Weekends and my inner karma………

Yesterday we went to my company’s Christmas party. An OK affair-save for the fact that with one exception, none of us work in the same place-we simply have the distinction of having the same employer. Who in every case handles every thing related to our care and feeding in a different city than this one.  Suffice it to say, it makes for some repeated introductions.

But on the other hand-it was a good dinner.

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I have a lot of things on my mind, but strangely, I’m finding it hard to get the wherewithal to sit down and type it out.  I’m beginning to wonder if my passion is beginning to burn out. Indy has a theory about how blogs go in cycles-and recent days have made me wonder if he is not right.  Have I hit the limit of my passion for written expression? Maybe.

Or it could just be that I have hit the limit of time available-and that for tonight at least-I’d rather channel my efforts into convincing the S.O. that I need a different outlet for my passion. Lately it seems there are not enough hours in the day for all the things I want to do-or need to do. Work has been extremely busy, which is both good and bad. Its good because I am learning a  lot-and bad because some of the things I am learning are things I wish I hadn’t. They just add to my disillusionment.

Sometimes the truth is better off unheard.

We’ll see if I end up watching Sports Center in an hour or so………………….

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Along the same lines of channeling passion, it is interesting that Spike found this little tidbit in Wanchai:

Rather blunt-but, like the auto bailout, a neccessary option.
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The auto bailout perplexes me in a whole lot of ways. I can’t help but think about the auto companies put themselves in this position-but at the same time, I sure as hell am not of a mind to see the economy get any worse.  And I suspect that GM or Chrysler going down is not going to be good for the herd-if for no other reason for all the companies they will take down with them.

Still, its not like cars won’t be built in America if they do-and those cars will be built by Americans. Toyota, BMW, Nissan and the others all grasped that lesson a long time ago. So there is a part of me that is fine with them going into Chapter 11. Something will rise from the ashes. And besides, America needs to wake up and smell the coffee about its love affar with the automobile. Alternate forms of travel need to be out there and most Amercian cars-especially here in Shopping Mall-are just too damn big. ( Gotta be able to pull that boat you know!).

On the other hand though-the current attempts by some Senators to paint the whole blame on the unions-and in the process protect the workers in their “right to work” states is somehow, more than a little unseemly.  I mean think about it-the company negotiated those agreements with the unions-it should be up to the company to drive home a deal with wage givebacks if need be. How much is it a conflict of interest for Senators from Southern States to be trying to enhance the profitability of foreign auto companies by openly colluding with those  foreign auto companies to drive down the wages of American workers. Even if that’s a big part of holding down their costs.

Plus, I was shocked to see Ben Stein say on Larry King what we all should be thinking-why do we have plenty of money to take care of Arabs who will screw us in the end, but we don’t have the means to take care of Americans who work in America and pay real American taxes?

Well I think what happened was that the Republicans were sick of the bailout and they were also sick of the idea that the autoworkers had voted Democrat so many times and turned Michigan into an entirely Democratic state and they’re also a little envious on behalf of the constituents of the way—the imaginary super wage benefit legacy cause.

But I think they made a terrible and unpatriotic mistake. We’re teetering on the brink of a depression. We can ship money to Iraqi warlords in giant cargo planes. We ship money all over the world. We can’t ship it to help our own people? We can ship it to Goldman Sachs and rescue people that get $100 million a year but we can’t rescue an autoworker and his family? That’s crazy.

STEIN: But it is going to do a lot to deal with the onrushing depression business. That’s the problem. The problem isn’t the about business model of GM has failed. We know its failed. The business model of Goldman Sachs has failed. We’ve got a lot of failed business models.

What we are having is an onrushing depression. We have got to stop it now. We have got to have a government contra-cyclical action that stops it. If we fall off a cliff into depression, it will be so much worse than any of the bailout costs. You cannot imagine it. You do not want to let this go into Great Depression.

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STEIN: I absolutely agree, absolutely right. The government shoved tens of billions of dollars down the throats of banks who said, we don’t even want it. Now Detroit and the workers there who are decent Americans are begging for it. For gosh sake, let’s do the right thing

So in the end I guess I come down in favor of doing something. Like our friend above, in the sober light of day you know going with her is not the best thing in the long run. But in the short term, she satisfies a need; makes you feel better; and probably provides something that the “proper” course of action will never get you to.

So come on baby, lets go upstairs and get in taxi-so I can give you a bailout in the morning.

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The S.O. asked me a couple of weeks ago if we could listen to music with our dinner and leave the TV off during dinner. In Japan this was never a problem because you could not see the TV from the kitchen table. Here you can. I agreed to do it though-and now after two weeks, I’m appreciating the wisdom of her suggestion. Its kind of nice and we do talk. So far the music has either been Christmas music or Botti. Its worked out well so far-except like tonight where she was putting dinner on with 3 minutes left to go in the Steeler game and they were in the middle of a great comeback- but I’m hoping to convince her to branch out in terms of musical choices. Hopefully it will take less negotiation than this:

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Speaking of throwing things-its still nice to see the President making friends over there in that that nation that was so critical to our success in the Middle East:

Interesting that the guy was actually able to get the shoe airborne-says a lot about Iraqi security doesn’t it?

Then again, I wonder how many American reporters have wanted to do that-but jail was never on the list of experiences they wanted to try.

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And finally, under the category of really making me depressed and longing to return to the other side of the dateline, I came across this cute little video over at Japan Probe:

If you have ever spent a Yuletide season in Tokyo you can appreciate a lot of what they are singing about.

I’m working on the return trip! In the meantime the bills won’t pay themselves-so off to work I go tomorrow.

Ja ne!