pith…

Recently, New York Times reporter Motoko Rich wrote an article about how during a recession, what people want is a happy book, with a happy ending. Incidentally, book sales have soared in the romance novel genre, and, as the masses know, the vampire love story genre. Mass-market paperbacks fly off the shelves of your Walgreens, Walmarts and Kmarts, while large trade paperbacks suffer at your Barnes and Nobles.

I understand that the heart may be a lonely hunter during this tough economic downturn, and some may feel the need to inject some escapism or sentimentality into their lives. But for the incredulous, a romance novel may not be plausible.

Thus, I’ve assembled what I believe to be 10 “thinking man’s” books to read during an economic slump. Rather than picking 10 books solely dedicated to economics, I’ve tried to be diverse in representing the general tone of this recession. In addition, I’ve incorporated a few books that may not evoke the tone of the recession, but will hopefully encourage you about overcoming it. Most of these books are not de facto “feel good” reads (with the exception of one indispensible comedy), but they are relevant and rewarding in many ways in regard to how one views world discourse. And when the world is in trouble, these books are what I consider food for thought, or reexamination, if you have read them before.

THE WEALTH OF NATIONS

Adam Smith was a strong advocate of a free market economy, and this was in 1776, before the term economics was even coined. Smith argued that a free market economy is more beneficial to society because it promotes healthy relationships with employer and employee, as well as makes people responsible for their choices. “If a nation could not prosper without the enjoyment of perfect liberty and perfect justice, there is not in the world a nation which could ever have prospered”

THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO

Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto is an obvious choice because Marx opposed bureaucracies and the bourgeoisie, and was for the proletariat. With the crisis on Wall Street that propelled us into an even deeper global recession, many (most notably, Christopher Hitchens) have argued that Marx is still very relevant in the discourse of our nation, and the world. “Working men of all countries, unite!”

ATLAS SHRUGGED

Ayn Rand’s gargantuan novel about free enterprise, free market and laissez-faire capitalism, uncannily evokes the tone our current recession. It shouldn’t surprise you that this anti-bureaucratic novel has sold hundreds of thousands of copies in the last 18 months. As some recent bumper stickers have pointed out, we may have to modify Rand’s question from: “Who is John Galt,” to Where is John Galt?

ON LIBERTY

John Stuart Mill echoes his Utilitarian philosophy in this famous essay on civil and social liberty. Mill believes that political actions are necessary and right if they benefit the majority of the people, and provide happiness to the majority of society. Similar to Thomas Paine, he believes that the rights of individuals should be safeguarded or if necessary, fought for by the government. John Stuart Mill was a liberal-minded thinker, and his tone certainly resonates with us today: “the disease which inflicts bureaucracy and what they usually die from is routine.”

THE AUDACITY OF HOPE

With the subtitle: Thoughts for Reclaiming the American Dream, The Audacity of Hope serves well as a manifesto for change in politics. With Obama in office, he is finding out how difficult it can be to overcome partisanship, but many historians agree that although his first hundred days have been challenging, they have been effective and highly productive. As Obama once said, and as we found out in the detail of his latest press conference, “Issues are never simple. One thing I’m proud of is that very rarely will you hear me simplify the issues.”

FAHRENHEIT 451

Ray Bradbury’s dystopian novel on censorship and how television destroys interest in reading literature creates a world of paranoia and little choice. Bradbury’s “fireman” work as book burners who burn books for the “good of humanity.” The novel takes place in a future American society run by self-interest and indulgence; critical thought through reading a book is outlawed. Disturbing? Yes, for: “we must all be alike. Not everyone born free and equal, as the constitution says, but everyone made equal.”

RIGHTS OF MAN

Thomas Paine’s polemic asserts that the rights of man should not be taken away by any government. Paine believed that government was there not to interfere, but to safeguard the individual and their inalienable rights, and this is the central thesis of this work. “Nothing then is unchangeable but the inherent and inalienable rights of man.”

