The Way We Live Now: Reveling in our common poverty. This recession has a bright side. The races are united as poors. Prison's a free diploma. And our new job robbing offices takes our mind off the gnawing, omnipresent hunger.

Down in Georgia, in the dark days before the recession, people used to think like this: "I am white. They are black. We are different. We cannot commingle." Now, since the recession, people think like this: "I am white and they are black but we are both broke. Why should we not pass the time discussing our common plight with one another?" Also, white people are totally learning how to get their groove on with style, while black people feel free to become Kelsey Grammer fans and eat arugula! Thanks for this scoop, the media.

Positive thinking like that is important, so that one doesn't become too tempted to do something crazy. Take a bad situation and flip it, judo-style, into something beneficial. Hate your job? Why not rob the office, making yourself a little "Seasonal bonus" in the meantime? Everyone's doing it these days! Can't get into Wesleyan? And also you are locked in prison? Go to Wesleyan in prison! Hey, it's not like you can get into community college. Laid off from your lucrative Wall Street job? Apply for a job in the NYPD! You almost certainly won't need to shoot anyone, and if you do, you won't have to tell people too much about it.

The Red Cross is broke but it has lots of old crap in the attic to sell off and raise a little cash to buy blood, or whatever the Red Cross gives out. It's just one more example of the "positive thinking" power that everyone from rural black Wesleyan students to urban white Wall Street cops is "getting into" these days. Unite! We must starve together, or else we'll starve alone.