Year: 2009

THE CRASH COURSE

Douglas Patton: “I’m sure surprised you touted this guy. He’s sure not on board with Obama – or humanity for the matter. See this [recent post of his, decrying Obama’s plan to help people stay in their homes].”

☞ I didn’t tout his political views, I touted his “crash course.” I think he makes a mistake to join the radio talk show hosts and others who whip up outrage and resentment over the mortgage package. Leaving aside any thought that it can be a good thing to help one’s neighbor, there is the question of whether it’s worth trying to avert a depression. A lot of people think that’s what’s at stake here.

ONE THING IT WOULD COST NOTHING TO FIX

From from the Miami Herald:

Discrimination hurts — more so in hospitals
By LEONARD PITTS JR.

Your wife is dying.

One moment everything was fine. You were in your stateroom on the cruise ship — it was to be an anniversary cruise — unpacking your things. The kids were in the adjoining stateroom playing with your wife. Suddenly, they banged on the door crying that mom was hurt.

So now you’re in the hospital — Ryder Trauma Center at Jackson Memorial Hospital — waiting for word, and it’s not coming. They tell you, Joe (we’ll call you Joe), you can’t be with her. You plead with them, to no avail. No, Joe, sorry, Joe, we can’t tell you anything.

One hour turns to two, two to four, four to six. Your wife is dying, and no one she loves is there.

Finally, in the eighth hour, you reach her bedside. You are just in time to stand beside the priest as he administers last rites.

Your wife is dead. Her name was Lisa Marie Pond. She was 39.

It happened, Feb. 18-19, 2007, except that Pond’s spouse was not a man named Joe, but a woman named Janice. And there’s one other detail. Janice Langbehn who, as it happens, is an emergency room social worker from Lacey, Wash., says the first hospital employee she spoke with was an emergency room social worker. She thought, given their professional connection, they might speak a common language.

Instead, she says, he told her, ”I need you to know you are in an anti-gay city and state, and you won’t get to know about Lisa’s condition or see her” — then turned and walked away.

For the record, this is an increasingly anti-gay NATION, to judge from all the mean-spirited amendments and legislation that have made scapegoats and boogie men of them in recent years, including Florida’s Marriage Protection Amendment, which passed last November.

Langbehn is suing the hospital for negligence and intentional infliction of emotional distress. In a hearing last week, Jackson asked a judge to dismiss the suit. A ruling is pending. Attorney Andrew Boese, who represents Jackson, says the hospital ”absolutely” disputes Langbehn’s characterization of her encounter with the social worker. And as for visiting Pond’s bedside: “Our first duty should be to patients, particularly in an emergency room. The decision to allow someone into a trauma bay should be a medical decision. It shouldn’t be a question for a jury . .. . ”

All that notwithstanding, it strains credulity to believe that Joe would have spent eight hours barred from his wife’s bedside as Janice was from hers.

Politicians and alleged religious leaders have routinely invited us to hate gay people and call it morality. They have taught us to frame gay lives in cloudy abstracts of tradition and values. But this isn’t abstract, is it?

No, it is Janice and Lisa, meeting in college and falling in love, 20 years ago. It is a ”holy union” service in a local church, friends serving as maid of honor and ”best man.” ”We were dirt poor,” says Langbehn, “but we pulled it off.”

It is taking in foster kids no one else wants, drug babies, HIV babies, babies with fetal alcohol syndrome. It is adopting four of them and Lisa deciding she wants to be a stay-at-home mom and Janice saying OK, and wondering how the six of them will manage on a social worker’s salary. It is Janice, diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, and Lisa, bashful Lisa, becoming the family extrovert, cheering the kids at ”toddler tumbling time” shepherding them to swimming lessons and story time at the library.

It is Lisa, who loved pecan sandies, the movie Beaches and Mitch Albom’s book Tuesdays With Morrie, stricken by an aneurysm. It is Lisa, for eight hours, dying alone.

It would be good if someone remembered her next time we are invited to hate an abstract. And remember Janice, who could not ache more deeply even if her name were Joe.

