Spitzeus Spitz on Zeus, and gets the Prodigal Sack.

The Fall of Spitzer reads like an epic Greek myth. Spiztius, the man who fought with giants, earns the favor of the father-god, Zeus--who always prefers the mighty. Spiztius smiling with Zeus many blessings, and full of hubris, is a pompous and pious man. Meanwhile, Hera, the jealous wife, catches Zeus canoodling some water nymph along the river Archeron. To wreak her revenge, she decides to snare the mind of Spiztius by using his hubris against him. She convinces another nymph, Kristenides, and her blond sister, Kristedavises to wash each other's hair along the river. Spiztius happens to be walking by, castrating rapists as he goes, when he sees the girls and is instantly taken by lust. He ravishes them along the river (or rather they ravish him, because we all know how lusty river nymphs can be). However, Kristenides and Kristedavises are actually Zeus's distant cousins. (There are less then a hundred characters in the Greek Pantheon, so they're all cousins.) When the profligate Zeus finds that Spitzius has wronged the virtue of his cousins, he is outraged and immediately makes the man a constellation: nine stars, an outline of a man chasing the diminishing specter of his own piety for the rest of time.

Renewed Outrage

I'm at the point in State of Denial where Woodward talks about the 2004 election. It's a riveting read, in part because I remember that election more strongly then any prior political experience save back for when I worked for Congress. It kills me. It just does.

So as you know, the Kerry campaign was planning on challenging the election. I even recall him doing so, for a couple of hours. They had a couple of good reasons: The first being that several hundred thousand provisional ballots hadn't been counted. According to election law, as I understand it through Woodward's analysis, if it's a close election the provisional ballots should be counted. I do not know if they have to be counted in such an event. Merely that it is an option. The second reason was the vast voting irregularities we all remember hearing. Lines of hundreds of people in Democratic districts waiting in the cold to vote. Many of them not getting their chance. We all thought, that even if the election didn't turn out the way we'd hoped--at least those concerns would be redressed. If I had to stand out in the cold or rain for six or eight hours, I'd be pissed. I don't frankly know what I would have done--maybe start a revolution.

Here's the kicker and this is what caused the "renewed outrage." 1) In the White House, things were tense, a huge discussion between Dan Bartlett, Bush and Rove among other's including Mary Matalin. In that discussion, the question was whether or not to "declare an early victory." And attempt to preempt the electoral mess that would result. Jim Frances, who'd run Bush's campaigns in Texas, wanted the speech--thinking that they wanted to get the numbers out there. Start winning hearts and minds and all that rot. Their reasoning at the time was this: Bush was ahead by 140,000 votes or so. There were only 250,000 provisional votes. Kerry would have to get most of them to win. It seemed a sure thing. But if Kerry contested, that would bring the whole thing to a standstill, and Bush would be embroiled in yet another legal battle with every lawyer in DC. The fighter in Bush agreed with Francis' assessment. Dan Bartlett and Steve Hadley, used everything in their personal arsenal to fight that. Bartlett, who later confirmed this as his finest moment said, "You cannot go out there and put the crown on your own head. You just cannot do it." How telling. How fucking fucked up is that? Goddamn! Someone actually had to tell these people that? As a piece of strategy, I can certainly understand Francis' point--preempting the facts with false facts--changes things. It persuades people, and in effect, changes facts. But that the word crown was used as a metaphor--absolutely horrifying, and absolutely unsurprising.

First off, the whole lawyer thing. People love to hate 'em. And I agree, you can hate the process, to some extent. But people forget. It's there for the redress of grievances. Fergawdsakes! Spurn the advances of your own lawyers sure, but ignore them and you have no legal standing whatsover!

The second thing, is what Woodward reports about Kerry's decision. His decision, which the candidate recounted as the only truly "presidential" moment he got to face, was to back off and accede. He saw the ballot problem. And he considered going out to Ohio, camping out with the disenfranchised voters. What happened?

