I could not sleep last night, or most of this morning. It was a fitful thing, falling asleep while the birds were rising to their day’s task. Whistle and tweet, and there’s the lightening sky, how neat.
It reminded me of every all-night ever pulled in the history of man. You remember the thrill of the first all-nighter. It was a great feeling, defeating the night, beating the sun to its sense of purpose, only to strangle yourself on snores a few hours later. Youth.
And here you are missing out on four deleted paragraphs devoted to the evolution of the all-nighter’s impact on your body. As you know, you begin to cope less and less with it.
Anyway. The problem with being wide awake at 3 a.m. is your choice of television, which is to say every shopping channel, SportsCenter’s greatest hits from 1983 and infomercials. The most challenging thing on television? The Transformers movie. You can’t fall asleep to that because you’re too busy being annoyed at how bad the thing is.
Headline News, searching for the sweet spot of news and entertainment irrelevance, had a package where Jersey Shore regulars give their insight into the economy. Here’s your tip: two guys from Jersey Shore have an opinion on the economy. Wrestle with that awhile. And then digest their take home message: Italy is in much better shape than the US just now. I refer you to this handy 2010 Economist infographic on the PIIGS. Judge for yourself. Me, I’ve now watched two minutes of people who’s stature in the world has been determined by their appearance on a show with the word Jersey in the title.
I have a strict rule: No Jersey Anything watching. And I have in-laws, lovely, thoughtful, sweet, lightyears beyond the stereotypes, in-laws in New Jersey. But, still.
What you think you know about the London riots is probably understated. This map, if accurate, gives one pause.
View Initial London riots / UK riots in a larger map
Not that you can see it on American television, but, then, that is why we have the Internet. The initial spark was a police shooting, but this now seems to be a bit of youthful discontent, hooliganism, opportunism and the slowest governmental response to a swelling issue in quite some time. Here’s a Sky News reporter, shooting in his neighborhood tonight:
Here’s an overview piece that basically says no one knows why, and no one has done much yet to stop it. It doesn’t seem if there will be any solutions anytime soon, given all of the dynamics in play.
Meanwhile, my little presentation is coming along. It now has a central point. I have also downloaded the appropriate PowerPoint template. Tomorrow words will begin appearing on it, as if by magic.
