AH, WEEKEND

I have given up the weekday martini because, frankly, I was missing too many good times, zoned out to the delights of Hendricks, Tanqueray or Bombay. I am now just zoning out on the weekends when a cold, crisp martini still signals a celebration. It's Friday! It's Saturday!

As Ogden Nash put it, in "A Drink with Something in It":

There is something about a Martini,
A tingle remarkably pleasant;
A yellow, a mellow Martini;
I wish I had one at present.
There is something about a Martini,
Ere the dining and dancing begin,
And to tell you the truth,
It is not the vermouth-
I think that perhaps it's the gin.

Is it Friday yet?

SEEMS LIKE OLD TIMES

Though we have begun a new year and a new decade, it sure seems like the same old times to me. As the Washington Post pointed out last week, in the decade between 1999and 2009, our economy created exactly zero job growth. We have a staggering number of people out of work, but Washington bails out the wealthiest bankers while pouring billions down the rat hole of General Motors. There are no plans at all to create new jobs and, while we fight wars on two fronts, we can watch our national treasure travel to China.

When we elected Barack Obama, the nation signaled that it was ready for change, even great change of the FDR kind. Investments in education, green technology, WPA-type programs to employ those who want to work would have been cheered. Instead our leaders bowed to idiots like Joe Lieberman, whom we allowed to gut needed health care reform which, need we remember, has not yet passed.

No one in Washington, especially the President, seems willing to take an unpopular stand. No one cares to admit the realty of a nation which is declining in wealth, youth, vigor and principals. Instead we call for new educational initiatives while we cut funding for education. We rail against bankers while we feed trillions into their coffers.

Once we were a nation that rewarded risk-takers. Now we applaud hypocrites.