Augusta National Noteworthily Accepts Women?

August 20, 2012

  The New York Times headline, Augusta National to Add First Two Female Members, By KAREN CROUSE, notes some particulars as Augusta National Golf Club, the private club that hosts The Masters, and has been under attack over the past decade because of its all-male membership, announced it had added two female members on Monday. Former United States Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice and South Carolina businesswoman, Darla Moore.

  “This is a joyous occasion,” Billy Payne the, on vacation and unavailable for further comment, Augusta National chairman said in a statement released by the club, adding, “These accomplished women share our passion for the game of golf and both are well known and respected by our membership.” Mr. Payne’s statement also includes, “This is a significant and positive time in our club’s history.” And “on behalf of our membership, I wanted to take this opportunity to welcome them and all of our new members into the Augusta family.”

  The Times recounts that in April, at Mr. Payne’s annual news conference before the Masters, he deflected questions about the absence of female club members. Augusta National’s membership policies had become a major talking point again because I.B.M., one of three principal sponsors of the Masters, had elevated Virginia M. Rometty to chief executive and the previous four chief executives of the company had been given club membership. The lack of an invitation for Ms. Rometty sparked a national discussion during the week of the tournament, with even President Obama and Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential nominee, voicing the opinion that the club should open its doors to women. An obvious infringement on states’, clubs’ and individuals’ rights.

  Ms. Rice, 57, served as national security adviser and secretary of state under President George W. Bush, and despite her public disagreeing with some details of that administration’s atrocities she proved herself an able team player. She is a professor at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University, where she has also been provost. A proven well run university where if anyone objects to her power there, certainly no one has gained prominent national recognition for any objection. The Times states Ms. Rice was considered a likely candidate for Augusta National membership if it became open to women.

  Ms. Rice said in a statement released by the club, “I have visited Augusta National on several occasions and look forward to playing golf, renewing friendships and forming new ones through this very special opportunity. I have long admired the important role Augusta National has played in the traditions and history of golf. I also have an immense respect for the Masters tournament and its commitment to grow the game of golf, particularly with youth, here in the United States and throughout the world.”

  The other new woman, whose implication is also that she won’t do anything either to upset the status quo is Ms. Moore, 58, vice president of Rainwater, a private investment company founded by her husband, Richard Rainwater. She rose to banking success, becoming the highest paid woman in the industry and first woman   to be profiled on the cover of Fortune magazine. The University of South Carolina business school is named after her and the former Augusta National chairman Hootie Johnson described Ms. Moore as a “good friend” in a statement. As with Mr. Johnson, Ms. Moore is a South Carolina native, a graduate of the University of South Carolina, and banker.

  Opened in 1932, Augusta National added its first black male member in 1990. Women had been allowed to play at the club as guests of members. Then in 2002 Martha Burk of the National Council of Women’s Organizations began a campaign that urged the club to include women before the 2003 Masters and the then chairman, Hootie answered, “There may well come a day, when women will be invited to join our membership. But that timetable will be ours, and not at the point of a bayonet.” The instrument that we can also assume was used to keep women out?

  The Times then prints the sycophantic assessment of Amy Alcott, a Hall of Fame golfer, who has played Augusta National as a guest. She was in the middle of a charity tournament at Deepdale Golf Club in Manhasset, N.Y. on Monday when she found out through phone messages that women had been admitted to Augusta National as members. She said, “It is a great thing that it has happened.” Ms. Alcott, who said she was paired with an Augusta National member but had not discussed the news with him, added: “People have been waiting for this. Nobody functions well with an ultimatum. I said it would happen when people least expect it.” Oh my, that’s what this announcement is? Now when the club can demonstrate how it stands politically is when the announcement is least expected? Or rather right on schedule?

  The Times points out that the PGA Tour prevents courses with a discriminatory membership policy from hosting its tournaments, but in May the tour commissioner, Tim Finchem, said that when it came to Augusta National the Masters was “too important” to the tour’s interests. Once again 2012 seems right on schedule for acknowledging PGA rules? Hardly, when, as is obvious, the checkbooks wrote the amendments.

  In a statement released Monday, Mr. Finchem said, “At a time when women represent one of the fastest growing segments in both playing and following the game of golf, this sends a positive and inclusive message for our sport.” He forgot to mention how, all along, he was ‘talking about’ how the announcement was coming in such a timely fashion?

  Timely, except for one thing. Male leveraging of females from the halls of power has existed for centuries and it’s doubtful accepting two obvious team members signifies an advancement by women. However a real demonstration of women’s influence would be if the CEO of IBM is really allowed to demonstrate any power of her own, by pulling the plug on that sponsorship. But, for the record, I watch The Masters every year and love that tournament. So, when can we expect a Women’s Masters that matters? Huh?

8/20/2012

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Augusta National Noteworthily Accepts Women?

