With the stock market plunging to twelve-year lows today, it was easy to overlook this tidbit of financial/political news:

“A blueprint detailing the planned overhaul of the financial regulatory system will be ready by the first week of April in time for a gathering of global leaders in London, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said Wednesday.”

The word “ironic” doesn’t really begin to capture the idea of Senator Schumer being the one making that announcement, because during all the years of bubbles building and banking bonuses and finance finagling that eventually brought us to the economic brink where we stand now, it was Senator Schumer standing strongest and tallest against… more government regulation of banking and finance. NOW he thinks it’s a good idea to tighten the screws. Thanks, Chuck.

First of all, congratulations on becoming the leader of the Republican Party, at least according to Democrats. That must be pretty heady stuff, especially for someone who has never actually held any kind of political office. But with 15-million ultra-faithful listeners ready to follow you into battle, you’ve got as much right as anybody on the right to be the boss. Well, not OFFICIALLY the boss, but you know what I mean

But as the de facto party poobah, I’m not sure you handled it right when you said a couple of weeks ago that you hope President Obama fails. Oh, you have every right to disagree vehemently with his policies and proposals, especially on his plans for dealing with the economic crisis. But, geez… you hope he FAILS? You put your fellow Republicans, the ones who actually do hold office, in a tough place with that one.

I can only imagine how thrilled the 10 of you must be. Coming at a time like this, when so many people are struggling; now it looks like you’ll be able to handle whatever the bad economy might throw your way, and then some. The winnings come to over $20-million each – before taxes, of course – and that’s enough to change your life in any number of ways. You have been blessed!

Bob Space, 60, of Toms River, N.J., talks during a news conference at Chubb Insurance Company in Whitehouse Station, N.J., Wednesday, March 4, 2009, about buying the winning $216 million Mega Millions lottery ticket. Space and nine co-workers at Chubb will share the jackpot. (AP Photo/Mike Derer)

Or maybe you’ve been cursed. I don’t want to bring you down from your euphoria, but it’s a good time for a reminder that many lottery winners’ dreams of vast, instant wealth have quickly turned into nightmares. A few of the most prominent examples...

Well, haven’t YOU guys just been everywhere this week.. Letterman performances each night, getting a Manhattan street named after U2 (at least for awhile), playing at Fordham this morning, and probably lots of other activities around town we don’t even know about. Congratulations on the new album, and I hope you’ve enjoyed your week in New York City.

But it’s actually your appearance in another city – and in another time – that I wanted to write about tonight, so you and I can sort of reminisce. It was certainly a memorable time for me. Not because I watched you play music, but because you watched me.

In my post about U2’s Bono watching me play a music set at a Nashville bluegrass club back in 1989, I promised a performance picture, so here you go!

From left to right, that’s mandolin virtuoso Bobby Clark; guitarist Pat Flynn, at the time a member of the magnificent band New Grass Revival; Mark Schatz, one of the finest bass players in all of bluegrass; and on the far right, Jerry Douglas, the consensus best dobro player in the world, and a key member of Alison Krause’s band, Union Station. And then there’s me, in my bliss!

“Ever since the Great Depression, when cash-strapped citizens turned to the movies for escape, it's been a truism that filmgoing is the one entertainment option that doesn't suffer during economic crises. And, at least for the moment, the cliche is proving right.”

oregonlive.com

I don’t know about you, but I’m finding this comforting.

“The markets may be in a death spiral, but the movie business hasn't seen such rosy returns at the box office since Vivien Leigh famously looked forward to tomorrow at the tail end of ‘Gone with the Wind.’ North American box-office totals for the first two months of 2009 are in, and the numbers are both boffo - and baffling. February, 2009, generated more than US$770-million at the ticket wicket, which in adjusted dollars makes it the most lucrative February on record - ever.”

nationalpost.com

I’ll tell you right off that I claim to have no answer to the question that’s the title of this post. That’s a little above my spiritual grade, you might say. And I guess there really is no knowable, provable answer to the question anyway. I recently watched a documentary series called “Most Evil,” in which a Columbia University professor used a scale he’d devised to actually measure the relative “evil” of a host of serial killers. I know of no such scale for thieves. But in the case of Bernard Madoff, perhaps history’s worst individual thief/swindler at least in terms of dollar amounts, it’s an interesting topic.

