Stupid Economy

Life here is fairly well insulated from the money struggles of the rest of the world, but occasionally they penetrate: the toys at the campus career fair today were absolute crap. Especially compared to the glory days of aught-aught, back when companies thought they could make money by losing it and handed out fancy logo-strewn whatsits for just a hint of a geeky smile. I needed a corporate keychain bottle opener, dammit.

Meanwhile, the Peace Corps recruiter sounded almost enthusiastic about a go-go-volunteerism initiative promising to double the amount of Peace Corps service in the next five years. So I read the State of the Union address, without taking any precautionary shots of hard liquor. Mistake.

I mean, I’m all in favor of the Peace Corps, and am seriously thinking about doing my two years of service after graduation. It’s certainly better than the Marine Corps.*

But this whole Freedom Corps thing is just creepy. Sure, it’s probably a good idea to consolidate the government offices concerned with organized volunteering — but why oh why do these Homeland Security people have to put their paranoid little fingers in every last piece of government pie?

Paranoia spawns more paranoia. According to a government publication, citizens are supposed to call 9-1-1 when they see or hear about someone using verbal threats, or suspiciously exiting a secured area near a train or bus depot, airport, tunnel, bridge, government building or tourist attraction. I hate everybody. I want to go get drunk, but I have math to do instead.

Bleah.

*A friend of mine was just complaining about her little brother, who joined the marines as a nice guy and came back racist, misogynist and homophobic as all hell. I know from my own experience that this doesn’t happen to everybody, but really, it shouldn’t be happening to anybody at all. And I’ll even spare you the whole pacifist rant.