BATTERY POWERED CIGARETTES – II

Heather Lackey: “I love my electronic cigarette. Thanks for posting the link to the forum. It’s a valuable resource.”

☞ This left me with a lot of questions, so I asked Heather to elaborate. Here’s her story:

I actually quit smoking in 1999, more or less, and I was fine till about 2005, when I suddenly started missing it. I picked it up and quit a few times between 2005 and 2008. If I’d been single, I probably would have just picked it up and kept going, but my husband married someone who didn’t smoke; I didn’t think it was fair to expect him to now live with the stink of a smoker. So, in mid-2008, I resigned myself to just having to live with the longing.

I had read an article about electronic cigarettes in the UK earlier in 2008, but I didn’t think they sounded like a very good substitute. What I missed about smoking was the sensation of smoke hitting the back of my throat. I go to lots of concerts and inhale plenty of propylene glycol coming from the fog machines; I couldn’t imagine how that stuff could reasonably mimic the sensation of smoke. Then I saw a YouTube video of a young woman who had just received her electronic cigarette in the mail. She opened up the package, put it together, took her first drag, looked at the cigarette and said, “Wow, it really is like smoking” (around 6:50).

I ordered my first – the Pocket Mini (DSE901b) from Puresmoker.com – the next day. It’s a bit larger than the one shown in the YouTube video, but it got a lot of favorable reviews on the e-cigarette forum.

I tried explaining this thing to my husband before it arrived, but I think he was still expecting it to be pretty nasty. When it arrived, he checked it out, even took a drag himself, shrugged and went back to what he was doing. He has no problems with me using it, even when we’re watching TV in bed at night. His one worry after it arrived was that it would lead back to smoking actual cigarettes again, but there’s no way I’d go back to “analogs” after this. Real cigarettes don’t come in chocolate, pina colada and coffee flavors, and I like not smelling like an ashtray (or having to deal with the mess of ashes and cigarette butts!).

A few weeks ago, I ordered a Pee Wee, also from Puresmoker.com. This is like the one in the video, and I’ve quickly developed a preference for it. It’s lighter and more balanced; I’m more likely to hold it like a regular cigarette than I am my other one, so it feels more “natural” in my hand. I don’t use cartridges with it, though, because when I tried it with the cartridges that came with it I kept getting “juice” in my mouth. I just use an empty mouthpiece and put a drop of electronic cigarette liquid/juice on the atomizer, which lasts for about how long I’d smoke a single cigarette. So the way I see it, putting a drop on the atomizer is the equivalent to flicking a Bic.

These things can be fiddly, though (the e-cigarette forum is a big help for troubleshooting problems you might be having with your electronic cigarette), and you have to stay on top of keeping batteries charged and having replacement atomizers on hand, so they’re not for everyone – yet. The technology will no doubt improve, and probably rather quickly as these things catch on. (And they have been catching on. Puresmoker recently said that they were filling 200-300 orders a month back in July, and now they’re filling up to 300 orders a day.)

I have smoked them in public, but so far only outside, in the car, or in places where smoking is allowed (such as a club we went to recently to see a concert) – oh, and in public restroom stalls. If anyone’s noticed, they haven’t said anything. I haven’t tried them in non-smoking areas yet (aside from the restrooms). While I enthusiastically talk these things up online and to friends and family, I haven’t wanted to become the center of attention when I’m out having a meal or doing some shopping. I’ve read of others on the forum doing it, though, and it usually goes over well after a bit of explanation. The biggest (and definitely an understandable) concern that business owners are having with it is that other patrons may think smoking is being allowed if they see someone doing something that looks a lot like smoking. It can be easier to just say “Sorry, but you can’t vape in here” than risk losing non-smoking customers. Of course on the flip side, bars affected by smoking bans are starting to see these things as a way to get smokers back into their establishments.