Well as I understand, it was some hazerai about gentlemanly conceding. Doing the Right Thing. Not leaving the nation without a president during the midst of an occupation dubbed War. What a shitshow. Kerry can feel all grand about it if he likes, but his concession robbed thousands of Ohio voters of their rights. That isn't the Right Thing. Why am I writing this now? Why rehash it? Because there's this notion in America that if we don't have a "leader" the country will collapse in rebellion, every state will secede, there will be vicious mobs roaming the streets, "cat's and dogs living together...mass hysteria" thank you Dr. Venkman. It's totally ridiculous. Many of us knew then that the president wasn't providing any real leadership in Iraq (or anywhere else). Does it take time for a bureacracy to change over? At the top levels, yes, but it's not like the people at the post office were going to throw off their shackles and revolt. This whole notion that Democrat leaders have that they have to choose for the good of the country, choose solidarity. Fuck that! He chose, and it cost America 4 more years of it's verifiably worst leader in 200 odd years of history.

Bats, Frogs, Chinook Salmon, & Bees

These are all species that seem to be disappearing. And rapidly. It's so infuriating, and so horrible it makes me want to cry. And McCain has the nerve to declaim against government spending on the environment. And it is all happening so fast. And with so little notice. Well, here are some good articles.





Bats. Frogs. Chinook Salmon. Bees





I have a private fantasy that I'll share with you. In many fantasy novels, the magic generally flees before evil is defeated. And then? It flees totally. This is most evident in The Lord of the Rings. The book starts out with talk about the war with Sauron, which took place a thousand years before the present, when there were at least three elven kings. The dwarves were a mighty nation, living in two separate places on the continent, the Ents were a much larger population, and the Hobbits, well, they were quiet as usual. Point is, the dwarves begin to die off, they war with each other, with the hosts of mount Moria. They grow insular and retreat into their mountains. After the War of Five Armies, the dwarves of Thorbardin nearly vanish. So that by the time of the second war with Sauron, they barely lift a hair to help. Most notably, the elves begin their portage, and eventual voyage to the Summer Isles, leaving Middle-Earth behind.

And if this were the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, these animals would be fleeing the coop before an intergalactic highway built by the Vogons would go straight through the Earth.

Well, we don't have magic obviously, but maybe, all these animals. Maybe they're like the elves, dwarves, hobbits, and ents of Middle Earth. Maybe they're all boarding some magic crafts somewhere and leaving this world behind. How sad and tragic to think of our world without any animals save ourselves and the ones most direct to our subsistence. This begs the question of whether or not the world CAN survive on such a small circle. Still it's nicer to think that maybe they're all running off somewhere then dying, as those bats are doing, by the thousand.

The Bombing of Bear Stearns

Hat tip to Sox First blog for the photo and some ideas.

So yada yada, the whole financial world is rocked by the sudden and surprising dissolution of Bear Stearns yesterday. The deal must have been hush hush, most of the employees had no idea. And is it any wonder? They own 30% of the stock.

So now what? JP Morgan bought them out. For 2$ a share, what a lark! Now I don't know nothin'. But explain to me, why JP Morgan would buy a company that is leveraged out the ass in Prime Mortgages? Isn't that the whole cause of the meltdown? Do they think it's going to get better soon? Afterall, with thousands losing their jobs, it certainly won't be increasing the budget of middle America. Personally, I can't see how things will recover until we can start moving money into the hands of the people who really control the market, namely the consumer. Some of my favorite blogconomists have been predicting this fall for a full year. And it just seems once again, like the really smart powerful players all missed the party. I mean...come on! Ponzi sound great if you can get out before the house of cards collapses. But when you're a bank--you don't ever get out. Not if you don't want to screw over every single client you have.

