Cosmic Record Player

My aging record player, the grey Kenwood KD-1600 sitting on the ground next to my desk with a "HELLO I'm a MULE" sticker affixed to the clear plastic lid, now faintly picks up a Christian radio station when it's not playing. A vague political discussion segued sides A and B of the Talking Head's 77. As I removed Can't Buy a Thrill and placed Rumours on the spindle, a male and female voice recited a prayer accompanied by gentle chanting. Meanwhile what I think may have been a Black Phoebe fooled with its feathers on the tree outside my window.

And on the Internet -

1) Jacob Weisberg claims that libertarianism is dead. Libertarianism, like communism, is an idealistic political philosophy that imagines a radical reorganization of society. Nothing close to that happened in the instant case. Instead we had a gradual relaxation of some regulation, while institutions that libertarians hate - namely the Federal Reserve - remained in place. Weisberg references "wearying dorm-room debates that took place circa 1989 about whether the fall of the Soviet bloc demonstrated the failure of communism." His article reads a lot like one of those dorm-room debates. The failure of the Soviet Union did not render all socialist policies obsolete, just as the failure of Credit Default Swaps does not render all libertarian policies obsolete. Both are silly and harmful if taken to extremes, but that's why we call them extremes. Sometimes government is more efficient and just, sometimes private industry is.

The current economic crisis does show us that deregulation of the financial industry is a very bad idea. If someone told you they had discovered a brilliant new way to make more money than ever before in history simply by applying an innovative math equation to financial transactions, what would you say? You'd say "you're full of shit." And they were. If 100 guys in nice suits from Harvard told bankers everywhere the same what would they say? "Put me down for 60 trillion!" Libertarianism, or socialism for that matter, had little to do with it. As a side note, however, it's a good idea not to put your entire economic system in the hands of someone (Alan Greenspan) who takes seriously the teachings of a mad woman (Ayn Rand).

2) Colin Powell endorsed Barack Obama today. In doing so he mentioned something that has been bothering me for a while (quoted from Glenn Greenwald's Salon blog):

I'm also troubled by, not what Sen. McCain says, but what members of the party say, and it is permitted to be said such things as: "Well, you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim." Well, the correct answer is: he is not a Muslim. He's a Christian. He's always been a Christian.

But the really right answer is: What if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer is: No, that's not America. Is there something wrong with some 7-year-old Muslim-American kid believing he or she can be President?

Yet I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion: he's a Muslim, and he might be associated with terrorists. This is not the way we should be doing it in America.

I agree.