TV News LIES

The numbers are up:  We now have 50 million people in our country who are poor -- while online sales on Black Friday busted one billion bucks for the first time.

The increased stats on the poor stem from a new census measure that considers medical costs and work-related expenses. The new formula also means there are more people now living below the poverty line than in 2010 -- about 16% of the population.

Interestingly, online sales from November 1st this year are also up 16%  -- from the same period last year -- while the number of Americans visiting online shops this Black Friday was 57.3 million, an increase of 18%.  Cyber Monday sales were expected to push past 1.5 billion dollars.

The return to work -- Monday, after a long, holiday weekend:  This is such a grim, dour moment in life that there's only one known antidote.  And with that, we hereby Break Glass and Pull Switch In Case of Emergency -- and are rewarded with underpants news.

The good news:  There is actually some underwear news.  The not-so-good news:  There wasn't much.  News, that is -- although, now that you mention it, unmentionables are getting so tiny anymore that there's not much of them in that sense, either.

Well, to paraphrase a war criminal:  You go to work the Monday following a long holiday weekend with the underwear you have, not the underwear you wish you had.

Selected numbers appear to show consumer spending is way up, thanks to the 'black' days, cyber day, and on and on with the hype. A closer looks suggests it's really more like a one or two percent increase for the quarter; it's really all about building up a shopping frenzy. Are consumers really spending more at all? Or are they simply desperate to stretch their ever declining incomes to meet pent up demand to replace worn out consumer goods?

Then there is the gnawing need to provide the American dream for yourself and your family. It's not that people really feel the need to buy more junk from China, it's that they know deep down that they're in trouble. And they want so badly to kid themselves that they are still middle class. The evidence for this is that consumer debt is way up. The business channel folks actually point to this increase in debt as proof that the economy is turning around, and there is a certain amount of truth to that, in the same way a soap bubble is a new house.

The only problem with thinking critically, and having any hope, is that doing so within range of any other illogical humans instantly provides no shortage of subject matter able to receive profoundly heavy, unyielding criticism.

One supposes that the added problems of searing, splitting headaches and becoming radically entrenched in depression about the plight of the species are no picnics, either.

Unless one wins the lottery or is born a Dubya or Mitt, one must take the bad with the good in this life, we all learn quickly enough, and to greater and lesser degrees of satisfaction about this arbitrary arrangement of things.

"This year I wasn't about to kill people."

That's a pretty good attitude to take in general.  It seems even more fitting when talking about a squabble over a Tinker Bell sofa with another Black Friday shopper, as Elizabeth Garcia had done, at a Toys-R-Us site in Times Square last year.

Even without the Body-and-Door-Crushing Super Savings Specials, and shoppers brandishing pistols and other weapons high overhead, trying to get other shoppers to back off from a prized shopping bargain, many people would call today Black Friday anyway.

It gets harder to concentrate, the closer a holiday comes.  For lack of a better term, I call this the Haze Factor -- that inverse relationship of decreased work focus and attention span with the increased nearness of friends, family, free time, and fun.

If the Haze is conjuring up banks of fog moving through your area, and/or your own mind, welcome to the club.  (For my part, it's taken ten minutes to write three sentences.)  With everyone likewise debilitated today, we'll attempt only one bit of serious business here, then amble over to a transition piece, and finally wander up to the sideboard of those fluffy meringue and cream pies, and puff pastries.