TV News LIES

The only problem with thinking critically, and having any hope, is that doing so within range of any other illogical humans instantly provides no shortage of subject matter able to receive profoundly heavy, unyielding criticism.

One supposes that the added problems of searing, splitting headaches and becoming radically entrenched in depression about the plight of the species are no picnics, either.

Unless one wins the lottery or is born a Dubya or Mitt, one must take the bad with the good in this life, we all learn quickly enough, and to greater and lesser degrees of satisfaction about this arbitrary arrangement of things.

"This year I wasn't about to kill people."

That's a pretty good attitude to take in general.  It seems even more fitting when talking about a squabble over a Tinker Bell sofa with another Black Friday shopper, as Elizabeth Garcia had done, at a Toys-R-Us site in Times Square last year.

Even without the Body-and-Door-Crushing Super Savings Specials, and shoppers brandishing pistols and other weapons high overhead, trying to get other shoppers to back off from a prized shopping bargain, many people would call today Black Friday anyway.

It gets harder to concentrate, the closer a holiday comes.  For lack of a better term, I call this the Haze Factor -- that inverse relationship of decreased work focus and attention span with the increased nearness of friends, family, free time, and fun.

If the Haze is conjuring up banks of fog moving through your area, and/or your own mind, welcome to the club.  (For my part, it's taken ten minutes to write three sentences.)  With everyone likewise debilitated today, we'll attempt only one bit of serious business here, then amble over to a transition piece, and finally wander up to the sideboard of those fluffy meringue and cream pies, and puff pastries.

As we approach our national day of giving thanks, we have some real doozies to celebrate this year.  It's unclear exactly how we'll provide ourselves ample black-slapping gratitude on our good work -- although I expect a couple pieces of pie fit into the equation somehow.

And so, a grateful nation groans and pushes itself back from the table, creaking every joint in its chair, its fingers crossed, in support of the hope that this rickety seat won't pop all its seams, right this instant, and dump us sprawling onto the floor.

Let us all in the Glassy-Eyed Tryptophan Brigade fondly seek out the Couch of Contentment in great sighs of relief, giving thanks for landing safely somewhere soft and stuffed, feeling much the same, too.

Mitt Romney would approve of the current business meme:  When management executives decide to stage a feeding frenzy on a company's wealth, ala Bain, it's best to chum the waters first, letting everyone know it's really someone else's fault.  Labor unions, say.

If you look hard enough, in fact, you'll eventually see that labor unions are the cause of global climate change, Hurricane Sandy, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Dubya- and Reagan-era federal deficit spending sprees, rising gas prices, Fukushima, fracking, the BP disaster in the Gulf, unhelpful phases of the moon...

President Obama wasn't really born in Kenya after all.  That was just a little good-natured political ruse, for the election, that was all.  See, Obama was actually born on Venus.

OK, well, maybe Neptune, at the outside.  But it's definitely down to one of those, right there.

Plus, you know what?  Obama eats cloned stem cells for breakfast!  By the end of this year, it'll be no more bacon-and-eggs for the rest of us -- you mark my words.  He'll have us all eating the same glop, and maybe fetuses, too.  Then, right after, we'll have to march around every day in socialist parades for an hour or two, singing about how much we love Chairman Marx and Comrade Obama.