Joan Walsh somehow merged the tragedy in India with a political encomium for Barack Obama.

Joan, your column was malapropos; your readers deserve an apology.

I was sooo focused on MJ and other nonsensical BS, I almost forgot about all the $ trillion appropriations!

The "noble lie" has been the bread-and-butter play of governments from the leaders of paleolithic tribes to today. Like the "red pill-blue pill" choice of the movie The Matrix, people have always wanted to live in psychological comfort and avoid fearful, paralyzing thoughts about death, pain, loss, starvation, etc. Part of every government's game is to demonize the opposition and sanctify your own screw-ups.

We live in a contrived, false society. It is dominated by fantasies of riches, fame, instant gratification, endless wants sated, the good life forever and ever, amen. But someone and/or something has to pay for it: the poor and the earth's ecosystem. Governments read the tealeaves of these unrealistic, unsustainable wants and promise them to the masses, while at the same time promising to protect the masses from anything and everything which might harm them. Governments NEED the masses to have fantastical, unrealistic DREAMS and irrational, hysterical FEARS.

Did anyone link Obama's sinking poll numbers, his huge healthcare endeavor and the "birthers" bashing/Gates non-stories together? The government/MSM "tail" wags the "dog" of mass attention (and INattention).

Wisdom creates saddness and cynicism. Analysis of government, the media, the military, big corporations, religion, technology, ecology, etc. is scary and depressing. Humans are not too evolved from their ape ancestors, yet they are too evolved. We are fearful, dreaming apes who too smart for our own good.

I can't get enough of the MSM derision and dismissal of, then resurrection of, then somber concern for those who might be misled by, then pompous disinterest in, then total silence about, The Birthers.

The Obama nationality issue always struck me as a straw-man argument put forward by some bored, underutilized member of his political campaign. Why has this stillborn story been resuscitated? Why now?

Can you say "Misdirection!?" Can you say "Damage Control!?"

Can you say "Poll numbers dropping like giant boulders off high cliffs!?" ;)

Why can't Salon give Mark Benjamin--a superbly gifted writer--a decent topic to write about?

Come on! The "kitschy artifacts being dumped and forgotten on gravesites expose" has been done to death. Benjamin probably had to churn this out hammered on Svedka and Kool-Aid.

What's next? Wasting his genius on "Six-hundred pound man trapped in own bedroom" filler?

Puhleeze, Salon: Harness his literary Scotch boiler!

BTW: I love those little cartoon character portraits the regular contributors use, instead of actual photographs. The cartoons make them look younger, prettier, and more stylish.

Clinton teach Kim him love-sexy moves!

Geez, it's not like OBAMA WOULD CONSIDER SETTING UP "DEATH PANELS" TO ACCESS THE LIFE MAINTENANCE COSTS OF THE NON-PRODUCTIVE AGED AND INFIRM.

It's not like China has bought over half of the U.S. debt, and THE U.S. IS A VASSAL OF CHINA.

It's not like THE MULTI-NATIONAL CORPORATIONS HAVE NO CONCERN FOR THE BILL OF RIGHTS, AND HAVE SOLD OUT TO EVERY FOREIGN INTEREST.

It's not like THE GOVERNMENT IS LIKE A CROOK WHO'S STOLEN YOUR CREDIT CARD AND IS RUNNING UP CHARGES LIKE THERE'S NO TOMORROW.

Geez, it's not like that.

Is anything worth such violence and conflict?

YES!

FOOTBALL SEASON IS ALMOST HERE!!

Everything else should be discussed calmly and rationally.

How far we have come from his near-deification in Denver. Obama has become just another mouthpiece for the elite power establishment. Corporate Socialism--pure and simple. He would jump off a cliff, if his overlords told him to. Why is it so hard to accept that Hope and Change was doublespeak for Cope and Same?

Didn't Obama the candidate give the impression that Iraq was a completely unjustifiable diversion from the real war, in Afghanistan? Now we're looking at the end of 2011 till the troops are out of Iraq?

Did you notice that none of Obama's "three points" re Afghanistan mention a timetable or deadline to achieve "success" there? Now they're hinting that the "Mission" will creep into Pakistan!

Presidents--Republican or Democrat--are nothing but mouthpieces hired to justify the tranfer of tax revenues (and huge debt obligations, via Chinese and Arab despots) into the pockets of preferred defense contractors and oil companies.

But keep telling yourself that the new mouthpiece is different than the old mouthpieces. Meanwhile, the money is still ending up in the same pockets as before.

Breeders are facinating in an age of negative population growth (as long as the breeders are non-hispanic).

"Train wreck's a-comin'! Train wreck! Ever'body get yer train wreck!"

The issue isn't that "foreign" brand cars (U.S. made or not) were the highest selling brands being traded in for.

The issue is that the entire program was highly anti-progressive.

Lower middle-class taxpayers disproportionately footed the bill so upper-middle and upper-class new car fanciers could trade in their gas-guzzling SUV's for sweet hybrids. They were having a bad case of buyers' remorse (thinking about those boys dying in Iraq and Afghanistan so they could enjoy having two air-conditioners in their Armada?) They also missed that new car smell.

Free gov'ment money to buy a new car? You've got to be kidding! Sign me up and call me patriotic! You're a "great American!"

The whole program was an abuse of the public trust. It was rushed out in a panicky, experimental way, and smells too much of auto execs (foreign and domestic) and elitist government wonks. Worst of all, it didn't really help the socio-economic class of under-employed and working-poor who could have used something like it the most.

Teddy Kennedy was the unworthy recipient of the hopes and dreams that were successively placed in his three elder brothers. Without their talents, accomplishments--and deaths--the creation of the "Lion of the Senate" myth by the Kennedy media machine would have been hard to swallow.

Thus ends Camelot, anticlimactically.