Opuscula

Literary Persona

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Glines) — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 01:10:00 +0000

Irene Koronas, poetry editor for Wilderness House Literary Review, posed the question: what mythology do you create for yourself as a writer? your habits: the way you dress, write, where you take vacations, who you associate with, etc.?

My parents and grandparents had a thing about writers and being a writer. My grandfather wrote several dozen books and my mother was a freelance journalist. I don’t think either was particularly good at it but for me their major impact was their absolute reverence for the profession or avocation of writer. They held the title of author in total awe. As part of our religion of the author my mother dragged me to readings and lectures for years. I met Carl Sandburg, Saul Bello, Robert Frost, and a few other luminaries whose names escape me now. They didn’t mean much to me then.

On Sunday afternoons, after church, my grandfather would sit us down, my cousins, my brother and I, and read stories and poems before a formal dinner that lasted well past my bed time. He would reverently read Keets, Kipling and e e cummings as if they were the latest books of the bible. The word of God. Alleluia.

Saturdays were far less formal and not universally observed. In the summer my grandfather would hold court on his expansive porch. There were three or four wicker couches and another four or five chairs scattered casually around three glass top tables. Forty feet of fragrant unkempt roses marked the edge of the overhang. People came and went while my grandfather drank martinis from a cut crystal glass in his overstuffed chair just outside the door to his study. They would congregate in small groups, two or three at a time. The police chief and the head of the union negotiating at one table while the three selectmen played cards with my grandfather at another and the president of the garden club gossiped with my grandmother on the last. Bessie MacDermott, the aging and very scotch ‘member of the household,’ served hors d' oeuvres.

My mother would prepare for these Saturday gatherings by typing up “talking points” and carefully packaging her creations both literary and culinary before heading over to “the big house.” We lived in the coachman’s cottage at the back of the property. Once town business was over and the local luminaries had left my mother would charge over to my grandfather, sit down and start reading something she had written. He would nod thoughtfully, perhaps make a comment or two before pulling a sheaf of papers from under a table next to his chair and proceed to read his own scribbling. I mostly fell asleep on one of the sofas to the drone of someone’s voice reading a newly minted story or poem. It wasn’t hard to decide that I too wanted to be a writer.

Later, after my grandparents had died, after my father had died, after the town placed a tax lien on the property and after the water main to our cottage broke we were finally forced to sell and move. I went up to the attic in the big house the day before the estate auctioneer emptied it. There were 23 crates full of books, three feet by three feet by eight feet, my great grandfather’s library, to be sold by the linear foot. I broke into one crate and removed from the top layer, a first edition of Shelly’s collected works signed by Mary Shelly, a first edition of the Lewis and Clark expedition and a few other books. I took all that I could carry on the back of my Yamaha 250 motorcycle as I headed to Cambridge in the fall of 1970.

I knew I wanted to be a writer when I walked into the Grolier Poetry Book Shop that fall (Gordon Carnie remind me of my grandfather) but I was not a writer. I had not written a single published word. That was, strictly speaking, not true. I had written a story in Junior High School about the formation of social cliques at puberty that won an Honorable Mention in some national writing contest that all 8th graders in my school were forced to enter and it was printed in the Hartford Currant. But just because I could write better than most 7th graders who entered the competition didn’t signify my arrival at the sacred alter as a published writer. I felt humbled walking into the great libraries of Harvard and MIT as well as the Coop and Harvard Book store, I still do. I felt the same way walking into the Grolier. There were live writers there. When Alan Ginsburg walked in I unescorted was dumbstruck, when Robert Creeley, Charles Olsen and others casually wandered in I studied them: how did they become writers, how were they different?

There were a lot of “writers” hanging around the Grolier in those days. Some went on to actually write things of note but many, if not most, preferred the acclaim accorded a “writer” more than the labor and passion of actually writing. I learned that most of the people who called themselves writers were not. The same was true when, years later, after I had written four or five books and deemed myself ready to be called a journeyman writer, I joined the National Writers Union. We would meet once or twice a month for beer and schmoozing and I was surprised to discover that only three or four members, out of twenty or so who regularly attended, had actually published anything. I became a seasoned professional (in some eyes) overnight. It was embarrassing.

However in the grand order of things a technical writer (which is what I had become) sat only above advertising copywriters in the world of literary distain. My works were not creative. (Says who?) I quit the union, stopped going to poetry readings and ceased calling myself a “writer” and only fessed up, if pressed, to being an occasional scribbler and poet of no great regard. This change in outward persona did two things for me. I didn’t have to live up to be a “writer”, whatever that meant (and I wasn’t sure) and I stopped trying to write anything of significance. This was quite a relief. It freed me to actually enjoy what I wrote. I wrote a column in a technical journal about an over caffeinated, sleep deprived computer geek who worked for the mob. I wrote a column on local politics, covered school committee and planning board meetings and acquired a taste for Scotch which I drank in copious quantities hours before my deadlines. I had fantasies of becoming a beat journalist. It didn’t pay. Eventually I stopped writing altogether. No one would pay for it and even the freebees were being rejected. For years I was a consumer of literature not a creator

I returned to the world of the scribbler when I first met when I first met Irene Koronas she looked at me and said, “You don’t look like a poet.” And so it goes.

Merry/Happy/Peaceful

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Glines) — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 21:13:00 +0000

Hanukkah/Christmas/Kwanzaa/Solstice/
--
Steve Glines
ISCSPress.com
145 Foster Street
Littleton MA 01460

Review of Jennifer Eagen’s “A visit from the Goon Squad”

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Glines) — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 11:44:00 +0000

I didn't like it. There is something about the last few Pulitzer winners that I haven't liked. I read the books and think, "how the hell did this ever get published?" Such is the case of A visit from the Goon Squad where we learn the story of an aging pop music promoter and his entourage but each chapter takes place somewhere different in time. We bounce forward, backward but when the disjointed chapters are brought together there is isn't much of a story.

The only book I can compare it with stylistically is Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury. The book is written almost as a stream of consciousness with independent scenes that do nothing for the story. Faulkner at least started in the present and flashed back. Egan starts somewhere near the present and flashes back to high school and forward to some science fiction future where everyone talks like a text message and eschews tattoos.

While here isn't much of a story as conventional novels go I will admit to enjoying the almost flawless narrative. This is a literary novel. I would love to know the chain of events that lead to its being published.

I'll be at "The Writers Confrence at Hunter College" June 4th

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Glines) — Fri, 06 May 2011 12:43:00 +0000

Writers' Conference and Intensives The Writers’ Conference, now at Hunter College, is widely considered one of the finest fiction and non-fiction conferences. In addition to keynote speakers Nelson DeMille and Walter Mosley, the Writers’ Conference will feature twelve panels with a total of seventy distinguished writers, editors, publicists and literary agents promoting hope for the new age of publishing. Meg Wolitzer, Betsey Lerner, and Bruce Friedman will be conducting intensive workshops in the days leading up to the conference.

http://www.hunter.cuny.edu/ce/the-writing-center/writers-conference-and-intensives

What's next?

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Glines) — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 22:12:00 +0000

For the past two years and then some I have been writing a novel which is why the number of blog entries here have been few and far between. It takes a lot of mental energy and concentration to write a novel. Over that period I have not written a single poem and only one or two short stories that popped up spontaneously. This novel was long overdue. Poplar Hill, this particular novel started out as a chronicle the life of my mother and her family. They were an American aristocratic family. There aren’t many of them left and they have mostly been replaced by the gouache vulgarity of the Donald Trumps of the world.

