Curious how we got to this economic point? Tired of every pundit on TV screaming and 'explaining' that the sky is falling without really giving you a real, in-depth explanation of how we as Americans just got bent over?

Then I urge everybody to listen to this amazing show from This American Life. Listen to it while you surf the net or put it on the mp3 player and give it a listen on your way to work. 

But beyond all else, listen to the last 7 minutes or so. Where we find out about something called 'stock infusion' and how that might be the best possible way out of this mess, and how Secretary Paulson is unlikely to do anything of the sort.

If you find this information helpful, please pass it along to people you know.

And if you think "There's got to be a better way out of this mess" then I urge you to drop your congressperson and senator a note, telling them what you think.

Are you serious? We’re actually even considering letting this administration “fix” something else before leaving office?

I posit George Bush has been akin to the anti-Forrest Gump. Whereas for loveable Forrest was a dimwit who blundered his way into unbelievable success, Bush is an unloveable dimwit who has blundered this nation into an abysmal morass of failure. 

So, before we go doling out 700 BILLION no-strings-attached dollars (that’s the equivalent of, oh, six more years in Iraq, in case you’re counting) to his henchmen, I hope you don’t mind that I have just a couple of simple questions:

1. After September 11, you said those responsible would pay. How’s that working out? I mean, minus the fact that you essentially let him go in Afghanistan so you could fight a totally unnecessary and ultimately counterproductive war in a completely different country.
2. How do you assign someone who despises the United Nations to be the ambassador to the United Nations?
3. You say we’re fighting evil doers but then set up hidden prisons to detain and torture people. I say this as a preface to asking: which Bible are you reading again?
4. Your “Clean Skies” program actually put more pollutants into the air. In college, did you major in Irony?
5. You authorized illegal wiretapping of American citizens. You broke the Constitution. You intentionally manipulated the will of Congress through ‘signing statements.’ Are you aware of the definition of ‘asshat’?

There’s more. Like, how can you fail at being the manager of the Texas Rangers and think you’re qualified for the office of President. I wouldn’t hire you as a shift manager at Denny’s. Why is it that everything you do is wrong and turns into a flaming shitball of failure? Are you cursed? Should I pity you? 

And now, now we’re going to have an American fire sale, squeeze the last bit of cash out of our coffers and into the pockets of your minions before you are gone. To think: I was done hating you because, really, after Iraq, how could you fuck up anything worse? It’s inconceivable. But by gosh golly, here we are. So, maybe that’s like a success? You win at failing?

To think if 260 people voted the other way in 2000 … 

I’m aghast.

this is one of those posts where i don't really have anything to say, but i start typing anyway. i haven't really wanted to post about things going on my life lately, so im trying to come up with other subjects to post about. my life has consisted of a lot of work, not much sleep, and a lot of personal issues which i don't feel comfortable writing about on the internet. so… i'm posting about??? birds. i'm really into birds lately. the way they fly, the way they look, flying in general.
i had a dream the other night: i am walking down a brooklyn street. feels like it could be park slope, carroll gardens. then cop cars come screeching in from all directions and stop at the corner that i am walking towards. they get out of the cars and draw their weapons. a gun fight ensues with whoever is inside the corner store/apt building. i stop in my tracks and crouch down by a garden apt entrance to hide and dodge any flying bullets. this goes on for awhile and i realize i am not in any danger really. it seems the cops have killed or captured whoever was posing the threat and then people are walking the streets again like nothing happened. i emerge from hiding and that is the end of the dream.
not sure what this means or could mean. a friend said that it could be a struggle between my subconscious and conscious mind. ego vs. id, etc.
maybe i just need to get more sleep so that i can remember my dreams. i went to bed late last night at 2:30am and awoke again at 5am. i lie in bed at 5am and wondered why i was awake. considered getting up. but didn't.

what if for the first 25 years of your life you were blind. lets say you were born blind, grew up that way, were accustomed to not being able to see anything but complete darkness and maybe some blurry shades of light here and there. lets also say that you got married. and your relationship with your significant other was built on personality alone. what sensual, erotic things would you experience with your lover? your knowledge of that person would be on touch, taste, smell, hearing alone. you would never had ever seen them. you would have felt their face, but you would never know color their eyes or hair was.
now, lets say that one day you go into surgery and have new eyes put in. now you can see for the first time. you are for the first time in your life being given a new sense with which to judge how you feel about different aspects of your life. do you think that your perspective on that person might change after seeing them for the first time? or would that be completely shallow and superficial. most people would probably say yes, of course, that would be shallow and superficial. but what if, you see the person for the first time ever that you've spent the last 20 years with, and they are so god awful ugly that you cannot stand to look at them one minute longer? what would you do?

i made the mistake the other night of watching one of those dateline-esque shows on tv; i'm a total sucka for stuff like that. i was flipping through the channels when the newscaster – i think it was connie chung? – was interviewing the mother of aj mclean, the backstreet boy who just went into rehab. of course anything pop culturey tickles my fancy, so i put down the remote, popped open a diet cherry coke, and settled in, expecting nothing more than entertainment from the surely tawdry stories of little mr pop star boozing it up after shows and shagging staggering numbers of teenybopper groupies.

