If we are stuck with the belief that "government is bad" who
do we have left? Private industry? I had a conversation many years ago with an ex-friend, a friend at the time, who insisted with a totally straight face that the leaders of industry were good, well intentioned people who left to their own devices would keep the ship of state afloat and prosperous. This from a man who had, at the time been awarded the largest settlement in history for blowing the whistle on a corporation cheating the government of around 15o million dollars. According to the news reports from the time my ex-friend walked away with around 22 million dollars (of which one third must have gone to his attorney who decided to use the proceeds to fund pro-bono defense of capital murder cases). My ex-friend and I fell apart finally when I accused Colin Powell of lying during his famous uranium speech at the UN. "Lying? You think the Secretary of State is lying?" my ex-friend spluttered. "That or he is reading a speech written by liars," I said, and we parted ways. The fact that history proved me right was not much comfort. I lost a friend and the country lost thousands dead and injured and trillions in treasure.
do we have left? Private industry? I had a conversation many years ago with an ex-friend, a friend at the time, who insisted with a totally straight face that the leaders of industry were good, well intentioned people who left to their own devices would keep the ship of state afloat and prosperous. This from a man who had, at the time been awarded the largest settlement in history for blowing the whistle on a corporation cheating the government of around 15o million dollars. According to the news reports from the time my ex-friend walked away with around 22 million dollars (of which one third must have gone to his attorney who decided to use the proceeds to fund pro-bono defense of capital murder cases). My ex-friend and I fell apart finally when I accused Colin Powell of lying during his famous uranium speech at the UN. "Lying? You think the Secretary of State is lying?" my ex-friend spluttered. "That or he is reading a speech written by liars," I said, and we parted ways. The fact that history proved me right was not much comfort. I lost a friend and the country lost thousands dead and injured and trillions in treasure. .
I read today (naked capitalism) that AIG is still supplying bonuses to its leaders after receiving a $152 billion dollar check from we the taxpayers. They did the deed before Thanksgiving so we wouldn't notice (we didn't!) and somehow that's supposed to be okay. I am no fan of the automaker's bailout but they are small beer ($34 billion total?), and they offer people real jobs, compared to the crud that festers in the financial industry. I find it astonishing that we can be so prosperous as a nation (the lights came on as usual this morning! That's good news...) and be led by such morons. They must think we are the morons. Where's my pitchfork?
.
The problem is, if not them, who? The mistrust of government that has been put about by the same press that failed to notice the bonuses, is eating us up. The problem as I see it is that the people in government aren't bureaucrats, they are people from the industry sector. The reason the Treasury Secretary black mails the country into handing him carte blanche for the disbursement of the $700 billion is because he is one of them. He came to the Administration from Goldman Sachs the investment bankers and rivals of Lehman Brothers who he allowed to fail and thus they disappeared! The rest of the bail out plan? Who knows!
.
So, let's review. The Credit Default Swaps are still floating around unclaimed and not dealt with so banks won't loan money as they still aren't sure what they or their clients will need in reserve to pay them off when they come due, eventually. In the absence of loans business is drying up, so we are getting record unemployment statistics, the official U-6 measure of unemployment (unemployed and under-employed) stands at 12.5%, half the generally accepted level which indicates a Depression. We the people have been screwed coming and going by business and the government who are passing around our money and peeling their retirement bonuses off the top. We trust no one. African states don't trust western powers so even though 150,000 people in Zimbabwe have cholera they don't want foreign intervention to depose Dictator Mugabe. Mugabe has managed to give the white minority racist government a good name because Rhodesia was a food exporter twenty five years ago...Greece is in flames because police shot a kid over government education policies (!) and an international aid agency says the Taliban are back in Kabul and all our military intervention there was for naught. Oh and despite billions spent to prop it up Venice is sinking ( exceptional pictures on A1A News) again.
.
And then people write in and tell me I am unduly pessimistic! My supply of Irony is full to overflowing, anybody want any?
There really is no reason to know why this lane exists unless one happened to live or work there. It has little of special significance, and even the architecture isn't much. I guess I just needed a break from impossibly cute lanes in the pretty parts of town. It's not that Villa Mill is ugly or anything, there is lots of greenery and stuff:
And this, though what this is exactly I'm not too sure. It looks like a brightly colored fish made out of cloth, serving an indefinable purpose:
The entrance to the lane is marked by these poles bright scarlet and very visible:
And there are pretty enough homes of course, some scarred by the intrusion of modern technology:
And then there was the cat, imperiously licking itself clean in a public place:
And that was 
I think there were about 25 of us gathered around the table in the expansive home in Cudjoe Gardens. Everyone brought dishes as is the way, and of course there was too much to eat but I found my favorites in the corn pudding and baked mushrooms, even though my wife's spicy sweet potatoes elicited some interested enquiries.
