Rupert Fox Murdoch, chief media architect of the New World Order, has acquired the Wall Street Journal. The WSJ had scant editorial integrity to lose, not withstanding the broohaha, but now the WSJ is in the hands of PNAC’s Newscorp and we know where they’re going. Now news of the NYSE will come from the mouth of doublespeak. The choosing of economic indicators can be more preposterous, and the upbeat spin or foreboding pall more egregious. Dow Jones bla bla bla, consume with confidence. Rupert says leverage the shirt off your back!

We each have our economic indicators to ground what we’re being told. Friends unemployed, or working multiple jobs, cast doubt on TV’s rosy outlook. Gas prices, cable bills, credit card debt, the difference between your credit card bill and the payment you can afford to send.

I have an indicator that I’m finding troublesome. I drive through a not affluent part of town everyday and of late I’m seeing more jaywalkers. Not itinerants, not street people, just unkempt poor. On this section of thoroughfare they’re approaching car windows, getting out of vans, dallying with bicycles across incoming traffic. I feel like I’m driving a foreign gantlet where pedestrians outnumber cars. But disturbing is to look beside you and see cars stuffed with people similar to the pedestrians, trying to catch your eye. It’s August, it’s hot, maybe that’s why the scene feels like Tijuana. But the aggressive eye contact is new. What it means I can’t ask.