the recession

i have no way to relate to the recession.  i believe that when things are talked about enough, they become real, they gain substance in the collective consciousness.  but for me, its hard to find something in my material life, some object or sign through which to relate to the recession.  i have no totemic piece of the crisis.  

someone picked me up a few weeks ago and said that many psychics say maui will be a good place to be when the world goes crazy.  someone else told me the other day that hawaii is the most isolated land mass in the world.  so, i don't know if it's spiritual or geographical but i'm very grateful for my isolated place of peace.

my only portal to the depressed reality of the hegemonic world is through my computer.  i've started reading the new york times and sometimes i watch day-old episodes of the daily show.  i also get day-old cobbler from the coffee shop sometimes, but that's a different and more delicious story.  last night (that is, my last night, your two nights ago), brian williams was the guest on the daily show.  in a nice twist of fate, brian williams was also the commencement speaker at my college graduation.  so, here was the icon of my beginning, my entrance into the real, political world and the guy was completely freaked out.  it disturbed me.  he seemed like he was all jacked up on something, but the more i watched him, the more i realized that the guy had been born again in the panic of what he reports every night on the news.  

at my graduation, brian williams said that we were the generation that was going to change the world.  that the world needed us and was ready for us.  but last night (your two nights ago) he said on national television, that the latest reports show that 125 banks are going to close in the next year.  that means, 125 bank chains, the names that are on people's debit cards, are going to go belly up and the cards won't do anything.  to this john stewart quipped, 

"so let me get this straight, because it seems like you just said, on national television, that people should take their money out of the banks and put it in shoe boxes."

then they just kind of stared at each other.  and brian williams didn't say anything.  and john stewart didn't say anything.  

it freaked me out.  

but then the sun rose over the ocean this morning.