PORT OF CALL: Old South Church

Margaret Weis and I walk the “Freedom Trail” in Boston, Massachusetts and discover the roots of rebellion alive and well in the Out South Church.

NEWS AND MAIL

DISTANT SHORES No fan of Twilight …

Tracy explains the origins of the modern literary Vampire … and why he believes that Stephanie Meyer’s ‘Twilight’ series does a disservice to women.

UNCHARTED TERRITORIES Changing my name to Fannie Mae …

Here are the words to Tom Paxton’s ode to the current ‘bail out’:

Everybody and his uncle is in debt,
And the bankers and the brokers are upset.
Goldman Sachs’s, Merrill Lynch’s
Saw themselves as lead-pipe cinches,
Now they’ve landed in the biggest screw-up yet.
Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns and all their kind
Have turned out to be the blind leading the blind.
They are clearly the nit-wittest
In survival of the fittest––
Let me modestly say what I have in mind

Chorus:

I am changing my name to Fannie Mae;
I am changing it to AIG.
On this bail-out I am betting;
Just a piece of what they’re getting,
Would be perfectly acceptable to me.
I am changing my name to Freddie Mac;
I am leaving for that great receiving line.
I’ll be waiting when they hand out
Seven hundred million grand out––
That’s when I’ll get mine.

Since the first amphibian crawled out of the slime,
We’ve been struggling in an unrelenting climb.
We were hardly up and walking
Before money started talking
And it said that failure was the only crime.
If you really screwed things up, then you were through;
Now––surprise!––there is a different point of view.
All that crazy rooty-tootin’
And that golden parachutin’
Means that someone’s making millions––just not you!

(to chorus)

CREATIVE ENGINE: Heraclitus and Schrödinger’s cat

An essay on how Quantum Theory explains the relationship between the writer and the reader.

STATUS REPORT

CAPTAINS CABIN: How Beautiful Upon the Mountains

Wherein we council how to publish peace.

Episode 42 / March 27th, 2009