You CAN Go Back

Mickey. (Not to be confused with a dose of ecstasy.)

Minnie. (A truly liberated spouse.)

Donald. (THE Donald.)

Pluto. (No longer a planet but still a superstar.)

Goofy. (No, not 43.)

The list goes on. Each name triggering memories and associations that resonate down the decades and generations. But as with so many other joys whose time seems to have come and gone, they reside in a safe deposit box the key to which is somewhere in the garage with the rusting Flexible Flyer.

So is it possible to plunk yourself down in the middle of this menagerie born in mid-century (like many of us) when good and evil were black and white? Can you immerse yourself in the silly symphonies of pratfalls and jingles in a state of suspended belief to be released as if in suspended animation since the last time you heard "When You Wish Upon A Star"?

To quote a recent 15 minute famestress - you betcha!

A Lyrical Question

Lyric: What does the CEO do?

Melody: What do the simple folk do? (Camelot)

What does the CEO do?

To scare up a billion or two?

Coddles the shareholders,

To show them some care.

Then gambles with their assets,

As much as he'd dare.

What does the CEO do?

To while 'way a hearing or two?

He answers the committee,

Whose questions are meek.

Knowing he'll be richer, by millions, next week.

What does the CEO do?

When bursting of bubbles is through?

There's nothing left to squander, or plunder, or waste.

We lick our lips and ponder, how bitter, the taste.

We ask how could this happen?

How could we be so dumb?

How is it we were suckered by so sinful a plumb?

And then it dawns upon us, it takes two, to play.

A game where prizes can't be shared: just one walks away.

With all that glitters pocketed, no more to go around.

Yet when those coins fall to the floor they don't make, a sound.

And that's what CEOs...do.

The Silver Lining

Yes, Virginia, there is a reason to be happy.

Oh, I know that your 401(k) is down 50%. And everyone's worried about the value of their center hall ATM, er, colonial, in the suburbs.

But consider the newfound freedoms we are all enjoying:

We are free from caring about the inlaid teak dashboard on the new Jag.

We are free from the compulsion to replace those '90s corian countertops and get those lovely granite slabs (it really enhances the value of the property, she said).

We are free to wear last year's leather jacket.

We are free to share the giving pleasure of cooking for ourselves, not to mention cleaning up after.

We are free to attend a college with the word "State" after the name.

We are free to finally catalog those thousands of photos taken over the decades, including the ones left to us by our forebears. (We are also free to enjoy a bottle of really tasty $8 Malbec from Mendoza while doing so.)

We are free to make greeting cards out of found objects.

We are free to create a (free) blog and say whatever we wish.

We are free to walk freely, crosstown or across a stream.

So you see, times of economic turmoil remove (expensive) things from the equation and replace them with (free) opportunities.

In the new reality, you hardly have to buy one of anything to get something for free.

How refreshing.

Negative Attention Is Better Than No Attention At All

See list. No explanation necessary.

The New York Post.

A-Rod.

The Republican Party.

Kim Jong Il.

Seems like a perversion of the academic axiom, "publish or die."

"At No Time Will My Fingers Leave My Hands..."

This will be short, but not sweet.

(My words, not Sec. Geithner's, pictured above courtesy of the NYT)

There has been ample furor, rancor, ardor, and/or as well as torpor regarding doing something about, as Maureen Dowd put it today, our "Trillion Dollar Baby".

It's time to consider the following: They don't have the money. They can't print it. They can't beg, borrow or steal it.

But as our elected surrogate parents, they can't admit it.

Past As Prologue...If We're Lucky

Everybody should visit the FDR Library in Hyde Park, NY. A fairly new exhibit recalling the first 100 days of FDR's administration sheds an eerie light on our economic situation 75 years later.

This highly informative exhibit illustrates the tendency of historical periods to become reduced to singularities rather than epochs in our minds, and the uncertainty of the steps that were taken at the time.

While lawmakers bicker and obfuscate today, back then the government - and admittedly it operated under a spotlight of far lower wattage - just DID SOMETHING. If it didn't work, they DID SOMETHING ELSE.

Few of us possess enough understanding of the fundamentals of the current crisis, or command enough expertise in policy and government to be of any use. It is however, "comforting" in an odd sort of way to recognize that these things have been faced down before (yes we should learn something from the lessons of history don't you think?), and it is not a matter of getting it right the first time, but rather of resolutely seeking to get it right, until it is.

We wring our hands over government debt. We shudder at recollections of the Big One. We shrink from admonishment that we may revisit Japan's "lost decade". We scratch our heads about what to do. The truth is, nobody knows. We (our elected lawmakers and ourselves) need permission to fail. Not in the long term, of course but tactically. The absence of that kind of constructive risk-taking prevents the next New Deal, Great Society, or even Decent Deal from taking shape. There's too much of that kind of risk-averse thinking in every corner of our culture. It's what bred the quarter-to-quarter mentality in corporate America. Make a mistake, even though valuable long term learning may come of it, and your stock plunges.

It's first and long and we're backed up deep in our own morass. If we can choose to print more money to solve our problems, we can award this drive more than four downs.

Let's Give This A Try

OK. I'm a person who sees alternative meaning in most of the things I see and hear. Just this evening, driving along on I287 in White Plains, NY, I saw an electronic road sign proclaiming, "Rock Blast Ongoing". I thought, where's the free concert? I recall seeing a headline years ago  that read, "Bush and Gorbachev in Accord." My first thought was, what color? 

This thought process allows me to see more than just the literal, intended possibilities in the messages I receive from media in all it's forms.

I'll let you know when this happens again.