Watching a Felony

I watched a felony the other day, I did nothing to stop it, and I’m not ashamed.  I was standing in line at the supermarket generally bored like everybody else when I noticed a guy come up to a girl in the line.  They were both in their early twenties, he was drinking a big soda through a straw and acting very nonchalant, he talked to her for a minute and they both looked around, then he walked off.  But he didn’t walk off like he had anything to do, he just kind of kept walking around the front of the store. 

They were both acting suspiciously un-suspicious so they caught my attention.

The girlfriend kept looking around, and over at him, but I noticed she didn’t have any groceries.  I thought that was a bit odd, but sometimes people just buy cigarettes.  When she got to the checker she asked for BART tickets.  I didn’t know you could buy BART tickets at supermarkets.  Then she surprised me by handing the clerk a bright shiny $100 bill.

Nobody but me carries cash anymore and these folks didn’t look like the kind of people who walk around with $100 bills in their pockets.  I was about 10-15 feet away, but the color of the bill caught my eye.

“That’s a counterfeit bill”, I thought.  This will be interesting.

The checker took the bill and ran a gold pen over it.  The bill passed and she gave the girl $100 in BART tickets.

I was still suspicious but figured the checker had done her store approved counterfeit test so I didn’t say anything.  The girl joined her boyfriend and they quickly walked out together.

Then I put 2+2+2 together.  The pen only checks if the paper is good.  Currency is printed on linen, not paper.  What they had done was ‘wash’ a $1 bill and then use a really good printer to print a $100 bill on top.  The clerk needed to look for the $100 stripe in the paper. No wonder the guy was avoiding being around her, he could run back to the apartment and destroy the evidence if something went wrong.  The reason they bought BART tickets is they are as good as cash.  Smart move.

I thought of turning them in, but then I remembered the Federal Reserve is printing $85 billion per month and handing it to rich people.  It’s called ‘Quantitative Easing’, it’s sold to Americans as a cure for the perpetual recession we’ve found ourselves in.  It’s the height of trickle down economics, hand the money to the rich and it will trickle down to the poor.  Except the rich are just pocketing the money.

They try and confuse people with Central Bank terminology and claim people just aren’t smart enough to understand what they’re talking about. 

“We’re just adding reserves, and buying bonds, we’re not really printing money”. 

Here’s their own confession that they’re printing money:

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/BASE/

What’s really happening is the Fed is printing money, buying bonds far above market rates (i.e. paying more than they should), essentially handing $85 billion per month to Goldman Sachs and 20 other monster banks and saying “Trickle this down”.  Goldman’s goal is not to help the economy, it’s to get big bonuses for themselves and to help their allies.  So they don’t loan it to the Joe America, he’s already up to his eyeballs in debt and doesn’t want any more, Goldman buys stocks and loans the remainder to their hedge fund buddies.  The hedge funds then take that money and buy stocks with it too, they know another $85 billion is coming next month and stocks will go up again, so they can’t lose.

Sometimes the hedge funds, like Blackrock, take that free money and go out and buy homes defaulted on by Joe America, and then rent these homes back to him.  So they’re buying up all the real estate and the stocks and bonds with this flood of money, they own everything.

Meanwhile, Joe America who saved his hard earned money and one day hoped to buy a house, is in a bidding war he can’t win with the hedge funds and their dump trucks of money.  Joe America is also trying to start businesses, but if you’re a big corporation and your stock prices is getting goosed by the hedge funds, you cannot fail, and like a big fat tree who’s roots have wrapped around a broken water main, you crowd out all the sunlight for others.  To top it off they think they’re all geniuses and that their gains are coming by cutting even more wages and benefits, not from printing money.  The middle class can’t win.

The stock market is at all-time highs, the junk bond market is thriving, the real estate market is back bubbling again, but we still can’t create any jobs, everybody’s on food stamps, and young people are living at home with their parents. The head of the largest bond fund in the world who understands what’s going on says "The new American dream is to move out of your parent’s basement and rent a house from Blackrock".

We have been taught since the 1930’s that the worst thing in the world is a Depression.  Deflation, where prices keep dropping.  But really it’s just the stupid people who've made bad investments failing and defaulting their debts.  It has a cascading effect where everybody defaults and it levels out the playing field again.  Finally the wise and prudent are rewarded and the economy can grow again.

There’s nothing wrong with defaulting your debts.  People like to say ‘You made a deal, you have to pay your debts’.  But what about the other side of the deal, if a rich person is stupid enough to loan money to illegal aliens to buy big houses and big pickups, shouldn’t he lose out when the guy just gives up and disappears?  After all, that’s a free market, right?

