Cave Cave Deus Videt

Hieronymus Bosch, 1485


Of the seven Deadly Sins -- Pride, gluttony, envy, lust, greed and sloth -- Greed has been grabbing the latest headlines.


In the 1987 film , 'Wall Street,' financial shark Gordon Gecco (Michael Douglas)speaks the movie's mantra -- 'Greed is good. Greed Works. Greed Sells'. Now, 20 years later, 'Wall Street' seems more documentary than expose. This is not your fault!

Sure, you're greedy - it's a human trait -- but let's examine the core of that word. There's greed, and then there's GREED,. Small-letter greed is a luxury car, a summer house, someone to cut your grass. Big-letter greed is three or more cars, a villa in Europe, a yacht. Small-letter greed is democracy; big-letter greed is oligarchy.

It's all about words. The end game in a democracy is inclusionary; when one accumulates Billy Gates-sized money, one looks to give back something, to help out the human race. An oligarchy feathers its own nest. How many times do we have to hear the Rush Limbaughs of the world decry 'touchy-feely' people? How many times do we have to listen to them extol the 'virtue' of simply making money for its own sake?

Wall Street in the last eight years didn't give a fig about John Q. Public. Minus any effective regulation, they simply invented more ways to make money; if it eventually burned the average citizen... hey, it's collateral damage.

Neighborhood Action Groups -- Not a good track record

When a neighborhood action group is formed, it is almost always 'against' something, and again, almost always that something is in that neighborhood. It may be a tree someone wants to cut down, or a home someone wants to build; it could be a variance someone wants, or an amenity someone wants to install.

We've had a bunch of these groups started in the Madison/Chatham area, and without exemption they have brought out the worst in the local citizenry. Neighborliness, dialog and compromise give way to lawyering up, bullying tactics and outlandish, worst-case scenarios. We should be ashamed. And here is the rest of it.