8/20/2012 concluded: Timely, except for one thing. Male leveraging of females from the halls of power has existed for centuries and it’s doubtful accepting two obvious team members signifies an advancement by women. However a real demonstration of women’s influence would be if the CEO of IBM is really allowed to demonstrate any power of her own, by pulling the plug on that sponsorship. But, for the record, I watch The Masters every year and love that tournament. So, when can we expect a Women’s Masters that matters? Huh?

July 24 - September 25, 2019

Privilege On Trial

  It would be proper just re-addressing male privilege. But reiterating what's already, repeatedly, fallen on ears deaf to whatever's not faced, instead, re-focuses attention on the resentment of wealth problem, as was brought up in discussion with the archcapitalist knight Malcolm Forbes. How from supposed guilt to begrudging its lack, diverts action from solving the true calculable unsolved equation of complete circulation. Financial circulation that should flow as fluidly as water without dams leaking corruption? Of course the simple answer's not always a solution. But, in this instance, it seems the simple answer should be a more fundamental part. Legalizing corruption for everybody sounds perfectly absurd? (Corruption, our commander-in-chief's crutch de jour.) 
     But there's a personal pride in being alive. No one could really want to be evil to the pit of their very soul. So it's fascinating, while repelling, what human minds are capable of though. And while amazing to see how far we've come, the detritus of history's past still holds us back. 1. A mushed together understanding. 
     Meanwhile prosperity proliferates but successive generations lose their grip on pursuing the more comprehensive goals. Perspective and proportion are lost to the myriad ways in which things are gotten over and around. Shedding regret sounds unconscionable. Uh-huh. Shuddering at the possibilities aren't we? Right, not quite. Or maybe now, today, September 25, 2019, that Congress might finally be facing down complete arrogance. And while the odds are quite near nil, we still hear every day how anything's possible in America.

  Anyway. Really? Think accepting women members at the rate water drips, from a well sealed faucet, means more than that? Symbolic symbolism? Uh huh. The fact that it's still significant there're any new (7) members, at all, in Augusta National, points, ever more clearly, at the tragic scheme of unsolved and excused things. It's just not a world of Green Jackets For Everyone? Mmmm.

     ...

  Robert Mueller. Sure. Why shouldn't the name stand for something all on its own? The ambiguities reflecting the various political stakes. In this particular era of cult crafted name branding, God knows chest pounding has us up the creek. Because centuries of advancement's enabled economic scores, leaving aside the failures as margined out irrelevancies for good's good. Uh huh. Yep. Nothing's done till something's accomplished in the area of about how, what, where, and why, numbers hide truths doled out as blame. 

Can This Place Change? 

     For centuries the number 1 concern hasn't been health or justice, or even international peace. It's been the calculated pursuit of power and control. With the oxymoron controlled violence a perpetual state. And oh, how endearing that good old power corrupts absolutely. And so -

Patient # 1

     The national media landscape. The kaleidoscopic apparatus thrusting imagery at the population's at it again. At it again. Auto-piloting on. Commentators repeating for, to, and at us. The jousting's in the telling us gun violence hasn't gone away because there're two mere positions not reaching compromise. Saying either side has no room for agreement when that's all issues are, if there's breathing room to know otherwise. 

     Look. It's virtually claustrophobic surrounded by all the human manifestations of inflicted misery. The horror. The pain. Right? The immorality of inflicting death and pain on others. Violating the dignity of the individual. No one, not even militarily, has reason to violate anyone anymore in any capacity if the possible's exaggerated in directions other than acted out hate and despair. The reasons for being enemies are just all wrong. So says a simplistic writer in a world of exaggerated points? A world bowed in worship to fossil fuel burned motorization. The money to burn premise upon which all decisions are weighed. Can't outright blame the Koch family legacy. Or their accomplices? 

CLIMATE EMERGENCY DECLARATION?

     Yep. Seems there's some debate over whether, or not, humanity's shot itself in the foot or directly through the heart. If previous generations, that included many people of today, shrugged off environmental catastrophes, certainly this one's also getting away with it, too, as it's still no skin off our generations' backs? While possibly as corrupt as all the empires ever known to HUMANITY? Of the distinctively dishonest legal kind, too. But in order to not shake up economics - sacrifice the planet. Realistically willing to populate others. Though not in victory but as failures for mis-care-taking this planet. And despite all the disasters this place has been very good to us. Not nearly enough shame. Sorrow. Making our, God please forgive us, rituals too selfish for words. 

     These are scandalous times indeed. On the one end, the centuries of cultural evolution have placed us in a quite, deliriously, enviable position. Why researching the prolonging of our mortal lives, for perhaps centuries, so entices these era's modern minds. Why shouldn't we have everything when we already have? Aren't we supposed to have anything as we've evolved to such an advanced state now? Hell. Motorcycles are even masquerading as bicycles now, terrorizing our already dangerous city streets. People are always making sure they push the limits of possibility to have anything, whether or not we can. 
     For centuries we haven't had to really care what ramifications plop down in the way of our self-centered tendencies. Freedom or authoritarianism. One or the other exploits what needs have you. - Sigh.

