards for the industrial applications of his particle beam research. I wrote the descriptions for 3 segments, one of which is in the current edition. This run is lower Fall Creek, very close to Eugene and just below a flood control dam - which draws down in late summer, providing a great recreational opportunity when much of everything else has dried up.

On Wall Street and Capitol Hill we are faced with a crisis of leadership and, unfortunately, our local 'main street' authorities are not without complicity in these practices. Most notably the criminal lobbying activities of Preston Gates Ellis (Microsoft's Law Firm) and the Enron like financial techniques of Washington Mutual under the control of the law firm of Foster Pepper Shefelman.

And, yeah, I'm suggesting that the corruption of corporate America is the responsibility of the legal profession - a la Elliott Spitzer in NYC and Alberto Gonzales in Washington D.C. - and, in the leadership position Washington Lawyers have taken, working as officers of the 'King County Courts'.

An illustrative case in point - the handling of the DUI case of Republican County Councilmember Jane Hague.

Barack Obama has just announced his economic team, including the controversial former Clinton Treasury Secretary, Lawrence Summers.

The item of concern regards some out of context comments regarding the aptitude of women in math and sciences - concerning the possibility that the sexes were wired differently, not concluding it. This was taken negatively by the politically correct of Harvard, and by the public at large - see the comments on this recent piece.

But consider this - perhaps the mathematically illiterate female members of the Harvard, Massachusetts comunity have a genetic defect which predisposes them to accept the slanders of corrupt Republicans?

Nigger Newt Gingrich - that has a nice ring to it, no? Perhaps one even worthy of going down in the History books, the field where he was once a southern professor? Of course, I certainly hope than no one would even think the term 'nigger Nifong' is controversial at all...

One other thing for sure, anyone who can graduate from Harvard CAN'T blame their upbringing for their failings as a human being.