Financial terrorists: The list

If an American citizen left an explosive device on Wall Street that brought down banks, sacked the stock market and destroyed the fortunes of millions of Americans, he’d be considered a terrorist. And probably a traitor.

Below is a list of members of the House of Representatives who threw an economic bomb on September 29, 2008 by voting down a rescue of the financial system. The bill they voted down wasn't perfect, but make no mistake about it. Whatever they claim their motivations to vote against it, they’re sabotaging banks, sacking the stock market, and destroying the retirement, savings and future of millions of Americans. In short, they've sabotaged the United States of America.

If this isn’t financial terrorism, what is?

Write to these economy killing excuses for law makers and tell them what you think of what they’ve done — most especially if you live in their district. You can find their addresses here.

Abercrombie
Aderholt
Akin
Alexander
Altmire
Baca
Bachmann
Barrett (SC)
Barrow
Bartlett (MD)
Barton (TX)
Becerra
Berkley
Biggert
Bilbray
Bilirakis
Bishop (UT)
Blackburn
Blumenauer
Boustany
Boyda (KS)
Braley (IA)
Broun (GA)
Brown-Waite, Ginny
Buchanan
Burgess
Burton (IN)
Butterfield
Buyer
Capito
Carney
Carson
Carter
Castor
Cazayoux
Chabot
Chandler
Childers
Clay
Cleaver
Coble
Conaway
Conyers
Costello
Courtney
Cuellar
Culberson
Cummings
Davis (KY)
Davis, David
Davis, Lincoln
Deal (GA)
DeFazio
Delahunt
Dent
Diaz-Balart, L.
Diaz-Balart, M.
Doggett
Doolittle
Drake
Duncan
Edwards (MD)
English (PA)
Fallin
Feeney
Filner
Flake
Forbes
Fortenberry
Foxx
Franks (AZ)
Frelinghuysen
Gallegly
Garrett (NJ)
Gerlach
Giffords
Gillibrand
Gingrey
Gohmert
Goode
Goodlatte
Graves
Green, Al
Green, Gene
Grijalva
Hall (TX)
Hastings (WA)
Hayes
Heller
Hensarling
Herseth Sandlin
Hill
Hinchey
Hirono
Hodes
Hoekstra
Holden
Hulshof
Hunter
Inslee
Issa
Jackson (IL)
Jackson-Lee (TX)
Jefferson
Johnson (GA)
Johnson (IL)
Johnson, Sam
Jones (NC)
Jordan
Kagen
Kaptur
Keller
Kilpatrick
King (IA)
Kingston
Knollenberg
Kucinich
Kuhl (NY)
Lamborn
Lampson
Latham
LaTourette
Latta
Lee
Lewis (GA)
Linder
Lipinski
LoBiondo
Lucas
Lynch
Mack
Manzullo
Marchant
Matheson
McCarthy (CA)
McCaul (TX)
McCotter
McHenry
McIntyre
McMorris Rodgers
Mica
Michaud
Miller (FL)
Miller (MI)
Mitchell
Moran (KS)
Murphy, Tim
Musgrave
Myrick
Napolitano
Neugebauer
Nunes
Ortiz
Pascrell
Pastor
Paul
Payne
Pearce
Pence
Peterson (MN)
Petri
Pitts
Platts
Poe
Price (GA)
Ramstad
Rehberg
Reichert
Renzi
Rodriguez
Rogers (MI)
Rohrabacher
Ros-Lehtinen
Roskam
Rothman
Roybal-Allard
Royce
Rush
Salazar
Sali
Sánchez, Linda T.
Sanchez, Loretta
Scalise
Schiff
Schmidt
Scott (GA)
Scott (VA)
Sensenbrenner
Serrano
Shadegg
Shea-Porter
Sherman
Shimkus
Shuler
Shuster
Smith (NE)
Smith (NJ)
Solis
Stark
Stearns
Stupak
Sullivan
Sutton
Taylor
Terry
Thompson (CA)
Thompson (MS)
Thornberry
Tiahrt
Tiberi
Tierney
Turner
Udall (CO)
Udall (NM)
Visclosky
Walberg
Walz (MN)
Wamp
Watson
Welch (VT)
Westmoreland
Whitfield (KY)
Wittman (VA)
Woolsey
Wu
Yarmuth
Young (AK)
Young (FL)

“What, me worry?” Billionaire apartment buyers don’t fret about financial crises — as long as you give Paulsen and Bernacke $700 billion carte blanche

“…the continued depth of wealth at the very high end seems to be totally undaunted by the economic outlook,” reports Kirk Henckels. He’s executive Vice President and Director of Private Brokerage at Stribling, a Manhattan real estate brokerage firm that sells residences to — and keeps track of — people who are rich enough to be different from you and me.

In his “Mid-Year Luxury Report 2008” (the photograph at left is part of the back cover of that report and shows Henckels and his boss) Henckels talks about the still robust market for Manhattan housing in the “over $5 million” category and the people who are financially, umm, untroubled enough to buy them.

“ This group is still fast to act when a first rate piece of real estate or art comes on the market,” burbles Henckels, happily, “Witness the art sale this last June when a Monet fetched a record $80.4m and the sale of a $95m mansion in Palm Beach.”

Stay suspicious

Admittedly, all this was written some days prior to the growing crisis that has financial-gurus-turned-public-servants Henry Paulsen and Ben Bernacke offering to save the financial derrieres of the rest of us poor taxpaying slobs — provided we pony up $700 billion of our money and keep our lips zipped when it comes to questioning what they’re doing with the money, whom they’re giving it to, and how good their judgment is.

Remember, Paulsen is the same financial genius and investment banker who was saying in public, as recently as last July, that the fundamentals of the U.S. economy were strong. He didn’t know a disaster from a dingbat then. And now he’s asking us to trust him to incur the largest deficit in American history.

Why do I suspect that Paulsen and Bernacke want secrecy and freedom from Congressional oversight so they can secretly rescue the vast fortunes of people who otherwise wouldn’t be know where their next $95,000,000 mansion in Palm Beach is coming from?

But I digress. Here are some more eyebrow-raising observations from the Stribling white paper concerning the oblivious-to-it-all rich:

$7,000 per square foot
living quarters

• “…there has been a doubling of the number of sales over $20m [of cooperative apartments in Manhattan] from 6 in the first half of 2007 to 13 in the first half of 2008."

• “The highest sale was a duplex penthouse at 1060 Fifth Avenue that required work to combine the two floors and the purchaser has his own hedge fund.”

• “Also of interest is a pending sale on Fifth Avenue in the East 60s that, at $48m, translates to $7,700 per square foot.”

“You paid only $49 million
for a house?
Excellent buy, old boy!”

Townhouses, says the same Henckels-Stribling report, “enjoyed the same boost in prices as cooperatives with 5 sales over $30m, ranging to $49m this year versus last year’s top sale at 33m.”