As a news person—and as a blogger who has to come up with SOMETHING to write about—I’m always intrigued with the juxtaposition of certain stories which happen at the same time. This doesn’t make me unique; it’s been columnist and blogger fodder as long as there have been columnists and bloggers. (Frank Rich of the New York Times is really good at this. Check out his column last week linking the economic meltdown with the increasing number of revivals of the play “Our Town.”) Our juxtaposition to discuss today is the tale of two wildly wealthy New Yorkers who now find themselves on opposite ends of the societal spectrum: Bernard Madoff and Mike Bloomberg.

Media weenie that I am, I feel compelled to be one more voice giving the proverbial two-cents worth on the takedown of CNBC’s Jim Cramer by Jon Stewart on “The Daily Show” last night. You can’t swing a dead cat today without hitting a link to the interview, but here’s one more.

PART 1: Stewart vs. Cramer:

At this point, I’m as tired of it all as I’m sure Stewart and Cramer are, so I’ll be brief. Although there’s no doubt that the comedian bested the money man—took him apart piece by piece, actually—I still think it’s worth looking at from two basic perspectives, and I’ll provide two links that might give you an idea what those perspectives are.

It’s not very often these days you find an issue that unites virtually all the American people in full-throated agreement. But we have one today.

Thank you, AIG.

Can you believe this? Bernie Madoff was bad, and we all agree on that. But AIG is like a COMPANY of Bernie Madoff’s. Greed needed a coporate logo, and now it has one. If Gordon Gekko were a real person, I can imagine him—probably at his beachfront mansion enjoying his retirement years after brief stint at Allenwood—just standing back in awe of these AIG dudes.

Another day, more day-late-and-$165-million-dollars-short displays of rage by all of you aimed at AIG. I heard one news report tonight that you’re “trying to get out in front” of the national anger over the undeserved-- to put it mildly-- bonuses that taxpayers ended up funding for the insurance conglomerate. Well, you’re a little late. But if you’re interested in looking toward the future, let’s talk. Not AIG’s future, by the way. Your future. In elected office.

Here are some matters on which you’ll be judged by a much larger than usual number of your constituents next November. Pay attention. Things are different now. That 98-percent re-election rate for House members isn’t going to hold up this time, no matter how many new highway overpasses for your district you larded onto a spending bill. The big question is, where are your allegiances? To the regular people you represent, or to big financial and corporate interests writing checks for your campaigns?

The unexpected death of any apparently healthy, vitality-filled person, celebrity or not, is like an ice-cold splash of water; it snaps your thinking back to the ever-present reality that anyone’s life can be taken away in an instant. And with Ms. Richardson, who seems to shimmer with beauty and charisma in her photos and interviews, it feels like the world is losing an uncommonly lovely human being.

Much is being made of the fact that Ms. Richardson was not wearing a helmet when she took her fall taking a ski lesson on a beginner slope. Already, it’s ignited a debate among skiers, ski resort operators, and medical experts, about whether helmets should be required for all skiers and snowboarders.

In the Bill Murray movie “Stripes,” the 1981 comedy about two 30-something friends who decide to join the Army, there’s a scene early in the movie leading up to their enlistment in which the Murray character realizes what horrible shape he’s in. As he tries to do some pushups, his friend, played by Harold Ramis, delivers the line, “That’s one. I think you’re ready for the Special Olympics.”

I cite that, because until Barack Obama’s appearance on the “Tonight” show last night, when he was trying to describe his slowly improving bowling skills, I hadn’t heard another attempt to mention the Special Olympics as a laugh line. It was definitely funnier in the movie.

I don’t know about you, but if I had wanted to live in a place where spring-like weather arrives as late as it does in Nova Scotia, I would have lived in Nova Scotia.

Wow, my wife is right; I AM turning into Grouchy McGrumpypants. But I’m pretty sure there are a lot of you who are more than ready to break out of this long Winter of our discontent, and at least move into the Spring of our discontent. Discontent is always easier to deal with when you’re wearing Bermuda shorts. Seriously. They’ve done research on this, I’m pretty sure.

