Thomas Jefferson Street

I think some right wingers have moved past Worried. They've arrived at Frantic, on their way to Hysteric.

Why else would Ann Coulter blame Caylee's mom for the nation's economic crisis?

Caylee, of course, is the adorable daughter of Casey Anthony, a young Florida mother who failed to report the toddler's disappearance until 31 days had passed last summer.

The search for the missing 2-year-old and the saga of the troubled Casey and her family have morphed into a kind of national soap opera and cable TV news bonanza.

But the connection with the battered economy is difficult to discern.

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I’ve been using a computer as a word processor for almost 30 years.

How fondly I recall those good ol’ days of Atex and MS-DOS, system crashes, and colleagues losing four or five hours work in a blink. On deadline.

And down through the decades, there have been too many moments when, while I tried to pull off some complex maneuver involving text and the mouse, a friend would start laughing, look at me with pity, and ask, “What are you doing?”

And then, do the same thing with a quick easy click or keystroke.

Which, after learning, I promptly forgot.

So here, as a public service to those, like me, who cannot remember any of the shortcuts that can make life easy, is a link to David Pogue’s excellent column in the Oct. 2, 2008, edition of the New York Times.

News you can use. Enjoy. And, if you are like me, print out a copy, laminate it, and keep it on your desk.

I know we are many. It was the most popular story on the Times website over the weekend.

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Have we hit bottom yet?

Yes, unemployment is rising and, yes, we have tough times ahead. But if you're like me, you keep asking yourself, "Have we hit bottom yet?" I was hoping we had before the recent series of fire-sale buyouts and failures of major banks, brokerage houses, and insurance companies. Clearly I was being too Pollyanna-ish.

At this point with job losses spiking, we know the worst for the economy is yet to come. Ours is a consumer-based economy, and obviously Americans won't be consuming at record levels anytime soon.

But how long will it last and how hard will we be hit?

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I thought Sarah Palin won—because she (far) exceeded expectations, because she showed considerable suppleness (countering Joe Biden's statement that the commanding general said that John McCain's surge strategy would not work in Afghanistan), and spotlighted her winning personality. She showed the same smiling confidence that she did in her acceptance speech September 3 and that was missing in her interview with Katie Couric. Biden's performance was by and large acceptable, but he made some significant misstatements, notably on the Constitution. Article I of the Constitution is not about the executive branch, as Biden said, but about the legislative branch, in which Biden has served for 35 years. And the vice president doesn't preside over the Senate just in cases of ties; he (or she) is entitled to preside over the Senate at any time. Imagine the uproar from Mainstream Media if Palin had made such errors! She does seem to be taking a little flak over her seemingly bizarre statement that she would seek more constitutional powers for the vice presidency. But, as you may remember, Lyndon Johnson, one of our most experienced vice presidents, sought to continue to attend Democratic Caucus meetings after he was elected vice president. He was hastily disinvited.

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