"Bad People” 

     Yes, any and all problems can be blamed on "bad people" as our president cited a couple weeks back. Separate from any attention whatsoever given the social deficiencies that factor into drawing angry personalities in those directions. So for our president to, with a sweeping gesture, imply the entirety of "bad people" are across a moral line from which any types of integrity cannot rationally be implied, defies the premise upon which we know "bad people" could no longer be contrived. We raise millions of children a day who aren't prone to the various traps where conscience is compromised and ill-advised roads of intriguing danger become the excitement life promises. Which is what life is, whether pacified couch sitting or not. Life is chasing the next moment to be more profoundly interesting than the present one. 

     Circling this discussion back, again, to the situation of a derisionally entertained President of the United States who can't, or won't, distinguish between nuances while manipulating the worst aspects of self-righteousness. While only a symptom along with everything else, our country means a lot of things. And being mean's in our history. But pride in that meanness is a tawdry future as current evidence corroborates. 

     I write to understand how I think. "Bad People" is a prime example and, in re-reading, I can't help but feel pride in figuring out this prose. You'd think that after reading from my novel, next to his counselor Roy Cohn's doorstep, the first Tuesday after the last election, that pointing fingers at the president, for one reason or another, would be a common attraction for/to me. But it's not. Retracing others' steps isn't my common practice. But riding away from that Hammer and Cycle, Cohn office/home, reading, that night, wondering if my obscurity would give way to people angry with me, the trepidation was eased by the realization we all have a responsibility to the president's capacity to become smarter. See more than the parameters by which a person's been molded. Patriotism? Sometimes even, or especially, that's from the very bottom up.

Fiction

THE CAVE IN THE LOOKING GLASS

or
Oh No! Not Another Thin Man

However Could One Hide From A Marquee's Stigma?

     Ole New York. Who's not quite believing they're putting words to a page? Doubt that claim's ever really happened. Except there's no other reason for this attempt than the name, Malcolm Charles. No. No one can coherently, rationally, expect to be a distant cousin of a fictional character. But when lost to fantasies, designing a life inherited from filmdom's most dedicated pair, Nick and Nora Charles, of The Thin Man fame, there's a veritable inebriated breeze, through your veins, carrying the customs of the time of old New York hotel life, where grifting was just but one of the very few games to get involved in around town. More ways to make money's how crime's gone down. All other assertions are just hocus pocus. 
     Too bad it's not just the machines we have to figure out how to get paid right. Amazing. 1952. Kurt Vonnegut nailed the nail on the head in Player Piano. And probably knew digital was the future, but society programmed on, and by, taped loops was of more symbolic importance to that era's frames of mind. All the while extraordinarily describing our frame of time, too.   

     Right. So. Under the spell of this captivating illusion of being spawned from a detection legacy, I ventured past not getting involved. Following a crime and, believe it or not, it was while taking a couple moments to cross the street and see, if I could, through a small park to what would have been the back entrance from 34th Street to Nero Wolfe's 35th Street brownstone backdoor. Unfortunate television imprinting finally, partially replaced, by picking up one of the Rex Stout novels, and I'd read the mentioning of a back way out and wanted to know what might be left of the fictional description. 

     I thought the small park was locked. But when my elbow, in leaving, grazed the gate, it, opened with a soft squeak, inviting me in. So I went. There's just a small children's plastic climbing structure and odds and ends, and plants, behind an entrance, to the Lincoln Tunnel, restraining wall. Now, obviously, Manhattan's westside's skyrocketed(ing). But when Nero Wolfe was fictionally planted, it was the era of cultivated ocean lining's last major hurrah. Now just time on your hands and fear of flying are that industry's major draws. And yes, the rock bands. And maybe Frank Sinatra's hologram's time's come. Wait till they're exactly like us. Won't that be fun? 

     So weirdly I was drawn into the Archie Goodwin sidekick role. Nero Wolfe's legman because Mr. Wolfe never left the "house." The Goodwin character that was perhaps drawn to emphasize the era's placement of women as skirts and the main pursuit. While the real writer made sure a future where their potentials weren't chained to a diminished throne anymore could come to pass. 

     At first I thought it was kids by the restraining wall in the back left corner. But it was one person wearing enough for two. 

      Anyway. Eventually my focus clears and it's one, female or male. Who's turned to make sure no one's looking as their hand instinctively brought something up from the bag that had appeared to be the other person or people. But despite seeing me, and being startled, the hand revealed the knife blade stuck to the gun. And wanting to either scream or run, I did neither, cowering before the grin slicing ear to ear across the suspect's face. 

     To be continued. THE CAVE IN THE LOOKING GLASS

Knowing Things Shouldn't Be Dangerous

     ... . 

The Soapbox View pursues the 

ornery Legacies of Murphy Brown, Andy Rooney and I.F. Stone.

CHINA - RULE BY THE NUMBERS MINUS PEOPLE?

