Author Archives: deanwebb

US-Israeli Relations: Time for a Divorce?

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No, it’s not all the Jews’ fault. I want to get that right out: the security of the state of Israel is being betrayed by its politicians and the extremist factions they must cater to in order to remain in power. Got that? Politicians and extremists in Israel are endangering the state of Israel, its relationship with the US, and the people that live in Israel.

The current Israeli government expects to be able to swing the US’ military power around like it was its own. For the last 60+ years, the US has been funding Israel like a co-dependent mother paying for her son’s heroin habit, particularly so after Britain and France stepped away from Israel after the Suez debacle in 1956. Every time Israel has thrown a fit, the US has caved in to pressure from the AIPAC and given Israel what it needs. What does the US get in return?

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Follow Your Dreams?

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I’m not going to name names on a personal level, but I’ve seen my share of people that inherit for a living. They’re the ones that get to follow their dreams unconditionally. I’ve got a number of students that are working as hard as they can to end the nightmares for them and their families. They don’t have the luxury of dreaming, not yet.

I’ve got plenty of friends that made a run at making the big time in the music industry. You have no idea how happy I am when I track down one of these late-80’s dreamers and find out he’s off the drugs and is making a living playing in bars all weekend long. Of all the bright young guys with Texas-sized hopes I knew back then, Robert Earl Keen’s made it the furthest up the music biz ladder, and he’ll be the first to admit there are a lot of others every bit as good as he is that the music business shot apart. You take every person with talent and big dreams born in a given year, line ’em up, and luck will choose one to rise up out of them all. Luck chooses maybe a baker’s dozen to never have to get their lives wrecked by alcohol or drugs, and the rest… the rest become casualties if they don’t stop dreaming.

Then you have the no-to-low-talents that become big names simply because they’re connected to pots of cash and/or a famous parent. Maybe they had no moral standards and managed to exploit that amorality to its fullest potential… whatever. Be it a stage mom that never quit or a pile of cash that kept talking, there they are, on top of the world. The worst are the ones that are famous for being famous. Paris Hilton is perhaps the most egregious in that area. So much of success in any artistic field is not in mastering the creative process, but in dealing with the business side of things. If you don’t have connections to lawyers that can run amazing deals because of who they’re connected to, you got little to nothing left to go on.

Follow your dreams? How about taking a good, hard look at those dreams, hmm?

First of all, if you say you want to make a living with your art, ask which is more important, the living or the art? If it’s the living, you will likely wind up making that living, but you’ll compromise your art. The art is more important? Don’t quit your day job, buddy. And you better make darn sure you like that day job, because you’re going to make your living that way and your art’s going to remain a hobby.

Next, ask yourself, what is success? If it’s a pot of cash left over after you pay bills, then become a white-collar criminal. That’s the fastest, most effective way to make that money and chances are you won’t even go to jail. If you can’t stomach that, then you better consider success is dying with your soul intact. Success is in helping the weak and bringing smiles to the faces of people left broken by the guys that think success and money are connected.

I like to draw. Nothing wrong with that. I have friends that will ask me to draw a little something for them and I’ll dash off a pretty picture that isn’t really print-quality, but it looks nice. They say they like it, I get my audience, and everyone’s happy. Should they have to pay for that smile? Not if I’m having fun making the picture. That’s how I reason it and it works for me. In exchange for doing things for free whenever I have the time and feel like it, I don’t have to make a living with my art. The pressure’s off and I can enjoy the experience.

So have I given up on my dreams?

I don’t think so. I love teaching. That’s what I do. I love my family. That’s who I live with. I am satisfied with the spiritual side of my life and I can find plenty of intellectual stimulation. I’m doing fine. I’m 42 and I’ve got my life in a pretty decent balance. Not being hung up on material things is probably an important part of that balance, as is a feeling that I’ve found answers to a lot of The Big Questions and know that I’m finding answers to the rest.

I like drawing, but I don’t have to be hanging in a gallery. I like writing, but I don’t need to be on a display at a Borders. Because my life isn’t sucked into running after money, I have time to enjoy it. I’m free to follow my dreams, but that doesn’t mean I follow them irresponsibly.

Yay Durian Candy

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Not good enough for “Reason to Live”, but still pretty dang fun and tasty.

Found it at the Hong Kong Market. It doesn’t smell like durian, but it has that nice durian-y funkyness when you start chewing it. My daughter and I bought some today and had great fun.

Ram Gopal Varma Delivers in Rann

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I was disappointed with the last American movie I saw, Alice in Wonderland, but was more than satisfied with the last Bollywood film I saw, Rann. Both feature a strong actor-director combination, but the Indian version is the one that paid off most satisfyingly.

Johnny Depp is at his best with Tim Burton at the helm, but Alice went off the rails for me as it drew to a climax. I loved the landscapes and the clever CGI stuff, but a movie needs a real plot to keep it going. Sorry, Alice, but I can’t feel excited about seeing you again.

Amitabh Bachchan is amazing with Ram Gopal Varma directing, as was proven in Sarkar and Sarkar Raj. Rann gives Bachchan a milder character but just as much drama and intrigue as we had in RGV’s earlier work with Big B. I planned on watching the DVD half-way through last night and then finishing it tonight, but I absolutely could not bear to stop watching it when I got to the half-way point. The plot punched its way through to the very end. Even though it ended with some tragedy, the finish made good sense in the confines of the plot as well as in a real-world sense. Rann tackles the way media, politics, and ratings intertwine to corrupt the system and I plan to use this in my AP Government class. Forget the emotionalism of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington: Rann is the real deal. First class film hain.

The Carry Trade

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The carry trade is pretty straightforward: it’s a bet that a currency will do certain things in the future and that, given that given-ness, one can use a position on that currency as a hedge, or reduction of risk, on other investments.

In this crisis, many people looked to the way the US was spending money to get out of trouble and assumed that the dollar would stay weak relative to the euro. There is a massive carry trade in the dollar, with the expectation that it stays weak.

With the recent turmoil over Greece, Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Ireland, it looks like the euro may weaken and the dollar strengthen. That will mess up everyone that expected the dollar to stay weak. When it strengthens, the people that had bet on a weak dollar will lose quite a bit of money.

Questions for the Tea Party

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All, right, deficits are bad. No argument about that from me. Taxes can damage the economy. Again, I agree wholeheartedly. Now, Tea Party, tell me how you’re going to rein in deficits and cut taxes without bringing on a catastrophe to make the events of the 1930s seem like the “Not All That Bad Depression.”

The Tea Party is too little, too late. Yes, we fear deficits, but what politician is going to vote to dismantle entitlement programs? How are we going to get rid of entrenched politicians when the interest groups backing them have put so much money into discrediting their opponents? And how do we know if the replacements the Tea Party puts forward are mentally sound?

In War, Politics, and Insanity, C.S. Bluemel put forward the idea that many of the world’s politicians, particularly the populist ones, are certifiably insane. They grew up with hard lives and became rebellious mavericks – psychotic mavericks. The book was written in 1949, so the author was thinking of Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin, not Palin. The comparison still applies. The danger of populism is that it attracts leaders just like the common man that believe in themselves to the point of megalomania. My final question for the Tea Party is this: beyond your economic solution, how will you keep your movement from producing an American dictator?