It will be interesting to learn more of the backstory on the rescue of Capt. Richard Phillips from the Somali pirates. The Navy SEALS showed remarkable skill in being able to kill three of the pirates with just three shots, which, as Associated Press noted, were “fired in darkness from the stern of a ship 25 yards away on rolling waters.” Concerns now shift to what may happen to the 230 other hostages being held by pirates, and what should be done to better protect ships.
U.S. News & World Report recently ranked the top 10 winners in the recession. The list included home gardening (sales at Burpee seed company are expected to jump 25 percent in 2009), Hollywood (rentals and box office sales are up), McDonald’s (same-store sales in the United States rose 6.8 percent in February) and romance novels (Harlequin saw North American sales rise $3 million in the fourth quarter from a year earlier).
Columnist Meghan Daum wondered if the distrust many Americans feel about the bank bailout helps them identify with the uncertainty many romance novel heroines feel about their suitors. “Maybe these books are recession-proof not because they offer an alternative to uncertainty,” she wrote, “but because they reflect it back at us — with a lot of sex thrown in (and a happy ending).”
The conservative warnings about how the president and Congress are moving the country to socialism may be falling on deaf — or at least confused — ears. According to a Rasmussen Reports poll, just 53 percent of those Americans surveyed think capitalism is preferable to socialism. Still, only 14 percent of those surveyed said they thought the government would do a better job of running the auto companies, and fewer than that said government would be good at managing financial firms.
