sometimes appropriate titles are hard to find.

truth lost in emotion.

truth lost in big ideas and big words.

i've come to ... be highly annoyed with the big words i am hearing uttered from the mouths of our politicians today. not even big words, but words that are so beautifully strung together, that we're not even listening to exactly what they are saying, but rather, the way in which they say them.

this morning i heard president bush say "the historic work we are doing in iraq". translation: the war that has been going on for the past 5 years that is not so unlike previous wars we've been involved in.. aka kosovo/vietnam/etc. it is unfair for me to say that

this might seem a little hypocritical coming from a self proclaimed writer, and lover of words. i myself know that the right words pieced together can sell anything. a gadget, a person, an idea. but lately it seems like all i've been hearing are speeches that try to paint the glories of this vision we are all suppose to believe in and throw our $2 towards, but nothing that just speaks truth to us.

hilary clinton: "when the phone rings at 3 am in the morning. you want me to be the person who picks it up. obama doesn't have the expertise to answer the call, and mccain will let it ring and ring and ring" (in reference to what to do about the credit crisis). damn woman. stop with the phone analogy.

even obama isn't without a little criticism from his #1 fan. obama has painted his entire campaign on this idea of 'hope' and what a beautiful idea it is. but hope doesn't come without hard work and without a lot of disappointment as well, because face it. we're flawed.

perhaps that's the biggest point in this whole credit crisis. people are flawed. are we all that surprised that this has happened? obama and everyone blames the lack of regulation that has created these various 'bubbles' but regulation is the pure antithesis of 'capitalism'. america, as the golden pupil of capitalism, has knit within ourselves the very monster that we have all come to hate these days. excess. and now everyone is trying to reign in the monster. (see i'm using words. big dramatic words.) sure perhaps capitalism would work. but then again so would communism. so would any ideology that is carried out by a legion of perfect people. but then again if people were perfect we wouldn't need god or religion, and most assuredly would not need ideas like 'capitalism'.

that said. can we really blame the flawed people that created these so called 'mortgage backed securuties' decades ago, and ones that have dumbly leveraged and re-leveraged all their assets to get rich quick? isn't that what we've been brought up to do? get rich quick?

the truth of the matter. as simply as i can put it. and as trite as it sounds is. we're flawed people that are greedy. but greed isn't necessarily meant to sound as evil as it comes off. less the greed of buckets and buckets of cash, but more the greed of wanting to ascertain that next level of living. if we currently live in the 'buying toyota four runners, living in a 3 bedroom house' category, what prevents us from wanting to be in the 'buying tahoes, living in a 4 1/2 bedroom house' category? (sorry. big pictures again.) i'm sure that these ceos that we see as bloody fat pigs (and which some of them surely are).. are less the man who wants to bathe in greenbacks, than the man who wants to give his children nothing less than private school education and be able to buy a house in the hamptons for his family to enjoy. or maybe i'm being too nice.

the answer to this problem is once again.. solving the question of our human nature. until then. we'll 'solve it for now' at least get through this one before another 'crisis' hits.

i apologize for this incredibly rambled prose. apparently i'm still a bit hungover from going out and celebrating a birthday last night. will most likely revise and re-edit later.

"The larger danger is that even this temporary Bear rescue could set a precedent that the Fed will find hard to resist. Wall Street is already demanding that the Fed do more in this crisis than its traditional duty as a lender of last resort, and start buying up mortgage-backed securities and other troubled paper as a way to entice more buyers into frozen credit markets."
-wsj

when i first heard about the joint effort between jpmorgan and the federal reserve to bail out falling giant bear stearns, i was incredibly surprised, and thankfully my more knowledgeable roommate, who happens to be a trader at citi was home for me to badger with questions. i asked him why jpmorgan had to do it, and he said it was because it was one of the only banks big enough to handle this kind of bail out, and then i asked why citi didn't get involved, and he said it was because they had problems enough of their own.. along with bank of america whom just purchased countrywide a few months back.

it is crazy to think that just a few months ago, everyone thought this financial crisis of mortgage backed securities could be solved with letting go a few CEOS with only a gentle slap to their wrist and a huge retirement fund still intact. that was then, and this is now. the crisis has only deepened and worsened. a few months ago, the fed was still deciding whether or not it was going to give more rate cuts, as it tried to do it's job holding the nation's inflation rate within a target range, now it seems to be becoming a buyer of first resort, with trading the worst assets for the their most secure ones. inflation rates be damned.

