Respect Authority

And so it begins. The summer of no news. The economy, while still slowly imploding in on itself, seems to have moved away from the rapid freefall into global depression that seemed so unavoidable just a few short months ago. We have a black, progressive, intelligent president — who knows almost as many big words as Bush made up on his own.

And swine flu — which for a brief 15 minutes of porcine fame threatened to upend our sudden post-Obama euphoria — has already faded: This week Mexico City lowered its swine flu alert level from yellow to green, saying there have been no new infections for a week. (This is to say nothing of other Mexico City alert levels, related to things like “drug-related violence,” “irreversible pollution” or “gang warfare,” all of which remain at a rather permanent state of red). 

What is there left to do when dinosaur-caliber mountains of shit aren’t perpetually hitting an industrial-sized fan? Twiddle our thumbs? Pick our noses? Watch an inordinate amount of reality television? 

Bring on the next global crisis; I’m bored.