LaLaLaLaLaLaLaLaLaLaLaLa --

That's what our leaders and economists must be doing, with fingers in ears, ad infinitum.

How can the powers that be pretend our economy is doing OK? July's American home foreclosure rate is absolutely mortifying --

-- which has to be creating untold homeless, as well. But don't let me get going.

Just -- well, a lot of people are really hurting right now, some through stupidity, some through being naive, some through trickery, some through ill luck and bad timing, some due to disaster (e.g., storms, fire, floods, etc.), some through absolutely no fault of theirs. It only takes one family or individual medical disaster, like an accident, to spin a household into fiscal ruin. We're in a precarious period in American history, without a sane or caring captain at the helm.

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No two ways about it, Marj and I lucked out with the house purchase/house sale and move when we did. I've got a couple of friends struggling to buy their own places now, and the past two weeks have tossed a major hand grenade into their efforts. We count our lucky stars and are grateful for the planning we did do and have done since, and hope it all continues to work out. 'Work' being the operative word...

I've been shy on posting the past few days because I'm working my ass off multitasking on various duties pre-Center for Cartoon Studies new school year, which starts September. Marj is already back to work, so I've jumped on doing a procession of home chores including, yesterday, painting another section of the basement floor in prep for another chunk of contractor work on that monumental project.

I'm also trying my best to empty the second of the three storage areas we rented last winter to facilitate the move from Marlboro to Windsor. If all goes well, we'll be down to just one rental storage space by September 1st, but the wear and tear on my mortal shell is beginning to tell. Still, I think it's do-able, so I keep at it every day. Bit by bit, the new home and work spaces are coming together.

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I'm grieved to read today on Neil's excellent blog that the venerable World Weekly News has closed up shop (check out Neil's Saturday, August 18, 2007 post),

so I'm rushing out amid errands to pick up a copy of the final issue. Sniff.

Oddly enough, just before reading Neil's news on this, I was sifting through my stack of WWW back issues, putting together an assignment for the coming CCS fall semester (in which the students work in groups to create their own tabloid newspaper cover, as prep for comic cover assignments). Thus, the inevitable wave of nostalgia that swept over me while reading Neil's post (multiplied twofold after reading his comments on Len Wein and The Phantom Stranger), and my craving for one -- more -- hit.

Newspapers in general are in a sorry lot in the 21st Century, and the termination of the tabloid insanity of the World Weekly News marks another dire form of foreclosure.

I reckon that alien won't get to snog Hilary in the White House again, after all.

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Speaking of Hilary and the White House...

Journalist/writer G. Michael Dobbs has posted his recent interview with Senator (and Democratic Presidential candidate) Mike Gravel here at Mike's site (the Monday, August 20, 2007 post), which is well worth a read.

The campaign to limit participants in the debates is on, which frustrates the hell out of me. What part of the democratic process can remain democratic? Kudos to Gravel for sticking to it, and here's my first reminder to every one of you reading this to make sure you're registered to vote -- and that you indeed vote in the upcoming 2008 election. Don't let the insane early campaigning burn you out!

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I've gotten a few emails noting problems posting comments on this (and other) blogs; I'll see what we can do from here, thanks and sorry!

Have a great Tuesday...