aldenswan.com

among other things:

At least now I unerstand why I feel compelled to watch Nicholas Cage movies.

As reported by Harper’s Magazine, Charles Bernstein has proposed a poetry bailout, geared to restore the confidence of poetry readers.  Bernstein said the following in a prepared statement:

As you know, the glut of illiquid, insolvent, and troubled poems is clogging the literary arteries of the West. These debt-ridden poems threaten to infect other areas of the literary sector and ultimately to topple our culture industry.

Cultural leaders have come together to announce a massive poetry buyout: leveraged and unsecured poems, poetry derivatives, delinquent poems, and subprime poems will be removed from circulation in the biggest poetry bailout since the Victorian era. We believe the plan is a comprehensive approach to relieving the stresses on our literary institutions and markets.

Let there be no mistake: the fundamentals of our poetry are sound. The problem is not poetry but poems.

…

As we know, lax composition practices since the advent of modernism led to irresponsible poets and irresponsible readers. Simply put, too many poets composed works they could not justify. We are seeing the impact on poetry, with a massive loss of confidence on the part of readers.

Whatever happens with the financial markets, let’s not let this warning go unheeded.

Thanks to John H at Confessing Evangelical for bringing this to our attention.

If I haven’t mentioned before that Nancy Pelosi is an idiot, I’d like to make that point now. Some action by the government is necessary. Bipartisan effort to accomplish this is necessary. Why doesn’t Madam Speaker understand this?  Why does she always feel the need to resort to the same partisan crap?   My guess is that it’s because she doesn’t understand the issues.   She certainly doesn’t seem to understand history. Her typically myopic speech this afternoon sent the markets into more of a tizzy than they were. And to what advantage?  Because just perhaps some cooperation was happening?

Nothing we do now is perfect; had congress listened to the warnings 7-8 years ago, we’d be in a different place today. But, partisan bickering seems to stop all progress.

Here’s what I think is happening: We have an election in just a few weeks.  One side is using this crisis - at the expense of the American people - to confuse the issues, knowing that the automatic response is to blame the current president for any economic issues, even if the root can be traced back to a Democratic administration.

I know I’ve said this before, and I’ll say this again: the 2 party system is hurting us.  Partisan politics is deadly. Stop it.