A State of Disunion
Am I the only person who found President Obama's first State of the Union address to be scattered and a bit disheartening? Let me sum up the roughly 80-minute speech for you in a few short paragraphs:
"We need to find a way to put Americans back to work, but we don't really know how to do that and the only way the economy can even come close to recovering at this point is to keep costs down by not paying salaries and benefits.
Health care is really important, but I realize now that the monied interests on Wall Street and K Street will never let real substantive health care coverage be extended to all Americans, so the only hope is token change that everyone knows won't make much of a difference. Let me be honest, Massachusetts really fucked us all on this one, because the bill we spent 12 months working on depended on a "supermajority" and my God, the Democrats just squandered one.
Clean energy initiatives are a key to growing the economy and restoring American dominance going forward, but we don't really have the money, resources or national willpower to do all that needs to be done on this front. But it's really important, so Congress should do all it can to make it happen.
We've stopped torturing people and closed Gitmo, but our enemies are still waging war against us and we're still waging war against them with not much progress being made on either side. We foiled a Christmas Day al-Qaeda plot...well, we COULD have foiled the plot if our various intelligence gathering agencies had properly communicated with each other, but bureaucratic agencies tasked with keeping Americans safe invariably get in each other's way. Thank goodness for underwear that doesn't detonate and pissed off Americans in a plane who just decided they'd had enough.
God Bless America and I hope the Democrats don't lose more than fifty seats in the midterms. Hey, didn't Bush suck?"
An Actual Quote from Yahoo! News
About the diverging fortunes of health care reform and Wall Street:
While lawmakers struggle, Wall Street is celebrating the sinking prospects for a sweeping overhaul that would put new taxes and requirements on insurance companies. Insurers have opposed the overhaul even though it aims to insure more than 30 million people over the next decade with a new requirement for nearly everyone to be covered.
An analysis distributed by UBS Investment Bank after the State of the Union speech stated: "Investors should proceed as if the health care effort is dead."
How could anyone doubt the evil of Wall Street?
The Five Best Dramas Currently on TV
You may be watching these shows. You may not. My point is, if you have time, you should be!
1. Mad Men (AMC) - I've said plenty about this show in previous posts. My only complaint about it is that EVERYONE raves about it. With good reason.
2. Damages (FX) - take Lost, merge it with L.A. Law then add then add a heaping helping of Glenn Close and Rose Byrne, who may be the two best actresses on TV and you've got Damages. Season Three looks as good or better than the first two.
3. Big Love (HBO) - keeps getting better and better. It is no longer a guilty pleasure show about polygamists, but rather a clever, twisted (and surprisingly earnest) examination of American family values and the cumulative sin born from overreaching ambition.
4. Men of a Certain Age (TNT) - Ray Romano brings welcome humor as both star and producer of this low key dramedy, which features cracker jack acting by each of the leads (Romano, Andre Braugher and Scott Bakula) and realistic characters that are both relatable and occasionally heartbreaking.
5. Friday Night Lights (DirecTV, then NBC [Spring]) - The best directed show on television, this drama perfectly captures how life in a small Texas town swirls around the local high school football teams. Coach Taylor (Kyle Chandler) and his family may be the most functional, normal family on TV, but by no means are they boring. And by the way--it's not really about football.
That's it. Sorry it's been so long...those 6:30 am to 3:30 or 4 pm days are starting to catch up to me! But that's no excuse.
Peace...
[NOTE: This post corrects a post from earlier this evening. The list of shows has changed.]
2 comments:
Unfotunately, these shows are all on cable and due to
"We need to find a way to put Americans back to work, but we don't really know how to do that and the only way the economy can even come close to recovering at this point is to keep costs down by not paying salaries and benefits.
a lot of people I know have dropped their cable because they prefer to pay for food and gas.
Oh well.
A good point. I'm lucky in that I haven't had to, but TV would be the first thing to go if I couldn't afford any of the essentials.
Post a Comment