One "nasty" recession!

Says the LA Times:

Signs of the economic free fall have cropped up in many of Nevada's 25 or so legal brothels. The Mustang Ranch, for example, has a steady stream of customers, but the number of women vying for work has soared. Even a 74-year-old applied. This summer, the Shady Lady gave $50 gas cards to those who spent $300.

The Moonlite Bunny Ranch offered extras to customers paying with their economic stimulus checks.Here, 180 miles west of Salt Lake City, near the junction of Interstate 80 and Highway 93, Donna's Ranch has seen its business plummet nearly 20%. More than three-quarters of its customers are long-haul truckers, and high fuel and food prices have drained them of "play money," owner Geoff Arnold says. That cuts into pay for his 10-member staff and the "working girls."

Awful homicide/suicide

An unemployed financial advisor apparently despondent over his troubles shot and killed his wife, his mother-in-law and three children before taking his own life in a gated community in the northwest San Fernando Valley, Los Angeles police said today. ....
The 45-year-old suspect used a handgun he purchased Sept. 16, Moore said. The weapon was found next to the gunman's body, officials said.The bodies of the man's 39-year-old wife, 70-year-old mother-in-law, and three sons -- ages 19, 12 and 7 -- were found inside the home's various bedrooms. ...
Friends and neighbors identified the couple as Karthik and Subasri Rajaram, who had lived in the neighborhood for about two years.Moore said police believe that the gunman shot the victims sometime after 6 p.m. Saturday, and that he had left behind three letters indicating that he had carried out the killings.
He said the gunman had worked previously for Price Waterhouse and Sony Pictures and "had attested to some financial difficulties," Moore said. "He had become despondent over his financial" situation.

How terrible this LA Times report is. I fear for more of such news as the economic situation turns worse ....

The names suggest that the family hailed from Tamil Nadu, which is where I am from. For all I know, maybe I am even related to them.

War? Healthcare? Soc. Sec.? Recession?

Healthcare reform? We'd rather hear about Obama's deadbeat Muslim dad.
Social Security? We want to know about Cindy McCain's millions. Welfare? The
only teen mother we're interested in -- now that Jamie Lynn Spears has delivered
-- is Bristol Palin.

It would be nice to think that the American public is smarter than this,
but time after time we turn to the story -- absurd or not -- because it's easier
to digest than a policy paper. And whether it's a candidate's operatives or his
enemies telling the tale, everyone knows the ones that stick are, just like what
dominates the new-fiction bestseller list, the most sensational. It's the same
impulse that has us slowing down as we drive by a traffic accident.

And in a world that only gets scarier, we need stories more than ever. We
especially need the catharsis we experience from hearing about other peoples'
suffering. When we were kids, we learned about Abe Lincoln reading by the light
of the fireplace, about George Washington who could not tell a lie, about
Patrick Henry who demanded liberty or death. But such stories just aren't good
enough any more. They can't compete with "Gossip Girls" or "Heroes." They
definitely cannot compete with the never-ending news.

In 1984, I was a production assistant for a political media consultant. We
had many Democratic clients, from a candidate for state Senate to Walter
Mondale. We wrote campaign slogans and produced 30-second spots like mini-movies that spun the candidates' narratives precisely. We told their stories honestly,
but we made them as dramatic as possible. As Alfred Hitchcock famously said,
"What is drama, but life with the dull bits cut out?" It was after my year in
politics that I moved to Hollywood. The kind of storytelling that happens here
feels more honest.

Read the entire op-ed by Diana Wagman at the LA Times

We are the people China has been waiting for :-)

Even before the controversy post-New Yorker cover, which gave a whole new name to the phrase "cover story", commentators and comedians were wondering whether Obama's "blackness" will preclude jokes about him.  And then came the New Yorker cover.  Personally, I don''t care for the cartoon.  It is not the kind of cartoons I have enjoyed in the magazine.  Nor is it the kind of cartoons/videos I enjoy in The Onion. 

Joel Stein in the LA Times has the best take on it, when he ends his column with:
"We are the people we've been waiting for"? Actually, I'm pretty sure we're the people who put all our money in Yahoo and then bought a house to flip and now are hocking everything we have. We're the people China has been waiting for.