Trends that shed light on our holiday psyche.

I’m delighted to see that our pre 4^th of July searches and trends and buzz and tweets all have a nice bit of patriotism and community interest present in the threads. While trolling for my daily news story, somehow, out of nowhere, Margaret Sanger showed up near the top of Google Trends.  She’s a personal hero of mine, and I’m glad to see her and her work on the lists tonight.  Of course, there’s “fireworks” (see my annual non-4th of July favorites below!), and something called “Red, White and Boom,” which is probably best explained at that link. 

 

2010 KFOG Kaboom! Fireworks from KFOG Radio 104.5/97.7 on Vimeo.

 

Back on the lists and the trends and the buzzing, Hilton shows up tonight too.  At first, I thought it was people looking for a 4^th of July getaway, but as it turns out, a lot of the public wants to know more about Paris Hilton getting busted for pot in South Africa.  Steve Blake and the Lakers continue to basque in the glow of the championship and the news.  “Dwayne Wade Twitter” shows how the Twitter bug is affecting even the NBA, and something called the Electo Lube Oil Refiner is tearing up the charts.  It’s hard to wade past the BS on this top story though, and as it turns out, it’s really about something I wrote about several times and days ago.  Ahh, it’s gratifying to occasionally be apparently ahead of the news.

 

It’s a happy 4^th of July this year for a few more people finding jobs.  But people still looking will have to party lightly this weekend if they expect to qualify for unemployment.  It seems that Utah Senator Orrin Hatch and others have supported random and mandatory drug testing among America’s unemployed.  It will be pee for pay for these folks, now that these ultra conservative loonies have convinced people that unemployed, once again, means unworthy, unclean, and undeserving; aka lazy, indolent and most likely addicted or drunk.  You gotta be drunk to keep on living in a world where such lunacy exists at such policy-affecting levels.