Into the Abyss

As I sit here watching Democrats and Republicans fumble-snipe at each others heels while the world awaits a resolution of the proposed $700B infusion to stall-off Armageddon, I am reminded of the 1960's television series, "The Twilight Zone." Can this really be happening? Is the fate of mankind riding on Barney Frank?

While attending law school in Boston in the mid-1970's, a group of us law students from Suffolk, BU and BC used to gather Sunday mornings on a ballfield on Comm Ave for pick-up softball games. A rolly-polly brother of one of our regulars, Barney Frank was then a struggling state representative that couldn't field nor hit, but our object wasn't to qualify for the Olympics, but to assemble enough bodies to field two teams, so Barney, gay as he might have been, was as welcome as any of us. To think that Western Civilization now rests in his chubby-clumsy little hands, gives your author great pause. Oh my, oh my, oh my.

The image of Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke squirming and begging before Congressional committees, of seven minutes of glory per pandering politician to squeeze contrition out of these two pillars of capitalism, enough to make a grown man vomit, followed by the follies of Kudlow, Cramer, & CNBC knick-knacks chillin' and spillin' their guts out of their new found celebrity, all the while pumpin' and dumpin' to stay tuned for the next segment where the world may end, or be saved, or some combination thereof, television docu-drama at its finest and at it's worse, all at once, oh my, oh my, oh my.

What to do with all of this hubris, the suits on high horses, the calvary of great expectations charging across the valley of the doomed investors, bugles blowing and flags a waving as limousines pull up with Obama and McCain engaged in a two-step in center ring, while donkeys and elephants jump through rings on fire; this is what we have come to see, the circus is in town and we gather beneath the tents, it's going to be a humdinger of a show, oh my, oh my, oh my.

A