Tim Tebow's Win Over Bears Proves The End Is Near

... For the Bears' Season.

If I don't get around to it, let me wish everyone a Merry Christmas. I am hoping to post another 'on-topic' entry about Character Management before too long. For those of you not in the know (perhaps because I just made up the term) Character Management is the art of exploiting fictional personas for profit. It's what Walt Disney does. It's what every comic book company and every newspaper syndicate does. No one has done a real history of it yet, so I thought I would give it a try. It does dovetail very nicely with the whole Pulp Fiction History schtick.


Directly above is a Yuletide offering from our pals at Centaur Comics or whatever it's called, which will be the subject of another post. The strange thing about pulp magazine history is that it has very few losers. Comparatively few magazine publishing firms went belly up during the span of Pulp Era. A lot of this is because many of the operators were 'in the know' about publishing in general and about comics and pulps in specific before ever jumping out on their own. It is the fine people at Centaur who represent one of the few failures on record. An examination of what went wrong may prove illuminating--or at least interesting. I should have the research segment done fairly shortly.

Sadly, current events are not quite so easy to figure out. One is always aware that, in the moment, all that can be gleaned is perhaps the first draft of the way things will eventually be remembered. And yet one cannot help but try to anticipate the next thing coming. I don't know about you, but the moment I think I have something down pat, am certain of the next coming move, the world does a spastic pivot away from the obvious outcome. Or I could take the view of this person:

But this finding would undermine my worldview by requiring me to become frighteningly non-cynical, so I'm going to do what most people do with evidence that contradicts their worldviews and just ignore it.

Case in point was the last two Republican Debates. The debate before last, I thought Newt Gingrich had finally scored the decisive blow. Not so much for what he said, but rather the way he said it--for his overall composure. That doesn't mean he's electable. It just means that he has clearly demonstrated, at least to me, that he is the pick of the litter. My thinking was that the party would at this point fall in line. And the last debate did nothing to shake my conclusion. So much for me. The world has spat forth the following common wisdom:

He still has the same need to justify his every petty move by reference to some grand theory. Plenty of politicians competing in Iowa come out for ethanol subsidies; only Gingrich would proclaim that in doing so he was standing up to city slickers in a culture war invented in his own mind. He still has a casual relationship with the truth. In recent weeks he has said that Freddie Mac (FMCC) paid him to condemn its business model, only for reporters and bloggers to find out that he had in fact shilled for the organization in return for about $1.6 million.

The talking heads out there all crib from the same sheet, so the above is to be expected. What one does not expect is Friendly Fire from the Flagship, the National Review:

Gingrich is not the only candidate whom we believe conservatives should, regretfully, exclude from consideration for the presidency. Governor Perry has done an exemplary job in Texas but has seemed curiously and persistently unable to bring gravity to the national stage. Republican presidential candidates have not been known for their off-the-cuff eloquence in recent decades, but conservatism should not choose a standard-bearer who would have to spend much of his time untying his own tongue. Representative Bachmann’s rise early in the primary season reflected the public’s hunger for sincere conviction; her later descent, following among other things her casual repetition of false anti-vaccine rumors, its desire that conviction be married to judgment. Representative Paul’s recent re-dabbling in vile conspiracy theories about September 11 are a reminder that the excesses of the movement he leads are actually its essence.

They came two counts short of pissing on the entire field of their own blokes. All of this strayed from stating the odious obvious--that you get Mitt Romney or nothing. Or nothing viable. The real problem here is that there isn't a thimble's full of difference between Mitt Romney and the current President. And if employment numbers continue to improve--something an obstructionist party can take no credit for--the compulsion to change horses on the voter's part will evaporate. I may be sick of 'Jiff', but peanut butter being peanut butter, why switch brands now? It's clear that the people, broadly, don't like any of these rifters (to use the science fiction term) the party has dredged up and that the people, narrowly (as in the people who vote in primaries), are unwilling to choose the Mitt Romney or Huntsman types. If you shaft the people broadly, you just don't get elected. If you shaft the narrow section of the people who are already with you, you cease to exist. The writing may be on the walls, or just below:

"Those who think the Tea Party is on the wane are in for a gigantic surprise in 2012," says Debbie Dooley, co-organizer of the Atlanta Tea Party. "We have built a grassroots army and we will be a fine-tuned machine next year."

The goal of these loosely affiliated but fiercely independent groups nationwide is to hone their electoral skills and build a "farm team" of public officials who can ascend through the ranks of government. It's a long-term strategy that looks past the 2012 election to a takeover of the Republican Party and the U.S. Congress.

