Sunday was the last day of NaBloPoMo's July Swim theme, but the only real "Swim" post that day was Weekly Roundup for July 24th through 30th, 2011 in which I recapped all of the previous week's Swim posts. It turned out that the big theme of the rest of the week wasn't the August NaBloPoMo theme, Fiction, but a continuing breaking news story, the Debt Ceiling Hostage Crisis, the resolution of which became the Satan Sandwich.
The first Satan Sandwich entry, which I posted before the term Satan Sandwich was coined was Debt Ceiling Cat, the macro for which you see above. I only had one comment on the macro, "I always knew Congress was a bunch of wankers." It turned out to be the most popular post of the week. The next was Let's make a debt deal, in which I featured Nonnie9999's fine work over at Hysterical Raisins. The term Satan Sandwich finally made an appearance in We chose the Satan Sandwich, which featured another fine example of Nonnie9999's work, reproduced below.
Then things really got interesting. Friday saw four Satan Sandwich posts as the markets and rating agencies reacted to the deal, which was supposed to calm the markets and reassure the ratings agencies. It did exactly the opposite. Next Media Animation on the Debt Ceiling Hostage Crisis showed how the markets continued to panic, with stocks falling and gold rising to record levels, along with a downgrade of the credit rating of the U.S. by a Chinese agency. The financial markets think it's a Satan Sandwich, too and WXYZ has local reaction to yesterday's and today's stock plunge described how the markets freaked out even worse. As if that wasn't enough, Standard and Poors downgraded our credit rating, which I reacted to in Now S&P thinks it's a Satan Sandwich. I believe in closing circles, but I don't like it when reality does it for me in this way!
I've continued with the Satan Sandwich theme this week by posting Keith Olbermann is mad as Hell and won't take it anymore, but that will be the subject of next week's weekly update.
Monday marked the beginning of a new month and along with it, the start of a new theme for NaBloPoMo, Fiction. I began blogging about the theme by introducing it in Nablopomo for August: Fiction in which I laid out an ambitious agenda. The next day I reposted a blast from the past, Food Fight! Thoughts on liberalism and conservativism inspired by the Preface to Food, Inc. as part of that agenda. Then events took over.
Tuesday was an election day and the headline issue was the millage for the Troy Public Library, which I've been following for months. Since I interpret the Fiction theme to be as much about books in general as fiction in particular, I ran with it. First, I made one last push for votes in Millage vote on Troy's Library today, then reported the good news in Millage passes; Troy Public Library will stay open! and More millage election news. Hot for Words on the plight of libraries and bookstores served as a postscript on the issue.
Two of the questions asked in the NaBloPoMo email were "But how often does fiction seep into our reconstruction of our day? Is it important to always be honest, or can we skew the facts to present a better story?" I examined both of those in Fiction vs. Fact for the Tea Party Patriots and Silly Sustainability Saturday: Just Links edition. The first examined the claims and background of the leadership of the Tea Party Patriots and found the claims exaggerated and the leadership suspect. The second just listed some of the most egregious examples of fabrication and deception by the enemies of sustainability.
As you might notice, there were no sustainability news linkspams. I currently have material for five of them, it's just that reality presented me with more interesting material. Don't worry, the sustainability news linkspams will return.
Finally the back catalog winner for the week was What motivates Americans to act with 36 page views during the past week and 49 so far total.
That's it for the week that was.
No comments:
Post a Comment