I generally buy zero-nicotine liquid, since what I’m after is the throat sensation. I have purchased low-nicotine when the zero-nicotine version of a flavor I’ve wanted has been out of stock. I haven’t had any trouble going back to zero nicotine when it’s available again. In fact, I so far haven’t actually finished a bottle of low nicotine – when the zero comes in, I stick the low in a drawer and forget about it until I run out of zero again. Some believe that the “throat hit” effect depends on nicotine levels (the higher the better), but in my experience it depends more on battery charge, atomizer condition and drag technique.

☞ So what does it all cost? “If I don’t buy any shiny new models and just buy liquid and replacement atomizers and batteries for the two I have, it’s about $70/month, $840/year.” That’s for the equivalent of nearly 20 smokes a day, she says; so about a third what actual cigarettes would cost. Not to mention the savings on life insurance premiums and medical care.

LIFE’S TRUE BOTTOM LINE

“Who, being loved, is poor?” – Oscar Wilde

C$

I have some Canadian dollars (via FXC). I do worry that about the collapse in commodity prices (Canada is resource rich) and about the effect our own economic situation will have on theirs (“when the U.S. catches a cold,” and all that) – and about their unreassuring name (Canadian dollars are known as “loonies”). But Canada has less military expenditure draining its resources than we do, and if this has it right, their debt has been shrinking for the past 11 years. Canada does now plan small deficits to stimulate the economy, but nothing like what we’ve (rightly) embarked upon.

A$

This article suggests the Australian dollar (FXA?) could be a better value – and that China’s stimulus package could soon be driving commodity prices up from their recent depths. (“‘The 147% jump in ocean transport prices is evidence that China’s $580 billion stimulus plan will lift raw materials,’ said Ihab Salib, who oversees $3 billion at Federated Investors Inc. in Pittsburgh, US. That would benefit countries exporting them, so Salib is actively trading Norway’s kroner and Australian and Canadian dollars, nicknamed Aussies and loonies.”)

There is the small problem, noted recently, that Australia may become uninhabitable. But in the meantime, its national debt is an even lower percentage of GDP than Canada’s.

I’m not suggesting that we become foreign currency speculators. Then again, with the U.S. printing money like crazy (again, rightly), I’m not sure I want to bet 100% of my money on the U.S. dollar.

JOURNALISTIC INNUMERACY

James Musters: “Take a read of the Beat the Press blog each week. It provides some second thinking on the popular economic ‘facts’ of the day.”

☞ For example:

February 14, 2009

Post Exaggerates the Size of the Stimulus Bill

Okay folks, this is 2-year stimulus, not a 1-year package. (Actually, as the Republicans were fond of pointing out, much of the spending will not take place until 2011, year 3 of the package.) That means that there is a word to describe the Post’s claim that the package is more than 5 percent of GDP: “wrong.”

Of course, if the Post was interested in accurate reporting it might also have noticed that the package saved the government $140 billion by reversing a change in the tax code put in place by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson that allowed banks to write off the bad debts of banks that they acquire. That would substantially reduce the long-term cost of the stimulus.

If might also have been helpful to put some of the items highlighted by Republicans in context so that their importance would be clearer to readers. The $198 million for Filipino World War II veterans comes to 0.024 percent of the stimulus package. The $50 million for the National Endowment of the Arts is 0.006 percent and the $25 million for the Smithsonian is equal to 0.003 percent of the stimulus.

–Dean Baker

REPUBLICAN INSURGENCY

Congressman Pete Sessions (R-TX) has famously called the Taliban a model for GOP insurgency. Bob Shrum comments on Republican hopes for Obama’s failure. (“Facts don’t matter to the GOP anymore. Nor, incredibly, does the opinion of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which is urging swift passage of the stimulus. The pro-business party is willing to wreck business itself if it takes a Democratic president down with it.”)

FIREFOX

Dick Theriault: “Why on earth are you still using Internet Explorer, officially recognized everywhere as the world’s most insecure browser? Even the Government urges its agencies to avoid it because of security issues. Firefox is superior in every way on both platforms, and you should switch as fast as you can.”

Peter Snow Cao: “This link shows Firefox to have a 45.5% market share. Firefox is clearly superior. Give it a try.”