“No”, said George Bush and Barack Obama, the rich should not pay for their mistakes, we need them to trickle down on the rest of us.  So they’ve bailed out the rich and distract everyone with tax cuts and tax increases and health care drama.

A myth was created about the Great Depression, that it was solved by Roosevelt or that it was solved by WWII.  But really it was solved by the last person defaulting on their debts and then the economy could grow again.  Roosevelt’s actions may have actually extended the Depression by slowing down the defaults.  WWII just happened to coincide with the last person defaulting and huge inflation from the war.

What’s happening now is that debt to GDP levels today (360%) are higher than they were in 1929 (270%) and the economy can’t take anymore.  The Federal Reserve is trying to inflate away the debt by buying it all up, but there so much they can’t, they probably need to print another few trillion dollars before we see meaningful inflation.

But here’s the thing, everybody didn’t die in the Depression.  Every American has seen this famous Depression era picture of the mother with her children in a migrant workers camp worried to about what the future holds. 

You might be shocked to learn that woman has a name, Florence Owens Thompson, and not only didn’t her family starve to death, she lived to be 80 years old, and those kids survived too, in sunny California no less.  The Depression steeled what was rightfully called ‘The Greatest Generation’ for the future.  They knew how to work hard and appreciate what they had.  The Banksters don’t work at all and act like they’re doing the rest of us a favor by stealing our money and our homes.

So what’s wrong with Joe and Jane America printing a little of their own money and getting $100 worth of BART tickets from a big corporation who’s CEO makes millions of dollars from hedge fund driven stock gains?

Go in peace Joe and Jane America. 

Oh, and by the way, you’re going to need to print eight-hundred and fifty million more of those every month just to stay even.

The Drunk

The other night we had a business dinner at a swanky place in Palo Alto on Sand Hill Rd.  The first thing they did was move us outside on the back porch bragging about the view overlooking the Santa Cruz Mountains.  Yes, the mountains were there, but so was Interstate-280.  Only in America can you brag about a view that overlooks the white noise of an interstate freeway.

We later realized they moved us out back because we were dressed like typical Silicon Valley slobs.  Everybody else in the place was dressed to the nines.  Dressing sharp is not allowed at the newer high tech companies, it’s a sign you’re part of ‘The Establishment’.  The Silicon Valley establishment all dress like slobs.  Purple hair and tattoos are symbols of rebellion.  Except they’re so common these days they strike me as establishment.

I’m the only one with no tattoos, wearing an Italian shirt and tie, sporting sharp three tone wingtips I picked up in Florence.  But I’m considered a conformist in the Valley.

Johnny is a colleague over from Ireland.  Really smart and hard working, but like me, you can tell underneath it all he has a temper.  He  regaled us with some stories about his temper and how he just would never tolerate anybody hitting him; or for that matter, anybody weak getting picked on by the strong.  Little did any of us realize he'd prove it within the hour.

Anyway, when we were leaving I stepped out in front of the restaurant and was waiting for others to catch up when this drunk guy fixates on me wearing my old banged up Australian cowboy hat and announces, “I’m not sure whether I like that hat or not!”  He’s wobbling about just like Homer Simpson drunk off his ass. 

He’s a really big guy with easily a hundred pounds on me.  I just look at him blankly, he’s a drunk looking for a fight.  I’m not going to give it to him, you can never win a fight with a drunk, but if he comes for me I’ve already timed my knee to the crotch, duck to the side, and push off to send him sprawling.  As a short skinny kid, all the bullies loved to pick on me, I know how to handle myself.  Just ask the two I sent to the hospital.

The drunk’s friend is trying to keep him separated from me, pushing him back and trying to get his attention focused on leaving.  His friend looks at me desperately, his eyes begging me to not to do anything to engage this fool.

The drunk is still eyeing me, wobbling, continuing his challenge, “I don’t know how I feel about that hat!”  This is all getting rather amusing, there’s easily a dozen people around right now, most not paying attention to what’s going on, but a few attuned to the danger lurking.  “That hat!  I just don’t know how I feel about that hat!”

Then out of the restaurant pour some more of the drunk’s friends.  In the middle is obviously his brother, they have the same build and look alike, and guess what, he’s drunk too.  He’d been inside and didn’t know anything of what had transpired, but you’d never know it.

Now the brother fixes on me, points his finger at me accusingly, and growls menacingly as he passes, “That’s a weird hat!  That’s a really weird hat!”  Oh lord, now his brother wants a fight over my hat too?  What is it, do these guys have a genetic disposition against hats?  Did their Germanic tribesman ancestors despise the helmets of the Roman Legion and that has stuck in their DNA ever since?

