The Secret Miracle: Don't Be A Douche

Okay, so as I mentioned, the $100 that I finally earned from folks clicking on the ads on this blog was used for a writing project--a deposit for a residency at the Prairie Center for the Arts where I'll be for a month-ish this summer (it's a key deposit--I'll get it back if I don't trash the place). So: your support here on my blog = time writing this summer. And once/if I get the $100 back, I'll totally take suggestions as what I should do with it (Bedazzling? Fine liquor? Objets d'art?).

In honor of writing, I thought I'd share that I'm currently rolling around in awesome books. I just finished Colm Toíbín's The Master, which was bliss, and I'm still reading his short story collection The Empty Family.

And for all those authors out there looking self-promote, this is why I started reading him: my friend S. lent-then-gave me the book The Secret Miracle: The Novelist's Handbook, edited by Daniel Alarcón. It's interviews with authors--divvied up by theme--about various aspects of the writing process (well, specifically the novel-writing process). 

Anyway, S. and I both agreed that some authors came off wonderfully--as in, "How insightful/charmingly self-deprecating! I'd bet we'd be total BFFs and could go down to the pub and have a pint and talk about George Elliot/insert author of your choice! And even if we cannot or should not ever develop a personal relationship, some of these writing insights are both reassuring and useful!" --while some came off a utter douches.  

Misha Collins is Awesome, and I am Surprisingly Emotional About It

So, you know how the Fug Girls are recapping Ringer? (I find this interaction particularly awesome/sweet, I have to say). And I was like, "Oh cute! Cause I am trying to totally not failing at recapping Supernatural! CW cheese 4evah!"

Well, then there's this news: Misha Collins is going to guest-star on Ringer.

Supernatural 7.02 and 7.03: Everything Was So Awesome and Then Everything Sucked

Alrighty-roo, so obviously I'm waaaaay behind on Supernatural recaps. I'm going to do a compressed recap of 7.02 and 7.03, which is basically going to be a recap of just 7.02 because I REFUSE to do a full recap of the third episode. 

My reactions to the two episodes can be summed up by: 

An alarmingly large chunk of the average day

Okay, so, like I said -- Imma try and do Supernatural recaps when the new season starts up. We'll see. There's like eighty billion things I could say about Supernatural but I think it's vital to the success of this endeavor that I not say as much as I'd ideally want to. Nick Hornby has this great moment in Fever Pitch -- he's says, when you're really obsessed with something (in his case soccer, or "football"), often when you're asked, "What are you thinking?" you have to lie:

At this point I lie. I wasn't thinking about Martin Amis or Gerard Depardieu or the Labour party at all. But then, obsessives have no choice; they have to lie on occasions...If we told the truth every time, then we would be unable to maintain relationships with anyone from the real word. We would be left to rot with our Aresenal programmes or our collection of original blue-label Stax records or King Charles spaniels, and our two-minute daydreams would become longer and longer and longer until we lost our jobs and stopped bathing and shaving and eating, and would lie on the floor in our own filth rewinding the video again and again in an attempt to memorize by heart the whole of the commentary including David Pleat's expert analysis, for the night of 26th of May 1989 (You think I had to look that date up? Ha!) The truth is this: for alarmingly large chunks of an average day, I am a moron.

Substitute "Season 2 DVD commentary" in there and you get the picture.

For instance: complaining. I could do a lot of that; for instance, about Season Six. But there's already plenty of complaining out there, some of which I agree with and some of which makes me feel like this.

So, I'm going to limit myself. For instance, in this blog entry I'm only going to complain about promotional materials! No biggie. Everybody thinks about that stuff, right?

Rage Distorts Creative Title Abilities: The Eurovision Song Contest Entry

Some time ago -- actually, (gulp!) this was nearly a year ago -- my parents were both highly amused over a New Yorker article on the Eurovision song contest and kept pressing me to read it.

I think my parents simply enjoyed the article as they had not thought about the Eurovision song contest in a long time, and it made them nostalgic about living in Europe/being European. Which is fine. But I simply couldn't stand this particular article, though I didn't take the time to deeply analyze why.