Well, at any rate, it isn't for me to moralize on a subject I barely understand. I am dead curious about the fallout of this. Some are predicting bigger losses for the other financial houses. Will Merrill start divesting? Will Deloitte and Touche be tarnished? PWC? AM New York said that the city will feel this. but really, will it. One thing's for sure, there's a whole lotta real estate opening up in midtown.

Let me be the first

To coin the name of Ashley Dupre's first Album: Spitz or Swallhoes

It's the Social Network morons

Having viewed, like the other 4 million people Ashley Dupre's myspace page I can't help but think. What sort of high priced call girl service allows the girls to keep myspace pages? For someone like Elliot Spitzer, who was famous for blustering, "Get me the Emails!" in many securities fraud suits, you'd think he'd have vetted the place first. Moreover you'd think if anyone knew that the IRS monitors payments over 10 grand, it would be him.

It just stinks. It stinks to heaven.

Not that he's not guilty. You know, here's the thing. American businessmen all over the world are using services like these every day--and in fact, many are probably using mafia connected services, like the Russian mob, or the Triads. But you don't hear about them. First, no one cares about "the faceless American businessman." Second, the mob owns their girls. Human trafficking is a huge problem in the States. The girls don't have lives--this is of course is the real problem with prostitution. The propensity for women to be abused and to have their civil rights abridged, restricted or degraded. This is why most civilized nations have banned it. That being said, New York City, and America in general offers an entirely different form of prostitution. We have televised date shows, where women compete for a man, and if they win, receive piles of cash. In effect, to hit it off, (and sleep with) the bachelor. Women in this town go to extremely expensive bars, where they meet extremely wealthy men, who take them out spend money on them, and take them home. Every night. For them, this is totally normal behavior. They of course, aren't necessarily going to meet men in hotel rooms, minus the booze, minus the club. But then again, when their clients aren't the Governor of New York--I'm sure those restrictions are loosened.

Sigh. I'm making excuses for the man. I shouldn't do that. But I can't help it--when you see the pictures of wall street rejoicing, you can't help but think--goddamn it!

Spitzer Resigns

So he's out. I hadn't really been looking forward to blogging on this subject. There will be plenty of people eviscerating him, excoriating the party that vouched for him, and his electorate that voted him in. Fewer certainly, have been defending him, but they are out there.

I don't want to do either of those things. I expect that a lot of my posts, as some already have been, will be shouting for the resignations of corrupt Republicans. So, it is my duty, to at least comment on Spitzer.

I'm glad he resigned. I do think there was the potential for a great governor in him. Some have told me, and I agree to an extent, that his reputation as a "bulldog" would have isolated him, and made him an inept governor. While there certainly have been many cases of that happening. Urbane politicians only excel at getting one thing done: Nothing of consequence. So I'm sorry he'll be leaving. However, a man who rails and pontificates on morality and greed, has to live up to a certain standard. And if the man believed in prostitution, he should have been pressing for it in the legistlature--not in hotel rooms.

That being said--I do feel a bit sorry for him. Silda Spitzer, or Wall Spitzer, is a beautiful woman, and he has produced three beautiful daughters. But, maybe the man had certain special sexual needs, that he just couldn't ask his Harvard educated, blue-blood wife to fulfil. I don't make excuses for him, but I think it behooves us to have some sympathy. I won't get any more graphic then that--but provided his needs fall within the realm of legality, then-maybe he should be forgiven in the sense that sexual preference is a condition of life on this planet. He obviously didn't choose his preference when he chose his wife, and that's unfair and unfortunate for everyone involved.

Anyway, I mostly feel rotten for his wife. Who, afterall, is really bearing the brunt of all this. His shame will ruin him--that's his fault. Her shame is his fault too. And his kids shame, his fault too. The man has a lot to answer for--I can't even begin to imagine it.

On the upside--we have Lt. Gov. Paterson set to be sworn in on Monday. Provided he's not neck deep in corruption as well. I am hopeful for Paterson, though I don't know too much about him. I think it's neat to have a blind, black governor. We will have to see how things proceed.