Here's Lookin' Up You, Kid!

What's that I hear? Is it a banjo, the sound of beagles chasing a "coon" up a tree and some fried green tomatoes? No, it's the sound of Kyla Ebbert cashing in on just how white trash and slutty she can be.

Kyla Ebbert, the woman who was upset with Southwest for drawing attention to her for wearing skimpy clothing is now available to see totally nude on Playboy.com. Yes, apparently she was so jealous of the clothing getting the attention that she took it off and burned it, then posed for national attention. She is, of course, deeply scared by this debacle and laments that her payday came on the heels of her blossoming Hooters job but is sure that since the photos were "very tastefully done" she will still be able to pursue a law degree and become an attorney.

Her mother, an aging woman well past her prime reluctantly agreed to Kyla posing nude and was quoted as saying "Why is that little Bitch getting all the attention? I have to live vicariously through her? I gave birth to her, where's my prize? Anyone want to see me naked?"

Kyla: there is no law career in your future; the best thing that ever happened or will happen to you in your life is the attention you got for your Barbie skirt. It's all downhill from here. Unfortunately you never had a shot did you? You are, after all, your mother's daughter.

Getting Blue Is Not Enough

I’ve felt emotionally depressed on more than one occasion in my life and it turned out to be good for me because I reevaluated my life and reordered it according to what is important to me. In fact, each time I’ve been depressed it’s because I allow myself to lose focus, to become concerned with things that are not so important, and to forget who I am.

America has done just that. Celebrities, money, pride, laziness, apathy; they all stem from our loss of identity. America is in the middle of an existential crisis and unless we regroup we could lose ourselves for good. I’m not an alarmist, but go back to my life metaphor… if I continually work too much and neglect my family (who is really the only important thing in this world) then I stand to lose them. My wife will leave me if I neglect her and/or the children long enough or severely enough. If America does the same, other countries will be more appealing and become a magnet for the peoples of the world.

Lest I sound too glossy, I know this country has made grievous mistakes; name one that hasn’t. A country is a complex organism involving individuals, factions, power-grabs and even the struggle to accurately record the events of its development. So of course there will be mistakes. On the whole, however, this is one of the greatest countries in the world. Or was.

Well, maybe we’re not to the point of using past tense, but it’s not that far off it seems. Not to worry, I have a solution: A National Economic Depression. I don’t mean we get a little “blue” and have a downturn or excessive inflation for a while, I mean we get an economic depression that provokes a reawakening in this country to who we are. I mean that we are hungry, cold, hot, tired, scared, and driven to work toward a common hope again. I think we’ve not only lost the ability to work toward hope, but we’ve lost hope. It’s not that we are so down that we’ve lost hope, it’s that we are so fat, dumb, and happy that we’ve lost it. We don’t need hope, we have stuff. Stuff divides people but hope unties. If we knew how to live with our stuff and balance our lives that wouldn’t be a problem, but unfortunately we don’t. As if that weren’t enough, hope has been replaced by greed and pride which have disconnected us from the rest of the world. How can we understand global problems when we are so detached from them? A depression, that’s how.

Conservatives: American Gangsters

I’ve been surprised to hear so much about a movie on the talk radio programs. They don’t usually talk about movies, why this one? They are less than happy about the fact that there are some “negative social messages” in the movie American Gangster. The “negative social message” is that the bad guy gets off in the end. His lifestyle is glamorized. How dare those Hollywood liberals glamorize such a bad, bad man!

Interestingly, this movie takes a man who is a capitalist and glorifies him. He is unapologetically looking for a way to make sure “no one owns him” and he makes reference to macro-economic principles in his business speak. For example, he tells another character about how “there is a demand for his product and he can deliver it to people at a higher quality and lower price than his competitors.” But what’s wrong with that? Sounds like good ol’ capitalism to me!

“But wait,” you say “He’s damaging our communities by delivering his harmful substance to our children and neighbors!” I retort, “Ah, but I’m a good red-blooded American capitalist who believes that if the market demands it, it must be good.” I mean after all, we don’t want government getting in the way of private enterprise do we? The supply must meet the demand.

Why should the same conservatives who are not happy with the social message of American Gangster continue to bemoan the government intervention? Is it because they don’t recognize that economics are tied to social problems? Yes, probably. They’d much rather attempt to wax philosophically about human nature and that there’s something wrong with poor people inherently which makes them poor. Or maybe the conservatives don’t recognize Denzel’s character as the prototype of the American (free-market) Capitalist? Definitely.

I’m not in favor of keeping drugs illegal any more than prostitution or any other activity that people want to do on their own. What I am in favor of is limiting activities that affect others such as driving or piloting while under the influence, violent crimes, stealing, vandalism, etc. Economics is a social force, not an individual one and its effects are felt throughout society, hence, the new deal, unions, and the entire high liberal tradition.

Conservatives complain about the effects of capitalism, while they simultaneously prate on about how “the market” should decide this or that. Unfortunately, “the market” keeps gangsters in business… and business is good. If only the conservatives could see that many of our gangsters today wear suits, live in the same uptight suburbanite communities as the rest of us, and propagate the false notion that there is something to them that can be called “American” in the first place.