Saturday, April 11, 2009

Every so often ...


I MANAGE to take a half-way decent photograph. I've always liked this one, taken in 2006 from a small canal bridge on a side street in Venice, Italy. It typifies the calming charm of that city if you can get away from the tourist districts. (I probably posted this photograph on the old blog, so if you've seen it before enjoy it again.)

MEANWHILE, take seriously Paul Krugman's suggestion that it's time to make banking boring again.

Thursday, April 9, 2009

It is always ...

A JOY to read a truly insightful and thoughtful piece by the New York Times' in-house conservative, David Brooks. If only he weren't the only one writing these days.

THE Trib reports some Chicago folks fixing their own potholes. See how easy it would be to stop all those socialistic high-tax city services. Of course, these neighbors probably didn't realize that by undertaking a collective action they were engaging in a communistic-like practice.

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

For the record ...


... view from our kitchen window, November 20, 2008, at 1 p.m. Just a reminder of a pleasant autumn now that spring may actually arrive one of these days ...

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

The defense budget ...

PROPOSED by Robert Gates is already igniting a hot debate in Congress. What Congress will have to decide, of course, is how many American lives must be lost, needlessly or otherwise, to keep happy and content stockholders in and constitutents of our many defense industries. Yes, as noted before, Ike warned us.

Sunday, April 5, 2009

More than greed and incompetence ...

WILLIAM K. Black teaches economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. He was the senior regulator who cracked down on banks during the 1980s savings and loan crisis. He is experienced enough to suspect that "that the tool at the very center of mortgage collapse, creating triple-A rated bonds out of "liars' loans" — loans issued without verifying income, assets or employment — was a fraud, and the banks knew it." He explains to Bill Moyers' Journal.

Another recent monotype ...


"from the bridge" (image 24" x 18")