According to the excessively capitalized and exclamation-point-laden e-mail I received last week, I! CAN EARN A DEGREE! RIGHT NOW! FOR WORK EXPERIENCE I'VE! ALREADY! HAD! Unlike your traditional university which requires students to waste time studying and learning, the people who sent me the e-mail recognize the value of my forced participation in the School of Hard Knocks. Over the years I've messed up assignments, missed deadlines, made bad decisions and (on occasion) backed the wrong horse, candidate, political party, or fashion choice. I'd always assumed those were moments of shame, but now I can see them for what they really were...learning experiences; experiences that entitle me to a Ph.D. in Individual Life Management. All I have to do is submit a one-time processing fee of three-hundred fifty dollars.

I'm a little skeptical. I'm not sure I've had a doctoral-degree's-worth of life experiences. What if they decide not to give me the degree after I send them the check?

On the other hand, I'm pretty sure that my wife -- and, in fact, all moms -- qualify easily. In the eighteen-plus years she's been a mom my wife has had extensive, on-the-job training in arts, psychology, chemistry, mathematics, literature, English, emergency medicine, small animal veterinary care, fashion design, and counseling...

Americans have a lot to worry about right now.

There's the mortgage industry which must have switched to an all alcohol diet and decided that it made perfect sense to loan people more money than they would actually earn in their lifetimes. Foreclosure is now the only growth industry in the financial sector and the fastest selling homes feature the words 'Kenmore', 'Whirlpool', and 'Refrigerator' prominently on their cardboard sides.

There's the price of gas which is rising so quickly the entire Theoretical Mathematics Department at Harvard has been hired for the sole task of keeping track of oil company profits. One more increase in the cost of sweet crude and it will be cheaper to power our cars with Chanel Number Five.

Combined, these problems are giving rise to a recession which will stop the U.S. economy the way a concrete barrier stops a speeding car.

There is one bright spot, though. America leads the world in caffeine delivery technology as measured by the total amount of square footage devoted to Starbucks stores. If all of the stores were put right next to each other – I mean even more than they are now – they would cover an area approximately the size of Dallas, only with a faint coffee odor and a Norah Jones soundtrack....

I pity the Presidential candidates. It's not easy being them.

For starters, they live on the road twenty-four-seven. A life of travel sounds exciting until you realize that most of the time they are ending up in desolate, barely civilized places like East Armpit, New Jersey, Rattlesnake Acres, Nevada, and Kansas City. (Special note to readers in Kansas City: Not your Kansas City ... the other one.)

When they arrive they have to pretend to enjoy the local cuisine. Again, sounds interesting until you find out the local cuisine includes Auntie May's special rutabaga bouillabaisse, pig snout sandwiches or haggis. (Special note to readers in Scotland: Not your haggis ... the other kind.)

No matter where they go, the candidates have to pose for photo ops wearing fixed smiles so rigidly indestructible that they can only be removed by specially trained teams of plastic surgeons. The other folks in these photos are always minor local celebrities like the Kumquat Queen, City Mayor or the Vice President of the United States. (Special note to readers who are Dick Cheney: Not you ... the other Vice President of the United States.)...

The Olympic Games represent the best in human endeavor. The spirit of friendly competition, the years of training, and the satisfaction of seeing our athletes overcome competitors who live in countries where indoor plumbing is a luxury item. It's a time of special pride for Americans and I'm sure you share my sentiment when I say, "Just how many commercials can they put in one hour?"

Every company in America (and a few from beyond our shores) is planning to cash in on the games. There's an official car, an official swim suit, an official shoe, and an official soft-drink. I'll bet there's even an official nasal spray and an official liquid drain cleaner.

Of course that's not what the Olympics is about. The Olympics is about competition. That means yet another "Dream Team." As Americans it is our duty to watch the U.S.A. basketball team play. It doesn't matter that the results sound more like blood-pressure readings than basketball scores. ("122 over 36--Your systolic is good, but your diastolic is a little low.") It doesn't matter that it's like watching the L.A. Lakers play the Richard M. Nixon Middle School team. What matters is that you get to watch a team whose total annual income is larger than the gross national product of most of the countries they play...