LIES AND THE LYING LIARS WHO TELL THEM

I didn’t want to get too partisan with any of these choices, but Al Franken’s book offers some important insight into the changing spirit of America’s political discourse. And it’s funny as hell. Although Franken’s book is subtitled, “A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right,” it is still biased to the left. This, however, shouldn’t stop anyone from reading it, whether you’re left, middle or right. Al is just full of staggering wisdom, for who else could put things so eloquently: “it’s easier to put on slippers than to carpet the whole world.”

LETTERS TO A YOUNG CONTRARIAN

Christopher Hitchens’ witty and educational book is written as a series of letters to whom he calls contrarians. Hitchens uses his incredible knowledge and reason to advise people to question the things they were taught. Question your religion, your politics, your education, your society; question everything. Hitchens’ allusions to politics, literature, history, religion and even pop culture and current events are beautifully integrated in each letter. A lesson from Hitchens that can be applied to all vocations: “write because you have to, not because you want to.”

BANKER TO THE POOR

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus discusses how $27 lent out to a village of 45 people spurned his idea for Grameen Bank, a bank that has now lent out about 4 billion dollars to over 7 million people – 95% being poor women. Yunus will inspire you to make a social entrepreneurial difference, whether it’s with $10 or billions of dollars. As Dr. Yunus says, “today, if you look at financial systems around the globe, more than half the population of the world – out of six billion people, more than three billion do not qualify to take out a loan from a bank. This is a shame.”

It seems there is a shortage of gods in the universe today. Here on earth, if you mention the name Baal, Njord, Horus or even Krishna, people will look at you like your nuts, or like you’re alluding to someone out of a fairly tale. These gods, now considered to be blatant myths, are basically extinct. In a day and age when people can recite at least a dozen basketball players, it’s all too interesting that most people are only familiar with their one god, and sometimes that’s even a stretch.

If you ask a neighbor, coworker, friend or family member to name their god, you will find confusion and ignorance. Seriously, try it. At work a few days ago, I took it upon myself to ask this question to ten colleagues. Most people responded by saying, “My god is the god of the bible” or “Jesus Christ” or “I have no idea” or “The Judeo-Christian god.” Out of the ten, not one responded, “well, obviously Yahweh is my god, and he is the great god of the New and Old Testament.”

Shouldn’t one at least know the name of the god they choose to worship? I personally wouldn’t want to pray to an invisible manifestation I don’t know the name of.

The problem with this new evolutionary juncture regarding the few gods still worshiped on this planet is that we have used up all of the gods. Gods are not evolving like they used to – Krishna is not transforming into Jesus (both stories are presumably taken from the same myth). We are stuck. Once these remaining few are christened as myths, what will we do? People are not as superstitious as they were in the past. I don’t see people propagating gods out of thin air. Maybe the Catholic Church will offer a few new gods (as they always have good responses to crises). Maybe alien life will be referred to as gods.

As for now, however, we remain in our comfortable world with our comfortable myths. But the myths, and therefore, the gods, are becoming more and more obsolete.

Currently, we have less than 5 prominent gods to work with. The three-headed monster consists of Christianity’s Yahweh, Islam’s Yahweh and Hinduism’s Krishna and Rama (Hinduism is polytheistic and worships other gods as well, but Rama and Krishna are the main culprits). Add Mormonism’s Yahweh, and we are still only at three gods. These gods are so popular that nearly 5 billion people adhere to them.

So there they are, the three gods the average person should know, but doesn’t. Will these gods continue their reign through child indoctrination, perpetuation of organized religion, and other popularizing techniques, or will they fade into the realm of reason? With the rise of secularism, agnosticism, atheism or other nonreligious groups, it seems as if reason is on the way. Over a billion people in the world today consider themselves secular, agnostic, atheistic or nonreligious – and one can only hope that these people tell (or have told) their children the beauty about the cosmos and the fantasy of the mythos.

