we are how we behave. I agree. It's interesting to watch people in
progress (i.e., those under sixty-three) grapple with moral-social
questions
as if there really is an answer out there beyond their own
indoctrination,
impulses and imagination.
Yet here I am closing in quickly on 65 and still childish enough to
believe
that Obama will matter, at least for my children and grandchildren (btw,
three days ago I was presented with another grandchild -- everything's
going
grandly, thank you. Photos to follow). Like fretful Irene, I fret over
the
future for my grandkids. All the while I should be fretting over the
present of me. Business has slowed. Anyone need some HVAC/R work? Or
carpentry. Or electrical? Or plumbing? Or yard work?? -- anything but
computers -- call me.
Mike Geary
----- Original Message -----
From: "Eric Yost" <mr.eric.yost@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, October 25, 2008 12:18 AM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: last honest reporter missing
> >>why aren't you outraged that the people who messed
> up so seriously, the CEO's and hedge fund managers and others, are not
> only not being fired or sent to prison, but they're given the 700
> billion
> to gamble away?
>
>
> The spa trip of the bailed-out money crunchers bothered me. (Even Bush
> denounced it.) It's also easy to imagine all these "celebrity CEOs" and
> money mavens hanging from lamp posts in every town and village. In
> fact,
> the sudden rise of CEOs American style -- was it Lee Iaccoca who
> started
> it? -- always bothered me.
>
> It offends me because it announces a de facto aristocracy in a country
> that had historically freed itself from the paradigm of inherited
> aristocracy in favor of what Jefferson dreamed of as "natural
> aristocracy."
>
> Yeah lamp posts ... $3,000 dollar shoes swinging in the wind. Crows
> coming
> to peck cold eyes ... distended tongues flapping from expensive
> orthodontics.
>
> Then I stop.
>
> I realize "the other side" (ha-ha!) is using that demotic sense of
> class
> envy to promote their own ascendancy to more and more power.
>
> I realize that, as a hintergedanke, in the back of my mind, is envy.
> Just
> envy. The ugly face of envy. An imaginary envy too, envy foisted on me,
> since I never craved wealth or power in my own life. Have I ever wanted
> a
> job in management? No. Have I ever tried to become a captain of
> industry
> but was rebuffed? No. Have I pursued any of the things to which these
> executives have devoted their lives? No. Will their suffering improve
> the
> world? No. Do I want to spend whatever time remains of my life in
> pursuit
> of such goods? No.
>
> So I take the crooked execs down from their lamp posts. Revive the
> lynched
> beau monde. Pull apart the barricades and quit the rampage. The status
> anxiety abates.
>
> We all get what we deserve in time, namely being ourselves.
>
> Serving time,
> Eric
>
>
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