And then he adds, “The highest sale at $49m was for the Milbank house at 14 East 67th Street, known more recently as Bob Guccione’s house. Even at this price it was arguably an excellent buy as it is very hard to find a 48 foot wide, 22,000 square foot house with full swimming pool in such a good location for $2,227 per square foot. That’s a bargain relative to the aforementioned $7,700 per square foot cooperative sale.”

Oh the poor babies! Billionaires so desperately need to have a 22,0000 square foot house in Manhattan with a swimming pool, and have such a difficult time locating one at an "affordable" $49 million bucks that John McCain, in the midst of this financial disaster we’re having, wants to give them a tax cut.

Yes, we need a bailout but —

Who knows if the economy can be saved? Banks need a bailout. But they also need to be temporarily nationalized and permanently regulated under close government scrutiny. The Paulsen-Bernacke plan boils down to “shut up, close your eyes and trust us.” That’s an outrage.

We need a bailout. But we don't need a tax cut for people who are pitiable if they're "only" paying $7,700 a square foot for a place to flop.

The rich idiots who got the banks into deep cow plop need to be dismissed the way dismissal happens to the rest of us — no golden parachutes. Give them two weeks severance pay and a security guard who escorts them to the door. And the Republican politicians who let the rich idiots run wild without regulation also need to be shown to the door by the voters.

We also need, as I’ve advocated before, an excess wealth tax. Such a tax would discourage the kind of rampant greed that’s bankrupting America. This tax would pour vast amounts of wealth back into the industrial economy where it can do the United States some good, rather than into private residences for people who simply can’t make do without a 22,000 square foot pied-a-terre, for $49,000,000, “in a good location,” of course.

Will real reform happen? I dunno. But if it doesn’t, I’ll see you on the bread line.

I complained to AARP that they're just shilling for insurance companies. Here's who I think replied to me.

AARP talks a good game about reforming healthcare for seniors. But I believe them about as far as you can throw a concrete block

Recently, they wrote to me asking me to enlist in their "Divided We Fail" healthcare "reform" effort by sending them money.

I wrote back to say their current "Divided We Fail" campaign is nothing but a vacuous plan with no substance, demanded by a company that shills profit-making medical insurance. Did I get back a reply? I sure did. But it was either from an illiterate or a robot.

Hey, I could be wrong, but I’ll let you draw your own conclusions, by letting you read the correspondence between me and AARP.

AARP started it all when
they sent me this e-mail:

Dear Crank [Real name redacted],

We have recently written you about the growing health care problem in the United States. As you know, in these difficult economic times, millions of Americans, especially those over 50, are finding it harder then ever to get by.

Meanwhile, health care costs are spiraling out of control, and many Americans are being forced to split pills, postpone medical treatment and even forego necessary medications. This is just not right!

We need to cure our ailing health care system – and you can help by supporting the most aggressive grassroots effort in AARP history – Divided We Fail. Through this massive effort, we will demand actions, answers and accountability from our leaders in Washington.

But, we can only succeed and create change with the support of AARP members like you. Can we count on you?

Support our work by clicking here now to give a secure, online gift. There is a lot of work to be done – and membership dues don’t go far enough – but with your gift of $15 today, we can continue our work to:

Lower the Cost of Prescription Drugs. Since 2001, the average price of prescription drugs has grown at more than double the rate of general inflation.

Keep Medicare Premiums Fair. Monthly Medicare premiums have doubled since 2000.

Improve Patient Care …and Provide Better Options for Long-Term Care. Patient care is more than caring for you when you are sick. It is also about keeping you from getting ill in the first place, and helping you avoid more costly health procedures.

Please contribute today. Peter, your online gift is urgently needed to help us make quality, affordable health care a reality for all Americans – especially seniors!

Individually, we accomplish little. But when we stand together, we can accomplish anything. Divided, we fail.

Thank you for your help in this and all our legislative efforts.

Sincerely,
Bill Novelli

Chief Executive Officer

I thought, “This is pure bullpoop."
And I replied via e-mail with this:

Absolutely not! AARP fought for the lousy drug plan we have now. The so-called "divided we fail" message says nothing. "Tell your Congressman to fix this mess?" All you do is denigrate Congress and further the division. How should Congress fix the mess? You never say, do you?

When AARP sponsors a single payer plan for all Americans, and negotiated prices with drug companies, then I'll support you. Until then, so far as I'm concerned, AARP is nothing but a shill for an insurance agent who manages his own finances so ineptly (or perhaps greedily) that he has to go begging for money.

Then somebody
— or some thing —
at AARP replied to me.

The reply, as you’ll see, had nothing to do with my complaint that AARP is in effect pretending to sponsor nonspecific "legislation," while its interests lie with leaving healthcare and the Medicare drug plan in the hands of the insurance companies. Here is AARP's reply:

Dear Mr. Crank, [Real name redacted] Thank you for your message sharing concerns that a donation is required before signing our online petitions. We have shared your message with our web activist team and it's my pleasure to clarify this issue.

We apologize for any confusion our online messages have caused. You are not required to provide a donation in order to sign our petitions. We are grateful for any support you can provide, be it through signing our petitions, getting involved through volunteer work, or making monetary contributions. Your involvement is key to our progress and we look forward to your continued support.

Occasionally, we send messages to activists like you requesting donations to help with our advocacy work. Additionally, upon signing our petitions, you are sometimes sent a follow-up message requesting a donation, or you are immediately directed to a new page thanking you for your signature and also providing the opportunity to make a donation via our online form. We recognize that many of our activists are facing financial hardship, and we understand completely if you are unable to contribute monetarily.

Again, as with all of our efforts, we are thankful for your involvement and with your help, we will gain the strength to convince Congress to ease some of the financial burdens our members are facing.

I hope this message clarifies this issue for you. We look forward to continuing our relationship with you and working to positively impact the lives of our members, their families and society as a whole. It is the combined interest, energy and commitment from members like you that gives AARP the power to make life better.

Sincerely,
Hilda Member Communications
Member@aarp.org
Toll-free 1-888-OUR-AARP (1-888-687-2277)
Toll-free 1-877-434-7598 TTY
Be a champion for change! AARP's Divided We Fail initiative is amplifying the voices of millions of Americans who believe that health care and long-term financial security are the most pressing domestic issues facing our nation. Demand action and answers from elected officials and candidates by signing the Divided We Fail pledge at http://www.dividedwefail.org/pledge

Huh? Is AARP staffed by illiterates or robots?
Beats me, but I sent a reply to “Hilda.” Here it is:

Dear "Hilda," Did AARP give you a reading comprehension exam before they hired you? Or, before they plugged you in if, as I suspect, you're a machine?

My message made no mention whatsoever of donations. What I had to say is repeated in the next paragraph. Incidentally, I think your reply is such an obvious non sequitur and example of how AARP isn't listening to its own membership that I plan to post our correspondence on my blog, The New York Crank [Http://TheNewYorkCrank.blogspot.com] within the next 24 hours.

