I haven't seen the Martha Stewart documentary, and it may be that she was never convicted of insider trading. But I don't think there's much doubt that what she did was prima facie insider trading - she sold her shares using privileged insider information, to avoid a loss. If she was not convicted for insider trading, then this story bears similarities with Watergate, where it was the cover-up rather than the original crime, which ultimately brought Nixon down.
You obviously do not believe in the inevitability of progress. A fundamental concept of our humanity. I was born in 1938 so nothing much in the form of progress happened during WW2. Then we abolished capital punishment, allowed divorce and abortion during the 1960 and are now at the stage where our right to die when we want is being allowed, as if the State owned our bodies. Yesterday was the start of a process that will eventually liberate us to leave our lives behind when we no longer want to be alive. Having spent the first 50 years of my life as a Catholic I understand the horror that allowing human being such a liberty when God made them and will call them when he thinks it is the right time. Tell that to the 3 million Gypsies who were murdered by the Nazies. Tell that to the Jews who felt that God was on holiday between 1933 and 1945.
Surely as a Catholic you understood that after 'the fall', we live in a fallen world, where the free will of men means they can choose to do terrible things, including killing people. It would be a perverse understanding to think that God willed murder. I agree with you that not every change is a step forward, WW2 is a good example of that, and we now have the spectre of old, disabled and unhappy people coerced into agreeing to kill themselves with the blessing of the state.
I think when a creative person has the support and reinforcement with the most ideal best friend, with the ideal complementary creative talent (like Lennon and McCartney), it creates an exponential boost in confidence. I've read about sibling acts who gained similar boosts from each other, including the Wilson sisters' Heart, when women rockers were pushing boundaries just by existing. P.S. The world needs more books on the Beatles! Please start on your next one <3
Britain, and I've lived here for 25 years now, has always felt like a streak of, not grentocracy (thank fuck) but this weird reverence for old people, as if they were *by default* - not by accomplishment of any kind -symbolic carriers of all that's good and wholesome in the culture. And I come from the land of "babushka" type grannies shaking sticks at unruly youth etc. But in Eastern/Central Europe that is layered with a frequent dismissal of what those people represent beyond the emotion (they are often uneducated, socially conservative etc) and in other cases a wary awareness of their role and often complicity in the communist era (earlier on it could have touched on Stalinism or WW2, too).
Perhaps because here there's still a lingering "clean" and sacrificial narrative around the Blitz and the battle of Britain and Normandy etc -- even though current old people are pretty much all Boomers or barely were children during WW2.
Or perhaps because by controlling/holding on to much of the wealth (in families at least) they need to be placated? (I'm making a comparison between countries where the young/er support the old because that's the dynamic of economic development vs ones where it's an 80 year old who kindly doles out help from the vantage point of their 5 bedroom Victorian house that grew in value by well over 1000% since they bought it in the 1980 and well indexed public sector pension.
So maybe in a way dealing with SOME of the old age (=death) issues will sweep up clean space for bringing in some new?
I haven't seen the Martha Stewart documentary, and it may be that she was never convicted of insider trading. But I don't think there's much doubt that what she did was prima facie insider trading - she sold her shares using privileged insider information, to avoid a loss. If she was not convicted for insider trading, then this story bears similarities with Watergate, where it was the cover-up rather than the original crime, which ultimately brought Nixon down.
You obviously do not believe in the inevitability of progress. A fundamental concept of our humanity. I was born in 1938 so nothing much in the form of progress happened during WW2. Then we abolished capital punishment, allowed divorce and abortion during the 1960 and are now at the stage where our right to die when we want is being allowed, as if the State owned our bodies. Yesterday was the start of a process that will eventually liberate us to leave our lives behind when we no longer want to be alive. Having spent the first 50 years of my life as a Catholic I understand the horror that allowing human being such a liberty when God made them and will call them when he thinks it is the right time. Tell that to the 3 million Gypsies who were murdered by the Nazies. Tell that to the Jews who felt that God was on holiday between 1933 and 1945.
Surely as a Catholic you understood that after 'the fall', we live in a fallen world, where the free will of men means they can choose to do terrible things, including killing people. It would be a perverse understanding to think that God willed murder. I agree with you that not every change is a step forward, WW2 is a good example of that, and we now have the spectre of old, disabled and unhappy people coerced into agreeing to kill themselves with the blessing of the state.
I think when a creative person has the support and reinforcement with the most ideal best friend, with the ideal complementary creative talent (like Lennon and McCartney), it creates an exponential boost in confidence. I've read about sibling acts who gained similar boosts from each other, including the Wilson sisters' Heart, when women rockers were pushing boundaries just by existing. P.S. The world needs more books on the Beatles! Please start on your next one <3
Britain, and I've lived here for 25 years now, has always felt like a streak of, not grentocracy (thank fuck) but this weird reverence for old people, as if they were *by default* - not by accomplishment of any kind -symbolic carriers of all that's good and wholesome in the culture. And I come from the land of "babushka" type grannies shaking sticks at unruly youth etc. But in Eastern/Central Europe that is layered with a frequent dismissal of what those people represent beyond the emotion (they are often uneducated, socially conservative etc) and in other cases a wary awareness of their role and often complicity in the communist era (earlier on it could have touched on Stalinism or WW2, too).
Perhaps because here there's still a lingering "clean" and sacrificial narrative around the Blitz and the battle of Britain and Normandy etc -- even though current old people are pretty much all Boomers or barely were children during WW2.
Or perhaps because by controlling/holding on to much of the wealth (in families at least) they need to be placated? (I'm making a comparison between countries where the young/er support the old because that's the dynamic of economic development vs ones where it's an 80 year old who kindly doles out help from the vantage point of their 5 bedroom Victorian house that grew in value by well over 1000% since they bought it in the 1980 and well indexed public sector pension.
So maybe in a way dealing with SOME of the old age (=death) issues will sweep up clean space for bringing in some new?