Coupland on the financial crisis:

it’s all in our minds. We just need to snap out of it. Like Y2K. Sure, that’s true to a point, but the more frightening prospect is that all the prosperity that people felt coming up to the crisis was also in their minds, largely fictional, and therefore incredibly dangerous. I know it was just sticker shock, but over and over as I watched real estate prices climb since I started paying attention in 1999 I just couldn’t fathom it. We know what median and mean incomes look like in the US and Canada. What did people think would happen when the cost of owning property sucked up the majority of people’s take-home income?

Also, the Globe and Mail ran a story about a Radio-Canada new year’s eve comedy show trading in racial stereotypes and how offensive it was “even” to other Francophones (as usual, implying that the Quebecois are more racist than Anglos). But then no editors catch Coupland trading in some also-not-funny stereotypes.

Dear Doug Coupland: I lapped up Generation X book with relish like everyone else, but please, even though you’re writing a biography of McLuhan, that “oral cultures live in constant terror” stuff is just racist. Cut it out.