How stimulating.

I just got home and found in my mailbox a notice from the IRS. I liken hearing from the IRS to hearing from the doctor's office... no news is good news. Generally speaking an envelope from the IRS is a harbinger of bad tidings. But this time I opened my notice with much trepidation only to be informed that I am being awarded an economic stimulus check! Hurrah! I am eligible for up to $600 come May and boy could I use it. I've got a bike that needs a tune-up, I desperately need a haircut, and I need to set most of it aside for school-related expenses in the coming year, such as textbooks for summer school, semester bus passes and such. I will probably also buy myself a sandwich.

But I happen to be very lucky in my current financial situation, and by extension, also very unique. I don't have any credit card debt and I live off my savings so I don't need to worry about getting laid off right now. My understanding is that a lot of my fellow Americans have different designs on this money that they are about to come into--namely, paying off credit fees, credit card bills, insurance bills, loans, mortgage payments, etc. In other words, not many people are going to feel so flush when they get that check in May. They're going to be paying off their debts, which I don't think is going to do much for the economy except slightly recede the water level of the financial crapper we find ourselves in. I just read a statistic that since the late 1960s, Americans' collective personal debts have increased from just under $10 billion to over $600 billion in 2004 (and it's probably even higher now with the mortgage crisis and massive layoffs.)

Don't get me wrong--I have never thanked Bush for anything in my life and yet I am grateful for the cash. But I think this whole scheme of his is stupid and dangerous. We don't even have this money in the first place, it's just going to be added to our lengthening IOU from China. And when that bill comes due a few years down the line I don't think I'll be thanking Bush at all. Probably spitting on his grave and cursing his children is more like it.

It just astonishes me that the leader of the "small government" party has approved such a massive intercession the moment the economy starts to look unruly. Not even the socialist-leaning Roosevelt administration took this step during THE GREAT DEPRESSION. Roosevelt said that what people need is to work, not to live on free money. John Maynard Keynes, the maverick British economist at the time first proposed the idea of economic stimulus during the worldwide recession of the 1920s and 30s. But other economists of the day rejected the idea, saying it would depress consumer confidence if citizens got a check from the government every time the economy seemed weak. I don't mean to downplay the economic hardship that many people are experiencing right now--I know it's a very real thing. But if they didn't go for this idea during the greatest economic crisis of our history, and even Roosevelt--Social Security-creating, government-sponsored art projects and pro-universal health care Roosevelt--didn't think it was the right thing to do, then what the hell does Bush think he's doing? And more to the point, what the hell does Congress think they are doing? I know they don't want to look like they are engaging in too much partisan bickering which might have turned more people against them, but the speed at which this half-baked plan swept through the executive and legislative branches is frightening. And we will all know who to thank when our debts come due.

So as soon as you get your check folks, may I suggest you take it and go get yourselves a tall drink. You're going to need it.

CHINA

Last week during a concert in China, Bjork chanted, "Tibet! Tibet!" after a song called "Declare Independence." The Cinese government freaked out and banned Bjork from performing there again, saying that she had "hurt the feelings of the Chinese people." (Really? That's all it takes?) They went even further by then vowing to crack down on foreign artists performing in their country because the musicians might bring with them more scary Western ideas with which to upset the sensitive Chinese. The Chinese government claimed that no one in China believes Tibet to be a free state. Now, after days of Tibetan protests, and an absurd charge by the Chinese government that the Dali Lama is encouraging violence among his followers, I am completely baffled that our media continues to act as if this was all taking place on some planet far away. The Chinese government is oppressing its citizens on a scale comparable to the Russsian government, the North Korean government, and the Iranian government. Yet even our most outspoken critics of foreign tyranny are quietly looking the other way while we continue to be supplied with Chinese food imports and manufactured goods, as well as the big $3 trillion dollar loan that is funding our adventure in Iraq. Pundits, editors, and columnists alike are frighteningly mum on the subject of our big communist friend's long record of atrocious human rights violations, because hey, they are keeping our economy going. The Bush administration excluded China (and our other nice pal Saudi Arabia) from its version of the Axis of Evil and now Bush is saying that he still plans to attend the Beijing Olympics this summer because he "views it as a sporting event." Even fucking Stephen Spielberg had the balls to protest Chinese tyranny over Tibet when he pulled out of an Olympics-related directorial project. So apparently Bjork and Spielberg are more courageous than many of our fellow countrymen because I did not find one article or column condemning the reactions of the Chinese over the "Tibet" outburst. If anyone can find anything please let me know. But there are things that need to be said here and we need journalists to start saying them.

This Camera

While my mom was visiting over the weekend I slept on the couch which always gives me weird dreams. I had one in which I became the lover of an ex-rock n roll star who had been the onetime flame of Courtney Love but who now lived in seclusion with his family in an old dilapidated Edwardian mansion on the banks of a swamp in Florida. I can still see him and Courtney now, sitting in two matching broken rocking chairs on the splintered porch, looking out across the crocodile-infested water. Apparently this rocker had once been in a band called "This Camera" but now he preferred the solitude of his mansion. So I moved into the house to be his official mistress, I guess displacing his current wife who continued to live there as though we were some big weird Mormon cult. One day one of the other girls living in the house was sewing me a pair of britches while I sat staring idling out the window. The displaced wife walked in and she was wearing a bonnet and a big dress, Victorian-era on the prairie style. I asked how her walk had been and she answered as if from a deep reverie, "It was wonderful, but as I walked through the fields I perceived I was being followed by a large creature." I asked what kind of creature and she replied, "I think it was a shrew. It must have been the size of a dog." At this moment I felt afraid and I also felt a stinging sensation in my left hand. I looked down and there was an opossum sitting on the table gnawing on my fingers! I woke up then to discover that in my sleep my right hand had been grabbing my left hand and squeezing it hard.

