Citizen Reader

I have been having a cranky summer.

There is no good reason for this. My life is better than I deserve and than I have any right to expect. But still, I seem to be having more and longer periods of funk. A lot of this is personal and a lot of it is my own laziness, but some of it also comes from listening to NPR while CRjr and I eat our meals. I try not to pay any attention to politics anymore, but the more I hear things like the Republicans sticking to their line on not raising taxes on corporations and the wealthy, in order to "encourage the economy" (yeah right), the more I want to puke. And here's something else I know: the Democrats are no better. I always feel toward the Democrats the way Everybody Loves Raymond's Debra often felt about her husband Ray: "Idiots."

And then, like a sparkling little beam of sunshine, into my funk came Matt Taibbi.

For weeks I've been reading nonfiction that didn't particularly set my world on fire. I've been reading a lot of okay books, but I keep finding myself about 100 to 200 pages in and not particularly needing to finish the book. This is not a good sign. So, because I knew I liked Matt Taibbi, I requested some of his earlier books from the library to (hopefully) give myself a reading treat. It worked! I've been reading Taibbi all week and let me just say, I LOVE the guy. I want Matt Taibbi to run for president, except Matt Taibbi would be too smart to run for president.

So all this week, you're just going to have to bear with me as I share some of my favorite Taibbi quotes. In the meantime, make sure you're reading his blog, too.