Pre-Ramble:  When we lived in Arizona, “snow bird” was a demographic. Every year in late November, people from all parts North would migrate into town. Seriously, the population would double – every road, resort and restaurant clogged with leisurely-driving, turquoise-wearing, Early-Bird-Special-eating tourists.  

And the thing was, we weren’t on vacation. We were just trying to live our lives … going to the grocery store to find food, … going to the bank to cash a check, … going to the park to scald ourselves on the play equipment, … or going to the mall to get out of the ”dry heat.”  And let me remind you that pizza ovens are dry heat. 

Anyway, here it is, March 31st in Saint Paul, Minnesota, and there are gigantic clusters of snowflakes falling outside (not them above). It’s just rude. The indignant expression on the beak of the tufted titmouse (photograph by Allison Trentelman) says it all. We have totally been duped. All of that chirping, melting and sunshiney-ness going on last week was just a cruel scam. In light of this development, I must concede that my recent blog announcing the arrival of spring may have been premature.

The Take-Away: Consider this a retraction on my previous proclamation of spring until such time as there are some more concrete indicators — a green blade of grass; a flower sticking up through the frozen crust of leaves; quacking sounds from the pond across the street; squirrels. In the meantime, to take your mind off the disobedient weather, visit more of Allison’s beautiful photography at her online shop and blog.

Pre-Ramble: According to Wired Magazine’s Scott Brown, the dynamic of Internet communications is turning us into a virtual community of stand-up comedians. His premise is that when we communicate online, we’re all vying for the attention, approval and esteem of the vast “out-there,” and we use the elusive mechanism of humor to engage our audience. He describes the ”unleashed energies of millions of amateur comedians” in this way:

Thanks to the digital hive mind, comedy is colloquy, everything is material and life has become one big writer’s room … a massive clusterchuckle of witty oneupsmanship.

Beyond mere humor, Brown cites “insight” as the basic currency of the information economy. Here, unexpected and/or ironic combinations of current events, issues, ideas and images draw upon the elements of “memory, annotation, contrast and collage” to create a unique type of “resonant” communication. The goal is to wield a blend of one’s personal area(s) of expertise, creativity, and wordsmithing prowess to spark a new awareness, or even better, elicit a response from an audience.

You can’t execute a high-quality social media communication without being either outright funny, clever, snarky, cutesy, or over-the-top enthusiastic (extreme use of capital letters and exclamatory punctuation). Deep knowledge around a variety of obscure, random or very cool, people, events and factoids is imperative.

The new comedy-based standard also brings out our competitive edge. There is definitely a smack-down quality to the parry and thrust of internet banter … a combination wit-fest and blogslam. Listen for the virtual fist-pumps as millions of master-hipster-quippers hit the “send” button. 

Brown suggests that “funny” is becoming a language unto itself, the “lingua franca of the wired world.”  Huh?  See, right there, I just got nicked by an obscure, foreign-language-based quip — “lingua franca” sounds really cool, but I have no idea what means, so, I’ll have to take a quick click over to wikipedia to look the damn thing up… (Brown-1, Emmons-0)

The Take-Away: Wow, this is unfortunate — I have nothing clever, insightful or informative to offer here.

Post-Note:  In a nod to stupid pet tricks, a byproduct of the imperative to be entertaining is that stupidness has been elevated to an art form. Case in point, the Lolcat series. (”Lol” as in text-message speak for “laugh-out-loud,” and “cat” as in … well, cat …, the lethargic house-pet.) People upload pictures of cats doing things that cats do (like lying around, or walking on the backs of couches) accompanied with a headline or some kind of dialogue that enhances what the cat is doing or thinking. People take turns trying to come up with a clever headline or dialogue, and still others vote on which headline or dialogue is the best. While I have spent a good fifteen minutes on the site, as a devout cat-hater, I refuse to concede that this phenomenon is in any way funny.

If you want funny, go to YouTube and listen to the Dane Cook rif on Bees and Sharks:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AtP0ctTQY4… (Warning: look out for some foul language.)

Pre-Ramble: As U.S. Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner walks a tight-rope over the global economic crisis, critics on the other side of the aisle rush (unfortunate pun) to judgment on his plan and challenge his credentials. Despite repeated attempts to build confidence, manage expectations and signal much needed regulatory reform in his Plan for Bad Bank Assets (opinion piece in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, p. A15), Geithner still faces a swarm of criticism from the antagonistic crowd over at Fox News. 

Commentators Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, and go-from-the-gut-doughboy, Glenn Beck are still dancing around on the us-vs.-them warpath,  justifying their sorry, partisan pot-shots as vital “checks and balances” on an administration that is solidly weighted to the left and attempting to operate above the fray.

