BoA

Like everyone else I've been watching the slow disintegration of Bank of America with a mixture of astonishment and disbelief. First the bank imposes new fees on its customers for the use of debit cards and then, when faced with an overt customer revolt, basically does nothing except have its CEO issue a statement to the effect that BoA will do in what is in BoA's best interests, thank you very much, and if the customers don't like it, well, tough darts.

What strikes me most forcefully, though, is that this does not say good things about the general competence of BoA's management. Let us walk through the situation: in the midst of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, when nearly 10 per cent of the American people are out of work; when depositors are already rolling pennies to buy food; when the public's general impression of bankers is that they're unprincipled scum …

What does BoA do?

It happily plunges into a PR disaster and never even seems to notice.

Interesting.

Let's just say I'm not buying any BoA stock in the near term.

din of us altogether

Strange. I am writing here as if in a private journal. I am saying things that I would never have said in the old e-zine version of Xcargo, which went out regularly to 1000 people I knew would get it.

Yet, I can't help but think that my privacy will be…alas…almost perfect. The reality is that there are so many blogs, so many pages, so many forums, so many confessions expressed on the web that no one would have time to read them all. And I am relatively obscure, not to say boring. Who would search me out among all those other, most interesting choices?

Thus I fear for our liberty. We are helpless before our elites. We are silenced by them. Not by the usual process of gags and censors. But by babble. No one can hear any one of us in the din of all of us together.

ragged claws

Still mildly depressed today. Partly because of the incident in the coffee shop, which shook me more than I knew. (She was so fantastically self-important. So certain of her own superiority. Why is that so many of the most aggressive bullies one meets these days are women? Is this what Feminism really envisioned?)

But also because I'm in the midst one of those regrettable periods we have in life when you wonder if any of your acts has significance. If anything you do will be accounted as an accomplishment. If both your good, and evil, and (the majority part of our souls) the mostly-in-between will be interred with your bones. It is that moment when you suspect that you are not even Mr. Prufrock's ragged claws. Rather, you are the sand at the rank bottom of the depths.

It is a mood that, happily, does not last long. If it did, none of us would live beyond thirty. Doubtless I'll be all smiles by morning.

Once More At Boston King...and I am ashamed

Odd day, so far. Uncomfortable. I'm embarrassed. And a little worried about, well, things than more important than I.

Here's my story: I'd gone to a local coffee shop, Boston King Coffee. You may remember that was the one I was in when the jewelry store was robbed, and there were bullets flying about, and I ended up squatting behind yellow "crime scene, do not pass" tape for a day.

I hadn't originally meant to go there. I'd originally meant to go to a Dunkin Donut shop, but it was crowded so I headed up the road to Boston King.

I bought an iced coffee and worked for a bit on my laptop. Then a man came in and set up shop at one the tables near mine. He was professional in dress, suit and tie. A little while later, a woman joined him, also dressed very professionally, very confident. They sat and carried on a conversation about a subject I'm interested in. Suffice to say it had to do with schooling and apprenticeships. Apparently they had something to do with a program involved with same.

As an aside, their conversation included a lot of union bashing. It seems that our state, Massachusetts, is heavily oriented to union-based apprenticeship programs, and this has led to some difficulties for them. But this aspect of their conversation didn't concern me particularly so I didn't pay much attention to it.

Then I made a mistake. And I confess that it WAS my mistake and I was at fault. There was a lull in their conversation. I was curious about the school they were involved with because, like I say, it is an interest of mine. So, I leaned toward them, apologized for listening to their conversation, and started to ask what the school's name might be.

But I never got the chance. The woman, in a very quiet, very controlled, but very emphatic way, reamed me out. "This is a business meeting," she said. "If you wish to ask questions, you may do so when we are finished." And there was a quite bit more to that effect, but I don't remember it all.

In any case, I pulled back (of course) and spent a very uncomfortable few minutes at my table before I left the place. As I went, they were still at their very, very important conversation.

Now, as I say, I'm embarrassed, even a little ashamed. Because, of course, she was absolutely right. I was not invited into their conversation. I was an intruder. And, if I'm wholly honest with myself, I suppose that my desire to talk to them was partly motivated by something other than my professional considerations. A small part of me wanted to talk to them because, well, I was a little lonely.

So, on some level, I'm ashamed.

And yet, there is another aspect of the story. Perhaps a more troubling one. For, you see, I can't help but feel that the real issue was not the fact that I interrupted them, but that I was…for lack of a better word…déclassé. I think her real message was "I am important. You are not. Don't forget that fact."

In other words, I suspect that the social interaction wasn't that of me, the clumsy oaf, being rebuked…or at least not only that…but rather simple, primitive, schoolyard bullying. Something not far removed from the middle school Queen Bee deciding who can and cannot talk to the cool kids.

Which would be bad enough, but, again, it is only the beginning. These are the people who head the non-profit educational institutions which I believe to be vital to our economic survival as a nation.

There is something distressing in that fact.

*

Oh, one last note. As I look back on the scene, I don't think I recall there being coffee cups or plates on their table. I think they came in and sat and had their "business meeting," but never once purchased anything from the café itself. In other words, I think they simply came in and squatted, without paying the fee in goods and services that a café owner should be able to request for taking up space and tables during a lunch hour.

