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Late for work on a Wednesday

Late for work on a Wednesday

Last updated on: May 5, 2010 at 5:14 pm by Fred Clark

Late for work on a Wednesday 2010-05-05T17:14:16-04:00 Fred Clark

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So yesterday stocks plummeted on Wall Street due to fears about the Greek debt crisis. The NYSE lost about 2 percent of its value. That comes to about $300 billion or so in wealth that no longer exists. Add in the NASDAQ and the many other markets around the world that also sank dramatically and the total loss was likely several times that.

Greece's national debt is about $340 billion.

I know this is all very much more complicated than I probably understand, but it seems to me something like this: Your next-door neighbor is $20,000 behind on his mortgage and is about to be foreclosed and if that happens, the value of your house will go down at least $50,000. Moral hazard, underlying structural solution, yadda yadda … but isn't it cheaper for you to keep your neighbor out of foreclosure?

(Those who understand this stuff better than I do, please help me out here.)

* * * * * * * * *

The Downingtown RFC girls A side is now 6-0.

And I'm now hoping that the next trend-spotter's fad in American politics will be "Rugby Stepdads," because it would be fun to have candidates pandering to my particular demographic.

* * * * * * * * *

Patrick P. e-mailed a couple of passages from Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes, noting that they seem rather on-point regarding the epistemic importance of empathy. They do indeed:

"Could he say that love was, above all, common cause, shared experience?

That was the vital cement, wasn't it? Could he say how he felt
about their all being here tonight on this wild world running around a
big sun which fell through a bigger space falling through yet vaster
immensities of space, maybe toward and maybe away from Something? Could
he say: we share this billion-mile-an-hour ride. We have common cause
against the night."

"'Have I said anything I started out to say about being good? God, I
don't know. A stranger is shot in the street, you hardly move to help.
But if, half an hour before, you spent just 10 minutes with the fellow
and knew a little about him and his family, you might just jump in front
of his killer and try to stop it. Really knowing is good. Not knowing,
or refusing to know, is bad, or amoral, at least. You can't act if you
don't know. Acting without knowing takes you right off the cliff.'"

* * * * * * * * *

I'm harping on this point of Republican opposition to empathy because I find it so astonishing. This is not something I would ever have accused them of. "You think empathy is a Bad Thing" is a really low, nasty thing to accuse someone of.

If a friend of mine had said to me, a year ago, "Those Republicans, they're anti-empathy," I might have lectured him on civility.

"That sort of hyperbole isn't constructive," I might have said. "Of course they're not opposed to empathy. They're not monsters. To be opposed to empathy would make you a sociopathic fiend and a solipsistic moron. Let's just stick to policy disagreements and not stoop to such hideous accusations."

But it has been the Republicans themselves, over the past year, loudly proclaiming this opposition to empathy, proudly boasting that this vicious insult must be applied to them. And they've even managed, with disturbing consistency, to act as though it were really true. It's just baffling.

* * * * * * * * *

It seems every time I write about the tea partiers, I get some drive-by commenters telling me I would never criticize them if I really knew what they were really like instead of just judging them based on a passing, sound-bite acquaintance.

I wish it were so. It would be nice if the people trapped in the misery-inducing, stupidity-enforcing snare of this corrosive ideology were simply strangers I didn't have to know or care about.

They're not. The tea party mob includes many of my neighbors, acquaintances, co-workers, in-laws and blood relatives. These are people I care about — some of whom I am simply fond of with the fondness that comes from proximity and familiarity, others of whom I have loved for much of my life.

And I do not like watching them toss aside their happiness and intelligence and potential in exchange for this warped counterfeit ideology. It hurts to see such a thing.

It's bad enough watching strangers drown in the voluntary misery and willful stupidity of this stunted nonsense, but when it happens to people I care about it makes me angry and it breaks my heart. Not necessarily in that order.

* * * * * * * * *

Oh, and some time yesterday, this here website had its 6 millionth unique daily visitor.

I mention this because: 1) Yay, us! and 2) I like the way website stat counters pay us the compliment of assuring us that each of us is "unique" every day — it's like a Stuart Smalley affirmation, and 3) the AP Stylebook finally entered the 21st century by switching from two-words "Web site" to "website," lower-case "w," one word — and I just wanted an excuse to write website. Much better, that.

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