While I am happy to have had very steadily increasing site traffic over the past couple of weeks, it disappoints me somewhat that more than two-thirds of this week’s visitors have come in search of cubicle decorating guidelines. I did write about cubicle decorating a few months ago, it’s true, and I was proud of the joke for a day or two. But here I am, tirelessly transcribing my most heartfelt hopes and dreams so that you, dear friend, will have but one more tiny nugget of wisdom, once a month or so, to help you through your life of quiet desperation. After all, when miracles find their way home to heaven, all spent and frustrated, their maker accepts them back with open hands, washes them, and whispers, “We’re that much closer now.” When I’m silent for weeks on end, it’s only because I’m out there, in sort of a, you know, virtual sense, trolling through the muck and mud of the week’s auto-generated and continuously updated headlines to bring you the juiciest recent tidbits, reading the news for all you sinners.

Why just tonight I was hard at work writing about the American government paying Iraqi newspapers to print pro-American propaganda as news, but no one cares about that. Nor do they seem to care about secret CIA prisons, Michael Brown (“Anything specific I need to do or tweak?") starting up his own disaster-readiness consulting company, or US-funded mercenaries filming trophy videos of themselves allegedly shooting at random civilian vehicles. They want “christmas door decorating contest ideas” and “decorating a cubicle for christmas” and “feng shui your office cubicle” and “weird christmas decoration” and “decorate office like gingerbread house.” If I ran a cubicle-decorating website, I’d be floating on air. I’m famous, after all! Everyone who’s ever thought to consult the internets for inspiration when trying to win that coveted “best cubicle” prize at the office comes to my website! What higher honor is there?

There’s very little time to spare because I have a plane to catch, but one of my roommates left the Post splayed out on the kitchen table this morning, and this headline (Shortage of Immigrant Workers Alarms Growers in West) caught my eye as I walked past. I believe it underscores my previous point about the extent to which the smooth running of the world economy hangs on a ready supply of cheap labor. So while you’re stuffing your face with turkey tomorrow, just remember who picked it for you. Happy thanksgiving to all.