PAY RAISE.

(Sung to the tune of "Heat Wave" by Irving Berlin)

He's getting a pay raise
Executive pay raise.
It isn't surprising
Lloyd Blankfein is smiling
The way that he ran Goldman.

The ethically blind rave
It wasn't a crime wave.
He's simply much bolder
Enriching stockholders
Than any lawyer can understand.

See how his cash reward 
and his salary
and his bonus soared. Good Lord!

He's getting a pay raise
Executive pay raise.
The only pay package 
That's more of an outrage
Is Dimon's who ran Morgan.

AMY CHUA: THE KARATE AND STICK APPROACH.

  If Horatio Alger is the poet of upward mobility in America, then Amy Chua is its tabloid editor. Her previous book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, found childrearing wisdom in the brainwashing techniques of China’s Cultural Revolution. (TFT 1/25/11) Her latest work is The Triple Package and - according to short excerpts and published descriptions - reduces the former book’s content to a formula, applies it to society as a whole and seasons generously with the bad taste of counting other people’s money.

The sub-title for Ms. Chua’s tome is “How Three Unlikely Traits Explain The Rise and Fall of Cultural Groups in America.” If that seems familiar it’s because it echoes those cheesy, small-space ads on the internet: “One Really Weird Trick For Losing Belly Fat.” If it seems obscure, blame it on the phrase, “cultural group.” By that, the author does not mean The Chamber Music Society of New York. She means what other people call racial, ethnic and religious minorities. If you hear goosestepping in the background that’s because the “rise” of minorities in America is not always viewed positively. Henry Ford, for instance, was preoccupied with the success of a certain “cultural group.” This may be a good, though not the best, place to mention Amy Chua’s co-author, Jed Rubenfeld. Not only is he the author’s husband and a fellow law professor, Mr. Rubenfeld maintains a respectable side career as a mystery novelist. Since there is no polite way to speculate on his involvement in this project and, judging by his name, we share a “cultural group,” I will refrain.

Any further discussion of this book must wait until it’s published on February fourth. If you can’t wait, however, and absolutely must know what three qualities constitute “The Triple Package,” then – again, based on short excerpts and various published descriptions - I would sum them up as: strong group identity, weak personal identity and brutal, internalized discipline. Of course, if you’re part of a certain, very large “cultural group,” you already know that.

J. P. MORGAN CHASTENED (AGAIN!)

(Sung to the tune of “A Foggy Day.” Music by George Gershwin)

Will Jamie pay

For what he’s done?

His bank’s been fined

Twenty billion.

A full year’s profits

Are now down the drain.

Their full faith and credit

Are now that of Spain.

How long he wonders

Can his job last?

How long can they blame

The bank not the brass?

Add legal fees

Ad infinitum

And the chairman,      Mr. Dimon,

Looks more like zirconium.

THE TOASTED OF THE TOWN.

Since it is now legal to buy marijuana for recreational use in Colorado, the following scene is, no doubt, being repeated all over the state.

A woman walks into “Bong For Glory,” a legal marijuana dispensary.

Good morning, madam.

         

Good morning, sir. I’d like an ounce of your best “shit,” please.

I just got some “Maui Zowie” in this morning and I think you’ll find it particularly pungent.

He lets her smell it.

         

Mmmm. How many . . . “doobies” to the ounce?

         

Depends how you roll them.

         

I’ve never done that. I don’t suppose you could do that for me?

         

No, but you could use a pipe.

         

Far too masculine.

         

How about a “bong?”

         

Excuse me?

         

A water pipe.

         

Like a hookah?

         

No, madam, like this.

He takes out an object that looks like plumbing on, well, drugs.

It cools the smoke before you breathe it in and avoids the Mammy Yoakem effect of a pipe.

Very civilized. Do I have to wear a Grateful Dead shirt while using it?

No, but it helps.

No, thanks. I’ll take the, uhh, “bong” and the . . .

