What? Is Paulson Nuts?

According to Bloomberg there currently is over $356.3 billion in credit card debt, $256.3 billion in student loan debt, and $199 billion in auto loan debt. Paulson wants to increase funds to push more debt out into the system which is hideously overextended!

More debt is not what the economy needs. It needs more income at the lower and intermediate levels to spur spending and service current debt such as mortgages.

Put people to work in government-sponsored public service projects, infrastructure maintenance and improvement, schools, police forces, and government-sponsored green industries. The system needs money at the bottom to have trickle UP. Trickle DOWN does NOT work!

The Negro Speaks of Rivers

I’ve known rivers:
I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I’ve seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset.
I’ve known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

Langston Hughes

Nondairy Creamer?

As the melamine-in-milk-products scandal in China snowballs, the New York Times reported today:

"The F.D.A. said the King Car Food Industrial Company of Taiwan had called back seven products sold under the Mr. Brown label, mostly sold in stores specializing in Asian foods. The company’s tests in Taiwan had determined that its nondairy creamer, which was made in China, was contaminated by melamine, the F.D.A. said. No contaminated products have actually been found on American shelves.

"The F.D.A. also said that it had itself extensively tested milk-based products imported from China into the United States in recent weeks. It said it had found no contamination so far."

Questions: How did 'nondairy creamer' come to be contaminated with milk-based products?

Fleisch dich? Oder, Milch dich? Oder?

Doc's Electoral College Breakdown Prediction

Click here

Persistence of Shadows from 1945

The shadows of the Venetian blinds
Make black, regular diagonals
Across the chenile bedspread,
Dark leaf shadows dance and prance
Across the stripes and chenile
As the bright, clear sunshine
Pours in the windows
Through gigantic maples outside

Doc Rock, August 2008

photo by Greenmonster

Reagan-Bush-McCain Trickle Down Economics

Brother, Can You Spare a Dime

They used to tell me I was building a dream, and so I followed the mob,

When there was earth to plow, or guns to bear, I was always there right on the job.

They used to tell me I was building a dream, with peace and glory ahead,

Why should I be standing in line, just waiting for bread?

Once I built a railroad, I made it run, made it race against time.

Once I built a railroad; now it's done. Brother, can you spare a dime?

Once I built a tower, up to the sun, brick, and rivet, and lime;

Once I built a tower, now it's done. Brother, can you spare a dime?

Once in khaki suits, gee we looked swell,

Full of that Yankee Doodly Dum,

Half a million boots went slogging through Hell,

And I was the kid with the drum!

Say, don't you remember, they called me Al; it was Al all the time.

Why don't you remember, I'm your pal? Buddy, can you spare a dime?

Once in khaki suits, gee we looked swell,

Full of that Yankee Doodly Dum,

Half a million boots went slogging through Hell,

And I was the kid with the drum!

Say, don't you remember, they called me Al; it was Al all the time.

Say, don't you remember, I'm your pal? Buddy, can you spare a dime?

Harburg & Gorney

Why Don't YOU Do Right????

Where Reagan->Bush->McCain Will Take Us


Why Don't You Do Right?

You had plenty money, 1922
You let other women make a fool of you
Why don't you do right, like some other men do?
Get out of here and get me some money too

You're sittin' down and wonderin' what it's all about
You ain't got no money, they will put you out
Why don't you do right, like some other men do?
Get out of here and get me some money too

If you had prepared twenty years ago
You wouldn't be a-wanderin' from door to door
Why don't you do right, like some other men do?
Get out of here and get me some money too

I fell for your jivin' and I took you in
Now all you got to offer me's a drink of gin
Why don't you do right, like some other men do?
Get out of here and get me some money too
Why don't you do right, like some other men do?
Like some other men do

Abou ben Adam

Abou ben Adam (may his tribe increase!)

awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,

And saw, within the moonlight of his room,

Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom,

an angel, writing in a book of gold.

Exceeding peace had made Ben Adam bold,

And to the Prescence in the room he said:

"What writest thou?" The vision raised its head,

And, with a look made of all sweet accord,

Answered, "The names of those who love the Lord."

"And is mine one?"said Abou, "Nay, not so,"

Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low,

But cheerily still, and said, "I pray thee, then,

Write me as one who loves his fellow men."

