Strangeness
-- that we are on the edge of a financial melt-down while loosing two wars with a president who is totally ignored while he fiddles while it all burns (like Buchanan as much as Nero) and ... there is nothing going on in the street: no demonstrations, no anger, nothing. No panic either. If there are big layoffs in the works, that's not getting publicity either. Though, apparently, the company run by one person McCain pumped for Treasury Secretary just laid off 10,000 workers (eBay).
-- that Paris Hilton, running her campaign for fake president seems more weighty than McCain (she has a video now where she askes Martin Sheen for advice on how to play a fake president, pretty droll ....)
-- that you can shout "kill him" in reference (apparently) to a presidential candidate and the only people who take notice are the Secret Service.
-- that the rise of militarism is going unnoticed (the relentless focus on praising soldiers as the only ones who serve, the use of the opinions of generals to decide geo-political strategy, the reduction of US foreign policy to a series of claims about who we will attack).
-- that Obama has never really said much about what he will do to fix the financial problems and we're all happy about that. (It's not a bad strategy for him at this point, keep options open, but ....)
-- and that I just spent 45 minutes watching "Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-long blog" on the advice of a student who sent me an somewhat insulting email. (It's fairly funny, it's by Josh Whedon, it's free on the web) Is this another pop culture thing I'm behind the times on?