Respect Authority

If there’s one person who could ruin America’s fairly universal loathing of Wall Street executives right now, it’s Michael Moore.

The fat activist (fativist), behind movies that include Bowling for Columbine and, more recently, Sicko, is putting out a call for people in the banking, brokerage and insurance industries to give him the inside scoop on the nation’s latest abysmal failure: Wall Street. 

“I am in the middle of shooting my next movie and I am looking for a few brave people who work on Wall Street or in the financial industry to come forward and share with me what they know,” Mr. Moore wrote on his Web site this week. “Based on those who have already contacted me, I believe there are a number of you who know ‘the real deal’ about the abuses that have been happening. You have information that the American people need to hear.”

Thanks, but no thanks. First of all, no one is more capable of destroying liberal thinking by shoving it aggressively down people’s throats than Moore. No matter how much I’ve agreed with his political and social positions in the past, I cringe when I see him on camera: a 683-pound representation of how Americans that benefit the most from this country (freedom of speech, capitalism, cheeseburgers) are those who appreciate it the least. I believe in gun control too, and universal health care, and preventing future terrorist attacks by having at least a marginally less sketchy government - but when Moore exploited a teen crippled by gunfire to picket the offices of gun-selling K-Mart, well I mostly just believed in using guns to kill annoying fat people. Read More ›

Sexism aside, there are times when it’s totally okay to be a little embarrassed by your gender. The same way my dad’s high-socks-with-shorts combo used to make me cringe, there are plenty of females in the world that induce in me a longing for more masculine concerns, like obscure sports statistics, or deciding between Axe and Tag.

Today is one of those days. In a feat of “Let’s get people to make themselves look bad on the record,” the New York Times profiled a group of young women known as DABA – Dating a Bankers Anonymous – who gather in various Sex-and-the-City-esque locations to discuss Wall Street’s collapse. But not in terms of its effect on their 401Ks, job prospects or ability to pay rent; rather, how the disintegrating banking sector is taking a toll on their relationships with one-time titans of finance. Read More ›

The Dow dropped another 7+% today, plunging below 9,000 for the first time since, I don’t know, the dinosaurs were trading stocks. While I’m starting to believe the whole economic crisis might push the election in a favorable direction, I do have a message for the future president.

“I’ve tried every remedy, and nothing seems to work for me. This situation’s driving me crazy. So how you gonna fix it? … You try to gain my trust; talking is not enough. Actions speak louder than words. You gotta show me something. …Tell me you are up for the challenge.”

Consequently, these may or may not be the lyrics to Danity Kane’s “Damaged.”