Damn this recession sucks balls. I’m no economist, but I am a normal tax-paying citizen who has been financially ass-raped over the course the past year. And that’s without a car! Because of the Bush administration’s hatred of all things science and research, my think tank could only afford to give me a measly 4% pay raise this summer. Meanwhile everything from veggie burgers to tampons have risen in price, and I’ve had to become a lot less picky about what I put in both orifices. It’s been so bad I had to take a second job tutoring for the SATs. But even that hasn’t helped much. Everyone is suffering from this recession, which means there are fewer families that can afford tutors. And tutoring is the only reasonably paying second job available for someone with no experience waiting tables and too much self respect to resort to prostitution.

My financial distress has major repercussions. I have to move out of my apartment because I can no longer afford the rent. Hopefully I’ll be able to find a place that accepts cats and isn’t roach-infested or void of natural sunlight (or worst of all, located in the Commonwealth of Virginia - no offense to my co-authors). I don’t have the money to buy local organic foods, as I would like; ramen is now a staple rather than a last resort. I imagine many other environmentally conscious consumers have also had to compromise their morals for their survival, which means less money is going to honest and decent farmers trying to make a living without suckling the USDA teat. I am unable to go to many concerts, movies, or other economy-stimulating activities. And, what’s probably the most frustrating consequence at this particular moment – I have to take the Chinatown bus to Philadelphia to visit my parents because I cannot shell out $100 for Amtrak. I’m on the bus as I write this post, wobbling precariously to and fro on the Baltimore Turnpike as the stench of BO and urine permeates the air. I wish they served beer – not that I could afford one.


I don’t want it to sound as though I am whining. I realize I am probably spoiled compared to many other Americans that are suffering more severely from the recession. I have a decent job and a roof over my head (for now) and food in my tummy (for now). I am only sharing my story because I think a lot of people can relate - People like me who were too young during the last recession to actually feel it personally, and who grew up with the promise that if we went to college and tired our best, we’d be better off than previous generations. Well now we’re not kids anymore, and our university campuses no longer shelter us. Now we’re in the real world, and in a real economic downtown, and it fucking hurts like hell.

I can’t help but look to the presidential race for answers in this time of need. I realize that no one person can control the entire economy, but where is that prosperity and opportunity that President Bush promised us in 2000? It certainly hasn’t “trickled down” to me, and with the financial crisis on Wall Street it looks like it hasn’t even lasted for the richest of the rich. Is our economy in such bad shape because we’re squandering money in Iraq? Did a lack of regulation cause the financial market to go belly-up? Did the tax cuts for the wealthy merely result in less income for the government instead of reinvestment in the economy? I have a feeling a combination of all these factors has conspired to bring about our current situation. Again, I’m no expert. But I know one thing for certain – Bush’s way obviously doesn’t work. If it did, I’d be on an Amtrak train right now sipping on a Bloody Mary. Normal folks like us are getting screwed under the current system. And there’s a not a lick of difference between Bush and McCain. They both have the same staunch philosophy of no government, no taxes, no spending, and no regulation, ever. Except for unnecessary and ill-planned wars, in which case let’s spend like drunken sailors and castigate anyone who disagrees with us. Oh yeah, and your bedroom. They definitely want government all up in that. Don’t have sex unless it’s for the sole purpose of procreation, in the context of a heterosexual Church-sanctioned marriage. And whatever you do, don’t be gay! Who cares if you’re dirt poor, as long as them damn homosexuals aren’t prancing around the streets?

Seriously? Do we really need another second of this bullshit, let alone 4 more years?

I’m not arguing that Barack Obama is a miracle worker. I don’t expect things to magically get better overnight. But for fuck’s sake, after 8 years of failure on everything from the economy to foreign policy, don’t we at least deserve a chance to make it better? We need to go in a different, more promising direction. If nothing else, Barack Obama represents a new worldview, which is sorely needed at this time. I can’t live off of ramen for the rest of my life, and the US food market won’t sustain itself if everyone is buying ramen from China. And not to keep knocking on China, but this bus is sketchtastic.

