Department of Home Improvement

February 27, 2005

I think FEMA on its web site includes duct tape and plastic sheets. … It is very appropriately listed in the list of supplies for an emergency supply kit.
Press Briefing by Secretary Ridge – February 14, 2003

A spokesman for the company that makes America’s best-selling duct tape announced today that it will sponsor all future news conferences by Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge.
Duct Tape Maker Sponsors Tom Ridge News Conferences (Satire) – February 14, 2003

Assistant manager Joe Keenan reports his Denver-area Home Depot has "sold more in the last couple of days than we have in the last few months."
Say it with duct tape – February 14, 2003

"Tom Ridge served his country with great distinction, and we are honored to have him join our board, where we expect that his unique global experience and perspective will make a profound contribution to our company and our shareholders," said Bob Nardelli, chairman, president & CEO.
The Home Depot Names Secretary Tom Ridge to Board of Directors – February 24, 2005

Posted by b on February 27, 2005 at 19:01 UTC | Permalink

Comments

Too funny! I used to get mad at stuff like this, now I just sigh.

Posted by: dan of steele | Feb 27 2005 19:15 utc | 1

“Ex parte” I think it’s called.
Jackals.

Posted by: slothrop | Feb 27 2005 19:22 utc | 2

d.a.s. – yep, same reaction!
Did they really sell enough duct tape to actually buy a full Cabinet member? I thought they already were multimillionaires?!
b – you should crosspost this one at Kos – I’m pretty sure this would be an instant success!

Posted by: Jérôme | Feb 27 2005 20:20 utc | 3

what next? will Home Depot’s next advertising campaign be “want some wood?”

Posted by: b real | Feb 27 2005 20:28 utc | 4

Wonder if Home DESPOT has made up that 270K “donation” to the Republican Party last cycle? If the US goes for Iran, look for the sale of doors (duck&cover) to go through the roof.

Posted by: anna missed | Feb 27 2005 20:52 utc | 5

jackals

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Feb 27 2005 20:58 utc | 6

What impressed me on this is how real political life did beat satire again.
Any other examples for that?

Posted by: b | Feb 27 2005 21:41 utc | 7

b
it goes so fast from burlesque to vaudeville to farce then to themes more macabre then back again to slapstick then back to vaudeville – with farce being the leitmotif throughout – except as always farce carries with it the terrible casualties of humans ,which is more like a sam peckinpah perhaps one of the few of american direcots who knew as rap brown sd – that in america – violence is as american as apple pie & of course the great elegy – the godfather – looking at the last days of the human face of capital & its name was don vito corleone – or carlo gambino, or frank columbo or joey gallo or sam traficante, meyer lansky or lucky luciano who had the genius to understand the american dream – perfectly
though narratives do not do this madness justice – it is baudrillard on hallucinagenics filtered through the deadshit thinking of strauss or schmidt or that fraud friedman
no, slothrop said it in a word – jackals

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Feb 27 2005 22:46 utc | 8

Milton Friedman – while we’re amusing ourselves –
Did you know that one of Milton Friedman’s less celebrated achievments was to root out of the Harvard Economics Department a long tradition of offering critical study of the foundational assumptions of economics. This was extra study and extra reading taught for no extra pay by graduate students in parallel with first year economics. Seems some uppity young economists had been giving him and the Reagan Administration a hard time in D.C.
Last year was the 20th anniversary of this purification of the language of economics at Harvard — yup, 1984.

Posted by: Citizen | Feb 27 2005 23:42 utc | 9

@Citizen I did not know that. thanks for the illuminating tidbit. the stifling orthodoxy of the current economic priesthood is notorious but I was not aware that there had been a conscious, directed purge of dissident influences at Harvard.

Posted by: DeAnander | Feb 28 2005 3:18 utc | 10

And that was before the Chief Economist @WB became President of the University! It’s probably Larry Summers job to purge the entire university of any remaining vestiges of thought critical of the Pirates, so the language for formulating such questions will evaporate from “elite” minds.
(Did anyone else also not know that Summers is Paul Samuelson’s nephew?)

Posted by: jj | Feb 28 2005 5:21 utc | 11

welcome, my son, welcome to the machine
where have you been?
it’s all right, we know where you’ve been
you’ve been in the pipeline, filling in time,
provided with toys and “scouting for boys”
you bought a guitar to punish your ma
and you didn’t like school, you’re nobody’s fool
so welcome to the machine
welcome, my son, welcome to the machine
what did you dream?
it’s all right, we told you what to dream
you dreamed of a big star, he played a mean guitar
he always ate in the steak bar
he loved to drive in his jaguar
so welcome to the machine
MAPPING THE MIND

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Feb 28 2005 7:04 utc | 12

You know, I can never quite read economic analyses without a tremendously disruptive side conversation in my head about everything wrong with the assumptions of economic science – but the conversation is undisciplined. Does anyone know of a text that might function as a kind of Guide to Economic Theory for the Perplexed?

Posted by: Citizen | Feb 28 2005 7:10 utc | 13

@citizen — Daly and Cobb?

Posted by: DeAnander | Feb 28 2005 7:20 utc | 14

DeAnander,
I just looked up some reviews on For the Common Good and I realize that Wendell Berry must be reading it too. I’ll try a read through. Thanks.

Posted by: Citizen | Feb 28 2005 7:29 utc | 15

@Citizen it’s not the most readable book, unfortunately (neither is Parecon which despite its intriguing premise I found to be instant-faceplant material, too bad). But the opening couple of chapters (where the case against neolib/Chicago-school econ is made) are imho very good. I’m indebted to Daly and Cobb for the phrase “feral facts” — facts, that is, which do not fit into the domesticated, artificial “reality” required by neolib econ theory. A more popular/populist volume is Brian Czech’s Shovelling Fuel for a Runaway Train which makes the case fairly well but suffers imho from a certain light-headedness.
I’d borrow rather than buy Daly and Cobb, in other words 🙂
You might enjoy John Adams’ classic essay (alas out of print for many years), Homunculus Economicus…

Posted by: DeAnander | Feb 28 2005 7:46 utc | 16

Do Daly & Cobb write better than David Korten? I really wanted to read his bk – When Corporations Rule the World – but his writing was so horrible….

Posted by: jj | Feb 28 2005 7:56 utc | 17

@DeAnander. Started reading the Homunculus link and started to enjoy it, but… brain … crashing…
Good night, and more reading tomorrow.

Posted by: Citizen | Feb 28 2005 7:57 utc | 18

Uncle re mapping the mind:
“Oh Brave New World that has such people in it.”

Posted by: Kate_Storm | Feb 28 2005 10:12 utc | 19

I always wondered, why duct tape ? Why not water purification tablets, pocket geiger counters, wide spectrum antibiotics, hi-energi cereal bars, gas masks?
Oof! B, thank you so much for clearing that up.

Posted by: Blackie | Feb 28 2005 13:17 utc | 20

Posted by: Blackie | Feb 28 2005 13:20 utc | 21

Long-standing ties between GOP and Home Depot … the back-scratching goes on … business as usual.

Posted by: kat | Feb 28 2005 17:39 utc | 22

Tom Ridge gets straight to work

Posted by: Home Depot commercial | Feb 28 2005 22:27 utc | 23

Citizen, DeA – try googling “économies des institutions” (not sure exactly how it is translated in English, but I know it does exist), or try authors like André Orléan, Michel Aglietta (they wrote together “La Violence de la Monnaie” , an amazing book which I am pretty certain has been translated and whose title is quite explicit…) or Robert Boyer.

Posted by: Jérôme | Mar 1 2005 9:38 utc | 24

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