As the sun set across the canal I heard voices raised, alongside wine glasses, in optimistic promises of whatever the future "we will pull through" and in quieter conversations I heard from people afraid of what may be to come in the next year. My buddy Robert, our host, is one of those that tend towards the optimistic side of the scale and he sat back after the round of thanksgiving with a beatific smile on his face as he watched his friends dig in.
I have been viewing my neighborhood through the lens of distorted economics through which we are currently living and it seems as though the grasses are growing more rank by the day, "For Sale" signs are drooping and my sense of unease makes me excessively sensitive to these negative signs sprouting around the canals of the Lower Keys. This was a Thanksgiving that made me especially sensitive to how well off I am these days. I'm not alone:
It's funny to me that I am chewing my lip worrying about the economy and a house up the street has a big hole alongside waiting for an in ground pool to be dropped in.More power to them I say, it is a job and work and money into the local economy for construction workers who aren't over worked these days. I keep seeing cement stilts on empty lots sitting there waiting for a home to be placed on them,and so far...nothing. The serenity of a Thanksgiving evening can't be that serene if you don't have a job.
We decorated for a while and the wretched little lights worked just fine, which they never seemed to when I was a kid (before Lisa and Jacques were born) so we sat down and drank wine and ate some rather toothsome pumpkin trifle and wondered about the state of the world.
I like their company because they are a happy couple and they make a serene and safe place to visit even at the holidays when tensions rise and people get short with each other. I can let my guard down and that for me is the value of Christmas. I hate the expectations of consumer shopping and I hate the misery that poverty brings with it at this time of year when parents are supposed to go over the top for their kids. I read somewhere that the average age of a homeless person in the US is ten years of age and that is so wrong it takes one's breath away.
Jacques is a powerhouse, not just of wine drinking but also bio-diesel and his contribution to the greening of the Keys is development of a bio-diesel program for the school district. He has several degrees and a background in science and he managed to give me some modest explanation of bio diesel involving fat and lye and precipitation, which made me want to go out and buy a US military diesel powered motorcycle. I tried a chocolate cup cake instead.
We said good bye to Keith yesterday, one more step on the road to dissolution in the bond between our world and his. It was a beautiful day in the Keys, warming up under hazy sunshine as a massive crowd gathered outside and in, at the church on William Street, with law enforcement from every agency showing up to help in the process of letting go:
It was a slow shuffle into the church, trying to keep one's mind on higher things, allowing the mind to veer away and not to let slip the feelings that have been swirling the past several days. Its a strange way we have of attending these kinds of functions in the western world. I've seen Indian widows on the sidelines of their husbands funeral pyres throwing up their arms in a whirlwind of emotion, casting out the inner demons in shrieks of despair that rend the air. In Latin America I've seen similar volcanic eruptions of feral anger and sorrow. We, on the other hand stand around like mannequins and pretend it's just another sunny day in paradise. If, God forbid, tears start to roll we apologize, embarrassed and turn away. Stupid, I know, but I'm as bad as all the rest and wear my mask of silent indifference.
I stood over Keith's mortal remains a moment, marveling at his composure in the face of so much love, so much emotion all through the church as he lay in his final resting place, his dark blue K9 uniform solid in contrast to the clouds of white silk surrounding his body. Then I marched out stoically in proper mannequin style to the sunshine outside. 
Sergeant Brandenberg, his fellow K9 officer caught me admiring the display and asked what I thought. Overwhelming was my response and he smiled. "It took them two days to make that," he said with pride pointing to the particular wreath:
"Will you do that for me, when my time comes?" I asked, trying to lighten the tone. "You can't have the K9," said the canine sergeant. "That's ours. But we'll think of something for dispatch." I'll bet they will too. They flew flags across the county at half staff for Keith, making room as is the way, for the flag of Death to fly at the top of the pole:
I nearly broke down when I saw Keith's patrol car parked in front of the church, his partner's name Daxo, printed on the side. The older I get the more I prefer dogs to the company of humans which reminded me of the times Keith came into dispatch with Daxo. "Don't do that!"Keith would yell at me when I went to pet Daxo. "I keep telling people not to touch a K9's head. He's going to hurt you!" Bugger off Keith, I said, dogs like me, and Daxo did, nuzzling my crotch offering me his nose and behaving like a pet which perhaps may have pissed off his handler ever so slightly. It was a distraction having a large panting German Shepherd sloping round the computers while we tried to dispatch, and it was all too easy to mind Daxo when it was Keith and one of his stories wanting attention.