Now why didn't I think of this??

I guess gaming the system just isn't one of my fortes.

An Open Letter to President Obama

In 2008, my husband and I both contributed time and money to your election campaign. I'm very hesitant to do so again, primarily because of the JOBS (Jump-start Our Business Start-ups) Act. Among other things, this legislation lifts Securities and Exchange Commission restrictions on running advertisements soliciting new investors and permits “crowdfunding,” so that entrepreneurs can raise equity capital from large pools of small (and often naive) investors. Small, private companies would be able to sell up to $50 million in shares as part of a public offering without having to register with the SEC, and could have as many as 1,000 shareholders, up from the current cap of 500. The bottom line would be to allow Wall Street investment houses to slice and dice small businesses the same way they did to mortgage loans. What could possibly go wrong?

This pernicious piece of legislation (which should be re-named the Jackals Out-Bid Society Act) will remove these and other safeguards that have been put into place to keep Wall Street from picking the pockets of the American People. The only possible reason you could have for signing it would be to raise money from these mega-thieves, and if you do so, you certainly won't need any support from me this time around. I would hate to see Mitt Romney win the Presidential election, but what does it matter if it's only a contest between tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum?

Hell Hath No Fury

Poetic License Run Amok

Back in January, I along with millions of other This American Life fans were fooled by a story on the show called "Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory." So important did I consider the story that I posted it on this blog, resulting in a bit of the egg on This American Life host Ira Glass's face finding its way to mine.

Mr. (Mike) Daisey wrote the story as a monologue documenting his recent trip to China to observe working conditions at mega-factories like Foxconn in Shenzhen, a city in south China's Guangdong province. While it is indeed true that the working conditions at Foxconn are appauling, Daisey's monologue about them was presented as a work of journalism, when he had actually played quite fast and loose with the facts. Daisey, who has since admitted that there were serious factual errors in his monologue, claims that he never tried to pass the piece off as journalism. Could he have possibly confused This American Life with Dancing With the Stars? Or did Fox News so numb him to journalistic chicanery that it would never dawn on him to come clean?

If you happened to follow my link to this story, which I entered in this blog when it was first broadcast, please help relieve my conscience by following the link below to Ira Glass's retraction:

Requiem for an Angry Man

There are some who say that Andrew Breitbart was on all kinds of mind-altering substances. They accuse Fox News's Bill O'Reilly of being strangely silent about Breitbart's addictions, especially after raising such a ruckus about Whitney Houston. Perhaps drugs were involved, perhaps not. It doesn't appear that the public will be treated to any autopsy or toxicology reports.

It doesn't matter. Breitbart's biggest addiction is evident for anyone who logs into YouTube. He was addicted to anger:



Anger is an amazing high. It shoots epinephrine across your entire body and brain. It helps you feel strong, quick-witted and able to leap tall buildings at a single bound. I remember having an argument with my husband once and storming out of the house. I hiked the hills for miles. It's as easy to become addicted to epinephrine as it is to seratonin, the production of which is what many drugs induce. Soon you need a good rage to get out of bed in the morning.

The problem is that big doses of epinephrine increase blood pressure and put a terrible strain on the heart. I've gotten mine a bit under control lately, both with age and meditation. Andrew Breitbart wasn't that lucky.