So please, vote for Barack Obama. After all, voting is free. We can definitely afford that. But we can’t afford another Republican president. Trickle down economics is just as it sounds - piss - like the smell of a Chinatown bus.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

A Pedestrian's Plea

There are not many benefits to living in Washington D.C. The rent is astronomical. The people are tools. We don’t have representation in Congress. There are rats – flagrant rats that appear out of nowhere, demanding cheese like drug addicted homeless people. But to the city’s credit, it is very accessible. I have acquired sleeker and sexier thighs from the sheer amount of walking I do on a daily basis. I can walk to all the important places I frequent - grocery stores, bars, and my boyfriend’s house. Any place I can’t access by foot is merely a short metro ride away, at least on Monday-Friday (and where else to go on weekends but grocery stores, bars, and one’s boyfriend’s house). My perambulation serves as a source of exercise, meditation, and an act environmental conscientiousness.

Unfortunately, not everyone in the district is so keen on walking. Despite being rated as the second worst metropolitan area for traffic congestion, exorbitant fuel prices, and my previous observation that no one should need to drive in the city, there are a considerable amount of motorists on the streets of Washington D.C. And they’re all assholes.

Before living in D.C., there were only 2 times in my entire life (28 years at that point) that I was within seconds of death. One time, in early childhood, was at the aquarium in Baltimore, when I almost fell in the shark tank (they’ve since secured the area). The second time, in my adolescence, was when a hot iron almost fell on my face. Yet in just over one year of residency in the district, I’ve had countless unwelcome reminders of my mortality. Motorists in this town run me down like lions chasing gazelles on the Serengeti.

Let me make something clear: I am a prudent pedestrian. I obey traffic signals and observe crosswalks. I don’t just dart out into the middle of a busy road whenever I feel like it. I work in public health – we’re safety freaks. In spite of my caution, I frequently find myself standing like a deer in headlights, face to face with a car careening toward me like a bat out of hell. I remain there, dumfounded, reminding my would-be manslaughter that the walk signal is on, or that I’m in the middle of a clearly designated crosswalk. I hear all kinds of obscenities in return. My roommate once had a man get out of the car and shout, “What’s it gonna be lie to be right and dead?”. I’ve never had anything that drastic occur, but I wouldn’t be the least be surprised if it were to happen. Drivers in this city are egomaniacal bullies with reckless disregard for the lives of us lowly pedestrians. It’s bad enough that they refuse to acknowledge the existence of crosswalks, traffic lights, and other institutions of safety and order. But they add insult to injury by accusing ME of wrongdoing, when I’m clearly a) at the mercy of their death machines and b) a damn good upstanding citizen because I’m not polluting the air or supporting terrorist oil regimes. So put that in your exhaust pipe and smoke it, drivers.

I’m not sure what it is about D.C. in particular that makes the drivers so selfish and sadistic. I imagine it’s simply a byproduct of the general mentality of people in this city – a delusion of grandeur that they are so important that they must get where they’re going immediately, no matter whom they squish along the way. Glued to their blackberries (even while driving), they push their way around with wanton neglect for the safety of others. They can’t be bothered by crosswalks and traffic lights – they can afford high-powered attorneys to get them acquitted should they happen to commit vehicular homicide. Global warming? Terrorism? Oil dependency? These issues pale in comparison with the immediate comfort and convenience of self-anointed VIPs in the District of Columbia.

Another reason I surmise that people insist in driving in this scalable metropolis is that they are simply fat and lazy. This problem is not just endemic to the District of Columbia, it is a plague affecting our entire nation. One need look no farther than the fanny-pack clad tourists littering our Metro system (and I thank them for at least using public transit instead of renting cars) or grazing about the Pentagon City Mall to realize that America is morbidly obese. It’s a Catch 22 – they drive because they are fat, and thus they never lose weight because they don’t get off their fat asses to walk. Pretty soon they’ll all be flying around in lounge chairs with computers granting their every wish, ala Wall E. I can’t even imagine how urban planners will respond to this new traffic conundrum, but I know healthy, earth-loving pedestrians like me are going to have to look more than 2 ways when crossing the streets.

Here are the morals I’d like you to take away from this post, if you care to derive any valuable message. If you drive in D.C., take a serious inventory of your life and determine if you are driving out of necessity, ego, or laziness. If either of the later are the case, STOP DRIVING!!! You will save yourself some money, and get some much needed exercise. If you absolutely need to drive in D.C., please calm the fuck down. Put on NPR, classical music, smooth jazz – whatever it takes to reduce your unfounded angst. Observe crosswalks and traffic lights, and be patient as we pedestrians cross the street. After all, we’re saving your lives with our carbon neutrality.

