Category: Society

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Cold Day in Chinatown gets Colder

I was walking down Elizabeth St one day near the Blood Church and as I walked past a traffic cop, I saw the usual counterfeit handbag singers with their lamented flyers pulling more tourists aside to show their wares. I supposed that the traffic cops don’t really care but Bloomberg does and he’s been cracking down. That same day, I had my shopping done and as I walked up another block, I saw a “scout” take a call and then broad cast a call. The next thing I know, 8 LV fanny pack wearing ladies scattered like mice when the lights come on.

It was another bust of the Chinatown counterfeit hawkers. As the crackdowns continue, the locals know a slow death of the gritty chinatown we all know is eminet. As the NY Press details, Canal St is in for a big change in the next 6 months: “Very soon, locals say, Canal Street will join Times Square, Astor Place, the Lower East Side, the Garment District and all the other former centers of down-and-dirty capitalist grit that have been safely gentrified.”

Picture was taken this week, on an evening in Chinatown when it was about 15 degrees F. This lady has her own plastic shield to protect her from the icy wind. This was my first take as she didn’t want to have her picture taken from the front. Ah well, I should have bought my mushrooms here first…
Read more here.
Day 29: Cold Day in Chinatown

Cash Rules Everything around Me. Dolla Dolla Bill Yall –
Wu Tang Vs. The Beatles – C.R.E.A.M.
[audio:http://fakepennycomics.com/blog/WVTB_C.R.E.A.M..mp3]

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The Aristocrats!

The Senator-elect with an impertinent demeanor has a wife with a curious hand. Gail Huff, Scott Brown’s wife and WCVB Boston reporter is also talented in “slipping a mickey“, naturalist swimming and liberating tubes of lotion as seen in this Digney Fignus video from 1982:

Americans are fascinated with celebrity, how do you think Obama actually got elected right? Which means the Brown family is the perfect fit for the times right now. With a daughter on American Idol (Ayla Brown) and another an award-winning equestrian (Arianna Brown), the Brown family have all the non-political elements to keep an American audience captivated in political theater where facts, values and issues are overrated and shock value alone keeps your name in the headlines.

“Democracy… while it lasts is more bloody than either [aristocracy or monarchy]. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide.”
~ John Adams quotes (American 2nd US President (1797-1801), 1735-1826)

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The Financial Bridge to Recovery Doesn’t Include Non-Bankers

On the news that the large wall street banks are set to make record payouts again this year, nearly 18 months after the financial meltdown, most people might have a knee jerk reaction of disgust. Alas, no. We need these captains of industry to keep our engines of capitalism running right!?! Right?

Yeah, right into the ground…

With all this talk of change, new regulation and transparency, the success of these banks has not come as a result of any of these factors so the questions continue to be asked. Why did we even bail out the banks if they recovered so quickly, yet main street is still struggling to right their own ships?

Frank Rich has an excellent piece on the “Weapons of Financial Destruction” which are still in place today, and the same result could very well happen again in the near future.

The economy is not all doom and gloom as John Stewart points out:

photo365_2010_014

JS is right, there aren’t really many songs about banks, but Henry Rollins writes a pretty good one from the view point of the Banker themselves:
Henry Rollins – Liar
[audio:http://inallcaps.com/GOODS/2010/JAN/06%20Liar.mp3]