The Dadio has taken a year off from writing and is back and crass as ever toward what started economically long before he left the keyboard, and is worse now to the tenth power. Well, well, well, in the year I have been in the literary abyss, we have new obfuscations coming from the collective noise of media and culture. We are on the precipice of a "new norm." A new-speak offering apparently meant to sound economically reassuring. The "collective noise" prattles, "Good news is'a com'n," while us rabble lives an entirely different reality of economic hell.  I interpret the "new norm" however, as more of the same economic shit, but worse. - No pay increases in the foreseeable future (assuming you are lucky enough to even have a job any more); less hours; non-benefit; minimum wage; seven day a week work week at four hours a day wrecking the whole week for 28 hours of pay; and finally, relentlessly buying Chinese junk products probably for the rest of our lives. Until America and Wisconsin come up with new products to manufacture like has happened in so many other decades of change, this "new normal" of bottom feeding is here for a long, long time. And, even if we reinvent ourselves with a new miracle product for the world, the Chinese will most likely steal it. 

    As well, we are embarking on a new, "perpetual optimism." This Soviet-esque gem I take, has been contrived to counter observations like those in the preceding paragraph. If you do not espouse to this "perpetual optimism" you are a dissident and your failure dealing with the "new norm" is your own fault. You have departed from the expected obfuscated social discourse and you are to be ignored. You are socially ill if you reject the "new norm" and its "perpetual optimism." This perpetual optimism scheme is akin to the "good patient" syndrome in medicine. Medical people love upbeat patients as said patients die a miserable death. Complainers are frowned upon or worse; they may be medicated until they shut the fuck up. I take "perpetual optimism" to mean you need to join the ranks of cutthroat networkers that push human resource departments to the limit by the hiring of friends and relatives or working for the same. Human Resources has just become a validation for behavior it once was set up to try to correct long before the "new norm" and its "perpetual optimism" has wafted onto the scene. Power network a job you lazy bastards! 

    We are suppose to be glad burglaries are down because we are all at home now - jobless - and protecting what little we have left. As well, poor, unemployed people can't buy stolen junk. This is cause for celebration. We should also be glad we are reconnecting with our extended families as we now all must live in the same house with relatives, grand parents, and cousins. And finally, we should embrace all the cheap foreclosed houses on the market and all the cheap repossessed cars now available. Grab up a deal man...screw your destroyed neighbors. 

    Dignity in the work place is now considered a social crime like not using cloth grocery bags, or smoking. If the worker is lucky enough to...work...he/she is to behave like a prostitute who sells their body for time worked. Working hard in hopes of a merit pay increase is futile. In fact, the harder you work the more likely you are to be laid off in lieu of a malleable rub coworker. They are easier held up as validation for static pay. 

    This "new normal" with its "perpetual optimism" bends under the weight of facilitating two perpetual, endless wars.  Wars that cost one million dollars a year to keep just one soldier in the war zone - one million dollars per year, per soldier. Those soldiers' lifeline depends on a country of unemployed, underemployed, de-constructed middle class, part-time workers. The "new norm," with its "perpetual optimism" foisted on the now middle classless, defeated workforce, is here baby...embrace it, or perish. 

                                Wisconsin Military Service Person Special Mention of the Week
          (each week Cooldadiomedia mentions a Wisconsin service person killed in Iraq or Afghanistan) 

    This week's Wisconsin military service person to remember is 24-year-old U.S. Marine Corporal Brian R. Prening. Corporal Prening is from Plymouth; he died while engaging the enemy in Babil Province, Iraq, on November 12, 2004. Prening was assigned to Company F, 2nd Battalion, 24th Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division, Marine Forces Reserve. The unit is from Chicago. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel said Brian is a graduate of Plymouth High School. He had gotten married on August 13, 2004, and he and wife Amy were expecting their first child. CNN.com lists the Prenings as from Sheboygan. The Journal Sentinel also mentioned Brian went to Lakeshore Technical College in Cleveland, Wisconsin where he got a degree completing the tool-and-die program. Brian worked at Kohler Company. His Marine Reserve unit was activated. Brian is survived by a twin brother, Bill, a younger sister, Ann, 21, wife Amy, a step son, and mother and father Brian and Deborah Prening. Corporal Brian Prening was the 27th Wisconsin military service person killed in the fighting in Iraq. 
                                                  
                                                As of this blog entry's posting date:

    94,144 Iraqi civilians have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
    
    9,315 Iraqi Security Forces have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.

    4,367 Americans have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003. 

    914 Americans have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.

    317 Coalition soldiers have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.

    594 Coalition soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001. 

    31,571 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Iraq since Spring, 2003. 

    4,529 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Afghanistan since October, 2001. 

    101 Wisconsin soldiers have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.

    16 Wisconsin soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.

    139 journalists (several nationalities) have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.

    17 journalists (various nationalities) have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.

Wisconsin military service person special mention of the week, military casualty, and journalist casualty information sources: Committee to Protect Journalists; cnn.com; Milwaukee Journal Sentinel; washingtonpost.com; thehighground.org; Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs; iraqbodycount.org; and, icasualties.org.