My mite in support of capitalism

When the entrepreneurial spirit surfaces in dark moments, one should of course support it. If you missed it, I refer to the t-shirt marked "I voted for Mike Capuano...so don't blame me." The site has a couple of other amusing products whose humour can be said to cut both ways.

This will do for yucks until the moment when Sarah Palin notices that her star power has been eclipsed by this Mr. Smith wannabe from Massachusetts. That will be the moment when we all discover the true meaning of the term "hissy fit."

I'd find some humour in the reaction I expect from British friends and relations, who still find it incomprehensible that the United States can't manage to treat the health of all of its citizens as seriously as it treats that of some of its domestic animals. Except that I anticipate the degree of earned mockery there will be in that reaction.

I'm afraid I've seen the future, and it isn't pretty. Government will solve nothing, because it will increasingly be composed of the celebrity politicians of the moment, with neither experience nor context to support them. When they inevitably fail, a populace obsessed with star power will replace them with its new favourites, and so on and so on until the whole apparatus comes apart at the seams. Nothing except the presence of a few competent politicians who aren't afraid to play the celebrity game is likely to stop it.

So Mr. Smith—oh, I mean Brown— what are you doing for your next act?

Late news: those wondering, as Ms. Crispix has, why no one has objected to the double standard that endorses Brown's nude pics, will be relieved to know that Joan Vennochi of the Globe has so objected.