Marcus Fabius Quintilianus does a reverse one and a half somersaults with three and a half twists, pike, in his grave

Mr. LATIMER: The president had taken a class at Yale about how to write a speech, and I forgot who the professor was, but there was a very strict way that we were supposed to do all the speeches - and I was told this a number of times when I came to the White House. And the Yale school of speechwriting was: you give an introduction, Point A, Point B, Point C, a prayeration(ph), and a conclusion.

GROSS: A prayeration is what? What's a prayeration?

Mr. LATIMER: I was just going to say I'm from Michigan, so you know, I never heard the word prayeration before. I didn't know. I think it's a summary of what the points were or something.

Shadows:

Matt Latimer: A speechwriter for George W. Bush. From Michigan.

Gross: Fresh Air personage. Full transcript of interview.

Quintilian: a Roman rhetorician, author of Institutio Oratoria, who knew from peroration.

Chirac rhymes with Iraq - must be a sign

You are surprised? A dozen times (this makes a baker's dozen), we noted what is now becoming evident to all (except the mainstream press(1)): Bush is insane. See @#$%#@$@# and @#$#@$@#$@#

(1) Note to Mainstream press: Indeed, USians had a whackjob as president, and you covered his every move for eight long years as if he were a scientific instrument, a veritable Asstrolabe of Human Reason. You'd look pretty non-credible to start running stories of this sort now. Your work offered less adequate representations of reality than, say, the novels of Dick (2). We understand. This is not about Bush, it's about you. Give yourselves another Pulitzer, five tabs of meth, and call me in the morning.

(2) (Phil K.)

numbers game

... the task before us is the introduction of a real state of emergency. Benjamin #8.

Volcker also understood that financial markets need to be regulated. Reagan wanted someone who did not believe any such thing, and he found him in a devotee of the objectivist philosopher and free-market zealot Ayn Rand. Stiglitz #1

Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation. Therefore culture is suspect insofar as it is identified with critical attitudes. Eco #3.


...when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors... Source concealed by the New York Times.

When repeal of Glass-Steagall brought investment and commercial banks together, the investment-bank culture came out on top. There was a demand for the kind of high returns that could be obtained only through high leverage and big risktaking. Stiglitz #2.

"Let me put it to you this way: I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it. It is my style." W

...the Ur-Fascist hero craves heroic death, advertised as the best reward for a heroic life. The Ur-Fascist hero is impatient to die. In his impatience, he more frequently sends other people to death. Eco #11.

The flood of liquidity made money readily available... But it should have been clear that we were living on borrowed money and borrowed time. Stiglitz #3.

During the evening of the first skirmishes, it turned out that the clock-towers were shot at independently and simultaneously in several places in Paris. Benjamin #6.

The rating agencies, like the investment banks that were paying them, believed in financial alchemy...Stiglitz #4

Since even sex is a difficult game to play, the Ur-Fascist hero tends to play with weapons -- doing so becomes an ersatz phallic exercise. Eco #12

The administration talked about confidence building, but what it delivered was actually a confidence trick. Stiglitz #5

The tradition of the oppressed teaches us that the “emergency situation” in which we live is the rule. Benjamin #8.

The above involved Capitalist Fools, Joseph Stiglitz; Eternal Fascism: Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt, Umberto Eco; On the Concept of History, Walter Benjamin. Ayn Rand via Mystic Bourgeoisie.

Times misses coffee spewing story opportunities

The New York Times gives us breathless drama, quotes Paulson:

“I’ve always said to everyone that ever worked for me, if you get too dug in on a position, the facts change, and you don’t change to adapt to the facts, you will never be successful,” he said in the interview.

The paper did not seem to think it worthwhile to ask at what point in the change authorization from Congress might be, uh, something to do. Or how much it adds up to ($2 trillion). Or whether the bankers are required to think humanely, ethically, responsibly about lending. You know, shite like that.

Buy my steaming pile?

best of class

Three fucking pages? I had to put more effort into book reports during grade school, and suddenly that's enough to vest you with the greatest financial powers in the history of the world. DEVIANT BEHAVIOR

see also: war

Blind man's roulette

"We've re-established 'moral hazard,'"

A person involved in the Lehman talks this weekend offered that breathtaking analysis to the (Murdockal) Wall St. Journal, which repeated it soberly -- a tidbit in its massive coverage of Wall Street in Crisis.

This bloodletting is the cure. The crisis began back in 2000, when Bush/Cheney got elected. Soon after, the regulatory framework - what was left of it -- took a barrelful of buckshot in the face, and people without homes, money, or jobs were buying property and discovering the joys of home equity.

An isolating, maverick, insensate war does not go together with lower taxes and tsunamic mortgage fraud (or, "overtrust" as suggested by someone on the WSJ's "Deal Journal"). The people who re-sent in the clowns in 2004 still do not see this. When Bush & co. bribed middle-class favor by tacitly giving USians freedumb to do anything, say anything, promise anything to one another in the business arena so long as the admin had a blank check to keep shooting people in the Middle East, we as a polity forfeited any claim to "moral hazard."

Should this sort of vision lead not to a dethronement of Bush, but to a sort of sublimation of his lunacy into President Palin, the USian game of "fool me a million times - fool me more fool me more fool me" will have risen to its greatest challenge.

Glimmer.

coraggio, ragazzi

Informant helpfully places Kucinich's Impeachment resolution next to other parrhesic moments.

snazzzzz

via ~

Sexy new JSTOR

Friday April 04th 2008, 6:12 am
Filed under: Database News, Library News, Search tips

The JSTOR database unveils a new interface on April 4, 2008.

Some of the improvements:
- “My JSTOR” allows you to manage and store citations. With your My JSTOR account, you can save or email citations or send them to bibliographic software like Endnote.
- Limit searches by discipline or specific journal title.
- Try the new “search within results” to narrow your original search.

For more information on the JSTOR upgrade, visit their sandbox.

undoctored photo via Alaska Report.

Greeks called it 'hamartia' (ἁμαρτία)

we'll settle for s-t-u-p-i-d:

97 percent of the deaths of US soldiers have occurred after President Bush announced the end of major combat operations in Iraq on May 1, 2003.

White Matter

NPR:

If you could look into this part of the brain, which sits right behind your forehead, you would see two kinds of matter: gray and white. Gray matter is the groups of brain cells that process information. Most neuroscience studies focus on gray matter. But nearly half the brain is composed of connective tissues that carry electrical signals from one group of neurons to another. This is white matter. Roughly, gray matter is where the processing happens, and white matter connects different parts of the brain, helping us to bring different ideas together.

The liars in Yang's study had on average 22 percent to 26 percent more white matter in their prefrontal cortex than both the normal and antisocial controls.

More Connections

Yang speculates that the increase in white matter means that people who lie repeatedly and compulsively are better at making connections between thoughts that aren't connected in reality — like, say, "me" and "fighter pilot."

Statesmanlike Custody of the Assets

JUAN GONZALEZ: And you also detail in your book the same kind of flimflam going on with the soldiers who are recruited into the military, a bonus pay that they get that then, if they happen to be injured too soon when they get on the battlefield, they then have to pay back?

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Yeah. I found that just absolutely astounding. You know, you’re doing this research, and you find things that—I say, “Linda, are you sure? This can’t be!” But they said—you know, the view is, they signed a contract to serve for three years. The fact that they get blown up after one month means they haven’t fulfilled their contract.

AMY GOODMAN: And so, what happens?

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: They have to pay back the money. Demo Now

Examplary displacement

Britney Spears has "mental issues," manager says