When Al Gore invented the Internet he should have known it would soon ruin the lives of countless young pole vaulters. Allison Stokke should sue Al Gore for destroying her sanity. Or maybe she should sue Eli Saslow, staff writer for the Washington Post, for perpetuating an environment of public discussion of all things Allison.

Stokke read on message boards that dozens of anonymous strangers had turned her picture into the background image on their computers. She felt violated. It was like becoming the victim of a crime, Stokke said. Her body had been stolen and turned into a public commodity, critiqued in fan forums devoted to everything from hip-hop to Hollywood.

The article the above quote was pulled from drones on and on about how Stokke now "locks her doors and tries not to leave the house," etc. ad nauseum. Give me a break. Allison Stokke is clearly incredibly physically fit. Is she really as mentally weak as the Washington Post insinuates? I’m dubious.

One of the most disturbing aspects of our modern mass media is the tendency of its content creators to perpetuate a state of fear and victimhood. They do so because those things sell. In the process of selling Americans fear and victimhood, they wear down our rationality. Why should Allison Stokke fear the sudden burst of publicity around her name? Americans have the attention span of gnats. If she can weather her 15 minutes of uncomfortable limelight, the storm will pass. It’s really not that big a deal, and Eli Saslow is a fool for having devoted so much time to such a minor event.

And next year. And the year after that. We’re all so caught up in the "what can government do for me/what SHOULD government do for me" fallacy that we are bankrupting ourselves.

The federal government recorded a $1.3 trillion loss last year — far more than the official $248 billion deficit — when corporate-style accounting standards are used, a USA TODAY analysis shows.The loss reflects a continued deterioration in the finances of Social Security and government retirement programs for civil servants and military personnel. The loss — equal to $11,434 per household — is more than Americans paid in income taxes in 2006.

Congress is allowed to use non-standard accounting practices that would send any CFO of a publicly traded company to jail. Why? The behavior is just as criminal. The only difference is that the company is the United States of America and the shareholders are you and I.

In case you have been agonizing over how best to display your breasts in the workplace, here is an article for you, and a quote from the ubiquitous "expert."

"A recent study showed men photos of women in a workplace with large breasts showing cleavage, medium breasts and small breasts. When asked about who looked most professional and personable, the men chose the women with medium-sized breasts," she (the ubiquitous expert) said.

I guess this is what people are interested in when they get tired of American Idol trivia. There is nothing in the article about how men should package their package. I suppose we need to evolve more as a society before we can have newspaper articles about how best to do that.

Cindy Sheehan, who I think is just a little bit unbalanced, has bid adieu to the public stage. I am thankful. Sheehan recognizes some of the problems our nation faces:

The most devastating conclusion that I reached this morning, however, was that Casey did indeed die for nothing. His precious lifeblood drained out in a country far away from his family who loves him, killed by his own country which is beholden to and run by a war machine that even controls what we think. I have tried every since he died to make his sacrifice meaningful. Casey died for a country which cares more about who will be the next American Idol than how many people will be killed in the next few months while Democrats and Republicans play politics with human lives. It is so painful to me to know that I bought into this system for so many years and Casey paid the price for that allegiance. I failed my boy and that hurts the most.

What she fails miserably at is finding any meaningful answers. Her boy "died for nothing" or "died for lies." The American system is broken on both sides. While it’s true the two-party system is a miserable and corrupt failure, I’m certainly not going to give up. Sometimes I work within the system, and sometimes I work around it and sometimes I flaunt it, depending what’s in my own best interests. I’ve never watched American Idol.

The system we live under is flawed, but it rarely consumes people who don’t allow it to. Cindy Sheehan has already been consumed by her unhealthy hatred of George W. Bush. She’s already been consumed by the idea that her son died for "nothing." She’s already been consumed by her disappointment that she couldn’t convince more Americans to drop their comfortable existences and follow her on the road to a peace-loving utopia of collective harmony that will never exist unless humanity is somehow transformed into a Borglike hive mind. I hope that never happens.

Cindy, I hope you live out your remaining years in peace, but I won’t think of you often. Anonymity bless you and may your soul searching one day bear some type of edible fruit. While you’re mending and rebuilding your life, Cindy, my advice to you is to learn to shoot a gun. You’ll want a backup plan in case world peace doesn’t suddenly manifest.

When I emerged from the house today I was immediately assaulted by an unpleasant odor. I looked around and the sky was gray. Visibility was limited. Oh great, I thought to myself. That idiot Chip is burning beer cans and washing machines again. My neighbor has, in the past, had a bad habit of getting drunk and burning household trash. His household trash isn’t old newspapers and cast off wood furniture. No, Chip’s household trash, historically speaking, has consisted of metal implements and aluminum cylinders.

This time, I was wrong. I had to go into the nearby town of Jasper for bullets. Chip had no smoldering fire going. Neither did Sam, the guy up the hill; the same guy who shot one of my dogs through the face with a 22 rifle while I was in Iraq.

The smoky, stinky conditions didn’t change during the 20-mile trip into Jasper. It was surreal. In the six years I’ve lived in the North Georgia foothills, I have never seen visibility so limited during what would otherwise be a clear day. I got into town and asked why everything was so overcast. The girl making my latte at Starbucks told me that two fires in Georgia had joined together.

I guess a 700 square mile fire can drift a ways. Today made me wonder how my wife and I would cope if the woods around here ever went up. It’s pretty dry this year and we would have to try and evacuate our 18 dogs (we rescue them.)