Here's what I said:

>>Absolutely not! AARP fought for the lousy drug plan we have now. The so-called "divided we fail" message says nothing. "Tell your Congressman to fix this mess?" All you do is denigrate Congress and further the division. How should Congress fix the mess? You never say, do you? When AARP sponsors a single payer plan for all Americans, and negotiated prices with drug companies, then I'll support you. Until then, so far as I'm concerned, AARP is nothing but a shill for an insurance agent who manages his own finances so ineptly (or perhaps greedily) that he has to go begging for money.<<

Thanks for providing the provocation for me to post our correspondence on my blog.
Crankily yours,
The New York Crank [Real name redacted]

Will Hilda have a meltdown?
Will AARP ever meaningfully address
the needs of its members? Stay tuned.

So far I haven’t heard back from “Hilda,” much less from Bill Novelli, who is not only the CEO of AARP but also the co-founder of a national PR firm that for some weird but unexplained reason (maybe you can guess) doesn’t publish its client list on the web. http://www.porternovelli.com/index.aspx

If you want truly meaningful drug legislation — a no-hole drug benefit, universal healthcare and a single payer system, let AARP know about it. Send them a blistering note at Member@aarp.org.

Tell them the New York Crank sent you.

The birdbrains who are pecking America to death. Part 2.

Back in May, before the election heated up, I posted a piece called “Pecked to death by birdbrains.” I was railing against the U.S. Post Office. That was nothing compared to what’s going on today.

Now I have to rail against my fellow citizens — a nation overwhelmingly of birdbrains about to pigeon step in single file off a cliff.

As I write this, the stock market is failing. Our savings institutions are trembling on the brink of collapse. The newspapers are beginning to write stories about potential runs on banks, something that hasn’t happened since the Great Depression of 1929, which threw our nation into ten years of abject poverty.

Right now, Americans are still dying in Iraq, while the Taliban is regaining territory in Afghanistan, and Iran may be futzing around with a nuclear bomb.

And how are Americans reacting to this? According to the polls, we’re drifting from favoring Obama to favoring the know-nothing McCain-Palin ticket. Which essentially means four more years of mindless Bush policies that got us into this mess in the first place.

We’re talking, folks, about two people who know zilch about what affects stock prices, less than zilch about banking, and squat about how to deal with the mess we’re in today.

Denial of on-the-record facts

John McCain recently denied he said he didn’t know much about economics. If he truthfully believes his denial, he’s also suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease. Here, Senator McCain, is the truth:

Actually, the quote came from a 2005 piece by Stephen Moore, in which McCain said: “I’m going to be honest: I know a lot less about economics that I do about military and foreign policy issues. I still need to be educated.”

McCain also said this, per a December 2007 Boston Globe article: "The issue of economics is not something I’ve understood as well as I should. I’ve got Greenspan’s book.”

He’s “got” a book? One book, by one at least partially discredited economist? And on that, assuming he ever reads it, he’s going to base policies that could help the United States survive hard times or drown in a sea of red ink? He's going to get an economic education when he gets around to it, and meanwhile sink the rest of us if he gets an F? Or even a C minus?

What McCain, Palin and Bush are for is “less government.” Except, it was “less government” — the elimination, for example, of the Glass-Steagall Act — that sent the banks and brokerage firms of America reeling toward a round of disaster that hasn’t been equaled since, but may be equaled again shortly.

The U.S. Government lacks the money to pay off all the FDIC-insured bank accounts that will become worthless along with the banks that hold those deposits. Yet John McCain, who may or may not have gotten around to reading one not-entirely-trustworthy book on economics, wants to cut taxes as a cure all for everything from low housing prices, to collapsing banks, to failing brokerage houses, to troubled automobile companies to — well, to warts, for all I know.

But wait, there’s more!
Like starting a nuclear war!

Georgia invades South Ossetia. So Russia invades Georgia. And suddenly, we’ve got Bush-McCain-Pallin responding to this near-nuclear situation by pouring gasoline on the fire and encouraging NATO membership for Georgia. This would require us to invade Russia. And you know what that means in terms of nuclear war.

Kaboom!

McCain-Pallin agree with Bush that we should surround the Russians with NATO nuclear missiles, right in the countries that border them. When the Russians tried the same trick in Cuba back in 1962, we wouldn’t stand for it. The event was called the “Cuban Missile Crisis” remember? We nearly risked World War III to get the Russians out of a neighboring country. Why should the Russians stand for it when we wouldn’t?

We’re heading for a meltdown — financial, international, diplomatic, nuclear. When it comes, most of the people reading this won’t be alive long enough to get past the next sentence.

But America “feels good” about the McCain-Palin continuation of the Bush program of national suicidal idiocy.

P.T. Barnum and the
North American Birdbrain

P.T. Barnum, the father not only of the three-ring circus but also of the theatrical con job once said that, “Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people.”

But today’s North American Birdbrain exceeds anything even P.T. Con-em could have imagined.

The one thing I don’t have to worry about is this: When your bank collapses and your city explodes, you won’t come running to me. The reason?

Both of us will be nothing but a small, radioactive cinder.

Mayor Sarah Palin to Wasilla rape victims: “I want to rape you again! Here’s a bill for getting violated. Have a nice day.”

Shocker: When Sarah Palin was Mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, her appointed police chief fought to stick rape victims with the bills for rape kits the local hospital used.

The kits help to establish there was a rape and identify the rapist.

Said Palin’s Police Chief Charlie Fannon: "I just don't want to see any more burden put on the taxpayer."

Oh dear, the Palin administration didn’t want to stick the taxpayers with the bill for rape kits when they could stick it to the victims, instead.

Points out the blog Daily Kos, the total bill to Wasilla for all this forensic work on behalf of its rape victims would have been between $5,000 and $14,000 a year. And that’s less than Sarah billed the state of Alaska for sleeping in her own home.

I mean, talk about her "small town values!"

See the post, “Justice, Maverick Style,” here for the details about the small-minded excuse for a human being that John McCain wants to succeed him as president.

A pit bull with lipstick? This is what pit bulls do to babies. What ‘till you see what a McCain-Palin mad dog administration does to your family.

The photograph was published some time ago in The Baltimore Sun. It shows what a pit bull did to a baby.

The Republican party has declared Sarah Palin to be “a pit bull with lipstick.” 

Don’t you believe it. Truth is, Sarah Palin is Senator McSame’s lap dog, his More-Of-The-Same-Dame:

"Pit bull" image with
no-change lap dog politics

• Same unchanged deference to lobbyists who have secretly been writing the laws for their well-heeled clients instead of the American people. Republicans  talk a good game about "country first." But what they're really doing is putting profits for their greedy corporate donors and lobbyists first and the rest of America behind the eight ball.

• Same unchanged disregard for any proposal that will really fix the unemployment mess.

