Monday, June 1, 2009

I Never Worry, Now That is a Lie

Well, friends, today was the day. We've been mentally preparing, agonizing, fretting, eating, fretting some more, and then eating some more as the day grew closer and closer - the day that Jay Leno stepped down from The Tonight Show for the red-haired genius of Conan O'Brien.

I kid - as much as I might want to, it is simply not possible to ignore the news (and news and news and news and news and news). Some of those are editorials, but they're close enough to news for me on this somber evening following this somber day. There are good things and bad things from all this, but the bottom line that I've taken with me from a day full of reporting is that no one really has a clue what comes next, or what comes after next, or after the next after next. We are in insanely uncharted territory here, and the industry that built and sustained Michigan for so very many years is done hanging by a thread. Hanging by a thread would be too generous.

The best news is that the ground has not opened up and swallowed Michigan whole, fire rain has not begun to fall from the sky, and Dollhouse was renewed for another season. Thousands upon thousands are going to lose their jobs, their means to support their families, and a bit of their self-esteem and self-worth. This, people, is a bitch.

These are keep yourself up at night, fear for the future, poop on your neighbor's lawn kind of fretful times, but the amazing thing to me is that everyone seems to be fascinatingly under control, logical, and brave. People throw lots of crud Michigan's way, but if there is one thing for which we are regularly granted credit both locally and nationally, it is that we are a resilient lot. This resilience stems from generations of laborers, hard workers, and hard times, a lifetime of Rodney Dangerfield "We can't get no respect"-ism, and drives down the Lodge freeway before it was reconstructed a couple years ago.

I, probably like you, am immensely concerned about our collective future, and all I can do is hope that the hard work and commitment of bankruptcy judges and attorneys, executives, creditors, employees, and all other people who are about to suffer fear and sacrifice can somehow find a solution that gives GM (and the hopefully soon out of bankruptcy Chrysler) the small and not guaranteed opportunity to spin themselves around in mid-air, pull the rip cord, and crash land with only two broken legs instead of a broken brain. I will leave you now with a quote from GM's bankruptcy judge, the Honorable Robert Gerber:

"If anybody cracks any jokes I’m going to disconnect the phones...This is serious to a lot of peoples’ lives and I’d think that people here would understand that."

Yes, yes we do.

3 comments:

Daniel J. said...

"A federal judge on Sunday night cleared a path for Chrysler to exit bankruptcy by approving a sale of most of the carmaker's assets to a new entity to be run by Italy's Fiat. There it goes! Fiat chairman and president, Giovanni Agnelli, is a known Bilderberg member. This Chrysler orchestrated collapse and phony bailouts are a money laundering scheme to send money to Agnelli along with more control. He's a globalist, and I predict that Fiat will be the global car company in the not-so-distant future probably including GM very soon and potentially Ford." This is a quote from a wall post on my facebook cause "Educate and Disseminate against Bilderberg" from last Monday.

Daniel J. said...

According to Obama, we'll sell 60% of our shares when we should seize GM, and use it to create capitol products that can be sold to other countries such as magnetic trains that you can travel 1000 miles in a matter of hours with. Keep GM. - www.scroogle.org (Google but safer) some Operation Clawback! OPERATION CLAWBACK!!!

Ken said...

Most of the time I have no idea what Dan is saying, but I'm just happy to have him on the team.