     Sometimes news events don’t come in one fell swoop, but are, over time, developed and examined in stages along the way. Today the New York Times headline, China Besieged by Glut of Unsold Goods, written By KEITH BRADSHER, underscores the world’s problem of unfulfilled expectations. The Times points out that – After three decades of torrid growth, China is encountering an unfamiliar problem with its newly struggling economy, in the form of a huge buildup of unsold goods that clutter shop floors, clogging car dealerships and filling factory warehouses.

     Notice that over calculating how much food we need is never a story unless it’s the complaint prices aren’t rising high enough to satisfy retailers, wholesalers and the consumer. No sorry, that’s wrong, affordable prices aren’t the consumers complaint.

     So back to what The Times has space to complain about, stating – The glut of everything from steel and household appliances to cars and apartments is hampering China’s efforts to emerge from a sharp economic slowdown. So there’s a complete admission the country is now being fully run on capitalist principles? Because otherwise those goods could most likely be used in poorer rural areas? So all across China it’s now agreed the better solution is if ways were found to put money in everyone’s hands? That no longer will local rural leaders control financial access and be why the population has moved to the cities to succeed because, no doubt, anonymity allows a few more to keep their wealth than in the poor countryside where the desperation remains and hardship under the control of politics. As essentially, we all know, when politics is the instrument controlling money that’s hardly capitalism.

     Ah well, maybe The Times found some insight examining these crowded, overloaded warehouses, by pointing out the glut – has also produced a series of price wars and has led manufacturers to redouble efforts to export what they cannot sell at home. Right, like excuses are really necessary to try to find a higher price.

     The Times continues the chant. – The severity of China’s inventory overhang has been carefully masked by the blocking or adjusting of economic data by the Chinese government, all part of an effort to prop up confidence in the economy among business managers and investors. Right, just duplicating the Wall Street Mad Sadness where everything depends on investors’ moods. Sure it does. Absolutely, but when everything is about the manipulation of the public’s confidence that’s not really capitalism, but a form of authoritarianism which is no doubt what’s been so appealing to the Communist Party that still insists the easy way out is managing the people rather than the people managing themselves.

     So The Times points out, the main nongovernment survey of manufacturers in China showed on Thursday that inventories of finished goods rose much faster in August than in any month since the survey began in April 2004. The previous record for rising inventories, according to the HSBC/Markit survey, had been set in June. May and July also showed increases. Right, those packed warehouses are the problem rather than sufficient prices to get all that crap moving along. How much did it cost? Ship it somewhere where the price is good and recycle it and ship it back so the material can then be used so the working poor can crank out more cheap stuff. Prices are finagled anyway so as absurd as that sounds it might work. Or recycle it at home, should we really care? This is the problem of a depression where the locals can’t afford what’s produced. Depending on shipping to the world as a marketplace is the HUGE mistake, no matter how much profit can be negotiated.

     The Times quotes Anne Stevenson-Yang, the research director for Hong Kong economic analysis firm J Capital Researchsaying, “Across the manufacturing industries we look at, people were expecting more sales over the summer and it just didn’t happen.” Son of a gun, just like the American Medical Industrial Complex where so many experts tell the doctors where they have failed to accomplish the money managers’ goals. Or maybe that’s too harsh when people are only trying to do their jobs. She, Ms. Stevenson-Young, added, “Things are kind of crawling to a halt.” Because no one wants the stuff? Uh huh.

     So The Times panders to the mantra offering – With inventories extremely high and factories now cutting production, China is the world’s second-largest economy and has been the largest engine of economic growth since the global financial crisis began in 2008. Economic weakness means that China is likely to buy fewer goods and services from abroad at a time when the sovereign debt crisis in Europe is already hurting demand, raising the prospect of a global glut of goods and falling prices and weak production around the world.

     This means the people of the world who’ve technically never labored a day in their lives, much of them, miscalculated and now must punish the rest of us to keep their bottom lines intact. Germany’s successful and their banking elite allies across the world rule the planet? Weren’t world wars fought to stop that and actually the Germans are pretty good industrious people, so it’s kind of criminal that they’re being thrust forth front and center as part of this public relations campaign reminding people their belts have to be tightened so a better bargain can be made out of the work done by people without the political power to survive behind a desk. If only everyone could run for President, as in America, then everyone would have a fighting chance to restart new careers. Otherwise the world’s lesser lights are a bunch of losers who deserve this contrived defeat at the hands of the money marketeers?

     But The Times becomes positive, then pessimistic of course. The key to well rounded news reports. – Chinese export growth, a mainstay of the economy for the last three decades, has slowed to a crawl. Imports have also practically stopped growing, particularly for raw materials like iron ore for steel making, as industrialists have lost confidence that they will be able to sell if they keep factories running. Real estate prices have slid sharply, although there have been hints that they might have bottomed out in July, and money has been leaving the country through a variety of legal and illegal channels. Right, exactly like New York City became, unless the top half of the financial food chain is satisfied everything runs to a halt. Primarily because whatever makes money among the lower half is bought out from under them once it’s seen there’s enough profit to satisfy engorged tastes. A point I can only wish there was a shadow of doubt about.

