The Key to Keynes

Quick thought: Is there a "critical mass" for capitalism, ie. will there always be a loser?
Is there a maximum amount of capital out there in the world that, by the very nature that it is limited, prevent some ("third world", the "South", or "undeveloped" countries) from ever achieving economic parity with the "developed" world?

During my reading for my humanitarian aid class, it struck me that the base assumption of development aid policy is that the Western industrialized countries can "develop" the undeveloped countries to a point of self-sufficiency. Does our market capital system have room for that? Can there be no "bottom", or -- to put it harsher -- "losers"? Can everybody win?

I think the simple answer is "no". But the more complicated and ethical answer is that the "bottom" can come up only if the "top" comes down a little bit, and we would all occupy various strata of the "middle".

A collegue of mine countered that instead of meeting in the middle, basically the entire strata of rich to poor would be shifted upwards. So, the bottom comes up, but the top also goes up.
That doesn't make sense to me. That means that more "Stuff" (capital, money, resources, etc.) must exist, because more of it is going to the bottom and more of it is going to the top. Can that happen?

(I'm sure Econ 101 could have answered this for me. Damned Organic Chemistry got in the way in college.)

Name Tags: Legit or Shit?

I have a problem with name tags. Instinctively, I trust them. More specifically, I trust those who wear them. Proudly hanging about the neck, fastened to an engraved cloth lanyard or sometimes encased in thick plastic, name tags bring the wearer a sense of confidence and to the casual observer, they impart a moral correctness. Without investigating the details, a simple glance at this innocent rectangular identification tablet comforts me. It says, "Hey, I'm here to help."

Or do they? Mark my words: Beware of those who wear name tags. Name tags don't mean a goddamn thing. They are useful pieces of deception, and most importantly, rarely recognized as so.

My first realization that a name-tagged person is not always a qualified, certified, and moralized person occurred while I was in Morocco. Actually, it happened when I was leaving Morocco:

Having arrived from Fez at the Tangiers train station much later than expected, I had approximately 10 minutes to get from the train station to the port and to the soon-to-depart ferry that would take me to Spain.
Dashing out the station doors, duffel bag awkwardly in tow and hat on head, I run across the front car park and take the first petit-taxi I come across on the main road. The driver is literally beckoning me, waving me on into his car, like I'm some kind of marathon runner. Mistake. I jump in the back door, sweating and short of breath. Mistake. This guy knows that he's got me by the balls. I'm fucked before he even opened his mouth. We start negotiating the price (a necessity in the Islamic world), but I'm in a hurry and I don't have time to negotiate. I need to get going. The driver, obviously, knows this. Fucking Stevie Wonder would know this. He's got me by the balls.
"Just go!" I shout, in a restrained manner. (I think I said "vamos!", trying to hide the fact that I was American [many people speak Spanish in Tangiers], because, as an American, I apparently have money. Not willing to disappoint the driver with the fact that I was broke, I tried to hide my nationality anyway)
"No, no." my smiling antagonist oozed. He wanted to talk prices.
"Five euros!" I stupidly shout. That's about 10-15 times the actual price and maybe a half day's wages for him.

Needless to say, we leave.

Driving down the main road, I'm sitting in the back seat, bag across my lap, checking my watch constantly. I just need this guy to stop somewhere close to the port and then I'll hop out and run the rest of the way. I'm fucked. I'm late. Come on. The boat is about to leave and I will be stuck in fucking Tangiers-- and the sun is about to set. The driver stops at the front gate and I quickly throw him a five euro note. He has the cajones, the fucking gall, the goddamn audacity to ask, innocently, "Tip?"
I sneer. "You're kidding me" or something in that rude sort of vain and hop out.
I take off running towards the boat.

Running up a long ramp that leads to the customs house, I know that I am seconds away from missing this boat. I dash through the front door, looking for the next checkpoint or visa station. Anything. Just get me on that boat. A man comes running up to me and seizes my left arm, "Hurry! Hurry! Boat leaves soon!" We rush to the right a short distance and to the customs window. Awesome. He asks me for my passport. I look, and see he is wearing a name tag.

STOP.

Why did I trust this guy? Not even that. Why, without thinking, without blinking, did I hand this random fucking guy my passport?
Because he was wearing a name tag.

Wanker.

I give this guy my passport and he starts filling out a piece of paper he has next to him-- quite illegibly and in haste. I stand there, anxiously, looking at the customs window. Imagine it: Me- standing, waiting, looking. Dude- scribbling, smiling, referencing my passport. It dawned on me. This fucker doesn't work for customs. He's scamming me. And, he has my passport.

