Is anyone else out there tired of hearing about the bad economy? I know I’m being terribly insensitive to the sufferings of the unemployed, not to mention all those much abused millionaires who have to live in fear that those mean old Democrats might succeed in making them pay taxes just like we peasants have to, but I’m tired of hearing about the economy. Could we go back to complaining about the war for a while? Or… no, what we really need right now is a good Washington sex scandal. Perhaps a Republican senator getting caught with a 14 year old prostitute or, even better, a 14 year old male prostitute. Oh, okay! I’d even settle for a Democrat getting caught in the aforementioned situation. In fact, that might be even more, or at least longer lasting, fun. The way the Republicans love to feed fires something like that would be good for at least two years worth of… Wait… on second thought…

But seriously, is it really all that bad? Yeah, I know, over 9% unemployment and even more “under-employment” but I look around me and things just don’t seem as terrible as the media is making it out to be. Where are the bread lines? How are all these people crowding into Wal-mart, Lowe’s and the Bass Pro Shop able to be there spending money? Yeah, I know, there really are a lot of unemployed people out there somewhere – I know because CBS talked to them and made them cry on national TV – and I do sympathize, but there have always been unemployed and yes I know nine percent is much worse than 4 or 5 percent but I can’t help thinking that the media just loves a disaster so much that if they can’t find one they’ll create one.

And besides, is it really news anymore? We had nine percent unemployment yesterday and the day before and the week before and the month before and they’ve been telling us about it every day. When unemployment drops to seven percent that will be news. If it goes up to twelve percent that will be news. The same thing every day is not news, it’s entertainment. It’s a sport. The media reports on the economy as if it were a sport, with the daily scores and player injuries and so on. Personally, as sports go, I prefer football. When I watch the news I’d like to learn something I didn’t already know.