half an hour and an empty can of DCC later, i was an asshole. this kid – i actually think he's a year or two older than me but anyway – has got issues, and it took an amazing amount of balls to pull himself out of the celebrity scene and admit that he needed help. it's a big risk, in terms of the band and touring and stuff like that – i mean, who knows if the fleeting fifteen minutes of boy band fame will hold out for him to get his shit together?

no matter how callous we may say it is to have the attitude, 'oh, he's a rich and famous celebrity, what problems can he have?', i think most people hold some version of that viewpoint, at least subconsciously. i mean, i myself was watching this hoping mostly for some "behind the music"-type cheap thrills. that's why i ended up feeling so guilty.

i was diagnosed with depression in december of 1999. who knows how long i was actually depressed before i got help. it came to the point where my set of norms reconfigured itself entirely around the way i was used to living. i didn't think twice about crying myself to sleep each night, and didn't think it abnormal when nothing i could think of held any sort of interest to me whatsoever.

the specific problems i have and am working through right now have a very specific, pinpoint-able instant of origin in my mother's battle with cancer. basically from the time i was 9 years old, the big C has played the enemy role in my life. as soon as i was able to understand what the disease could do –ie, take my mommy away- i started what has turned into a lifelong fight between clinging to her and pushing her away, and struggling for some kind of middle ground.

cancer in the family fucks everyone up. it's pushed my dad into silence, my sister from boyfriend to boyfriend, me into the ups and downs of depression, and my mother into any and everything imaginable. once you realistically begin to deal with the disease, there is an inescapable omnipresence around everything you do, whispering in your ear that no matter how good things are right now, you are always in danger of loss. and i think you involuntarily prepare yourself for that loss. and i'm in a weird position with that. because my mother has been amazingly fortunate in sustaining her fight for as long as she has, i've never had to deal with loss completely. the counselor i worked with at william and mary put it to me bluntly: i have spent the majority of my life going through a grieving process. it's like an infinite number of pinpricks to your leg, instead of just breaking it in one sickening crack.

before anyone begins to protest – I KNOW HOW LUCKY I AM. most people don't have the fortune to be with cancer patients for this long. and i wish for nothing more than for all of a sudden, someone to wave a sparkly magic wand somewhere and in a cloud of fairy dust and glitter, make my mommy all better again. but heaven (and hell) knows, life does not work like that.

and how, seemingly ridiculously, does this all relate back to my original subject matter of AJ from the backstreet boys? i feel for him – that's the bottom line. the day in which i really and truly sought help – cut out all the bullshit and recognized that i really had problems i needed someone to help me get through – was the most challenging day i have ever had. i can remember sitting on the floor of my room in the graduate complex, unable to stop crying. i'm talking HOURS. i literally could not move. it was december and i was supposed to be packing my things up to go home from school for winter vacation, and i was a desolate heap on the bedroom floor. i would stand up to try to pack some things up, but would end up staring confusedly at a sweater in my hand, not knowing what to do with it. eventually jen came over and packed my things for me, and tripp drove all the way down from richmond to pick me up. i can't tell you how much the things the two of them did made a difference. i needed to be taken care of, and they were there. it means more to me than either f them will ever be able to comprehend. there were so many people who told me i'd feel better soon, or nodded faux-consolingly as they looked out the window, or just ignored me. i wanted nothing more that day that to remain in a crumpled heap on the carpet and just melt into the floor and go to sleep forever, and jen and tripp wouldn't leave me alone.

my point is that before you can get help, you hit the lowest low ever. if that's what aj mclean, pop star extraordinaire, went through, then i am certainly in no place to make disparaging boy band and poor little rock star remarks. i'll give him props instead, and wish him the best. watching his mother talk about him made him into less of a pop culture icon and more of an actual person. he's someone's brother, somebody's baby.

i was fascinated with the way she talked about him, breaking him up into a dr jekyll – mr hyde copy of alex the good kid and aj the wild child. i've always been fascinated in things like this – the polar oppositions that exist within one person. the romantic era ideals were all about this – how the tiger and the lamb exist within each of us. for the first time, people began to recognize and celebrate humans as three-dimensional beings capable of being on the contrary of their own selves. i've always been a proponent of this: the madonna-whore complex, the romantic hookup, darth vader. even when i was little, i used to sign my diary entries with different names – all variations of my middle name. i was lisa when i felt like a cool kid, lizzie when i was being bookish and the teacher's pet, ellie when i felt like a two year old and elisabeth when i was adult and sophisticated. aj's mom did the same thing with aj/alex – but the coolest thing was when connie chung asked her, is there still room in aj (the dark side) for alex (the good kid)? she smiled faintly and said, the question was really the other way around. i liked her acknowledgement - both should exist.