• Same unchanged disinterest in America’s rotting infrastructure which only the government can fix.

• Same blithe disregard for any measures that would really protect the environment.

• Same emphasis on cutting taxes for corporations and billionaires. Meanwhile, they want to tax your healthcare benefits.

• Same unchanged hatred for the kind of government regulation that used to prevent messes like the subprime mortage meltdown until Republicans repealed the regulations.

• Same unchanged lack of a meaningful proposal that would get every American citizen who wants it some form of affordable healthcare coverage.

• Same unchanged endless war in Iraq.

• Same unchanged financial responsibility that is digging a deeper and deeper grave for the United States of America, as foreign powers grab up our national wealth and laugh all the way to the bank.

McCain will make today's
bad situation even worse

A McCain-Palin administration will not only continue the situation but worsen it, lowering the already low international regard for the United States which has destroyed our worldwide leadership and which will keep us oil-dependent for many more years (That’s what “drill-drill-drill” is really-really-really all about. Making money-money-money for the swimming-in-profits oil companies while diverting major efforts from solar, wind and other energy sources.)

Ever see lipstick
on a real pit bull?

Yeah, sure — McCain is for “change.”

He’s about as much for change as a rabid four-legged pit bull will convince you it’s a hockey mom if someone paints lipstick on its drooling jowls.

Meanwhile, although she has finally — finally! — scheduled one measly press interview with Charlie Gibon, Sarah Palin has thus far refused to hold any full-court national press conferences where Americans can learn the answers to the questions we have on our minds instead of just the answers Republicans want to give us.

Maybe Sarah thinks it’s cute as a pit bull that she wants America wants to vote for her without knowing anything about her.

Well, here is one of the few things we do know about the woman who John McSame says will help him create “change.”

Sarah's shady college record?
Let's shed some light on it.

Sarah Palin thus far has offered no explanation of why she went to five different (mostly second-rate) colleges in six years before she got her four-year degree. In the absence of Palin’s willingness to divulge facts, we’re free to speculate on this national political figure. So permit me a few crankily speculative question:

• Despite her ability to make a fine speech, is Sarah Palin such a scholastic dimwit that she managed to flunk out of college one or more times?

• Was she caught cheating on exams or upsetting somebody else’s lab experiment so she’d come quit higher on the curve one or more times?

• Did she have one or more mental breakdowns?

Did she have to drop out of college (and — heaven forbid! — have an abortion because she was pregnant?)

The colleges themselves are forbidden by law to divulge their records. So we’ll just have to wait and see whether the Republicans and Sarah will share their secret information.

Wait a second! Wait a second! Did a right wing blog just lend credence to rumors that she had an extramarital affair?

Ordinarily I'm not big on directing readers to Republican-slanted websites the likes of Matt Drudge's. But I'm making an exception in this case because it relates to the very newspaper that had some Republicans rejoicing when, with remarkable accuracy, it outed John Edwards and his extramarital affair.

And Edwards wasn't even running for any thing. Anyway, now that same newspaper is suggesting that Sarah's been up to some extramarital hanky-panky.

Matt Drudge reports. You decide.

Barack, dude: If you want to win this one don't get sidetracked by an Alaskan barracuda

Dude, I know it isn't easy, what with the Republicans trying to refocus attention from the real issues in this campaign to their nomination of a "hockey mom" who's evidently under some kind of criminal investigation for abuse of power in office. 

I know that raises questions as to whether McCain and the people around him have either the integrity or the competence to vet a cow in a milking barn, much less a vice-presidential candidate who's a heartbeat away from a doddering old dude with a history of cancer.

But when it comes down to pulling that lever for you (or making an x, or stabbing a chad, or touch-screening your name) only one thing matters.

As a Democrat who built a successful economy before the Republicans wrecked it kept reminding himself, "It's the economy, stupid."

So dude, keep reminding people that with or without Barracuda Sarah (who evidently, in violation of the law, fires civil servants if they're not political hacks) the Republicans want to kill Social Security. The Republicans want to kill Medicare. The Republicans want to kill your job, your income and your future.

The Republicans want to screw over the average American by cutting taxes for the rich again and meanwhile running up an even bigger national debt for our children – all this while the rest of America tries to hang on to our houses, pay off our mortgages and college loans, and hang on to our jobs (if we still have a job that hasn't been "outsourced" to India or China.)

Dump McCain by voting for Barack and we also get to dump the war that's draining your tax money and pouring it into that leaky sieve called Iraq instead of into medical care and infrastructure and job creation for America.

Dump McCain and America has a chance. And that hockey mom will be free to go back to Alaska and ask the criminal lawyer she's hired to defend her how her case is going. 

Hey man, I've just got back from almost three weeks of vacation. And whaddya know? I'm still cranky.

So long until early-ish September

Even a crank needs a vacation. I'm on mine. You got a problem with that?

See you shortly after Labor Day. Meanwhile, watch out for lies from the McCain camp. They're as big as elephant droppings. In fact, elephant droppings is exactly what they are.

Answer quick, John McCain: You have a goose that lays golden eggs. You should A) Kill and eat the goose B) Smash the eggs C) Drill for oil

It’s becoming clear that we Americans have a unique talent for ruining ourselves and our nation. It didn’t used to be this way. But the Republican Party and their know-nothing candidate, John McCain, seem hellbent on driving this country’s economy off a cliff.

Drilling our way to national ruin

Case in point: McCain’s contagiously stubbornly ignorant insistence that we can drill our way out of current high gasoline prices by drilling for small amounts of oil that won’t come to market for about ten years anyway – meanwhile endangering with pollution our coastlines and unspoiled wilderness of Alaska.

Bob Herbert, one of the more sensible op-ed columnists at the New York Times, sums it all up here.

Was P.T. Barnum
America’s greatest genius?

The McCain mission for economic suicide keeps chanting, “We have to drill here and drill now. ... Drill here and drill now. " More and more Americans are falling for this con, thus demonstrating P.T. Barnum’s observation that at least in America, “There’s a sucker born every minute.”

Meanwhile, golden opportunities – hard times always lay golden eggs for those who look for them – are falling into the hands of this nation’s competitors. We could have a new and highly profitable industry manufacturing wind generators. Instead, orders for these high tech energy machines that generate power essentially for free after they are installed are going to other nations, from Denmark to China, while McCain’s backward policy keeps demanding we pump for oil.

And because we keep spending our money on oil, we’re showering other nations with a gusher of our own cash – not only nations like Saudi Arabia, that pump the oil, but also nations like China, from whom we keep borrowing more and more money because our own has less and less value thanks to all the oil we consume.

How about buggy whips, John?

John McCain’s yearning to somehow find a few drops more of oil is about as forward thinking as a huge Congressional appropriation to save the buggy whip industry. Oil is a backward technology. It’s time to move on, before the rest of the world eats what’s left of our lunch.

