Palin continues to yammer on about being a "maverick" and a "reformer" and I think it's cute.  It's like when my nephew puts on his little OshKosh B'Gosh's and a hat and calls himself a "cowboy".  Obama continues shelling out support in that "I"m just broken up about having to do this" way that Democrats use to have their base and eat it too.  Bush threatens financial apocalypse, Cheney keeps stroking a cat in his hollowed-out volcano, and McCain tries to buy himself a few days to suck air from a paper bag and wait for his do-over.

Rich people lost imaginary money last week.  I know it's more complicated than that, but on my level of the socio-economic ladder I very rarely catch a glimpse of the dream or what that's like, so I can only surmise from the photos of Wall Street bulls clutching their foreheads (which is hilarious btw) that they aren't having an easy go.

And on top of this bailout, consuming close to a trillion dollars, the McCain folks are leading the charge to let this kerfuffle consume the spectacle of the American political coliseum that is the great debate.  I think I speak for all of us, Republican and Democrat, when I say that I was looking forward all week to seeing these two filthy dogs tear into each other for our amusement.  Nothing allows the tired citizen a better way to vent than betting on fighting pigs.  In a way it hurts McCain on a deeper, more limbic part of the voter psyche when he tries shutting down this prize fight like a nanny reaching for the remote.  The mob wants to see somebody fed to the lions.

And I was sure that Obama would respond to his proposal by making chicken noises.  I mean, c'mon, who wouldn't call McCain out on this act but somebody who is as much of a complete tool?  Amirite?

Sure enough, a bunch of rich pigs losing some money is enough to bring the entire world to a screeching halt.  And what I find to be a fascinating look into who we are as a people is the way this Wall Street crisis is being treated.  You would have thought with all this grandiosity and call to country that there had been a natural disaster or another terrorist attack.  Surely we're not treating a bad day on the stock market the same way we would treat a horrible, gut-wrenching loss of life, are we?  Nothing died this past week but fairness and the belief that all our needs are equal.  But you can't really call for a moment of silence on something that you helped suffocate years ago.  I would make a joke about how the Red Cross should set up an 800 number that we can use to donate money to the rich families affected by what happened on Wall Street last week but then I remember this bailout and it fills me with homicidal rage.

If change comes from the bottom up, it appears that true leadership should follow that path as well.  What I don't see at this moment is the working class figure really sticking it to government and Wall Street for all us regular folks.  In earlier days that would have been a Martin Luther King Jr. or a Cesar Chavez.  Or in some simpler version, a Michael Moore.  (back when Corporate Crime was his beat...before went crazy and said things about hurricanes being a gift from God against Republicans).

I'm waiting for the guy named Jacques One who has a blueprint of the Bastille and a plan.  Until then I'm voting for the ticket of Coffee/Cigarettes.  That ticket actually does something to help me through each day.