Coffee Shop Philosopher

Imagine if you will that you have been harmed by another person; say a rear-end accident.

You were stopped innocently at a red light when it happened. Boom.

But, instead of having to sue and go to court and wait to be compensated, a settlement is reached.

That is the course of law today, every day, in which settling and avoiding court does no damage to our legal system.

But, by some strained reasoning, by recognizing its egregious failures and agreeing to a settlement quickly, BP is being “shaken down.” This talking point was dropped into the blogsosphere by Republican leadership (no, not just Rep. Barton but the Republican Study Committee and despite contradictions from Republican leaders Boehner and Cantor) where the delusional chant it mindlessly. The shakedown chant feeds the frenzied tea party over government “taking” and thus provides some sort of stretched validation of the “socialisms” threatening our nation.

Perhaps, it’s just a settlement. One party agreeing it was at fault and providing compensation.

Words are nutrition. Each day I receive a word of the day from wordsmith.org. Today’s was “asseverate,” which I’m cautious of using because it could easily go very wrong.

But, tagging along with “asseverate” was the following quote from Terry Tempest Williams:

This is my living faith, an active faith, a faith of verbs: to question, explore, experiment, experience, walk, run, dance, play, eat, love, learn, dare, taste, touch, smell, listen, argue, speak, write, read, draw, provoke, emote, scream, sin, repent, cry, kneel, pray, bow, rise, stand, look, laugh, cajole, create, confront, confound, walk back, walk forward, circle, hide, and seek. To seek: to embrace the questions, be wary of answers.

The thought of being an active verb compels.  I like the last  phrase, as too many answers, particularly in political speech today, are too easy, too sharply reduced to the black and white. Easy answers should always be suspect.

But let’s have a little fun with this:

If you “want to participate,” I’m not sure I understand how denying debate works.

If you want transparency, I’m not sure how “secret negotiations” works.

The Republican tactics today baffle me. Secret negotiations likely translates to “what the lobbyists tell us to do.”

Americans widely want tighter regulations on Wall Street and the megabanks. Getting it doesn’t seem likely. Simon Johnson, co-author of 13 Bankers, writes today about Sen. Dodd’s maneuverings that favor Wall Street’s lobbyists.

So, now I have Johnson’s book in my hands. If the story is half the deceit, greed and fraud of Michael Lewis’ The Big Short then I’m in for another deep round of pissed off this weekend.

But, I think that’s what we need: pissed off folk. Not Tea Party misled pissed off. Pissed off and focused on breaking the bankers’ grip on our economy.

Treats! We have special guests who know what the coffee shop drive through window is for.

What the coffee shop drive through window is all about

Dear Doctor,

I went into Village Hall yesterday to apply for a zoning variance to raise chickens so I could afford the cosmetic surgery like Sue Lowden’s I need and they just laughed. What should I do now? Do you take dandelion wine?

Signed,

Sagging Chin(s)