Years of Poems and Spirits

Just some interesting facts:
1. The big three at first asked for $34 Billion loan. Congress ready to dish out $15 Billion. Their total market cap? $14 Billion.
2. The big three’s manufacturing capacity is 17 million cars. In 2007, Americans bought only 14 million cars (domestic and foreign).
3. Ford pays, on average, $71 an hour to its workers. The Japanese U.S. plants pay $49/hr. Source see NYT.
4. The auto sale declined the most when gas price peaked after summer. Recently, there is a sales rebound despite poor economy. Trucks rebounds the most. Small cars may actually declined.

Thoughts:
- Undoubtedly the auto industry will shrink and restructure. However,
- The current difficulty is largely due to past sins. In terms of cost structure, the auto industry may be on the rebound. (in Ford, new employees are paid $53/hr)
- The auto industry lacks the vision and business foresight? Well, how about blaming “the American Dream” for a change? How many Americans can stand up and say, “I had nothing to do with this”?

Said a lot more yesterday. But I’d better stick to what I know

Two days in a row I have been reading news reports on the sickening anger among McCain supporters. WaPo had an article yesterday: “Anger Is Crowd’s Overarching Emotion at McCain Rally” and today Politico had a follow up. Reading them gave me shudders: there even have been cries of “kill him” at a recent rally.

The reports reminded me of what happened to JFK. Although he is now canonized as one the greatest Presidents, when he lived he was too hated by a whipped up crowd. So much so that after he was shot, before Lee Oswald was identified, the overwhelming public assumption was that he was killed by a Republic partisan. People flooded local Republican offices with angry mails and phone calls blaming them for the assassination (”Before the Storm“, a biography of Barry Goldwater).

Honestly, I start to fear for Obama’s life. I know it is a very dark thought but I can’t shake it off. American politics always has violence in its DNA. What is even worse is the self-denial in order to sustain the mirage of “a shining city on the hill”, as if the assassinations were just brief exceptions. I remember Benedict Anderson talked about that while building a collective imagination of a nation, there has been constant manipulation of memories of past violence.  And this is very true today. By not remembering the circumstance surrounding JFK’s assassination, the nation lives as if it has always been a tolerant and civil polity and that JFK was a tragic hero. In fact, JFK was a martyr and the nation didn’t become what it is today until after he is killed.

God helps us all.

Feel like laughing on the floor with this story:

An Italian comedienne who said that Pope Benedict XVI would go to Hell and be tormented by homosexual demons is facing a prison term of up to five years.

First, it is funny to think that Devil has sexual preference at all, or sexuality even exists in the after-world. It is every funnier to suggest the only person entitled to define which preference is right or wrong discover that he made the wrong bet after he died … What a sweet revenge:)

Secondly, the irony–apparently, some Christians share the same intense hatred with those Muslims they call “intolerant” (a la the Danish cartoon crowds) toward blasphemy–the only difference is the tool they use to dish out corporal punishment: one uses secular laws, the other religious edicts.

Lastly, this is the comment I posted: [what is happening to Ms. Sabina Guzzanti today] could/might have happened six centuries ago to Boccaccio (author of the Decamerone). When religion and history fight, religion has no chance–history wins every time!