Black Lung

Let me review with relative brevity the day in my life and the nation. I've been getting down to working hard at writing, in advance of a deadline. I've still yet to start any wholly new projects, but I've been editing old stuff extensively, including old stuff that had been left only partially complete. That means a decent amount of actual creation of new prose and verse, in addition to simple line editing and rearrangement. So bully on me. I'm primarily a prose guy, but my self-esteem in regards to my verse output is up slightly. For some reason I just can't get a grip on writing accentual verse (da-DUM-da-DUM-da-DUM-da-DUM) but I can at least do syllabic verse (a set number of syllables per line. Sometimes rhyming, but more often not. Then there's the long-line prose-poem stuff that I've always been able to do, stuff that's like a Joyce-Whitman mash-up. Needless to say I'm only describing style here, not quality. I've been researching (if you call using wikipedia researching) some of these poetry subjects, which allows me to justify my limitations with big words and arcane facts. So my poems with 12-syllable lines? They're now alexandrines! And my syllabic, unaccented verse in general? I'm just working in more of the tradition of French poetry than English! Instant ego-boost.

I think I'm like Barack Obama in one respect though. Obama has said that he was a light smoker except when he was writing or campaigning. Well, I usually average two cigarettes a day, but now that I'm writing I've already had three and it's only 4:30 in the afternoon.

In national news: the proposed federal bail-out that could cost as much as a trillion dollars. Well, if our economic straits are really as dire as people say it may be necessary and the right thing to do. But the moderate/independent/sees-both-sides-of-every issue part of me wonders about the ramifications of setting this bail-out precedent. In the future, what's to keep companies and financial institutions from behaving irresponsibly if they have good reason to believe they can accept a bail-out when things go sour? It's a damned if you do, damned if you don't scenario, with the bail-out being probably the lesser of the two evils. Also: I have a gut feeling that people underestimate the extent to which our deficit and overall national debt is a drag on our economy. A trillion dollar bail-out isn't exactly going to help with that.

Here's what I propose: do the bail-out to keep the economy from tanking. But take a few dozen CEOs, CFOs, and board members out into the public square and execute them without trial. That should be a deterrent to something like this happening again.