For your reference, most famous product of said contest:

When my parents asked what I found so objectionable about the article, all I could articulate was that I found it too condescending. It's all very well to write about something you affectionately find tacky or awful, but there's a fine line being light-heartedly snarky and simply being a patronizing ass.

Recently, a few things have brought the Eurovision song contest to my attention again, and I decided to write a blog about these new perspectives. But in order to do so, I had to go back and read the article online (bless you for your amazing online archives, New Yorker).

Reading the article again, I got so angry that a) my jaw actually popped, due to my unconscious clenching of it; b) at one point, I grabbed two chunks of my hair and pulled, causing myself physical pain. This article actually made me try to pull my hair out.

Anyway, here it is. It was so anger-making that it derailed my entire post, which was simply going to be a few links to different perspectives on the Eurovision contest. Instead, the other articles and links and perspective will be incorporated within this rant. You've been warned: it's a rant. I'm about to get all polemical up in here.

Non-Covert Rage

How much do I hate Covert Affairs? So much.

And let me just say that I have been watching entirely too much USA recently. Like, a problematic amount. Like, my two favorite shows currently, without question, are Burn Notice and White Collar. So much so that in a recent ad for a marathon in which they did a split-screen between Michael Weston and Neal Caffrey, as if the characters were talking on the phone, which obviously they weren't, my little fangirl heart went pitter-pat at the idea of a crossover. I go hard for USA right now.

So much so, that I set Covert Affairs to record automatically. And despite being lukewarm on the pilot and following episodes, I kept watching. Maybe it would get good! And I believe in giving a show with good credentials five-to-seven episodes before I give up on it.

Yes, I hear you, that's quite a lot, but I extend the same courtesy (not in terms of episodes, but in shot-giving) to novels and movies, so television can get it, too. Some amazing shows take a few episodes to get on their feet. Some amazing novels take a few chapters to get going. And Covert Affairs has Piper Perabo, of so-bad-it's-good Coyote Ugly and Imagine Me and You, a lovely romantic comedy with lesbian protagonists and Matthew Goode, which is all I could ask of a movie. Plus, she is so pretty that when she walks past pretty flowers, the pretty flowers start fretting that maybe they are getting old and maybe they need to work out more.

But, I officially hate Covert Affairs. And why? Well, let me count the ways.

1) Piper Perabo is new to the CIA. And of course, she's great at everything -- all the lame tasks she gets assigned to result in amazing missions! She's assigned to talk to the crazies who call into the CIA -- one of them is the real deal. Of course. Oh, and the real deal is an IRA cell. Yeah, cause the IRA is still totally a threat, complete with double-agents, double-crosses, and sophisticated communications. If this was a decade ago...yeah, that still wouldn't work.

2) She's assigned to go on the mission that no one can get! Ha ha, it's a joke, she'll never convince this bitter ex-CIA guy to come back in. But wait! She does! He pretends he's all mean, with mean dogs and a gun, but really he's nice. Just give his mean dogs some snacks (no one's ever thought of that) and tell him about his Long Lost Love, who coincidentally was killed by the guy on your current mission, and BOOM! You got the ungettable get!

At least with shows like Burn Notice and White Collar, the characters are experienced and dope at the beginning of the show. So you accept the fact that they're ridiciously good at everything, and it doesn't bother you. The tension of the shows comes from these ridicously pretty and talented people being put in increasingly improbable and challenging situations. Other people on the show doubt that they can be amazing and dope, and then it's like, "Oh yeah? Don't think Michael Weston can break out of a maximum security prison with just a hand towel? Well, BURN ON YOU!"

But ridiculously pretty and boring Piper Perabo accidentally being awesome at everything? Ugh.

3) Plus, 90% of any success she has that isn't accidental comes from her blinking pretty at the men around her. Sure, she's a woman in a man's world, but can't she be dope on her own terms? Whenever she needs help, some guy is around to think she's pretty and charming and help out. She even has an ex-boyfriend that FOLLOWS HER AROUND KILLING PEOPLE THAT THREATEN HER. That's not a joke or metaphor. That's a real thing in the show. Things getting sticky? Hey, ex-boyfriend is across the street with a sniper rifle!