But John McCain thinks – and perhaps he’s right, suckers – that he can win a presidency by yelling “Drill, drill, drill!”

If that’s our solution, we’re dead, dead, dead. And when our economy goes, so will our living standard, our colleges and universities, our technology, and our national defense.

Attention all attention-seekers. Stop climbing the New York Times’ new office building. Climb this instead.

I’ve been meaning to rant about this for some time now, but you know, it’s summer and I’ve been lazy.

Well, enough with all the procrastination. And besides, more than enough bloggers (not to mention Paris Hilton) have been rightfully pointing out what an idiot John McCain is, not to mention the idiots who surround him. There's no percentage in my wasting breath on more of the same.

McCain, McShmane.
How about those building climbers?

So instead of slamming the too-easy-to-slam McCain, here’s a gratuitous sneer for all those dudes who may put a newspaper out of business by diverting the company’s capital from publishing newspapers to protecting their physical flanks from dingbats who like to climb buildings.

It hasn’t happened once. It hasn’t happened twice. It’s happened three times: Idiots with a penchant for idiocy have noticed that the Times’ new headquarters on Eighth Avenue in Manhattan seem just perfect for climbing.

Perhaps that’s because the architects surrounded the building with bars that trigger thoughts of jungle gym in juvenile minds. (Picture)

The pursuit of splat-iness

At any rate, the climbers keep climbing, endangering pedestrians and passers by, not to mention news gatherers going in and out of the building. And the Times keeps having to modify the building to discourage climbing and the big splat that one of those climbers will make one of these days.

Let’s take these climbing attempts for what they are. The perpetrators are not only guilty of suicidal idiocy. They’re not only recklessly endangering people on the crowded streets below.

Their actions also constitute an attack on the solvency (and therefore the freedom) of the press.

Yo, climb this

Look, Dumbo, if you want to climb a challenging building, go climb the Washington monument. It looks a lot harder. You’ll stand out better against one of its plain granite facets. And if the police don’t shoot you off it, you’re more likely just to fall in front of a throng of tourists, all of them holding cameras.

This will assure you of a posthumous You Tube moment, plus your constitutionally guaranteed 15 minutes of fame.

Get out of New York and go for it, fella.

Deadeye Duck! AFLAC spokesbird shoots down hostile Chief Marketing Officer

Back in February of last year, I did a cranky rant called “The tale of the duck and the dumbbell” about Jeffrey Herbert. He was the CMO (that’s corporate jargon for “Chief Marketing Officer”) who had just arrived at his job at the AFLAC insurance giant and announced he was going to do in the duck.

Wing-clipping, down-sizing,
seat-busting threats

Well, maybe that reference to "do in" is a bit extreme. Actually, various press reports had Herbert plotting to “downsize” the duck, "clip its wings" and make it "take a backseat." My own cranky blog piece, comparing Jeff Herbert to Elmer Fudd, stated:

Y’see, in violation of the late David Ogilvy’s rule that “the consumer is not a moron, she is your wife,” Chief Marketing Officer Jeff Herbert-Fudd has decided that a moron is exactly what you and your wife are.

According to Advertising Age, “’Our industry is a difficult one for the average consumer to understand,’ Mr. Herbert said. ‘We want to move our brand from being known to owned.’ And that means new creative, new products and a rethinking of the media plan.”

In short, CMO Jeff Herbert-Fudd plans to kill the Duck. Or at least roast its hiney to an unrecognizable crisp.

In keeping with The New York Crank’s editorial policy of calling an imbecile an imbecile, we crankily reminded the high mucky-mucks of advertising:

CMO Jeff Herbert-Fudd, like another dodo named George Bush, can’t get the first rule of success through his head: "If it ain’t busted, don’t fix it." Ignoring the rule is how we got into Iraq. It's also how CMO Jeff Herbert-Fudd is going to shoot down the most successful advertising symbol in decades and help send the company into a tailspin.

Did Herbert listen? Well, maybe halfway. While the duck never entirely went away, he was upstaged for quite some time by a billy goat who said “naaa” when asked if he enjoyed the kind of insurance benefits AFLAC afforded. (Get it, get it?)

Ducks and goats
quacking and sacking

Little by little over the past few months, I became aware that the billy goat was gone from AFLAC advertising, leaving only the duck to do the spokes-quacking. What was going on here?

A little research provided the answer. In trying to fix what wasn’t broken, CMO Jeff Herbert in less than a year on the job got his career at AFLAC quacked. Oh very well then, croaked. The official word was that he “resigned.” Isn’t that almost always the official word?

All this is proof again that if you try to bury a TV advertising symbol that has made 85% of the public aware of your brand under a dumb media plan that uses billboard advertising and TV billy goats, management will eventually take you for the expendable jackass you are.

I have only one thing to say to the person at AFLAC who made the decision: Good for you, ducky!

Wow! The “justice” system at Guantanamo is so effective that now our enemies are copying it. Or are we copying them?

Eight women and one man convicted of adultery are set to be stoned to death in Iran, activists said Sunday.

Six of the nine were convicted based solely on judges' decisions with no witnesses or the presence of their lawyers during their confessions...

Hmm, sounds suspiciously like what goes on at Guantanamo. Do you think a few U.S. generals, colonels, and present and former attorneys-general might have a second career in Sharia courts? Or are we leasing Iranian Sharia judges to run our own so-called justice system at Guantanamo?

Only asking.

Mystic evil fortune teller curses John McCain and Bob Novak with powerful psychic ding

It’s been a while – almost a year and a month, in fact – since this blog last paid a visit to Mme. Galzogorist, the fortune-telling seer on one of Manhattan's grittiest commercial blocks. She's the one who has the power to dispense psychic dings. A psychic ding is the kind of curse that causes less-than-loveable people to feel severe mental anguish.

Or to look stupid.

So when I checked out the TV news recently, and heard about John McCain whining about Barack Obama's foreign travels, I figured Mme. Galzogorist had to be behind it.

Right I was. Here’s a transcript of my latest interview with my local fortune teller, mystic, seer, and bad mojo witch.

CRANK: Good to see you again, Mme. Galzogorist.

MME G: Watch where you’re walking. Don’t step on the dog.

CRANK: Certainly. I’ve come to ask you…

MME. G: Or the cat.

CRANK: Let me get right down to it. Did you give John McCain a psychic ding?

MME. G: Well I certainly didn’t give him a psychic dong. That guy has absolutely nothing that could point this nation out of the war, out of the economic mess we're in, or even out of his own tangled verbal underwear.

CRANK: Why are you taking it out on the poor senator?

MME G: Because he’s a whiner. He whined, whined, whined that Barack Obama had never visited Iraq. Waa waa waa! Then Obama goes to Iraq and McCain whines, whines, whines about Obama’s traveling. I also sense rumors that McCain's sore at Obama getting so much press coverage. I mean, what did he expect would happen? McCain asked for it and he got it. Lie down in dog poop, wake up smelly. He has no right to complain. So I dinged him.