And if you’re a fellow pedestrian like me, keep on shaking your ass. But watch yourself.

Friday, September 19, 2008

Back to School Special

On Wednesday evening, I did something I hadn’t done in 1 year and 3 months. I went to school.

Despite having obtained a Master’s Degree in June 2007, I have set on a masochistic course to purse a Ph.D in Public Health. The series of events and realizations that led to that decision are another story for another time. But essentially, in order prepare myself for Ph.D programs in my concentration (Health Economics and Health Policy), I need to brush up on my math. So I enrolled in the Math for Economists class at the USDA graduate school.

In the spirit of math, instead of giving you a verbal narration of my experience, I’ll give you a count:

Number of people in the class: 30
Number of people dressed in anything other than a suit or Ann Taylor “business casual” ensemble: 2 (myself and Turk’s friend John)
Number of Ben Bernake jokes made by professor: 1
Number of courtesy laughs in response to said Ben Bernake joke: 30
Number of AIG jokes made by professor: 1
Number of courtesy laughs in response to said AIG joke: 29 (I really don’t think, “If only the folks at AIG had remembered the National Income equation” is an amusing or even remotely relevant comment about America’s current financial woes)
Number of times douchebag at my table’s Blackberry vibrated during the class: 4
Number of times douchebag responded to Blackberry vibration via text message: 4
Number of times I glared at the douchebag: 5 (one was just for shits and giggles).
Number of beers I had after class to recover from the stereotypical D.C. self-aggrandizing masturbation fest: 3.25 (I drank some of my boyfriend’s while he was in the bathroom)

Well, it's official. I'm no longer a DC resident. That certainly doesn't mean I have to stop bitching, though. In fact, now that I live in Ballston, I'll have even more to bitch about (in a thinly veiled attempt to mask the fact that I'm rapidly becoming everything I hate). I'll skip all the usual "OMG NoVa IS FOR DOUCHEBAGS" stuff -- not that it's not mostly true -- and get right to the point. Rosslyn Metro station is perhaps the worst place on earth. And I say that as a person who has lived Uzbekistan (no offense to my Uzbeks bros). All that is unholy emanates from the subterranean dungeon that is Rosslyn. If I have to transfer trains here every morning and afternoon for the rest of my days in DC, then the chances of me killing someone are higher than the chances of Bristol Palin's marriage ending quickly and painfully (oh sorry, is Bristol still off limits?). And murder is only the second most likely scenario, the first being me committing seppuku.

Why? Rosslyn station never has more than one working escalator at any given time. Fools are tripping all over themselves running both ways. Once you manage to get to your transfer platform without getting trampled, then comes the arduous task of actually getting on the train. Most of the time, trains are spaced just far enough apart that every car will be packed to the brim with a sweaty, smelly clusterfuck of bodies. You will never get more than two inches of personal space. There is no air on any of the cars, either -- you'll breath only the stale exhalations of other passengers. Cars will be heated during the summer and air conditioned during the winter.

And the act of boarding the train is truly a test of one's mettle. It's where people really show what they're made of. There are two types of people at Rosslyn: the Douche Corridor (Courthouse/Clarendon/Va. Square/Ballston) folks who OMG HAVE TO GET ON THE TRAIN ASAP SO THEY CAN GET TO THE GYM EARLY ENOUGH TO FINISH CARDIO AND THEIR YOGA CLASS IN TIME TO START GETTING WASTED BY 7, and then there's the Pentagon Patriarchs whose TIME IS MUCH MORE IMPORTANT THAN YOURS and who have been SHOVING PUNKS LIKE YOU TO GET ON THE METRO FOR 30 YEARS. Either group is just as likely to spout catty, passive-aggressive shit at you if you deter their mission to board THIS FUCKING ORANGE LINE TRAIN RIGHT FUCKING NOW. Anyone who's ever tried to transfer at Rosslyn during rush hour knows exactly what I'm talking about. Unless you're one of those people, in which case you're fucking clueless.

I rode the Metro for the first week I was out here, and then I realized it was better for my health and the health of those around me if I never see that station again between the hour of 7:30-9:30am and 4:30-6:30pm. Fuck that shit. I'm taking the bus from now on. How else am I supposed to get to the gym before those Rosslyn suckers show up and take all the ellipticals?




