Sonic Threatened By Financial Crisis

From a McCain press release:

Sonic Corporation, a drive-in restaurant chain based in Oklahoma, learned on Thursday that one of its lenders, GE Capital, had stopped extending new loans to the chain's franchisees. That will block plans to rebuild restaurants, add equipment and open new locations. When small businesses like Sonic franchisees can't borrow, contractors don't get the remodeling work, equipment-makers lose sales, and restaurants go out of business. It hurts the entire community.

Chaka sez: "He doesn't mention the most important thing: the dire threat to the Banana Cream Pie Milkshake!"

Mrs. Chaka sez: "They probably don't need a line of credit to buy bananas. But maybe we should drive to Lockport right now."

The Global Pool of Money

Go here to hear about it. Financial reporting that you can actually understand and enjoy (other than the whole we're-going-to-relive-the-seventies part).

It's nice to know, though, that our financial troubles, like the increase in our gasoline prices, are triggered by the rest of the world being less poor than they used to be. It makes the troubles more like a badge of honor.

I saw a billboard the other day for Miller High Life (I believe it was). It said "Tell the recession where to go." So I guess we've bought into the fact that things will be bad for awhile and we're embracing it. No doubt the brief revival of 80s fashion will now be gobbled up by a resurgence of 70s fashion. And you thought the 70s went out with the late 90s. You even got rid of your bootcut jeans. Silly rabbit.

What's Wrong with Illinois?

I've argued in the distant and recent past for the principle of subsidiarity. (HT to Jon Schindler for giving me the word for what I was arguing for). I also firmly believe that Illinois is the worst-governed state that I've lived in. Honesty requires me to acknowledge that a recently acquired fact puts these two principles, both near and dear to me, in seeming contradiction.

Apparently, the voters of Illinois are asked every twenty years whether they want to have a brand new constitutional convention. Jesse White, Illinois Secretary of State, recently sent me a pamphlet explaining the proposed call for a convention, along with arguments for and against the call.

Incidently, Jesse White is one of my prime examples of the illness in Illinois governance. His name (and often his likeness) is plastered on everything associated with the Secretary of State's office, as though it was his own personal fiefdom. Which it probably is.

Exhibit A, your honor. This ain't a campaign site, kids; it's where you go for all your licensing needs in the big Ill.

Anyway, the Secretary of State's office sent this pamphlet, which happens to mention that "Illinois has over 6,900 units of government far more than any other state in the nation. Delegates to a constitutional convention could propose ideas to consolidate state and local governments to provide citizens with a more responsive and cost-effective government services."

Ah, the bitter taste of cognitive dissonance. I would have thought that multiple small units of government would make for more responsive government than a few gigantic ones. But my experiences/uninformed prejudices tell me that Illinois does this badly. What to believe?

And what to vote? I like the idea of voting for the convention just to shake things up, but I don't have any confidence that the delegates would get right what the legislature gets wrong.

Lastly, I can't resist linking to this. My internal Gollum agrees entirely with Barney Frank on this one. Actually, Gollum doesn't give a fig for patriotism, precious. He just has a very shallow well of pity for people who make millions of dollars screwing things up.

An Internal Dialogue

Gollum: Another bailout. We can’t stands it.

Smeagol: But we dursn’t let the markets to fail, precious.

Gollum: You mean the rich government people dursn’t let their rich friends lose their fortunes. If we was to go bankrupt, where would our bailout be?

Smeagol: But the people in charge are getting fired when the governmentses takes over, they are.

Gollum: Fired? Fired?! And getting millions of dollars for getting fired, they are. We’d love to get fired like them, wouldn’t we? If the governmentses want to nationalize a company, they should have the courage to go all the way—nationalize the Latin American way.

Smeagol: Nasty, socialist Gollum!

Gollum: Nationalization should be a bitter pill, it should.

Smeagol: Anywayses, it’s not only the rich company mangers that would suffer if the companieses went under. They’re too big to fail, they are.

