Recessionomony 101

According the latest stats, it's not only a recession we are facing, it's a he-cession. More men are losing jobs in this downturn than women. To clarify public policy for headline writers, I'll throw the following taxonomy into the fold:


We-cession: your work section gets the boot but the rest of your company keeps going; or, what your 4 year-old calls the recession

Me-cession: you get laid off but everyone else at your office gets promoted

Pre-cession: period before the recession; some called it the economic boom but now we know the glass was half-empty

Free-cession: the economy is so bad you can't even afford stuff they give away for nothing

Pee-cession: people don't even have a pot to piss in

G-session: men can't find jobs nor can they find their partners g-spot --- bad, very bad

e-session: the downturn has reduced bloggers' output to the point where they employ cheap tactics to solicit comments on otherwise pointless blog entries

Getting a handle on economic disaster

This week, StatsCan jobless figures and the parliamentary budget officer's new economic report suggest that we're even more totally screwed, despite the prime minister's consistently cheery "don't worry be happy" mantra. Imagine that.

So, previous stellar efforts of our own Audrey and Fourth Dwarf notwithstanding, obviously it is time again for the ESIs to step into the economy. Yuck! It's all over my paws now, and it smells, like, ummm, bad! I digress.

At the ESI Institute for Tax-Deductible Thinktankage, we are all over putting a face on the true extent of this economic mess, with our specialty, the all-important nomenclature. For now, we'll leave the actual fixing-up stuff to trained economists like the PM. Who unfortunately has never actually worked as an economist. Oops.

Now where was I? Oh, right: Economy. Doom. Disaster. Etymology.* Terminology. Coinage.

"Ecopalypse" had the nicest ring, but a quick paw-over of Google shows those freakin' pesky environmentalists have already tagged it. Bastards. And why is it that their cosmic antimatter, all those smart develop-at-any-cost business types, still haven't noticed that economy and ecology look, even to a casual observer, to be so closely related? Not a coincidence, surely. I digress again.

"Econalypse" made our fallback list, but it turns out some lousy blogger beat us to it by months. Bastard. Besides, it sounds too much like "Econo-Lips". Which in turn sounds too much like the kind of big, red wax lips that Stephen Harper would buy at a dollar store, and wear to lighten up those hinterland news conferences where he keeps insisting that the country's economic fundamentals are great. That kidder.

Then, in homage to the epic Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme that finally overbalanced the global economy's already-sideways tilt, we thought "Eponzilypse". We were really graspin' at straws on that one...

Crap! We need ideas. What to do, what to do? I know! How 'bout a contest...?

* Memo to Traci, perky but inexperienced new summer intern in the ESI graphics department: Kid, etymology is about words. Entomology is about bugs. Take a note for next time, please...

A tiger in your tank

OK, so everyone's tired of stuffed suits and even stuffier royals. Exalted kudos will rain upon the one who pens the best caption for this photo.

Sorry Charlie...

... but the last caption contest was a 12-way tie for first. Let's have a go at this one as the bonus round.

Dreaming in Style

Credit: Joan of Arc / KGWA http://kgwa.deviantart.com

I dreamed that I had my hair cut short and dyed black (in real life I would go for red). It was too straight and it spiked in all directions, and I was unhappy about it.

The hairdresser insisted that that was not a problem. All I had to do was wander the streets looking for the cutest young man that I could spot, and he would know exactly how to style my hair.

I walked down Elgin street, and before long I came to a dandy young fellow. I walked up to him, and he looked at my hair, pulled out gel, a comb, and a mirror and styled my hair perfectly. All was accomplished in absolute silence.

I looked boyishly handsome as I walked off humming a gay tune.

(Interpretations of my dream are encouraged)