The Way We Live Now: Bouncing into oblivion. Not giving a hoot. Skiing off the edge. Having horrible holidays. Believing, or not.

"It's easy to sit there and say you'd like to have more money. And I guess that's what I like about it. It's easy. Just sitting there, rocking back and forth, wanting that money."—Jack Handey, Gay Leftist Chairman of the Federal Reserve, 1834-1836. He was right, you know. We all love sitting around, building the Eiffel Tower out of matchsticks, gazing out at the world through our double-irised eyeballs, milking our two-headed cow, and imagining how easy life would be if we just had the world's largest rubber band ball. Newsflash, kids: it's not gonna happen. That takes work, and that takes gumption, and gumption you ain't got.

We Americans are afflicted by a sense of entitlement that threatens to eat through our soul. And, subsequently, through our breasts, reducing us to hole-ridden piles of silicon goo. Everyone owes us something, right? Wrong, America. Hooters waitresses have filed a lawsuit because they have to buy their own Hooters outfits, which cost a total of twenty bucks. A real judge would rule that Hooters outsource their garment manufacturing to a cheaper Indonesian sweatshop so everybody wins within the marketplace framework, but don't count on it.

Activist judges.

Like your luxury skiing? Not any more, poors. After everything Aspen's done for you. Bear skin rugs. Rugs damp with the dew not of melted snow, but of tears. Tears from ski lodge owners. Ski lodge owners who can no longer afford Range Rovers for their children. Children who will no longer live in Aspen. Aspen, a snow-blanketed epicenter of misfortune. Misfortune representing America. America, the beautiful? Beautiful enough to make us sad. Sad for America. America's economics.

A brutal holiday retailing season? Sure, great. Bring it on. You can't sue your way out of this one, America. Try bouncing to a different drum: the drum of stimulus jobs. Which is exactly what the job ad for Hooters said, verbatim. Put on our poom-poom shorts and stop complaining. Rush Limbaugh needs his hot wings. For America.
[Pic: d.billy]