According to a Ny Times poll, 81% of respondents said they felt "pressure" to buy high-priced goods.

That's what I'm writing about, reader! That's just one of the foci for this web site -- to illuminate some of the social pressures, either obvious or not so, which drive many of our decisions.

The "pressure" that makes us do what we do, makes us pile-up big-time debt is, in this web site's opinion, the product of social pressure to do what we're "supposed to do."

Dave & Mar Mar

Breakfast with the OGs.

... (that's John K. Galbraith) in memorial to Henry Reuss, Rep. Wisc.

A notable exchange came on October 21, 1981; the witness was a supply-sider named John Rutledge, who claimed that "God put zero in the middle of the numbers, because it was the optimal rate of inflation."

Mr. Reuss: Well now, to examine that, is zero the optimum unemployment rate too?

Mr. Rutledge: No, I would not say that.

Mr. Reuss: Did God switch signals on that one?

Mr. Rutledge: No. God never made a target for unemployment so far as I know, in the King James version anyway.

Mr. Reuss. Speaking of theology is unsuccessful, at least in resolving this.

or this on the same subject:

In the days since Henry died, I have had occasion to speak of him with many old comrades who cannot be here: my fellow staff Richard Kaufman, Mary Eccles, Bob Auerbach, my Republican counterpart Bruce Bartlett who penned a gracious essay in his honor, Senator Paul Sarbanes, Congressman Charles Rangel, Ambassador Felix Rohatyn. It is a pleasure to be able to mention his name, for it never fails to evoke the utmost combination of pleasure and respect.

Mr. Galbraith said those words at Henry Reuss Memorial, Milwaukee's Good Shepherd Episcopal Church, February 22, 2002.

John Kenneth Galbraith, 96, economic advisor to Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy, told Paul Soloman (RealAudio) that economic policies are being controlled by "the people who have the money," and that "corporations have taken over the basic process of governing."

Galbraith, FDR's New Deal advisor, believes that government must act in order to smooth the economic highs and lows. Economic management depending on the issues of the day. Government activism when it comes to the national economy.

Galbraith was one of the most famous economist in the world during the 50's. He wrote The Affluent Society, which is about excesses in the American economy.

Galbraith believes today's Republican right wing extremism in government will eventually reverse back to New Dealian types of policies championed by Democrats FDR and Kennedy. The Republican presidential eras were made possible by the Vietnam War in the 60's and the high inflation, high unemployment and high gas prices of the 70's and 80's, during which time the Republicans regrouped and took power. Some say his progressive-sounding theories sound really good today; hell, he's survived the policies of Eisenhower, Nixon and Reagan!

Today he believes that any dismantlement of Social Security, as proposed by the current Bush, is blindly driven by conservative ideologues. Social Security, he believes, isn't a Democratic or Republican program, it's the "people's program."

There is a new biography out on Mr. Galbraith and it appears to be very good.

Robert Jensen wrote "Why I Will Not Rally Around the President" on September 20, 2001 for inclusion in the Austin American-Statesman.

In it, Mr. Jensen wrote:

For the past few days -- in person and on the phone, through email and on the radio -- I have been called "unpatriotic," condemned as a "traitor" and labeled "anti-American" because my writing has opposed the drive to war,the call for blood to avenge those who died in the terror attacks.

But I also have heard from many others who also are concerned that U.S. officials will take us into a war that will bring only more death, pain and grief,leaving us less secure. They want to speak out but fear being attacked fornot being "good Americans."

Mr. Jensen was on Bob McChesney's radio show Media Matters on Sunday and he was quite poignant on issues of the Iraq war three and a half years after the Terrorist Attacks of 2001.

Golden margarita at Chiquita's.

is a Replacements album, released February 1, 1989, that I had rushed out to the music store from work that Tuesday morning to be the first to buy the cassette. The cassette format was a very popular medium then.

I was crazy excited to hear it for the first time, and extremely happy for this release date, that I was going to like it no matter what it sounded like. I was not going to have the wait -- two years after one of my favorites Pleased to Meet Me was released -- go unrewarded.

The Mats' manager during the recording, Peter Jesperson, has said "...songs like 'Anywhere' and 'We'll Inherit The Earth' were phony little anthems that Paul was feeling pressured to write".

Whoa! Stop there!

Westerberg must be a genius. Just imagine if he had total creative control over his work?! What masterpiece would have been created?

I just listened to a Westerberg 1996 live song (I Can't Wait - The Troubador, West Hollywood - September 17, 1996), and it fuckin' rocks.

4th graders. My lunch was veggie burger, strawberries and water.

According to Eric Alterman in an article published by The Nation, the vote for Bush was a "...perfectly irrational reaction to reality." Mr. Alterman writes that "everything the Bush Administration has done in the security realm has proved not merely wasteful and ineffective but counterproductive."

Alterman believes that with Al Queda and Osama bin Laden still operating, Iraq a hotbed for terrorist attacks against American troops, North Korea and Iran threatning to produce nukes, etc., that the American voters were duped by Bush and Karl Rove.

