Gatsby is not great.

There. I said it.

How is it that the boring book we all groaned through in high school is remembered as some enchanted and exciting saga; a pinnacle of American Literature that has kept generation after generation on the edge of their seat with genuine interest?

Our fascination with the book itself is paralleled by our collective amnesia about the bleak, gritty reality of the American caste system that F. Scott Fitzgerald was trying to portray, and we remember only the ostentatious glitz and glamour of the story, which turns out to be a crumbling facade behind which the genuine devastation of income disparity festers to this day.

What's that? You don't remember the bleak reality of income disparity portrayed in the book? Yeah, that's because hardly any of you actually read the book... because it was boring!

It's like a page out of The Emperor's New Clothes where everyone is quick to agree that the book represents some of the finest American Literature ever written, because nobody wants to admit that they didn't actually read the book.

Ah... see? That metaphor you get. Because you actually read The Emperor's New Clothes. Because it had pictures of an obstructed view of a naked fat guy.

Don't get me wrong; I'm not criticizing people who never read the book. It's boring, and it's only saving grace is that there are enough movie adaptations that you can write a passable book report without ever opening the damn thing.

I do have a point, walk with me for a moment...

One of the few benefits of my $50,000 Bachelor's Degree in Nothing (aka: English Literature) was that I was able to study American Literature beyond the scope of the official White Anglo Saxon Canon. And let me tell you, we could be giving our high school kids much better reading material that they may actually enjoy reading (of course, we would have to set aside the vengeance we enjoy bringing down on the next generation by making them read the same boring crap we were forced to read).

And you know what else? These kids might actually learn something about America if we encouraged them to step off the beaten path.

So, I have compiled a list of writers who are the contemporaries of F. Scott Fitzgerald, who wrote the kind of stories you won't find in the official White Anglo Saxon Canon of American Literature.

Women:

Circumstance, by: Harriet Prescott Spofford

The Yellow Wallpaper, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

The Revolt of "Mother" by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

Native Americans:

The School Days of an Indian Girl by Gertrude Bonnin

Our America (a little before Fitzgerald) by Jose Marti

The Promised Land, by Mary Antin

African Americans:

Cane, by Jean Toomer

Poetry:

• Countee Cullen
• Claude McKay
• Zora Neale Hurston
• Anne Spencer

Hmmm... Perhaps I'll conduct an experiment. I'll make my boys read some of these titles and do a report in the form of a guest blog post so they can share their literature experience with my readership (all three of you).

MWA-HA-HA-HA!

(seriously though, I really think they will enjoy the reading, but we'll see)

Why we need more female cops

A few nights ago, I heard cries for help and ran outside to find a half naked and badly beaten girl crouched against the curb crying.

She was a prostitute.

I put my coat around her, and my arms. I called the police and stayed with her until they came.

The police came, and the paramedics, and the firefighters.

They were all burly men, towering over the girl sitting on the curb. They did their job, but there was no compassion in their voices; no empathy in their demeanor. My own husband stood with his arms crossed, rolling his eyes.

When people talk about women being cops and firefighters, they talk about physical strength and authority.

But what about the ability to look at a prostitute and see a lost and fragile girl who has made some bad decisions, but doesn't deserve to be treated like a piece of garbage. Why shouldn't a police officer know what it feels like to be vulnerable and weak? How much safer would citizens feel if some of the people who responded to their calls for help could put their arm around them and tell them that everything is going to be ok?

My dream for women in this country, and in this world, is not that we be treated exactly the same as men, but that our strengths would be equally valued.

We're Back, Baby!

Did you hear the news??

Wall Street is back on top and the Dow Jones is hitting record highs!!

Awesome.

It's not like Wall Street's reckless pursuit of profits is what drove our economy into the ground in the first place, right?

Fear not, citizens! Take heart in knowing that as long as the insanely wealthy are making money hand over fist, there will always be enough minimum wage jobs to go around!

What's that, you say? You can't pay your bills on minimum wage? Don't you worry, kiddo, there's plenty more where that came from! Here, take two!

What? You need to feed your kids also? Well, that's what Food Stamps are for! Now, I realize that there are fewer Food Stamps available these days, but that's because the stupid government can't balance it's books when the only people paying their taxes are Middle Class chumps.

But don't you worry about that, either.

If we stay on this course, there won't be a Middle Class!

Now take your Food Stamps and run along before you miss the bus. With all these budget cuts, there are fewer buses also, so if you miss it, you are going to be late to your second job.

How our government is killing our economy

This is a two part post. Please see, "How Wall Street is killing our economy."

In order to best explain what I think is wrong with our government, I would like to spend some time talking about the autonomic nervous system (if you know me, you know how I love metaphors).

The autonomic nervous system is divided into two parts: sympathetic (fight or flight) and parasympathetic (rest and digest). A person is always in one state or the other, but never both at the same time.