I abandoned the first attempt at writing this story when it became apparent that the main character was not going to be Kitty Stevenson but her nanny Bessie MacDermot. I am tempted to make Bessie’s story the second in a series. Bessie’s real story is that my grandparents, as was the custom, made a pass through the orphanages of Ireland searching for intelligent children about to be cast off into the wild at age 12 but willing, grateful even, to be offered a life of service. Bessie, at age 11 plus was whisked away from the orphanage she grew up in and sent to New York where she was trained to become a nanny. The book is written from the perspective of the 104 year old Bessie living alone in a nursing home in Florida having outlived all the children of those she served. It wasn’t the story I wanted to write then so I stopped writing it.

The second attempt clicked. Here is the briefest possible synopsis:

Poplar Hill is in the middle of the biggest ice storm in a century and Kitty Stevenson is having a heart attack. Her friends and neighbors mount an effort to save her. As she winds her way through the medical system, Kitty decides that as long as she has a story to tell she won’t die, so she tells her life’s story to Barb Barb is Kitty’s closest friend, confident and ultimately caretaker. Kitty came from a wealthy New York family. When Kitty was six she was put in an austere French convent school. During the Depression Kitty was told to leave the convent and find her own way home. After high school Kitty went to Germany to study opera and spend the money her father had invested there after World War One. Hitler had blocked the Mark. Since Kitty couldn’t take the money out of Germany she spent it. She lived the Cabaret lifestyle, she was Sally Bowles but with money. She photographed the Dachau concentration, shook Neville Chamberlains hand and met Hitler face to face on the eve of “Kristallnacht.” When thugs broke the windows of Jewish shops, she took in and protected her Jewish neighbors. As one crisis followed another, she found herself on a Jewish refugee boat heading to Palestine, in a Swiss chalet and on a train to Vienna during the Austrian Anschluss. She escaped Germany, just days before Hitler invaded Poland, arriving in New York on a German ship that had been ordered back to Germany by Hitler. Kitty’s quick thinking convinced the ship’s Captain to continue on to New York.

Of two dozen literary agents only one has sniffed at it and asked to see more, many have dismissed the proposal with a curt form email while the majority are as yet silent. The literary ecosystem is badly broken but that’s not a windmill I’m going to spend much energy tilting at, at least not today.

So the story of Kitty Stevenson is largely done. While I wait impatiently for my readers to tell me where I need to polish I am confident that it won’t need a major overhaul. So while there is still work to be done on Poplar Hill my mind is wandering elsewhere. It wonders indecisively examining all the projects I’ve started and abandoned or simply outlined. As I said before Bessie MacDermot is high on the list.

The idea that I think I will do next is Tale of the Dragon. If Poplar Hill is based on the life of Kitty Stevenson Glines, then Tale of the Dragon is based on the journal of my father, E. Stanley Glines as he worked in China in 1920 – 1935. Think of a more sedate American version of Harry Flashman showing up at every major event in the history of modern china. He lived the life in 1920 Shanghai, shot his way out of a train robbery on his way to Peking, discovered that he was an unwitting gun smuggler and ran for his life as Cossack army bore down on Ulin Bator in Outer Mongolia. It’s the wild, wild west but in China. Sun Yet Sen, Mao Tse Dung and other characters wander through this work of near baroque art.

Also on the list and the nearest to completion in terms of words written (about 25,000) is War Stories. War Stories takes place in a run down bar in Watertown Massachusetts. The narrator is the bartender who listens to two old veterans and a civilian tell war stories. Most of the stories revolve around a vet who is never present but is the former roommate of the only civilian in the crowd. The story is fashioned after The Waves by Virginia Woolf, which has five characters and a very present, yet absent, sixth character around which the conversation revolves. In War Stories Jack and Peter Grimsey start out as roommates right after Jack returns from Vietnam. Jack and Peter both love sailing so they buy a sailboat together and there the problems begin. Jack is always almost sinking their boat and has adopted a fatalistic approach to life. The other two Vets are an old Navy Chief who served during Korea and the other, the owner of the bar is a ROTC marine Captain who spent the Vietnam War as an embassy guard. They have their stories to tell but none compare to the stories of Jack who lives to talk about it, he has 5 purple hearts, a bronze star, a silver star and is nominated for a Congressional Medal of Honor and is also charged with attempted murder of an officer and escapes Vietnam by blowing opium smoke in the face of an Air Force colonel.

War Stories is a must finish book but it’s not the next one I want to work on, I have three more. The first novel I started changed names many times but the last title was “A brief history of Avalon.” Avalon for short, is about the history of Newfoundland after Québec succeeds from Canada and the United States breaks up and balkanizes after defaulting on its debt. Obviously this story takes place in the not too distant future. Québec is determined to not only become a major force in North America but to reclaim the lost French territories in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. France having become an international superpower after taking over the EU intends to join with Québec in reclaiming dominance over North America. Only Newfoundland can stop this from happening and Johnny D., an expatriate American history buff and engineer, is called on to defeat a French juggernaut. Since novels take on a life of their own once you start to write them I had to quit when I wrote myself into a corner where Johnny D had to be killed. I think I have more discipline now and can control the story.

The next idea is the one I’m most passionate about, besides Bessie, and the least developed idea is Jury Duty. Jury Duty is based on my experiences with the U.S. Judicial system. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve never been in any serious trouble but I’ve made it a point to watch how a trial went and how my petty dealings with the court system unfolded. I’m not encouraged. Petty corruption is rife and when I was called to jury duty for a murder trial I let loose my thoughts on the presiding judge. He was not amused and threatened me with contempt. I dared him to hold a juror in contempt when all I did was truthfully answer his questions. I told him I had seen cops blatantly lie on the stand, prosecutors knowingly make false statements and defendants’ attorneys so incompetent Perry Mason, or the actor who played him could have done better. I told him that a tie goes to the runner and to convict there could not be the slightest shadow of a doubt in my mind regardless of his instructions. When he objected I reminded him of the principle of Jury Nullification. That’s when he got mad. The tenor of the novel would be that of Twelve Angry Men but aimed at the system instead. I need to develop an outline and plot.

Finally, I have a Creative Non-Fiction project started years ago but abandoned when I realized how much research it would take. I spent about 2 years developing this project complete with a detailed list of items I needed to research: The Arc Effect.

What if the lost Ark of the Covenant of Israel were real? What if how it worked could be demonstrated? What if it could be shown to exist today, hidden in a church in Africa? What if the lost Ark of the Covenant were just the tip of the technological Iceberg?

In 1990, Graham Hancock published a book titled “The Sign and the Seal.” He detailed, via literary evidence, the travels of the Ark of the Covenant from its creation on Mt. Sinai through its disappearance and subsequent possible travel to Ethiopia. There is also just enough evidence in the literature to deduce how the Ark may have worked. If I am right I can not only recreate the effects of the Ark I can also confirm if the Ark is indeed in Axum Ethiopia as Hancock suggests.

Chapter 1 - The Nature of Insight

Chapter 2 - The Tablets of Moses - The literary effects of the tablets of Moses are illuminated, as are the effects of radiation. They are shown to be identical.

Chapter 3 - The Design of the Ark - The literary design of the Ark is discussed, as is the design of the cloths and accouterments that accompany the Ark. It is shown that the Ark displays a different set of attributes from the tablets themselves. The origins of the ark and the history of its behavior and migrations.

Chapter 4 - The Enigma of the Ark - The problem of reconciling two different phenomena is discussed and a solution proposed. Historic precedent is shown. A verity of cause and effects are looked at and rejected. The Ark with the tablets enclosed display the attributes of a highly charged body. The effects of the Ark are can best be described as St. Elmo's fire.

