Does anyone still need convincing that there are bad guys and good guys? It is not a matter of opinion. I know, I know. You keep harping on “everyone is entitled to an opinion.” Everyone is entitled to an informed opinion. If you believe that America is right to tell Europe to solve its own problem – you are wrong. Dead wrong. If you believe that the problems in Greece, Spain, Portugal, and the once thriving “Celtic Tiger” Ireland should solve their own problems – you are wrong. If you think Iceland should be allowed to rot in its own bankruptcy – you are wrong.
Sorry. It is never a matter of opinion when the facts are in plain sight. If you believe that it is “fact” that America, more than any developed country in the world, is held captive by its ideology – you are dead right.
Witness the Obama White House declaring that it is not America’s business to curb the madness of gambling with derivatives. So afraid is the White House of the disfavour of Wall street, it is willing to let Greece (and perhaps all the others) fall victim to the unrestricted interference of American banks like Goldman Sachs. Proof? Look at the “advisors” the president has surrounded himself with – all Wall street guys. From Timothy Geithner to Larry Somers they are all deeply mired in the orthodoxy of the “investment” industry. And derivatives are an investment about as much as beTting the farm on a hot tip at the racetrack. So, even though the poor, beleaguered and impotent SEC has tried to bring derivatives and hedge funds under control – doing that still appears to be contrary to American buccaneer economics.
Goldman Sachs made $300 million on the derivatives it put in place to mask the Greek bankruptcy. Critics of the financial establishment are right when they say these financial instruments would be illegal even in a casino.
There will be no hope for change unless America is ready to lead the way- even at the expense of making the money barons angry. It is ironic that Obama levels his guns against the greed and selfishness of the health insurance companies, but exempts the big investment bankers. He has to realize that he is losing political points on Main street. He has to realize that he has squandered the good will that Americans bestowed on him during the election campaign. He has caved. And the world suffers for it.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
GREAT ONE'S DON'T FALTER
Just the other day, someone asked me if I was still doing any radio. (I am always asked about my radio “career” as if I had never done anything else. The past haunts me.) It was at the Andy Barrie farewell, and it was another of those aging fans who remember me for my Open Line radio days. (I saw rankling because I really did do other things.) Echoes of “old soldiers never die…” and I have faded away. As I always say, sometimes grudgingly, “that was then – this is now.”
Lying in bed at night, collecting thoughts and recollecting memories, I found myself returning to memories of one of the greatest men I ever knew, or at least partly new.
During my years on the news side at CBC TV, I was sent to interview a physician who was visiting Baycrest Centre. He was the man who virtually “invented” geriatrics – the study of aging. A little wisp of a man with a withered arm, a published poet from Cambridge university in England, a man who would later rise to fame in the world of sexuality – he was Alex Comfort.
The geriatric centre at Baycrest was opening and there was no one in the world better to help it come to life, than this remarkable gerontologist. A physician, a scientist, a poet, and a man who devoted himself to understanding the process of aging. Perhaps if he were now to examine “Looking Ahead” he would congratulate me for not caving in.
A few years later I met him again. This time he was not a physician known only to insiders, but a world renowned expert on sexuality. He had written and illustrated:”The Joy of Sex,” which was followed by “More Joy.” The very explicit drawings were perhaps the most compelling element of the book. Comfort, having celebrated aging, now celebrated sexual behaviour and unabashedly, the joy of it.
By now he had moved to California where he became, thanks perhaps to the book, part of the:”touchy-feely” movement that was all the rage in the 70s. The “encounter” group was dominant. Erhard’s EST movement was in full swing. When I interviewed him he had gone from poetry to a kind of loving prurience. (I use the word positively, because he was a man who understood lust.)
He and his wife were part of the "encounter" group movement. He told me about how they spent time at Sandstone (I really forget the name) but it was a place where you and your loved one “got naked” and sat among other naked couples touching and enjoying. I remember picturing Comfort, the little wisp of a man and his short, pudgy, or to be uncharitable “dumpy” little wife – blissfully touching each other in wonderful, soaring, sexually joyful contact. He, always the poet, said “Larry – you can’t imagine what a turn-on it was. Cool.”
It is more than a memory. It is reminder that there is so much to look forward to. It is a reminder that none of us should mourn the passage of time, but treasure the moments ahead.
Last night, my wife, in one of her dream-state moments, thrashed about the bed and seemed to be throwing something at me. She remembered the dream. She was furious because, in the dream, I no longer cared about our marriage. Maybe that’s what brought me back to Alex Comfort and his own special brand of “Joy.”
Lying in bed at night, collecting thoughts and recollecting memories, I found myself returning to memories of one of the greatest men I ever knew, or at least partly new.
During my years on the news side at CBC TV, I was sent to interview a physician who was visiting Baycrest Centre. He was the man who virtually “invented” geriatrics – the study of aging. A little wisp of a man with a withered arm, a published poet from Cambridge university in England, a man who would later rise to fame in the world of sexuality – he was Alex Comfort.
The geriatric centre at Baycrest was opening and there was no one in the world better to help it come to life, than this remarkable gerontologist. A physician, a scientist, a poet, and a man who devoted himself to understanding the process of aging. Perhaps if he were now to examine “Looking Ahead” he would congratulate me for not caving in.
A few years later I met him again. This time he was not a physician known only to insiders, but a world renowned expert on sexuality. He had written and illustrated:”The Joy of Sex,” which was followed by “More Joy.” The very explicit drawings were perhaps the most compelling element of the book. Comfort, having celebrated aging, now celebrated sexual behaviour and unabashedly, the joy of it.
By now he had moved to California where he became, thanks perhaps to the book, part of the:”touchy-feely” movement that was all the rage in the 70s. The “encounter” group was dominant. Erhard’s EST movement was in full swing. When I interviewed him he had gone from poetry to a kind of loving prurience. (I use the word positively, because he was a man who understood lust.)
He and his wife were part of the "encounter" group movement. He told me about how they spent time at Sandstone (I really forget the name) but it was a place where you and your loved one “got naked” and sat among other naked couples touching and enjoying. I remember picturing Comfort, the little wisp of a man and his short, pudgy, or to be uncharitable “dumpy” little wife – blissfully touching each other in wonderful, soaring, sexually joyful contact. He, always the poet, said “Larry – you can’t imagine what a turn-on it was. Cool.”
It is more than a memory. It is reminder that there is so much to look forward to. It is a reminder that none of us should mourn the passage of time, but treasure the moments ahead.
Last night, my wife, in one of her dream-state moments, thrashed about the bed and seemed to be throwing something at me. She remembered the dream. She was furious because, in the dream, I no longer cared about our marriage. Maybe that’s what brought me back to Alex Comfort and his own special brand of “Joy.”
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