George Rebane

• NC downtown patrols cut back
• More disclosures
• Climate Change in Greenland
• Sub-prime lending – from mess to madness
• 18dec07 Union article on ‘new road to economic revitalization’
• ‘A Return to Ritual’ in churches and temples
• Gracian #146

The Union reports that Nevada City’s downtown is again filling with hooligans and other low lifes now that we only have one cop on the downtown beat.  Our newspaper described these individuals in more genteel terms – “people” and “young people” – which makes them sound vanilla and unobtrusive.  We read that the merchants report “(p)eople smoking marijuana openly, spitting on the sidewalk, throwing garbage onto the street, feeding or even abusing their dogs, forcing other pedestrians to step into the roadway and acting with hostility toward those who ask them to shape up are problems getting little response from the authorities”.  The fact that these misfits were not labeled, left the readers to rummage around for the proper insensitive names which would referentially differentiate them from the polite company that usually inhabit our sidewalks.  It makes one hanker for the old days when the police chief would talk with the delinquents and explain the matter to them – using appropriate explicatory methods and field expedients understood by even the dullest – without having to be “very sensitive to citizen rights”, those rights which allow us to gather and assault other citizens without recourse.  The good people of those times had trustworthy and able constables who could be empowered to do the obviously right thing that has over the years become not so obvious today.  I guess it will get worse before it gets better – modern times.

Dear Reader, to enable you to properly evaluate these ruminations I must add two more disclosures.  Jo Ann and I recently contributed to the campaign of Ron Paul.  If the left-wing will sweep the field next year, then we would like to throw our stubborn ounces on the side of someone who walks the walk he talks.  Perhaps, as they say, if enough of us do it, it will send a message.  And also, poring through our charitable gifts, we find that we have and continue to contribute to the Center for Competitive Politics which supports the retention of our First Amendment rights under the Constitution.  Mercy.

On the global warming front Anthony Watts (Watts Up With That) reports that recent climate change research in Greenland shows that the island was as warm or warmer during the last millennium than it is now.  The results were presented by the University of Cincinnati at the recent American Geophysical Union’s session Greenland Climate Change Past and Present.  But I wouldn’t spend much effort looking for reports on these findings in the balanced mainstream media.  When encountering such information, we must always remember that “the debate is over.”

On the sub-prime lending front.  The government has again confirmed its uncontested opinion of us.  So many of us are now in the double-dummy category that we need to ratchet back on a few more freedoms for our own good.  Treasury Secretary Paulson is announcing his plan to “freeze the teaser” making it illegal for lenders to up the interest rate as stipulated in the ARM contract signed by the borrower.  This, of course, will hit hardest the private individuals – retireds, 401K contributors, long-term investors, etc – hardest who bought ‘conservative’ money market funds.  Congress, not to be outdone, has passed legislation to also put the additional burden of defaults on the lender.  If, after lying through your teeth on your loan application, you discover that you can’t repay the loan, you will now be able to walk away or even sue the lender.  The law will make the lender liable for not being able to correctly vet the borrower and identify the potential deadbeats.  That has always been the case, but in a more primitive age the borrower stayed on the hook for the loan; not any more.  If you can’t pay, it was by definition a “predatory loan” and you will have recourse.  That you are reading these words dear Reader makes it likely that you can immediately see how these new government bandaids will wind up helping us all, especially the poorest and most ignorant.

In the 18dec07 Union there was a long and laborious article by Reinette Senum on economic revitalization.  To achieve this she prescribes that “we must begin doing business with a different philosophy, set of rules, standards and goals.”  Different indeed.  The socialist palliatives and nostroms she rediscovers are well worn with the tread of her philosophical forebears whom history has trouble burying because history is no longer called to serve.  Ignoring these lessons, her implicit message is the echo of ‘let’s try it again, this time it will be different’.  On the other hand, she and her business partner Kelly Casterson also inaugurate a periodical column that promises to give practical advice on saving energy to home and business owners.  We look forward to that.

‘A Return to Ritual’ in the 24dec07 US News & World Report describes a phenomenon sweeping the Judeo-Christian religions calling for reinstatement of more traditional liturgies that have been abandoned in recent decades.  It seems that worshipping closer to the manner of our ancestors does contribute to the depth and continuity of an comforting belief system.  The replacement of church and temple altars with rock band stages may be starting to get some pushback.  Some of us are even old enough to remember that going to church meant putting on your ‘Sunday go meetin’ clothes’ instead of ragged levis, sweatshirts, and go-aheads just so you would look cool.  Visible and frequented symbols remain powerful reminders of our faith, which then begs the question – what does a grim array of microphones, wires, speakers, and an electronic drumset remind you to believe in?

Finally, for over forty years I’ve kept a copy of Gracian’s Manual (Fischer translation) handy on/near my desk.  Through its pages and over the centuries the good Father Baltasar counsels all of us who only need open his little tome from time to time.  In my case I am more often scraped and bruised when attempting to fit myself through his templates of good conduct and character.  Here we read from Gracian #146 –

Look beneath.  For ordinarily things are far other than they seem; and the dullness which does not seek to pass beyond the rind, is due to be increasingly disillusioned if it gets deeper into the interior.  The false is forever the lead in everything, continually dragging along the fools: the truth brings up the rear, is late, and limps along upon the arm of time, wherefore the man of insight will save for it at least the half of that faculty, which our great mother has wisely given us twice.  Deceit is superficial, wherefore the superficial are taken in at once.  The man of substance lives safely within himself, to be better treasured of his colleagues, and of those who know.