Chapter 5 - The Ark Effect - The mechanics of the Van De Graff generator are shown. The mechanics of radiation induced charge is documented and shown and a theory of how the ark worked is displayed.

Part II - History Reconsidered

Chapter 6 - The Challenge - The accepted view of the History of Science is presented.

Chapter 7 - History Reconsidered - Evidence that the accepted history of science is wrong.

Part III - History Reconstructed

Chapter 8 - The Egyptian Scientist - Imenhetop and the gods of Khnum.

Chapter 9 - The Ancient Scribe - It is shown that there are ample literary allusions to radioactive substances.

Chapter 10 - The Travels of Moses - Placing Moses in the right place at the right time; means motive and opportunity

Part IV - The Philosophers Stone

Chapter 11 - Finding the Right Stuff - Geological explorations in Sinai and Egypt

Chapter 12 - Modern Alchemy - The simple chemistry of turning ore into the tablets of Moses

Chapter 13 - The Ark of the Covenant - Building a modern prototype

Part IV - The Quest

Chapter 14 - The Search for the Lost Ark of the Covenant, a trip to Axum

Allegedly perpetrating a crime

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Glines) — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 01:39:00 +0000

It was the third time this week the reporter had stood in the middle of the street to report a bank robbery by saying, “The alleged perpetrator exited the building, hopped in a getaway car and took off at a high rate of speed and is still at large.” The first time I heard this I laughed. This was a professional reporter whose eloquence is supposed to set an example. Where did this guy learn his English? By the third time he said this I called the station to complain. There must be hundreds of English teachers cringing every time they turn on the news and listen to a reporter trying to sound as tough (and as stupid) as the first cop on the scene. “The alleged perpetrator of the crime,” he said. Is he really questioning the commission of a crime? According to Merriam-Webster word alleged means “said without proof, to have taken place.” He could have just said, “After robbing the bank the perpetrator hopped in a car and left the scene.” Not as dramatic but more accurate if you actually believe the cops that someone robbed the bank.

Why did the perpetrator have to take off at a “high rate of speed?” Allow me to parse this abomination. Speed is already a rate as measured in miles per hour, inches per second, etc. So a high rate of speed should mean that the speed is changing quickly. Isn’t that called acceleration? The reporter could have said: “The robber ran out of the bank, hopped in his getaway car and got away leaving a trail of burning rubber in his wake.”

He could have said that but then he would have sounded smarter than the cop he interviewed.

Understanding Libya

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Glines) — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 12:35:00 +0000

Everything I know about Libya I know second hand from an ex-pat petroleum engineer who lived in Libya for almost 20 years. This is what he tells me:

The Libyans are considered to be the hillbillies of the Arab world; in general the Libyans aren’t well educated, they still live in a tribal culture and generally behave like spoiled children when traveling abroad in other Arab countries. They are not well liked. What is well liked is Libyan money and they have a lot of it. So much that it attracted petroleum engineers from around the world more than willing to violate their own government’s embargoes to go work there. A Texan once said, “Oh yeah, the US government is going to tell me where I can and can’t work. Right! Can they tell me where I’m going to find a job in Dallas? No!”

There is no native Middle Class in Libya. The professional classes are imported from other Arab countries as guest workers or are members of the now permanent Palestinian Diaspora. It’s these last that form the bulk of the Libyan professional infrastructure. Having no place to go home to so these Palestinians have taken root in Libya and form the bulk of middle management in both industry and the Libyan military. Indeed while the majority of the officers in the Libyan army are members of the tribes loyal to Kaddafi it is also true that the bulk of the non-commissioned officer ranks, the sergeants, are well trained and disciplined Palestinian mercenaries. Their loyalties are clear; their well being is, for the present, tied to Kaddafi. Change that and you change the outcome of the civil war in Libya.

When the revolt began there were reports of large numbers of military units defecting to the opposition only to turn into the undisciplined rabble being reported in the media today. There should be little wonder why this happened when most of the officers as well as all the NCO up and left leaving a hollow core of undisciplined recruits.

So why hasn’t Kaddafi crushed the revolt? I suspect the revolution is as much a palace revolt as it is a genuine uprising and Kaddafi is reluctant to let any large army assemble so he is content, for the moment, to use his mostly mercenary air force on obvious targets while allowing small units of his Army to prove their loyalty by local butchery. If I’m right then Libya will descend into the kind of lawless chaos we see in Somalia. I think one of Kaddafi’s sons said as much.

China Goes to Nixon

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Glines) — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 16:21:00 +0000

I love reading this series. It reminds me of the thesis I would have written if I hadn’t run out of money (Oh the irony). This is why the current slump we’re I isn’t a normal business cycle:

A “normal” business cycle is relatively simple; it’s a swing between short term inventory and employment. When the supply of goods is low (relative to demand) then the demand for workers to create those goods goes up and with that wages and prices and demand. This pushes both inflation and inventory until inventory is appropriate for demand at which point excess labor is shed and the house of cards tumbles only to be regenerated as inventories shrink to below a minimal demand. This is the “normal” five to seven year business cycle. On a Swan diagram it looks like a circle over time.

He key to the business cycle is short term (consumable) inventory. One can go on forever (and some do) about what consumable inventory means from a business cycle perspective but the average Joe knows, it’s what he finds at the average store in the mall, stuff you buy that has a short lifespan.

That’s not the end of the story. Simon Kuznetz discovered that the economy also had a periodic cycle of about 20 years superimposed on the business cycle. Kuznetz suggested that his cycle revolved around the construction industry. Jay Forrester suggested that by substituting durable goods (washing machines, refrigerators, industrial stoves, etc., items with a lifetime over 10 years) for consumable inventory in a business cycle model a Kuznetz cycle would be the natural outcome. This might suggest that the housing bubble is the high inventory, low employment segment of a Kuznetz business cycle and it might be true but the story still doesn’t end there.

In the 1920’s Nikolai Kondratiev published a paper arguing for longer, fifty year, business cycles, the so called Kondratiev wave. When Forrester substituted Capital Goods (Hoover dams, houses) for durable goods in the same models he used for the business cycle a forty to seventy year cycle emerged. Kondratiev himself was able to show cycles going back into the late eighteenth century and Vilfredo Pareto showed (a bit before Kondratiev) that there were long wave cycles going well into the middle ages (known then as Goldsmith Crisises) and hints of the same in Roman times.

The Goldsmith Crisises were characterized by enormous unpayable debts and equally enormous paper wealth. Few people realize that in an age that accepted only species currency (gold) that a goldsmith could create fiat money by issuing promissory notes. Imagine an era when a peasant wants to borrow money to hire laborers to dig a well so he can irrigate his fields. He promises to pay the loan back from the increased production from his fields. Soon everyone of his neighbors do the same but the increased production drives prices down so no one can repay the debt. Substitute your favorite Capital Good here and you see what is happening today.

There are hints this may phenomenon may have been well understood by the ancients who had data running over multiple millennia rather than just a few centuries. The Bible tells of the Jubilee cycle, a roughly 50 year cycle at the end of which all debts are forgiven. One suspects forgiving debts was the obvious solution to what amounted to mass bankruptcy. There is also the dictate to let slaves go after 7 years and to let the ground lie fallow for a year. That would institutionally get rid of excess inventory and avert the typical business cycle.

However that’s a digression. Economics ultimately is a psychological endeavor, how people respond to economic conditions and perceived trends is what drives the real world economy. At the depth of a business cycle businessmen are loath to hire new workers until the business picks up and demand increases. Typically, inventories are high relative to demand, income is low and since no one wants to spend money the velocity of money is also low, people save if they can. Credit evaporates and the money supply (in the largest sense) declines.

