Today, the newspapers are largely reporting the latest iterations in ongoing news stories. One sign of a low-news day is reliance upon police scans to fill space. We are also getting snow in January. The fight for the District 2 Buncombe County Commissioner seat is not over. Even more boring is knowledge that the legislature is still trying to deliver public utilities to the Metropolitan Sewerage District for nebulous moral reasons. At one point, somebody said Representative Tim Moffitt wanted to legislate Asheville’s water system into the hands of the MSD to end the public controversy, which, in the minds of most citizens, was dead at the time.

In the national news, the president is overreaching his executive powers to satisfy a his own demand for remote, time-delayed responses to mass violence. Every peon knows crazy desperados can get around any security measure. Government tells us the racist, misogynist pigs who wrote the Constitution were wrong in believing (for the third time on this blog) the best defense is self-defense. Former presidential candidate Michael Badnarik said he believed in capital punishment two seconds before capital crimes are committed. Washington’s approach is to continue to use babies as fodder while appointees conclude illogical legislation with heartstring appeal is the best way to get their fellow partisans re-elected. The collateral damage is an aggregation of power tempting to maniacs who crave political fame and widespread control – which is fine, because anybody who believes this world could produce a tyrant suffers right-wing paranoid delusions.

Mass media outlets are telling us we’re incensed that Lance Armstrong doped his way to medals. But when people take antidepressant stimulants known to produce aggression and suicidal tendencies, before perpetrating supernatural atrocities, we are told we must lay down our arms and become vulnerable. ‘Tis better to misdiagnose a kid who feels a little blue and overprescribe him with kamakaze side effects, than to make him face the sometimes disappointing music of life.

If a Ph.D. won’t cooperate with the right to pursue never-ending ecstasy, there are street drugs and cheap gas-station varieties strong enough to make athletes keel over. Contrary to popular opinion, people in public housing and on food stamps do have money to buy drugs. Some believe they must work before play, and others believe the working class must subsidize their perpetual play. Some adulate the slut culture Hollywood foists upon them with its drugs, alcohol, and other traditions formerly deemed destructive to society. Others are slaves, working extra hard to pay taxes to provide a host of social services for those who choose to party first.

What’s my point? I am guessing about 1% of the population foresees economic collapse, and people are not very kind to each other when relative deprivation strikes. A few ask, “Where’s the outcry?” and I propose it is flooded out by the seratonin that isn’t being reuptaken.