now this i know this isn't a straight up bail out, since the fed isn't directly exchanging these shitty worthless mortgage backed securities for cash, but exchanging them for the safest treasury bonds for 28 days instead of a few hours when they are trying to provide liquidity puts the fed at a dangerous place for setting new precedent.

should he resign?

i'm tired of listening about this. and i'm tired of watching the same clips running over and over again. people die daily all over the world, and does their misery get this much coverage?

but i will put in my last two cents.. how can i not??... :)

a man is arguing right now on anderson cooper 360 that he shouldn't resign because it's a personal matter. men from jefferson to roosevelt to jfk etc all probably had shady sexual dealings and if they didn't have to resign then he shouldn't either..

well the problem is. we're in a different age with a different types of responsibility issues for our politicians. i know it doesn't make him any less capable in real life, but if it changes peoples perceptions of whether or not they can believe and trust in him as a leader, then in essence he is ineffective. and therefore, may best to resign..

the end.

dirty, un-sexy, politics.

“I have acted in a way that violates my obligations to my family and violates my, or any, sense of right and wrong,” the governor said. “I apologize first and most importantly to my family. I apologize to the public to whom I promised better.” - sheriff of wall street, rector of moral values, but more importantly.. solicitor of prostitutes and governor of the state of new york

i'm sorry. but at this point in the game, apologies, empty or not, filled with regret or not, are just NOT enough.

what makes a man willing to risk his political career, his family, his everything to do something that would take him from governor to prisoner, from an apartment on 5th avenue to a jail cell in some shitty prison... can someone explain that to me? or does that simply also fall under the umbrella of 'the human fallacies' we are all capable of

i realize there are dimensions to a man, perhaps some may call carnal cravings, that a woman just cannot understand. and even more i know that i may not fully comprehend all the immense pressures of a man who is the governor of new york, one of the most powerful states of the most powerful country of the world. but these are not excuses that will legitimize the actions this particular man undertook.

i remember when i was younger.. or perhaps even a few weeks ago, when i would tell my mom a lie. usually something that would get myself out of doing something. for example:
me: can i go to dallas for the weekend?
mom: did you pack for new york already?
me:... yes (no i really hadn't)
mom: ok in that case you can go.

and later when i got caught because she could easily see that none of my clothes have been folded and put away in my suitcases, the guilt i felt for lying to her was less because i lied but more because she had caught me.

i would say this case is not so different. no one can say for sure if gov. spitzer is feeling soooo bad for violating his obligations to family/public because he really recognizes he has hurt his family or because he is feeling just so damn bad he got caught. but i would venture to put money on the latter emotional cause. i mean come on.. did this not cross his mind the first time he broke his marriage vows and took a prostitute to the place where a man should only take his wife?

speaking of wife..

i'm watching larry king live right now.. pretty much addicted to the TV screen. one specific gentleman who works at a sex-aholic recovery institute in los angles comments on how he is tired of how politicians drag out their poor wives onto the stage, and all i have to say to end this ranting post on the fallacies of one man who angers my heart.. is poor wife. i don't care if she didn't give him sex for months. no woman deserves this. what she may have deserved is honesty. not this. but i applaud her for being able to stand next to her husband.. because i wouldn't, won't be able to.

okayokay.

let me actually end this on a positive note.

men are horny. horniness leads to thinking with stupid penis and not smart brain. sometimes it's very difficult to make the right decision. i understand. but here's somethings to consider.
1. don't get married until you are ready. marriage is hard. you will fall out of love at some point, and even then you are still married. just because you aren't 'in love' doesn't mean you can be out of marriage. it's okay to not get married. don't do it until you cna make that vow.
2. if it does get hard. which it will. you, as a man, will arise to manhood, and make the decision to put your wife, and your children ahead of your own selfishness. if pressures at work are too hard. quit. straighten out your life. if you can't have honesty in your private life where you are suppost to be your most true, then you damn as well probably can't have honesty and integrity in your real life. be real with yourself.

damn. i could go on about this.

mornings

i think my pinky toe might be falling off. no i'm serious. it's the dang boots i've been wearing. they are so amazing, but at the same time they are pretty tightly fitted and after walking in them all day for 8+ hours, it's my pinky toe that feels the consequences. i can't wait for summer...
ahh the joyous freedom sandals and flipflops will bring. heck i may even go barefoot.