CRANK: Did you ding McCain on the economy, too?

MME G: McCain dings himself on the economy every time he opens his mouth. Not to mention looking like an idiot when he tries to explain the history of the surge. His campaign theme song ought to be a takeoff on that 1958 doo-wop song.

Don’t know much about history
Don’t know ‘bout the economy
Don’t know much about a science book
Don’t know much about the French I took…

You can find all the original lyrics and download them for a Republican ring tone just by clicking on this link. Come to think of it, that could be George Bush’s theme song, too. Or the full verbatim text of the Republican platform.

CRANK: So do you think Obama’s going to win the election?

MME. G: Situation is cloudy. Ask again later.

CRANK: Why has Obama slipped in the polls?

MME G: I could give you a smart-aleck answer, such as, “Americans have an infinite capacity for voting against their own self-interest and wishes.” But all I’ll say officially is, “Situation is cloudy. Ask again later.”

CRANK: Did you also ding Bob Novack, the syndicated columnist?

MME G: You mean the guy who outed an active CIA operative, Valerie Plame, endangering the lives of CIA assets? If you’re talking about his hit-and-run of a pedestrian with his sports car in the nation’s capital, and his claim that he simply didn’t notice hitting a guy so hard that the poor victim ended up with casts on his neck and back, nah, I didn’t cause that ding. It was the pedestrian who dinged Novack’s Corvette, by allowing himself to get hit-and-run by Novack. Vroom vroom.

CRANK: How big is the ding?

MME G: I don’t know. But if Novack put the poor hit-and-run victim in the hospital, I imagine the ding is bigger than a dime. Somebody ought to go out and take a picture of the car before the damage disappears like, oh, a few million incriminating White House e-mails. Where are the paparazzi now that we need them?

CRANK: Will you be dinging any more politicians before the November elections. Say, by causing one of them to make a major gaffe?

MME G: Situation is cloudy. Ask again later.

CRANK: Thank you, Mme. Galzogorist.

MME G: Watch out! How many times do I have to tell you – don’t step on the cat!

This man has a brilliant and thoroughly out-of-the-box plan to save beleaguered Antioch College. Is anybody at all listening?

Antioch College, a once-great institution, is currently in a state of suspended animation, a product of neglect and worse by its trustees, administration and some alumni over the last 20 years. Officially, the college is closed. The alumni have a plan to re-open it, using $18 million in cash and pledges they have gathered – if they can come to agreement with the University trustees.

I’ve already pointed out that with a piddling $18 million its hopeless to try to restore a college like Antioch to greatness.

That $18 million would have to renovate an ailing physical plant with over 20 buildings. It would have to replenish the dwindling faculty with new recruits – not easy for an institution with a now-shaky reputation. Ditto, it would have to attract high quality students – a task that was proving extremely difficult even before the college's parent Antioch University revealed just how shaky the college really was.

And, if Antioch wants only first-rate students, it will have to keep going with a too-small student body until its reputation can be restored and it can attract all the talented students it needs. Nice trick if you can do all that with $18 million.

A reorganization plan that creates
its own income stream

Now it turns out that over a year ago, a 1965 Antioch College graduate had worked out an extraordinarily innovative plan that might actually save the college – and provide an economic stimulus to the adjacent village of Yellow Springs, Ohio, at the same time.

His name is J. David Coldren. His plan works in part by creating an income stream to supplement tuition. At the same time, it reinforces what was special and traditional about the college, including its once-famed work-study plan, its equally pioneering study abroad program, its once-respected insistence on academic excellence, and its tradition of community government.

Other features in Coldren’s plan include a “green” campus, studies in ecology, environmental protection, and urban planning, and “using Antioch’s extensive land holdings for field studies and work projects.” Importantly, Antioch would not do what it has considered doing – sell off any of its land. Instead, the beautiful campus and adjacent Glen Helen would “not in any way cede its properties or inherent powers to any other entity.”

Hidden in plain sight

For just about a year now, Coldren’s plan has been hiding in plain sight on the Internet. I wasn’t aware of it until I accidentally stumbled across it about two weeks ago. You can find it by going here and then clicking on either “Internet Slideshow” or the PDF file link.

The plan has many facets, but as I see it, one of its key factors is what Coldren calls an “intergenerational learning environment.” What this boils down to is constructing a facility on campus that would be part assisted living center for about 250 senior citizens (Coldren calls them "seasoned citizens") and part freshman residence hall. Assisted living residents, he says, would be encouraged to “take certain classes, attend cultural events, and be active in Community Government.”

Coldren believes that “Enriched experiential education will benefit both students and the seasoned citizens,” and that a required core curriculum should include “an extended seminar to help students process their experiences with mature, aging persons.”

This plan harnesses, he told me, two demographic trends: A projected decline of college-age students in coming years, and an increasing number of what he calls “active seasoned citizens.”

And one other thing very much worth noting: A byproduct of the center would be money for the college.

Where’s the income stream?
Also hidden in plain sight.

Coldren’s presentation of his plan notes:

Antioch’s President and administrators should be supremely competent academic leaders and terrific fund raisers. They need not be particularly knowledgeable or adept about food services, residential care, maintenance, security, or telecommunications. Much of that can be contracted for – and should be…

By partnering with a developer to develop an urban village around the college core on Antioch property and by building only the most essential academic and residential facilities for students (such as a single dormitory–like residence hall for 1st year students and co-located with an assisted living center), the college should be able to shed lots of overhead and maximize its revenue stream from leases and rentals.

Coldren is quick to admit that the college will still need an endowment. His estimate of $50 million of endowed startup costs is certainly greater than the $18 million now at the disposal of the alumni, but not beyond reach.

The reaction? Hostility, negativity
and an undertone of fear

You’d think that a plan that gives back to Antioch everything it ever stood for plus one more thing – a new raison d’etre – would be greeted with at least a little bit of enthusiasm. Think again.

Knowledgeable about Antioch and therefore wary of reactions among the Alumni Board of Trustees, the parent university’s Board of Trustees and others, Coldren says:

"I chose to send an earlier version of the presentations to friends on the two Boards plus the Chancellor. They were welcome to circulate it as they saw fit. Apparently some did…. "

But unfortunately, “If there was a favorable reaction I haven’t heard about it,” Coldren told me just before I posted this story. In fact, there was plenty of unfavorable reaction when Coldren posted a presentation of his plan on some of the “Save Antioch” forums.

You’ll find one of those forums here. Keep following that thread to see the plan wildly accused of extraordinary crimes and misdemeanors, from attempting to turn Antioch into a “theme park,” to an attempt to turn it into a “Halliburton franchise,” to a declaration that the plan would try to “sell” Antioch like a product. Heavens to Betsy! How can you attract sufficient numbers of faculty, students and donors to that dead hulk without “selling” the virtues of what it could offer?

