A Random Sampling of Silly, Shameful, and Downright Galling Business

My blogs are getting less and less frequent, unfortunately; I find that my time is being eaten up like a plate of spaghetti by all the crap I have to do for my courses. Right now, I should be running lines for our production of "The Music Man." But to hell with that, I need to be snarky for a little while. Let's go to the New York Times, where the possible recession has been reported on (of course):

Fears that the United States is in a recession reverberated around the world on Monday, sending stock markets from Bombay to Frankfurt into a tailspin and puncturing the hopes of many investors that Europe and Asia will be able to sidestep an American downturn.

Well, shades of the 1930s! If we go down, then by gum, all you foreign buggers do too. But there's one flaw here: we're not in a recession. By the definition of recession (indicated by "two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth as measured by a country's G[ross] D[omestic] P[roduct]" and "a normal (albeit unpleasant) part of the business cycle...generally last[ing] from six to eighteen months," according to Investopedia), we're not in one yet. Get me? The stock market is crashing like my diabetic father's blood sugar, but we're not in a recession yet. Even if we were, it's not that you need to be worried about; hell, at the end of a recession you can buy stocks dirt cheap. No, you just to worry about whether this may turn from a recession to a depression. Because then America just might take it in the pooper. Considering that we export very little in the way of highly useful goods and import a great deal of other countries' highly useful goods with our ever-weakening dollar, all I can see it taking is one long recession or a short depression to convince the rest of the world that, you know what? It's really not worth basing all of our economies on this piece of junk. Then they move to the Euro. And then we're out in the cold. That might be more than a little simplistic, but I've only taken a semester of Macroeconomics. If any of you hold a degree or something, by all means, rip me a new one.

So moving right along. The thing that caught my eye when I was surfing around the Times website today was this article: "Do the rules Apply to Doctor Phil?" My first reaction was fear. Because that title insinuates doubt, and I don't know what the hell rules were being covered, and I lived for a few moments in paralyzed fear that at any minute, I could be subjected to break-in psychoanalysis. This would involve a man with a dome to rival that of Mr. Clean, the affixing of several heavy leather straps to my bed and a full 24 hours of grilling. If I didn't have Oedipal tendencies at the beginning, by God I'd have to invent some so they could be treated. On live TV of course.

But then I read the article. And actually, the truth, while not so horrifying for me personally, is still pretty friggin' bad. Doc Phil McGraw apparently has no restraints on how he gives you therapy or what he says about you when you're not prone on the couch...because he hasn't been licensed for years. He does have a Ph.D and was licensed in Texas for a while. But you know what? That doesn't mean anything anymore, because now he's gone and horned in on Britney's state of affairs and talked about it to EW. That's...kind of nasty. And mercenary. And ghoulish. Et cetera. To paraphrase Rorshach..."You don't want to make me better, doctor. Only to know what makes me sick." ("Watchmen" is coming this year! You're goddamn right, it's a beautiful day, uh huh!)

 So there's that. Plus Bush went and watched people dancing in the Middle East. And failed to stick it to the man regarding oil. He did say he'd bring it up, which I guess is better than noth--back up. No, it's still really bad. It's not better than anything, it's shameful that the president is not trying to better our trade relations with other countries. And it's even more shameful that, given his recent position on alternative energy sources ("Ah lahk 'em") and the fact that oil just peaked its polluting little head over the 100 small mark, he hasn't begun seriously looking into new sources of energy. I want answers, I want them yesterday. Can we run the country on ethanol? What about hydrogen? Probably not. Let's not even talk about nuclear power. What about looking into mass production of hybrid engines? There are solutions, but even the last days of BushWorld aren't enough to scare Fearless Leader into doing something decent for us.

What else? Oh, Clinton and Clinton versus Obama. While Edwards tries desperately to offend somebody--anybody--so he'll get some press. The man is just boring. He doesn't say anything inspiring or inflammatory, so the media doesn't care. And I can't say that I blame them. I'm getting bored just writing this paragraph about him. So the chick versus the black guy: Who will win? Who will come out triumphant in the battle over...um...how black folks got their civil rights? Oh, who the hell cares? It's not an issue, mostly because what Clinton said didn't really have any relevance to anything (it was a metaphor, folks, saying that Obama can dream all he likes but she'll actually do stuff; well, he could do both, so your metaphor is lousy, madam). I just don't care. I guess I can see how it might be construed as offensive, but grow up, everybody. It's not like she's wearing clan robes and trying to get "nigger" back in circulation, and Obama is not throwing up the "Black Power" fist. They're still the left-of-center, quiet, dignified suits they always were. Just calm down and find out where they stand in the damn issues, for God's sake. If you don't have enough respect for democracy to vote for whoever represents your positions...well, then the country really is in a recession. A recession of what we need to be doing during election season.

Get it together, in the name of Crom.

Cheers,

--Samus 

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