It is reassuring to think of the extinction of these gods, and maybe, just maybe, reason will prevail in our future.

the reverberation of the garage door opening tickles me from below,
i can’t wait for you to come back up after your morning smoke.

i miss your warm breath against my shoulders, your arms around me,
the tip of your toes protruding from the blanket’s warmth
on an anonymous wisconsin morning – is it sunny, raining, snowing?

i hear you downstairs: checking your e-mail, eating cereal.
i know what your doing – routine runs our lives.

i hear you upstairs now: changing into your clothes,

you knock on the door: “honey, you still in the bathroom? its been ten minutes.”
i answer, “i’ll be right out, after i finish this line.”

Milwaukee, WI         3/22/09

A middle-aged Milwaukee man cannot stop saying fuck after hitting what he claims to be his thousandth pothole. “I am fed up with the fucking potholes in this city,” Raymond Smith said today. “Paying over one-thousand dollars for new shocks, a tire alignment and new brake pads was the last fucking straw.”

Ray claims that he has tried to dodge countless potholes, but because “they are fucking everywhere, your odds of not hitting one is fucking slim.”

After sending letters to his alderman and mayor with no response, he feels helpless to this unnerving situation. “Screaming fuck every time I run over a pothole is the only thing that calms my nerves anymore,” Ray said.

He recommends that all Milwaukeeans give this method a shot before they seek other, possibly more harmful forms of dealing with this “fucking bullshit.”

Raymond Smith used to be an alcoholic.

By Jeremy Benishek and Kyle Romeis

Drinking Courvoisier on a random Tuesday night can lead to some random entertaining conversations. But can we truly say that this particular Tuesday night was a “random” night? Or can we say that we had “random” conversation? What about that Tuesday would make it random, and likewise, what about those conversations would make them random?

Random is defined by Merriam Webster as: “without definite aim, direction, rule, or method.” Or, according to American Heritage Dictionary, “having no specific pattern or purpose.” This includes its derivatives, randomly and randomness (but throughout the article, the word random will suffice for our argument).

It’s easy to cower when hearing the multitudes of people who use the word random erroneously. Photo albums on Facebook labeled “random pictures,” people alluding to “their random thoughts,” or that they are proud of their “random acts of kindness.” Why do we enjoy throwing the word random around in conversation to such excess, and why do we think we’re using the word correctly?

It is probable that the word random is misused in conversation far more often than it is used correctly. Because it is so acceptable to use it incorrectly, the word has come to mean something entirely different that what it really means, according to its definition, and its etymology.

As a rule of thumb, two things that can stop us from using random incorrectly are: if you can consciously think something before acting on it or saying it OR if it has definite aim, direction, rule or method, it is not random. This therefore includes random pictures, random acts of kindness and random thoughts, which will now be explained. It also may include other phrases with the word random in it, but we will focus on these.

The photos you just uploaded onto your Facebook page and labeled “random photos” were not chosen at random, unless you threw them up in the air and grabbed each photo from the ground (at random), and scanned them in. Even if you have a photo of a piece of toast, a picture of you in Peru, a picture of Barack Obama, one of your kitten and one of your condo, you still consciously decided to upload these photos onto Facebook (and probably in a specific order). Therefore, the random photos argument can almost always be refuted. They may be weird, and have no order per se, but this does not make them random. These photos could properly be referred to as miscellaneous photos, since they do not all share a common theme or were not all taken at the same location.

Sorry to tell you, but your random thoughts really are not random either because the thought is consciously deliberated on before it is said. It may be a completely absurd or ridiculous thought, but that does not make it random (and just because it popped into your head at that particular moment does not make it random – as all thoughts pop into our heads). If you’re talking politics with some buddies, and someone says, “I’d like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich,” this isn’t random, so much as it is a non sequitur. And although it may sound random to your buddies, it was your fatuous mind that consciously thought it, and therefore it is not random. Random thoughts could properly be referred to as absurd, spontaneous or ridiculous thoughts.

