• What’s your take in the midterm elections? (November 2010)

Clearly, Americans are concerned about financial issues, like low interest micro-loans for low-income writers and skyrocketing city bus fares. And the effects of the recession can be seen everywhere, from fewer sample trays being offered at grocery stores, to people throwing away less usable stuff like old blankets and sofa pillows. The main concern is our national debt, which is 1.2 trillion dollars, which we owe to China, which makes it almost 100 trillion, um, Chinese yen. In order to understand that number, try to imagine that one twinkie is worth a trillion yen. That’s one hundred twinkies! That’s more than any man could eat in a day, even that awesome little hot dog eating contest champion guy. However, the solution is simple. Just like I occasionally have to borrow money from my mom upstairs, we should borrow money from Canada. They love us, we make sure they have good tv shows to watch, and they’d be maybe just a little bit afraid of what we’d do if they said ‘no’. At least Canada could offer private micro-loans to private American citizens, because all this talk about 100 twinkies in one day has me thinking I could do it. All I need is funding for the twinkies, and to hire that Chinese guy to coach me.