. . . while changing airplanes in Chicago. I’m finding it remarkably hard to get back into blogging mode after two days of anchoring talk radio. Which, by the way, is harder than it looks.
Lots of stories and threads of stories floating around right now, and I can’t decide where to start. So let’s go “around the horn,” as they say on sports shows. Following the death of astronaut Sally Ride, America’s first woman in space, there’s been some squalid talk from what I call the “Homintern” (aging Cold Warriors will get the reference) that Ride should have come out as a lesbian while she was alive. But this was not really news: I seem to recall knowing her sexual preference years ago, and shrugging the usual “so what?” about it. This posthumous handwringing from the Homintern is simply sour grapes that Ride wasn’t fully politicized on behalf of the aggressive identity politics of the gay rights movement. Why can’t someone just be left alone?
Item #2: Unlike the federal government, Americans’ credit card debt has fallen significantly in recently as people deleverage. Good for us. However, while total credit card debt right now stands at less than $700 billion, lets keep in mind that student loan debt now tops $1 trillion. Debt that, unlike credit cards, can’t be discharged in bankruptcy (until Obama panders by proposing to change that of course). This means that credit card debt of the next generation may be quite low compared to today, for the simple reason that few young graduates will be able to qualify for credit cards in the first place. My advice to loan-encumbered students today: study how “lay away plans” work.
Meanwhile, does anyone else think it is a farce that all these colleges who preen about their environmental “sustainability” are financially unsustainable? This suggests the comic possibility of watching colleges in a few years selling off their solar panels at fire sale prices to stave off bankruptcy.
Item #3: I talked with Alex Alexiev on the Bill Bennett show this morning about the Bulgarian bus bombing last week, and apparently it wasn’t, as John had wondered, carried out by someone released from Gitmo, but news out today says the suicide bomber had help. I also learned from Alex that a Bulgarian had been part of the terrorist team that conducted the Madrid train bombings in 2004.
There’s more, but my flight is about to be called.
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