Ladies and Gents, Dead Cat Looks at the News


National News: The AP reported today that NEA (National Endowment for the Arts) has entered into a new program with the U.S. Department of Defense to bring live opera to 39 military bases around the nation. At recent performances at Fort Carson, CO and Picatinny Arsenal in Wharton, NJ, the performances proved so popular that opera goers actually had to be turned away at the door.

So for all of you cynics and rock and roll snobs out there all I have to say is

Phhhhhhhhttttttt!!!!

Let me rephrase that. As you can see it isn't just fops and dandies or ivy-league intellectuals who are enjoying opera these days. These performances were for soldiers - grizzled, battle-hardened soldiers. People like John Wayne or Lee Marvin or Demi Moore (?) who've looked death in the eye and spit in it's face, and yet still break down and bawl like babies when Si, Mi chiamano Mimi is sung. Ah, this was the best news I've heard all year. You see you don't have to be a nerd to love opera. Manly men and hearty women like it too.

But then that's not the only opera news that was made recently. I'm sure you heard about the Drew Barrymore-Fabrizio Moretti incident at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. According to Fabrizio, the couple got bored at a performance of "La Boheme" and decided to sneak off to the ladies room for an intimate and romantic moment. Knowing the kind of passions that Italian opera can ignite I was not suprised by the whole affair, but others, reading about it in US Magazine, were shocked. Of course longtime Letterman fans know that Drew has never been what you would call a shrinking violet, so I say, considering Ms. Barrymore's high spirits, all of you opera goers should just forget the whole thing and be happy the couple decided to do it in the ladies room and not up there on the stage.

Anyways, when I heard the news I immediately got curious and logged onto Rhapsody to listen to a few tracks by Moretti's band The Strokes. All I can say Fabrizio is, well, I'm sorry you were bored, but you know people have been coming to hear Puccini's music for over a hundred years now and they'll still be listening long after bland, middle-of-the-road, post punk pop bands like The Strokes are no more than little italicized footnotes in peoples distant teenybopper pasts.

Besides, I was listening to Father Roderick today and even he, it turns out, is a big opera fan. And Father Roderick is very cool, probably the hippest catholic since JFK. So if it's good enough for the Marines, if it's good enough for The Catholic Insider, then it's certainly good enough for me. And I could care less if nerds like Fabrizo Moretti can't catch on.

State News: Last week the California Air Resources Board classified second hand smoke as a toxic pollutant. This is seen as the first step towards further regulation of smoking in California. Although some environmental activists have declared that the door is now open for an outright smoking ban in the state, the CARB is likely to take a more cautious approach. No one knows exactly what they will do, but most agree that eventually smoking will be banned in all public areas (both indoors and outdoors), in and around public buildings (no more groups of smokers taking their breaks in front of the office), inside automobiles, and in all apartments and condominiums.

The only reason I bring this up is because, as you know, in California it is legal to sell and possess marijuana for medicinal purposes. If these new smoking regulations are passed (as is widely expected), then in a few years California may be the only place in the world where smoking pot is legal and smoking cigarettes isn't.

I tell ya', things don't get anymore "California" than that.

Economic News: The national savings rate just dropped to it's lowest level since the Great Depression at -0.5%. For those of you like me who were never very good at math, that means that Americans are now spending more than they earn and are doing so at the highest rate since the 1930's, which were not very good economic times. Conversely, household net worth in the U.S. stands at a record $51 trillion. Which means what, exactly.

Apparently, we're spending more, savings less, and getting richer doing it. That's one of them there paradox things, you see. The more we spend, the more money we have. Still, you gotta think that things can't go on like that forever. And let me add this to the mix. We're the richest nation on earth and yet each year we are exporting more and more of our wealth overseas, particulary to Asia. So how does any of this make any sense? How long can we continue to spend what we don't have and export what we do have overseas? Doesn't it seem like sooner or later you gotta balance the books?

Well, I'm no economist.

In further economic news, Exxon today reported profits in the 4th quarter of 2005 of $10.71 billion and total profits for the year of $36.13 billion. Look for members of Congress to start screaming bloody murder later this week with new hearings and studies to follow. Ho-hum. As Louis Rukeyser, the great and former host of PBS' Wall Street Week used to remark, why is it that when the price of oil goes up the Congress always wants to hold hearings on the oil companies obscene profits, but when the price of oil goes down they never want hold hearings on the oil companies obscene losses.

Like I said, I'm no economist but I do think I understand this supply and demand thing a little. You see if I have something - say a shoebox full of Pete Domenici bumper stickers, for example - and no one wants 'em. That means no one wants to buy them and they have very little monetary value. However, if all of a sudden Pete Domenici bumper stickers start getting popular and everybody wants 'em, then everybody wants to buy them and their monetary value goes up. In the former case, I end up with a box full of useless political paraphanalia, and in the latter case I get filthy rich. Isn't oil a little like that? They got a hot commodity, people are willing to pay big bucks for it, and they're getting rich. Sheesh, if you don't like it then buy a Prius.

If Walter Cronkite was doing this blog that's what he'd tell you.