"Stop!" I shout, a little too loudly.
He doesn't let go of my passport-- so I grab it.
We are both holding on to my passport, pulling it in opposite directions, tug of war style. He is smiling. I am fucking furious.
"Fuck off" I hiss as I wrench it from his hands.
"Tip?" he smiles, like a weasel.
As the sweat drips down my cheek, I whisper an obscenity. I stomp over to the customs official who, behind his bullet proof glass, is grinning a little too much. He's seen this before.
I get my passport stamped, curse the Moroccan government, sprint, and make it to the ramp of the boat (with the crewmen shouting at me to hurry up), just in time. I get on board, sit, and start writing about what just happened.

Lesson: Don't trust people with name tags.

ps. Also, don't trust street protesters with name tags who try to get your money or get your email address. Who the hell are they? What are they trying to prove with their name tags and t-shirts? Legitimacy? No. No soup for you. I can print up a name tags, scrawl a catchy and rebellious organization name across the top, and do the same thing.
Fool me once...

Pardon Me, But I'm Coming

What a gem of a video. This is Sam and Dave, rocking out their hit "Hold On I'm Coming". Besides a funky ass break down mid way through the tune, check out the backing band. Look familiar, all you Rock historians out there?

That's right. Booker T and the MGs. Steve Cropper and Co. are just rocking out the place and I can't get enough of it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_juH0AHvwk&feature=related




If, like me, you can't get enough great 60s R&B, and once you start you can't stop, here are a few more videos to hold you over:

"Shotgun"-- Jr Walker and the All Stars
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMs9NudasVI&NR=1

"Ain't Too Proud to Beg"-- The Temptations
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfyFI-4ZsaE&feature=related

"In the Midnight Hour"-- Wilson Pickett
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KFYUJ63nk8&feature=related

"Rescue Me"-- Fontella Bass
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXSocE_M1G4

Cream de la Cream

I used shaving cream for the first time in about 6 months today.

While in London, I have picked up the curious habit of refusing to use shaving cream. I am not sure why. It must have been that I went into the bathroom one day, fully intending on using my Barbasol Beard Busting Cream, when, alas, there was none. I probably stared, forlorn, into the empty space in my cabinet that was usually occupied by said BBBC for a couple of moments. The inevitable awaited: I had a decision to make. To shave, or not to shave.

Given societal standards of conduct- I shaved, with only a bit of water dabbed onto my neck. (Did I mention, I only needed to shave my neck? I don't shave my face. Ever. I rock the stubble.)

Ever since then, I have never used shaving cream. I simply soak my neck in hot water, grab a razor and have at it. At first, I'll admit, it was difficult. My skin would get beet red and occasionally bleed. But, like a Kung Fu monk's fists, after repeated abuse I have finally made myself strong. Now I can drag those twin shards of precision cut steel across the most sensitive of skin (that area where my chin’s horizontal underside meets my vertical neck, in the vicinity of my Adam’s apple) and walk away smiling. I’m not smiling because I look good. I’m smiling because I did it.

The intelligent thing to do would be to just buy some more shaving cream. It’s cheap, effective, and the most manly of cosmetics. But, I think the reason I don’t use it is, well, truthfully, I want to be ready--

Ready, if I ever have to go back to ‘Nam.

Dissolve…
(Cue “Time of the Seasons”- The Zombies)

Equality Undermines Religious Freedom

It seems so easy nowadays to criticize the Pope and the Catholic Church, but when Benny 16 lobs you an underhand floater like this one, you can't resist knocking it out of the park.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/pope-ill-visit-but-i-dont-like-your-equality-laws-1885788.html

This quote is brilliant:
“In a social milieu that encourages the expression of a variety of opinions on every question that arises, it is important to recognise dissent for what it is, and not to mistake it for a mature contribution to a balanced and wide-ranging debate,” he said. “It is the truth revealed through scripture and tradition and articulated by the Church’s Magisterium that sets us free.”

I gotta tell you, [insert dictator's name] couldn't have said it any better. I mean, who are we to argue-- sorry, dissent from-- the Truth?! Who are we to acknowledge equality in society when such a thing is expressly forbidden by the Church? After all, it was revealed through scripture (that nobody knows who wrote or when it was written), and through tradition- which as Woody Allen quipped "is the illusion of permanence".

Your bigotry is astounding, Pope. Shame on you. Shame on you.

Decreeing those who disagree with your divine diktats as "dissenters" is dirty and downright dangerous. I'm sure the Iranian public would agree with me.
It seems you and Ayatollah Khamenei have at least one thing in common.