This is worse than Weeds. I mean, I loved Weeds for three seasons, but I got pretty sick of the "anytime Nancy gets in way over her head (which is all the time) some hot guy that is usually non-white -- which is frankly a little racist if you really think about it -- thinks she's hot too and saves her as long as she has sex with him" all-purpose plot device.

4) Ugh, and speaking of which, Auggie. I hate this character with the fiery passion of a thousand suns. He's a Nice Guy, capital N. He's nice to Piper Perabo and helps her out whenever she sucks at anything, without asking. Okay, not so bad. But...he's smarmy. And oh so passive-aggressive.

To wit: He disses anyone she might possibly be interested in but doesn't actually make a move himself. He makes little passive-aggressive comments about anything that smacks of her treating him less than #1 (omg! she didn't bring him his coffee FIRST!) but doesn't come and ask her out himself. He's sort of flirty with her and is always complimenting himself indirectly ("You haven't laughed at any of my clever comments for ten minutes, something must be wrong") but he never comes out and asks her out himself.

We're supposed to automatically feel sorry for him and assume he's a nice guy because he's blind. But, here's an equal-opportunity memo: blind guys can be uninteresting jerks, too. And Auggie seems to want to go out of his way to prove that. In the very first episode, he tells her that "Girls love blind guys. They assume we don't care about looks." When she inquires, well, do you care about looks? He says, "All you have to do to figure out if a girl is hot is listen to how other guys talk to her." Of course, a guy comes up to Piper Perabo at that moment and says, like, "Hi, there!" and Auggie smirks his smirky-ass smile and is like "See?"

Wow. You just came right out and said that all you care about is that status of having a hot girl (how other guys talk to her). It's not anything that's actually attractive about her -- it's just pulling one over on another guy.

Bleck.

In another episode, Auggie is saying that Piper Perabo will be great on a mission because "she looks like a cheerleader."

Another CIA person says, "How do you know [blind guy] that she looks like a cheerleader?"

Answer: Creepy Auggie smirk.

Again: all Auggie gives a shit about is the status of Piper Perabo being "hot" (he gets off on the fact that she's clearly "high status" hot, the cheerleader being the stereotypical example. Also, he assumes her success will be due to the fact that she's hot and non-threatening in appearance).

He doesn't seem to like anything specific about her, other than 1) She's vulnerable (new to the CIA) and 2) she's "high status" hot. He's that creepy guy that always sidles up to the new girl, who hasn't been warned off him yet, and plays on her sympathy and vulnerable position to get her to feel indebted to him, disses any potential threats, and makes her feel guilty over any hint of abandonment. We've all met that guy and frankly he's more likely to shoot up a gym then be the adorable love interest.

5) Ugh. This actress. One of my favorite sites, Go Fug Yourself, just ran a thing about how she pops up in everything and she is so great and is "too good" for Covert Affairs. Are you kidding me? Yes, she pops up in everything. And she always grates on me. This one, I don't even have a good reason for. I just hate her, and it's totally irrational. I hated her on Mad Men. She popped up for two seconds on Bones, and I hated her. On this show, she plays Piper Perabo's sister, and they're supposed to be superclose. You're supposed to love her, even though her character says things like "I thought you'd hit off with this guy. You both have really boring jobs!" "I mean, when did you last have a real relationship?" "You're the worst liar. You're be, like, the worst spy ever!" (To be fair, that stuff is supposed to be bitchy, but you're supposed to take it in a "oh, big sister" kind of way--you know, the episode ends with them hugging).

But there's just something about that actress -- she's just seems like the kind of person who really would make those kind of sweeping, unintentionally judgmental comments about her sister's life and completely miss the fact that her sister is freakin' Piper Perabo and is not only supernaturally beautiful but also totally kick-ass and speaks like six languages and actually is a spy.

