Wall Street meltdown

I'm venturing way out on a limb here, no doubt showing my ignorance of all things financial. And it's no time to make light of what's going on in the economy, but has anybody else ever wondered about the sanity of all these guys on the trading floor of the stock exchange? They always look so tortured, so serious -- like they all need to take a valium and go sit down somewhere.

Of course now we're seeing them with their heads sunk down, angst written all over their faces, but even on a good day, I think they are a strange sub-species.

And another thing: What is it with the clapping and the bell ringing when the market closes? Even when everything is tanking, people crowd around the closing bell and clap, for heaven's sake. What the heck?

It's hard for me to wrap my head around the latest financial crisis, even though I know it's big-time payback for all of the prosperity we've enjoyed while people are starving in many places all over the world. It's just that the people who will have the sky falling on their heads probably don't even own stock. Those suspicious white men in suits have been playing high-stakes poker with our lives, and I just can't imagine that any of them are going to bed without supper tonight.

I suspect none of us will escape unharmed. Without knowing just why, I've always thought "globalization" was just code for a lot of fat cats getting fatter. Now I find out that banks in Iceland are intertwined with banks in West Virginia. Who knew?

I take heart in knowing that our parents weathered the Great Depression, and I am ready to tighten the belt and do what I can. What else can we do, we peons of what the politicians quaintly call "Main Street"?

If it weren't for the collateral damage -- the innocents who will bear the burden, the trusting people whose money was being wagered -- I would find poetic justice in the meltdown on Wall Street. I leave you with a unusual shot of the famous Wall Street bull. I just can't resist.