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Since 2008 – Progress Through Politics

Lounge: What's my secret? It ain't Old Spice!

Bill Kristol

Jarring, isn’t it?

I have a secret, and it’s all about Billy.  If you want to find out, follow me after the fold!

Well folks, things are getting bad all over.  

About two months ago, I watched a movie called “Kitt Kitteredge,” with my daughter.  For those among you without access to an overstimulated “Tweener” in the target demographic, it’s an offshoot from the American Girl Doll franchise.

At any rate, these types of movies are usually mid-level productions, with fading “B” actors, and a Hallmark style message.  This one seems to stand above the rest, and it’s a story about the Great Depression. The movie essentially chronicles the economic deterioration of a middle class neighborhood.

As the deterioration continues, an interesting marker of poverty emerges in this middle class neighborhood:  The keeping of chickens and the selling of eggs.  The main character (Abigail Breslin), is mortified to think that her family could fall to that level.

One day…she discovers that her dad has lost his job.

One of the first things that she asks her dad is:  “Are we going to have to sell eggs now?”

I’ll give you one guess what my 9 year old daughter asked me yesterday.  

It’s actually not a silly question, since I live in Portland, Oregon and each household is allowed by law to keep two chickens on their property, (I’m getting two roosters…more on that later).

…but the main message of this movie, is coming together in mutual support during difficult times.  Moreover, people start to focus on finding new uses for old things…reusing and making useful those tools and objects that are broken or obsolete.

Here’s my thought:  Let’s find a use for Bill Kristol.  Now, it may be stretch, but I think that we can pull together and find a useful purpose for this tool.

First, let’s analyze the material that we have in front of us:

He obviously possesses a public platform from which to speak.  

While some may say:  “Wait!  Didn’t the NYT fire him?”  

Fear not, the Washington Post saw fit to put him on their payroll, and Billy is back at dispensing his wisdom.  

But how can that be useful to us?

Well, we know that he’s wrong, almost 100% of the time.  For those folks with an understanding of statistics, this is just as impressive as being right 100% of the time.

It’s actually remarkable that Billy has been so consistently wrong.

Monkeys pounding on keyboards will occasionally come up with the right answer.  Bill has had to work very hard to avoid the accidental, random, rightness that we would expect to see occasionally from lower order primates.

This remarkable consistency actually makes him a useful tool as a policy prediction device.  

Obama must recognize that if he just pays attention to Billy boy, and does the exact opposite of what he recommends, he may achieve something close to a 100% success rate.

Call the WH!  Get the message out!  Bang on metal buckets on your back porch, and shout it out to your neighbors, (ignore their looks, they’ll adjust).

Recycle and reuse!  That’s my motto!

Cheers,

-Stipes!


Categories: Uncategorized.

/ 55 Comments

55 comments

  3. HappyinVT

    Charles, George, and Peggy.  If he just does the opposite of what they all said, he should be fine.  He might have talked a little baseball, too.

  4. Peter Jukes

    The chickens have finally hatched. Or something like that.

    WARNING LONG MIDNIGHT UK TIME COMMENT AHEAD.

    But you know what: I see your point. This financial crisis has hit the UK particularly hard. Since the City (our Wall Street) has mushroomed in the last twenty years, it dominates our economy in a much more serious way than in the US. We’re not quite like Iceland, needing an IMF loan, but we might be close. And while I feel the pinch and look around at my fellow Brits and feel for them, there is a silver lining in this goose’s not-gold-egg

    Your fucked up metaphors are infectious, Stipes.

    For me, in my late 40s, I’ve seen every smart mathematician, chemist, engineer, goddamit even linguists, sucked into that vortex of merchant banks, derivatives and stock brokers ever since I left college (my first big love was one of them). They always told me, with a wink, what a scam it was: how they made millions on their own accounts, while their clients made less: how they could become hedge fund managers and make 20 million in a few years, often by shorting important stock and speculating on disaster. I stood by, swallowed a bit of envy (come on, who doesn’t like skiing in the morning and jet skiing in the afternoon) and assumed that was the way the world was. Ordinary people: multimillionaires.

    But it turned out it was huge Ponzi scheme of Reaganomic deregulation, and while I hate the fact that anyone is short of money, this cultural revaluation is somehow overdue.

    I’m suffering with this downturn, and will continue to suffer no doubt, but one thing I won’t feel: that there’s a way of making a living out there merely by passing the buck, literally, to future generations. It’s obvious now that the big money was made on the back of ordinary people: through sub primes, pensions, securitised debt. It was our money, our homes, our credit, that was used, and we all bought into the get rich, pay later way of life.

    I’m not A puritan. In fact the reverse. And what I realise now is that you can’t expect to pay off in the future. You’ve got to pay off now. And I don’t just mean money: I mean living your life rather than buying it for later. I mean enjoying the simple pleasures of family, friends, neighbours, communities, the city, without dreaming of ‘vesting out’ as a billionaire at some later date, when you’ll finally get to see your friends again (if they still recognise you) and you finally get to talk to your kids (if they’re not already in rehab), and you finally decide what has value to you, rather than the values that are imposed on you by the stock market, or Interiors Magazine, or what you think you’re owed, rather than what you’ve earned.

    I’ll repeat the phrase I wrote in your return diary:

    Riches are measured in money, but wealth is measured in time.

    And if you have time to spend with your daughter, even if you’re catching projectile vomit; and if you’ve got time to spend with us, even if you’re collecting projectile comments; then you’re a wealthy man Stipes.  

  7. rfahey22

    Weren’t we debating a few weeks ago whether a new opposition party would arise from their ashes?  Clearly that debate will have to be postponed for a while.  I can’t believe we have to not only fix the world but deal with these people at the same time.

  8. Michelle

    So I was totally distracted by the ad that got placed on the page when reading this diary and the comments…and I just had to post the image of the ad because it made me laugh!

    Photobucket

    Let me know how the chicken/rooster keeping thing goes for ya, Stipes!

    Photobucket

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