The sympathetic nervous system takes charge during times of crisis. Blood is diverted from the brain and digestive tract and shunted to the heart and the muscles (because you need to either fight or run away). We have all seen a person or animal in panic mode, and we've all been in panic mode ourselves. We don't think when we are in panic mode; we react. In lesser states of panic (such as embarrassment or nervousness) we might notice that our mouth is dry, our hearing and vision is heightened, and in hindsight we have probably noticed that we make poor decisions under stress.

The parasympathetic nervous system takes charge when we are not under stress. Our heart rate goes down, our blood pressure drops, our muscles relax, and our body diverts resources to our brain and digestive system.

It's important to understand that while we have no conscious control over the effects of our autonomic nervous system, we often have a great deal of influence over the circumstances in our lives that trigger the "fight or flight" or "rest and digest" states. We have all noticed that some people, whether by virtue of their character or life skills, are more prone to be in constant states of panic while others seem prepared to weather any storm.

And that brings me to the current state of our government. Our government is trapped in panic mode, running around from crisis to crisis, putting out fires, with no ability to think logically and make the long-term decisions that will keep the next fire from starting. A good example of this is the sequester; in a last minute panic to come to a deal on the debt ceiling, Congress put in place a future date where all tax breaks would expire and devastating budget cuts would automatically take effect. The idea was not that this sequester would actually happen, but that both Republicans and Democrats would be forced to work together to keep it from happening. Unfortunately, ideas hatched during times of panic are rarely good ideas, and the sequester ended up being yet another fire that Congress was only able to throw a towel over at the last possible moment... and now we're on to the next debt ceiling crisis.

Our country needs leaders with vision and bold ideas. We need Manifest Destiny, infrastructure projects, a New Deal, a Space Program. But the fact is that we're not capable of doing anything great because we are too heavily invested in managing crises that we keep creating.

I hadn't yet finished this post when I watched the State of the Union address, and was surprised to see everything I wanted to talk about unfolding right before my eyes. President Obama talked about how "The greatest nation on Earth cannot keep conducting its business by drifting from one manufactured crisis to another." He talked about bold ideas and infrastructure projects. And then Marco Rubio brought my metaphor to life by demonstrating exactly what a person in a sympathetic state looks and acts like.

I love it when a plan comes together.

Of course, I turn on the television today, and we're back to politics as usual. A whole lot of squawking and peacocking about, and no one is willing to stick their neck out and take any positive action.

You see, occasionally when a human or animal finds themselves in a sympathetic "fight or flight" mode, they become completely incapable of fighting OR fleeing.

They simply freeze and do nothing.

And then they die.

How Wall Street is Killing Our Economy

This post will be in two parts. The first about what's wrong with our economy, the second about what's wrong with our political system. For some background on where I'm coming from, please see my previous post, "The Economy, Stupid."
[Quick link disclaimers: 1) In "The Economy, Stupid" my hopes for a prospective Obama administration were pre-Tea Party induced government paralysis and 2) I don't know what happened to the pictures.]


First, let me simplistically summarize how investing is supposed to work:

1) You have worked hard, saved money, and now you have a little extra cash that you'd like to invest.

2) You, or your broker, find some companies you really like; companies that make a great product, have a profitable business model, and maybe some characteristics you personally value, such as commitment to their workforce, or side projects that benefit the community.

3) You invest your money in the companies you have chosen.

4) The company takes the money people like you have invested and uses it to expand their production lines or open new store fronts or buy a new line of delivery trucks.

5) Over many years, if you have invested wisely, the companies in which you have invested pay you dividends because the growth of their companies was made possible by your investments. ("Over many years" is the key here! A company may not always be paying dividends because they may actually become less profitable during times they are building and expanding, but that's OK; what's important is that they are able to take those risks because in the long run, they will be better, more valuable companies.)

6) When you are ready to retire, the money you saved over the years and the money you made through your wise investments have resulted in a nice little nest egg that will make your golden years more comfortable.

This practical model of how investing money should work has been made obsolete by the systematic deregulation of our financial institutions. I talk about the error of financial deregulation in "The Economy, Stupid."

What I want to talk about now is how the current Wall Street model of investing is completely destroying the fabric of our economy.

You see, traditional investing builds companies, builds industries, and connects companies to the people they serve, both consumers and investors. It's all about building and growing and moving forward.

The current Wall Street model works more like this:

1) You take money you should be saving (because saving money is for fools; everyone knows you have to spend money to make money), and you give your money to a large corporate firm who invests the money for you.

2) These large corporate investment firms (most of whom are now intertwined with banks, further blurring the line between saving and investing) are financial powerhouses whose very investments make and break companies and entire industries.

3) Corporate investment firms are interested in two things: more money, and more money NOW.

4) Companies who sell their stock in the public market have their stock bought by these huge corporate investment firms, not based on the value of the company, but the value of the company's stock, and whether that stock will be worth more, not ten or twenty years down the road, but NOW.

Are you worth more NOW? How about NOW? Oh, you need more workers? You need to expand your factory? Well, you better figure out how you can expand and still be worth more money NOW. Why don't you just open a factory in China? OK, well while you were holding a town meeting with your factory workers, your stock prices went down the crapper and you are about to become personally bankrupt, so you are going to sell your company to Bain Capital, which will come in and turn this company around and make it profitable NOW (even if that means chopping it up like a stolen car and selling it off piece by piece).

