[Pen-l] it's good news week?

[Jim Devine <jdevine03@xxxxxxxxx>]

The NATION magazine

Maybe the Sky Isn't Falling

posted by Melissa Harris-Lacewell on 03/17/2009 @ 11:37am

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion/418439/maybe_the_sky_isn_t_falling

Wall Street rallied for several days. Developers are building homes
again. Food prices have fallen. The New York Times is calling current
economic data a "balm." This morning I even got a phone call from a
political reporter who despite newspaper layoffs around the country,
was lured by low interest rates into buying a new car.

The Federal Government is making confidence-boosting,
citizen-regarding choices. The IRS is planning a tax break for those
duped by Madoff. President Obama, like a smart quarterback, responded
quickly and decisively to the AIG bonus scandal by dispatching
Geithener to behave as a fullback, blocking the corporate executives
from misspending taxpayer money.

Dark economic clouds still crowd our fiscal skies but there is
undoubtedly a little hint of blue making itself visible. Hope may be
more than a campaign slogan, it might just be spendable currency in
tough times.

So I am wondering if there is still a market for cynicism. What will
all the pundits (including me) do if America proves more resilient
than any of us imagined? What if we bounce back in significant and
meaningful ways in time for the 2010 midterm elections? What if this
is not an economic crisis that rivals the Great Depression, but just
the death rattle of wretched two-term presidential mismanagement? What
will the pundits do with the good economic news?

[by Hegehoppers Anonymous:

It's good news week,
Someone's dropped a bomb somewhere,
Contaminating atmosphere
And blackening the sky,
It's good news week,
Someones found a way to give,
The rotting dead a will to live,
Go on and never die.

Have you heard the news?
What did it say?
Who's won that race?
What's the weather like today?

It's good news week,
Families shake the need for gold,
By stimulating birth control,
We're wanting less to eat.

It's good news week,
Doctors finding many ways,
Of wrapping brains in metal trays,
To keep us from the heat....]
-- 
Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own
way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante.
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