Anybody watch CNN lately? This morning they were doing a coverage of an overturned school bus in there This Just In segment and in the same segment they were covering some celebrity's weight problem dispute. She said she was potrayed as 40 pounds heavier than she was. Huh? When did this become breaking news?

I really think the U.S. is in the bread and circuses phase of existence.

Bread and circuses. The phrase if thrown alot. That means the people are being distracted from seriously looking at the problems of their own infrastructure—just before it crumbles.

See, when Rome was cracking at the seams the people were paralyzed by their own denial. They went to the circuses and ate free bread fed them, conveniently by the very government that was about to crack up. Revolving door emperors, barbarian invasions, a concentration of wealth to the top 2% of the population. (about 90% of the wealth to the 2% and 10% of wealth to the remaining 98%. Just like pre-Castro Cuba. pre-revolution France.)

The U.S. is getting there. Incredible, unearned wealth to the C.E.O.'s, a stagnant minimum wage. In pre-revolution France the ratio of wealth for the top-paid 2% and the lowest paid 98% was 300%. In the U.S. that rate is 150% and climbing rapidly. The bread? Junk food. Cheap junk food. The circuses? Celebrity worship.

The polar ice caps are melting, the minimum wage earners are not making enough to rise out of poverty.

And CNN is reporting about a celebrity (and not even a top-tier celebrity either) and her disputed 40 pounds.

Bread and circuses.