5) You look at your stock portfolio at least every month, pleased that your wise investments are growing exponentially and scoffing at your dinosaur of an Uncle who advised you to buy bonds (seriously, what is this WWII??).

6) Rather than use any of the money from your stock portfolio, because it's making so much money where it is, you take out loans to buy your home, your cars, and even your washer and dryer because at Sears you got 12 months same as cash!

7) You wake up one morning and all the talking heads on the 24-hour-news networks are having full-on panic attacks. The middle-aged balding guy on CNN who just yesterday was wearing a fireman's hat and dancing around a prop siren proclaiming that QXS's stock had no where to go but UP, is hiding under his desk crying.

8) You run to your computer and learn that your stock portfolio has lost 70% of it's value and you now have less money than you put in to it to begin with. Tomorrow you'll learn that the retirement account through your employer was also heavily invested in the stock market. Next month you'll do the math and realize that you owe more on your house than it's worth. 18 months from now your 25-year-old daughter will move back home because the best job she can get with the business degree you'll paying off for the next 20 years is as a part-time desk clerk at a furniture store.

Now, amid all this financial chaos is the little noted fact that the rich are still getting richer. Companies are still posting record profits.

Why?

Because they are trapped in a financial system where posting record profits is literally the only way to stay afloat.

How?

I'll use a furniture store my husband used to work at as an example:

A national, iconic chain of high-end furniture.

First, and this was a long time ago, they moved the production of their goods overseas. So you have been paying more money for less quality (more profit for the investment firms).

Next, they outsourced things like delivery, repairs, and customer service to outside third-party companies. So you are paying more money for less service (more profit for the investment firms).

Next, they started buying out all of their franchises and streamlining their business model, which meant closing less profitable stores, laying off workers, and warehousing fewer items. So you are paying more money to drive further to find a store to wait longer for an inferior product to be delivered by some guy who doesn't work for the furniture company and can't answer any questions you have about the recliner he just plopped in your living room (more profit for the investment firms).

Finally, they decided to get rid of almost all of their experienced commissioned salespeople and replace them with part-time minimum-wage employees, AND pay their store managers LESS for the added responsibility of babysitting the endless turnover of young, recent college graduates who can't understand why this is the best job they can get while coming to the realization that instead of getting married and buying their first car, they will in fact be moving back in with their parents who told them not to go to design school in the first place.

So next time you're in a store upset that you can't get any service even though you are making a large purchase (which used to matter to the people selling you this crap), you can take heart in knowing that the corporation who owns the store you're buying from is making record profits by giving you, and the distracted teenager ringing up your order, the shaft.

And don't forget that the company's profit model also incorporates giving the government the shaft, because they are paying record-low taxes on their record-high profits.

And other than the occasional grandstanding over taxes, when was the last time anyone in the government addressed ANY of these issues that are tanking our economy?

President Obama has made no indication that he is even aware of the insatiable corporate greed that is forcing our industries to self-cannibalize our whole economy in the name of making more money than last year, than last quarter, than last month!

It's like watching time lapse footage of a rodent corpse bloating up with the ever-multiplying bacteria that is feasting on its entrails until those very bacteria devour the corpse entirely and die off themselves, leaving behind a barren skeleton.

When will someone in government stand up to the corporate powers-that-be, rally the population, and declare that the only way to save ourselves is to fundamentally change the way we run our economy?

The Undecided

Even after Romney's monumental electoral loss, the data shows that Romney won among independent voters.

But I'm wondering how many of those "independent voters" were conservatives who just didn't wish to be identified as Republicans.

And who can blame them?

Bush Jr. is pariah in his own party.

How many Republican men made outrageous statements about rape?

How many red states tried to pass crazy laws from "personhood" amendments to requiring vaginal ultrasounds for abortions?

Then there was the Susan J. Coleman Foundation debacle where the charity organization tried to pull its funding of breast exams from Planned Parenthood; and don't even get me started on the all-out Republican attack on Planned Parenthood, including Romney himself who vowed to end federal funding for the leading provider of healthcare for poor and uninsured women and men.

I know several people personally who claimed to be independent and "fiscally" conservative, who constantly argued for things like drug testing on welfare recipients. These were people who refused to identify themselves as Republicans, and in the absence of a rational argument against Obama would simply say things like, "I just don't trust him."

I also found the post-debate focus groups of "undecided" voters a bit suspicious. Several of the people in those interviews gave the typical undecided voter responses such as, "I didn't like either of them," but many of them were very obviously siding with Romney.

So in my opinion, the surge in support for Romney after the first debate was less about undecided voters siding with Romney for the first time, and more about lukewarm conservatives finally having a reasonable excuse for publicly siding with the party they already knew they were going to vote for.

My point being that there was never a true surge in support for Romney, just a small group of people who had been patiently waiting for Romney to shake the Etch-A-Sketch.