Primtive Behaviors Of Various Tribes

A Yakut Shaman Interpreting the Unemployment Figures for June

When eclipses of the sun came along in days of old, people thought that a dragon was eating the sun; or an evil god was destroying it; or it was going away for a much needed rest and failed to leave a forwarding address. So they screamed and yelled and threw themselves about, and it invariably worked, as it always does, to keep the sun on track. What's worse is that added to the eclipses, few and far between, the old boys - and girls - had to watch with bated breath as the sun passed its zenith at the summer solstice, and began its decline into the obscurity of the winter solstice: when the harvest was over and all the fields were empty and the trees were bare; when the cold winds had begun to blow; when the sun felt quite bowled over by the inclement weather and retired into the study to warm himself at the fire and dream of the roguish days of summer! So the old folks screamed and yelled and threw themselves about, and the sun got a second wind, and came down from the hustings running for office in the New Year, his eye quite firmly on the prize, and magna cum viagra all the way until the summer solstice. Having observed this, how do these customs differ from our present day behavior? If we substitute the "stock market" for the "sun", let's say, it seems very familiar: the same quaint shamanism and nativistic practices. If we substitute "national security", say, for the "sun", and we track its periodic ups and downs, periods of relief, periods of fear...brrrrr! Keep the wiretaps going until...until...until the summer dog days of "national security"? I for one, think the daily crap about whether stocks are going to be up or down is...well, crap. And actually I would much rather have a shaman than a cable TV spokesperson, whether they are speaking of economics or anything...under...the sun.