Smarter thieves means we need smarter cops....and a purge in Washington

I'm currently reading Griftopia by Matt Taibbi....yet another punch in the stomach to my ever-more corroded notions that America is a nation of justice and equal treatment of law for all.

With Mr. Taibbia's background, it's no surprise that the book has a bit of a leftist-leaning bias...but I think that shouldn't be taken as a reason to avoid the book. I mention it simply so you have some idea of the perspective the author carries into his book....and you can prepare the appropriate "bias filters" as you consider the writing.  I'd offer the same warning for any detected bias...regardless of political spectrum it leans towards. I.e. don't read only those that agree with you....and be EXTRA careful about your "bias filters" when you're reading those whom you agree with...sneaky mindfucks creep in too often in such moments of letting your guard down.

 Nonetheless, having worked in the mortgage industry during the sub-prime boom that lead up to the 2008 crash, and being closely involved in that industry during the crash, I assure you that much of what Griftopia describes is accurate.  I would differ with some of the descriptions, opinions and conclusions the book presents, yet overall, the main point he makes and the tone of his writing make the book a worthy read for anyone who wasn't intimately involved with the high level financial shenanigans that went down.  For the rest of us, Matt explains the overall arc of this recent international financial scam in his entertaining and accessible writings.  Sadly, the overall arc is a description of how, yet again, the powers that be have pulled a giant con on the masses, enriching themselves at the expense of the common man and his offspring for generations to come.

Today I stumbled upon this article in the NY Times regarding a recent investigative report from the Inspector General of the Justice Department.  Although its focus is on fraud closer to the loan origination side than Griftopia's (which covers the BILLIONS of dollars swindled via the treasury and the financial markets), it still is sickening in its revelations of the scope of the problems. The report, “Audit of the Department of Justice’s Efforts to Address Mortgage Fraud,” emphasizes how our law enforcement and regulatory agencies are at best, incompetent in the face of "white-collar" criminals, or quite possibly, complacent in the fleecing of the American taxpayer (and other victims around the world) via corruption throughout our government and financial entities.

Religion and sex are power plays

Manipulate the people for the money they pay

Selling skin, selling God

The numbers look the same on their credit cards

Politicians say no to drugs

While we pay for wars in South America

Fighting fire with empty words

While the banks get fat

And the poor stay poor

And the rich get rich

And the cops get paid to look away

As the one percent rules America

  - Spreading the Disease, Operation Mindcrime - Queensrÿche

Mexican (duh!) Fireworks - Dias de San Felipe del Agua

So the last week our town of San Felipe has been having one of its bigger celebrations.  The highlight of this week is the night with fireworks.  Every Mexican celebration has explosions (e.g. firecrackers, pop-bottle rockets, flash-bang mortars) but these are fireworks that are colorful.

Besides the carnival in the town square (with rides for kids and games such as "toss the ring on the bottle"), there are bands on the bandstand with couples dancing in the streets, and food & drink stands.  But mainly it's everybody getting together in the town square watching people and talking with friends and neighbors...and a heavy dose of passing around mezcal bottles....though not as much as during the winter celebrations it seemed.

We joined our neighbors in the square a bit after 7:30 pm and passed the time playing, eating, drinking and talking.  We were hoping they'd start the fireworks around midnight and we'd be home by 1am.  We ended up getting home around 4am.

Here are some videos from different celebrations years ago to give you an idea of what we watched once the fireworks started.

Around 1am they started the "dancing with the bulls and angels."  The crowd gathers around and people take turns putting these handmade contraptions on their heads.  The sparks fly everywhere, sometimes burning items shoot off into the crowd (as we are all gathered right around the "performance area"), and all the bulls and angels include whistles and explosions in addition to the colored sparkles.  In this video the crowd is nowhere as pressed in as last night. In addition, there was usually at least two figurines dancing while zero to six helpers danced with and taunted the "bulls" (as you'll see some do in this video). The bull & angel dancing went on here last night way too long.  Maybe 50-60 of these as we waited for the grand finale: El Castillo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flmQBL6pliQ

This next video really doesn't do justice to seeing a castillo going off. It starts with more "bull dancing" and the castillo fires up at around 1:58min. The whole thing is on a tower maybe thirty to forty feet high with the crowd gathered around its base as close as they dare with all the falling sparks. For us that means they are maybe six to ten feet from it.  Kids on their parents' shoulders, babies sleeping against their mother's bosom, town drunks sleeping against a lamp-post base all right up in the mix of it all. As always in Mexico, there is zero concern for personal safety...life is short and God will decide if yours should be shorter (or completed sans eye or limb).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2QpL7iEh5E

Viva la Revolution!

None of us knows the shape of the future. This half-century of disorders teaches us that the future is a secret which is divulged neither in the works of Karl Marx nor in those of his adversaries. But we can say this much to the future which a few impassioned young men are somewhere building: every revolution that stifles criticism, that denies the right to contradict those in power, that prohibits the peaceful substitution of one government for another, is a revolution that defeats itself - is a fraud. My conclusions will irritate many people. No matter: independent thought is almost always unpopular. We must renounce outright the authoritarian tendencies of the revolutionary tradition, especially its Marxist branch. At the same time, we must break up the existing monopolies - whether of the state, of parties, or of private capitalism - and discover forms, new and truly effective forms, of democratic and popular control over political and economic powers and over the information media and education. A plural society, without majorities or minorities: not all of us are happy in my political utopia, but at least all of us are responsible. Above all and before all else: we must conceive viable models of development, models less inhuman, costly, and senseless than those we have now. I have said before that this is an urgent task: the truth is, it is the task of our times. And there is one more thing: the supreme value is not the future but the present. The future is a deceitful time that always says to us, "Not yet," and thus denies us. The future is not the time of love: what man truly wants he wants NOW. Whoever builds a house for the future happiness builds a prison for the present.

- The Other Mexico (1972) by Octavio Paz (1914 - 1998)