Sure, the value of discussion and opposition is still an important part of the democratic process, but at this particular point in time, the last thing the President and his advisors, (or any of us who want to see meaningful progress) need is a pack of self-serving detractors with stop-watches heckling from the cheap seats.

I guess they don’t understand that it’s going to take longer than 57 days to turn this around and that the part where “we as a nation must work together“ means them too. 

The Take-Away:  Under these critical and complex circumstances, it is going to take more than fifteen seconds, a paper clip and some chewing gum to address the ticking national and international challenges that we face. In the words of civil rights activist, Eldridge Cleaver, “If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.”

Pre-Ramble:  So, we just returned from a little Spring Break trip (quality time with the fam, ate lots of seafood, saw a couple gators); we’ve already had the daylight-savings-time “spring forward” event (and lost a perfectly good hour of sleep); the lovely sound of chirping birds has begun to fill the morning air; and the incessant sounds of dribbling basketballs, squeaking sneakers, and hollering husbands has begun to fill the family room (NCAA Basketball Finals, a.k.a., March Madness). 

In fact, the first official day of spring is signaled by the Vernal Equinox, a point at which the sun is directly above the equator. March 20th was the first day of spring for 2009. Somebody needs to tell that huge pile of hideously dirty snow at the end of our driveway.

The Take-Away:  Spring is most definitely here!  This explains the inexplicable urge I have to clean out closets and throw away all of my winter clothes — well, at least rotate in the light-weight turtlenecks.

Pre-Ramble: Yesterday’s news included a report indicating that the number of billionaires in the world had dropped by 30 percent in the past year. Apparently, of the 1,125 billionaires on the 2008 list, just 752 remain.

You know it’s bad when you’ve been booted off the billionaires’ list. (I’m sure I can imagine that.) Well so, how do they tell you exactly? It’s not like they can just announce it over the PA during homeroom. Is there some kind of siren that goes off? Is it like the Oscar nominations where they call you at the crack of dawn? Or, are you left to read about it in the paper like every other schmuck with dwindling assets? And actually, how do you even know that you’re officially on the celebrated list in the first place?  Is somebody in charge of monitoring everyone’s bank account and pocket change?

Forbes Magazine, it seems, is the keeper of the lists. In fact, they have a whole list of lists. I’m not sure how they track and verify their data, but in addition to the list of The World’s Billionaires, they have lists of The World’s Millionaires, The Richest Americans, and separate lists of the richest people from Australia, New Zealand, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, the Philipines and Singapore. Forbes also releases lists in other exceptional categories like best companies, restaurants, schools, zip codes, sports teams, and even charities.

So, back to the plight of the fallen billionaires — you’ll be relieved to know that our own Bill Gates has been restored to the top spot on the list with a reported $40 billion, and even though he lost a spectacular $25 billion in the last 12 months, savvy investor and Obama BFF, Warren Buffett weighs in at No. 2 with $38 billion. 

It’s really tough for me to get my head around numbers this big, and if you stop to consider the kind of bank we’re talking about in the ga-jillion dollar stimulus package… well, that almost becomes illusory.

To put it into some kind of perspective, internet sources describe one billion dollars as ”someone giving you $1,000 every day for 2,738 years.”  That’s a lot of years, and where do I sign up?  Other sources try to express it in terms of piles of money, or number of football fields stacked on top of each other. Still others use more unconventional means like comparing the combined weight of a billion credit cards with the equivalent weight of 1,562 hippopotamuses (hippopotami?). Frankly, the weight of a hippo is just as obscure as the concept of 787 billion of something.

The Take-Away: When in doubt, I always default to the Twinkie. This iconic, cream-filled snack-cake is a universal equalizer — everyone has a rough idea of the size and value of the golden, spongy delight … and, whether you would actually eat one or not, they are the stuff of dependability and fun.

Bearing in mind that there is no tax on Twinkies in Minnesota, the price of a single Twinkie (not a two-pack) is 69 cents. Thus, in today’s marketplace, one billion dollars will buy  1,438,848,921 Twinkies. Slicing the analogy another way, one billion Twinkies laid end to end measures 4,250,000,000 inches, which will stretch around the circumference of the Earth (equatorial distance) approximately 2.7 times.

Pre-Ramble:  Why, you ask, am I looking to jettison my beloved husband after 25 years of marriage? You must not have been at the Minnesota Golden Gopher’s basketball game on Saturday afternoon.

Saturday morning, we set out on what was supposed to be some meaningful family bonding time. Minnesota was hosting the University of Michigan Wolverines (Yay!! Go Blue!!) at home in The Barn — a closely-matched game, to be played to a sold-out crowd. 

