Hopey-Changey is Working Fine, Thank You

• MORE RECEIVE HELP TO AVERT FORECLOSURES
• FED'S MINUTES SHOW A RISE IN CONFIDENCE IN ECONOMY
• FACTORIES GET SET TO HIRE
• CONSTRUCTION OF SINGLE FAMILY HOUSES UP 1.5%
• A STIMULUS PLAN SUCCESS STORY

These five headlines all appeared yesterday in the front section of the right-leaning Wall Street Journal. All of the them in one day. All of them positive stories about economic recovery, one year after the stimulus package was signed.
You might have to believe the stimulus package is working.
What would the headlines have read without the stimulus:

UNEMPLOYMENT HITS 25%?
GET READY FOR ANOTHER RUN ON THE BANKS?

We'll never know for certain. That's the tiny peg Obama's opponents are hanging their hats on.
All the angry anti-Obama talk is just rhetoric, sound bites with no substance.
Any Republican or Obama opponent who comes forth with a clear, logical point of view will earn my respect.
Anyone out there? Hellooooooo?

Looking for Happiness? Plan a Vacation!

In the New York Times' Well blog, Tara Parker-Pope writes that vacation planning increases happiness for an average of eight weeks.
The surprise is the vacation itself doesn't increase happiness as much as the planning. The post-vacation glow? Almost non-existent.
Parker-Pope's article cites a study of Dutch adults. I'm not certain any study analyzing the Dutch personality correlates automatically to the American personality, but I am not disputing the results.

Why Travel, Then?

Travel is not for everyone. Some people are so passionate about what they do in their daily lives that a vacation is an unwelcome interruption. Some people can't leave their comfort zones without developing high anxiety.
For me, both planning a vacation and taking a vacation is fun. Organizing my photos and posting my journal post-trip is fun too. Who is with me here?
Planning a trip, I will log hours of Internet research, read travel journals and "Best Of" lists. I will poll my friends who have been to the spot I am researching. (Italy is high on my list now, but so is another trip to London . . . but South Africa would be so cool.)
But the vacation-planning-happiness theory is more than just anticipating a trip. Anticipation itself boost serotonin and whatever other happiness-hormones are floating around our brains. (Ask Carly Simon.)
I can feel the same happiness-boost when apartment hunting. But apartment-hunting, like vacations, is about the new and discoverable.

The Amazing Race 16: Chile

Another season and another slate of racers.
TAR seems to be going for the celebrity angle this season. One couple are Big Brother reality veterans and one racer is the Miss Teen South Carolina whose babbling onstage played for millions on YouTube. One dude, Joe, could be a Jon Gosselin double.
The racers must get to LAX on public transportation, a jaw dropping task. "Who takes the bus in LA? Public transportation to us is not using the valet parker," said Carol, the blonde lesbian. She will be the quotable one this season.
The teams disperse and start asking people on the street how to get to LAX. The black lawyers say, "oh black person, good," and rush up to a car for directions.
The gay brother knows Miss Teen South Carolina's public flub by heart and repeats it to the camera and again to another team within earshot of Caite. I start rooting for her.
The real dumb one is the chick from the Big Brother House, whose shining moment was explaining that she doesn't understand what people mean when they talk about time, using phrases like "quarter til".
TAR replays both girls' low moments during the show.
It is predetermined only three teams will get on the first flight. Four teams on the Metro think they're first and wonder which team will not make the plane. Four teams riding the same bus think the same, but they really are first. Like every season, all the racers are cocky until the first Roadblock.
As Brandy predicts and hopes, the first plane is delayed in Dallas, the transfer city. All teams fly to Santiago, Chile via Miami on the same plane.
The cowboy team get the wrong currency in LAX. They ask for "the Brazil money". They feel foolish when they get kicked off the local bus in Chile and must re-exchange their money.
In Santiago, teams take buses 60 miles to Valparaiso, the San Francisco of South America. A few stray dogs are caught on camera.
We hear the first of a million cries of "Rapido!". Big Brother girl covers her eyes in the taxi. The two detectives tell the cab driver, "drive it like you stole it, my brother!"

"Balance of a Cat, Courage of a Lion"

The first Roadblock requires balancing 120 feet above the ground and walking a cable the length of a football field.
On the wire, Miss SC proves herself. She is fearless on the cable wire. Big Brother girl moves across the wire handily too.
Brandy is quaking on the cable walk. She takes a long time to get across, but she will be the first of many who get in trouble on the wire.
A couple of people fall off the cable and hang by their belts. The safety specialist has to come to rescue contestant Adrian. He bravely starts again, even though it is already clear he and his wife will be eliminated. He falls again and my heart goes out to him.
After the cable walk, teams take 120-year-old "Funiculars" down the mountain. The Funiculars look like school buses with one side on stilts.
The guy mocking Caite admits he underestimated her. Except she and Brent will incur a 30-minute penalty for skipping the Funicular. Read your clues closely, everyone.

Painting Houses

The streets of Valparaiso are full of brightly painted homes. Each team must select four paint cans of a single color, grab a ladder and find the house with an exterior of that color and finish the paint job.
Father-daughter team Steve and Allie trespass inside someone's house and start painting away. The guys inside laugh at them and say in Spanish how bad they paint.
Dan and Jordan drop a brush and fear it will incur a penalty. They are correct; they get a 15 minute penalty. The guy who keeps saying "snap!" is getting annoying. He should get a 15-minute penalty just for that.
"We're looking for the Martha Stewart sea foam green circa 1997," Carol says, "Before jail."
The first Pit Stop is Palacio Baburizza, 90-year-old chalet. Jordan and Jeff, the Big Brother team, come in first. Jet and Cord, the cowboys, come from far behind--last actually--to finish third. They have shown they are "not just some hicks from Texas" (except in the area of currency).
The detectives who were going to win every leg came in ninth.

Season 16 The Amazing Race: On Your Mark . . .

Next Sunday marks the start of Season 16 of The Amazing Race. Will it be a love-fest or just another Valentine's Day?
Check out this season's racers now on cbs.com. How many cliches can you find in the cast of characters?
The producers have cast a team of lesbians, a team of cowboys, and a team of cops. Lesbians are the logical next step after last season's gay brothers. Any one hoping the cops will go rogue?
Several good candidates vie for the next Bickersons. My money is on the wife who said she will have a hard time not blaming her husband if they lose. However, the brother team who admit to infighting might get the nod. Last season's bickering brothers came in second, but I maintain that fighting is a team's biggest downfall (besides being completely unathletic).
This season brings a few recognizable names, but none who rank even as high as Kathy Griffin's D-list. Most notably, we have the unfortunate Miss Teen South Carolina who strung a bunch of words together in response to a question about finding America on a map. Hope she reads maps better than she explains them. Train wreck fans will be watching closely for her intellectual blunders. She, no doubt, is hoping for redemption.
The Miss Teen America contestant is the exaggerated version of last season's pretty blonde with the plastic swimming floaters on her arms. The couple that were former Big Brother Season 11 contestants is the latest iteration of Rob and Amber.
For baseball fans, we have a coach from the Cleveland Indians and his daughter.
Despite the cliches and the attempts to kick each season up a notch, I will be glued to the set next Sunday and every Sunday after, racing vicariously with teams and hitting the mat to face Phil.