Gollum: Too big to fail? **Gollum** **Gollum** Whose idea was it to let them get too big to fail, now? We thought that Teddy Roosevelt dealt with companieses that were too big to fail. Why should anything be allowed to become too big to fail?

I Didn't Try to Steal Pirate Jimmy's Identity

But according to this quiz,

My pirate name is:

Dirty James Kidd

You're the pirate everyone else wants to throw in the ocean -- not to get rid of you, you understand; just to get rid of the smell. Even though you're not always the traditional swaggering gallant, your steadiness and planning make you a fine, reliable pirate. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from piratequiz.com.
part of the fidius.org network

Shouldn't that be "Me true name be"? Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day!

Micronations

How did I not know about Sealand until today? You can read all about it at the big W.

Would Herder support such endeavors, or would he recognize them for what they are--a descent of the concept of nationhood into parody? Why am I obsessed with asking what a dead person would think of a contemporary phenomenon? What would Freud make of that?

(He would diagnose me as a shameless name-dropper. And throw in an Oedipal complex free of charge. I wonder if that's in the DSM IV?)

Incidently, it seems that Herder studied under a "Francophobe" ancestor of Pirate Jimmy.

I probably should stick to the comments since this is Chaka's blog, but no one took away my ability to post yet so I'll post, hehe. While I wish I'd been reading Nietzsche lately and could toss in some sort of quote here, all I can offer are my own words. I don't consider myself a philosopher, but I do have philosophies.

I'll have to admit, I'm disappointed in the post about the movie being a waste of $6.25. My tickets cost $10 when I went to see it... where are movies only $6.25 these days? But anyway, did I like the movie? Yes. Was it worth the $10? Positively. Did I enjoy it all three times I saw it in the theatre? Of course. So I guess I'll have to join the group of folks who thinks it was _not_ a complete waste of time. And having read about as much of the bible as I've read works by Nietzsche in the past few months I'm going to blindly place Jesus as someone who agrees with me. Is that blasphemy? Perhaps. Am I already directing too many rhetorical questions towards myself? Definitely. Will I stop? No. So will I share my barbaric analysis of the movie? I suppose.

I'm pretty sure Jesus liked to do shit with folks, though chances are they weren't ALL "bible-worthy" events. In that respect, I think it's alright to do shit with folks, just don't expect it to be recorded in the bible. Though maybe taking your friendly neighborhood pastor to a movie like The Dark Knight WOULD indeed be a "bible-worthy" event. Maybe it's just the rebel in me, but I like the whole idea of offending people's sensibilities, that's certainly my favourite part about Jesus. Jesus was kind of a badass, he offended a lot of people's sensibilities in his day. Do you happen to remember that statement I made a while back? "The search for truth is beset on all sides by pleasant lies?" I think one of those pleasant lies might be the strange idea that sheltering yourself from seeing evil makes you a better person. I don't think hiding from all outside influences helps you grow as an individual or as a christian. Maybe I'm wrong and it's my belief right there that's truly the pleasant lie, but what if I'm right?

But that's really beside the point of actually examining the movie. I honestly just enjoyed the movie because it kept to the spirit of the cartoon I grew up watching, while making it entirely real. I did find a message in it as well, it was about doing the right thing without needing a reason. The Joker used the faults of humanity (that are undeniably everywhere) to justify being an agent of chaos. Batman saw the faults of humanity to justify being an agent of good. Both did so with no want of reward, and little regard for personal safety. They truly are polar opposites, arch-nemeses, and theirs is an undying rivalry.

Gotham's Accusers

Gotham City is not a place you would want to live. If you had to choose one word to describe it, it would probably be corrupt. It's a city where the rulers are criminals and the criminals rule. All the good people either left years ago or slid into the same sharp-edged lifestyle as their neighbors. You have to be sharp to stay alive in Gotham. Sharp and crooked.