Just as random is misused to express absurdity; it is also used in conversation in the place of other, more suitable words. When a 15 year old, flaky adolescent is sitting around with her friends and says, “I should really curl my hair tomorrow,” and her friend responds, “Oh, random!,” her friend is incorrect. In this case, it is more likely that the comment, made on the spur of the moment, is a spontaneous or compulsive statement. There was not premeditation, nor was there conversation leading up to her words before speaking them. Of course the girls understand each other when they use random because in this context they understand random to mean spontaneous (an example of how random has become more of a slang term).

Lastly: random acts of kindness. A random act of kindness is not a random act because it’s consciously preempted by the motivational drive of knowing that you’re going to engage in the act. Even if someone was drowning as you were on your daily walk – yes you may be able to call it a fairly spontaneous event, but your conscious thought to rescue this person was not (it may have been instinctual, but there was still meditation that went into your decision to rescue this person). The event and outcome may be spontaneous, but to claim that they’re random is once again using random where there are other, more suitable words.

The problem with these phrases is that they are semantically inaccurate. The English language offers a wide-range of words that can be used and make more sense, in the place of the word random. Random pictures, more accurately stated, would become miscellaneous pictures. Random thoughts, more accurately would become absurd, spontaneous or ridiculous thoughts. A random act of kindness, more accurately stated, would become a spontaneous circumstance that led to kindness.

Maybe we should start using words like absurd, spontaneous, ridiculous, baffling, miscellaneous, etc. in place of random. This might help us break the habit of using random wherever we damn well please, particularly where it doesn’t belong.

Good luck.

In the morning you lay quiet: melodious digression,
the art of deceptive cadences – progressions
indecipherable to most – but these
bewilderments send me into the day –
filled with the notes of our song:
our melodies, our transpositions, our compositions.
Yesterday we were a bit flat and
the accidental surely threw us off.
Today: started quiet (dynamics are crucial), a
bit sharp, harmonies trying to work
together – a key change takes us aback –
a minor key (diminuendo) – back to major (allegro!) –
a crescendo towards the day’s end,
and tomorrow we’ll rehearse and attempt to play again –
the songs of our lives.

Over 200 years ago, in 1802, Thomas Jefferson made a prophetically inferential statement apropos the US banking system. As we see our banks faltering, our credit lines freezing, our housing markets crumbling, and enough corporate greed to pass out $18 billion worth of bonuses with government allocated funds, we should review Jefferson’s ethics on our current weakening banking system.

Jefferson, a great skeptic of private banking, said the following in a letter to then Secretary of the Treasury, Albert Gallatin:

“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.”

Jefferson couldn’t have hit the nail harder on the head concerning the future of banking. By having our banks control everything, including: credit, loans and the housing market, we are putting the American people at a disadvantage. People are genuinely worried about being deprived of property and this worry stems from the bigger worry of a failing economy and a system that has taken advantage of the American people for too long. Where is the, “freedom,” “liberty” and “equality” that our founding fathers once proclaimed?

A capitalist society should thrive on the premise that everyone can grant themselves wealth if worked for hard enough. This is a reasonable conjecture, but since when did this premise become: you may work hard, but nothing is guaranteed because corrupt, greed-ridden dingbats will be controlling all of your major investments?

What we should do now as a nation is ask ourselves: How much longer do we stand by our banking system? How many more times do we bail them out? When will we stand with Mr. Jefferson and restore power back to the people, to whom it properly belongs?

When everyday Americans are being taxed to hell in order to support Wall Street, it isn’t freedom, liberty or equality. In fact, it is not even theoretically capitalism (or democracy for that matter). There are certain names we call most countries who have rations or incitements (or stimulus, if you will) and pay high taxes or fees to support the government and systems controlled by the government (our banking system, for example), and it usually isn’t “Capitalistic” or “Democratic.”

