Stop Pointing the Finger

The U.S. credit rating was downgraded Friday night by Standard & Poor's. Initially, the company said the U.S.'s ">debt ceiling compromise fell short by $2 trillion. Not so, says, an economic advisor in the Treasury department. The ratings agency stood in judgement, acknowedged it's mathematical error, and pointed its finger anyway, saying the nation's politicians took too long to reach a deal.
So which is it S&P? Are you trying to make a point about our ability as a nation to pay our bills or are you you yourself playing politics, the same thing you've accused our D.C. legislators of?
Our great leaders have done enough finger-pointing leading up to the compromise. We don't need some ratings agency, who by the way gave its AAA stamp of approval to risky mortgage-backed securities and crooked financial firms a few years back, to remind the nation there's a great deal of work to be done to further shore up our financial future.
To S&P I say stop pointing the finger and roll in the mud with the rest of us trying to limp through tough financial times.

American-ness

Lately, it’s been suggested that I might not be American enough. The reason? Partly because I am fan of ABC’s daytime television shows—namely soap operas. When I heard the network was planning to cancel two shows I was quite disheartened. I immediately joined the Facebook rally to boycott show advertisers until they threw their support behind keeping the shows on the air. (Thanks Hoover!)

When someone close to me asked why am I spending my free time Facebooking to save soap operas and not say, “other more important problems facing this country” I explained it this way: for 52 minutes a day it’s all about me. I’m not a wife, a friend, a colleague, aunt or anything else to anyone. It’s my time to immerse myself into a world where the drama flows freely and no one ever wears the same clothes twice. In short, it’s not the world in which I live. And I’m OK with that.

So I guess the question I should be asking this person in my life, is what defines an ‘American’ or their 'American-ness?' Is it the causes they support? And what are those important causes? And how do we measure –by what scale—do we rank the importance in how much attention we pay to them? Where does saving the whales, for example, rank on this scale of important causes? What about the national debt? Illegal immigration? Read my November 2010 blog post "NJ Slayings Underscore Need for Immigration Reform." How about mentioning the highest levels of unemployment rates this country hasn’t seen since the great depression? Trust me. Unemployment is high on my list of pet causes since I was once one of those people out of work.

Having listed just a few things I’m currently passionate about, I’m proud to be a soap opera-watching-anti-illegal immigration-save-the-whales-and-reduce-high-unemployment-rates-among-other-issues-AMERICAN!