And it's really bitchy to tell someone that their job is boring--it's actually not adorable at all.

I know this is the character, but that kind of smariness just oozes out of that actress's pores. You know how some actors simply seem nice or seem noble or seem whatever? She just seems like a smarmy bitch, and I stand by that. And if the show gave me leave to hate her, I'd be all over that. But, no, we're supposed to think it's so sweet that they're so close, and Piper Perabo lives in her guesthouse, when if that was my sister, I'd live far, far away. A mission to Afghanistan? Yes, please. Anything to get me away from Auggie and my horrible sister.

6) Finally, the show just sucks. The writing is terrible. Here is a random example (I'd muted the show while writing this and randomly unmuted it. This is what played, approximately):

Piper Perabo: This wasn't the idea!

Bitter Ex-Cia: Yeah, what was your idea?

Piper Perabo: My idea was for justice!

Bitter-Ex-Cia: Oh yeah? Justice for who?

Piper Perabo: PRETTY FROWN!*

Then I got distracted again. When I tuned in again, Piper Perabo was defending Hot Guy on the show, and Augie was needling her for not thinking Hot Guy was a complete jerk. Sigh.

Covert Affairs, you are deleted from DVR. Even USA misses sometimes.

*Guess what solves this moral dilemma? Yep: ex-boyfriend with a sniper rifle!

Learn How To Park! You Are So Inconsiderate! Smiley Face!

Back in Minneapolis. There's a ridiculous amount of snow. And parking sucks.

I got on the wrong side of a snow emergency and had to wait multiple hours to get my car out of the impound lot. Multiple hours. Nearly three. And an hour of that was waiting outside. It was such a bizarre experience, actually, that it was almost worth it just to have the story. Almost.

The first hour (and this is at 10 pm at night, by the way) was, as I said, outside, and even with FUR-LINED boots my feet were freezing. The line was one of those lines that move so slowly that it seems as if it's not moving at all and how you progress forward seems mysterious and unlikely.

The lady in front of me had had a tracheotomy and talked by using one of those electronic devices that you press to your throat, which only compounded the surreality of the whole thing.

"I...want...my...car...back..." she said several times. "Just...give...me...my...car."

I sympathized. Also, she wasn't wearing a hat, which...what?

Once we got out of the cold into a makeshift covered waiting area, which was heated, the quality of life improved greatly, though the line moved even more slowly.

What was remarkable about the whole thing was that for the most part everyone was quite nice and well-behaved. You wouldn't think that, as we crept into the next day, in the cold, without our cars, having to face the prospect of paying a lot of money, that we wouldn't take it out on each other. But I think the fact that the line was so completely terrible, and that we were all in the same boat, and, to a certain extent, it was our own faults that we were in this situation (I mean, the snow emergency rules are confusing, but they're not impossible, and I certainly should have known better), combined to make us reasonably pleasant. Someone had written a note and hung it up: BE KIND TO EACH OTHER. NO ONE WANTS TO BE HERE. And for the most part, people followed this principle.

When I got the window, finally, the guy working there was even in a fairly decent mood. He couldn't read my handwriting on the form I'd filled out, and joked, "What, are you a professor or something?"

"Uh...yeah," I stammered. "Sort of."

"Really?" he said and we both laughed. "Why do professors always have such terrible handwriting?"

I'd actually never heard that before, though I'm willing to believe it's true. I thought he was going to say "doctors" since they're the ones who have the reputation for terrible handwriting. I guess professors do too.

I'm actually pretty confident I know why my handwriting sucks, but I'll explain that another day.

Anyway, I eventually got my car back. Here are two other parking stories:

1) Now, you can't park on the even side of non-snow emergency streets until APRIL. Which means available parking is cut IN HALF. This BLOWS. It used to be easy to find parking in my neighborhood, unless you came home past, like, one in the morning (if, for example, you were coming back from claiming your car at the impound lot). But now, even coming home at seven it's nearly impossible to find a place.

