Wow! What a Week.

I've been in and out of e-contact this week, so my glimpses of the national scene have been as if viewed by strobe light.

However, here are a few of the more interesting things I read this week.

First, my Friend Elsie of True Green Studios, sent me the following commentary from Garrison Kellior.

It was your money they were messing with. And that's why you need government regulators. Gimlet-eyed men with steel-rim glasses and crepe-soled shoes who check the numbers and have the power to say, "This is a scam and a hustle and either you cease and desist or you spend a few years in a minimum-security federal facility playing backgammon."

The Republican Party used to specialize in gimlet-eyed, steel-rim, crepe-soled common sense and then it was taken over by crooked preachers who demand we trust them because they're packing a Bible and God sent them on a mission to enact lower taxes, less government. Except when things crash, and then government has to pick up the pieces.

Also, when I saw that Katie Couric would be the one handling the Palin interview, I thought, oh god: The Blond leading the Bland....but as Nation points out, only Nixon could go to China, and only Katie could have dragged Palin out where Tina Fey could masticate her (in some cases, by simply quoting the Alaska governor word for word.)

Meanwhile, I tend to support the idea of a bailout (and the hiring of a lot of new financial cops) but here is an interesting read from the Christian Science Monitor that says the opposite. Certainly food for thought.

The premise is that doing nothing will hasten recession. And recession is unacceptable.

But that kind of thinking is a big reason we're now on the verge of a financial meltdown. By taking a zero-tolerance policy toward recession, Washington has dangerously juiced the economy with monetary steroids for more than a decade.

The painful truth is that recession may be precisely what's needed to restore economic health. Yet the bailout attempts to avoid this crucial reckoning – which may make things worse.