Now that I have that off my chest, a few random notes:

1. Thanks again to The Sober Pundit for her witty and insightful political commentary and for holding down the fort while I was sans cable and internets.
2. Keep an eye out for a site revamp. We're hoping to make some pretty substantial changes to the layout soon, and we think you'll like it.
3. Buy the new Metallica album. Shameless plug, I know, but seriously... If you've ever liked any of their stuff, you owe yourself a trip to the record shop to pick up Death Magnetic. And if you don't like them, that's fine -- to each his own, but I don't want to hear it.

Saturday, September 6, 2008

Where's our review of McCain's speech?

I don't know about Turk or El Braixan, but I thought McCain's speech was such a snoozer that I don't think it warrants comment. Frankly, this "sober" pundit got drunk with her boyfriend and his roommate playing a drinking game where we had to guzzle some beer each time McCain said, "My friends" or "Warshington", and every time the crowd chanted "U.S.A.!" In the course of my hangover yesterday, I heard mixed reviews. But I doubt anything could compare to the rousing and inspirational speech Obama gave last week. All I know is that I can't wait for the debates!

By the way, my cat wrote an excellent guest piece on my friend's insightful and hillarious blog, Kitties and Boobies. Check it out!

O.K., Sarah Palin's daughter is off limits. But she's not. She's a public official, and now in line for the 2nd highest political office in the United States. So let's discuss the various reasons why she's a heinous succubus beast from hell:


1) She's a bad mother. I'm not talking about the fact that her daughter got pregnant - that's a private issue over which the public and the government should have no say. However, she knowingly subjected her already vulnerable 17-year old daughter to the spotlight by agreeing to be on McCain's ticket. I guess her own fame and fortune are more important than her daughter's welfare and happiness. I feel sorry for Bristol, especially because her baby daddy is clearly an asshat. The last thing she needs is media scrutiny, for which she has her opportunist mother to thank.

2) She's a bad governor. She strong armed the Alaska public safety commissioner into firing her ex brother-in-law, then fired him because he wouldn't capitulate to her unreasonable demands. Hell hath no fury like the governor-sister of a woman scorned! Can't Palin try just once to not set the women's rights movement back a few decades by making her politics personal, and portraying female leaders as vengeful bitches.

3) She's a bad mayor. Despite John McCain and Sarah Palin's public fulmination of pork barrel spending, Palin made sure to bring home the bacon to her Alaska home of 6700. She secured over $27 million in earmarks for wee Wasalia, Alaska. What the Christ could that town possibly need that's worth $27 million? All of the big cities in which I've resided (Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Washington D.C.) would shit bricks for that kind of money, and then use those bricks to build schools, health clinics, and other resources that would benefit far more people than the lucky few in her podunk hometown.

4) She's a bad person. She broke the news about her daughter's pregnancy while millions were fleeing the Gulf Coast in fear of another Hurricane Katrina. She thought the scandal would fall by the wayside. Well it didn't, and she should be ashamed for malevolently taking advantage of the plight of poor hurricane victims. And did you watch her speech? It was, as my friend Alexa describes, "nails on chalkboard." She said absolutely nothing of substance and instead spouted nasty insults about Barack Obama. I'm not saying the opponents shouldn't criticize one another, but there's a way to do it tastefully and constructively, and instead Sarah Palin chose to squawk like a pink monkey bird. She reminds me of a teacher I had in grade school, who was more concerned with flirting with the male students and fathers than teaching the class, and who despite my being the smartest and best behaved student in the class, still found a reason to give me detention. Bitch. Incidentally, this teacher got pregnant out of wedlock and was forced to marry the father in order to maintain her post at the Catholic school.

So let's review: Bad mother, bad governor, bad mayor, and bad person...and we're supposed to let her be a heartbeat away from the presidency, when the presidential candidate is probably hanging on by a heartbeat? I think America deserves better.

***Update: After referring to Sarah Palin as a succubus, I thought of the Succubus episode of South Park. Stan and Kyle rescue Chef from the clutch of the demon by singing her theme song "There's Got to Be a Morning After", backward. I wonder if we can do the same to defeat Sarah Palin. Who wants to attend her next rally in the D.C. area to give it a shot?