Rantworthy?

I’ve been trying to work up a good rant, but everything is just so relentlessly…relentless.

How can you rant about a tidal wave? American media coverage that focuses on American aid is irritating. But let’s face it, it’s also predictable and at least the media does continue to cover the actual people who live there, which is more than one might have expected almost two weeks later.

The war? Oh god, I just can’t bear the war, the Iraqi elections, the explosions, the articles about Americans killed that make no mention of Iraqi deaths (this is not to privilege any deaths: I am devastated by all of them--especially living here in the heartland where M’s friends’ parents are in the National Guard and every local soldier who dies gets a full profile in the newspaper, and there have been way too many profiles). But I just can’t rant about it. Ranting takes anger, and, like the tsunami, the war just makes me too too sad. I’m angry too, but these days mainly I’m sad.

I actually could rant about Social Security. Paul Krugman says there isn’t really a Social Security crisis, and I tend to like Paul Krugman (though I’m not the best when it comes to economics, so what do I know…K, what does D think of Paul Krugman?). Plus, has anyone noticed that privatizing social security will not allow people to keep their money? It will allow people to give their money to investment banks and giant corporations. Hello?!?! This plan comes from the guys who are determined to bring back Calvin Coolidge and prove that “The business of America is business,” and people are once again buying the idea that they have our interests at heart? And let’s not even talk about the fact that Social Security was designed during the Depression to give people SECURITY in the face of economic collapse, not to help people make money.

But the thing is, Social Security isn’t really so rantable. It’s more a topic for dense arguments with footnotes and bar graphs, preferably in PowerPoint. And when we get to dense arguments with footnotes and bar graphs, preferably in PowerPoint, we’re out of my league.

I’m not going to rant about work. First, there’s the professional privacy thing. Second, I am newly resolved to let all professional annoyances, petty or grand, roll right off my back like water off a duck (which makes me think of that Jayhawks lyric, “Every time I see your face, it’s like cool, cool water running down my back,” which I just think is the most romantic thing ever, even though I have no idea what it means) (in fact, I think Smile is just one of the most romantic albums ever, even though J thinks it’s really about God). Anyways, no work rants.

So that’s about it: it’s January, everything sucks, we’re going to hell in a handbasket, and I can’t even work up the energy to rant about it. I think tomorrow I’ll go back to blogging about pleasant things in an effort to keep everyone’s spirits up. Or at least mine.

[Note: The HONEY Chocolate Cake is growing on me. I ate an entire piece last night.]