Unless you want to define democracy as the great Mr. Jefferson did himself: “A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine,” we should have this be the final chance for the banking industry.

Thomas Jefferson must be cringing in his grave right now, and asking the question every American patriot should be asking themselves right now: when is enough enough?

For George W. Bush’s $700 billion economic bailout plan, the republicans had no problem bailing out Wall Street, with the house voting 263 to 171 in favor of the bill (with 91 of 199 republicans voting for it). So the question now: Why are House republicans putting up such a fight when it comes to bailing out things more relative to Main Street (education, tax cuts and potential job growth)? Are they playing partisan games, or do they really find Mr. Obama’s plan wasteful (as if Bush’s plan hasn’t been)?

Bush’s tone regarding his administration’s Wall Street bailout was urgent. Bush threatened congress by saying that if they did not act now, America would be in a national crisis and possibly provoke a global crisis. Mr. Bush said, “By coming together on this legislation, we have acted boldly to prevent the crisis on Wall Street from becoming a crisis in communities across our country.” Mr. Bush, I think a lot of the United States disagreed with your bailout, but I question why your Wall Street crisis bailout package found almost half of the House republicans voting in favor of it.

Now, during Mr. Obama’s presidency, his tone concerning his stimulus is urgent as well. Obama has gotten more fired up than we have seen him before, going off the teleprompter, espousing the urgency for this bill. His tone has been thus: “Just this week, we saw more people file for unemployment than at any time in the last 26 years, and experts agree that if nothing is done, the unemployment rate could reach double digits.” This is just as urgent as Mr. Bush’s Wall Street bailout, is it not? According to House voting, absolutely not, with the total number of House republicans voting for the bill equaling nil.

Our country is in one hell of a bind, and again our House republicans are playing partisan games. The senate is expected to pass the bailout on Tuesday, with several provisions and some money cut altogether. But whether it passes or not, the question is: Why was the House so supportive of Mr. Bush’s package? Because of lobbying or partisanship? And why is the house so opposed to Mr. Obama’s package, which presumably would help more of the American people, not just the bonus-boasting buffoons on Wall Street.

These republicans are either credulous jerks or they are playing games. The democrats have been more consistent in their bailout voting. For Bush’s bailout, 172 democrats voted in favor of the bill while 62 opposed it, and for Obama’s stimulus 233 dems voted for it while 11 opposed it. This is far more consistent than the partisan-playing republicans, who supported Bush’s bailout, but denied Obama’s.

One person may have it right, and that’s Congressman Ron Paul. He doesn’t understand his fellow republican’s hypocrisy. Paul says, “It is like they’re born-again budget conservatives,” Paul said. “Where were we in the past eight years, when we could have done something? And you see our last eight years that has set this situation up. So we can’t blame the Democrats for the conditions we have.” The republicans have failed to hold the line of spending during the Bush administration, and now they want to be fiscal conservatives? Balderdash!

The year of 2009 is young, but Generation Y should start working on our New Year’s resolution right now.

As someone who is pushing thirty, I’m sick of hearing the common mantras of my generation: “I don’t have time,” or “I’m used to doing things my own way,” or “I guess I’m kind of selfish with what I’m used to – I’m scared to change,” and the list goes on and on. These are the maxims of my generation.

My generation, in comparison to our baby-boomer predecessors, are a bunch of self-interested whiners controlled by our inhibitions and our unrelenting capacity to serve ourselves. We are afraid of changing ourselves. We are lazy when it comes to satisfying someone else. We are about our needs. We, mildly put, are about ourselves.

I may be making a generalization, but when the majority of people I associate with (or communicate with) act this way, it’s hard to avoid not mentioning it. Not only is this the general tone of colleagues and friends of mine, but also I have gathered that this is the undertone of the majority of my generation.

