Reply #4: don't forget Downton Abbey

[zazen]

which interestingly really illustrates their apparently unavoidable conditioning to be obsessed with rank.

I can wish them well. It's their cultural experience and it was cool to check in for about 20 minutes this morning--I didn't even know it was going to be on! Aesthetically it was beautiful and historically (as in, watching a ritual that had taken place over centuries) it was interesting.

I think in our case, the American media will seize on any form of bread and circuses (including mass disaster-triggered tragedy) to avoid the realities of an economic depression, environmental degradation and energy descent. This supplied a week's worth of drugs. They'll have to move on to something equally distracting next week.