My personal best guess is that both the Tea Party and the Occupy folks have shot their wads. Mind you, I have never been right, so I am due. In my view the Occupy folks, whether they like it or not, are just mobilized members of the Democratic Party and not really a force on their own. The Tea Party SEEMS to be more outsider-based, as in drawn a bit more from folks who don't do politics normally. (There is evidence of this NOT being the case.) As opposed to taking the party over, I think many will just go back to being out of politics. All their involvement should have proven (at least to them) is that they are not a majority and that the public in general finds their ideas loathsome. But who knows? Unlike the Democrats, the Republican Party can be hijacked, even by the likes of Donald Trump:

The Republican Party candidates are very concerned that sometime after the final episode of The Apprentice, on May 20th, when the equal time provisions are no longer applicable to me, I will announce my candidacy for President of the United States as an Independent and that, unless I conclusively agree not to run as an Independent, they will not agree to attend or be a part of the Newsmax debate scheduled for December 27, 2011. It is very important to me that the right Republican candidate be chosen to defeat the failed and very destructive Obama Administration, but if that Republican, in my opinion, is not the right candidate, I am not willing to give up my right to run as an Independent candidate. Therefore, so that there is no conflict of interest within the Republican Party, I have decided not to be the moderator of the Newsmax debate. The American people are embarrassed by the gridlock currently taking place in Washington. I must leave all of my options open because, above all else, we must make America great again!

I would like to thank Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum for having the courage, conviction, and confidence to immediately accept being a part of the Newsmax debate. I believe this would not only have been the most watched debate, but also the most substantive and interesting debate!

I personally have never read an issue of Newsmax, nor am I sure of what its slant is. And with a Barker like Trump doing the shill I am inspired to never find out. Right now I am doing my best with the Economist and Newsweek, the contents of which have lately made me more irritated than interested. It's not the magazines' fault. It's the stupid Euro/Bankers' crisis that seems to defy solution that has me feeling bleak. And unsure as to what currency I should stuff my mattress with. At the onset, I thought we had the problem down. It went something like this:

All of these criticisms have some merit, yet all miss the deeper point. Once we get through the management of the immediate panic -- which is not yet assured -- we need to treat the deeper disease. This crisis occurred because bankers and shadow bankers (such as the hedge funds that are betting against Europe's bonds) have too much power.

Bankers had too much power when they invented the highly leveraged toxic securities that caused the collapse, and now they have too much power over the fate of entire nations as political leaders seek to clean up the mess that the bankers made. The ability of governments to finance their debts should not be dependent on the caprices of private speculators.

The solution seems pretty obvious. Regulate and reign in. But then, suddenly, the forces were split and aligned against each other. Now we are saving banks, but dooming countries? Nah, that can't be right. Here's how one source put an early move:

So to sum up, if the analysts are right, the leaders are tackling the problems in the wrong way, won't get enough support from the ECB, won't prevent downgrades from the rating agencies and won't stop Greece leaving. Oh dear.

Greece leaving was only a threat. The real problem would be if an actual creditor country left. If the solvent states leave, the whole thing goes down the tubes. So obviously our pals in Europe bonded together and set aside old grudges in order to keep the union cemented. Or did it go like this:

The French are out to screw us," one source tells me. "Despite all the jollity, the fact is that Sarko doesn't gives a s*** about us. It's all bull***. They have their view that the Anglo-Saxon model is a disaster and was responsible for the crisis."

If this were a novel, it would be a horror novel, wherein all of the victims tear off their own clothing and hide naked in the basement. I thought they had agreed that the banking crisis had been started by bankers? What happened to that part? I'm telling you, this crisis's plot needs a lot of work. It's weak, with or without the bit about the scheming Germans:

So rather than try to re-adapt European monetary policy to work a bit better for the traditionally weaker currency countries, the Germans are instead writing into stone the polices best for its economy. It worked for them, so why shouldn't it work for everyone else? As if economies based on tourism, agriculture, and fishing can hope to win by the same rules that enables the world's fourth-largest industrial economy to prosper. As George Soros noted: "Germany cannot be blamed for wanting a strong currency and a balanced budget but it can be blamed for imposing its predilection on other countries that have different needs."

As successive generations of pulp authors know, no one beats the Germans as heavies. However, they seem somewhat less heavy when the deadbeats get their rant:

The Germans can't be let off scot-free for what happened. As the Portuguese European MP Ana Gomes recently put it to the Germans: "Our governments, banks, companies and citizens were encouraged to become dangerously indebted by your banks, businesses, your official representatives, and by all who made the euro extremely affordable, at low interest rates, and who encouraged us to procure submarines, cars, equipment and diverse technology we probably did not need. And to buy all of that in Germany, of course." She finished off with a polite but devastating uppercut: "Your budget surpluses, dear German friends, are in fact the mirror image of our deficits."

Paraphrase that and send it to your credit card company. As a student of history, I have to say that this does not look good. This is the way actual depressions and wars are started. It's good fodder for pulp fiction, wherein bad ideals are personified and then punched out, but it can be a bitch to live through. And then there's the folks who complain that bankers and other authority types are being used as heavies too much in popular fiction. They've taken our lives and now they want our dreams. Although I am not quite on the same page, the following does contain a point:

If the laws of human decency prevent me from launching arrows into the chest of every rightwing media and political demagogue, then I cheer and welcome every fictional rightwing character Hollywood sends to its bloody death.

Finally, not only did Tim Tebow do in the Bears Season, in his wake it was revealed that one of the Bears' players is an active agent of Satan. Or at least a major drug dealer. It's tough all over when even the rich feel the need to take a side gig.