     Then The Times restates – Interviews with business owners and managers across a wide range of Chinese industries presented a picture of mounting stockpiles of unsold goods. Which their article redundantly repeats every few paragraphs as if there’s space to fill because there’s nowhere to put this b___ s___ if China’s warehouses are full.

     But of course The Times is correct, the problem is everywhere and seems insurmountable. – Business owners who manufacture or distribute products as varied as dehumidifiers, plastic tubing for ventilation systems, solar panels, bedsheets and steel beams for false ceilings said that sales had fallen over the last year and showed little sign of recovering. Right, well when American money-managers complain Chinese solar panels are too cheap for this country so that obvious necessary need goes unfulfilled, there’s a problem. But not because the Chinese have a lot of extra solar panels available. Really, are any money managers awake to take real responsibility for anything real? No, boo hoo, your million-plus vacation home needs air conditioning now and not after you personally invest in solar panels that should already be covering the entire face of the planet by now. Wars can last decades but four decades of solar paneling is behind schedule because an efficient way to profit enough hasn’t been found?Good thing the rich are comfortable now because your legacy will read didn’t really try because solutions already exist for most every problem the world currently endures. Damn you people, capitalism and profit work even if you have to call it socialism. Oh boo hoo, but my lazy political friends will never be elected if they can’t redundantly scapegoat that supposed dead issue into the ground for a few more decades. Look how profitable lying to each other still is. The military, a socialist institution, was torn apart pretending private finance could fix it. FIX THE MILITARY. Morons, the American one was probably the most efficient institution this country ever created until, as with doctors, it was decided others outside the military should count the money. Uh huh.

     But China’s problem continues to be copying failed, elections or not, Western, supposedly non-communist, totalitarian formulas. “Sales are down 50 percent from last year, and inventory is piled high,” said To Liangjian, the owner of a wholesale company distributing picture frames and cups, as he paused while playing online poker in his deserted storefront here in southeastern China. Right, more than half the country, no doubt, can’t afford picture frames and cups. And face it, when pressed half the world has already figured out how to make their own cups to cry in. As with the supposedly conservative problem with reality that ending the drug warmakes nowhere near as much money as can be made if people are allowed to grow their own when it’s so much more fun playing with guns and pretending cops and robbers will always be the only world we’re welcome to. Even though it would be better if we’d just realize and accept where we all came from. A bunch of territorial monsters who had no place in their hearts for the common people, so we still hear the weak told to wake up and deal with the real world. When the real world refuses to face the solution: Physicians heal thyselves.

     So poor Chinese. – Wu Weiqing, the manager of a faucet and sink wholesaler, said that his sales had dropped 30 percent in the last year and he has piled up extra merchandise. Yet the factory supplying him is still cranking out shiny kitchen fixtures at a fast pace. Nowhere in China could use those items? How many Brooklyn Bridges are for sale all over the world? Mr. Wu says, “My supplier’s inventory is huge because he cannot cut production and doesn’t want to miss out on sales when the demand comes back.” Right, while the workers, that are the country’s built-in system of demand, can’t afford proper housing.

     Part of the problem, The Times states, is that the Chinese government’s leaders have decided to put quality-of-life concerns ahead of maximizing economic growth when it comes to two of the country’s largest industries, housing and autos. Sure, there you go, influential Times, back that premise. Tell the Chinese government their mistake is the same as the Cubans unwillingness to overwhelm their country with asphalt and mega-financed housing.

     Premier Wen Jiabao has imposed a strict ban on purchases of second and subsequent homes, in the hope that discouraging real estate speculation will improve the affordability of homes. No, I agree, what possible difference does that make? Let them buy second homes all over the world co-owned by the government. What difference does it make when the citizens pressed, don’t even have a real independent judiciary to assist them anyway? So the result, states The Times, has been a steep decline in residential real estate prices, a sharp fall in housing construction and widespread job losses among construction workers. But the people still can’t afford homes. Is anyone really listening to ourselves?

     At the same time, The Times continues, the municipal government in Guangzhou, one of China’s largest cities, has sharply reduced the number of new car registrations it allows this summer to reduce traffic congestion and air pollution. An elitist measure, no doubt, and finger in an exploding dike anyway, but who has the money to finance efficient close to work housing and sufficiently filled trains to take everyone on holiday? Municipal officials from all over China have been flocking to Guangzhou to ask for details. Xi’an, the metropolis of northwestern China, has already announced this month that it will limit car registrations, although it has not settled on the details.

     So, The Times of course must recite the pablum we’re all fed on associated with the glamor of our oh so useful mobile thrones – when there’s no traffic. Is that what’s going on here? Only those who can afford bribes are allowed cars so there’s enough space to comfortably drive until the whole country can be asphalted over?