There was even an impassioned defense of the graffiti that now defaces many of the buildings on the Yellow Springs, Ohio campus.

All of this tends confirms what Coldren told me next– that when he posted in the forums:

I got so much disparaging and downright hate e-mail that only confirmed for me that there had been – and still was – and illiberal and so-called toxic culture at Antioch College for years. Civility and respect for other opinions had vanished.

If only Coldren were left-leaning
might his plan have a better chance?

Sometimes I wish I could be saved from my own political allies. Certainly that's so in the case of my liberal allies' reaction to the Coldren plan to save Antioch. It may not help a brilliant idea that its parent has leaned toward politically conservative thinking since his college days.

Were Coldren only as "liberal" as, say, The New York Crank, and if he avoided certain liberal rage-triggering words like “outsourcing” in his presentation, the alums might be rallying to his plan instead of disparaging it.

Antioch, Coldren said in his presentation, should not be a “boot camp for the revolution.” In fact, it was no such thing when Horace Mann founded it, nor when Arthur Morgan reinvisioned the college in the 1920s and turned it – at least for the next 50 years – into an experimental but excellent place to get a well-rounded college education.

Unfortunately, some people who usually agree with me on other matters have developed a self-crippling case of doctrine blindness. Throw a word like “outsourcing” or “globalization” into the works and the whole progressive educational machine crashes like an overloaded computer. Mention that a plan that could support and propagate mostly liberal ideas and policies comes from a conservative, and you may as well have dumped 50 pounds of anthrax spores into the local drinking water.

A “breeding ground for revolution”
is a breeding ground for educational failure

If the alumni continue to see the college not as a place to propagate educational excellence and innovation but as a breeding ground for revolution – whatever they mean by revolution – their efforts to revive Antioch will fail and I predict the campus will be sold off, quite possibly to some entity that many of the alums will truly hate, such as Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.

On the other hand, if they adopt Coldren’s plan, or even just cherry pick the best parts, perhaps the college can survive and become great again.

But don’t hold your breath that the alumni will see the light.

"Shallow, incurious, indifferent to the facts"

For a moment I thought I was reading about George Bush. But no, the nouns attached to all these adjectives in the headline were "John" and "McCain."

My friend Underbelly has some interesting thoughts about John McCain, George W. Bush, what makes them similar and what makes them different. I recommend that you spend a few minutes here, reading his short essay about what does – and doesn't – make John McCain the worst kind of "old fogey."

Do we really need or want another intellectual dud in the White House?

I'm outta here for a few days

I'm traveling, and not even for fun. Just for business.

Hey, there's no way to make even ten cents an hour writing this blog, so a Crank's gotta do what a Crank's gotta do. In my case, that involves getting on an airplane to Chicago and doing some money-making stuff for a few days.

I'll be back end of the week. See you then, or early the week of July 21.

Thanks, Republican economics, for all the poverty – and keep cheerleading for it, John McCain. By the way, I love your dumb hat.

With John McCain essentially promising four more years of the Bush economy, with maybe some draconian budget-cutting measures thrown in to "reduce the deficit," it might be worth taking a look at some recent poverty numbers.

These come from an e-mail sent to me a few days ago by New York State Senator Liz Kreuger. She gets her information from a report from The New York Women's Foundation. It has to do with women but trust me, men and entire families are getting sucked into the same poverty hole.

• In 1989, 87.2% of women lived above the poverty line, but by 2005, only 83.4% lived above the poverty line.

• Today, 15.2% of New York's women live below the Federal Poverty Threshold ($19,806 for a family of four; two adults and two children), and 26.8% of all female-headed households with children live below the poverty line.

Kreuger adds:

The dire economic situation for women in New York and the downward trend are not isolated problems. Poverty creates ripple effects to th detriment of our entire state, impacting whole families, particularly impacting vulnerable children, elderly family members and whole communities.

Mind you, we're talking not about a long-declining rust belt state. This is happening in filthy rich, billionaire-loaded, $15 million luxury apartment-filled New York State. As the middle class slowly sinks into poverty while the super rich grow ever more super and richer, what does John McCain have to say about the economic policies that have brought us here?

Well, root around on his official website and you'll find him supporting heartwarming policies like these:

• He'll make it harder to raise taxes. Umm, he forgets to mention he's talking mainly about taxes on the rich. Warren Buffet, the billionaire investor, has complained that his secretary pays more of her income in taxes than he does.

• McCain will keep the tax cuts for millionaires on their capital gains and dividends. You're a poor jerk who only has $40,000 in a CD? Sorry bub, no tax break on bank interest for you.

•But McCain will cut the corporate tax rate 10% (thus shifting more of the burden to wage earners.)

•He'll also institute "pro-market health care and Medicare reforms." You don't know what that means? It means getting you out of Medicare and into an HMO with the disguising title "Medicare Advantage." Whatever they call it, it's an HMO. Did an HMO ever lower your health insurance rates?

I'd keep on going, but I'm almost ready to puke. Obama may have his faults, but if you don't vote for Obama what you're likeliest to get – if you're still part of the middle class by the time the next presidential term comes around – is impoverished.

P.S. What's with the dumb hat McCain is peddling on his website? Does he want to make us feel like we're all his kids? What's he trying to tell us? If he's the dad, who's the mom? I don't know about you, but I've never been in the same birthing room with Cindy McCain.

Now it turns out Antioch’s incompetent trustees and chancellor closed the college with zero forethought and planning

The situation at what’s left of beleaguered Antioch College keeps on going – from bad, to worse, to unimaginably horrendous. We’ve commented on the disaster there here, here, and here, but the bad news simply keeps on coming.

Back in May, perhaps some skeptics who thought the trustees and chancellor of Antioch University couldn’t be totally irresponsible might have scoffed at this report in a journal called Inside Higher Ed:

Paula A. Treichler, an Antioch alumna who last week left the Antioch board and who is a professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, blasted trustees for refusing to accept the deal [for turning the Yellow Springs college campus over to the alumni-sponsored Antioch College Continuation Corporation instead of closing down the college.] She said last week’s vote “does violence to the college and its alumni, the Village of Yellow Springs, progressive higher education, and acceptable standards for the governance of academic institutions.” She said that the university’s chancellor, Toni Murdock, and “the uncritical trustees who have applauded her every move are living in a dream world of their own making,” engaged in “bullying, fear-mongering, selective presentation of facts and figures, legal intimidation, self-righteous proclamation, and secrecy.”

While the trustees have “won” the right to shut down the college, Treichler said that they will have done great damage to Antioch. “As the full story of these negotiations, hidden agendas, and 
squandered opportunities emerges over the coming months — and it will — we will have to conclude that the actions and decisions of this university administration and this university Board of Trustees have been among the most unethical, academically and economically irresponsible, incompetent, and politically cowardly in the history of American higher education.

Over the top? On the contrary. In light of new reports from Yellow Springs, Ohio, perhaps Treichler’s bitter denunciation was an understatement.