As some of you may know, Kirk and I have a mixed marriage.  He is a rabid, over-the-top, gigantic-green-and-white-chip-on-his-shoulder, Michigan State Spartan, and I am a humble, innocent, mild-mannered Michigan Wolverine. Our eldest daughter, in a blatant act of defiance, elected to attend the University of Minnesota, and is now, of course, considered a Golden Gopher. (You’ve got to admit, that the Goldy Gopher team mascot is pretty adorable.) Our college-bound younger daughter, while still officially undeclared, has been a fiercely loyal Michigan fan ever since I taught her to belt out the Wolverine fight song at age two. As you can see, our family has quite the spirited Big Ten rivalry going.

So, back in The Barn … we are sitting in our lovely scalped seats, engaged in idle chatter, waiting for the game to begin, when Sparty pulls out his cell-phone. Before I know what’s happening, he snaps a random photo of my daughter and me. Oh, ha-ha, isn’t that funny … a throw-away, out-of-focus photo of us looking less than our best. … 

In fact, if this is even possible, this photo is worse than the picture on my driver’s license, (think trailer park, two-pack-a-day, faded floral house coat, a couple of missing teeth … ), which I had immediately taken back to the Department of Motor Vehicles to be re-done. (The surly guy behind the counter concurred – the photo was so bad, he wouldn’t even let me pay for the re-shoot.) Take my word for it, this impromptu shot of my daughter and me was highly suboptimal.

Cut to half-time:  The Wolverines have been behind for the entire game and are now down by a dozen points. We are sitting there, trying our best to be good sports, and, as if it isn’t bad enough that my daughter and I are the ONLY TWO people in the entire room rooting for the Mighty Wolverines, I look up during a time-out … to see the hideous photo – ON THE JUMBO-TRON – IN FRONT OF 14,000 PEOPLE.

The Take-Away:  He’s yours for the taking … handy around the house, … snores a bit, … makes a decent pancake, … likes to read, … totally sophomoric sense of humor.

Post-Note:  The Wolverines ended up winning the game by 3 points.

Pre-Ramble: As the squabbling over at the significantly diminished and rudderless GOP continues, party leaders are left holding a flaming bag of do-do in the wake of conservative talk show host, Rush Limbaugh’s latest proclamation made in a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference where he stated that he wants “Barack Obama to fail.”

I wonder if Rush has stopped talking long enough to consider the fall-out of a Barack Obama failure?  The way I see it, if he fails, we fail. Big time.

The Take-Away: It’s pretty clear that, at this point, the Republican Party has no leadership, no message, and no hope. The last thing they need is some self-serving blowhard spewing outrageous, inflammatory nonsense.

Post Note: Al Franken may not be the right about a lot of things, but he may have been right about one thing.

Pre-Ramble:  According to my MSNBC homepage, the East Coast is “bracing for a potent March snow storm,” and “a rare snow blanketed the South, prompting over 200 churches in the central part of the Bible Belt to cancel morning services.”  As I look out over our freshly shoveled driveway, I am given pause to consider the relative aspects of these reports. This kind of challenging weather is an everyday occurence here in Minnesota… In fact, the Twin Cities just bounced back from a doozy of a storm that introduced eight inches of  the fresh white fluffy stuff into the evening commute. No big deal. We can handle it. True Minnesotans actually get crabby if a winter season doesn’t have its share of noteworthy weather. Our poor kids never get a snow day.

One thing I’ve noticed is that weather reports definitely have their share of blowing and drifting verbiage … not unlike news reports that throw around unnecessarily inflammatory words to describe current economic conditions (a topic I have discussed in a couple of recent blogs; 2/17 and 2/4).

By the way: A few more additions to the ongoing list of Unnecessarily Inflammatory Words… hobbled, soured, trepidation, turmoil, pervasive, pernicious, faltering, rescue, negative, contenders, beleaguered, buffeted, Buffetted*(* I just made that one up), brink, failure, hit (as in “take a major”), difficult, uncharted, teeter, free-fall, and the week’s top characterization expressed by Christina Romer, chairwoman of the Council of Economic Advisors, “Obama administration officials have been watching ‘in horror’ what’s been going on around the world.“

Apparently, major economic indexes have tumbled to their lowest levels in twelve years and for the sixth straight month, the Dow Jones industrial average has fallen — and is now teetering — at less than half of its all-time record worth of 14,165. That’s gotta be bad news – unless you’re on a playground, teetering is never good.

The Take-Away: Sure, the economic climate is looking a little rough. It’s probably going to take a while to dig out from this one. But, like a big snow storm, it doesn’t really do any good to panic. Heck — we’re tough — we don’t need no stinkin’ snow days!  Buckle down, bundle up, and look on the bright side – the economy might not be warming up as quickly as we might have hoped, but there’s still a good chance that we could get another few nasty weather events before the fishing opener!