     Tell everybody, Times – The Chinese auto industry has grown tenfold in the last decade to become the world’s largest, looking like a formidable challenger to Detroit. But now, the Chinese industry is starting to look more like Detroit in its dark days in the 1980s. Inventories of unsold cars are soaring at dealerships across the nation. Quality problems are emerging and buyers are becoming disenchanted as car salesmen increasingly resort to hard-sell tactics to clear clogged dealership lots. You mean salespeople are being salespeople? That’s a hoot.

     But sadly The Times prints – The Chinese industry’s problems show every sign of growing worse, not better. So many auto factories have opened in China in the last two years that the industry is operating at only about 65 percent of full capacity — far below the 80 percent usually needed for profitability. Huh. The counters are pissed. Watch.

     The Times continues – Yet so many new factories are being built that, according to the Chinese government’s National Development and Reform Commission, the country’s auto manufacturing capacity is on track to increase again in the next three years by an amount equal to all the auto factories in Japan, or nearly all the auto factories in the United States.

     Said Geoff Broderick, the general manager of Asian operations at the global consulting firm, J. D. Power & Associates, “I worry that we’re going down the same road the U.S. went down, (now they’re worrying?) and it takes quite some time to fix that.” Automakers in China have reported that the number of cars they sold at wholesale to dealers rose by nearly 600,000 units, or 9 percent, in the first half of this year compared to the same period last year. Yet dealerships’ inventories of new cars rose 900,000 units from the end of December to the end of June. While part of the increase is seasonal, auto analysts say that the data shows that retail sales are flat at best and most likely declining which is a sharp reversal for an industry accustomed to double-digit annual growth. Until, of course, the ____ hits the fan.

     Said Huang Yi, the chairman of China’s fifth-largest dealership chain, Zhongsheng Group, “Inventory levels for us now are very, very high. If I hadn’t done special offers in the first half of this year, my inventory would be even higher.” Special deals to whom?

     Americans, where has this next piece of information from The Times been heard before? – Manufacturers have largely refused to cut production, and are putting heavy pressure on dealers to accept delivery of cars under their franchise agreements even though many dealers are struggling to find places to park them or ways to finance their swelling inventories. This prompted the government-controlledChina Automobile Dealers Association to issue a rare appeal to automakers earlier this month. “We call on manufacturers to be highly concerned about dealer inventories, and to take timely and effective measures to actively digest inventory, especially taking into account the financial strain on distributors, as manufacturers have to provide the necessary financing support to help dealers ride out the storm.”

     So The Times repeats, in case anyone wants to forget what’s being imbedded in their brains. – As dealer lots become cluttered, many salesmen have resorted to high-pressure sales tactics. That has resulted in growing customer dissatisfaction in the past year, according to surveys by J. D. Power. As a result, auto dealers are voicing the same complaints about inventory as businesspeople in a wide range of other industries. Son of the _____.

     Officially, though, most of the inventory problems are a nonissue for the government. Son of the _____ I may as well repeat, using The Times method.

     The Public Security Bureau, for example, has halted the release of data about slumping car registrations. Data on the steel sector has been repeatedly revised this year after a new methodology showed a steeper downturn than the government had acknowledged. And while rows of empty apartment buildings line highways outside major cities all over China, the government has not released information about the number of empty apartments since 2008, according to a report last Friday. But as much of a problem as manufacturing reality is, Wall Street and most other institutions don’t just salivate wishing that same opportunity was open to them. As has been proven, by just putting a ribbon on any calculations, no one cares if enough friends can be kept above the financial storm. Then dress up the rest of us as a disgruntled electorate fed hope till the next election after the next after …

     Using the word – Yet, as if this were a real accounting, The Times adds – businesspeople in a wide range of other industries have little doubt that the Chinese economy is in trouble. Wasn’t this comment slipped in at the beginning? What is this Times report, some kind of mass hypnotization?

     “Inventory used to flow in and out,” said Mr. Wu, the faucet and sink sales manager. “Now, it just sits there, and there’s more of it.” Well good grief, if governments and The Times repeat the problem is TOO MUCH then it must be so. Really?

     When the problem is this incessant need to profit from and keep up with inflation, then the problem is we need to grow up and solve this. Stop pretending there’s not enough money in the wrong people’s wallets for EVERYONE to get ahead. PERIOD. If I may be so callous to insinuate those with enough are too spoiled and those are really spoiled, as in falling apart, aren’t worth the comfortable’s time to renovate. But that’s ok. The Chiefs-of-State all over the world will still afford the best clothes so the only real problem is we can’t empty those warehouses in China the world’s wholesalers decided the poor will never afford.

8/24/2012

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China - Rule By The Numbers Minus People?

8/24/2012 concluded: When the problem is this incessant need to profit from and keep up with inflation, then the problem is we need to grow up and solve this. Stop pretending there’s not enough money in the wrong people’s wallets for EVERYONE to get ahead. PERIOD. If I may be so callous to insinuate those with enough are too spoiled and those who're really spoiled, as in falling apart, aren’t worth the comfortable’s time to renovate. But that’s ok. The Chiefs-of-State all over the world will still afford the best clothes so the only real problem is we can’t empty those warehouses in China the world’s wholesalers decided the poor will never afford.

