perspective

[dchenes]

I've started reading French newspapers online to get myself used to reading French again. It's interesting reading news from a point of view that doesn't involve "homeland security" and "Bush can do no wrong" and "the economy is fine, never mind the stock market" and all that stuff the American media is force-feeding us. Sure, the French newspapers have articles about the stock market and the Middle East too, but they don't have the militant pro-Israel stance we've got over here, and they don't have the same level of economic panic we seem to have. I've given up reading about the economy because right next to an article that says "oh, look, we're recovering" is usually an article that says "Panic! The economy is worse off than we thought!" Make up your minds already, willya?

I just hope we still have a country worth running by the time we get around to deciding who gets to run it next. In a perfect world, we'd get to choose among candidates with functioning brains. (And pigs would fly, and dreams would come true, and everybody I know who lost their job in the dot-com implosion would find a new and better job.)