We are in the trough of the first Kondratieff wave after the Great Depression. Our Capital stock has never been larger. Here in Boston the Big Dig is over as is the building boom. While some of our older infrastructure is in dire need of repair we don’t need any new roads, bridges, dams or other massive Capital projects. Industrial capacity is at an all time high even if demand is low. Our collective debt is greater than it’s ever been and with a soured economy repaying of that debt looks doubtful. Our instinct is to cut back even further to weather this storm. We tighten out collective belts and watch the economy shrivel still further.

We are, presented with several solutions. We can continue to tighten out belts and hope that free enterprise jump starts the economy or we could declare the equivalent of a Jubilee and simply wipe out all debts corporate, personal and national. Based on historical precedents, we will surreptitiously cancel our debts through monetary inflation. We’ve done it before. We monetized the Vietnam War and Cold Wars and look what it gave us the: the 1990’s.

The Place of the Yellow Woodpecker

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Glines) — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 23:18:00 +0000

The Place of the Yellow Woodpecker
By Hugh Fox
185 pages (2010)
The Drill Press, Cedar Park TX
ISBN 978-0-9840961-5-2

Review by Steve Glines

Hugh Fox is a perpetual mystery to me. I’ve read about a dozen of his books (and edited one) but, for me, it’s hard to tell where one book ends and another begins. I’m convinced that Hugh Fox sits at his typewriter/computer and types for three or four months or until he thinks he has enough material to fill yet another volume whereupon he cuts it off, slaps a title on it and calls it a book and oddly enough he often finds someone to publish it.

This little volume, The Place of the Yellow Woodpecker, takes place on an island off the coast of Brazil during the course of roughly a year. All the usual suspects are there, Harry Smith, Bernadette, Blythe, and assorted characters (or is it caricatures) from his other books. Hugh slips easily between non-fiction and fiction with the same characters appearing in both and only a disclaimer on the cover informs us of the difference. This is fiction … I think or he thinks. I don’t really know.

Hugh’s style is stream of consciousness. Sometimes descriptive – at one point he spends three pages describing the little hamlet, too small to be a village – that serves as the location for this work – sometimes pure narrative – we learn all about the characters that inhabit this place. My personal favorite is the old man who sits in his kitchen all day reading Thomas Aquinas. Why? We’re never told except that he serves as a foil for his mid thirties daughter, an old maid by local standards – sometimes philosophical – not in any organized way but more like the wise comments your grandfather used to utter at odd moments.

Be warned, reading Fox is not for the faint of heart; strong coffee, a bright light and a willingness to place yourself completely in the hands and mind of this prolific scribbler are required to suck the elusive juice from the page. Fox combines the best (and worst) of Charles Bukowski (of whom Fox is a well renowned scholar) and the worst (and best) of Kerouac. In short, I love him and hate him all at the same time. Your mileage may vary.

Wilderness House Literary Review Volune 5 number 2

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Glines) — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 20:29:00 +0000

For those of you not otherwise on one of the many mailing lists I broadcast on - Wilderness House Literary Review - Summer 2010 issue is out. I hope you like it.

a blog for Kathleen Spivack

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Glines) — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 20:26:00 +0000

I just finished setting up a blog for Kathleen Spivack at http://kathleenspivack.blogspot.com/
If you know her work check it out.

The Old Man

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Glines) — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 17:09:00 +0000

His tired body falls heavily on the stool. The unlit stub of a cigarette hangs limply from his lips while his eyes stare distantly into a small makeup mirror hinged on a makeup box. An aspirin swallowed with half a shot of fortification to ease the pain of arthritic bones.

He studies the forced smile reflected in the mirror, moving his head back and forth. Outlines in greasepaint aging smile-cracks on reflected image, titanium white, ruby red and lampblack. “Curtain call, 5 minutes.” He takes a deep breath, stands up, stretches, shaking pain from his joints and memory.

At the edge of the curtain he takes his place with the others; to bury, for a time, ego and age. It’s Show time! A thespians pride in performance, a flawless ballet performed for the ten thousandth time. No adjustment necessary, none needed. Applause! He glows. Fulfilled for a brief moment, he retires from the stage after 3, no 4 curtain calls.

Tired, his body falls limply on the stool in front of the small mirror. He stares into the distance and smiles, recalling the applause, the bows and the hurried “good job” from the ring master as he swiftly moved the troupe off stage. He smiles and re-lights the stub of a cigarette. Two heavy puffs, deeply inhaled.

Old tattered terry cloth wipes the night from a skin deeply pored and cracked from a lifetime of greasepaint and sweat. Lukewarm water and rose scented soap, a gift from a Carney girl, clean all but the deepest pores leaving the suggestion of a mask of permanent happiness. Some fortification for the night to come.

Alone now, a small tear runs swiftly down a cheek rejected by traces of a thespians mask. The age of regrets. He shakes it off, closes the mirrored box and walks into the night. Tents to take down, lions, tigers and bears to feed and elephants too and 150 miles to drive before sleep in a shanty built with pride on the back of a pickup truck, home for now.

He pauses before sleep to gaze upon the breath of another sleeping town. Smoke curls from chimneys. Here will be the life he always dreamed of, here will be happiness, here will be one last performance before the mirrored box closes for good. It will be a great performance tomorrow but tonight it’s cold. More fortification for the night to come.

Life in a minor chord

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Glines) — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 13:32:00 +0000

I used to wonder why I wasn’t Jewish, almost everyone in the building was. I asked my mother why we didn’t go to temple and why we didn’t have a menorah in the house and why our neighbors laughed at Santa Clause and why we called Chanukah, Christmas. I thought that maybe we came from a different country where Chanukah was called Christmas. I tried to imagine one word morphing linguistically into the other.

My mother explained that Jesus was a Jew and that in some places they thought he was the son of God and in other places they thought he was a pretty good prophet and in other places they thought he was just an overly reformed Jewish rabbi. All that sounded important so I sat there nodding, it was a lot for a four year old to think about.

Our neighbor was named Sophie. She spoke mostly Yiddish and what English she knew my mother had taught her in our Kitchen. On the Sabbath, Shabbos – which I figured must have come from our word Saturday, or the other way around – Sophie would have me fetch the newspaper and her mail from the doorman and follow her around her apartment following her orders, issued mostly in Yiddish. Working for Sophie was fun, turning on lights, turning off lights, picking this or that up and placing it here or there and even turning the oven on just before I went home for supper. The final thrill of Shabbos was watching the blue flame of the gas stove explode just inches from my nose when I set her teapot on the stove and turned it on. I was her Shabbos goy and a real mensch she said patting me on the head. I took it as a complement and told my mother with pride that I was a mensch because Sophie said so. My mother would laugh and say, “You are indeed my little mensch.” I told the doorman that I was a mensch, he laughed, shook his head and said, “Oy, look at him kvelling so much.”

When I was in High School in a town known for its WASP occupants, it suddenly became fashionable to be “ethnic” and some of my school friends suddenly discovered their Jewish heritage. We formed the Yiddish Club and since I was the only one who could speak any Yiddish I was elected president. “Oy, Got in Himmel,” was the only thing Sammy Silverberg at the cigar store could say when I told him. Sammy’s wife, also named Sophie, rolled her eyes heavenward and gave me another token for the pinball machine.

CHRONOLOGIUM ACADEMICUS

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Glines) — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 19:46:00 +0000

CHRONOLOGIUM ACADEMICUS
By Guy Cutrufo
$65 at www.chronaca.com

Review by Steve Glines

There was something about the Victorians you have to admire. They searched for the source of the Nile River; they built magnificent cast iron, filigreed suspension bridges; they published multi-volume novels and generally established what was meant by the word “Civilized.” If the project was enormous there was some crazy Brit or determined Yankee willing to try it. Although we still build enormous things like the Space Station or the Saturn V moon rocket or Boston’s “Big Dig.” Somehow they just don’t have the same magnificence, the same panache of their Victorian ancestors. Even the Channel Tunnel lacks the touches the Victorians would have embellished it with.