The angel wrote, and vanished. The next night

It came again, with a great awakening light,

And showed the names whom love of God had blest,

And lo! Ben adam's name led all the rest.

- Leigh Hunt

The Stone

"AND will you cut a stone for him,

To set above his head?

And will you cut a stone for him--

A stone for him?" she said.

Three days before, a splintered rock

Had struck her lover dead--

Had struck him in the quarry dead,

Where, careless of a warning call,

He loitered, while the shot was fired--

A lively stripling, brave and tall,

And sure of all his heart desired . . .

A flash, a shock,

A rumbling fall . . .

And, broken 'neath the broken rock,

A lifeless heap, with face of clay,

And still as any stone he lay,

With eyes that saw the end of all.

I went to break the news to her:

And I could hear my own heart beat

With dread of what my lips might say;

But some poor fool had sped before;

And, flinging wide her father's door,

Had blurted out the news to her,

Had struck her lover dead for her,

Had struck the girl's heart dead in her,

Had struck life, lifeless, at a word,

And dropped it at her feet:

Then hurried on his witless way,

Scarce knowing she had heard.

And when I came, she stood alone--

A woman, turned to stone:

And, though no word at all she said,

I knew that all was known.

Because her heart was dead,

She did not sigh nor moan.

His mother wept:

She could not weep.

Her lover slept:

She could not sleep.

Three days, three nights,

She did not stir:

Three days, three nights,

Were one to her,

Who never closed her eyes

From sunset to sunrise,

From dawn to evenfall--

Her tearless, staring eyes,

That, seeing naught, saw all.

The fourth night when I came from work,

I found her at my door.

"And will you cut a stone for him?"

She said: and spoke no more:

But followed me, as I went in,

And sank upon a chair;

And fixed her grey eyes on my face,

With still, unseeing stare.

And, as she waited patiently,

I could not bear to feel

Those still, grey eyes that followed me,

Those eyes that plucked the heart from me,

Those eyes that sucked the breath from me

And curdled the warm blood in me,

Those eyes that cut me to the bone,

And cut my marrow like cold steel.

And so I rose and sought a stone;

And cut it smooth and square:

And, as I worked, she sat and watched,

Beside me, in her chair.

Night after night, by candlelight,

I cut her lover's name:

Night after night, so still and white,

And like a ghost she came;

And sat beside me, in her chair,

And watched with eyes aflame.

She eyed each stroke,

And hardly stirred:

she never spoke

A single word:

And not a sound or murmur broke

The quiet, save the mallet stroke.

With still eyes ever on my hands,

With eyes that seemed to burn my hands,

My wincing, overwearied hands,

She watched, with bloodless lips apart,

And silent, indrawn breath:

And every stroke my chisel cut,

Death cut still deeper in her heart:

The two of us were chiselling,

Together, I and Death.

And when at length my job was done,

And I had laid the mallet by,

As if, at last, her peace were won,

She breathed his name, and, with a sigh,

Passed slowly through the open door:

And never crossed my threshold more.

Next night I laboured late, alone,

To cut her name upon the stone.

Wilfrid Wilson Gibson

Punishment Central--the US of A

Adult, American, poor--book 'em, Dan-o!

According to Adam Liptak writing in the NY Times:

One out of every 100 adults in the United States is behind bars!

One out of every 36 Hispanic adults in the United States is behind bars!

One out of every 15 African American adults in the United States is behind bars!

While one of every 335 white women in the US is behind bars, one out of every 100 black women is incarcerated!


Today the NY Times tells us the US is planning a big new prison in Afghanistan!

What the hell kind of animals have we turned into? In a recent interview on NPR Adam Liptak reported that in the 19th century the US prison system was a model for the world, people came from all over to see how rehabiltative incarceration could be made to work. Nowadays no one comes, we have become the poster child for a different sort of prison system--one which punishes and gives no thought to rehabilitation.

We have become a nation that kidnaps, carries out renditions, tortures, warehouses, ignores due process, runs kangaroo courts, military tribunals (with mulligans), and warehouses millions for their addictions.

We have become addicted to vengeance, inured to cruelty. When will we try to be better?