Dec. 9, 2019 - Jan. 15, 2020

The Waning Days of Impeachment Proceedings ...

     The feeling is there's just so much messaging in unassailable tones, and attitude trumps accusation, narrowing perspective, stretching character so thin the numbing audaciousness, at best, renders appraisal cyclically token. In flagrante delicto. But people've been polled liking our president's confidence. While drenched in so much gall, there's no difference. 
     War will end when violence is no longer embraced as an answer by the protagonists. Blind to cycles of revenge is a strategy from the dark side and why the planet so misunderstands ourselves. 

     Our president assumed office describing everything fake, except his ability to cocoon himself separately from aspects of the straight truth. As if all politics, state, national, global and local was just about spinning a yarn. Denying stirring's not cleaning the swamp at all. Yep. Power's a heady trip.

     "Making up impeachment as you go," was said, in the U.S. House of Representatives, with hard straight faces as if the trend itself wasn't of their own figureheads' making? Believe it. Advertise A President.  All hail the outright use of "gall," good grief.   

     By far the most theatrical presidency in history is not a question. Nor coincidentally part of some aspect of any random solution. A show is all that's cared whether known. No wonder "great job" and "loser" were so flippantly tossed about.

     Yes, I never like having to choose sides. I prefer alternatives have points. "Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman." Good point of order wondering why oaths weren't administered to committee staff. "I have a point of order." "That is not a point of order." Legalese? Legalease. Roll call vote. Love those. 

     Yeah. A meandering stream of consciousness has overtaken the public forum. Numbed along gets along, Will Rogers most likely, probably, lamentably, notably said outside a scribe's instant monitoring. But who's listening among adversaries intent on winning?  

     A fine mess we've made of ourselves. All the pointing fingers circling the globe at fantastic speeds, turning our heads so rapidly the insignificance is whimsically lost such that, we're just standing still rather than knowing, we're knocked from our very foundations. Because Americanism saves us. And right there's the crux. Nothing's so simple except the arrogance of revamping bigotry and hate under the guise of economic pragmatism that's balderdash. Poppycock from not the master of ridiculousness, but another victim himself. Adhering to gall as a justification. An America wanted great again. And not the one that, as difficult as it is, had hoped to simmer nationalism to a rate of pride producing international prosperity and peace. While our president just wants working what's in his quiver while the rest, without poll standing, can just go to hell. Possibly not how judgement operates that our president's apparently not comfortable fathoming. Trendsetter, hardly. God help us.

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April 12, 1952 Osterville, MA

Page 42: This country is being managed to death, being public related to death. 

October 2, 1965 Iowa City

Page 111: Nelson (Algren) gave me a big red sticker for my little automobile. It said, "STOP THE WAR IN VIETNAM!" I stuck it on my car, but the car was wet, and the sticker blew off before I was half way home, and I'm just as glad. My gladness doesn't have anything to do with how I feel about Vietnam. It has to do with how I feel about stickers. {My father Malcolm C. Fraser was anti-sticker.} 

November 13, 1971

New York City

Page 175: If I were younger, I think I might try to become European. It's friendlier and cheaper and tastier over there, but you will make at least one unpleasant discovery: they are wrecking their air and water, too. The Mediterranean is turning into an open sewer, too, just like lake Erie. I hope that during your lifetime it will be cleaned up again.  

August 29, 1974

New York City

Page 218: The Russians, incidentally, won't let me pay any of my hotel bills in my own rubles. They want American cash in advance. The same goes for my ticket on Aeroflot. The more I think about it, the less I want to go. It always gives me the herbed-jeebies to visit a dictatorship.

January 12, 1983

New York City

Page 293: Player Piano gets more timely with each passing day.

March 5, 1987

New York City

Page 316: Our president supposes that his brain is producing his options. His brain in fact is soaked in a culture, and has never bothered to examine its ingredients. He oozes rather than thinks.  

January 25, 1984

New York City

Page 354: So the advice I give myself at 71 is the best advice I could have given myself in 1940, when detraining for the first time Ithaca, having come all the way from Indianapolis: "Keep you hat on. We may wind up miles from here." 

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Pausing Mr. Vonnegut's letters' excerpts for personal reflection.