These are silly complaints of course, progress marches on. If projects on the scale of the Suez Canal aren’t done anymore then the progress in microelectronics and communications is just as astounding. Still it’s gratifying to find a humanistic project befitting of the highest Victorian standards. Chronologium Academicus is a project of this scope and perfection.

The Chronologium Academicus is an enormous poster that represents an intellectual timeline on a world wide scale. The Chronologium Academicus is to history and intellectual thought what a World Map is to geography. To quote from its website (www.chronaca.com):

“Just as a world map is a representation of the physical world, Chronologium Academicus is a representation of the academic landscape. Chronologium Academicus provides an overview of the “geographic” differentiations of academic areas, disciplines, and time that bound or computer-based references can not match. It presents the first visualization of the whole of history and academia, which effectively delimits and systematizes the scope, breadth, and parameters of academia.

The layout devised for Chronologium Academicus was of central importance to its development. Vertically, its 14 columns present the history of every major academic discipline from the development of language by Neanderthal man to the present, and it’s bordered by 700 portraits of the greatest contributors to that history. … its horizontal layout: at any point all the way across the columns, each row covers the same years. That feature places the isolated bits of information of every major discipline into the historical and academic context of every other discipline, which facilitates our ability to make linkages between events, individuals, and works that occurred during the same period.”

This is truly a monumental work. The poster itself is an enormous 53.25″ x 73.25″ which means it would take up far more space than anything but a “Jumbotron.” Unless you live in a barn or have an unusually large unused wall this poster is not for the amateur. We temporally mounted the Chronologium Academicus across a large glass sliding door (It still had to be curled up at one end) to get a good look at its breadth of information. We stood staring in awe until the spell was broken by a viewer who said, “I’d hate to have the fact checking job on this.”

A very spotty check of a dozen or so “facts” matched up with Wikipedia. That’s neither an endorsement or a condemnation of the data presented. Given the incredible volume of information presented it would be surprising not to find an error. However we will leave that onerous duty to others. In the mean time it will become a challenge to find a public wall in our little town that is unencumbered enough to do the Chronologium Academicus justice.

G.O.P. Considers a 'Purity' Resolution for Candidates

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Glines) — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 00:20:00 +0000

The Republicans have recently come up with a set of 10 positions that the faithful must take to be considered "pure". I wrote a rebuttal of these in an email to Paul Avella a Littleton Republican and a past and future candidate for State Rep. and a member of the Littleton Rotary Club.

----- Original Message -----
From: Steve Glines
To: Paul Avella
Sent: Monday, November 23, 2009 5:54:03 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
Subject: G.O.P. Considers 'Purity' Resolution for Candidates – The Caucus Blog - NYTimes.com

So now I know what you stand for. ;)

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/23/gop-considers-purity-resolution-for-candidates/

----- Reply Message -----

Paul Avella wrote:
And which of the ten do you disagree with?

Cheers,
PJ

----- Reply Message -----

Steve Glines wrote:

PJ - Here are MY thoughts:

(1) We support smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits and lower taxes by opposing bills like Obama’s “stimulus” bill;

Calling it Obama's bill is a pushing it a bit. Everyone wanted it. If McCain had been elected he would have done exactly the same. Democrat and Republican economists gave exactly the same advice - pure Keynesian economics. Heck even Nixon once said, "We're all Keynesian now."

Obama was very conservative. Real Keynesian theory would have dictated almost $3 trillion in spending (the GDP deficit) but since the Fed created $3 trillion in new money to prop up friends of the Republican party (wall St.) Obama and friends restrained themselves. Besides it would have been hard to spend that much short of creating another war. Bush/Cheaney would have created another war (Pakistan? Korea?) which is one of the reasons why I think Obama got the Nobel Peace Prize.

(2) We support market-based health care reform and oppose Obama-style government run health care;

Why not support the 1960's style Blue Cross/ Blue shield system (which worked very well) where each state had only one non-profit monopoly. More to the point I believe that it's the function of government to provide (or at least regulate) those things we can't provide for ourselves. I think government should run (or heavily regulate) our education system, our "Public Works" - water & sewage, our communications systems, our roads, railroads and even the airline industry, our defense (including police) and, yes, our health care system.

(3) We support market-based energy reforms by opposing cap and trade legislation;

If global warning is real and CO2 is the problem then how would you propose solving the problem ... within a market economy of course? Cap and trade worked very well with CFC's in a market economy.

(4) We support workers’ right to secret ballot by opposing card check;

Absolutely so long as the ballot really is secret and organizers are allowed access to the employees and companies aren't allowed to manufacture artificial, temporary workers.

(5) We support legal immigration and assimilation into American society by opposing amnesty for illegal immigrants;

Well, they are here and they aren't going home. Since most of them are working, paying taxes and contributing to society (and we obviously need them as workers) why not acknowledge that fact and give those working to earn the American Dream a way into American Citizenship., After all most of us are immigrants and I'll bet not all of us started out as completely legal immigrants.

(6) We support victory in Iraq and Afghanistan by supporting military-recommended troop surges;

I may differ from most of my colleges in at least partially agreeing with you. The fact is we're there and we made a mess of Iraq so are honor bound to clean it up. As to Afghanistan I'm inclined to simply nuke it enough to get Bin Laden then declare victory and leave. If the Afghans can't get it together then to heck with them. Al qaeda is the enemy not a bunch of foolish religious nuts that are happy living in 1400. But then I'm not the president … thank god you're thinking.

(7) We support containment of Iran and North Korea, particularly effective action to eliminate their nuclear weapons threat;

Containment certainly but containment without engagement is a long term loosing proposition. Neither of the nut cases will be around forever and we must be in the position to take advantage of a change in leadership to bring those countries back into the international fold. Obama knows this but I get the impression that most Republicans don't. Bush and Chaney certainly didn't think that far ahead.

(8) We support retention of the Defense of Marriage Act;

When I was running for school committee in Belmont a lady asked me what I thought of abortions. My answer was that it was none of my business. As far as I was concerned the abortion issue was a very private matter between a woman, her doctor and her conscience/religion and that since it was none of my business, by extension, it was none of the states business either. I would say the choice of domestic partner falls into the same category.

(9) We support protecting the lives of vulnerable persons by opposing health care rationing and denial of health care and government funding of abortion;

Yikes you've got to be kidding, health care is rationed today and not providing a public non-profit option is a death sentence to many. The health care ration available to the indigent, low income and unemployed is limited to the suggestion that they take an aspirin and the advise that they get a job. That's not acceptable. The health care bill working its way through congress is designed to insure that health care is available to all regardless of economic status. There will always be some kind of health care rationing lets just not define it by income.

(10) We support the right to keep and bear arms by opposing government restrictions on gun ownership.

I've always read both clauses as forming a single sentence. If there were two thoughts the use of a coma would have been replaced by a period. As a single thought the first phrase frames the rest:

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

In other words each town is allowed to have and manage its own police force (militia) and there is nothing the state or the federal government can say about it. To me that also says that the police (the well regulated militia) as controlled by the local government has the right to regulate all private arms within its jurisdiction. Of course, all citizens are part of the militia by default whether they are armed or not. I suspect most police would not necessarily like my interpretation any more than they like the Republican interpretation which permits a greater chance of being shot at.