Proceed blindly, with both left feet

Last week, the Yellow Springs News revealed that the college closing, already in progress, is being conducted with all the forethought and attention to facts, detail, costs and law that the Bush Administration devoted to invading Iraq. Or maybe a little bit less.

• The Yellow Springs News reported that the way the college was going about the shutdown was violating the local fire code and putting buildings at risk. The problem? The buildings contained flammables, yet the fire protection systems had been dismantled.

• Freezing temperatures during winter could cause the sprinkler system pipes to burst, yet heating the more than 20 institutional buildings – a necessary step if the sprinkler system was to be kept on – involved expenses that the parent university and its underlings at the college evidently didn’t plan for.

• The college fired the physical plant employee who had been in communication with fire officials and who might have been able to communicate his concerns to the University’s hellbent-on-closing management.

•
"The problem has been the university has not been forthcoming in their plans for fire protection for the buildings,” according to the local township fire chief, Colin Altman, “No one has contacted us.”
 Not forthcoming? They haven’t even been forthcoming with their own alumni, faculty and the press.

• Having created one of the most enormous fire hazards in educational history, the Trustees, Chancellor and senior staff of the university “vanished.” Reported the Yellow Springs News again:

"We’re not trying to violate any kind of code,” he [Vice President for Student Services Milt Thompson] said. There had not been time to remove all furniture and other combustibles from the buildings because “things happened pretty fast,” he said.

 Decisions regarding the shutdown were made by Antioch University Chief Financial Officer Tom Faecke, according to Faecke in an interview several weeks ago.

 Faecke, University Chancellor Toni Murdock and University Board President Art Zucker were not available for comment last week or this week due to family and travel conflicts around the Fourth of July holiday, according to university spokesperson Lynda Sirk. Faecke and Murdock did not respond to calls seeking comment, and Zucker did not respond to an e-mail request.”

“Tear it down,” says a consultant

Meanwhile, the Trustees, who seem to make a habit of listening to bad advice from consultants (it was an outside consultant who originally advised closing the Yellow Springs college) hired yet another consultant who has advised tearing down half the buildings on campus, including the student union, theater arts building, the college gym, several dormitories, the art building and others. Yeah, that'll certainly help the college reopen in the future, the way Chancellor Tulisse Murdoch says she plans.

If they listen to the consultant, the board will be following not only in the footsteps of the Bush administration, but also of the legendary Vietnam combat officer who declared, without any glimmer of a sense of irony, that “We had to burn the village to save it.”

Panicked trustees change direction

Little wonder the trustees, now suddenly panicked, passed a resolution in June “seeking an independent college and asking the alumni board to present a process and a plan for achieving that goal,” according to the Yellow Springs News. This was the opposite of what they had announced earlier, after having turned down an earnestly drafted alumni plan to preserve the college.

The alumni are crazy if they accept the new offer. They have raised $18 million or so in pledges and cash to “save” the college and perhaps they could raise even more. But the mess that Chancellor Tulisse Murdoch and the trustees have created through their gross incompetence can’t be fixed with $18 million.

A sure thing: To repair the campus physical plant, recruit first rate (and rightfully wary) new faculty in every major department and then keep the college going with an insufficient number of students for about 10 years until Antioch College can finally restore its reputation, demonstrate its quality again, and achieve a critical mass of qualified students will cost many multiples of $18 million.

Our own cranky estimate: try half a billion bucks.

P.S. Antioch’s management, which in the past couldn't take yes for an answer when alumni offered a takeover plan to liberate the college from the University, also can’t seem to take no for an answer. In an organized response to the closing, a number of angry alumni wrote to the PR director of the university telling her to take our names off their e-mail list. We didn’t want to hear from the university, or her, ever again.

In violation of the spirit, if not the letter, of the CAN-SPAM law, the university's PR flack and the puppet Yellow Springs campus president not only defied our opt-out message by sending us another e-mail, but said they would do so again. It’s further evidence of the panic that has management desperately trying to get the college off their hands before they can be accused of destroying it physically as well as institutionally – an event that increasingly looks inevitable.

Their "opt-out this, buddy" message, sugarcoated with buzzwords like "stakeholders" and "outreach" said:

I am writing to ask that in light of continued discussions between Antioch University and Antioch College alumni regarding the transfer of the college to alumni, that you consider accepting periodic outreach from Antioch University intended to keep all Antioch stakeholders up to date about the college's future.

I respectfully ask this because it is our goal to make sure that the outcome of any actions pertaining to Antioch College are swiftly and accurately conveyed to everyone with a direct interest in the institution.

If it is still your decision to request removal from periodic communication, you may opt out of the news mailing list by selecting the opt out option at the bottom of the next communication.

Sincerely,
Andrzej Bloch Interim President Antioch College
Lynda Sirk Director of Communications Antioch University

As of July 7th, the college spinmeisters had failed to "swiftly and accurately" convey the chaos over the firetrap they had created, or the consultant's advice to tear down half the college.

P.P.S. Will wonders never cease? The July 10th Yellow Springs News reports that "The water sprinklers had never been turned off," according to the Antioch University vice president for student services, despite his report to the contrary to the local township fire chief, Colin Altman, the previous week. Then, uh, the University VP mentioned that, well, one building is an exception. And he still hasn't said how the University will deal with a pipe-freezing winter now that the heating system has been shut down. Or at least the University's financial vice president is still saying it's shut down. Who knows, given the stumbling by University administrators over what ought to be simple yes-or-no facts.

And still there's more – a move afoot in Yellow Springs to have the village assert its rights of eminent domain and seize the campus. Use the link in the paragraph above for details.  I doubt it will ever happen, but hey, it's Yellow Springs and Antioch. So you never know.

New York Street Scene: "Sidewalk? Whazzat for? Jaywalkin’? I never even hoid of it."

No question about it, New York is a pedestrian’s town. The tired gag that in New York, “Walk” and “Don’t Walk” signs are “recommendations” doesn’t even elicit a smile from most New Yorkers, just a weary nod of recognition.

Even so, West 32nd Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenues earns my cranky nomination for the Epicenter of the Jaywalking Universe.

On this block pedestrians don’t just challenge the right of way. They commandeer it, brazenly defying the little traffic that dares to try navigating that block – mostly an occasional errant taxi and city buses whose routes begin there.

Pedestrians don’t give a Bloomberg's Buzzard for oncoming vehicles. Do they feel impervious or are they merely oblivious? Who knows? But bus drivers have difficulty pulling away from the curb and taxis sometimes have difficulty threading their way through the throngs.

Admittedly, a lot of the people you see in this 23-second clip, recorded on June 30th, aren’t true New Yorkers. They’re suburban commuters, rushing from their offices to New Jersey Transit and Long Island Rail Road trains that depart from Penn Station, just half a block up the street.

But even so, is this a New York scene, or what?