Can you imagine a song like Pink Houses, which is a far cry from the usual candy-coating of the American experience that we get at political events, being sung at an inaugural event? And yet Mellencamp serenaded Obama and a few hundred thousand others with it during a concert at the Lincoln Memorial (This Land is Your Land and American Pie were also featured). Maybe we really are entering a period when we get real.

There’s a black man with a black cat livin’ in a black neighborhood
He’s got an interstate runnin’ through his front yard
You know he thinks that he’s got it so good
And there’s a woman in the kitchen cleanin’ up the evenin’ slop
And he looks at her and says,
“Hey darlin’, I can remember when you could stop a clock.”

CHORUS:

Oh but ain’t that America for you and me
Ain’t that America somethin’ to see baby
Ain’t that America home of the free
Little pink houses for you and me

There’s a young man in a T-shirt
Listenin’ to a rock-and-roll station
He’s got greasy hair, greasy smile
He says, “Lord this must be my destination.”
‘Cause they told me when I was younger
“Boy you’re gonna be president.”
But just like everything else those old crazy dreams
Just kinda came and went

CHORUS

Well there’s people and more people
What do they know know know
Go to work in some high rise
And vacation down at the Gulf of Mexico
Ooh yeah
And there’s winners and there’s losers
But they ain’t no big deal
‘Cause the simple man baby pays for the thrills, the bills,
the pills that kill

CHORUS

Can you imagine how much differently this Hudson miracle story is playing in the geese press?

Like always, it’s a matter of perspective.

Here are the top ten potential uses of the Panetta eyebrows now being considered by the CIA and other government institutions.

1. They provide a potential soft landing for the economy.

2. Early missile defense system.

3. National Rabbit Ears to ease the digital TV transition for those families without cable or satellite.

4. They can be featured as the new logo for the CIA — raised in curiosity. (From my friend Mordy)

5. The court might see it as entrapment, but Bernie Madoff tried to hide 140 million in one of the eyebrows and himself and his sons in the other.

6. Think peace in the Middle East is an impossibility? Well, what if there were two Gaza strips?

7. Next Fall on ABC: David Blaine enters one (the more dangerous) of the eyebrows. Stays there for two terms.

8. Philippe Petit, most famous for his 1974 (Man on Wire) tightrope walk between the two towers of the World Trade Center is ready to surpass that achievement.

9. “The CIA Director never showed up, but some guy with huge mutton chops just stole my wallet.”

10. Picture this. He holds high level meetings with Iran’s top Mullahs. Inside one eyebrow, a recording device. Inside the other eyebrow, 10,000 special ops forces.

I think that Zach Galifianakis (I hope I’m pronouncing that right) is one of the best comedians out there.

Netflix subscribers can check out his live show here.

From a top Vatican official

“Let’s look at the conditions in Gaza: these increasingly resemble a big concentration camp.”

No shame. In so many ways, the key voices in the world aren’t all that much different from the middle of the 20th century. Critical to realize that.