Living Behind The Curve

Every Tuesday is Kitchen Sink day at Living Behind the Curve.

What with the site going live and me starting new classes, the last 6 weeks have flown by. I’d like to take a moment to reflect on the things I almost missed…

Bad Amurricans. No Savings for you.

The Bureau of Economic Analysis reported that, for the second year in a row, US personal savings rates are negative. Because we haven’t had two consecutive negative years since 1932 and 1933, some analysts see this as a sign of the next big depression. Others see this as meaningless data because the savings rate is calculated as income minus consumption, and does not account for capital gains, real estate assets, etc. There are several excellent discussions of this data at The Big Picture, Bizzy Blog, Carpe Diem, Macroblog, Angry Bear, Professor Bainbridge, Businomics. I’m not a financial expert, and I’m still not entirely sure how to parse all this information, but it’s all excellent food for thought.

Meeeeowsh!

Cat fights abounded this month, as feminists and mommybloggers took to their soap boxes. Debra Dickerson got in a “feminist fury” at Salon over Michelle Obama’s Sacrifice. It seems that individual women should be able to make the decision to stay in the workplace, but the decision to leave it should only be made when one takes into account the good of all women everywhere. Angry Harry seemed a bit too…angry about the issue for my personal tastes. Kitty Time had her claws out.

From women who try to take care of their children to women who don’t - Violent Acres had a fantastically written series of posts about moms on welfare: It is Your Job…, Where are the Baby Factories?, and The Biggest Tragedy. Vodkarella kept things going with Garbage In, Garbage Out and Dead Horse. Rather than linking to similar articles that could serve as opposing viewpoints, I’d prefer to just point out the comment threads, particularly on the Vodkarella posts. Everyone has the right to their own personal flamewar, but yeesh. Mrowr.

LOLGaggery

When 2007 claims a page in Interweb History as the Year of the LOLItem, May will probably have its very own sidebar. The month started out with LOLTrek (and LOLWesley, for those of us who love TNG), moved on to Tom Smith singing about Cat Macros, and ended with a glove snap at the LOLcky Horror Picture Show (NSFW). Even XKCD, one of my favorite webcomics, got into the act.

Mama’s got a Squeezebox

She goes in and out and in and out… Even I’m not oblivious enough to miss the celebutante drama of the week. It’s been pointed out that we may not care how many people were killed overseas this week, but everyone knows that Paris went to jail.

So, tell me: what did I miss?