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		The Hollow Men - Uche's posterous
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			  <h1><a href="http://uche.posterous.com">Uche&#146;s posterous</a></h1>
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				 September 15, 2008
				
					
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		          <h2 class="posttitle" style="width: 470px;"><a href="http://uche.posterous.com/the-hollow-men">The Hollow Men</a></h2>
					
		          <p>A colleague of mine today took a break from cleaning Ike debris out of his yard (and he's in Columbus Ohio FFS!) and IMed "Wow did you hear about Lehman?" I reflexively replied "O yeah. He dead. A penny for the Old Guy." It immediately struck me how apt <span style="text-decoration: underline;">The Hollow Men</span> is for Wall Street today.  Never one of my favorite poems (T.S. Eliot played self-righteous prig with so much better effect in <span style="text-decoration: underline;">The Wasteland</span>) it does sometimes ring truer than true. <br /> <br /><em> We are the hollow men <br /> We are the stuffed men <br /> Leaning together <br /> Headpiece filled with straw. Alas! <br /> Our dried voices, when <br /> We whisper together <br /> Are quiet and meaningless <br /> As wind in dry grass <br /> Or rats&rsquo; feet over broken glass <br /> In our dry cellar <br /></em> <br /> Or for 'nuff American families, I guess, their neighbor's dry cellar where they crash in foreclosure Hoovervilles. Or I guess that's Bushvilles, this time. <br /> <br /><em> Shape without form, shade without colour, <br /> Paralysed force, gesture without motion; <br /></em> <br /> Throw in "back without bone, scout with glaucoma" and you have our purblind referee crew of financial regulators. <br /> <br /><em> [Snippety-snip] <br /><br /> This is the dead land <br /> This is cactus land <br /> Here the stone images <br /> Are raised, here they receive <br /> The supplication of a dead man&rsquo;s hand <br /> Under the twinkle of a fading star. <br /></em> <br /> In other words the desert realm of a lame duck president, and dare we hope the fading is of the false Bethlehem of trickle-down economics? <br /> <br /> <em>Is it like this <br /> In death&rsquo;s other kingdom <br /> Waking alone <br /> At the hour when we are <br /> Trembling with tenderness <br /> Lips that would kiss <br /> Form prayers to broken stone. <br /></em> <br />Actually, I think it's worse in Zimbabwe, <em>mirabile dictu</em>. But we're doing what we can to keep up. <br /> <br /><em> The eyes are not here <br /> There are no eyes here <br /> In this valley of dying stars <br /> In this hollow valley <br /> This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms <br /></em> <br /> Yes, the absence is of stewardship in government. Dare we hope the dying stars are lobbyists? <br /> <br /><em> In this last of meeting places <br /> We grope together <br /> And avoid speech <br /> Gathered on this beach of the tumid river <br /><br /> Sightless, unless <br /> The eyes reappear <br /> As the perpetual star <br /> Multifoliate rose <br /> Of death&rsquo;s twilight kingdom <br /> The hope only <br /> Of empty men. <br /></em> <br /> OK, OK, it's really not easy for me to bear up such plaintive nonsense, even to serve goring supply-siders. Cheer up mate, life does go on. <br /> <br /><em> Here we go round the prickly pear <br /> Prickly pear prickly pear <br /> Here we go round the prickly pear <br /> At five o&rsquo;clock in the morning. <br /></em> <br /> And see, there goes that T.S. Eliot again, jumping the shark a century before anyone else knew what that meant.&nbsp; Come on, Old Possum; give me something I can work with.<br /> <br /><em> Between the idea <br /> And the reality <br /> Between the motion <br /> And the act <br /> Falls the Shadow <br /></em> <br /> And there is why you can only roll your eyes at the master for so long. After that little bit of silliness, one of the most cutting passages in the entire piece.&nbsp; Oh this is enough of a draught of bile to warm the resentments back up again.</p>
<p>The object that blocks the light, birthing the shadow of inaction is, of course, venality. <br /> <br /><em> For Thine is the Kingdom <br /><br /> Between the conception <br /> And the creation <br /> Between the emotion <br /> And the response <br /> Falls the Shadow <br /></em> <br /> And it is under those who most loudly, most furiously declare their pieties, and who claim to be defenders of creation that this shadow grows. Right to life apparently does not mean right to good life, to just life. <br /> <br /> <em>Life is very long <br /><br /> Between the desire <br /> And the spasm <br /> Between the potency <br /> And the existence <br /> Between the essence <br /> And the descent <br /> Falls the Shadow <br /></em> <br /> Thus the Contract with America. Empty promises are no match for venality. <br /> <br /><em> For Thine is the Kingdom <br /><br /> For Thine is <br /> Life is <br /> For Thine is the <br /><br /> This is the way the world ends <br /> This is the way the world ends <br /> This is the way the world ends <br /> Not with a bang but a whimper. <br /></em> <br />LHC is never going to end the world, of course, and neither will LEH.&nbsp; I've spent most of this piece railing against government, but let us not forget the clients of our government. The greedy, orgulous, myopic cohort to whom we entrust our life savings. The ones whose whimpering you now hear from the direction of New York. The Guys who were madly dancing and whooping it up as they left a trail of gunpowder throughout the foundations of our parliaments (of fowls and capons). The ones who are now no more than lifeless effigies for us to burn, if we can afford the fuel to light up. The Old Guys. I haven't even a penny for the Old Guys.</p>
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					 September 16, 2008
					 
					 
					 	<p><a href="http://posterous.com/people/10z5ndqC3XH">
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				 		<a href="http://posterous.com/people/10z5ndqC3XH">cire</a> said...
	
					
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			        While cutting down several fallen trees and clearing out debris from the 70+ mph winds left behind by Ike, I couldn't help but notice the younger foliage, hidden previously, now had direct sunlight.<p>With only a small bit of care, I woke up this morning to find the younger growth already standing on its own.</p><p>We couldn't have predicted the impact of Ike, combining with other fronts and ripped though the ohio valley.  Predicting the winds that hit Wall Street, however, is a different story.</p><p>I wonder what sort of new foliage might grow in those woods.</p>
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					 September 16, 2008
					 
					 
					 	<p><a href="http://posterous.com/people/10z53MrHjjj">
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				 		<a href="http://posterous.com/people/10z53MrHjjj">Kristen Harris</a> said...
	
					
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			        Yes, there will be new and different foliage. I read <a href="http://shiftingcareers.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/16/out-of-work-on-wall-street/" rel="nofollow">this</a> today and thought that exact thing. Funny thing is, I, myself, might just feel better by going to Texas and moving some debris.
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