“Maui Zowie.”

The clerk rings it up.

         

That will be eight hundred and thirty two dollars.

         

Very expensive. I was led to believe it was a nickel a bag.

         

Not literally, madam. Never literally.

         

Very well.

She charges it.

Here is your receipt, your bong and your “stash.” Have a mellow afternoon.

ON GORGON POND.

     August: Osage County is a good imitation of an American family drama. Written by Tracy Letts (based upon his play) and directed by John Wells, it concerns Violet, a drug-addicted monster of a mother and   her family of minatory women and milquetoast men. Bring them all together at a funeral, stir well and cook until half-baked.

     Meryl Streep is wonderful as Violet, a woman whose character is lacking - but her character is lacking. This drug-addicted mother has no tragic dimension, she’s just a pill. Less Mary Tyrone, the “mad ghost” of

O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night and more Neill, the ghost of an alcoholic dog in Topper. She has three children (more or less), a sister, who defines competitive and a grand-daughter, who’s thirteen going on thirty. Assorted - and - sordid husbands, sons and lovers complete the picture. They are watched over with loving grace by Johnna, a Cheyenne servant with reservations about all of them.

The story doesn’t matter - but the stories in this kind of drama never matter. They are only excuses for tearing open old wounds and exposing them to the healing light of truth. The closest this movie gets is when Julia Roberts tries to inflict a new wound on Meryl Streep. The rest is pretty superficial. Speaking of pretty and superficial, there’s some nice scenery. 

August: Osage County lacks the poetry of Tennessee Williams, the bile of Lillian Hellman and the blood of Eugene O’Neill. Doubly a shame because there’s a lot of good acting going on. Watch out for that Meryl 

Streep. She’s going to have a great career.

THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE SNOWDEN.

          Fugitive from justice, Edward Snowden, was flushed into the open recently, but the results were closer     to plumbing than to hunting. Mr. Snowden has been in hiding since stealing defense secrets from the National Security Agency and making them public. Once Judge Richard J. Leon ruled, however, that one of those secret programs - phone-related intelligence gathering - was probably unconstitutional, Snowden emerged to take the moral high ground. It was higher than he thought.

         

         The only response to a judge saying something is probably unconstitutional is, “That’s probably bad.” If the same judge calls a government program “almost Orwellian,” one should reply, “That’s almost literate.” Instead, Edward Snowden took it as a blanket endorse-ment of his activities and mounted the world stage to accept what he no doubt thought would be universal applause. After all, he was protecting his country from the “almost Orwellian” threat of unrestricted government surveillance, wasn’t he? Hmmm.

His intentions may have been good, but the road paved with them leads to Moscow - where Snowden currently lives. Moscow, capital of Russia, the country that inspired George Orwell to write 1984 in the first place. He’s a demi-citizen in a nation that could easily make him a “non-person.” One where there’s no shame - and a good bit of wisdom - in address-ing pro-government views to the nearest lamp or chandelier. Where they make  news by letting billionaires out of jail instead of putting them in.  Not that he would know. The best thing you think you can say about Russian newspapers is that there’s no “truth” in Pravda and no “news” in Izvestia.

         

    Another thing Snowden may not know is that ten days after his friend, Judge Leon, said the NSA might be doing something illegal, Judge William H. Pauley III ruled that they definitely weren’t. So, he should stop worrying about “Big Brother.” Put it, as Orwell wrote, in the “memory hole.”

     It’s not all bad news, though. Apart from embarrassing himself, the biggest danger Snowden now faces is getting too comfortable in Russia. That could lead to him criticizing their government and – with his record of thinking ahead and considering consequences (TFT 11/7/13) – something he should avoid.

So, Edrushka, for your own sake, put away the “Free Pussy Riot” t-shirt and remember that before he was President of Russia, Vladimir Putin ran the KGB. Yeah, the “secret police” or in terms that you and Judge Leon would understand, “The Ministry of Love.”