George Hamlett: “You might want to try Foxmarks. It allows you to sync your bookmarks and (optionally) passwords across browsers and across access points by storing them on the Internet.”

Dennis King: “I like FireFox and use it 99% of the time. I found it to be generally faster than IE. But be warned, there are occasionally sites that act a little goofy with it. When this happens, I still need to drag out IE.”

YESTERDAY’S LINK

Emanuel Rosen (author of Think Like a Shrink): “The Bill Moyers interview [with Simon Johnson, former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund] was breathtakingly illuminating.”

The market may have been closed yesterday (one of its best days in weeks), but our site was up and running – items targeted specifically to smokers, nonsmokers, and anyone concerned with getting older.

Today the market may not fare as well. The just-signed stimulus package is very much in our interest, yet reminds investors what a truly deep hole the world economy is in.

So let’s talk about something else.

JONATHAN CAPEHEART’S SMART BLOG

Two illuminating items excerpted from his latest at the WashingtonPost.com:

President Obama: At his first prime time press conference at the White House, the president was asked about how he would go about getting more bipartisanship after not getting a single Republican vote when the House voted on the initial stimulus plan. His response:

I mean, I suppose what I could have done is started off with no tax cuts, knowing that I was going to want some, and then let them take credit for all of them. And maybe that’s the lesson I learned.

And it’s a lesson he shouldn’t forget. This tactic is used all the time in New York City. The mayor always plays the hard guy by cutting libraries and schools and neighborhood clinics in the budget he presents to the City Council. Council members then rail against him for being so cold, so heartless. They add the money back during budget negotiations. When the final budget comes out, the money has been restored to a level that reflects fiscal conditions at the time. Council members get to crow about programs they’ve saved. The mayor gets his budget. This SO could have worked for the stimulus bill. While the final bill passed the House and Senate without this tactic yesterday, the president must use some form of it going forward. Obama can rely on the courage of Republican Sens. Arlen Specter (Pa.), Olympia Snowe (Maine) and Susan Collins (Maine) only so much.

The Rev. Joseph Lowery: The opening words of the stirring benediction at President Obama’s inauguration by 87-year-old minister and civil rights leader Joseph Lowery were more powerful than many people probably realized at the time.

God of our weary years, God of our silent tears, thou, who has brought us thus far along the way, thou, who has by thy might led us into the light, keep us forever in the path we pray, lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met thee, lest our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget thee. Shadowed beneath thy hand, may we forever stand true to thee, oh God, and true to our native land.

Those are the closing words of “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” written in 1900 by high school principal James Welden Johnson of Jacksonville, Fla., for an Abraham Lincoln birthday celebration. But it is more affectionately known among African Americans as “The Negro National Anthem,” because it speaks to the hope for liberation from oppression. To have the words echo across the National Mall from the steps of an edifice built by slaves on the occasion of the inauguration of America’s first black President is weighted with incalculable historical significance.

In the days leading up to the inauguration, I wondered how or whether this song would be a part of the festivities. Lowery’s subtle use of the words, enhanced by a voice gravely with age and wisdom, was as elegant as it was poignant.

THAT WINGDING “F”

Dennis King: “I use FireFox which according to this has a 21% share. FireFox suffers from your ‘F’ ing problem. I complained a while back about, but figured I should not expect much action given the ‘F’ ing high subscription price. But it looks unprofessional and detracts just a little from whatever the ‘F’ you are trying to say. There is a simple solution: Just don’t use that ‘F’ ing Wingding.”

>>> Good point. And after reading about its zoom feature, and some other stuff (session restore), I may start using Firefox, too. (But why, when I set it up, does it import so few of my “Favorites” from Internet Explorer?)

Jeff Reynolds: “I think all you have to do to make a right-pointing finger work in any browser is to enter “☞” before your response. This is unicode, as opposed to the wingdings you’ve been using. You can find lots of info by googling wingdings and firefox (and/or unicode).”

☞ Did it work?

Gene Somdahl: “Wingdings are not supported as standard HTML.”

