What with all the talk of anniversaries lately (happy belated 13th to Mrs and Mr F-and-or-O-Kat, BTW), there’s yet another special date coming up this week. Notice of this one comes via the WTF Podcast Newsletter.
This week, Tuesday marks my 12th year sober.
The thing I’m taking away from that is that I’ve actually been married longer than Marc’s been sober. Maron, of course, has not managed to stay married during all that time, while, I, for my part, have not managed to remain sober for the past 13 years either (though, to be fair, I haven’t actually been trying).
I will, of course, refrain from suggesting that you need to be wasted (at least occasionally) to stay married.
No doubt, not being a neurotic, angry creative genius helps. Also being married to somebody you like, and who isn’t a recovering addict (of course, I don’t really know the circumstances with Marc’s previous relationship, but I’m siding with him because, well, because he was with there with me – and my wife, I hasten to add – in bed every morning for a year and a half).
There’s something to be said for being a happy idiot, I guess. Not that I’m all that happy much of the time (not until I can retire, anyway). But no brain no pain, and if I’m not the most interesting and exciting companion on the planet, at least I try not to bother anybody too much.
Speaking of not very happy and the lack-o-retirement possibilities, how’s that whole 401k thingie doing this morning? In case you didn’t notice, the “markets” (one of those very rare and mysterious singularities that end with an ‘s’ and that nobody actually understands – least of all economists) took a dump yesterday.
If you were listening to “the news” (speaking of plural singularities) you may have gotten the idea that this came about because S&P downgraded the USA. But it turns out, that wasn’t it. It was because the economy sucks (and the economy sucks because the idiot teabaggers and their Republican pimps would rather kill every man, woman and child (except for rich men and unborn children, of course) than pump money into the economy.
Teabaggers are proud of themselves. Republicans are, well, Republicans, and the Democrats are equal parts scared and spineless. And our President is…. Beats me, I quit trying to figure him out. None of that matters, though.
What matter is that, after 4 days off, I have to go back to work today. This really (really) blows.
Today’s NYT editorial:
The credit decision put a price tag on the agenda of dysfunction that Republicans brought to Washington, in which unnecessary crises are created to achieve their goals of shrinking government and bringing down Mr. Obama. When one of the two political parties announces its willingness to let the nation default, S.& P. essentially said, those who lend it money can no longer trust it to act rationally. Whatever flaws may exist in S.& P.’s arithmetic, that scolding is one that lawmakers richly deserve.
But having spent far too long haggling over the margins of the Republican agenda to reduce the deficit with only spending cuts, the president needs to move to a very different set of priorities. He should start making the case that it is foolish to focus the nation’s attention solely on debt, where the Republicans want it, and instead shift every available resource toward jobs.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/09/opinion/past-time-for-a-new-agenda.html?_r=2&ref=opinion
What’s going on in England? According to one account I read the riots are a response to the police fatally shooting a man. A story on today’s huffpo says:
“Part of the problem for us was that people were spontaneously erupting in these mindless and crazy acts of violence across London and the challenge for us was to focus on the most serious areas and deal with them, to protect fire and ambulance crews that were coming under sustained attack and then to be very mobile across London and move our assets, if you like, as quickly as we possibly could and in that movement there may be some people that we didn’t get to very quickly and I’m sorry for that but it was obviously a very testing evening and we need to make sure that we improve performance this evening and get even more police officers out there.”
Mindless rioting? Folks just bored and deciding to destroy a few things? Doesn’t make sense to me, but then a lot doesn’t make sense to me.
Max Baucus? Max “forcibly eject the single payer advocates from the room” Baucus?
Why am I not surprised?
Regarding the riots, this is what I found to explain it:
These riots were about race. Why ignore the fact?
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Well, not sure if you heard, but yesterday we had 96 mph winds around these parts. (I was caught driving in the storm, along with the hail.) So our power and water went out. Was a rather warm night last night. Dogs were panting and barking at mirages in the open windows all night. It was lovely.
That kind of wind just pushes things over, splat.
Our water came back first. That was good. We finally got power at our temporary apartment around noon. 100 degree weather and no power/water is not a happy combo, in case you were wondering. :alc:
**
Happy belated 13th to The blogmeister and RG AND
Happy 12th Birthday Maron :cake: (not that he’ll see this). :fire:
Thanks Okat. I asked Mike what he thought about the riots that were being reported as people just going crazy, and he thought that they must be about race. According to the Times, the budget cuts in social services are also a cause and according to the acting commissioner of Scotland Yard, Tim Goodwin, there were “conversations to be had” about grievances in London’s most deprived neighborhood.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/09/world/europe/09britain.html
96 mph wind and hail had to be pretty horrible to drive in. No power or water and 100 degree heat sounds pretty awful too. Glad you made it through the night.