Cheers
Steve

Search for the Literary City on the hill

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Glines) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 20:26:00 +0000

At least it wasn’t the Manhattan of my parents and grandparents’ world, a baron wasteland full of borsch belt comics turned ad men on Madison Ave. or literary dilatants turned journalists at the Times and the New Yorker. New York was a place of debutants and professors. A place where everyone was simply brilliant and everything was swell. Yes Manhattan was like that in the 1920’s, 30’s, 40’s 50’s and even into the 1960’s and I wanted no part of it.

I wanted red meat and New York City was nothing but honey. There was no room in that tight little society for a newcomer, a raw talent in need encouragement. No, the New York City literary society could grind you up and spit you out like so much meat through a sausage grinder.

I went to Boston. The idea was this: Find a town where I was likely to find smart people at roughly the same stage in their career as I was. That meant college students not afraid to scribble without an assignment. I found lots of them. Then they left when their school days were over. What was left were a bunch of shriveled academics that refused to engage in enlightened banter outside of their own hallowed halls. The academic world of Boston was not the literary hub it once was. The preferred attitude is to snub anyone of lesser stature in your own microscopic field and to ignore everyone else. I had better chats with plumbers than with Nobel laureates. I went underground, I had no choice there wasn’t anyone to talk to.

Later I realized that Boston was just a suburb of New York and that anyone seriously into a literary career was already in New York not Boston. Dorothy Parker was dead but someone took her place at the Algonquin even if they no longer talk of poetry and polemics there. In Boston it’s hard to find anyone that knows what polemics means save that old adjunct professor of Rhetoric still hoping to get tenure after all these years. Good luck buddy.

twitter entry

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Glines) — Wed, 13 May 2009 14:13:00 +0000

I just twittered:

I have an interview in the Somerville News - See http://tinyurl.com/p556kj

an item recieved in the mail

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Glines) — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 01:23:00 +0000

I spent more than 20 years in the Information Systems world, computers. I have programmed computers, designed accounting systems for computers, written books about computers and managed hundreds of computers. For years most of my friends were also in computer systems. One by one they lost their jobs and wandered off onto the void. It became harder and harder to get jobs in information systems regardless of experience.

The last time I was in a large data center I was the only American citizen in the building. I'm not exaggerating. Everyone working in the data center was from South Asia. Every one working in the data center was working on an H1b visa. A visa that allows American companies to bring technical expertise from outside the U.S. if no such expertise can be found within the U.S. Of course, persons with H1b visas are supposed to be paid the same as their American counterparts which don't exist because if they did exist there would be no need for H1b visas holders.

I got this via email. My own opinion is that we should drop the H1b visa program altogether. It's clearly been abused. This is food for thought.

Durbin bill introduced today: takes discrimination of US workers head-on!

Legislation offered today by Senators Durbin (D-IL) and Grassley (R-IA) may finally remove the handcuffs that have long prevented effective federal policing of H-1b job outsourcing based on discrimination against US workers.

"Congress needs to put their "big-boy pants" on and fast-track this bill up to the President's desk," demanded Conroy. "IT professionals are now poised to join with the AFL-CIO and other national groups to make corporations play fair - now. No nation can remain strong when laws allow corporations to bypass its own citizens."

"We're thrilled that Senators Durbin and Grassley are requiring employers to seek local talent first. They recognize that American IT professionals have the talent, know-how and experience to push America’s economic recovery into high-gear," said Donna Conroy, a former IT professional and Director of Bright Futrue Jobs.

Here's a snippet of Durbin's press release:
Employers can legally discriminate against qualified Americans by firing them without cause and recruiting only H-1B guest-workers to replace them. The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has said: “H-1B workers may be hired even when a qualified U.S. worker wants the job, and a U.S. worker can be displaced from the job in favor of a foreign worker.” Some companies that discriminate against American workers are so brazen that their job advertisements say “H-1B visa holders only.” And some companies in the United States have workforces that consist almost entirely of H-1B guest-workers.

To address these problems, the Durbin-Grassley bill would, among other things:

Require all employers who want to hire an H-1B guest-worker to first make a good-faith attempt to recruit a qualified American worker. Employers would be prohibited from using H-1B visa holders to displace qualified American workers.

Prohibit the blatantly discriminatory practice of “H-1B only” ads and prohibit employers from hiring additional H-1B and L-1 guest-workers if more than 50% of their employees are H-1B and L-1 visa holders.

Here's the entire release: http://durbin.senate.gov/showRelease.cfm?releaseId=311910

Who We Are:
Brightfuturejobs.com is a grassroots lobbying campaign dedicated to counteracting claims that Americans can’t do science and technology. We lobby to require employers to seek local talent for US job openings before recruiting abroad.

Our exposure of federal government documents declaring that the H-1b law’s intention is to bypass the US workforce resulted in the introduction of the bipartisan Durbin-Grassley “"The H-1B and L-1 Visa Fraud and Abuse Prevention Act of 2007" (S. 1035). We were instrumental in securing the passage of a Cook County resolution urging passage of the Durbin reform bill in September, 2007.

Donna Conroy
dmconroy@brightfuturejobs.com
Chicago, IL
773-764-5865

To the shores of Tripoli

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Glines) — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 15:40:00 +0000

International – It’s rough out there: the headline in the New York Times reads, “Pirates Seize Ship With U.S. Crew Off Coast of Somalia.” Few things change.

Old Ironsides sits in Boston harbor as a reminder that when push comes to shove the U.S. Navy can and does act worldwide in the interests of both the US and other nations. In 1803 she was designated the flagship of the U.S. Mediterranean Fleet and was used to blockade, bombard and intimidate the Barbary pirates.

Trouble began in July 1785, when the Barbary pirates from Algeria captured two American ships and the Dey of Algiers held their crews captive for a ransom of nearly $60,000. Thomas Jefferson, then minister to France, opposed the payment of tribute and proposed an association of countries to deal with them. Jefferson argued that "The object of the convention shall be to compel the piratical States to perpetual peace." The plan fell through when both England and France continued to pay ransoms.

When Jefferson became president in 1801 he rejected Tripoli's demands for an immediate payment of $225,000 and an annual payment of $25,000. The pasha of Tripoli then declared war on the United States. President Jefferson quickly dispatched a squadron of naval vessels to the Mediterranean. Jefferson said in his first annual message to Congress: "To this state of general peace with which we have been blessed, one only exception exists. Tripoli, the least considerable of the Barbary States, had come forward with demands unfounded either in right or in compact, and had permitted itself to denounce war, on our failure to comply before a given day. The style of the demand admitted but one answer. I sent a small squadron of frigates into the Mediterranean. . . ."

Ultimately a small force of marines was sent to re-install the hereditary ruler of Tripoli. The U.S. marines raised a mercenary army of Arabs and Greeks and began the difficult march across the Libyan Desert towards Tripoli, winning a bloody victory in the outlying town of Derne. Just as soon as victory was assured the marines were informed by messenger that the war was over. The treaty that was signed guaranteed the return of American prisoners but little changed. North African piracy continued until France brought the era to an end by invading and colonizing most of North-West Africa.

The Boston Globe threatens bankruptcy – good riddance

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Glines) — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 14:37:00 +0000

Local – All politics is local: This morning I walked the half mile to the train station with my daughter’s dog hoping to pick up a copy of the Boston Metro. There was a time when the Globe and Herald had boxes where, for a quarter, you could pick up an hours entertainment (if you call news entertainment – and I do) while the filthy industrial grade train rumbled and swayed its way into Boston. Those boxes are gone. Neither the Globe nor the Herald tries to sell papers anymore. They gave up paperboys years ago claiming that paperboys were unreliable. Maybe they became that way, a generational thing I suppose.