2) I've written before that parking at the University where I work is difficult to come by. I used to come to teach at an insanely early hour, meaning I could usually get a spot. Now, I still have to come early, but not insanely early, so parking is very difficult to come by. On Friday, even the metered parking was reserved for a special event. And I didn't have tons of time to find a spot. I ended up accidentally parking blocking a driveway. Which is awful, I know, but in my defense, the block where I parked makes it very difficult to determine what's driveway and what isn't, since snow basically covers all of it, the driveways don't occur in regular or logical intervals, and there are no signs. Anyway, when I got back, I realized what I'd done, and somehow I'd escaped a ticket. However, there was a note tucked into my windscreen wipers, written in cute, curly handwriting:

LEARN HOW TO PARK! YOU ARE SO INCONSIDERATE!

The contrast between the message and cute handwriting was so great that I almost expected them to add, HAVE A NICE DAY!

I also love how Midwestern all of this was: you are enjoined to be nice in a horrific line in the middle of the night, and the worst insult anyone can think to level at you is that you are "inconsiderate."

Anyway, parking sucks. And I suck at it. Please stop, winter.

Dear Breast Cancer Awareness Fundraising Committee

Whoever Happens to Be In Charge of Marketing/Fundraising for "Money to Fight Breast Cancer",

I know that pink is the "official" color of Breast Cancer. Because women like pink, or because the insides of our boobs are pink, or whatever. I get that. It's annoying, but I get that.

I understand that for this reason you want to incorporate pink into the marketing materials that you send out. I also know that direct mailers are an important source of revenue to non-profits and for-profits alike.

However, here is the thing: when you send me a white envelope with one those clear plastic bits that lets you see the letter inside and that letter inside is pink, do you know what I think of?

Hmmm? Pink: alarmingly, eye-catchingly shining through a white business envelope?

Duh! It looks like an overdue bill! Your fundraising letter looks like an overdue bill!

Maybe I am an irresponsible person because this was my first thought. Maybe the other women of the pro-women mailing I got on because of Planned Parenthood are never late in paying for anything. But still, isn't pink in a business envelope kind of like the UNIVERSAL symbol for something is late?

So thanks for giving me a moment's panic, breast cancer people. (Wait, I paid all my bills! Is this that $20 dollars I still owe the dentist?).

Maybe this was your plan all along. Maybe the idea is that once people realize your letter ISN'T, in fact, the electricity company threatening to cut them off, they'll feel generous and want to give? Me, it just made me feel grumpy and I threw the letter away.

I thought you'd appreciate the feedback,

Easy O

Why, in fact, sometimes you SHOULD go off on people

Arriving at my teachin' job yesterday at the insanely early hour at which this is required, I was lucky enough to grab a parking space on the street outside my building (the fact that I have an insanely early class is the only reason this is possible and even then it is tricky).

As I parked, I sat in my car for an extra minute (don't know -- probably staring into space [see: hour, insane earliness of] ). I noticed another -- large -- car pulling in behind me. Wanting to make sure I allowed the car enough room, I pulled up respectably close to the car parked in front of me. As space is at a premium, I wanted to make sure we all took advantage of it. I was surprised and annoyed to see the car in back of me park while leaving a solid four/five feet of room between my car and their's. Getting out, I couldn't help but feel annoyed (assisted, no doubt, by hour, insane earliness of). At least one more, maybe two more, cars could have parked along that stretch; now, it was maxed out. I thought about saying something, but the man was an older gentleman in a suit and for all I knew he could, like, actually be my Dean or another instructor in my department or something. Plus, I hate those people who are so obsessed with efficiency that they feel entitled to yell at others if someone else doesn't conform to their exact idea of the best way to do things. I myself am not the world's best parker or driver, and I know I piss people off without meaning to all the time. Glass driving, don't throw verbal stones, etc.

As I walked towards work, I noticed the man meet up with another man and they each started routing through a cardboard box. As I walked past them, one man offered me a New Testament in small, vomit-green color. I said "no" instinctively and then muttered an incoherent "and tell your friend to...park...mutter....room..." and kept walking.

