The American People

We heard endlessly from every cable television bloviator that the American people were angry.  As well they might be – they've been getting screwed for the last 30 years, beginning with their idol Ronald Reagan. Real family income hasn't increased for a generation, and the last hope of middle class Americans for wealth – the real estate bubble – blew up in their faces, sending their furniture to the curb. The harder part, of course, is figuring out why they turn their anger not on those responsible for their plight, but on those who in their half-assed incoherent way have been trying to ameliorate it, by for example, making sure that losing your job doesn't force you to choose between food and medical care. Yet our angry citizenry, or at least about 40% of them, spoke loud and clear in November: "Thank you, Republican sirs, may we have another?" Perhaps in a society whose highest good is not knowledge or virtue but the chance to be seen by millions f***ing on reality television, we shouldn't be surprised at the reluctance of voters to take some effort to inform themselves before waltzing into the polls. The good news:  even if they're not f***ing on television, for the next two years they'll be on the receiving end, and if they want to watch it, all they have to do is turn on C-SPAN.   

Bristol Palin's sperm donor

Speaking of morons whose greatest life goal is the aforementioned exhibition of themselves on basic cable, how did Levi Johnston manage to turn a lifetime of ease, or at least grade C celebrity, into so many moose muffins?  He had achieved notoriety by recklessly engaging in sex, he was handsome in a brain-dead sort of way, and he had a torrent of free publicity thanks to the Twitter account of his baby's Granny. So why didn't he wash up on the Jersey Shore? Our guess: Plenty of famous twerps are just as stupid, unlearned, and unsophisticated as Levi (Hi, Snooki!), but at least they can talk. Poor Levi, allowed to grow to, um, manhood ferally in a crank-drenched rural slum, can't even string together four or five words. And, as of yet, merely grunting is thought to be insufficiently entertaining even by the standards of the Kardashians (just ask poor David Hasselhoff). How galling is it that your equally inarticulate baby mama got to clomp around on a network series week after week when you can't even get $500 a night appearance money at a Vegas nightclub? Don't ask Levi; he can't answer.   

The citizens of the Republic of Ireland

An 800-year struggle for independence and self-determination ends like this? In perpetual thralldom to the Hun? Where's Michael Collins when you really need him? Let's review the events that led to the fall of the Irish Republic. Like other Western countries, it plunged too deeply into risky real estate and financial regulation. Unless the one where their cousins hold court under the Golden Dome in Boston, the poor Irish looked into their basement and found only Sten guns, when what they really needed was a printing press. But their money comes from stone-hearted French and German bureaucrats. So when the Irish Taoiseach (Gaelic for "jackass") decided that the full faith and credit of the Republic would be pledged to paying off the worthless debt of their insolvent banks, he condemned his countrymen to generations of servitude harsher than anything imagined by the Anglo-Irish aristocracy of yore. The only good news? If you live in and around Boston and you want to hire a waitress or a house painter, they will likely speak with a lovely brogue. As well they might, since they're probably unemployed graduates of Irish colleges. And they'll be charming and efficient, unless they're hired by a former Irish bank President who fled to Massachusetts one step ahead of the Gardai.

A lot has changed since John McCain (third from left) served in the U.S. Navy

John McCain

Remember John McCain, the maverick war hero who used to pontificate every week on the Sunday schmuckfests and trade one-liners with the likes of Jon Stewart and David Letterman? Whatever happened to that guy? Time ravages all of us, but the need to propitiate hard-right reactionaries to save his miserable Senate seat has taken an especially gruesome toll on the senior citizen [Surely, senior Senator? – Ed.] from Arizona. Poor John McCain was last seen raving that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff did not in fact represent the leadership of U.S. armed forces in a vain effort to continue the legalized torment of brave members of the armed services due to their sexual preference. Not only was his argument ludicrous on its face, even his fellow Senators couldn't stomach it. As for the former statesman, let's just say it's too late for him, unless it's a matter of getting the Early Bird Special at one of his trophy wife's country clubs.