Gotham City is eating itself alive. Having consumed whatever was pure and good in their midst, the wicked ones have turned on each other. Rival gangs battle for turf; rival bureaucracies fight over the privilege of selling their souls to the gangs for kickbacks.

So why should we care what happens to Gotham City? Why should we not happily watch it all go down in flames? Wouldn't that be fair? Or at least interesting?

If Gotham City has a soul, it's a soul facing damnation. In the two most recent Batman movies, it has also faced two accusers eager to hasten its damnation. Ra's al Ghul and the Joker aren't your typical comic book bad guys. They aren't in it for the money or for world domination. They want to see Gotham go down.

Admittedly, these two opponents differ greatly from each other: where one is dignified, the other is garish. One speaks of punishing criminals; the other speaks merely of upsetting the schemers. But neither believes that there are enough righteous men in Gotham to save it, and they intend to quicken it's end by strengthening the wicked ones. Both plan to unleash madness on the city, breaking the facade of civility that restrains evil.

In short, both characters are something more than mere villains. They are diabolical (diabolos, "slanderer"); they are satanic (satan, "adversary"). Like the figure of the satan in the Hebrew Bible, they argue (with some good cause) that human righteousness is mere hypocrisy. "But reach out and take away everything they have, and they will surely curse you to your face!” Like the figure of Satan in the New Testament, however, it becomes clear that they are not merely objective advocates for justice. They aren't just arguing that Gotham is about to fall; they're eager to give it a push.

I won't stretch this argument to turn Batman into a Christ figure. ("He's Gotham's advocate before the Father, symbolized by . . . er . . . Alfred. 'Cause he's old and wise.") Neither do I think the movie really comments on total depravity. You can't just look at the ferry scene from The Dark Knight and conclude that the message is "Human beings are basically good"; not after all the wickedness that has gone before. The educational value of the ferry scene is that it shows up the accuser as a liar.

And this is the value of The Dark Knight for our spiritual formation. Without focusing undue attention on the demonic, we should remember that there is one who accuses us and seeks to destroy us. There is a power that wants us to "get off the sidelines," who wants to enlist us in his plan to break the restraints of evil and unleash madness.

And whether it is presented in The Dark Knight or not, there is another power. One that overrules the accuser. The one who taught us to pray "Don’t let us yield to temptation, but rescue us from the evil one."

There are some good explanations of these topics in the NLT Study Bible (topics like the adversary, that is, not Batman; the study Bible went to press to early to incorporate any details about The Dark Knight). You can now use the NLTSB for free (for 30 days) at www.nltstudybible.com. Click on Online Bible and you'll get to see all the features in the printed Bible. I recommend looking at Job and its notes; see especially the theme note called "Satan, the Adversary."

Dang It!

Stuff White People Like has ruined another innocent enjoyment of mine. Now I'll never again be able to make Self Aware Hip Hop References in an unself-conscious fashion. From now on I'll be self-conscious of my self awareness.

I mean, it's like they're monitoring my conversation. As recently as last Wednesday, I was dropping some hip hop rhymes over lunch. A coworker mentioned that Ludacris was participating in a rap vs. rock event to benefit the environment (which Google informs me is a TLC reality show called Battleground Earth). I wondered aloud if that meant Ludacris would renounce the attitude of conspicuous consumption portrayed in "Southern Hospitality" (adult juvenile language):



If you didn't catch it, the lyric in question is "Check out the oil my Cadillac spills."

Alas, such sparkling conversational illustrations will never be the same.

Seriously, though, SWPL is doing an excellent job pointing out how much of my culture is built on irony (which has an alienating effect) and a sense of superiority. Why do we hide behind irony? Have we all forgotten the importance of being earnest?

Batman and Nietzsche

What to say about The Dark Knight?

Some say that there is nothing redeeming in it. Others (see comments) argue that it presents a picture that resonates somewhat with how things really are, usually related to human depravity.