As I took a few small steps further, comprehension started to dawn. Okay, not only were these men NOT in fact employees, students, parents of students, etc., they were FUCKING PROSELYTIZERS. And A FUCKING PROSELYTIZER TOOK UP NOT ONE, BUT TWO, PREMIUM PARKING SPOTS AT THE PLACE WHERE I WORK.

And as I walked, I got madder and madder. And more mad and more mad. And I decided, fuck it. See hour, insane earliness of. And so I walked back. I tripped on my heels a bit as I walked over, and the men saw me. But luckily this was walking to them, not walking away.

"Hi," I said to them. "Me again. Are you affiliated with the university?"

Just wanted to check that they weren't, you know, part of a student faith group or something, which would be a bit different.

The man didn't answer the question (evasive, changing the subject -- confirmation of my suspicions), saying, "We're from the Gideon society."

Okay, hotels, Gideon bibles, got it, I think.

"See your car over there?" I say. "See how's it four feet behind MY car, the purplish/bluish one? You're left all the space and now no one else can park there. That's a spot that students or people who actually work here could use."

The man gets all cutesy and condescending to me. "Well you see," he says, "little lady" unsaid but hanging in the air, "if I'd parked as close as YOU parked to the car in front of YOU then you wouldn't have been able to get out."

"I could get out just fine!" I say, for a moment not quite understanding him.

"Have a nice day," he says, once again employing the "let's condescendingly change the subject and not actually address the subject" tactic.

I stalk away.

I wish I'd ended the exchange in a more dignified way, explaining that no one who isn't disabled/disturbed would have trouble backing out of a space with a QUARTER of the space he had "politely" left me. And that it's actually polite to park a little tightly and make sure the maximum amount of people can use an area where demand is really, really high. ESPECIALLY IF YOU DON'T WORK THERE. AND ARE THERE ESPECIALLY TO SPREAD RELIGIOUS BELIEFS ON A CAMPUS THAT IS PUBLICLY FUNDED.

What I really wish I'd said was this:

"Oh, I'm sorry. Am I annoying you? Is it annoying when someone comes up to you while you're trying to do something else and forces their opinion on you? Yeah. Think about that."

A rant -- sorry, few will hear it.

Okay, I just have to say something. And as pretty much no one reads this, so oh well.

But I am fucking sick and tired of hearing Americans complain about how "their tax dollars" are being used to "bail out rich people that caused the collapse" and how they want to tar and feather corporate executives. And Frank Rich's article about how this outrage over AIG bonuses and lack of transparency in the distribution of stimulus dollars is Obama's "Katrina moment," just made my feelings boil over.

I'm as opposed to the horrible, secretive, inefficient corporate culture as anyone. I too think our economic policies of the last couple decades have been worse than useless (and, I'm sorry to say this, I know how it makes me sound, but I've BEEN opposed to those policies long before most of the Americans who are now bitching have been).

I for sure felt a sense of vindication Alan Greenspan admitted his was "fundamentally mistaken" about his assumption that financial markets would regulate themselves; I rejoiced that his horrible, Ayn Randian policies have been proven to be, well, wrong. Markets don't fucking regulate themselves. Everyone pursuing their own self interest DOESN'T result in a solution that is optimal (and don't quote game theory at me -- think about it for five seconds and get back to me).

But here's the thing, Americans: where is your sense of responsibility in all this mess? Why pick NOW to get all outraged and say it's "not you," and your "tax dollars" shouldn't be used for all this bailing out of corporations and rich executives and that you demand transparency in government and economics and that making money isn't a good thing in and of itself and that people should think of the common good?

Wake up call: who voted for politicians that supported this culture of executive and corporate secrecy and pursuit of money and self interest and deregulation? YOU DID. Who supported Bush and Regan and politicians that supported deregulation and pursuit of free enterprise and self-interest at all costs? YOU DID. Who, for that matter, bought Ayn Rand's fucking books? YOU DID. Are we are a republic or aren't we? IF YOU VOTED FOR THE PEOPLE THAT PROMOTED THE CURRENT POLICIES THAT ARE FUCKING US than hey, guess what? This IS your fault, not the fault of people WHO HAVE ONLY BEEN IN CHARGE FOR A MATTER OF FUCKING MONTHS.