I start off every winter with the same optimistic outlook: It’s a great time of year, we can go skiing and sledding, there’s Christmas and New Year, fires in the fireplace, hot toddies on the stove, rosy-cheeked children. And besides, life is too short! If we are to treasure every minute, we must embrace those deep winter moments just as much as we do those spent on a beautiful beach in June! Carpe… um… Winter!!

The MTA’s so-called doomsday budget, which will raise subway and bus fares to $2.50 and is all but assured of passing when the agency board meets Wednesday morning, has—to simplify the situation somewhat—created a classic New York City economic face off: subway/bus riders and their advocates versus drivers/bridge-crossers and their state senators. Neither group wants to pay drastically more than what they’re paying now to get around the city, especially into and out of Manhattan; both sides make excellent points in their arguments. Sounds like its time for a compromise party!

First, the straphanger perspective. Adding 50-cents to the cost of each ride, a 23-percent hike, with accompanying higher prices for monthly metro cards and commuter train tickets, is just too large right now. With so many people struggling, charging that much more is heavy-handed. The compromise plan being supported by Governor Paterson and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver would call for just an eight-percent increase. Let’s go a bit higher on that, make it 12.5-percent—a quarter more—and I think subway and bus riders will feel like they’ve done their part and paid their share.

There are quite a few targets for the wrath of mass transit users tonight, after passage of a measure to raise subway and bus fares to $2.50. There’s the MTA, the General Assembly in general, outer borough state senators in particular, Governor Paterson, Sheldon Silver… Paul McCartney.

Yes, THAT Paul McCartney. In one of those “only in New York” scenarios, the ex-Beatle has actually had his name thrust into the debate over the MTA fare hike. If you keep up with local gossip columns, you have an inkling why that is. Sir Paul (and I won’t refer to him that way again—rock stars should NOT accept knighthoods, in at least a nod toward their long ago rebelliousness) is dating, very seriously by most accounts, a woman named Nancy Shevell. She’s a wealthy, old money, newly-divorced 49-year-old New Yorker… who just happens to serve on the board of the Metropolitan Transit Authority.

The animal rights group PETA, never known for its subtlety, has been getting some extra attention this month for its stepped up efforts to bring more attention to what it claims is the mistreatment of animals, especially elephants, by the Ringling Brothers-Barnum and Bailey Circus. PETA activists have been dressing up in child-friendly animal outfits, and actually going to elementary schools to reach out directly to little kids as they come and go from school.

Years ago when I lived in East Tennessee, I knew lots of ol’ country boys who listened to nothing but Lynyrd Skynyrd and other Southern Rock bands. One day, I thought I’d test the limits of their musical tastes, and I asked Screamin’ Chuck Johnson, the singer in our weekend garage band, if he liked the Grateful Dead. “You know what?” he said, staring me coldly in the eye, “I’d be grateful if they was dead.”

I lost track of Screamin’ Chuck some time ago, but I’m going to guess he wouldn’t give two hoots about the surviving members of the Grateful Dead reuniting for a short tour starting next month. (They kicked off the publicity for it today, playing sets at three different small venues in the city). Jerry Garcia, per Chuck’s wishes, IS dead—deceased, I should say, to avoid confusion—so the legion of diehard fans known as Deadheads won’t be getting the full thrill of years past, but I’m betting there will be mostly sellouts for all the tour dates.

Many newscasts today included the story of the Newark, Ohio man arrested for drunk driving after wrecking his motorized bar stool on a public highway. He admitted downing 15-beers before crashing his bar stool, which he claimed could reach a top speed near 40-MPH. Most people hearing this story, I’m guessing, were asking two questions: how stupid does a person have to be to get drunk and zoom off on a motorized bar stool?; and, what the hell is a motorized bar stool? To save you some time, I’ve been doing some research on the second question for tonight’s blog. You’re welcome.

Let’s begin with the comments from the arresting officer:

“Some people have made a sport of racing barstools equipped with tires, a steering wheel and a small engine, Newark police Sergeant Barry Connell said. "There are hundreds of people racing these things," he said. "But they race on closed courses." The barstool was towed away.