Details at 10

I don’t want to be an alarmist, but ...

That sudden breeze that you felt Monday might have been the asteroid 2009DD45. Or “DD” for short. That’s DD, as in “Death and Destruction.”

DD, an oblong-shaped hunk of space rock measuring between 69 and 154 feet in diameter, came within about 50,000 miles of scoring a direct hit on this planet that we like to call home on Monday. That’s about the same size as the asteroid that exploded over Siberia in 1908, flattening 800 square miles of forest.

I don’t want to be an alarmist, but ...

Help! An asteroid that size would have destroyed New York City or London. Sound the alarm! All hands to battle stations!

Oh, wait. I am being an alarmist. It did, after all, miss us by about one-fifth the distance to the moon. As Emily Litella would say, “Never mind.” God, do we need her now.

The network news and newspaper headlines don't give you much room for hope. GM officials now are saying they see no way to avoid bankruptcy. News analysts are wondering if we shouldn’t start substituting the “D” word for the “R” word.

In fact, a popular blog these days is “Depression Cooking With Clara” in which Clara Cannucciari shares the low-cost recipes she learned as a girl, growing up in the Great Depression in Chicago. The average cost of her dishes is under 50 cents a serving.

I don’t want to be an alarmist, but I’m going to check out Clara’s recipes. Oh, and do you happen to know where you can buy sackcloth?