I wish I had noticed that at the time. I wish I had mentioned it to them. It would have given me some, small consolation.

Alas, I did not.

On the postindustrial aged…

I've written that there is a growing disconnect between the needs of the Powers That Be of the postindustrial age and the rest of us. If you'd like to test that, perform the following little experiment. Gather together fifty or so people over sixty five (preferably older) and ask them about their medical care.

You won't have to wait long before you get stories about how they have been denied important medical treatments…because of their age. And I'm not talking heroic measures here—not say, face transplants or radical new therapies that come with zillion dollar price tags. I mean fairly normal, fairly inexpensive things…like some forms of chemotherapy or even physical therapy. Yet, you will hear that these people were denied because, after all, "you're old" and don't have that much time left anyway, even if you're only in your sixties and have at least a good twenty years of productive life to come.

If one were paranoid, one would suggest that such behaviors were part of a deliberate policy of, shall we shall? Thinning out the herd a little. I'm not (I think) quite on that level of suspicion, but, really, it doesn't matter. You don't need to propose a sinister plot to observe the effect. Simple economics—postindustrial economics, which do not love people—are quite enough to explain the seeming inhumanity of our era.

A community of interest

There will be a curious community of interest between the great corporations and we who are no longer of value to them. They want to be rid of us. We need to find a way to survive without them. It will, then, be in the interest of the great economic powers to assist us in the creation of alternative economic structures—what I call the deuxiéme economy—by which we can support ourselves. These alternatives will be much cheaper than welfare, and much, much, much less expensive than dealing with the consequences of mass destitution and its attendant violence.

The deuxième economy

The thing to remember about the so-called "postindustrial" economy is that it isn't just post-industry, it is actually post-human—and I don't mean that in the positive sense that the "Transhuamanists" use the term, i.e., for super-intelligence and 2001-style Star Children. Rather, I mean that the new economy is actually post-people. It doesn’t like people, or, really, need them.

Increasingly, it doesn't want them as workers. Labor is ever more performed by machines, or by contractors in China. And, increasingly, it doesn't want them as customers. More and more, large businesses do business with other businesses—B2B, as it's called.

In a very real sense, then, the traditional drivers of the economy, the great corporations, have ascended into a higher order of existence, leaving us behind. The most pressing issue for the nation -- and, indeed, for the whole of the West -- is what to do about that.

My suspicion is that we shall create a second level of economic activity, one that is "below" that of the big corporations. This other, second level — I call it "la deuxième" in an attempt to remove the nuance of lesser importance—will be what provides employment, services, health care, education, products, and just about everything else to those of us who are not in the favored 1% of the population that controls so much of the world's wealth.

And what will the deuxième be like? I'm guessing it will be a welter of smaller economic entities, limited in scope, local in effect, and coming in a thousand different flavors of ownership—partnerships, family businesses, sole proprietorships, co-operatives, non-profits, communes, corporations of the sort that the British call "Community Service Corporations" and Americans call "Low-profit Limited Liability Corporations," and many others as well.

And, yes, as you've already guessed, there is nothing radical in this proposal. It is precisely what people have done whenever large businesses found them to be unprofitable. It was to Co-ops that farmers turned in the Middle West during the Gilded Age. It was to Credit Unions and Savings and Loans (before S&Ls were demolished during the Reagan Years) that ordinary men and women went for mortgages and home loans.

Indeed, in a strange way, it may be that the deuxième economy will be the most conservative of all economic developments. It is a return to the small-scale enterprise of a hundred years ago.

demented perry?

Is it just me or does Perry look kinda demented in this picture?

and the cover of an invisible island

and yet another addition to my amazon.com page

Like it says, something new on my Amazon.com page, An Island Otherwise Invisible. This one is a collection of short fiction and prose poems.


On An Island Otherwise Invisible

and married

married 29 years this week.

wow. some countries don't last that long.

more Amazon stuff

Still working on getting my material, both past and present, on Amazon.

Should have a new listing shortly. I'll let you know.

Meet Brian Eames

Hello, everyone,

As you know, I'm a writer. And, as you also know, several of my friends are writers. And, finally, it'll come as no great shock to you that I do my level best to promote them. It's the code of the west…

Anyway, one of the writers I'm pushing at the moment is Brian Eames. He's got a new young adult reader out, The Dagger Quick, a fabulous throwback to old time adventure stories about quick witted lads doing battle with pirates in the days of wooden ships and iron men. (For more details on the book go here: http://thedaggerquick.com/ or here: http://www.amazon.com/Dagger-Quick-Paula-Wiseman-Books/dp/1442423110/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1312819569&sr=8-1)

I interviewed Brian a while back, mostly in dribs and drabs via email (though there was a Skype session involved, somewhere along the line. Ah, the joys of virtual living). He's an intriguing fellow and I thought I might share a bit of his story.

And, besides, I think his book is kind of important. I'll explain why in a minute. But, right now, let's stick with Brian himself.