☞ How could Microsoft have possibly known.

WATCH PBS TONIGHT

Here is the link to tonight’s PBS Frontline report, Meltdown.

And here is the must-see Bill Moyers interview with Simon Johnson, former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, that really helps illuminate where we are. Well worth the 21 minutes to view (or five to read).

DON’T SMOKE NEAR ME

People exposed to high levels of secondhand smoke were found to be 44% more prone toward dementia, cognitive impairment, and memory loss.

COGNITIVE REPAIRMENT

Then again, people who used a certain computerized mental fitness package (that, full disclosure, I own a fraction of a sliver of) were found to get sharper:

Study results to be published in the April 2009 issue of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society show that computerized brain exercises can improve memory and lead to faster thinking.

Prior studies have shown that older adults perform better on cognitive tests after repeatedly practicing those tests, but this large-scale study is the first to link a commercially available software program to improvement on unaffiliated standard measures of memory and to better performance on everyday tasks.

The Improvement in Memory with Plasticity-based Adaptive Cognitive Training (IMPACT) study was funded by the Posit Science Corporation, which owns the rights to the Brain Fitness Program tested in the study.

Elizabeth Zelinski, PhD, of the USC Davis School of Gerontology and Glenn Smith, PhD, of the Mayo Clinic were principal investigators on the study, published with colleagues from the University of California, San Francisco, Stanford, and California State University, Los Angeles.

Of the 487 healthy adults over the age of 65 who participated in a randomized controlled trial, half used the Brain Fitness Program for 40 hours over the course of eight weeks. The Brain Fitness Program consists of six audio exercises done on a computer, and is intended to “retrain the brain to discriminate fine distinctions in sound, and do it in a way that keeps the user engaged,” Zelinski explained.

The other half of participants spent an equal amount of time learning from educational DVDs followed by quizzes.

Those who trained on the Brain Fitness Program were twice as fast in processing information with an average improvement in response time of 131 percent. The active control group did not show statistically significant gains, the researchers found.

According to the researchers, participants who used the Brain Fitness Program also scored as well as those ten years younger, on average, on memory and attention tests for which they did not train.

Many participants also reported significant improvements in everyday cognitive activities such as remembering names or understanding conversations in noisy restaurants.

“The changes we saw in the experimental group were remarkable – and significantly larger than the gains in the control group,” Zelinski said.

“From a researcher’s point of view, this was very impressive because people got better at the tasks trained, [and] those improvements generalized to standardized measures of memory and people noticed improvements in their lives. What this means is that cognitive decline is no longer an inevitable part of aging. Doing properly designed cognitive activities can enhance our abilities as we age.”

“This study has profound personal and public implications for aging baby boomers and their parents,” said Joe Coughlin, PhD, Director of the AgeLab at the Massachusetts Institute Technology. “This means boomers may now have tools for a future that is not their grandfather’s old age. It also impacts most aspects of independent living – from aging-in-place to transportation to all the great and little things that we call life. This is big news for aging and for all of us.”

The multi-site IMPACT study is the largest study ever of a commercially available brain-training program.

☞ Don’t you buy the program: you’re already so sharp you should have a warning label. But maybe someone you know?

ELECTRONIC CIGARETTES

Gary Diehl: “A friend recently showed up with one of these. Claimed he’s had no desire for a real cigarette since. I have no idea how he’ll do long haul, but anything that helps people quit is worth a look.”

☞ Hmmm. Nicotine without the carcinogens . . . and saves some money. But because it looks like a cigarette, it retains most of the opprobrium and hassles? Be sure to peruse this forum to get a sense of all the iffy purveyors and what really to expect.

NOME

Frances Walker: “My husband used to live in Nome and I have Alaskan friends visiting my house right now. The friend’s mother, Emily Boucher, owned the Nome Nugget from 1943-1963. The Nugget is now published once a week. It is composed on a computer in Nome, downloaded and printed in Anchorage, then flown back to Nome. I think it’s a bit too small for the Newseum to pick up.”

