Eyes on the Prize

Posted on 17 April 2009 by Erik Hare | 17 Comments

The problem with the Left is that they don’t understand the Nazis didn’t set the Reichstag fire.

There’s little I enjoy more than taking an argument to a conclusion just past absurdity. It’s a style better suited for comedy, but it’s also a way of being just a bit demure and disarming. When done well, this technique allows any subject, no matter how taboo, to be talked about in an abstract way. If nothing else, every murder needs an autopsy, and the millions of murders performed by the Nazis require constant analysis so that we don’t allow it to happen again. Ready?

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Coffee

Posted on 15 April 2009 by Erik Hare | 18 Comments

I know I’m haunting the coffee shop a little bit too much when the perky staff turns to me once every counter has been left slightly damp by a casually passed cloth. “So what do you do?” comes easily, because in our world people are defined by their job. “I’m a writer,” I tell them, casually letting it fall around what I really am as a person. “Oh,” comes the response, as if to say, “Duh!” Dunn Brothers Coffee on West Seventh is one of those places where people who need a step back from their life sit in the middle of it all – a good place for writers.

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Specialists

Posted on 13 April 2009 by Erik Hare | 29 Comments

There is no single, widely accepted definition for an Economic Depression. The most common call is a deep recession, a GDP loss of about 10% or unemployment above 15%. Some will tell you that it’s a long recession, 6 quarters or more of loss. I’ve argued that it’s nothing more than the unusual event of a sudden and dramatic drop in money supply, an event that has now happened about 5 times in the history of the USofA (1812, 1857, 1893, 1929, and 2008). A few people insist that there is only one Depression, The Depression, starting around 1929.

What if we’re all wrong? What if the best definition of all has little to do with money or other numbers in a table, but with people – what they do and how it all connects together?

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Two Years On

Posted on 10 April 2009 by Erik Hare | 22 Comments

It was a dark and stormy night …

That’s how I started writing Barataria two years ago today. Like many of my small acts of humility, the reference to Bulwer-Litton was simple and funny and ultimately unnoticed by many of my readers. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my 43 years of life, it’s that I usually require a little more explanation than I am willing to give. Please forgive my indulgence as I look back at what I was trying to accomplish with this blog over the last two years and what has actually gone down.

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Ghost Story

Posted on 8 April 2009 by Erik Hare | 3 Comments

The house is dim and dirty. The paint is peeling from the clapboard sides. The only sound is the wrought iron fence gate, swinging in a wind that runs through your spine. As the image sinks into your memory, you notice one more thing – up in the tower something is moving, pacing the floor as if they have a century’s worth of worry worn deep into the path on the floor.

From there, it’s pretty much as expected. Screams, murder, mayhem, and an unnecessary trip to the first floor later, it all winds up in ninety minutes. But aren’t these stories for Fall, not Spring?

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