The metro box was empty save for a religious diatribe some intellectual vagrant deposited in the hopes of a miraculous conversion. It was empty the last time I looked too. I don’t know if it was empty because they didn’t fill it with enough papers or they too have stopped promoting their paper. I walked home empty handed.

The very first article I ever sold to a newspaper was a 300 word story about the development of teenage cabals. I was paid $30, or 10 cents a word. That was in the mid 1960’s. By the mid 1990’s I was paid $50 per story by Community Newspapers, still about 10 cents a word. Today Community Newspapers doesn’t buy stories and I won’t write for free as a matter of principle.

The last time I tried to sell anything to a Boston newspaper was back in the early 1980’s. Both the Globe and the Herald had the attitude that I should consider it an honor to get a byline in their paper never mind that the honorarium for a 1500 word story that took me 2 weeks to research and write wouldn’t pay my rent. At least back then you could rework the article and resell it until the Globe decided that they owned the article in all its forms forever. That decision made it impossible to earn a living as a freelance journalist in Boston and I stopped reading it Globe. There is no news in the Globe and just because it occasionally gets a Pulitzer Prize is no reason to read a newspaper with no news.

The joke was that the Wall Street Journal had more news on its front page than the Boston Globe had in its entire paper was not far from the truth until recently. Now the Happy News/Pretty News contagion has infected even the Wall Street Journal making it almost impossible to find “news” anywhere in print. Most newspapers have become nothing more than advertising mediums wrapped around AP and Reuters feeds. Who cares? Between Yahoo and the still useful New York Times web site I don’t need to read a printed paper. I’d like to read a paper, it’s more substantive than TV and more relaxing than the web but without news its worthless and without paying writers a decent wage why would I expect anything more than rewritten press releases or egotistical, self indulging pronouncements passing for news. I wouldn’t and I don’t.

I still have to wonder why a newspaper with over 300,000 paying subscribers can’t make money. When the New York Times paid over a billion dollars for the Globe many freelance journalists wondered why they didn’t just create a new newspaper for far less. If the Boston Globe goes out of business, and I think it will and should, someone will eventually step up to the plate and for very short money create a daily newspaper worth reading again.

Of course if all print newspapers go broke and freelance writing for the World Wide Web doesn’t begin to pay better I wonder if we could be on the edge of another dark age. I’ve often wondered if anyone bothered covering the last meeting of the Roman Senate.

First twitter of the year

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Glines) — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 22:24:00 +0000

First thunderstorm of the year
spring and flickering lights,
a glass of wine and an open fire
chilly, raw,
not yet summer.

Bankers: After accounting rules change no more excuses

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Glines) — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 15:24:00 +0000

National – Lead, follow or get out of the way: In a bow to industry and Congressional pressure the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) change the accounting rules governing banks and other financial institution by weakening the Mark-to-Market rule. The Mark-to-Market rule has been criticized by many in the financial press as the prime cause for the financial meltdown that occurred last fall.

The previous interpretation of the rule stipulated that if there is no market for a security then its implicit value on a banks balance sheet is zero. This makes a great deal of sense when we are dealing with items like Asset Backed Securities whose underlying value cannot be determined or Credit Default Swaps whose market has evaporated. When the mortgage bubble burst a large number of very large financial institutions discovered that when the Mark-to-Market rule was applied to their balance sheet they were technically bankrupt. This was the immediate cause of the financial gridlock that occurred in October 2008.

The new rule by the FASB allows greater latitude by banks in interpreting the rule. FASB said that the objective of the rule change was to allow banks to determine what an asset could fetch in an "orderly" market but would not include "distressed" or fire-sale transactions. In other words, banks are now free to fantasize what an asset might be worth if an "orderly" market can be found. The U.S. Government is attempting to create a market for these "toxic" or "legacy" assets. One dissenting FASB member said, "I’m afraid that this change will result in fewer impairments being recognized, and I don’t think it will help the investor have confidence in the balance sheet."

The FASB is charged with setting accounting rules for American industry. The rules often have unintended consequences such as the financial industry meltdown of this past fall. Since the IRS recognizes FASB rules as defining how a company recognizes profit and loss a change in FASB rules can have far reaching effects.

A FASB rule change in the early 1990’s virtually eliminated the equipment leasing industry. Equipment leasing is halfway between renting and finance and the FASB has long struggled with how to interpret this. For example with equipment rental the rental company depreciates the equipment and recognizes rental income as ordinary income. With equipment finance, the purchaser of the equipment gets to depreciate the equipment and deduct the interest expense while the bank must amortize the income over the life of the mortgage. Leasing is just like finance except the leasing company still owns the equipment until the lessee buys it at the end of the lease. In a typical lease, a lessee pays two or three month of the lease upfront – this is the typical profit fro a leasing company. The leasing company would then sell the cash stream generated by the lease to a bank while retaining ownership of the equipment. Thus a leasing company would recognize income upfront and the "residual" at the end of the lease when the lessee purchased the equipment at "fair market value," typically 5-15% of the initial cost.

A FASB rule change required leasing companies to amortize their profit (typically the first 3 months payment) over the life of the lease while also recognizing income from the residual over the life of the lease as well. Thus leasing companies had phantom income from residuals while not being able to recognize income when they received it so while a leasing company might be flush with cash they showed an immediate negative balance on their books while at the same time owing taxes on income they may or may not ever receive. Thus with a small accounting change the FASB put most equipment leasing companies out of business.

See
Banks Get New Leeway in Valuing Their Assets

China wants its cake and eat it too

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Glines) — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 16:27:00 +0000

International – it’s a mean place out there: The U.S. Dollar is the worlds "reserve currency." That means that most international transactions are conducted directly or indirectly in U.S. Dollars. The price of oil, grains and precious metals are all set in U.S. Dollars. For example if someone in Dubai wants to buy gold from someone in France the transaction is made, directly or indirectly, in dollars. The price of gold is specified in U.S. Dollars but if the actual transaction is conducted in Euros then the price of the commodity reflects the value of the Euro relative to the U.S. Dollar. This really irks the Chinese.

The Chinese are the largest holder of U.S. Dollars, somewhere around $2 trillion, and have an interest in seeing that money retain its value. The U.S. economy dwarfs that of all other countries including China and Russia, only the European Union comes close which is why the Dollar is the world’s primary currency and why other currencies are "pegged" to the Dollar. By pegging the local currency to the U.S. Dollar a country with a smaller economy is able to create external value for its currency. A Walmart coupon may have a $10 face value for anything purchased in a Walmart store but unless it can be exchanged for $10 in U.S. currency it has little value to anyone shopping at K-Mart. The Chinese currency only has value in so far as it can be exchanged for Dollars. This concept has a bruising effect on the egos of totalitarian rulers.

The trouble is that the Chinese have too many Dollars because they have artificially kept the value of their currency low relative to the Dollar. This keeps the price of Chinese goods low and the price of U.S. goods high on the international market. Our economy is large enough to tolerate this up to a point. Eventually the Chinese will have sold us everything we can afford to buy and will have all our money. Not really, of course, but that’s the idea behind an imbalance of trade taken to reductio ad absurdum. The larger a claim the Chinese have on our economy the less our money is worth. A dollar doesn’t buy what it used to. The Chinese don’t like that but one wonders if their totalitarian rulers have bothered to consult with professional economists. Eventually, whether the Chinese like it or not, the value of their currency must rise relative to the U.S. Dollar. The Chinese require payment in Dollars but if the Chinese allowed payment for their goods in Chinese Yuan then someone would have to buy those Yuan with some other currency and each currency would then float to its "natural" level.. This is true regardless of what currency becomes the "reserve currency" of the world. As long as the U.S. economy is the worlds dominant economy the U.S. Dollar will remain the defacto world currency.

