The Mall Street Journal
            

            Dear Walter,

            Your comments bring to mind the "Weekend Journal" section of the Friday
Wall Street Journal , otherwise known as Consumer 
               Reports
for Richie Rich. The section--which debuted just after the boom really started
to boom--is a weekly tutorial on how to blow surplus cash. This summer's
editions have included primers on how to purchase the splashiest inground
pools, the smokiest mega-grills, and the preppiest Adirondack chairs. The
stories exemplify the macho, leave-the-Joneses-in-the-dust attitude on which
you so charmingly riff.

            But needless to say, only the prosperous are bored with prosperity. What
dissatisfied me about today's otherwise excellent Journal piece was the
way it toggled between haves, have-somes, and have-nots, without acknowledging
that riskiness is attractive to each group for very different reasons. Risks
such as adventure travel may be entertaining for the rich; but for the rest of
us, risks (such as day trading) are mostly a way to try and become rich. Just
because both activities involve some sort of danger doesn't make them a unified
trend. That's something I find consistently annoying about newspaper and
newsweekly writing--the way perfectly interesting yet discrete phenomena have
to be conflated into Something Larger or a movement that is Sweeping the
Nation.

            Do you really think Americans are as bored by George W. Bush as we seem to
be by Al Gore? Bush is such a flirt, all mystery and anecdote. His personality
is appealingly provocative--the Mini-Me bit is great, as are a couple of
moments in his profile in Talk (apparently he once grabbed a rival by
the collar, drew him close, and yelled, "If you want to fuck me you'll have to
kiss me first!").

            And Bush has roped what seems like every political journalist in America
into a guessing game about his actual beliefs. Someone should keep a tally of
the hunches ... how about us? From now on, I say we place each Bush profile we
read into one of three categories: Conservative, Moderate, and Empty
Vessel.

            Until tomorrow,
Jodi