Sure, I’m upset about Bristol Palin making the finals.  Not that I give a rat’s ass about who wins or loses on Dancing With the Stars or American Idol or America’s Got Talent; those popularity contests are just slightly more representative of what they purportedly celebrate than say, theGrammy’s or the Emmy’s.  What upsets me is that of the three boldest headlines for the week, DWTS, (and sidebars, like the guy who shot-gunned his TV), was first, W’s book, (and the eventual library that will enshrine it), came in second followed by the ballooning national debt…oh, I meant until Prince William and Kate announced their engagement which not only trumped everything else but preempted most prime time programming.  GM squeaked in at the end with their IPO, but since they won’t be using the windfall to repay the bailout or rehire a significant amount of the workforce they abandoned, they can just go Volt themselves!

I’m up for a good diversion as much as anyone but we are one dysfunctional Congress away from having it all crumble down around us.  There may not be any more TV and then we’d have to revert to coloring books and, god forbid, reading, and there’s probably not enough pre-eighth-grade material to go around.  If we cared as much for the stuff that matters, like voting in real elections instead of just the TV ones, just possibly we could eliminate the talk about 2014 being too soon to pull out of Afghanistan or dismantling the entitlement programs intended to make us healthier and more civil human beings.  Maybe we could consider taking a quick look at regulating Hydro-fragging before we irreversibly poison our water supply, (if we can get permission from the boys at Halliburton).

I’ve always held, (a little too tightly perhaps) to the philosophy that fixing it ‘all’ was the only sane solution.  So, the not-fixing-anything reality has not exactly worked out for me.  But, I had an epiphany this week.  I’m in the process of making the area around my desk perfect in every way; neat, clean, an ergonomic wonderland.  Can you imagine if everyone took a day or two to get their area in order?  I’m not sure how it would impact on global warming or unemployment, but I’m certain it would be way more significant than any of the week’s big headlines.