Following right on the heels of the brother is Johnny, he can tell there’s a fight a brewing and his back is up.  He doesn’t directly challenge anybody, but his blood is boiling and he is cussing a storm of expletives that would make Lenny Bruce blush.   He’s not going to tolerate any of this crap from these overage bullies.

I now have an ally.  Instead of teaming with the standard Silicon Valley geeks horrified at the sight of violence not under their control on a video screen, I’ve got a full blooded Irishman whose idea of a good time is a respectable fisticuffs on my side.

These guys have about 150 pounds on the two of us.  I quickly time it out.  The brother is closest; I figure he’s going to go for Johnny, who’s now between us, I’m sure Johnny can hold his own for a few seconds while I get the brother’s left flank.  Between the two of us he should be down in about three seconds.  But then I’ll have to whirl around quickly for the first drunk and that will have to be more of a catch-as-catch-can as Johnny will be behind me at that point and a lot can happen in that crucial second before he can bring some firepower to bear.  I figure we can take them in their inebriated state, however their friends are another problem.  If their friends join in we’ll be pavement dust.

I’m not sure how it all passed so quickly.  The drunks got moved along by their wiser friends and we went to our cars.  I half expected another encounter out by the cars.

I pondered that it had been twenty years since I had to deal with violent drunks, and I had to go to this swanky restaurant to do it, not to a roadside bar like last time.

Johnny himself said the next day that it could have been a disaster; he could have been arrested and barred from entry to the U.S.  Without entry to the U.S. it meant he really couldn’t work for an American company again and that would severely limit his employment opportunities.  He’d dodged a bullet.

All because of two drunk Americans who don’t like hats. 

But thanks anyway Johnny, it would have been a good fight.

The Baptism from Hell

This is an incident that occurred while I was living in England many years ago, and returned to the U.S. for Christmas. Everything I tell you is true, I have proof because it is all on videotape.

First a bit of background. My plane ticket back to the U.S. had me stopping in New York (old York being located about 200 miles north of here). My cousin's were having a baptism for their daughter and my dad was attending so I thought I'd stop by and visit.

Now you're probably wondering why I would willingly attend a family function, especially one with religious connotations. The reason is that my cousins are not related by blood. The baby is technically my father's step-mother's nephew's granddaughter. I think that due to the fact that there is no blood relation we get along great.

So let me introduce the cast of characters and set the scene. For simplicity sake I call them Uncle Bobby, Aunt Ilene, and my cousins Andy, Maribeth, Matthew and Jennifer. The baby in question is Maribeth's and her husband Charlie. Jennifer was the Godmother and their friend Chris was the Godfather.

Now Maribeth and Charlie are not particularly religious, but they had been raised Catholic, and with the child's grandparents of Italian, Irish, and Polish heritage, there was going to be a Catholic Christening, no questions asked.

So first of all Maribeth and Charlie had to go and have a meeting with the priest to discuss what I presume to be the meaning of the ceremony. The priest wanted to know if they practiced formal prayer and attended services regularly. Maribeth is not your traditional Pat Buchanan Catholic. In fact she is an ardent articulate liberal feminist type. She believes her daughter is also a feminist as she refuses to be breast fed, considering it to be a perpetuation of the enslavement of women. This is really too bad, because Mairbeth has quite a set of hooters.

So anyway, she told the priest that she thought it was more imortant that the child be brought up to perform Christ like acts (you know, mercy, love, giving, etc.). The priest was not impressed or amused. They were not off to a good start with this priest.

The day of the Baptism everybody showed up at the church. I should now mention that the cermony was to be held in a church in Riverhead on Long Island. Riverhead is a nice place, but it is at the far end of Long Island from New York City. Actually, all of Long Island is nice, but as my Uncle Bobby says it's only downside is that you can't get off the island without going through New York City. Long Island is really long, about 150 miles or so (thus it's name, 'Long Island'), so Riverhead is kind of at the end of the world.

The church was traditional Polish Catholic, they must even still conduct services in Polish, because there was a Polish hymnal. I wandered around and marveled at the idols all over the church. I've read the bible about 5 times, but I still can't find the part where Jesus revoked the 2nd commandment about making graven images. Being brought up spartan German Lutheran, we were always secretly a bit jealous of the pomp and circumstance the Catholics got away with. They always had such cool robes and glittery sparkely objects. We were always so dour and boring.

So anyway, out walked the priest to light the candles. He was about 70 years old, but easily looked 90. He had some fancy automatic candle lighter, but couldn't get the candle to light. I took it upon myself to make a joke, I quiped, "All this modern technology can't even light a candle". The priest was not amused. In fact he shot me a glare which was clearly designed to whither me in my tracks. Humorless priest, hmmm.