Because of the 2004 vote, this country's unquestioning acceptance of anything that's branded, advertised and corpritized, and so much more, it's easy to have zero confidence in the collective I.Q. of our country.

Scene at the Turf Supper Club

...is a columnist for The Nation, and wrote in his blog about a recent US Senate hearing on the UN's Oil-for-Food program.

A British elected official, MP Galloway, appeared before Sen. Norm Coleman's (Minn.) committee and dressed the senator down to make a point that Coleman's hearing is a sham, as blogged by Mr. Nichols:

"Now, Senator, I gave my heart and soul to oppose the policy that you promoted. I gave my political life's blood to try to stop the mass killing of Iraqis by the sanctions on Iraq which killed one million Iraqis, most of them children, most of them died before they even knew that they were Iraqis, but they died for no other reason other than that they were Iraqis with the misfortune to born at that time. I gave my heart and soul to stop you committing the disaster that you did commit in invading Iraq. And I told the world that your case for the war was a pack of lies," Galloway informed the fool on Capitol Hill.

"I told the world that Iraq, contrary to your claims did not have weapons of mass destruction. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to al-Qaeda. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to the atrocity on 9/11 2001. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that the Iraqi people would resist a British and American invasion of their country and that the fall of Baghdad would not be the beginning of the end, but merely the end of the beginning.

"Senator, in everything I said about Iraq, I turned out to be right and you turned out to be wrong and 100,000 people paid with their lives; 1600 of them American soldiers sent to their deaths on a pack of lies; 15,000 of them wounded, many of them disabled forever on a pack of lies.

"If the world had listened to (UN Secretary General) Kofi Annan, whose dismissal you demanded, if the world had listened to (French) President Chirac, who you want to paint as some kind of corrupt traitor, if the world had listened to me and the anti-war movement in Britain, we would not be in the disaster that we are in today. Senator, this is the mother of all smokescreens. You are trying to divert attention from the crimes that you supported, from the theft of billions of dollars of Iraq's wealth," argued Galloway.

Then the Brit turned the tables on Coleman and steered the committee's attention toward "the real Oil-for-Food scandal."

"Have a look at the 14 months you were in charge of Baghdad, the first 14 months when $8.8 billion of Iraq's wealth went missing on your watch. Have a look at Haliburton and other American corporations that stole not only Iraq's money, but the money of the American taxpayer," Galloway said.

"Have a look at the oil that you didn't even meter, that you were shipping out of the country and selling, the proceeds of which went who knows where. Have a look at the $800 million you gave to American military commanders to hand out around the country without even counting it or weighing it. Have a look at the real scandal breaking in the newspapers today, revealed in the earlier testimony in this committee. That the biggest sanctions busters were not me or Russian politicians or French politicians. The real sanctions busters were your own companies with the connivance of your own Government."

At Tino's with steaks, chops, garlic bread, corn, red and white wine, Pacifico beer.

Since San Diego's current mayor, Dick Murphy, is resigning (effective July 2005), there will be a special election for City Mayor.

According to the San Diego City Clerk's web site,

Candidates must collect the nominating signatures of 200 registered voters of the City of San Diego. These voters must have been registered in the city for at least 30 days prior to signing the petition.

Candidates must pay a filing fee of $500. The filing fee may be completely offset, however, by submission of the valid signatures of an additional 2,000 registered voters.

The time table for the special mayoral election is:

05/13/05 - 1st day to take out papers
05/27/05 - Last day to file papers
07/26/05 - Primary Election
tbd - General Election
tbd - Inauguration/Term of office begins

moi

"Conservatives used to be interested in principles. Now they're only
interested in power."
--Tony Chaudhuri of Campaign for America's Future

Researchers in England studying papyri versions of The Book of Revelations have discovered that the sign of the beast - 666 - may have been originally misread. The real sign is said to be "616!" Whoa! What about all those "666" t-shirts? The 616 area code, which is in Michigan, is the new hot code (Nelly's gonna have to re-cut his song).

American Heart Association

Researchers in Minnesota report that cocaine users have a new worry: coronary aneurysms, a ballooning of the walls of coronary arteries.

The condition increases the chance of suffering a heart attack, even years after users stop the drug, researchers in Minnesota are reporting.

The risk of developing an aneurysm was four times as high among cocaine users in their mid-40's as among nonusers in the same age group, according to the study.

A student at IDEA, part of San Diego City Schools, where I'm subbing.

This is Herman Hamilton, a Marine veteran of WWII, seated at the bar in Sparky's, a friendly neighborhood tavern in South Park where I tend bar.

Mr. Hamilton is one of my homiez.

Lulu glided through the right-hand turn onto Washington Avenue when I
first wondered: "What the fuck are they teaching in business school?"

Prior to the right on Washington, I watched a movie and wondered a
whole lot of other things about corporate executives and their lackeys.

The movie "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room" had me glaring toward
Bush and most of the folks on the Hill.

That movie pissed me off (more) about corporations... in a controlled
pissed-off kinda way.

The messages from Ralph Nader, Robert McChesney and Naomi Klein will
ring more true since yesterday.

Pork, chicken & corn are on tap for this day at Jason & Rebecca's.