Stop fucking evading responsibility. Stop blaming everything on "greedy executives" and "greedy politicians" -- guess what? YOU ARE PART OF THE CULTURE THAT CREATED THIS. You voted for people who told you that businesses should be left alone to do their thing; you voted for people who told you to slash organizations that helped the common good; you shopped at Wal-mart and bought bad stocks and said greed was good and voted for Regan and the Bushes. So you basically said that these kind of policies were fine by you.

And now, you're conforming to every single horrible stereotype of Americans and avoiding subtly and self-sacrifice and thoughtful consideration in favor of blind outrage that ignores the complex REALITY of the situation in favor of the simple "we're right and a select group of EVIL PEOPLE are wrong" rhetoric that has so comprised America in the eyes of the world. Stop blaming everything on someone else. If we're all in this together -- if we truly have democratic principles -- that we will stick by the people we elected. We will acknowledge our mistakes. We will contribute to the COMMON good and stop fucking bitching about it.

The most revealing part of Frank Rich's article is this:

Since Americans get the big picture of this inequitable system, that grotesque reality dwarfs any fine print. That’s why it doesn’t matter that the disputed bonuses at A.I.G. amount to less than one-tenth of one percent of its bailout. Or that CNBC — with 300,000 viewers on a typical day by Nielsen’s measure — is a relatively minor player in the crash. Or that Edward Liddy had nothing to do with A.I.G.’s collapse, or that John Thain, of the celebrated trash can, arrived after, not before, others wrecked Merrill Lynch.

These prominent players are just the handiest camera-ready triggers for the larger rage. Passions are now so hot that even Bernie Madoff’s crimes began to pale as we turned our attention to A.I.G.’s misdeeds, just as A.I.G. will fade when the next malefactor surfaces.

That's exactly it, right? We're ignoring the fine print. We're blaming people in charge now, rather than acknowledging, "hey we voted for and encouraged all those people that fucked us." We're demanding INSTANT RESULTS rather than than giving those now in charge any time at all to change and rectify the policies of the last TWO TO THREE DECADES IF NOT LONGER.

At the end of his article, Frank Rich acknowledges, briefly, that perhaps ignoring the big picture in favor of demonizing Obama because it's convenient might be a bad thing:

As the nation’s anger rose last week, the president took responsibility for what’s happening on his watch — more than he needed to, given the disaster he inherited. But in the credit mess, action must match words. To fall short would be to deliver us into the catastrophic hands of a Republican opposition whose only known economic program is to reject job-creating stimulus spending and root for Obama and, by extension, the country to fail. With all due deference to Ponzi schemers from Madoff to A.I.G., this would be the biggest outrage of them all.

Yeah, fucking exactly, Frank Rich. Thanks for putting that as an afterthought to your article about "populist rage." Blaming Obama and those who are in charge is shortsighted. It delivers us into the hands of THE VERY PEOPLE WHO GOT US INTO THIS MESS WHO HAVE NO REAL PLAN TO GET US OUT OTHER THAN SITTING THERE AND CRITIQUING OBAMA. That is a scam, a scheme, a manipulation.

So stop feeding the "populist rage." Start acknowledging that a manipulation of "populist rage," got us into huge messes in the first place. Passions are easy to stir; complex, long-term solutions are much more difficult, and involve rolling up your sleeves and getting your hands dirty. If you critique Obama for even DEALING with people who are part of the problem, then you resign him to doing nothing: sitting in the Oval Office and feeling smugly superior. That's not the same as Mike Brown and Katrina. Obama has been in office for months, not years. And what he's dealing with is the result of YEARS of policies that the American people have come out and said they supported, time and again.

So let's be American for once. Let's be self-sufficient and innovative and responsible unto ourselves. Let's not be whiney and intolerant and act like mysterious governmental and corporate figures are responsible for our problems. Okay?