Ken Doran: “Re yesterday’s post, just wondering . . . do they serve chicken ptarmigan in Gnome?”

☞ Oh, God. Did I misspell that too? Do you know WHICH Nome I meant? The little one, outside Zurich! (Gno? You’re gnot buying that? Well, okay: I goofed.)

Kathy Allan: “I thought you would get a kick out of this from the Newseum. Just put your mouse on a city anywhere in the world and that day’s newspaper pops up. Double click and the page gets larger. Then you can either read the pdf version or click through to the paper itself in the upper right corner.”

☞ Way cool. But incomplete. They have the Anchorage Daily News and the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner – and the Nyíregyháza, Hungary Kelet Magyarorszag for that matter – but not the Nome Nugget.

Kathy again: “Who is F…used when you want to provide your own commentary? Did I miss something? It’s not one of your initials or your party affiliation, so what gives?”

☞ “F” is the right-pointing “finger” wingding most people see here at left. But some browsers display it as an F. If I were smarter, I could fix that, but life is short and suffering (yours, that is) builds character.

GOOD IDEA, SKIP!

Mark W. Budwig: “My favorite Republican tax cut proposal is the the one to lower the corporate tax rate to 25% from 35%. Boy, now there’s a real job generator! Can’t you just hear the boardroom conversation? ‘People are losing jobs by the millions! Demand is in the toilet! But now we have a real chance to hire workers we don’t need to produce goods we can’t sell, all because of the lower taxes on the profits we won’t have!’”

Next week: Mark Twain, I hope; and Faster Sparky, Faster!

SKYPE

Joe: “SkypeIn numbers are on sale for $30/yr. Get one. People can call you as if they were calling a regular telephone and not know the call comes directly to your computer. You can choose the state of your area code. People will think they are calling you in that state even if you’re poolside in Rio or in your hotel room in Gnome. (If you’re not at your computer, you can set it to forward to your cell or else take a message.) They will be charged for a local call, and you’ll be charged nothing at all. You can also make free unlimited calls easily almost anywhere in the world.”

☞ Or choose a number in 21 countries, just as if you really had an office in Australia or Chile. You can try it out for $12 for 3 months.

OUR PLACE IN THE WORLD

My friend Doug Rediker has just published an article examining how the current financial meltdown may affect our place in the financial world. It begins . . .

German Chancellor Angela Merkel called [January 20] “a special day for billions of people all over the world” while French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced “we are eager for him to get to work so that with him we can change the world.” In most quarters of the globe, there appears to be a common belief that President Obama will preside over an American government that is ready, willing and able to engage the rest of the world and re-assert its leadership on the most important issues facing the world today and in years to come. Unilateral actions are out, we are told, and multi-lateral cooperation is back on the table.

The first real test of this more global approach is likely to be on display in April, when leaders of the world’s twenty largest economies come together in London to discuss possible solutions to the global financial crisis. This will be the first G-20 meeting at which the Obama administration will be a full-fledged participant . . .

☞ . . . and goes on to imagine how the meeting might go.

GETTING BY ON HALF A MILLION A YEAR

Alan Wenker: “Reading this article in the New York Times got me thinking it’s time for you to update your book, Getting by on $100,000 A Year (AND Other Sad Tales).

☞ Indeed. I wrote that in 1978. It seemed laughable that people could have trouble on $100,000 a year back then – but to many NEW YORK MAGAZINE readers the laugh was that anyone could possibly get by on so little.

The Times has raised the bar to $500,000. (Yet, for all the inflation adjustments, it’s a very old story. When someone suggested to Herbert Hoover’s Treasury Secretary, Ogden Mills, that you could live comfortably on $50,000 a year – a huge sum back then – he replied: “On $50,000 a year you can’t even keep clean.”)

WHAT PAULSON SAID TO CONGRESS THAT SEPTMEBER DAY

This six-minute clip with the Chair of the House Capital Markets Subcommittee includes an account of how $550 billion in money market funds were withdrawn in an hour, with the expectation a further $5 trillion fleeing by 2pm – leading to the collapse of the financial system and the global ecoomy by the next day if nothing had been done. Worth a listen.