"I was born in Greenwich" he says, "No, not England. Connecticut." He grew up in Rome, NY, Virginia Beach, VA, and Atlanta, GA. From there he went to Cornell for an undergraduate degree, and to Emory for a Masters of Arts in Teaching. Somewhere along the line he had time to start a family. "I married my high school sweetheart," he says, "and now teach at the school where we met." Which, you must confess, is rather sweet. And, finally, he has three sons.

I asked him why he'd decided to do young adult readers. His answer was interesting in that it says much (none of it good) about how we do or don't teach reading in this country. He teaches fifth and sixth grade, and as a teacher, he often found it extremely difficult to get some students (what he calls "reluctant readers") to crack a book, much less study it from end to end. (Hint: for those with a literary turn of mind, you've just had a bit o' foreshadowing.)

So, he set out to produce a book or books that would actually drag that reluctant reader away from the video game. And how to do that? Why, send in the pirates, of course.

I'm not going to say much about Dagger Quick. I'm willing to spoil a hell of a lot of things, but not books. However, I don't suppose I'll give away any secrets if I say that the story is that of Master Christopher ("Kitto") Quick, the twelve-year-old son of a British cooper in c. 1678. He's got a clubfoot, few friends, a dull-as-dishwater life, and no prospect of anything getting better.

Except, natch', that's when the you-know-what hits the proverbial fan. And splatters. Big time. He finds out his father used to be a pirate, that his uncle still is, and that he's got some sort of weird family connection to the lost treasure of Captain Morgan. Not the cheery guy in the booze commercials. The real one. Who had the habit of looting and burning and killing. A lot.

Then things go from bad to just perfectly horrible. Kitto's father is murdered, his stepmother and brother are kidnapped, and he has exactly zero options except to join up with his uncle and go off in an attempt to avenge Dad and rescue the rest of the family.

Which is all I'm going to tell you. Well, that, and the fact that Brian tells me there's more Kitto adventure coming in future tomes.

Okay, so that's who Brian Eames is. Now, why am I making a big deal about it? Other than trying to push a fellow writer's Amazon numbers up a few points?

Because I think Dagger Quick is important.

Here's why: you remember I said that it was written for "reluctant readers"? Well, who is that person? It is, usually, a boy…though sometimes a girl…who is having trouble in school. He, or she, may be (probably is) really bright, but he doesn't DO school real well. He has trouble sitting still for long periods of time and taking orders without question.His form of intelligence (and there are many kinds) has very little to do with taking tests and regurgitating facts on command.

As a result, he, or she, has had poor grades for most of the time he's been in school. Which means, in turn, that he has been frequently told more or less openly that he's stupid. He has learned to hate and fear the classroom and regard educators as the enemy.

As for reading…

Well, let's say you're that boy. You're frustrated. You're bored. You want to be anywhere but in that dim little room where you can't run, you can't play, and you can't even talk out loud…

And then, someone hands you a book. It is a book on something catchy like Growing Toe Nail Fungus To Save The Environment, Empower Girls, Attract Sexy Vampires, Balance the Budget, and Oh-By-The-Way, 9-11 Was All Our Fault.

Are you going to finish reading that book?

Didn't think so.

My point is that books like Dagger Quick are good in that they can be a lifeline to "reluctant readers." They can provide that taste of adventure, daring, and heroism that such students crave…and don't get from all too much assigned reading.

So, three cheers for pirates…and boy wizards…and girl detectives (long live Nancy Drew) …and all the rest of the daring, dashing, juvenile breed.

They may just save literacy yet.

sorry I've been among the missing...

Like it says, sorry I've been out of touch. BUT...I have an excuse. Check out my author's page at Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001KI3I6E

and now something else new...

And yet another book on Amazon.


Cities of Light, Cities of Stone

excargo in epub book form

And now, I'm happy to introduce to you, Explosive-Cargo 94: The Best of the Beginning...a book in the epub format.

where I've been

So, I've been silent for the last few weeks. Where have I been? Working my ...er,ah...you know what off.

I'm converting my old explosive-cargo column into book form. This is harder than it sounds. (Heck of a lot file converting.)

I'm happy to report that I'm making some progress, though. I'll shortly post the place on the Web where you can see the result.

mjt

Prolifers...people wasted (from 1994)

If the Anti-Abortion Movement took a tenth of the energy they put into noisy theatrics and devoted it to improving the lives of children who have been into lives of poverty, violence, and neglect, they could make the world a'shine.

NOTE, I've seen this reproduced as "...could make the world shine."

mjt

Religious Right...from 1994

The fundamental guiding principle of the Religious Right in America is that God ... the Omnipotent and Supreme Being who Created the Universe, whose Will is Cosmic Law and Whose all-powerful hand set the stars and galaxies themselves into their places ... needs to be protected from people who wear organic fibers and eat Brie on whole wheat crackers.

I'm getting ready...

I'm getting ready to collect some of my old Xcargos (from way back in the days when it was an ezine). This means I'm going through files that date back to the early 1990s or before.

Still, I'm surprised to find that some of the material still works. Well, sorta. Sometimes. Kinda. If you close one eye and look the other way.

Anyhoo, I'll be posting bits and pieces of what I find here. You might find them amusing.