This essay by Jason Lee Steorts talks about The Dark Knight and ethics; it reads like a really long blog post, but the ideas are very interesting. At least skim page 1 and read page 2 for real. How do you fight vandals? How can you get people to resist vandalism when they have very little in the way of a metaphysical bulwark against joining the vandals? In four fascinating paragraphs, Steorts defends Nietzsche as a philosopher worth listening to regarding these questions. Maybe it's not so much a defense as an invitation: look into what Nietzsche had to say on the topic. Don't assume that the only way to appreciate him is to "worship him on the way to destroying things." I'm intrigued. (But I wonder what Father Brown would make of Nietzsche's end-of-life madness.)

Pirate Jimmy has graced this blog with some nuggets from Nietzsche in the past. Perhaps he can give us a post about what he's learned from the man with the mustache.

But what should I say about The Dark Knight? Well, I like the direction that Adam takes it, particularly what he suggests about the city of Gotham itself as a character in the movie--a character with a soul that needs saving. This is an element that was not present in the earlier Batman films, and I think the last two have been greatly enriched by it. I'm still hashing out my thoughts on how this thesis affects the interpretation of the films, but I'll be posting them shortly.

In the mean time, watch this and start worrying. I hope he knows what he's talking about, because I sure don't:

Chesterton on Celebrity

Someone at lunch today pronounced the familiar epithet for Paris Hilton: "She's famous for being famous." It's an appropriate characterization (although, when you think about it, it's more charitable than it is accurate). You might think that this form of celebrity is a feature of this-mess-we're-in (whatever you want to call it: postmodernism, consumerism, the Internet age, the last days). I certainly did. But take a gander at this passage from G. K. Chesterton's "The Scandal of Father Brown" (1935). The narrator claims that in America:

A girl of great beauty or brilliancy will be a sort of uncrowned queen, even if she is not a Film Star or the original of a Gibson Girl. Among those who had the fortune, or misfortune, to exist beautifully in public in this manner, was a certain Hypatia Hard, who had passed through the preliminary stage of receiving florid compliments in society paragraphs of the local press, to the position of one who is actually interviewed by real pressmen. On War and Peace and Patriotism and Prohibition and Evolution and the Bible she had made her pronouncements with a charming smile; and if none of them seemed very near to the real grounds of her own reputation, it was almost equally hard to say what the grounds of her reputation really were. Beauty, and being the daughter of a rich man, are things not rare in her country; but to these she added whatever it is that attracts the wandering eye of journalism. Next to none of her admirers had ever seen her, or even hoped to do so; and none of them could possibly derive any sordid benefit from her father's wealth. It was simply a sort of popular romance, the modern substitute for mythology.

So what is to blame for this vapid form of celebrity? American journalism? The absence of a traditional American mythology? What do you think?

Life in Southeast Carol Stream

An excerpt from one of last night's conversations with the police:

Dispatcher: About how tall was he?
Me: About 5'10", 5'11".
Dispatcher: And about what age?
Me: Early fifties, I guess; he had white hair and a white mustache.
Dispatcher: Okay, give me a minute.

[ . . . ]

Dispatcher: And what was he wearing tonight?
Me: Well, when I saw him, he wasn't wearing anything.

Ask me about it sometime.

Mysteries of Adolescence

Why did I like this movie when it came out (1995)? Well, I was a sophomore in high school. Mrs. Chaka and I watched it last night (we grabbed the VHS tape from her parents' house) and I barely felt like finishing it. I kept waiting for the parts I liked, but they never showed up. I still like Val Kilmer's Batman, but did we really have to wait until 2005 to get decent dialogue in a Batman movie? I guess we did.

Note to self: Jim Carrey's mid-nineties schtick has not aged well. Do not attempt to relive those days. I wonder if Liar, Liar (1997) is also tainted, or if Jim was transitioning to his less annoying persona. I'm scared to find out.

What else from the mid-nineties will turn out to be horrendous? Surely Independence Day is safe, right?

Right?