WHAT THE PRESIDENT SAID MONDAY NIGHT

On the subject of his press conference . . . John Kasley: “I lavished in complete declarative sentences with nouns and verbs, subjects and predicates washing over me. Whole paragraphs with consistent subject matter just formed and became waves lapping at the shores of our minds. In a country that was founded on an idea, we have a leader who understands ideas. This is a class act. It’s a pleasure to admire the President of the United states again.”

THE TREASURY, ETC.

The big picture is that there is now an extraordinary team at Treasury, the Fed, the FDIC, in the White House, and in central banks around the world, all pretty much focused on averting catastrophe, and with extraordinary tools to do it. I think they will succeed. Not to say things will be booming any time soon; just to say the world will not end.

WHAT TO DO NOW

I think we must just come to accept that the years ahead may be rather like the Seventies, when the economic chickens were coming home to roost in consequence of the guns-and-butter policies of Vietnam matched with the War on Poverty* . . . only worse, because back then the National Debt was less than half what it is now in proportion to our economy; and the financial markets, while depressed, were plodding along pretty much as usual.

So this will be worse . . . but, then again, better, too, because no matter what, most of us will have, in this next decade, things virtually no one in the Seventies had. Cell phones! Computers! Google! Twice as many “classics” to choose from on 50 times as many channels! Viagra! Audible.com! Skype! Air bags! DVRs! And even without these things (and those soon to come), there was a good bit of happiness to be found during the economic malaise of the Seventies (disco!), as there even was in the Thirties (jitterbug!), should it get that bad (but it likely won’t).

Safe-ish investments include the afore-suggested recently-issued TIPS (to foil deflation, if we have it, because you can find some selling for less than the $1,000 per bond at which they’ll be redeemed; and to foil inflation, if we have it, because they are at least largely inflation-adjusted) . . . and perhaps even a little gold and silver (through electronically traded funds with the symbols GLD and SLV).

There are now, or eventually will be, spectacular investment opportunities, if you can truly afford the risk (GLDD anyone?), but we will only know what they are and when it would have been smart to buy them after the fact. (This is why clairvoyance holds such appeal.)

My own guess – which is obviously nothing more than that – is that we may test the 6,500 level on the Dow, in which Alan Greenspan 12 years ago saw “irrational exuberance.” There would be a certain symmetry, or at least cruel financial poetry, in that once-scary high (through which the Dow just continued to rocket) becoming this year’s scary low.

*This time it’s been Iraq and the War To Improve the Lot of the Wealthy.

But first . . .

LOOKING FOR A MOVIE?

See Defiance. It would be gripping in any event, but the fact that it happened – well, that just takes your breath away.

LOOKING FOR A PLAY?

See the limited Broadway run of 33 Variations, which had its first preview last night to a packed audience ranging from Gloria Steinem to a seeing-eye dog in the seat in front of me. You don’t need to be able to see to appreciate Beethoven (just as he did not have to be able to hear to compose his Ninth Symphony – he was completely deaf by then). But the set and staging are in fact wonderful. So, too, the script: wonderful. The piano: wonderful. The whole notion: wonderful (the 50 top composers in Vienna were presented with a simple waltz and asked to compose a “variation” on it to be compiled in a book; Beethoven became obsessed with this little waltz and composed 33 variations – why? that’s the question that obsessed the modern-day musicologist who traveled to Bonn to find out).

And Jane Fonda’s first Broadway performance in 44 years (no, not as Beethoven, you ninny)? Wonderful.

A toe-tapper it’s not. For that, of course, you want Jersey Boys. But it’s an evening you won’t forget.

LET GAYS SERVE?

Owen West, a conservative ex-marine, who initially opposed allowing gays to serve in the military, now makes the case for reversing course.

And now . . .

THE PRESIDENT’S PRESS CONFERENCE

If you missed it, click here. I think it’s important that we watch these things, because this isn’t business as usual. Everyone should join the conversation.