There are times when I look at the world from the bottom of a pint of beer or bottle of wine. It looks sickly sweet or botched and bitter, depending on the color of the air. In a sea of happy faces, I can find the one who's faking. And sometimes it's me.

The heat of the summer must be getting to everyone. No one seems to be thinking right. And no one wants to admit they're wrong. Because if they're wrong, then everything must be going to hell, right?

I heard a senator who played an air traffic controller in a Bruce Willis film say that the Office of Homeland Security (which has not, officially, been created yet) is the most important department in the government. Shooting a little high, aren't you Fred? Maybe someone should have told the FBI or the CIA or even the INS that they were the most important department in the government and they might have done a better job. That way we wouldn't have to be talking about creating more government bureaucracy in the wake of one disaster.

Putting a name on something, kicking it in the ass and then telling everyone, "Hey, look, that boy can jump!" don't necessarily make it so.

We've had the President scold big business with the effort one puts into feather tickling a prostitute, and the result was about the same. It just makes things worse. The pro doesn't want to fuck around and big business doesn't want to hear any bitching from a guy they paid to put into office. The smoke screen is clearing, and someone needs to start the bum rush.

Greenspan did the same thing, and we've all been realizing that the fabled early retirement ain't gonna happen any time soon. I'd joke with my 401k manager about where the bottom is, but I don't want to stress him out. He's losing money with the rest of us. It's almost like I should have a kid so he can be my social security for later in life. Tell him to be a yes man and to send the old man some buckage in appreciation.

It is much more economically sound to kill yourself than to live forever.

And it's not just the big issues that have gone sour in the last couple of months. Entertainment has been pulling their own bait and switch acts.

The Road To Perdition, a depression area "gangster" film (the quotes are entirely loaded with irony) starring Tom Hanks as a "bad" man who kills people for a living is like bad community theater acted with the depth of a backyard kiddie pool. Stick figures of characters wax somber, but don't say anything. Everything is telegraphed in the first five minutes of the film and even those first five minutes seem like ten. Don't fall for that "first Oscar caliber film of the year" crap. Those reviews were as bought and paid for as Bush in 2000.

So who can we turn to? Who is telling us the truth?

Should I really say that Eminem actually understands the pulse of the nation? Or that the Red Hot Chili Peppers' melancholy funk is our collective mood? What does it say when the best movie of the summer is about a top-notch employee getting screwed by his company (Minority Report)?

Are these our shining examples of truth, justice and the American Way?

I watched the Talking Heads movie True Stories on Thursday night. It ends with John Goodman singing his song of looking for love at a big party to celebrate the town's birthday.

"We don't want freedom. We don't want justice. We just want someone to love," he sings with all earnestly.

Wouldn't it be sad if this is really the voice of America today?

Matt Worley woke up Friday morning to find that his feet had mysteriously and silently been cut off the night before. Bloody stumps are slippery things to try to walk with.