i am up quite early today and i absolutely love it. i think i really idealize the idea of waking up and brewing a pot of coffee (or tea in my case), and reading the top news stories on nytimes.com or wsj.com -- i have discontinued paper service for the sake of the trees and my own trend towards messiness and not recycling -- and lounging in my pajamas for a while. unfortunately this doesn't happen.. 99% of the time it does not, but for the rare mornings i wake up before my alarm and get a chance to live this enviable lifestyle of what i think my mornings should look like, i enjoy it. immensely.

o.ba.ma

it was hardly a year ago that cecelia s, caitlin c, and i eagerly hopped into cecelia's red convertible bug and rushed downtown to make it in time for barack obama's rally at the town lake convention center. within the first 2 minutes of his speech on the 'audacity of hope'he had for this country, i was pretty mesmerized, and it seems like a year later, the rest of the country is mesmerized too. i mean, come on when's the last time a presidential hopeful had legions of pop stars and celebrities chanting and exhalting his name: as noted here. "o-ba-ma, o-ba-ma, o-ba-ma"

i came upon a book i had read my sophomore year in college today as i layed in bed. the book had seemingly never left my night stand at home, and for good reason. "searching for God knows what" by donald miller, is less of a typical christian self help book, than the musings of a spiritual intellectual whom often sets out some good questions only to offer minimal guidance in helping you answer them yourself. i came upon a chapter where donald miller was reflecting upon the events post 9/11. he writes "itwas a somber time for all of us. truth got lost in emotion both for and against the West. i found myself sentimental at first thinking of the firefighters going into the buildings, and then found myself feeling for the arabs here in the states and abroad. i lost sentimentality about the time country western singers came out of the woodwork to sing twangy and horribly written songs about why america was better than everybody else. it killed me. none of it was true, then i got sad about it."

i can't help but hope that the truth of obama isn't getting lost in all the emotion surrounding his campaign. we americans have surely become a desperate lot. more people i know are eager to leave this country seeking opportunity, chance, excitement, and abundant life in other places in the world than necessarily willing to stick around in soul-sucking jobs working for a faceless name only out to raise the bottom line. and this current state of our economy 'on the verge of an economic crisis' isn't making matters much better. for the first time our dollar isn't traveling as far, and we just may have to re-evaluate our spendthrift life styles. americans are desperate for change. and we are beginning to believe obama is the man to do it.

and maybe he is. i'd like to. he already has my vote for 08. but i think the truth of the fact is. he is one man. one man in the face of a thousand problems ranging from better transparency in the actions of the top corporate bankers, to preserving what's left of the enviroment, to the obnoxious lack of medical health care in global emerging markets like china and brazil, to the millions of refugees that have yet to return to anything resembling a home.. and as much as we americans like the idea of one man saving us all (superman? batman? spiderman??), obama is not jesus, and he can't do it alone.

i've been reading a funny blog called 'stuffwhitepeoplelike', and one of it's posts is on 'awareness'

"An interesting fact about white people is that they firmly believe that
all of the world’s problems can be solved through “awareness.” Meaning the
process of making other people aware of problems, and then magically someone
else like the government will fix it.This belief allows them to feel that sweet
self-satisfaction without actually having to solve anything or face any
difficult challenges. Because, the only challenge of raising awareness is
people not being aware. In a worst case scenario, if you fail someone
doesn’t know about the problem. End of story.

Raising awareness is also awesome because once you raise awareness to an
acceptable, aribtrary level, you can just back off and say “Bam! did my
part. Now it’s your turn. Fix it.”So to summarize - you get all the
benefits of helping (self satisfaction, telling other people) but no need for
difficult decisions or the ensuing criticism (how do you criticize
awareness?).

Popular things to be aware of: The Environment, Diseases like Cancer and
AIDS, Africa, Poverty, Anorexia, Homophobia, Midde School Field
Hockey/Lacrosse teams, Drug Rehab, and political prisoners."

funny. perhaps a bit true. sad.

i believe in obama. he is a sensational man, but a man nonetheless. and unless he turns into the next prophet sent from an arbitrary almighty God, he can't do it alone. but i guess the whole message wil.li.am spins is "yes WE can." we. i just hope the truth isn't getting lost admist the hype.