Watching the Collapse- From Afar

It is an odd experience- watching the global financial crisis (but oh so more acutely the US financial crisis) from afar. I think the acuity of oddness is magnified by my lack of television and hence lack of television news. The news I read online, etc. is rather easy to filter and read that which one wishes. The one place I do not filter news is through my Polish kitchen radio. On this foreign contraption I listen to 104.1 FM Berlin, NPR Worldwide. The station is as close as I come to catching American news like I would get at home. These days, NPR is almost entirely dominated by talk of the economic meltdown, political discussions revolve around the economy, real and pop economists are their most common guests, and the few listener call-in centered programs are purely focused on the listener's personal economic questions. The media barrage when tuned into my snazzy Polish radio is overwhelming.

Perhaps, were I in Berkeley, I would feel this overwhelming economic focus as well. I think the main difference is my isolation here. The contrast between my normal hours, riding the subway, walking the leaf strewn streets, and more recently lying in bed and doing nothing, and those moments when I tune into my American programming to catch a bit of news not in print is astonishing. I feel so far removed, yet I am not- the majority of family, friends, and acquaintances are in America, not to mention the fact that I live in a Global economy. I am, thank God, not living in Iceland.

At least it isn't natural disasters anymore.