Pox Populi

Like everyone else in this fair land I've been a passenger on this ride we call America for the past few months. Thus far the most intolerable aspect of this entire Tilt-a-Whirl hasn't been the economy or the election. It's the incessant yapping of just about every corporate news source. Those who frequent this humble space know this has been one of my whipping boys from the start. But as I've said before, we seem to be exploring new ground. The sense of masturbatory glee, emanating from the endless exploration of the possible permutations of how each new development is going to make your life worse, is reaching a pitch I've only seen previously in church revivals. Earlier this week the Seattle Times (it's superiority to the AJC in skill and class can be measured in Angstroms) ran a front page picture of a Depression-era shantytown and went elbow-around-the-ass to tie it in to current events. Not to be outdone, a local television station dedicated the lead that night to the “Deepening Financial Crisis”, then spent 10 minutes waxing about how it was going to make your life worse. If the media were a religion right about now we would all be wearing Nikes, holding pudding cups, and searching the heavens for the comet. To which I ask one of my million rhetorical questions: What are they going to do when life doesn't cease to exist?

Meanwhile, I've been dedicating my unemployed time to self-productivity. Aside from playing a lot of Call of Duty: World at War I've been reading & researching. I recently finished Cool It, an updated and Cliff Notes version of The Skeptical Environmentalist by that modern Martin Luther, Bjorn Lomborg. Lomborg uses a phrase I absolutely love, Catastrophe Porn, in describing the fascination/fixation with doom, death, and destruction. Talking to people about Bjorn Lomborg reminds me of the Christians I knew growing up that abjectly refused to read Bertrand Russell's Why I Am Not A Christian. Speaking of religion, up next on the reading stack is Heavy Metal Islam. Report to follow.

On the research side I've spent some time digging into the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, better known as the stimulus that is currently making its way through the governmental large intestine that is congress. Kinda pathetic overall. I think I would entitle it the No Lobbyist Left Behind Act, but that title was already taken. High points: $1000 payroll tax cut for couples (gotta have a job for that to kick in), $7500 tax credit for first time home buyers (good luck getting financing), $102 billion for welfare/unemployment (probably gonna wear that one out), $30 billion for highway construction (doesn't buy a popcorn fart's worth of infrastructure, beside we did this x10 4 years ago), $19 billion for clean water & flood control (could always use that), $20 billion for health care information technology (so much for the private sector making it's product better), and $6 billion for weatherizing modest income homes (does that count condos that have been flipped a dozen times & can now be bought with a Sears card?). Those are just the high points. I'm sure there's a hemp research grant or interstate visitor center buried somewhere in there. One other key point: Only about 10% of the money actually gets spent in 2009. The rest over 2010 & 2011. Overall it doesn't give me a warm fuzzy, and I'm not alone. Rasmussen puts the latest approval for the plan at 42%.

And finally, lest we look too serious, we here at Ares and Athena offer a glimpse of our kinfolk. Just to clarify, our familia is the guy on the mower, not the cop.

Ares