Butterbrot

Moments ago, I was reading an article for my World War II class, and in it they mention Butterbrot-- Bread and butter. Immediately, the image of white bread with smooth yellow butter came to mind and it reminded me of home.

There are certain foods that I will forever associate with home (and when I use the word "home" I am also placing a time period on it, namely, my 8-16 year old youth). Bread and butter is one of them. It's the kind of thing I would never order in a restaurant or make for myself at my flat. It's too bland, too boring, too unhealthy. But, it holds a special place for me. It is my youth. I can see it and taste it right now: A piece of white bread, slathered in soft butter (sometimes margarine), folded in half (that's the way we ate it). I never really enjoyed the fabric-like ribbon of crust, but our family wasn't one of those "cut off the crust" families. I had it rough. I ate that charred and thoroughly unappetizing protective shield so that I could get to the best part: that first bite of pure white bread. My teeth would sink easily through the fluffy whiteness and finally hit the cool, salty butter that resided inside. I distinctly remember that when I took the bite and looked back at the piece of bread, I could see the row of impressions my little teeth left in the butter. At this point, I would probably dip the bread and butter into a big plate of spaghetti-- actually, we usually ate penne-- with "meat sauce" as we called it (looking back, that sounds like such a 1930's Depression Era way of describing/naming the sauce my father made [it was a "let's not discuss this" point in my family that Dad made better "meat sauce" than Mom]. "Meat sauce". It's funny that we called it that), to mop up the tomato and chop meat goodness.

Amazing how a simple passing reference to a German worker's lunch snack brings back so many vivid personal memories.

It's for this reason that I am deathly afraid of having children of my own. I feel like I would warp them, or try so hard not to warp them that, inevitably, I would end up warping them even more. I am fully aware that I would try to control these types of memory associations-- or at least be deathly paranoid about them. For example, God forbid I give the kid a kiwi and he/she doesn't like it. I'd be like "Oh great. Now the kid is gonna have a kiwi-complex for the rest of its life. Great job Matt, you fucked up this kid's childhood."

Pity be the child who gets half my genes.

Same Shit, Different Country.

Like a polyp floating through the ocean, I too have finally broken free from the substrate that is my desk. I have renounced the sessile lifestyle and denounced my stagnant situation!

I joined a gym.

There isn't much worth noting about European gyms. But, like the philosopher Vincent Vega once said "It's the little differences. I mean, they got the same shit over there that we got here, but it's just – it's just there it's a little different."

First of all: nudity. At home, it's a necessity. Sure, sometimes you gotta show some stuff when you're changing or if you are walking over to the showers. It happens-- let's not make a big deal out of it. Here, holy shit. Dudes are standing there, scratching their second scalp, chatting on their cell phones, making business plans, discussing recent weather conditions, applying lotion to their forearms. For fuck's sake, throw a towel on! It's called "common courtesy", and for some of them, I call it a favor.
(Side note: I only relate this for the purposes of full disclosure and for observational integrity. Dudes don't get "the snip" down there, over here. Just doesn't happen. It sort of surprised me, but no big deal.)

Second: kilometres and kilograms. I guess I should have guessed this was going to happen, and it shouldn't come as a big surprise. However, I still feel slightly ashamed when I take the weights from the left side of the rack. With some patience, sweat, determination, and substance abuse, I can eventually work my way to the middle of the rack. But that bottom rack-- oh that bottom rack. It is the dragon I cannot slay. The kingdom I cannot conquer. The maiden I cannot mount. It is the Holy Grail and I am brave Sir Robbins. For "when danger reared its ugly head, he bravely turned his tail and fled."

Third: Commitment. There is an electronic display panel near the treadmills that displays advertisements, music videos, and things of that nature that one can mindlessly stare at while running. (Note: Some of the music videos shown are a little too sexy for me. I mean, I won't get into detail, but some of them make me kind of "hot"-- and it ain't from the running, if you know what I mean.)
Occasionally the gym sees the need to advertise itself- in the gym- to those who are already members. Right. Well, one of the messages said "The member with the highest number of visits has come every day for the past few years!"
Are you kidding? That's a record? Have you ever been to the Upper West Side, you low-expectation 12 volt bitch? Every day is nothing. How many times a day, every day, do some New Yorkers go? That's the question... you 3 pin pussy.

Sorry.

Fourth: Sanitation. Example- it costs money to get a towel. Yeah, I have to pay one pound each time I use a towel here. Most don't partake in my American-inspired germaphobia and prefer instead to feel their heads dip into that sweat-soggy leather backrest. I could puke. Needless to say, I bring a towel.

And that's about it. It's not too different, but I enjoy the subtlety.