     There was a time, working economic speculation's lower rung, that despair had me particularly down. Living 2 blocks north and a little east of the Vonnegut townhouse, he happened upon me in the smallest of public parks by the FDR highway just north of the United Nations. 
     I hadn't read a lick of Vonnegut but had come across him once before, playing with his little daughter, or granddaughter, and we'd nodded. Because a woman, who'd named herself Soviet, had had fun telling our office that she'd talked with him there so I was looking but shy. The name Vonnegut itself sounds poetic. But that day anguished out in the tiny park, I realize, from his experience with kids, that concerned look he gave, as I practically ran away, perhaps dislodged some fear or something. It seems now, as the days evolved, my thinking became what did I care about where I was, I came to New York to write something particular. Took years to figure out, but within months, after Kurt Vonnegut's eyes carefully looked into mine, ideas came like, for instance, the novel's name. And when in full bore wondering, it was walking south on Second Ave passing the 48th Street he lived on that the All-American protagonist's name Hank Greenway was crafted. 
     Read everything of Vonnegut's before century's end, and started with Cat's Cradle, bought from a St. Mark's Place sidewalk bookseller, that was like being literally rapped in the head with an anvil of appreciation. How could I have not known his works had such genius? Like truly invigorating music my own aspirations were released from the need for everyday conclusions. 
     This is mentioned here, because I'm claiming he'd agree with me and dead-to-this-world can't dispute me. His comment about detraining in Ithaca where trains haven't gone in decades? Leaping into the car's future wasn't exactly Cornell's most perfect move. And don't tell me it was just the economics and the companies and towns and economic culture decides. I've visited Cornell. Twice. If Cornell had had the foresight. Hey. People may be zipping around on all sorts of things, but we still bang into each other. Our country needs to adapt light and industrial monorail strategies, because travel everywhere in smart-_ss cars still spells traffic jam. Kurt Vonnegut and I say beautiful Ithaca deserves being home to ever grander experiments.

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January 26, 1997

[New York City]

Page 373: Perhaps Indianapolis deserves its inferiority complex after all, since it is rapidly becoming nothing but a real estate development and a so-so football team stolen from Baltimore.

May 30, 1997

Via Fax to Robert Weide

LETTER TO BE READ AT A LOS ANGELES TRIBUTE TO ALLEN GINSBERG ON JUNE 1, 1997
Page 375-376: Allen Ginsberg and I were inducted into the American Institute of Arts and letters in 1973. A reporter fro Newsweek telephoned me at that time, and asked me what I thought about two such outsiders being absorbed by the establishment. I replied, "If we aren't the establishment, I don't know who is."
     Allen was inducted nominally as a poet, but had in fact become world famous for the radiant love and innocence of his person, from head to toe. 
     Let us be frank, and admit that the greatest petri satiates few deep appetites in modern times. But the appearance in our industrialized midst of a man without guile or political goals or congregation, who was doing his utmost to become wise and holy, was for many of us a surprising, anachronistic feast for our souls.
     Allen and I met at a dinner given in Cambridge by the Harvard Lampoon in the late 1960s. We would hold hands during the ensuing entertainment. 
     I had returned from witnessing the end of a civil war in southern Nigeria. The losing side, the rebellious Ibos, had been blockaded. There had been widespread starvation. I was there with my fellow novelist Vance Bourjaily. We arrived on a blockade running Catholic relief DC-3. We were surrounded at once by starving children begging for mercy. They had distended bellies, everted rectums, hair turned yellow, running sores, that sort of thing. They were also dirty. 
     We were afraid to touch them, lest we get an infection to take back home. But Vance was ashamed of his squeamishness. He said that if Allen Ginsberg had been with us, Allen would have hugged the children, and gone down on his knees to play with them. I told this story at the Lampoon dinner, and then said directly to Allen: "We have not met before, sir, but such is your reputation."   

February 23, 1998

New York City

Page 379: The Unitarian minister who buried my father (because he was dead) was Jack Mendelsohn, who later had a church in Boston. It offered sanctuary to draft resisters during the Vietnam War and lost its fire insurance. 

Page 403: My mistake in Player Piano was my failure as a futurist. I did not foresee transistors, and so imagined that super computers would have to be huge, with bulky vacuum tubes taking up a lot of space. 

January 11, 2002

New York City

Page 404: The ASTP was a scheme for stockpiling college kids, with no hope of promotion getting into OCS, until they were needed as riflemen. There was already a glut of officers and noncoms. I studied calculus and mechanics and thermodynamics and so on, for which the Army had no use, God knows, at Carnegie Tech and then the University of Tennessee. I was then assigned to the 106th Divisionm from which all privates and PFC's had been stripped as overseas replacements. It still had its original officers and noncoms. I was made an Intelligence and Reconnaissance Scout, Second Battalion, 423rd Infantry, although my only basic training was on the care and feeding of a 240 mm howitzer. Fortunately, my father had been a gun nut. So practically all my fellow prisoners in the Schlachthof were college kids stockpiled in ASTP. Our own suspicion afterwards, since we had so little ammunition and were still awaiting winter equipment, and never saw an American plane or tank, and were not warned that the Germans were massing large numbers of tanks for one last major attack, is that the 106th was baiting a trap. In chess this is called a gambit. Take the exposed pawn and you've lost the game.

September 12, 2002

New York City

TO THE EDITORS OF THE NEW YORK TIMES

Page 405: Dear Editors: 

     It may give us some comfort in these worrisome times to know that in all of history only one country has actually been crazy enough to detonate atomic weapons in the midst of civilian populations, turning unarmed men, women and children into radioactive soot and bonemeal. And that was a long, long time ago now. 

Page   : "... I'm out of here."  

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