But the experts agree!

Another day goes by, and Clinton still has nothing to say in response to Obama's amazing speech or the whole Geraldine Ferraro debacle. You know, I've been accused of being a "character voter" who only supports Obama because I have some how fallen pray to the cult of personality that is building around him, which I find frankly insulting because I am one of the only people I know who bothered to watch the debates in full (and as though my reasons for voting for Obama are somehow separate from "the issues.") It's apparently the only recourse that Clinton supporters have, to belittle Obama backers because they perceive his following to be some kind of parade of glassy-eyed hero worshippers under the spell of the media that is so unfair to Clinton.

First of all, I want to say that the difference in the way these two have been campaigning is not just the nature of politics--it is a meaningful difference that truly truly speaks to the contrast between these two candidates. Hillary Clinton has consistently run a campaign that looks like something Karl Rove would come up with. She has insinuated that Obama might be a Muslim by not giving a simple answer of "no" when asked if she thought he was. Instead, she said she didn't think so "as far as I know." She insinuated that we shouldn't trust our precious children to the protection of a bogeyman in the middle of the night, because the phone might ring and the black man might not know what to do. She allowed Geraldine Ferraro to spew her vitriolic bile and then gleefully pretended that Ferraro's words didn't constitute a view held by the Clinton campaign, yet not distancing herself from it far enough by both rejecting and denouncing Ferraro's words. Now she wants to change the rules in the middle of the game and seat the delegates from Florida and Michigan and has called Obama "un-American" for his position that the original decision of the DNC should be honored.

A few weeks ago on SNL Tina Fey got on her soapbox and essentially told us that we needed a woman in the White House because after 230 years, it was time. I am sick of this argument. To me, it is anti-feminist to support a candidate just because she is a woman--as though we couldn't be trusted to make the decision for ourselves. I reserve the right to vote for whomever I chose, and I am grateful and indebted to the generations of women before me who fought tirelessly to guarantee me that right. But I don't think women chained themselves outside the White House gate during the Wilson administration so that I would be guilt-tripped into voting for a female candidate just because she has been handpicked by some psuedo-feminist coalition. I wouldn't vote for Ann Coulter or Condoleeza Rice just because they are women. And no, I'm not voting against Hillary because she's "a bitch." I'm voting for Obama because he's the best candidate. He opposed the war even when it wasn't politically expedient, when he had everything on the line in his career because he was running for Senate. Clinton demonstrated her judgement and experience when she wrote George Bush a blank fucking check for this war. She demonstrated her judgement and experience when she voted against a cluster-bomb ban, (which Obama supported.) She has demonstrated an extremely twisted sense of judgement in running a ruthless and manipulative campaign that has consistently smeared Obama out of nothing more than a desire to win. For Chrissakes, they are both Democrats but from the way she's done things you would think Rove was her puppetmaster. The Republicans will be a piece of cake to deal with after we're done with her.

David asked me recently if I feel disappointed that the first female candidate to make it this far has turned out to be such a bitter, divisive figure. My answer is that I don't feel that she represents me as a woman. Early in her candidacy I felt torn between a desire to support the female empowerment and a deep sense of mistrust. I even thought I would vote for her. But the solution to this dilemma has become clearer by the day. I don't feel disappointed by her--she's just another crooked, conniving, scheming, rotten politician that Washington spit out of its ugly machine. Instead, I feel disappointed in her supporters for putting her in this position of power. Many of those who I've talked to tend to just regurgitate the line about her experience, without ever having watched a single debate, read any of the speeches, listened to any of the townhall meetings, or generally done anything besides casually glancing at the newspaper. If you are going to cast your vote, pay attention to who you're voting for. It's really the least you can do. People in other countries (see Kenya, Pakistan) are fighting and dying today for a chance to make a meaningful change through their votes. So pay attention, god dammit. And stop parroting the campaign rhetoric so that we can have an honest debate about the relative merits of these two candidates instead of just repeating a list of talking points.

Today's the day

Some people want to be Bill Gates. Some people want to be Jesus Christ. I want to be Joan Didion in New York and California in 1970, surrounded by terror and clarity in a strange world, with the ability to ingest it and turn it into paranoid poetry. I want to live in a house with an avocado tree, living in fear of a serial killer that stalks Hollywood. I want to be Raymond Chandler, holed up in a studio with a whisky in a tall tall Wilshire Blvd. deco building, with lamps and couches and barren walls and a brass bed single and I want to stand at the window and part the curtains and look out over the lonely 1930s city. I want to be Fitzgerald in 1920s Paris, wandering the damp cobblestone streets and drinking a bottle by the river and watching the water move slow and deep and dark and dirty. I want to be Marlene Dietrich, I want to be Jean Arthur, I want to be Betty Davis, I want to be Greta Garbo, I want to be Myrna Loy with William Powell and Asta at my side, I want to be Maureen O'Sullavan dancing with the Marx brothers, I want to swing with Gene Kelly. I want to see Cuba in the 1940s, I want to see New York in the 1950s. I want to be the beautiful buildings of downtown Sacramento, I want to be the open rice fields there. I want to be free, I want to be likeable, I want to be easy. I am just not sure I want to be me.