So now it was time to begin. Unusually there was only one batism to perform, so it was just the family and friends standing around talking. Luckily for me the service wasn't going to be a full mass. The priest gently tried to get things going by snapping, "Can we get started?!" Everyone took their seats and Andy began filming the ceremony.

The priest began speaking, but I was sitting in the second row and couldn't understand what he was saying. I then realized he must be doing the Latin ceremony! I was proved wrong after a couple of minutes when I recognized a few English words. I still couldn't figure out what was being said or what was going on. Bobby later told me that he was following along in the book, and the priest was only reading about every third word. Later it became clear to me that there were three people who didn't want to be there that day, me, the baby, and the priest. After all it was Sunday, and there was football.

When the priest said "Emilie Kulesa", Maribeth interrupted, "That's Emilie Ilene Kulesa". Then a struggle for supremacy at the alter ensued that went something like this:

Priest: "It says Emilie Kulesa on the baptismal certificate".

Maribeth: "Well that's wrong. Her name is Emilie Ilene Kulesa".

Priest: "We'll use Emilie Kulesa"

Maribeth: "No, She's Emilie Ilene Kulesa, you need to change the certificate."

Priest: "O.K. I'll just white this out and insert Ilene"

Maribeth: "No, you'll retype up another certificate"

The priest relented and was making some sort of note.  After all a Christening is supposed to be naming the baby, the least he could do was get the name right.  Maribeth turned to look at somebody in the crowd, I assume her mother, and gave that kind of look of those who are amazed, angered, and confused all at the same time. The look said, "Can you believe this?"

After this Charlie must have made some sort of comment because Maribeth kicked him, right in front of everybody.  Granted, it was just a side kick, she smacked her ankle against his shin, but a kick is a kick in my book.  The priest paid no mind.

The priest quickly finished the service in record time with the crowd struggling to keep up with the "Hail's" and "Let it be done" at the right places. Everybody was still standing at the alter kind of wondering what to do next when Maribeth's mother, Ilene, stood up and announced he'd forgotten the thus and such ceremony.  The priest said he didn't know that one. Whereupon Ilene took him into the office off to the side of the alter with the whole party in tow (Exit stage left). Chris tried to keep the crowd entertained while we all wondered what was going on. Inside the room, Ilene found the liturgy book, opened it to the correct section, and pointed out to the priest extactly what she was talking about.

The crowd shuffled back onstage (Enter from stage left) in front of the alter, and the priest, with book in hand, began the thus and such ceremony. Ilene, back in her pew, then stood up and interrupted again, "Not at the alter. In front of the Mother Mary". There was a shrine to Mary to the right of the alter. So the crowd now shuffled down to the shrine (Exit stage right) and the priest, again in record time, conducted the thus and such ceremony. When he was finished the priest looked at Ilene to make sure there was nothing else.

No wonder they don't alow female Priests.

So everything was finished and people exited the church in a sort of semi-shock and headed over to the reception. Bobby and Ilene rode with my dad and I and we all marveled at what had occurred. Bobby said he had never seen anything which so lacked spirituality. "No wonder the Babtists are doing so well!"

My idea was to take the child out before sunrise to a small meadow in some woods, lay her on the dewey grass and stand in a circle chanting her name while 7 white timber wolves sat outside the circle and howled a welcome to the sunrise. But my idea was considered far fetched.

Ilene proceded to tell us a story about how when she was pregnant with Maribeth in 1961(?), she was in church back in Smithfield (which is only a few miles from New York City)with her one year old Andy and a priest was giving a sermon. The sermon was about the starving children in Africa. He was very passionate about this and Andy clued into his emotion. Everytime this priest mentioned the starving children in Africa, Andy would let out a moan, "Ohhhhhh".

"The starving children in Africa!"

"Ohhhhhh!"

This happened a few times and the Priest was quite perturbed. Finally he halted his sermon and spake thus,"Will you please remove that child from the church? He's causing a disturbance!"

Ilene being the good obedient Catholic, akwardly (being great with child) grabbed Andy, waddled to the front of the church, genuflected, and exited. I forget, but I think it was really hot and humid that day just to add to her discomfort.

Well after the service the parishiners were outraged. They told the Bishop, "How dare he treat that poor pregnant woman like that!" The priest was never to conduct services there again. From that day forward he was banished to a church way out on the end of Long Island in Riverhead; never to be seen again until 34 years later when he would seek his revenge at the Christening of the family who had forced his exile, oh, so long ago.