Currently 1 Chinese yuan = 0.146323 U.S. dollars.

See:

China Urges New Money Reserve to Replace Dollar
Asia split over China's "war of nerves" with U.S.

Bukowski On Writing

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Glines) — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 00:09:00 +0000

Towards a New, Better, Different Deal

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Glines) — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 20:58:00 +0000

National – Lead, follow or get out of the way: In 1936 F.D.R. said at a campaign rally:

"We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace—business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering. They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob. Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me—and I welcome their hatred. "

Nothing changes; Barack Obama could almost say the same thing today. Not a single Republican voted for the bailout bill and three Republican senators held the bill hostage until its provisions were so watered down enough to almost become ineffective. The Republican hatred is so pervasive it extends to public pronouncements that they "hope he fails." The right to bear arms apparently includes the right to shoot oneself (and ones neighbor) in the foot.

The Secretary of the Treasury, Tim Geithner, went before Congress to ask for the power to regulate and take over any financial institution in trouble that is large enough to cause havoc in the banking system. Everyone admits that the Federal takeover of AIG was necessary even if there was no law explicitly permitting it. The Treasury took over AIG after it had failed. It failed because there was no one watching. "Credit default swaps," were an unregulated form of insurance which is why AIG, an insurance powerhouse, became so heavily involved.

Credit default swaps were created in the early 1990’s as a way to insure commercial loans . If a bank loans a million dollars to a company it could buy insurance, a credit default swap, to protect itself. By the late 1990’s CDS were being sold to cover Corporate and Municipal bonds. By 2000, the CDS market was approximately $900 billion and was working reliably. For example, CDS payments were made to cover some of the Enron and Worldcom bonds. In the original from CDS contracts were purchased by those who actually held the bonds and stood to loose if the bonds defaulted. As the new decade progressed a substantial change occurred in the market for CDS.

First, a secondary market developed for both sellers and buyers of CDS. The result was that it became impossible to determine the financial strength of the insurer since the chain of CDS coverage, the provenance of the CDS could not be determined.

Second, CDS were being traded for all sorts of exotic investments like asset backed securities (ABS), mortgage backed securities (MBS) and other exotic financial instruments. The problem was these new investments no longer had a known entity like a company or a municipality to follow to determine the strength of a particular loan or bond.

Third, speculation became rampant in the market. Sellers and buyer of CDS were no longer owners of the underlying asset (bond or loan), but were just betting on the possibility of a "credit event" for a specific asset.

By the end of 2007 the CDS market had a value of $45 trillion, but the underlying corporate bond, municipal bond, and structured investment vehicles market totaled less than $25 trillion. That leaves $20 Trillion in bets. Because of the secondary market for CDS the original two parties that entered into the CDS contract may very well not be the current holders of the rights of the protection buyer and protection seller. Some CDS contracts are believed to have passed through 10-12 different parties. The financial strength of all the intervening parties may not be known so it has became very difficult to determine, or "unwind," the final ownership and value of the CDS after our massive "credit event" in the fall of 2008.

Credit default swaps are really just the tip of the unregulated iceberg. The problem is that the FDIC, which insurers individual bank depositors, and the SEC, which oversees securities marketed to the general public, have no oversight authority for securities that aren’t sold to the public. The underlying issue is that deposits from the public are going into these unregulated financial instruments and that’s what the Treasury Department wants to be able to regulate just like the FDIC regulates banks.

Enter the time machine: Between 1910 and 1920 an average of less than 6 banks failed per year but from 1921 through 1929 more than 600 banks failed per year . The stock market crash of October 1929 triggered a huge wave of bank failures, almost 1400, and huge amounts of wealth disappeared over night. Borrowing money from banks to buy stocks, known as buying on margin, became the CDS of the 1920’s.

Prices began to slide in late September and early October of 1929, but speculation continued, fueled in many cases by individuals who had borrowed money to buy shares—a practice that could be sustained only as long as stock prices continued rising. On October 18 the market went into a free fall but the first day of real panic, October 24, is known as Black Thursday; on that day a record 12.9 million shares were traded as investors rushed to exit the market and salvage their losses. Still, the Dow average closed down only six points after a number of major banks and investment companies bought up great blocks of stock in a successful effort to stem the panic that day.

The panic began again on Black Monday (October 28), with the market closing down 12.8 percent. On Black Tuesday (October 29) more than 16 million shares were traded. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost another 12 percent. President Hoover and Treasury Secretary Andrew W. Mellon declared that business was "fundamentally sound" and that a great revival of prosperity was "just around the corner."

The panics fed on themselves and investors sold stocks to cover margin calls the market sank triggering further margin calls which could no longer be repaid. Banks failed. Rumors of bank failures triggered "runs on the bank" as people took their deposits in cash. The Federal Reserve did nothing to ease the liquidity problems of even solvent banks and lending, for all intents and purposes, stopped.

To Hoover’s credit he created the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC), financed with taxpayer’s money, to lend banks money and the Glass-Steagall Act which broadened the circumstances that the Federal Reserve could lend to member banks. In 1929 not all banks in the US were members of the Federal Reserve System. "Transparency," Congress desire to see where the money went put a quick end to the RFC effectiveness because banks that borrowed from the RFC were seen as unsound.

A failure to act early and decisively by both the U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve Bank is widely seen by economists today as the cause for the depth of The Great Depression. Waves of bank failures and a sinking stock market drove the depression deeper and deeper. By the winter of 1932-33 the banking system was in near collapse. The banking panic reached its peek in the three days leading up to F.D.R.’s inauguration on March 4th 1933. Visitors arriving in Washington to attend the presidential inauguration found notices in their hotel rooms that checks drawn on out-of-town banks would not be honored. By March 4, Inauguration Day, every state in the Union had declared a bank holiday. As one of his first official acts, President Roosevelt proclaimed a nationwide bank holiday would start on March 6 and last four days

On March 9th the Senate passed the Emergency Banking Act which legalized the national bank holiday, set standards for the reopening of banks after the holiday and expanded the RFC's powers by authorizing the RFC to invest in the preferred stock and capital notes of banks and to make secured loans to individual banks.

Throughout the 1920’s and early 1930’s there had been repeated attempts to introduce some form of depositors insurance. Many states had insurance systems but they were largely voluntary and were quickly overwhelmed by the circumstances of the early depression. On June 16th 1933 F.D.R. signed the Banking Act of 1933 which created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee. The Federal Reserve Open Market Committee sets monetary policy for the United States. In doing so it sets interest rates by buying and selling (mostly) government bonds.

In 1933 banking interests viewed federal deposit insurance with distaste. The President of the American Bankers Association declared that deposit insurance was "unsound, unscientific and dangerous."

Fast forward: It is the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee that has been buying so called toxic assets from banks and commercial paper from large corporations and loaned almost $200 billion to AIG in an effort to stabilize the financial system. The FDIC has been closing, reorganizing banks while the Treasury, with TARP money has prevented the largest banks from failing by investing in the preferred stock and capital notes of huge failed banks and by making secured loans to smaller troubled banks just as the Reconstruction Finance Corporation did 76 years ago.

The Secretary of the Treasury, Tim Geithner, is simply asking for the authority to regulate financial institutions large enough to wreck havoc on the Worlds Financial system. It’s a simple request, a conservative request, given the magnitude of the problem and the speed with which it arose.

See also:
FDR speech
History of Credit Default Swaps
History of the FDIC
Battles Over Reform Plan Lie Ahead