I purposely spark discussion at a bar or coffee shop only to hear, “well, I have to do this or that tomorrow” or “I’ll take a look at my schedule” or “I’m just so busy; I don’t know if I have time.” The beautiful thing about it is we’re not busy!, we just want to do what we want to do! Without even taking into account someone else’s wants, we often denounce them, as if they would alter the sanctity of our own glorious (i.e. sub par) schedules.

And it doesn’t stop there. With the function of the everyday family changing, the choices of my generation are being tested even more. The choice to live at home with mommy until you’re 35 isn’t out of the question. The choice to not get married, because you are too afraid to risk it in “today’s society” is a common defense. Fear, hesitancy, selfishness and anxiety are becoming too much of a theme for my generation.

With this mentality, we have become the whiners – people who want things handed to us, but don’t want to work hard to achieve them. We look for guidance from others, but are afraid to look into ourselves. We need help desperately in time management. We need to reformulate the American family. “I just don’t have time!” And…you get the idea, ad infinitum.

These insecurities and hesitancies make my generation peculiar, but it also makes us vulnerable. In order to be successful, we must be strong and look past our self-interest. This means that in many ways, we need to change, and soon.

Cheers to a tough, but attainable New Year’s resolution!

Woke her up,
fucked her,
had a cigarette,
a cup of coffee,
dropped her off,
went to work,
did some work,
went to lunch,
did some more work,
called her again,
picked her up,
fucked her,
had a cigarette,
dropped her off,
drove to my house,
unlocked my front door,
walked in,
washed my face,
brushed my teeth,
said goodnight to the kids,
crawled into bed with my wife,
said, “I love you honey, goodnight.”

As a third generation Cuban American, I have mixed emotions on the Cuban Revolution. To see the footage of Fidel Castro parading through the streets of Havana with overwhelming approval on January 1, 1959, is bittersweet. I suspect I, like many Cuban Americans, have a love/hate relationship with Castro and his Revolution.

On one side, I have sympathy for Castro’s revolution. He inspires the underdog mentality; he beckons the idealism and imagination of youth rebellion. Pulling me away from this, however, is Castro’s stiff control of the Cuban people – inhibiting the rights of free speech, free press and other liberties that we in America sometimes take for granted.

It cannot be denied that Castro has forced unhappy people to risk their lives in makeshift boats in order to get to the United States. Cuban families have been torn apart for not agreeing with his intense socialist ideologies. He has repressed many people’s lives by taking away some of their basic civil rights. But Fidel Castro has at least two sides to his very complex persona, and one must take the ugly with the honorable.

On a positive note, Castro reformed Cuba’s education system, with Cuba still having one of the highest literacy rates in the Americas. His Cuba is known for their universal healthcare system – renowned for medical advancements, patient treatment and a lower infant mortality rate than the United States. Furthermore, he has fought for his ideals and he believes strongly in his country’s volunteerism (Cuba has one of the highest percentages of volunteerism – with many Cubans lending a helping hand to people in countries whom are worse off than themselves).

The “real” Fidel Castro will always be an enigma – a man who keeps his private life and thoughts out of the public eye. He will always have a multitude of sides to his very complicated character. He has been admonished by America, but praised by other third world counties. He has been accused of crimes against humanity, but was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2001 for his work supporting the needs of developing nations. Castro has been in many ways, a walking contradiction.

No matter your personal opinion of Fidel Castro, he has remained a significant figure in the world for over 50 years. He has spurred revolutions in Latin America, fought for peace in Angola and has had his life threatened by 638 assassination attempts. His life is enough to interest his enemies and allies alike.

With new leadership in Washington, we may finally see the senseless embargo lifted. As Americans we must continue to ask ourselves: Why do we still have this embargo? If we have it to spite Cuban leadership (which we do), we do not have it for the right reasons.

With Castro still ailing, we may find out relatively soon the answer to his famous utterance: “Condemn me, it does not matter, history will absolve me.”