TV News LIES

Putting a television in your house is like putting an Invasion of the Body Snatchers seed pod in your bedroom closet. If you watch the damned thing long enough sooner than later you’ll end up in a Stevie Wonder song:

… you believe in things that you don't understand. Then you suffer

I watched the presidential and vice presidential debates on CBC up here in Beautiful British Columbia. During the debates viewers could vote on who was winning. The first debate’s results were: 76% Obama, and 18% Romney. The next morning I went online to read the American Polls. WTF!!?? Romney was declared the winner.

The Dow dropped 200 points today on 'below expectations' earning from McDonalds, GE, Google and others. It also happens to be the anniversary of the 1987 crash, the biggest since '29. Who was President then? (The Sainted Reagan) Today's drop wasn't a significant event, given the size of the market number, but you wouldn't know it to listen to the media.

The thing you have to remember is that the term 'below expectations' means that the companies are actually doing well and making huge profits. They just didn't meet an arbitrarily contrived number issued by market 'analysts'. You can bet that the Republicans will be screaming "economic collapse!" based on nothing of consequence.

Every four years, like clockwork, two enormous trucks back up to the public troughs.  One slaps in various slime and slop, while the other one glops in some assorted goo and gorp.  Then, diners are left to choose between the two evils.

Oh, sure -- there are some sweet, well-intentioned people who drop by now and again to offer a bucket or two of much fresher food that's far better looking, smelling, and tasting. But everyone knows a bucket or two won't stretch very far, not up against these industrial-strength, corporate sludge movers that deal in mountains and not mole hills to fill public troughs.

Reality is confused enough these days.  Perhaps if we try to overload it, and blow all its fuses and circuit breakers, we'll pop clear out at the other end, in some sort of sane, prosperous, sensible nirvana.

Let's give it a nudge and try this one:  Yes, someone paid $65,600 for a pair of Marie Antoinette's slippers.  Green and pink silk.

They fetched five times more than auctioneers thought they would get.  They were flooded with bids from around the world -- which should give you some indication of the number of people sitting on oversized piles of cash who are hopelessly clueless about what might be constructively done instead with any of those Scrooge McDuck, dollar-sign-sporting, canvas-bag heaps they're using for sofas.

Round 2 of the Predictably Over-hyped and Inappropriate Over-talking Shouting Match between The Professor and The Spewer is now over.  Now, maybe our national, throbbing-temple meltdown of a migraine will back off a bit.

It is a good time in America to drop to your knees, break out the secular hallelujahs, remember there is only one more of these things left to go, and be thankful for this Second Gasp of Conclusion.  (While you're down there, do you mind checking if that's a stain, or just the lighting in here?)

Once again, candidates were able to shout themselves raw in the peculiarly childish American game of political basketball -- this one spelled HOARSE.

This is a nation that loathes government and always has. Liberals should not be deluded: The Goldwater revolution will ultimately triumph, regardless of what happens in November.

Were the 2012 campaign a Hitchcock movie, Mitt Romney would be the MacGuffin—a device that drives a lot of plot gyrations but proves inconsequential in itself. Then again, Barack Obama could be, too. Our down-to-the-wire presidential contest is arguably just a narrative speed bump in the scenario that has been gathering steam throughout the Obama presidency: the resurgence of the American right, the most determined and coherent political force in America.